Popcorn 9: Page 8     The second refusal came at the opposite end of Michael's alimentary canal. It was not that Mi-chael would not kiss; unknown to George, he could not kiss. From his first few adolescent dates with females, Michael had never mastered the act, or enjoyed it. The touch of another's lips left him unmoved, and the mere sight of a tongue pointed at his mouth made him queasy. He avoided lips altogether, turning his head and presenting a cheek, or, if a tongue approached, an ear. George, on the path to disaster, had in-terpreted the denial as disrespect. The infamous straw, the back-breaking one, came, as ex-plained, when George did not. The rest, partic-ularly Michael, was recent history.     Inside the dead body, the soul, drumming its fingers against Michael's quiet diaphragm, still waited for a governor's reprieve. The collapsed windpipe would not recover of its own accord. That would take a coroner's hand. The wait, happily, would soon end.     George, with the liveliest part of Michael run-ning down the back of his legs, stood looking at his handiwork. Bruises already formed a high collar around the shrunken neck.     You fucked up, the voice informed him. He flexed his fingers, which ached with the pain of choking the life out of someone, then noticed other little agonies, like the sting of air against the scratches on his legs and face and the pulsing sensation where Michael's knees had beat against his back. Holding his bent arms perpen-dicular to his sides, he examined the last marks Michael had left on this world. The wounds on his legs throbbed and wept. His heart pounded in his ears as he turned to the mirrored doors of his closet and, looking past the square, yellow note stuck to the one mirror that read, "I am a good