“Where?” Big Swiss said.
“Farmacy,” Greta said.
“I’ve been there with my husband,” Big Swiss said. “We should go.”
Tell her you don’t drink, Greta ordered herself. “You free tomorrow?” Greta said instead.
Big Swiss nodded.
“I have work ’til eight,” Greta said. Or, rather, I’ll be transcribing your next therapy session. “How’s eight thirty?”
She felt guilty as she watched Big Swiss create a new contact on her phone.
“R-E-B-E-C-C-A?” Big Swiss asked.
“R-E-B-E-K-A-H,” Greta said, just to make things more complicated.
7
The following afternoon, Big Swiss’s file landed in Greta’s inbox, along with a vague and confusing explanation about why the session had been cut short—or “truncated,” as Om said. He claimed he’d felt the need to stop recording when Big Swiss began revealing personal information about Keith, her attacker, such as the exact date and time of his release and where he would be living. Apparently, the thought of Greta’s being privy to such information made Om anxious, which of course didn’t make logical sense. Wouldn’t it be better for Greta to know a violent criminal’s exact address, so that she might avoid it?
OM:?Will you state your initials for the transcriber, please?
FEW:?FEW.
OM:?Thank you.
FEW:?Who’s the transcriber—you?
OM:?What? No. It’s a robot.
FEW:?Really?
OM:?I mean, not literally, but… it’s automated. I use software.
FEW:?Is it accurate?
OM:?More or less.
FEW:?Well, I met a transcriber at the dog park today. Her name is Rebekah, with a K and an H.
“Fuck me,” Greta said.
OM:?How strange. Are you sure she was… human?
FEW:?Oh yeah. She was around fifty. Attractive. Gay.
“What?” Greta said.
OM:?Are you blushing?
FEW:?Maybe.
OM:?Did she flirt with you?
FEW:?Yes. Even after I said I was married.
“I did?” Greta said.
OM:?What sort of transcribing does she do?
FEW:?She works with journalists. Her clients are in the city.
OM:?Did she, uh, make a pass at you?
FEW:?Well, no. But she made a joke about Easter Bunny semen.
OM:?What joke?
FEW:?It won’t be funny now.
“It wasn’t funny then,” Greta said.
FEW:?But it was interesting, because as soon as she said it, I found myself wanting to tell her… well, everything. I’m usually guarded when I meet new people, but it felt like we already knew each other. She’s one of these intuitive types—
OM:?Are you an intuitive type?
FEW:?Not at all. I’m a thinker, not a feeler.
“Hey, I’m not a feeler, either,” Greta said. “Or a thinker.”
FEW:?Anyway, she intuited a few things.
OM:?Such as?
“Nothing,” Greta said.
FEW:?Well, I’m certain she knew that I’d experienced the first orgasm of my life that morning.
“Nope,” Greta said. “But congrats.”
OM:?What! Where!
FEW:?At home—where else? I took your recommendation and made a certain… purchase, and it came in the mail yesterday.
OM:?My goodness, I wish I had some champagne to offer you. I only have gin, and no ice, but I do have tonic—
FEW:?Settle down, it wasn’t that great.
OM:?No?
FEW:?I feel like I’m finally in on the joke now, but the joke wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be, or it’s, like, not my brand of humor.
OM:?What kind of humor were you hoping for?
FEW:?Something more droll. Or absurd. This was a little too… obvious, I guess. And I wasn’t crazy about the gadget, to be honest. Felt like I was being electrocuted.
“Hah,” Greta said. “Called it.”
OM:?Okay. A little too intense, maybe. That might change over time, or you may want to try not putting it directly on your clitoris. If you want, I can demonstrate—
FEW:?I’ll figure it out, Om.
OM:?Were you alone?
FEW:?My husband wanted to be there, but I made him wait in the other room. So, I was alone in bed.
OM:?Did you fantasize?
FEW:?I looked at pictures.
OM:?Of your husband?
“C’mon,” Greta said.
FEW:?Would you ask a man that question?
OM:?Of course.
FEW:?You’d ask a man if he masturbated to pictures of his wife?
“Not a chance,” Greta said.
OM:?If he was masturbating for the very first time and happened to be married? Yes.
FEW:?My husband wasn’t in the pictures.
OM:?Were there faces in the pictures, or just bodies? Or were they just faces and no bodies? And were they strangers or did you know them?
FEW:?There weren’t any people.
OM:?Oh. Well, what were they pictures of—animals? Or… landscapes?
“Animals? Honest to god,” Greta said.
FEW:?No, no, nothing like that. Don’t overanalyze this, or force any symbolism onto it, but I looked at pictures of flowers.
Greta laughed. “Who’s gay now?”
OM:?Flower porn. From Japan?
FEW:?Not porn, Om, just regular pictures. Are you familiar with jimsonweed?
OM:?Is that a singer?
FEW:?It’s a plant. It’s growing in my yard, and it often shows up in my dreams. It’s also called datura.
OM:?Ah, right. I smoked a little of that once. Not a great experience for me. Anyway, your husband must be very excited. Did you celebrate?
FEW:?It was the happiest day of his life. Happier than our wedding night. We had breakfast in bed, and he wanted to sniff the gadget, so I let him, and we laughed and cuddled with the dog, blah, blah, and then my phone rang. I was on call, so I thought it was a patient, but it was the New York State Inmate Release Notification System, a service I signed up for seven years ago. I’d registered to be notified of any changes in his custody. He was transferred to another prison at one point, so I knew about that, but they were calling—I mean, I knew he was getting out—I’ve known that for months—but they gave me the precise time—midnight, isn’t that weird?—and I asked if they could send me a recent photo, because I imagine he looks different after eight years, but they said no, they couldn’t do that, but they gave me his address—like, his physical address—and that was the surprising part, I guess, because it turns out he’ll be living right off 9G, not far from [OVERLAPPING]
[END OF RECORDING]
Jesus! Not far from… Greta’s house? Maybe they were about to be neighbors, and that’s why Om was being so cagey. The only property she could imagine Keith inhabiting seemed to board dogs, along with white supremacists fresh out of prison like himself. There were about a dozen chain-link dog kennels in the yard. The house looked like it had been built in an afternoon, and six or eight men with shaved heads always stood on the porch, smoking. Whenever Greta drove by, the men glowered at her, and her butthole clenched as if she were driving over a high bridge. It seemed she wasn’t the only one—the stretch of road in front of the house was covered in loopy skid marks and tire smears, as if the place were cursed and driving past it made you lose control of your vehicle.
Greta’s bigger concern, of course, was “Rebekah.” How on earth had Om neglected to ask about her? He’d been too distracted by Big Swiss’s orgasm, obviously, or maybe the whole thing had gone over his head. Problem was, “Rebekah” was having drinks with Big Swiss in less than two hours, and what if they ran into Om?