Showed up two days later.Sultry and Jack were digging their way through the first cabinet of firearms. Sultry was writing, Jack was digging. In two da...ys, one cabinet was all they had accomplished.Sultry was writing because she watched Jack start a list and was horrified. "Give me that! You won't be able to tell me what's in that box tomorrow ... if you try to read it from the list. Jack, where did you go to school?" Same place you did, Big Rock, EL and Grundy High." Didn't they teach. I understood now in an instant and ghastly revelation that these dreams, which had become a gothic reality already in my early visits to Margaret, might very well have been but a prelude, a mild taste of what was to come.Once or twice, in the sleepless hours, I had even asked myself whether the real reason I hadn't fought harder was so that I could confront the core of my darkness sooner. It was a year since I'd had any kind of physical pleasure or release, not even decent exercise. My last. “To our first Oscar,” I said.She burst out laughing. “Have you ever done a porno?”I shook my head. “Watched a few but never done one.”“I haven’t a clue where to start but Rishi has directed quite a few and he will guide us. He will distort your face but not mine. I want to be recognised.”“You won’t be embarrassed doing it then?”“Of course I will,” she replied. “Very few men have seen me naked but I will just think of Rakesh and that will spur me on.”“I think it would be advisable to go through. But I was only crying because I was mad. I hardly felt the pain anymore. I finally got up and wiped my eyes. I sat at my desk. I didn't have any homework. We missed school today but we didn't really miss anything. We only have two and a half more days of school before vacation starts. They weren't doing anything but handing in books and cleaning up classrooms and emptying desks.I stared at my computer. It was powered down. I thought about booting it up and checking my email. But I wasn't really.