“Regan, aren’t you late?”
“Not yet,” she said, “but I will be, if you want.” She knew he wouldn’t.
“We both know you’re not going anywhere, babe. All your stuff is here. You hate inconvenience. And you’d have to use condoms again.”
She made a face. “True.”
“Have you taken your pills?” he asked.
She glanced at her watch. If she left in five minutes, she’d probably still make it.
She considered what she could do in five minutes. This isn’t working, I’m not happy, it’s been fun—that would take what, thirty seconds? Marc wouldn’t cry, which was something she liked about him, so it wouldn’t be terribly inconvenient. Then she’d have four and a half minutes to gather up the things that mattered and throw them into a bag, which would really only require about two. Which would then leave two and half minutes. Ah, but thirty seconds for pills, she kept forgetting. Five seconds to take them but twenty or so to stare blankly at the bottles. Which … what could she do with the remaining two minutes? Eat breakfast? It was nearly two-thirty. Breakfast was out of the question, temporally speaking, and besides, she wasn’t sure she could eat yet.
Motion from the clock suggested that Regan’s five minutes for flight had dropped to four. There’d be such a terrible restriction on her time now unless she recalculated, rescheduled. Changed her priorities.
“I have to do something,” she said suddenly, turning away.
“Are we breaking up?” Marc called after her.
“Not today,” she told him, snatching the orange bottles from their usual place beside the fridge before making her way to the bathroom. She set the pills aside and pulled herself onto the sink, hiking one leg upright to rest her heel atop the marble counter, and slid her hand under her seamless thong, unlocking her phone with her free hand. She’d never enjoyed porn, finding it kind of … upsettingly unsubtle. She preferred mystery—craved it like a drug—so she pulled up a password protected note on her screen.
THE FIRST PHOTO is a grainy shot of a nondescript male hand under a short skirt, positioned lasciviously between the slim curves of female thighs. The second is a black-and-white image of two female torsos pressed together.
This, Regan determined, was worth it. This was the better decision. She could have ended her relationship, true, but instead she had these four minutes. No, three and a half. But she knew her physicalities well, and therefore knew she’d need only three, tops. That left at least thirty seconds.
With the remainder of her time, she could do something very Regan, like tucking her underwear into Marc’s jacket pocket before she kissed him goodbye. He’d find it later that evening, probably while he was schmoozing with some bespoke-suited exec, at which point he’d sneak into a bathroom stall and take a picture of his dick for her. He’d expect something in return, probably, but in all likelihood she’d be sleeping. Or maybe she wouldn’t have come home at all. What a mystery, her future self! The possibilities were fascinatingly mundane and yet, somehow, perfectly endless, which was close enough to elation itself.
She came, biting down on the sensation, and exhaled.
Forty-five seconds.
REGAN reaches for the bottle of pills and says nothing. She wonders how long it will be until she feels something again.
* * *
ALDO WAS GETTING HIS PH.D. in theoretical mathematics, which meant a broad variety of things depending on who he was saying it to. Strangers were typically impressed with him, albeit in a disbelieving sort of way. Most people thought he was joking, as people who looked like him did not typically say the words “I’m getting my doctorate in theoretical mathematics” unironically. His father was proud of him but blindly, having been bewildered by most things Aldo had done or said for the majority of his life. Others were unsurprised. “You’re one of those brainy fucks, right?” Aldo’s dealer used to say, always asking about the chances of winning this or that, and though Aldo would remind him that statistics was a practical application, i.e. applied math, his dealer would simply shrug, ask something about life in outer space （Aldo didn’t know anything about life in outer space） and hand him the items he’d requested.
Aldo’s students detested him. The truly gifted ones tolerated him, but the others—the undergraduates who were taking calculus to satisfy requirements for study—positively loathed him. He lent very little thought to why, which was likely part of the problem.