* * *
When we return to New York, Eve has moved us into the new apartment. Our sad little clothes, which are dry-cleaned and hanging in the walk-in closet, have come with us. But our furniture, our dishes, our pots with scratched bottoms, our disgusting excuse for a rug, our dead plants, all have been discarded. In their place, there are things in sets. A dining set, which is an oval table framed by six very upright chairs. A sofa set, which is an L-shaped sofa with a matching armchair. There are clusters of things that look good together, like bookshelves and curtains and potted plants. Color schemes. Ideas. Everything is easy on the eye, and when it isn’t, like the jagged, angry abstract painting in the hallway, it is meant to be there, like a sprinkle of salt on a slab of chocolate. Cyrus and I bounce on the bed, sprawl out on the sofa, press buttons on the remote control and find that it opens and closes the blinds and not the television, hunt around for the television remote and find that it responds to voice requests, and then, about an hour later, after pressing buttons on the coffeemaker and the ice maker and the lighting and the sound system, we unpack our suitcases, shower, and head to the office.
At Utopia, the first thing I have to do is congratulate Destiny on her funding from Manishala and graciously accept her resignation.
“I’ll be right downstairs,” she says. “Like literally two floors away.”
“Do you still have the inflatable doll?”
“Von? Hell, yeah. I just need a bike pump to bring that baby back to life.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Hire two engineers, beta-launch in November. See what happens. Why, you need a job?”
“Would you hire me?”
“In a heartbeat. In the meantime, don’t worry, I’ll be sure to find a replacement before I go.”
Li Ann bounds up to us. “I have something for you,” she whispers, taking what appears to be a pillbox out of her handbag.
I tell her I can’t do drugs. “It would interfere with my genius.”
“Shut up, no one does drugs anymore.” She opens the box, and inside there is a tiny pink hair clip. “Meet Flitter,” she says.
“It’s a vibrator, isn’t it,” Destiny says.
“We are going to need a lot of orgasms in the afterworld.” Li Ann lifts it out of the box and holds it up for us to see. “You just clip it to your clitoris.” She presses on the sides and it opens its tiny mouth.
I tell her it looks painful.
“It’s a hundred percent not painful.”
“I can’t believe you made a sex toy,” Destiny says.
“It’s not a toy. It’s a handbag essential.”
“You’re going to carry it around in your handbag?”
“As far as I can see, there are three distinct use cases for this product. Number one, you have sex with your partner, and he comes and you don’t. What are you going to do? Run an entire bath just so you can hump your showerhead? No, you just clip Flitter on and lie there, and boom. You can rest peacefully beside him instead of tossing and turning because his tongue got tired.”
“I hate men,” Destiny says.
“Use case number two. You have a stressful meeting at work. Your colleagues are repeatedly ignoring you and backslapping each other. ‘Excuse me,’ you say, and you run to the bathroom, get your Flitter out, and while they’re congratulating each other on the size of their dicks, you can have a totally silent orgasm.”
“You want me to come in the office bathroom?”
“It is called Utopia.” Destiny laughs.
“You don’t think the guys are jerking off constantly at work?” Li Ann says.
I really don’t want to think about that. “Gross.”
“Men have orgasms all the time. That’s why they walk around looking like they own everything.”
“They do own everything.”
“What’s the third use case?”
“Thanksgiving.”
I’m starting to feel queasy. “That is just wrong.”
“If your family is anything like mine, you need a little something to get through the holidays.”
“So you’re telling me you would just have an orgasm in front of everyone.”
“If you can keep a straight face, yes. Because Flitter is totally noiseless. It doesn’t even really vibrate. It uses centrifugal force to tug on your—”
“Okay, that’s it,” Destiny says. She plucks the box from Li Ann’s hand and strides toward the Disabled toilet. Li Ann and I talk about other things, trying not to look at our watches to see how long it will take for Destiny to return. After approximately seven minutes, she reappears. “I’ll be keeping this,” she says, putting the little case in her pocket.