I'm lying in bed on my back, looking at the ceiling and following the grooves and patterns of the faux-textured off-white paint. Rebecca is lying next to me, hooking her feet under mine and running her toes along my arches. Every so often I feel the cool metal of her toe ring. My hands are clasped behind my head as I watch her try to balance her cup of coffee on top of my chest. She's not doing too good a job of it.

It's a lazy Saturday morning. Monday and all of its headaches - work, traffic, annoying people - seem miles away. Rebecca is fidgeting with some hair above my ear and giving me a look that reveals an afterglow of sex. That "just fucked" look people get after having sex. The dog is lying on the ground at the foot of the bed, licking her paws. She doesn't seem interested in us. Normally she is suspicious of anybody in the house but she's not interested in Rebecca. The dog has taken to her a bit and hasn't been as aloof and standoffish as normal. Lately Sophia seems to be a good geiger counter for women.

But otherwise it's another Saturday and I've found myself in the same place with the same woman as I have the past few Saturdays.

I should probably backtrack.

I met Rebecca last month when Sophia got out unexpectantly and went down the street to bark at another dog she's traded growls with before. The Sharpei breed can be like that. Unless she's in a totally neutral territory - and the street outside where all the other dogs and her are walked isn't neutral in her book, it's hers because she pees there regularly - she'll go after dogs she thinks are up in her space. When I tracked her down I expected Dave, the owner of the Labrador Sophia was barking at, to come outside and see what was the noise was about. Instead I was met with Dave's sister Rebecca, a surfer beauty: Tall, naturally bleach-blond hair with a tanned and toned body. Didn't need to wear much, if any make-up. Light freckles grouped around the nose, cascading a little onto the cheeks. Not hippy or voluptuous, not gangly or nondescript. The kind of girl who looks as good in board shorts or jeans as she would in a skirt and heels. The kind of girl you'd see in a Neutrogena commercial.

We ended up grabbing coffee one night after Thanksgiving when I was back in town. We clicked immediately. The girl flirted shamelessly as we sat in a dark corner of Starbucks, and for a moment I felt like a grade school kid. Everything was so fresh and exhilerating. I remember feeling a tingling sensation in parts of my body. Not those parts. Rebecca seemed like a risk taker, somebody who like to move quickly. Somebody who was all about fun and the bacchanalian things in life. Somebody like me.

It was a whirlwind, a combination of lust and fever, seduction and want. Mostly lust. With the exception of our first time out, we've spent most of our time in. Nights following work, entire weekends, any available time we had, you could find us at my place. We were secluded and wrapped up entirely in each other. It wasn't love but it was well past infatuation. She lived just a few houses down the street but never seemed to go home.

It's funny who takes notice when you drop off the face of the earth. People at work made the occasional comment that I looked tired. At other times they said I appeared in a hurry to leave work at the end of the day. But honestly, who isn't?

It had also been a few weeks since I'd been to Townhouse for drinks. That wasn't like me, I was generally good for an appearance or two a week. I'm sure Lisa will bust my balls the next time I am there. I remembered the last time I had a notable absence from the Townhouse: I had been dating this aspring author who was 6 years older than me and a recovering alcoholic. Obviously anywhere we went didn't involve bars, but what made it odd was that I didn't find myself at Townhouse during the periods I wasn't with her. It was like drink wasn't necessary. She's since written two moderately-successful self help books.

I smoothed away some hair from in front of Rebecca's face and swished her bangs, wondering how much longer this would last before we burned out on each other. Somebody once called me a relationship supernova, somebody who quickly lights up but burns out just as quickly. At the time it was said out of spite but she may have been onto something. We come up with metaphores to help define ourselves but we can never define what we want, at least not in any real, quantifiable way. I looked at Rebecca's face. She looked so good without any makeup, like an older Kate Bosworth with just a hint of a wrinkle beginning to develop on her forehead.

Rebecca's voice interrupted my train of thought. "Whatcha thinking about?" She had turned her head to face me and placed her chin on my chest. I looked into her sea green eyes. She was hot simply clad in the white sheet that was wrapped around her. I wondered if she had ever modeled.

The funny thing was the instant Rebecca asked her question, thoughts of Katie and Renee popped into my mind. Two totally avaiable women with whom I hadn't talked or taken things further since hurricane Rebecca blew into my life. I wondered what they were doing. Maybe they thought I'd strung them along, lost their number or whatever, but for perhaps the first time I couldn't bring myself to juggle more than one woman. I simply couldn't make that kind of time investment.

"You hungry?" I asked. "Maybe we could go grab some breakfast." We needed to get out. I needed to strip the bed and wash the sheets. I'd never washed sheets and changed the bed so many times in so few weeks. They smelled of perfume and cologne, of body sweat and funk, candle wax and lubricants.

"Nah, I could just lay here like this all day," she replied. She moved in and kissed me. She tasted like Irish Mist coffee creamer.

"Really? You don't want to get out of here and do something?"

"I'd rather just lounge around in here." She gave a seductive grin and then added "I like being in our little isolation chamber here where we can do anything we want or nothing at all." She entwined her fingers in mine. "I like this. This is nice."

"Until Monday when it's back to the grind," I replied.

"Yeah, that's the way the bee bumbles."

I laid there for a moment and then softly sang "down on your knees again."

Rebecca flashed a wicked smile and responded, "Are you suggesting something? I'm getting a little tired."

I shook my head. "No, just singing a song. That phrase you just said, it's a line from a song."

She sat up, the sheet falling away from her. "It is?"

"Yeah. It's called Bedbugs & Ballyhoo," I replied.

Rebecca laughed. "Well that describes us to a 'T' doesn't it? We're the bedbugs," she began, adjusting the sheet around her waist, "and all this," she pointed at the clothes strewn across the floor, the panties hanging on a bedpost, the shoes scattered every which way, the bedspread crumpled on the floor, "this is the ballyhoo. I think it's perfect."

We laid there for a while in silence. Finally she got up and went into the bathroom. Sophia lifted her head from where she was and followed Rebecca's movement before puttng her head back down on her crossed paws. I could see the reflection of Rebecca's naked ass from where I was as she washed her face. She walked back in, more like a strut - as good a strut as she could pull off trying to avoid all the clothes and shoes littering the floor. She pulled the bedspread and another blanket off the floor and arranged them on the bed before climbing underneath, positioning herself on top of me. I gave an unexpected "oof."

"Second wind?" I asked. Her faced showed a little shine to it, and the sleep was gone from her eyes. I looked at her lips - a little flushed, like she was wearing gloss, but I could tell she wasn't. I'd heard of women having a shade of lipstick permanently tattooed on their lips and wondered why any woman would do that to her lips.

Rebecca pulled me from the thought. "Yeah. Let's make like bedbugs and create some more ballyhoo around here," she said as she flattened her hands on my chest and pushed herself up to face me.

Another Saturday in our isolation chamber. That's the way the bee bumbles.