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This is what people go through.

Now is my turn.

I catch my breath, brace myself, grit my teeth, feel the tightness in my jaw, less than it’s been, but still tight—an odd relief. I ready myself; nod.

—

All right,
I tell myself.
I never have to go through that again.

My pajamas and undergarments lie on the floor next to the bed. Since I am now approved to shower, it has been impressed upon me that cleanliness is very important to my health. There are no words for how ready I am to wash away the bed grime, the sour stench of my own self. I use the intercom to let them know I’m going to shower. “You can come in and change the sheets.”

A chipper answer:
“All righty.”

The water is a refreshing assault; I let it wash over my skull, my shoulders, turn and lift my head, let the water batter the front of my neck. I hold on to the steel pole for support, stand under the blast for as long as my legs allow. Afterward, still soaking wet, I defy fate and manage a bowel movement. The plastic lid is sealed, the small container gets placed as instructed, atop the toilet.

Back in my freshly cleaned bed, settling on the spanking white sheets, I again call the nurses’ station, report that I have a sample.

Another
“All righty,”
just as chipper as the first.

Feeling a measure of competence, I shut my eyes, let myself drift.

—

Across the street from Penn Station, a dusty office building from the era of brimmed fedoras and three martini lunches: Oliver ignored the rental cop at the counter and headed straight to the groaning elevator. He traversed the dusty maze of deco hallways with their obsolete bronze mailboxes, their ornate eagles—eyes still alert, watching. Then he was at his destination: that dark room, its door creaking ajar. Illuminated by the usual series of scented candles, she emerged: small, curvy, fitting the description he’d heard over the phone, her body fully packed into that matching bra and panties. Perla, this one’s name. Attractive enough, but older than promised, her nose long and Baltic and red and veined at its rounded nostrils. The wear of life around her eyes. Mouth pinched at the corners. She purred his name, held out her hand for his picture ID.

This moment remained a stomach churner, a test of his most paranoid self: Who needed to get caught in the middle of a sting? Or what if something went wrong and his identification got taken, or fell onto the floor and was left behind? Along with his appointment record, this could be an evidence trail, a way to track him, expose him to the world. (Thank hell, nobody had done that pecker check since the first time.)

Perla handed back his card.

And so here he was, in yet another nondescript bedroom. And this wasn’t even that, just a bare office space with gothic moldings and a queen-size in its middle—far enough away from walls that the headboard would not thump. Oliver stepped inside, moving onto the industrial carpet and past the line of canvas sneakers and platform shoes, all of them in small sizes, almost like children’s shoes. The closet door was open, a travel suitcase on the floor, overflowing with tangled tops and jeans. Next to it sat a small pile of goodies (logic suggested they’d been purchased from nearby Koreatown wholesalers): perfume boxes still in cellophane wrappers, toy stuffed bears, samplers of dark chocolate.

Putting the envelope on the small bedside table, he turned to her, expectant, experienced enough now to know the deal—for these rates, he wasn’t getting street whores. One had worn a sleek evening dress. Another, at Oliver’s request, had been in casual wear, like she was the girl next door. They poured tasteful wines, asked his feelings on the market, made an easy segue into whether he wanted a massage; they rubbed breasts up and down his back, nibbled at his ear.

“You want shower?” Perla motioned.

Thin white towels stacked atop the toilet. The above shelf held a pink gallon jug of Vagisil, an economy supersizer of Listerine. Mouthwash killed germs, made blowjobs safe. Before penetration, your more experienced girls worked the condom application into their routine, putting it on with a sexy handjob or the mouth. Once, Oliver had been with a gorgeous but nervous African girl—new to the biz, barely out of her teens, she’d refused to start until he’d washed his genitals with antibacterial lotion.
Do NOT,
she’d demanded,
touch
your dick
. Still he’d gripped (
Force of habit, sorry
). She’d ordered:
Go back to the toilet, do it again.

Fragrance-free shampoo by Vidal Sassoon. Oliver flinched, stayed the hell away.

