(pages 32-48)

It occurs to me that, in a previous entry, I said that this entire book is in second-person.  After my first flick-through, I genuinely thought it was.  But then, a few days ago, I hit a first-person section and realised my mistake.  It would really have been more accurate to say, “more of this book than I can tolerate is in second-person.”  Camel Without enterprises sincerely regrets the error.

We’re back to “you,” and “you’re” at a birthday party, fantasising about setting fire to the other guests.  Between this and the shooting fantasies earlier, I think “you” could do with a week or two of anger management.  Unless that was a different “you”- it’s hard to tell.  So far, the only character who has had an actual name has been the underage prostitute.  Her name was Jin.

“You” are out with “your” girlfriend, and preparing to meet an old high school friend.  Judging by the incredibly subtle Achilles/Briseis/Aganemnon-related foreshadowing earlier, I anticipate that the old high school friend will try and steal “your” girlfriend.  Apparently the friend was on the school football team.  Yep, definite girlfriend-stealing ahoy.  Maybe one of you will feed the other one to the alligator-farmer’s alligators.  I’d like that.

Hey, we have actual names!  Two of them!  The girlfriend is called Penny, and the high school friend is called Clay.  Penny asks Clay questions about his career with the police, and gets him to tell her embarrassing stories about “you.”  Instead of getting jealous, “you” start to have weird fantasies about watching Clay and Penny have sex.  That I did not expect.

Clay’s missed his train, so “you” invite him back to “your” place.  This leads to a threesome.  It gets quite homoerotic.  “You” go to sleep, patting “yourself” on the back for being so sexually adventurous, and then Penny sneaks off to have some more sex with Clay while “you’re” asleep.  They agree not to tell “you” about that part.