Oscar was ill. He had spent all morning at the side of the toilet, wanting to vomit but being unable to do it. He'd found himself envying people who could make themselves vomit. Sweat was beaded on his forehead and neck. His gut felt the incredible nauseated discomfort it felt when in the throes of the stomach flu. His head felt as if an arrow had been shot through the bridge of his nose and gone through the root of his skull and was just sitting in there, radiating pain. It was the sort of headache that made him want to slam his entire head in a door and scream in frustration for the pain to leave . . . because he couldn't do anything about it—he couldn't even sleep it off because it hurt too bad. Food and drink, too, were out of the question. Even hydrocodone would most likely not stay in his stomach. He'd taken some earlier in an attempt to take the edge off his headache, but it had done nothing except make him more ill, and now, his stomach felt too shaky to handle anything at all, let alone strange chemicals.

Wait! He had it . . . if he took hydrocodone it might help him throw up! It might put his stomach just over that point . . . If not, it may alleviate some of the headache; he'd have to take several in order for that to work. That sounded pretty stupid, but his pain talked his mind out of feeling concern. Besides, Oscar put all sorts of strange pills and liquids into his body (he had last night, and this hideous feeling of having gone through a garbage disposal was the result of it). He was going to take it . . . all he had to do was get up . . . move himself . . . get the bottle out of his cabinet . . . could he do it? His body ached as if someone had beaten him repeatedly with a blunt object, but the headache and nausea overwhelmed the body aches. Too wretched to pull himself to his feet, Oscar instead dragged himself up onto his hands and knees and, his body surging with retaliating pain, crawled like a baby to the tall bathroom cabinet. He opened the pill drawer and felt around in it until his fingers wrapped around what he wanted, but when he opened the bottle (cursing at the child-prevention cap as he struggled with it and sucking on his index finger as it rubbed against the grain of the lid), he found only two pills left inside. Angrily, he threw the bottle against the wall, letting the pills spill onto the floor. Taking two was about as worthless as not taking any. He'd have to wait it out.

What had he done last night to warrant this state? He couldn't remember most of it. He knew he'd gone out after classes for a happy hour drink with Mark and Mark's roommate—Derek, the guy's name was. And they'd drunk . . . and drunk . . . and drunk. Oscar recalled strange bits and pieces of the night. He knew they'd talked a lot of nonsense about nothing in particular, they'd eaten food at some point (presumably when he was still sober enough to pay for it) . . . then at one point they'd gone to Mark's place and done some drugs . . . that was kind of blurry in his brain . . . and there was a piece of memory about being in front of a urinal, wondering if he should throw up or urinate into it . . . another bit about stumbling up to his apartment and unlocking the door. From there, he knew only waking up in the awful self-inflicted pain he was now experiencing. The worst part about it was that it was his own fault. Oscar had hangovers like this rarely, in spite of the amount of time he spent out at night. He'd begun drinking a lot more, which was probably what was doing it. Pills and smokes rarely gave him such after-pain; alcohol was always more harsh on his system. He'd sworn off binge drinking some time back, but it seemed that the more he swore never to do such things again, the more often he began doing them.

He hadn't spoken to Eve in a week. She had left two messages for him, both of them quite innocuous and void of any sort of reference to the night he'd been pretty much left for dead, and yet, as much as he wanted to return her calls, he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. He didn't know what it meant—he was afraid of it—so he couldn't think too hard about her. The thought of losing Eve meant something more than he could figure out, but there was a sort of demon inside him that seemed to gorge itself on maudlin proclivities each time his brain even conjured her name. He was virtually unable to think of her, let alone speak with her. Oscar detested Eve for seeing him so absolutely helpless. His hatred stemmed from the repulsion he felt toward himself, but it manifested as an anger aimed at her. The thought of her humbling herself in putting up with his inadequacies boiled his blood. He knew that she felt no contempt, and yet he could not tear his mind from the thought of her frowning upon his actions, like a mother might do, with wordless reproof. It was his own disappointment in himself that led him to feel so incredibly, indescribably aversive to returning her calls.

He could hear his phone ringing on the side-table near the bed in his little studio apartment, mere feet away from the bathroom he was so unattractively crouched in. He figured it was his mother, whose calls he'd also neglected to return. His mother was almost worse than Eve, with the exception that it was far easier to lie to her. The woman exasperated him to no end, though. Oscar could barely stand talking to her, anymore. Besides, whoever was calling—whether he decided to return the call or not—he was far too incapacitated at the moment to speak. They'd have to wait until he vomited, at least.

Several hours crept by before Oscar began to feel a bit more like himself. The sky was darkening as if it were the early evening hours of a winter day, but it was late spring, and the weather had been gloomy from the start of the day, reflecting his pitiful state. Oscar had finally thrown up, but it had taken a long time—unchronicled moments of his life. Then, he'd filled the tub with steaming hot water and crawled into it, letting his muscles turn to gel beneath his flesh. He was too long for the tub and hated the fact on the rare occasions he decided to use it. Tubs were designed for little children and short people. They were not designed for Oscar. His long body looked like a large crooked rag doll, splaying its limbs at odd angles in an attempt to submerge itself in water. He'd thoroughly studied himself during the hour he'd laid in that water (which turned lukewarm within twenty minutes). He'd scrutinized his body, urging his muscles to soak in the warmth and calm their aches. He'd found himself thinking, oddly, of what exactly he was. What was this thing—this body he had? This working mass of nerve and skin and bone . . . what exactly was it? He hated himself. He knew he was considered attractive, but he hated himself. He was just this fleshy lump, somehow blessed with the curves and features of something others found beautiful, an archetype for other men. Oscar hated his body. He detested his smooth, muscular chest, his arms and long, lean legs. He hated his genitals, the things that most seemed to lock him into his hideous human body. He hated that his physicality ruled him more than any mental aspect. He hated all of it. How could he even look at Eve? The thought of her looking at his body or any part of him disgusted him so deep that he shuddered as he lay in the tub, sending little ripples across the water's smooth surface. He wished he was dead.

