KEEPER

Panic.

Dry-mouthed, stammering, five-alarm panic, the fast, fatal kind that fills the bladder quickest has taken up residence beneath your skin, and finds you assaulted with sudden awareness of every bead of sweat gathering across your scalp and beneath your arms.

Panic has come home to your spine, worming between the vertebrae with all the subtlety of a hammer pounding railroad spikes into place. Why do you keep letting Spiro talk you into these two a.m. pub crawls? Has he ever failed to abandon you in favor of shadowing the most inebriated skirt in the house until she agrees to leave with him? Is tonight any different as you hug the bar with only your scotch and soda for company? Why do you keep letting your brother sucker you into this?

Because you’re a damn barfly, and they keep the lighting low here at Doonan’s, which could some night work to your advantage. Because you’ve gone six months untouched by any orgasm that didn’t involve hand lotion and wrist cramps, that’s why…