Rutting. While what's-his-face was doing long division in his head to prolong this exercise in detached intimacy, Edie was watching the clock. Now, there are those people who subscribe to the idea that bad sex is like bad pizza, almost an oxymoron. Some jerk at the office had made that remark once. This guy's poor girlfriend had Edie's most heartfelt empathy. She knew better than to believe that statement for a minute. Edie'd had bad pizza. Guiseppe's on the corner rarely disappointed, but the last time she went in there, the pie was pure dreck. The slices were oily enough to turn the plates underneath them to glass. Edie and her friends Phyllis and Susan all went home and applied astringent to their chins afterward. She hadn't been back there since. Beside that, Susan was now completely creeped out by the place and refused to set foot in there anymore.

Susan is blue-eyed with Marsha Brady hair, an Ultra Brite smile, the disposition of a muppet and is hands down the favorite among all the Mexicans at Guiseppe's. This one guy started to make it a habit to freeze in place when she walked in and would just stare at her and then run out of the room. He'd disappear for, like, five minutes and come back with a twisted relief on his face. Susan never really thought it all through until Phyllis spelled it out for her. The pizza men don't care much for Phyllis in there. They were all uniformly and vocally disgusted one night when they saw her making out with her girlfriend in one of the booths. Phyllis is such a lesbian-or dyke or whatever it is Edie was supposed to call it this week. Phyllis is such a little shit, too. She said to Susan: "You might wanna lay low for a little while, Soos. He's gonna cripple his hand at this rate." Susan's face went white, even her lips. Edie had to laugh at all of this. Phyllis could be so much fun sometimes. And she'd be so much prettier if she'd just listen to Edie and maybe grow her hair out a little and shave out the thatches from under her arms. She had impressive tufts under there and was prone to put them on display with various tank tops. She would never land anyone with such an obvious lack of physical grooming. Edie was sure Phyllis was always trying to get her to switch teams, too. Get her over to the other side. Edie assured herself that Phyllis was barking up the wrong tree. Though, she had to say, it might be more exciting than things with this guy. Edie met him at the copy machine at work and their three month fling was developing cracks faster than a skating rink in a heat wave. Edie had lately taken to striking up conversations at random with her co-workers in the ladies room and finishing her tortured tale with, "I honestly don't know why I keep letting this go on." And who ever she was addressing would touch her arm and say, "It's the sex. You must be having really great sex." If only! To this she would weakly smile and shrug, figuring it was in poor taste to feed the office rumor mill with information as to his unspectacular bedside manner.

The tedium though! She raised her hands behind his bowed head and examined a jagged edge on the edge on her thumbnail. It was something to do, and what would he care? His eyes were shut tightly-Edie briefly considered the insult factor in this. He was running his own race. Self-absorbed. She should have heeded the flashing red light in her head when she saw that all of his stuff was monogrammed. Really, what does that say about a person when he has to put his name all over his stuff-and was she next? Was he internally branding her without her even realizing? Whatever it all meant, it couldn't be good. And neither was that sex. He had gotten off of her unceremoniously and she watched his initialed socks make tracks to the bathroom.