Patting himself down, he wrapped a towel around his pudge, and tried not to think about his expanding belly, let alone the mess of used towels filling the hamper. In the main room, the stereo was already playing, shitty pop like always. The envelope had disappeared from the table. Perla’s bra and panties were also gone. Burnt-orange tan, melons huge and juicy, midriff showing a cesarean scar. Smiling at him, her face became soft and young. She motioned him onto the bed. In a manner that a man might let himself believe was genuine, she whispered:
“I will take care of you.”

—

The lie he’d told himself was: one time.
Just to get it out of his system.
It wasn’t so easy. Though they barely kissed him, or kissed with a grudging stiffness. Though they only got wet from douche. They licked, bobbed, gagged, grinded, pressed, moved from missionary to doggy-style, bodies pliable, up for any position, any act that you could pay for, but only that much. That constant distance. Sex for the john to bust his load and feel satisfied. Oliver might come—might come really hard—but he always left those apartments unfulfilled. Depressed about sinking so low in the first place, and then paying for
that
? He’d feel taken advantage of. A failure in every way a man could fail. There was only one possible answer: another appointment. And on those rare occasions he staggered away with his head woozy and his knees weak, need also gnawed at him—another really good fuck, soon as he could.

He was in a different universe than the one where he’d been looked at with abject love. This much was certain.

And yet, female skin remained its own miracle.

Perla’s eyes went heavy lidded.

She moaned, bit her bottom lip. Her nub of clit glowed red and full of blood. Oliver felt the deeper muscles in her vagina contract around him.

No matter if there was professional distance, no matter the emotional barriers, reminders seeped through: the human body’s higher capacities. Had he made her come? Made her feel anything real? He was ashamed it mattered to him, and chose to believe anyway.

Afterward Perla smoked in the small walk-in kitchenette. While Oliver dressed, she made a call and talked briefly in Russian. She paid him the requisite, above-the-marquee compliments—that was
sensational,
he had a
sensational
cock. Then she gave him the usual sell, telling him
he
was
sensational,
and that she wanted him to become her regular visitor. Once again, she asked if he wanted to use the shower, checked through the peephole to make sure nobody was in the hallway.

—

How long he’s been at the side of the bed, I don’t know. His irises deep with relief, his face concerned. If I possessed the energy, I would reach out and stroke his cheek. “How you doing?” he asks, only the words are garbled, something in his mouth. “Hanging in?”

Too worn to smile, I keep looking at him. His hair flops down in front of his face, and he concentrates on the keyboard, hits a few soft notes. My bag of lemon drops rests on the furthest keys. There’s something he’s been working on, he says. Can he share with me?

Pensive notes in a middle register. They build, but not quickly. He hums along. The played notes may be diffuse, but a rhythm forms from them, and the sound moves, higher, coming quicker. I shut my eyes and listen. I let myself float.

I feel the radiation sunburn pulse across my forehead.

The song drifts like leaves. Soon I understand that its melody is a form of flight, and choose to ignore the clumsy parts. It is nice to have something surprise me like this. To not worry about consequences.

“Lovely,” I tell him, “that you wanted to take me away.”

“Work in progress.” His grin is thankful, mischievous. “Want to hear another one?” Instead of waiting for permission, he acts like a college boy with an acoustic guitar at a kegger, anxious to show that flock of coeds what he can do. His new song kicks off with a jaunty rhythm, one that could lead a parade down Main Street.

—

Then it happens. Oliver enters the room. He’s already speaking, loudly congratulating me for getting through my radiation, saying he’s so proud of me. Here the melody stops; the closing door knocks into Oliver’s back; I see the scene register on his face: Oliver first digesting, then figuring out who this keyboardist is, absorbing the manner in which this man is looking at me—and perhaps how I am looking at Merv. How
have
I been looking at Merv? My immediate reaction is terror. We’ve been caught. Then I think,
What is there to catch?

Oliver’s eyes are liquid pools. He looks as if he’s taken a blow that’s buckled his knees, rocked him back onto his heels. Now I see him registering the open bag of candy on Merv’s keyboard.

