Martin came home at about nine. I was in my room, looking at some magazines and other things I kept in a box under my bed. The sound of the front door opening made me jump, and I stuffed everything back down out of sight and stepped out into the hallway to say hi.

He brushed right past me on the way to his own room, cradling his laptop like it was newborn baby. "Doin' stuff!" he said, and I stepped out of his way. It was his usual lack of charm or grace, but it was odd to see Martin so hyped. He normally dragged himself home after a late night, and fell asleep on the couch after eating some microwaved handful, leaving Leno to tell jokes alone in the dark.

But this was more like Martin on cocaine, or Martin with religion, or something equally unprecedented. His hair looked liked he'd been in the wind all day, and his face looked sort of flush. Perhaps he was having some sort of seizure?

"Big deadline at work?" I asked, but I was talking to his empty wake, and he closed the door to his room without a backward glance. I stood there in the hallway for a moment, listening as he thumped about his room. But then I heard the squeak of his old chair, and then quiet, which meant he had settled at his desk with his laptop and his computer and his world of code and numbers.

So Isis and I curled up on the couch with a book. Then I ended the evening with my usual ritual - masturbating alone in my room, just me and my treasures. It was in such moments that I was reminded that Martin and I weren't so different after all. I liked to think of myself as the more attractive one, gifted with social skills, and some creativity, and the ability to actually interact with people. But it was all appearance, all facade. Inside, I was as dark as him, and not as smart. People like us were meant to be alone.

Later, I could hear voices, first talking, and then yelling. But they were muffled, as if I could only hear them through a thick wall of sleep. And then sleep came down hard, like autumn rain. The next morning the sun was weak and watery, just bright enough to bring a little glare to a sky of tarnished clouds. Isis woke me up. She was more reliable than any alarm clock. She batted playfully at my face, sans claws, thank goodness, until I got up to give her a fresh bowl of kibble.

The kitchen was exactly as I had left, moderately clean, except for one thing. There, in the middle of the kitchen floor, quite out of place, was an odd black tangle. I crept up on it curiously. It was, without a doubt, a lacy black bra.

The sight of it made my heart race for a moment, but I took a deep breath and saw that it was more of a mystery than a problem. I had never seen it before. How did it come to be discarded on my kitchen floor?

"I think that's mine," a girl's voice said pleasantly, and with an odd, sinking sense of premonition, I was not at all startled when I turned to see Annie Moore standing there in Martin's bathrobe. No, somehow, despite all logic, it all made some sort of mysterious sense that Annie was standing in my kitchen, reaching for her discarded lingerie. I handed her the bra. It seemed to me that she was even prettier than I remembered. Morning, and god knew what else, agreed with her. She was almost radiant. She flashed me one of her generous smiles and stepped into the bathroom.

Martin was standing in the doorway of his room. He looked as rumpled as ever, but he grinned at me and shut the door before I managed to put together a question.

I could hear Annie starting to take a shower. It was, I thought, a very odd beginning to the day.

The rest of the day was uneventful, however. It was like any other day in a long line of days that had long since merged into gray in my mind. I went to work and did a mediocre job editing technical documents for equally mediocre pay. I went home to my cat and my TV and my diversions. Sometime after I went to bed, I heard Annie and Martin come home, together.

I got up out of bed and stood at my door, chilly and naked, listening. I could hear them laughing. Then I could hear them fucking. It was hard to imagine that Martin had the skill, or stamina, to entertain a girl like Annie. Never mind that she should never have agreed to speak to him. Hell, why has she spoken to him at all?

The noise continued. They seemed very energetic. They yelled and laughed and had, apparently, a generally amazing time.

They did it for an hour and then I heard one of them go to the bathroom to pee, and then they started up again. And I just sat on my bed and listened to them do it for several hours. I was totally impressed, at first, but as the hours past and they just kept it up, like they had the energy of a dozen teenagers, I started to worry. Surely this was becoming inexplicable? Weren't these events somehow outside of the settled order of nature?

But before I could follow those thoughts anywhere, I finally fell asleep. I dreamt that I was someone else, and that was just as well.