“What do you think you’re doing?” Big Swiss said.
“Hold still,” Greta said.
Big Swiss lifted her head off the pillow.
“Just a quick pic,” Greta said.
“What for?”
“For me,” Greta said. “For later.”
Big Swiss covered it with her hand. Two fingers, rather. The thing was that pristine and tidy.
“Only if I can photograph yours,” Big Swiss said.
“Never mind,” Greta said, and dropped her phone.
“I should tell you something,” Big Swiss said.
“Now what,” Greta said.
“Until a month ago, I’d never had an orgasm, with myself or anyone else.”
Greta didn’t say anything.
“Did you hear me?” Big Swiss asked.
“Maybe you should turn over,” Greta suggested.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Big Swiss said. “Most people lose their minds when I tell them.”
Greta took a breath. “Your area seems very… Swiss.”
“Meaning what?”
“If it were a person, it might be an uptight perfectionist.”
“What’s yours?”
“A disorganized enthusiast.”
“Let me see,” Big Swiss said.
Greta’s pussy, still buried under her layers, was a clumsily wrapped Christmas present. Too much wrinkled, recycled paper, not enough tape. At the top, a crooked little bow. In Greta’s view, it was the last present anyone would want to open, but, apparently, according to a new study, badly wrapped gifts were better received.
Big Swiss pulled off Greta’s legwarmers, followed by her jeans, her fleece leggings, and now her nude pantyhose. She stared at Greta’s face.
“Something wrong?” Greta asked.
“Why are you wearing two pairs of pantyhose?”
“I like to be squeezed,” Greta said. “Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s kind of chilly in here.”
Big Swiss peeled off the second pair, along with Greta’s black no-nonsense briefs. Now she looked mildly surprised.
“Merry Christmas,” Greta said.
“That’s okay.”
“Happy Holidays?”
“I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“What are you talking about?” Greta said.
“You have your period,” Big Swiss said.
Greta sat up and looked down at herself. Christmas, it appeared, was two weeks early. She lay back down and tried to smile. Big Swiss eyed Greta’s nightstand.
“Do you have any lube?”
“Coconut oil,” Greta said. “In the drawer.”
The coconut oil was cold and clumpy. Big Swiss’s fingers, also cold. The fucking felt clinical and slightly painful, not unlike a Pap smear, except the smell of coconut brought the tropics to mind.
“Your cervix might be tilted,” Big Swiss actually said. “And your uterus feels ever so slightly… enlarged.”
“Maybe you should be wearing latex gloves.”
Greta focused on a crack in the ceiling. If they were going to do this regularly, she might tack a picture up there. Something calming. The ocean? Although, Big Swiss herself seemed increasingly oceanic: vast, unknowable, capable of swallowing Greta whole. How long had it been since Greta had been with a woman? Years. Men never bothered with fingers, or never for long, and they often didn’t know where to put their thumb, what to do with their other hand, where and when to apply pressure, the necessary balance between stillness and movement. It was all coming back to her now. No matter how long a cock, how great its girth, you never felt as thoroughly fucked as you did with a woman. It went on forever, and a dick couldn’t do what fingers do. Fingers are flexible. Not to mention the other huge difference: the camaraderie of a female mind.
“What are you thinking about?” Big Swiss asked after a long while.
“What you’re doing to my box,” Greta said.
“Can you use a different word?”
“Gash,” Greta said.
Big Swiss grimaced. She removed her fingers, dug into the coconut again, and now—well, the party moved to the next room. Big Swiss’s breathing changed, along with her entire demeanor. Greta felt like she was seeing a photograph of Big Swiss at age seven or eight. She looked both knowing and innocent, more receptive to joy and forgiveness, but there, in the corners of her mouth, the hint of a cruel streak.
At the foot of the bed, Pi?on caught Greta’s eye and held it. “If you want me to put a stop to this,” he seemed to say, “just say the word and I’ll bite this bitch’s bare bottom.”
Greta recalled the time Pi?on got a foxtail stuck up his nose while hunting in a wheat field. He’d sneezed about a thousand times before Greta had taken him to the animal hospital, where she’d learned that a dog’s nose has many chambers, and that a foxtail required minor surgery to remove. Along with anesthesia. And eight hundred dollars.
Of course, Greta’s butthole was not a nostril with many chambers. It was more like an antique keyhole. Big Swiss’s middle finger, a bent key. Beyond the extremely tiny doorway, a grand ballroom with a vaulted ceiling. To judge from her face, Big Swiss had finally arrived at the right place and never wanted to leave. Her pupils dilated. Greta could feel her finger looking around the ballroom. Then it swept the floor. Now it rose and fell, slowly and gracefully, in a Viennese waltz.
A few minutes later it emerged, weak and spent. Greta watched to see if Big Swiss might wipe it on the sheets. She did not. Instead, she reached for her sweater dress and slipped it over her head.
“So, it’s true what they say,” Greta said. “About millennials and ass play.”
Big Swiss made a face. “I’m not a millennial.”
“You’re twenty-eight,” Greta said.
“How do you know?”
“You told me,” Greta said.
“Did I?”
Hadn’t she?
Big Swiss looked toward the window and frowned. She was crashing, it appeared, and the comedown was rough. Greta felt it, too—a doomed sadness. Granted, Greta always felt this way at dusk. Although neither one of them had gotten off, Greta suspected they’d be doing this again, very soon.
“It’s getting dark,” Big Swiss announced. “I should head home.”
To her husband. Luke. Greta had thought of him exactly twice, and both times she’d imagined him standing at his living room window, watching his wife wander their yard in a trance. He’d tapped the window to get her attention and had been met with confusion and bewilderment. Who’re you? What are you doing in my house? Then Greta had imagined him tapping her own window. She imagined a pane of glass falling to the floor, his face poking into the room. Who’re you? What are you doing to my wife?
But Big Swiss had probably been thinking of him all afternoon. So, although neither of them had gotten off, Greta suspected they would never do this again.
“Next time,” Big Swiss said, “you can do whatever you want to me.”
Greta exhaled loudly. “Does that include kissing?”
“Yes,” Big Swiss said.
“When?”
“Tomorrow, from three forty to five forty-five,” Big Swiss said.