Part 1:

I have my own room. My own roommate. My own suite. But every night I stay in yours. You are now the RD of your dorm. You call it our apartment. But you don’t let me keep my things in there. You say in case they come to check up on you. The RD is not allowed to have anyone living in an RD room except themselves. I keep a spare toothbrush in my backpack, and a few clothes hidden under yours in the dresser.

Beneath the September mountain sky, ecstasy shimmers in my veins. It lights up each of my pleasure centers gradually—a string of Christmas lights turning on bulb by bulb. I don’t notice I’ve peaked until Robbie says, “Look at me.” His eyes click back and forth across mine and he smiles, satisfied at the two black holes staring back. “You feel it, don’t you?”

Ce qu’il y a de plus profond dans l’homme, c’est sa peau.

The deepest part of a human being is her/his skin.

-Paul Valéry

Tobias, my firstborn, is eight days old, and his circumcision, or brit milah—the covenant of circumcision—welcomes him into our Jewish community and the entire Jewish tribe.