Big Swiss(60)

Big Swiss draped an arm over her own beautiful face.

“Anyway, I still think about her,” Big Swiss said. “Her wet eyes.”

“With pleasure?” Greta asked.

“Hey,” Big Swiss said.

“Anyone would snap after surviving something like that. It’s completely understandable and forgivable. People act out for a lot less, as I’m sure you know. A lot less.”

“Oh? Are you one of these people?”

“I have the opposite problem—I’m completely shut down. I didn’t cry at my mother’s funeral. I barely cried as a baby. I’ve been diagnosed with ED, twice.”

“Erectile dysfunction?”

“Emotional detachment.”

“You know, they say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but in your case, it’s the mouth. You have the most expressive mouth I’ve ever seen.”

“Well, that’s weird, because I’m well into my forties and this is the first I’m hearing of it.”

“You’re not as detached as you think,” Big Swiss said. “Anyway, you should know something: the way I treated that nurse wasn’t unusual for me. I’ve always had a low tolerance for weakness. Maybe it’s good I was beaten so badly—it took me down a different path. I became kinder. Or more charitable, at least.”

“Have you ever been happy?”

Big Swiss scowled. “What kind of question is that?”

“A sincere one.”

“Come back to bed,” Big Swiss said. “We don’t have much time.”

As if to demonstrate how charitable she was, Big Swiss put her face between Greta’s legs. Greta studied the cracks in the ceiling. She knew them all by heart and she had favorites, but one crack seemed new and out of place. Then it began moving. For a moment she thought she was moving it with her mind. Minutes passed. Part of the crack broke off and crawled toward a corner. Because it was a spider. That’s when Greta felt something crawling down her own crack. Something hot and wet.

Greta gasped.

“Do you have a towel?” Big Swiss said. “Maybe we should get rubber sheets.”

Our first “we,” Greta thought.

“Listen,” Greta said. “I realize you’re a pussy doctor and everything, but where did you learn to do that?”

“I did a little reading last night,” Big Swiss said. “The secret is to make contact and then break it, over and over and over, and then kiss it deeply, resting my mouth on it while drawing letters with my tongue. I went through the entire alphabet. What works best on you? The letter I, lowercase, with an extra-long stem and a circled dot. And then, every thirty seconds or so, I let my tongue go slack and still. I wait for all the clouds to pass. I wait for the hard blue sky. It takes about twenty minutes.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Greta said. “What clouds?”

“Your thoughts,” Big Swiss said. “I have to wait until all your thoughts pass, until you’re not able to think of anything but my tongue, until your entire body feels like it’s inside my mouth.”

“You studied for this,” Greta said. “Like an exam?”

“The books belong to my husband. One is called She Comes First.”

“Never heard of it,” Greta said. “Did he catch you reading it?”

“Yes.” Big Swiss smiled at the memory. “He asked me to read a passage aloud.”

“And?”

“I did.”

“Naked?”

“He kept his clothes on.”

“Wasn’t he curious about your sudden interest in clam diving?”

“My husband doesn’t ask many questions.”

“Tell me five things about him.”

“Why?”

“So I know he’s real,” Greta said. “And that you’re not mine.”

“I’m not his, either,” Big Swiss said. “We’re not possessive of each other in that way. I’ve always had my own friends, my own social life. I go to bars and restaurants on weekends, he goes hiking alone. I vacation with my friends every year, sometimes more than once. We give each other a lot of freedom.”

Part of Greta wished she’d call Luke by his name. Another part of her was glad she didn’t. Both parts were in agreement about one thing, however: no one was getting out of this unscathed. Although, as she watched Big Swiss study her gorgeous reflection in the mirror above the mantel, it was difficult to imagine her being truly wrecked by anything.

“You check yourself out a lot,” Greta said. “I probably would, too, if I had your face.”

“Maybe I don’t see what you see,” Big Swiss said. “And you do have my face—our bone structure is similar. Even Luke thinks so.”

“How’s that?”

“I showed him your picture on my phone,” Big Swiss said.

“What picture?”

It was a picture of Greta at the dog park in her groundskeeper getup, lighting a cigarette from another cigarette, looking entirely her age.

“Delete that immediately,” Greta said.

“You’re the vain one, not me,” Big Swiss said. “I’m only checking to see if I exist. I feel like a patch of moving fog most of the time. When I look in the mirror, I’m always startled to see a head and limbs.”