Big Swiss(53)

Greta paused the audio and tried to recall a woman fitting this description, but she only remembered dogs. Big Swiss didn’t like to linger in the meadow, preferring to walk in the woods, and so the woman would’ve been following them on the trail. A Rhodesian ridgeback had passed them a few times, but Greta had barely noticed its owner, because she’d been too busy talking. Incessantly.


OM:?Is your husband concerned?

FEW:?Mildly. He thinks I’m imagining things.

OM:?Is that a tendency of yours?

FEW:?Lately it is. I don’t feel like myself. Or maybe I feel more like myself. I haven’t been this hyper since high school. It doesn’t make sense, but even my blood feels different, like it’s increased in volume.

OM:?You do seem more… energetic than usual.



“It’s called lust,” Greta said.


FEW:?I’m also more absentminded. The other night, when I got home from work, I stood in the yard and stared at the bushes like a crazy person. Luke was inside the house, watching me, and he tapped the window to get my attention. I was so out of it, I didn’t even recognize him. I thought a stranger had broken into the house. He said I’d been standing there for twenty minutes. That night I dreamed there were eight Lukes in the house, and I didn’t know which one was real. I mean, they were all real, and interacting with me, but I had to figure out which one was authentic, which one was… him.

OM:?Did you figure it out?

FEW:?No.

OM:?Are you getting enough sleep?

FEW:?I don’t know. I daydream most of the day, even at work, and I never remember driving anywhere, unless I’m being followed, and then I’m hyperaware, but of course I never think to look at the license plate.

OM:?What are you daydreaming about—revenge?

FEW:?Against whom?

OM:?Keith!

FEW:?He spent eight years behind bars. He did his time.

OM:?For all you know, he thrived in prison. Maybe he got to wear shorts again and make furniture.

FEW:?You have a good memory.

OM:?I glanced at that transcript as I was printing it out for you. Do you still want it?

FEW:?Yes, please. Thank you. Anyway, I don’t feel animosity toward Keith. My daydreams are about—well, I’d forgotten about this, but I remembered—what do you call it? A sexual story. From my youth.

[PAUSE 01:20]



“Hello?” Greta said.


OM:?Well? Are you going to tell me what it is?

FEW:?It’s not overtly sexual. I mean, I’ve never thought about it during sex. And I don’t think about it while I masturbate, which I’m doing a lot now—



Greta stopped typing and wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.


FEW:?But it helped me learn English. It also feels connected to my sexuality because I was a teenager at the time and attracted to one of the characters. Anyway, my dog park friend talks a lot, like I said, and I’ve been listening closely, in a highly focused way, just as I did back—

OM:?But what’s the story?

FEW:?It’s from Law and Order: SVU.



“Wow,” Greta said. “Bummer.”


FEW:?Have you watched it?

OM:?Uh, once or twice—it’s been on for thirty-seven years.

FEW:?Nineteen. [PAUSE] Anyway, I used to imagine myself in certain scenarios when I watched it as a teenager.

OM:?Were you a special victim in these scenarios?

FEW:?Never. I was usually a suspect, or an uncooperative witness brought in for questioning, and I was forced to sit in the little room with the two-way mirror and wonder how I was going to survive in prison.

OM:?Were you being observed from behind the mirror?

FEW:?Of course. By Olivia Benson.

OM:?Oh?

FEW:?In one fantasy, my left wrist is handcuffed to the table, and Detective Benson is studying me from behind the mirror, and she watches me eat the snack and sip the coffee like nothing’s wrong, like I haven’t been arrested for murder, and then she comes in to interrogate me—

OM:?Which snack?



“Goddammit,” Greta said.


FEW:?Hostess Snoballs. The pink ones.

OM:?Interesting.



“Is it?” Greta said.


OM:?If you had, say, a fetish, what do you think it would be?

FEW:?[PAUSE] I’m aroused by fog.

OM:?Anything else?

FEW:?Being cold. Watching others who are cold.

OM:?[SCRIBBLING] Can you be more specific?

FEW:?People huddled around a fire, people shivering, stomping their feet, blowing on their hands. I like to see people’s breath. What are you writing?

OM:?Just making a note.

FEW:?Anyway, Olivia Benson interrogates me, but it turns into a conversation. From the outside it seems straightforward, but it’s very charged. Olivia has her own agenda, and I have mine.

OM:?Is kissing Olivia part of your agenda?

FEW:?I wanted to be disciplined by her. Maybe humiliated. But I was young. I think it would be the other way around now.

OM:?So, like, spanking?

FEW:?The humiliation was verbal. I was trying to learn English. But now that I think about it, I’m aroused by silky blouses and pantsuits. My new friend doesn’t wear pantsuits, of course, but she reminds me a little of Olivia Benson. That might be why I’m thinking of this.