Summary

The narrator remembers an old girlfriend, Bobby, a woman who wore jeans with frayed inseams. One night, Bobby and the narrator sat at a bar together, Bobby looking around wondering why she couldn't get the narrator to play "the wife I was supposed to be," even though Bobby had made other women follow "her around long after she had lost all interest in them" (119). Bobby was disturbed by the narrator's "sexual desire" and "determined independence" (119). Bobby thought lust was a lower-class impulse, and she wanted to have nothing to do with it. So, she controlled the narrator's lust and did not lust herself.

Even though she and Bobby had sex, the narrator thought the sex bothered Bobby. To temper, the lust Bobby made them order takeout, watch TV, and take a bath first. They could not have sex outside the bedroom. Bobby would...