For an instant I worry I am watching a man being broken. But I also want to shout:
See how it feels. You aren’t the only one.

And now I see that Oliver is taking me in: my diminished body wrapped in so many bedsheets, nearly mummified; my sunburned, grotesque face; my expression at once terrified and wired.

He is silent. He is still. Like a layer of protective skin and marrow has been stripped away, revealing a more naked, essential being.

I have a beat of worry that Merv will say some asshole thing.

“Keep playing.”

The flat dagger of Oliver’s words. He takes two steps toward me, looks me in the eye, kisses my cheek.

Reaching for a metal folding chair, he is resigned, reflective. I see his hurt.

He shrugs. “More the merrier, right?”

Merv is glancing between my husband and me, looking worried, considering what to do. An upper corner of his lip rises. A twisted smile. Now he looks down, devotes his attention to the keyboard.

He launches into what sounds like cabaret styling, only it somehow seems bouncier, jaunty. It takes me a few seconds, but then, before I even know what I’m doing, I squeal.
“ ‘Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick.’ ”
Oliver looks at me with obvious dismay. Still, I blurt out the next lyric,
“ ‘The one that makes me scream,’
she said,”
diving into that radio standard from years ago.

—

We go on for a while, four, maybe five songs: blasphemous rumors as espoused by pale Germans in a competitive world; patient boys simmering in untold waiting rooms; a lovelorn question delivered from some early-morning barstool into an answering machine. Each song is not just recognizable but a jewel, culled from how many nights spent fiddling with a radio knob, stretching out an antenna, hoping to coax forth middling reception, that favorite, faraway college radio station. Oliver’s being polite—I can even sense his appreciation—but I can also tell that he’s measuring, wondering what Merv’s presence in this room means. Merv meanwhile has a performer’s studied immersion. With practiced and nonchalant one-upmanship, he goes out of his way to concentrate on that keyboard, as if everything that matters is located there. Every now and then he looks up, glances toward me. I keep that beatific smile plastered on my face.

—

Bless Glendora! She shows not one care for our little triangle, only for her responsibilities. Plodding to the side of my bed, she stoops—her head, neck, and shoulders lowering as if worked by a rusty crank. Her lower torso follows, then her waist. In this groaning manner she manages toward the floor. An excess of old syringes and runaway tubing lies around the overflowing red plastic container. Glendora sighs. “They ain’t cleaning none of this?” She starts gathering the excess. “Some cock and bull—” she begins.

“Bullshit,”
Oliver interrupts. “Straight-up
bullshit
.

“I could tell you wanted to say that,” he adds.

I feel myself wanting to apologize. Merv meanwhile has stopped playing, is laughing into his shirt collar.

Glendora seems uncertain whether the white people are having a laugh at her expense. Then she shakes her head, calls us a bunch of silly crackers. I hear the rest of the room’s appreciative yelps. My relief allows me to join. Now Glendora places the tubing in the trash bin outside, comes back, opens the bathroom door. “You got that stool sample for me?”

“I gave a sample this morning.”

Purple-shaded eyes blink repeatedly. She puckers her mouth. “Blasco just asked.”

“It’s not on top of the toilet?”

She looks around. “Not in here.”

“I promise I left it.”

“Ain’t on the chart, honey. Ain’t on the chart, we ain’t got it.”

—

Don’t ask me how, but I manage yet another accomplishment: an unheard-of second gold medal in ass gymnastics; yes, another clean sample, achieved in a single day. The nursing desk does not answer. A second call brings no response.

Finally, at almost nine in the evening, an hour and ten minutes after my first call, someone answers.

“I need help with something,” I say. “And I still need someone to pick up this sample.”

Within minutes, another Caribbean woman arrives—I believe her name is Shanti, but don’t have time to check my notes. She says there’s an emergency on the floor. Glendora’s busy dealing with that. “What can I do?”

“Thank you, if you could clear away my tray. But really, I called for the sample to be picked up.”

I see she’s hurried, and clearly annoyed, presumably
with me.
She goes into the bathroom. I hear her say, “Sweet Jesus.” A splashing sound: the toilet flushes.