I like a man who can keep the party going, I say, nodding my head in sync with the actor’s white ass as it pumps up and down. We’re watching French porn, again, making fun of the way they use spit instead of lube. “French lube,” we joke, unable to look away as the well-hung man hocks a lugie into an actress’s lady parts. Aside from that I like the French — the men who stay hard for hours, the women who murmur Oui! Oui! Oui! with every thrust, like they can’t get enough. Outside, too, it’s steamy, the windows open to the sulfurous air. The night is rife with holiday pandemonium, and we can see the fireworks from here, golden chrysanthemums, shrieking crossettes and diadems, bursting. The neighborhood dogs staccato their non-stop howl, and when my lover ignites me I join them in a high-pitched chorus. Each day my love finds new porn to tempt me. He knows what I like. Twosomes or threesomes. No tattoos. No bondage, brutality or handcuffs. Last week he introduced me to Japanese metro porn. How the “schoolgirl” giggles behind her hand when the stranger lifts her skirt, salarymen surrounding the fornicating couple, oblivious. You’re a fool for love, my lover says, and I say Oui! Outside, too, they’re reaching the finale. Cherry bombs scar the dark. Aaoooo! That’s us, going off like Roman candles, wailing louder than the dogs.