By the time he did finally get out of the tub, the water had become room-temperature and drained several inches through the leaky plug. Oscar dragged his naked self into the kitchen area, where he disinterestedly boiled some water and made soup. When his body began to shiver with chills, he took the blanket off his bed and wrapped it around himself rather than get dressed; clothes seemed so stupid for some reason. Nobody could see into his studio; there was one window, and it had a huge air-conditioning unit in it. He sat at his table, hunched over so far his chin almost touched the rim of the bowl. His stomach was feeling much better—it had passed the point of nausea into emptiness and had entered the hungry stage. Eating was really all he needed to do to feel better. His body was sore from the throwing up and the dismal pain it had been in earlier, and his head still slightly ached, but other than that, he felt pretty good. He was just a bit tired.

There was a knock at his door. It was so unexpected that he automatically assumed it had been on the door across the hall (which was lined with about twenty other studio apartments, just like his), but when it came again, he realized in disturbed annoyance that someone was there for him. He closed his eyes, smelling the aroma of the soup broth, willing the person or whatever it was to go away. But it didn't. It knocked a third time, and a voice accompanied it.

"I know you're in there, Oscar. You need to answer."

Shock filled him. He'd dreaded either Eve or his mother, even though he knew the latter would have had to travel pretty far and the former wouldn't just barge in on him. But the voice belonged to neither. Why hadn't she called first?

"I'm serious. You better open this door."

Half-forgetting his state in his shock, Oscar rose and went to the door, sliding the little chain off and unlocking the door-handle. He pulled the door inward about three inches and peered out into the bright hallway, keeping his haphazardly blanketed body out of view. "I—Dr. Ch-Chilton . . . I didn't know you . . . I—"

"That's your own fault. I did call; you just chose not to answer."

He couldn't get over the fact that his professor was standing at his door. "N-no, I . . . I haven't been well, today."

The woman removed her glasses, crossed her arms, and narrowed her eyes at him. "You were supposed to meet me at the museum at two. I had the curator eating out of my palm, ready to give you a three-piece installment in his exhibit for emerging artists, and you made me look like a fool by not showing up."

Oscar groaned, not truly feeling remorse. He knew there was no way he could have made it to that meeting. "Oh no . . . I forgot. I really have been sick, though. I think he'll understand."

"He's a demanding man with time constraints, Oscar. I doubt he will."

She stared at him, but he really didn't know what to say. This whole thing was still too awkward to sink into his head. If he'd forgotten the appointment and she'd called him about it, why was she here now? It wasn't as if there was anything they could do about it at the moment.

"How did you know where I lived?" He couldn't help but ask the question.

She breathed deep, as if pondering her words. "I know a lot about you, Oscar. I have to in order to work with you. You know that. You've written your mailing address a hundred times on things I've filled out or sent in for you. Don't be flattered." She looked down, suddenly, as if just noticing he kept his body behind the door. "What are you wearing?"

Oscar looked down at his foot, which was showing, and the blanket was sort of draped over it. Heat rushed to his face at the thought of her asking that question. "I-I told you . . . I'm not feeling well."

"Let me in, Oscar."

"Oh . . . uh, no. I'm fine." Her words were dangerous. They opened a portal into a realm Oscar had feared since he'd first begun working with the woman but was unwilling to acknowledge. He wanted those words yet was equally repelled by them. His conscience suddenly dropped. She was just some woman. He didn't care if she saw his chicken soup and messy bed and the state of disarray in his ridiculously small room. And he didn't care what she did to him . . . Actually, he did care, he did—didn't he? Shouldn't he? Did it even matter? He was making assumptions about her, guessing—hoping?—she had ulterior motives . . . but that was ridiculous. He really was ill. He'd been fantasizing before he even realized what he was doing.

"Are you sure, Oscar?" she said, and the repetition of his name brought the burn back. She was staring right at him, slowly raising one arm to the back of her head, her fingers pulling at her pony-tail, her hair suddenly falling down. She put the hair band in her pocket and casually removed her glasses, never once taking her eyes off of him, smiling knowingly all the while.

"Dr. Chilton, I—" He knew his voice sounded juvenile, childish, pleading . . .

"I've told you to call me Kate."

"But-but I honestly . . . I've been sick all day."

She stepped closer. That smile on her face wavered slightly, then returned, and he wanted to smash it in, watch her mouth crush inward. "Are you feeling better, now?"

He sought a response. He didn't know, anymore. He thought of his naked body in the tub and wanted to cut himself to pieces. His mind began to hide itself somewhere in his skull as she crossed the threshold into more than just his studio.