(pages 5-21)

First of all, this whole book is in second-person.  This is probably a bad move, because it leads to the reader saying unhelpful things like, “Wait a minute- I don’t have a penis, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t use it to do that!”  This takes them out of the story.

This is the first paragraph of the book:

How did they get so young?  These girls that only yesterday seemed so far away from us, these girls that seemed like another country.  Tell me, when did they become children?

Basically, a very pretentious version of, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”  The narrator goes on to tell us that the joy of them being “children” is that they don’t make emotional demands on you like those lousy rotten fully-grown women do.  Then there’s this:

And when did they cease to ignore us?  When did they begin to fawn over us?  When did we begin to fascinate them?  With our money and companies and perceived security.

At the risk of repeating myself, I have never once met a teenage girl who was attracted to men with “money and companies and perceived security.”  Decent abs, guitar-playing abilities and maybe a cool car, yes.  A position on the board of a major corporation, no.

In the next section, “you” meet a girl who “you” used to be involved with.  This girl has now grown too old to take “you” seriously.  This is clearly a great tragedy, and she should stop and re-examine her life.

Moving on, “you” are now a businessman who flies into Korea.  “You” inspect a ship, sack a worker and feel guilty about it.  “Your” girlfriend calls, and tries to comfort “you” with squicky baby-talk.  “You” are unmoved:

Mommies are for sick little boys.  You aren’t sick, you aren’t a little boy, you don’t need sympathy.  There is nothing tender loving care could do for you right now, right now there is nothing even your real mother could do to make you feel better.  She wouldn’t, couldn’t, understand what it was like any more than your girlfriend.

Nope, but an underage prostitute might!

That’s the gist of the rest of this section, to be honest- “you” sleep with an underage prostitute, comparing her favourably to “your” actual girlfriend all the while.  The next day, “your” boss, who gave you the number of the brothel in the first place, slaps “you” on the back and congratulates you.  The section then ends with a quotation from The Iliad, because this book is classy, dammit.