Greta swung open the top half of the Dutch door. “You guys looking to buy weed?”
They nodded. A gust of wind blew the guy’s long hair into the girl’s face.
“Sabine should be back in a few minutes,” Greta said, “but feel free to wait inside where it’s warm.”
They followed Greta into the clapboard side of the house, also called “the cottage,” where Sabine conducted her weed business. The cottage was the oldest and most Dutch-looking part of the house. It had low ceilings with exposed chestnut beams and charmingly small doors, and contained Sabine’s best furniture. On the ground floor, a large living room and tiny bathroom. Upstairs, a loft filled with beds. Four double beds, to be exact, neatly made with crisp sheets, the duvets covered with the softest cotton, block-printed by hand in India, and down pillows all over the place. Sabine was a hopeless pillow addict. Wayward women from town, i.e., Sabine’s friends, often occupied these beds, sometimes for weeks, though the beds were all empty now.
The girl introduced herself as Nicole. This was her boyfriend, Ryan. They sat on the sofa while Greta crouched in front of the woodstove, stoking the fire. As she listened to them admire Sabine’s taste in art—old paintings, mostly, with ripped or torn canvases—she realized who they were. Ryan （REP） spoke as if he had an entire diaper stuffed in his mouth. His last session had taken fucking eight hours to transcribe. He was a baker but called himself a maker. Greta didn’t have many makers in her life, but as far as she understood, makers were producers of physical objects, like cabinets. The makers around here, however, acted like that other maker, i.e., the Prime Mover, which may have been why Ryan felt comfortable referring to himself as a “grain scholar.” Nicole （NEM） did some sort of bodywork—not Reiki, but something real—and had a slight Rhode Island accent. They’d been dating six months, but they saw Om on an individual basis rather than as a couple and hadn’t presented problems typical of people their age （thirty-two）。 For starters, Ryan didn’t drink or do blow. He was good-looking but hadn’t slept with the entire town. He’d been raised on hardcore porn but rarely looked at it anymore, and he wasn’t on antidepressants or mood stabilizers.
REP:?As a small child, I had a weird habit of collecting hardened pancake drippings from the griddle. I stole them from the kitchen on Sundays and arranged them on my bookcase. I always had about a dozen, and I’d talk to them at night. One day my mother found them. She asked me what they were and I said, “They’re cornies, Mom. They’re my friends.” But the truth was, cornies were my children. I’ve wanted cornies—I mean kids—since I was little. It’s why I’ve gravitated toward families all my life.
OM:?Like Alcoholics Anonymous?
REP:?Right.
OM:?Have you talked to Nicole about kids yet?
REP:?I told her my clock was ticking and all she said was, “Ew.”
OM:?Okay, so she doesn’t want kids.
REP:?No, she does. She just considers men who want children weak and repulsive.
Nicole did in fact find Ryan weak and repulsive. Not because he wanted children, but because he drooled and baby-talked during sex, and was constantly calling Nicole “Mommy.” When she asked if maybe he could stop calling her Mommy, he claimed he was saying “Mami,” not “Mommy.” He worked closely with a Dominican and two Mexicans, and was thinking about spending the month of March in the Yucatán, alone.
But Nicole had other, more pressing concerns. Her lifelong kleptomania, which had been in remission for years, was back. Now she was stealing from friends and family. Cheap jewelry, coffee mugs, clothing, toiletries. When said friends or family came to visit, she had to remember which items she’d stolen and hide them. It was exhausting and confusing. She also shoplifted small things from boutiques in Hudson, including the one she lived above.
OM:?Are you not afraid of getting caught?
NEM:?I’ve never told this to anyone, and I’ll probably regret telling you, but when I’m stressed out, Jason Bateman usually comes to my rescue.
OM:?The actor? I didn’t know he lived in Hudson!
NEM:?He doesn’t. But if I’m really nervous, his face pops into my head, almost against my will. His face often lets me know I’m anxious in the first place.
OM:?Are you seeing his face right now?
NEM:?Vaguely. His face appears very briefly, and I just sort of conjure the rest of his presence energetically. But it’s also physical. We’re both expressive blinkers. We both do that slow-blinking thing. You know, like this.
OM:?Uh-huh.
NEM:?Anyway, it’s something I’ve been doing for years, long before his career took off.
OM:?Do you do it around Ryan?
NEM:?Not often. It happened the other day, though, and I’m trying to remember the occasion. Oh yeah—he said my pussy smelled like an aquarium supply store in Chinatown.
OM:?That wasn’t very nice.
NEM:?Yeah, it stung a little. Jason Bateman popped into my head for a split second, and I turned to Ryan and was like, Blink, blink, excuse me? The fuck did you just say?
OM:?And how did he respond?
NEM:?He apologized. Then he asked if I was feeling vulnies.
OM:?Vulnies?
NEM:?Vulnerable.
OM:?Were you?
NEM:?I guess. We were in bed, idly fucking. I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t bothered by “aquarium supply store” so much as “in Chinatown.”
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.