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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK256 Jack Fritscher%u201cHasn%u2019t every boy in a seminary, everyone thinks, presumes they, you...%u201d%u201cNo.%u201d%u201cPerhaps, not you.%u201d%u201cNot me. Definitely.%u201d%u201cAnd you%u2019re jealous ha ha ha that they didn%u2019t do...you, choose...you.%u201d%u201cHa ha ha. One day I discovered I%u2019d milked the experience dry. I%u2019d learned, taken, everything they had to give, and shined it back at them. The priests had no more to offer me. I had to leave, and fast, or watch my creativity,%u201d I wanted to say, my very self, my soul, my life, %u201ccurl up and die. As simple as that.%u201d%u201cBut what did they do to you?%u201d%u201cThey gave me drugs.%u201d%u201cPriests are not doctors.%u201d%u201cThey said I made myself nervous.%u201d %u201cDarling,%u201d she said deliberately, sitting up, %u201cyou didn%u2019t leave the seminary. You left the Dark Ages.%u201dI could touch this worldchild. Grace could still work through me. She could introduce me to the world, and I her to heaven. Oh, God, shut me fub duck up. Spinning, falling, rising, lying, hoping, begging, pretending, faking, wanting to fall into all the troubles of the flesh, the glories, sitting cross-legged, containing myself, wanting not knowing what, everything, from her. %u201cYou%u2019re positively Gothic,%u201d she said. %u201cAt least you%u2019re making yourself up.%u201d She rose. %u201cWe had an ex-seminarian up here to dinner last week. He acted like we were going to rape him. He sat there, on the couch, right on the edge, his knees together.%u201d She lit a cigarette. %u201cI guess he thought he ought to go out with the girls. Priests are such boys, such...virgins.%u201d She smiled at me, really smiled, looking for all the world like everything I%u2019d never seen. %u201cCare for another drink?%u201d she asked. I heard every apple in Eden fall.I pushed my package of Southern Comfort towards her. %u201cIt%u2019s a house gift.%u201d%u201cThanks,%u201d she said, %u201cwine%u2019s my limit. Yours too. Stand up.%u201d She poured the wine into our glasses. %u201cCan you manage the stereo? I%u2019ve stacked six or seven LPs. You know how to manage the stereo, don%u2019t you? You lift the arm, set it on the lip of record, and make sure the needle rides on into the groove.%u201d%u201cLauren Bacall. To Have and Have Not.%u201dShe kissed her finger and put her finger to my lips.