You’ve never been a woman. You’ve been inside a woman, but you’ve never been a woman with something inside of her. You are inside of me. You marvel at the shape of my bladder.

I’ve figured out other things too, things that would be obvious to anyone but me, like how those friends weren’t really my friends. They were Buddy’s. And going our own ways would feel like nothing.

Beneath her floral shampoo, I swore I could detect it: the tinny scent of recycled air. It gave me a thrill, almost arousal, from pondering whether she noticed something similar in me, that elephant odor of aged skin.

You don’t know what else to say, so you ask about simple things, like what her favorite commissary snacks are, and if you can send coloring books through the corrections postal service.

The shamelessness pained me the most in the sauna. With a few exceptions, their butts were naked against the towels on the wood. Saggy or perky.

It was clumsy in the best way possible. Smooth clumsy, easy clumsy. Familiar. It was the first time, Natalie was the first time, that I’d felt something beyond a rush of blood and an inward lurch. She didn’t leave afterward and I didn’t want her to