Big Swiss(31)

OM:?Perhaps because everything is so cheap in Chinatown.

NEM:?Maybe. What bothered me was how specific it was. Seemed like he’d really given it some thought. Anyway, I didn’t react well in the moment. I ended up hitting him kind of hard in the face.



In Ryan’s version of the story, which Greta had transcribed a day later, they had not been idly fucking but rather having difficult butt sex. According to Ryan, Nicole had a love/hate thing for anal but begged for it every other Sunday. If Ryan claimed he wasn’t in the mood, she became morose. If he expressed too much interest or excitement, she lashed out. In any case, the actual event was somewhat arduous and brought up a lot of feelings.


REP:?It’s too tight, Om. It’s not at all elastic. Sometimes only the head will fit, but she orders me to keep pushing, and if I don’t, she calls me names.

OM:?Like what?

REP:?The other day it was, “Fuck my ass, you little faggot.”

OM:?Huh. How did you respond?

REP:?I gave her face a little porny slap.

OM:?Then what happened?

REP:?She punched me in the jaw. See this bruise? She says my dick activates her, uh—shit, I’m forgetting the term—

OM:?Hemorrhoids?

REP:?Feminist rage.

OM:?Right.

REP:?Along with some deep-seated penis envy left over from childhood. She feels both envious and resentful.

OM:?And how do you feel?

REP:?I love it, but I often wake up feeling like my dick got slammed in the trunk of a car.

OM:?Hurts so good?

REP:?[LAUGHS] Sometimes love don’t feel like it should.

OM:?Have you considered—I mean, do you think her rage was perhaps… misdirected?

REP:?How do you mean?

OM:?Was there something else she may have been upset about?

REP:?Oh man. Did she say something? Never mind, I know you can’t answer that. I think she had PMS. Also, I said her pussy smelled a tiny bit like fish sauce, and she completely flipped out. Even though I love fish sauce. I sprinkle that shit on everything.



Had they been strangers, Greta would have left them alone to wait for Sabine, but they were as familiar as characters from a novel, an overwrought five-hundred-pager that went nowhere but which Greta nevertheless looked forward to reading on the toilet. She was more than happy to suffer these fools and felt genuine affection for them. Was Ryan an entitled crybaby with pretend problems? Sure. Especially next to Big Swiss. Greta wondered if Big Swiss, with her refreshing absence of victimhood, along with her real, actual obstacles—not a single orgasm, not even by her own hand—had ruined Greta for anyone else.

She searched Ryan’s face for fresh bruises. All she saw were two neck tattoos: the Latin phrase “Ne plus ultra” and a crudely drawn gravestone carved with the words “Died of thirst.” Nicole was tall and tan and young and lovely and covered in cute doodle tattoos of couples fucking. Greta recognized her overly texturized hair as the work of Alexis, of Neptune Hair Design, the hairdresser responsible for every mullet, shag, and bowl cut in Hudson. Alexis considered herself an empath as well as a stylist and possessed a paranormal ability to apprehend the true wishes and desires of your hair, and even went so far as to communicate with your hair’s inner child, which was bizarre given that she wore a glove with small blades attached to three of the fingers. Greta recalled her own experience in Alexis’s chair. Apparently, the inner child of Greta’s hair desperately wanted micro bangs, a desire Greta had been totally unaware of but willing to grant her, just for the hell of it, having no idea how radically unlike herself she would end up looking. The actual haircut had felt like waking up during surgery, unable to speak or move, while Freddy Krueger filleted your scalp. Three and a half months later, Greta’s bangs were only halfway to her eyebrows.

“Would either of you care for prosecco?” Greta asked warmly.

Ryan declined, of course, because he was in recovery, but Nicole said yeah, sure, she would have a little.

Greta fetched the bottle and a glass from the other side of the house. On the way back, she checked on Pi?on. Still in bed, he lifted his head off the pillow and winked at her.

“We have guests,” Greta said. “If you feel like flirting.”

He seemed to consider it but didn’t get up.

“I’ll leave the door open,” Greta said.

In the living room Greta passed the prosecco to Nicole and took a seat in the armchair. She watched Nicole look around the room with interest. Greta wondered if she’d try to walk out with something, though there wasn’t much to lift, as Sabine didn’t believe in knickknacks. The room’s only clutter was a giant cobweb in the corner.

“I heard a bunch of bees live in this house,” Ryan said. “Is that true?”

“Fifty or sixty thousand,” Greta said, “but they’re all dying.”

“What happened?” Nicole asked.

“We have a few theories, but no real answers.”

They nodded, waiting for her to share said theories, but Greta’s mind went blank. For someone who transcribed dialogue seven hours at a stretch, day in and day out, she seemed to have no idea how to make or maintain conversation. Or polite conversation, anyway. Sabine, on the other hand, could talk to a hole in the wall, and often did. Where the fuck was she?

“How old is this house?” Ryan asked.