b’s last bf hit her. she liked to be slapped around when they had sex. she wanted to get away from him and then she didn’t. she had a hard time making up her mind. she said that he was a brat. he didn’t want to let her go.
b used to have bulimia. i don’t think bulimia is something that one doesn’t have to cope with for the rest of one’s life. her teeth were grey, possibly from vomiting. she said that she worked to save murderers on death row. she called herself a private investigator. i can’t imagine that b earns a living  doing research for lawyers or meeting with a murderer in a cell. she was very shy and talked fast when i said that she was very pretty after she said that she was worried about how she looked. her face looked scrunched, the nose mouth and eyes looked like crowded passengers in a small vehicle. she said that the murderers she interviewed looked strangely at her. she didn’t want to know what they were thinking. it made no sense to me that she allowed herself to be in a cell without a guard or having the inmate in cuffs. she said that she liked to have evil up close in a cage so that she could study it. she said the gory crime photos she saw didn’t bother her like she thought they would.
three or four years ago two white supremacists went on a killing spree
in two or three states. b interviewed them. if you wanted any kind of leniency
it was better to go on a killing spree in several states so as to  be judged by a federal court.
the young woman was a junkie, b said. the white supremacists are against drugs. she had been manipulated.
b was raised by her father. her mother left them and had another family. her half sister has a blog. she writes about her and her family. she has no qualms writing about her brother having been sexually abused when he hasn’t talked about it to anyone outside the family.
b’s father was obsessed with weight. she was thin as a child and a teenager. he made her weigh herself and gave her money if she lost weight. i knew a young woman in queens. when her mother had cancer she vomited after every meal. her teeth were grey and her mouth had a bilious aftertaste. i wondered what b’s mouth would taste like. i talked more to you in this time than i have with anyone else, b said.
b thought that i was steady and safe. she wanted to lean on me or to be saved by me if not forever, then for one night.
b talked about everything as an obsession: the three hundred page historic novel she completed about an irish revolutionary, the tango, singing opera, interviewing families to defend murderers on death row. these all were obsessions to cope with an unnamed trauma. Currently she is looking for her next obsession.