It was always a little after ten, but never later than eleven. So, he must not be staying out too late. We never talked about what he did that day, and he never mentioned the people he spent his time with. We mostly talked about shows we watched. He loved the show Friends, loved that my name was Monica because she was his favorite character. I laughed at that, and told him I used to be fat, too. He didn’t believe me at first. He was upset because the series was coming to an end, in a few weeks. There were no other shows he followed religiously. He was shocked when I described to him why I had been fat, and I explained to him what had happened to me. He made the right remarks about it, outrage, and anger at the violence of rape. He was angry that it had happened to me, when a woman said no, a real man had to respect that. It warmed me to hear him say so. I even told him about Dan, and how little experience I had. He told me he thought he would like Dan. He seemed like a great friend and asked if we kept in touch since he had moved to California. I told him we just exchanged dirty jokes and kept in touch on the internet through email once or twice a month; he had left over a year ago. He had been a friend of my sister’s and she had introduced us. Dan had been a safe and comfortable friend, I explained, and we had only dated casually with the understanding that either one of us could move on if we met someone we loved.
