Chapter 5

The trip to Fertility’s bed is lined with streaked windows and peeling paint. Mildewed tile and rust stains. Everywhere along the way are clogged drains and scuff marks. Sagging curtains and snagged upholstery. All the stations of the cross. This is after the man and woman I worked for were upstairs with Fertility doing God knows what.

This is after I’ve crawled in through the basement window Fertility knew would be unlocked. This is after I hid out among the fake flowers in the backyard, each of them stolen from a grave, and after Fertility rang the doorbell at seven sharp. Dust coats everything in the kitchen. China coated with microwave leftovers fills the sink. The inside of the microwave is crusted with exploded food. Bred and trained and sold little slave that I am, I go right to work cleaning. Just ask me how to get baked crud out of a microwave. No, really, go ahead. Ask me. The secret is boiling a cup of water in the microwave for a few minutes. This loosens the crud so you can wipe it off. Ask me how to get bloodstains off your hands. The trick is to forget how fast these things can happen. Suicides. Accidents. Crimes of passion. Fertility upstairs doing her job. Just concentrate on the stain until your memory is completely erased. Practice really does make perfect. If you could call it that. Ignore how it feels when the only real talent you have is for hiding the truth. You have a God-given knack for committing a terrible sin. You have a natural gift for denial. A blessing. If you could call it that. All evening I clean, and still I feel dirty. Fertility told me the procedure would be over before midnight. They’d leave her in the green bedroom with her feet propped up on pillows. After the couple were asleep in their own room it would be safe for me to sneak upstairs. The microwave clock says eleven-thirty. I take my chances, and the trip to Fertility’s bed is lined with wilted houseplants and tarnished doorknobs, fly specks and fingerprint smudges of newspaper ink. Drink rings and cigarette burns mar all the furniture. Cobwebs drift in every corner. It’s dark inside the green bedroom and out of the shadows Fertility says, “Shouldn’t we be having sex now.” I say, I guess. She says, “I hope you don’t mind sloppy seconds.” I don’t. I mean, it’s what Adam would’ve wanted. She says, “Do you have any rubbers?” I say, I thought she was barren. “Sure, I’m sterile,” she says, “but I’ve had unprotected sex with a million guys. I could have some terrible fatal disease.” I say that would only be a problem if I wanted to live a lot longer. Fertility says, “That’s how I feel about my giant credit card debt.” So we have sex. If you could call it that. After waiting all my life, I get myself in her just half an inch and it’s all over. “Well,” Fertility says, and pushes me away, “I hope that was really empowering for you.” She doesn’t give me a second shot at making love. If you could call it that. A long time after she falls asleep, I watch her and wonder about her dreaming, if she’s dreaming up some terrible new murder or suicide or disaster. And if she’s dreaming it about me.