Ushma and her mother, Gayatri, lived on the second floor of a duplex in a neighbourhood called Fountain City, close to where Gayatri worked so she wouldn’t spend half her salary on gas. That was the problem with Knoxville; except downtown and in some richer neighbourhoods, there were no sidewalks. You couldn’t walk to the grocery store or even to the park near your house. This was starkly different from Ajmer, their small but lively hometown in India. Ushma and Gayatri moved almost four years ago, and even though it seemed like her mother had eased into the rhythm of this sleepy town, Ushma still had a hard time adjusting to the vast, exploding quiet.
There were no children her age in her neighbourhood, only middle-aged couples with their German Shepherds and Goldendoodles, and the occasional graduate student who couldn’t afford to live near campus. Nina, their chatty neighbour, was one of the only people who lived alone in their vicinity, and she was very proud of it. “Don’t need no man,” she would always tell Ushma, whenever she caught a glimpse of her on her way back from school, or on winter afternoons when she would find her reading Stephen King on her porch.
Ushma never really knew her father, it had been her and her mother ever since she could recollect. Back in Ajmer, the answers were vague – he is on a business trip abroad and they don’t have cell service; he is busy but will visit us soon; he loves you very much and sends us letters, you can read them when you’re older – they would sit for hours on the drawing room floor looking at their wedding album, the same rotation of twenty or so sepia-toned photographs, the only tangible objects Ushma could connect to her father.
Neighbours speculated that he had a wife and three kids in another state, some said he had killed himself, while some believed he still lived in the same town. She didn’t know who to believe– how could she, when she didn’t know anything about him except his name? What was his favourite meal? Where did he work? Did he ever cry? Did he choose her name? Whenever she went to Gayatri with these questions, she would be shut down with a flick of her hand. Confused and curious, Ushma finally decided she knew who she had to go to, if she wanted to know the truth.
Ushma’s maternal grandmother, Devi, was a modern, independent woman, especially in comparison to other women her age. She didn’t visit often, but whenever she did, she would thrust a slim wad of cash in her granddaughter’s hands, hidden from her daughter. She knew Gayatri was too proud, just like herself. Ushma put this money in one of her old pencil cases, and when it amounted to a substantial number, she would buy herself or her friends little presents, jewellery or a mystery novel. There wasn’t much to spend on in Ajmer. It was dingy and chaotic for the most part, with tourists from all over the country polluting the streets when they came to pay their respects to the Dargah Sharif. The concept of having a savings account was, naturally, foreign to her.
Another reason why her mother was so eager to move was the fact that they were one of the only Hindu families in their town, and while this was not an issue for the most part, they never celebrated Durga Puja or Kali Puja in the grand ways that people from the Eastern states did.
Surely, Ushma thought, her grandma would know about her father’s whereabouts, and surely, she wouldn’t lie to her. But to her ravaging disappointment, all she got was disapproving murmurs and a “Why don’t you ask your mother?” Her mother was not emotionally open like the moms who waited with hot lunch for their kids to devour after school; she was the kind of mom who never asked her about her day, and never expected to be asked about her day either. They ate breakfast together every morning, not as a ritual or as an intentional bonding moment, but because it was convenient for both of them before Ushma left for school, and Gayatri, for work. Ushma learned early in life that normalcy looked different for everyone, and although it should have made her sad, it made her feel special, as if she was on the highest tier of a pyramid everyone was desperately trying to climb.
***
Gayatri met Mukesh while they were volunteering for Durga Puja celebrations. He was a devout Hindu, the kind who kept a fast every Monday for good fortune. He knew all the shlokas by heart and wore a sacred thread. His family had their ancestral house in Bombay and he was a strict vegetarian. He couldn’t even bear to look at his friends who ate eggs. He vowed not to touch a woman until he was married. If people were clarified butter, he was the topmost creamy layer, and anything below was scum.
There was no concept of casual dating among Indian immigrants, especially not among attractive mothers who were the topic of discussion at every festival, every wedding. Gayatri was no exception. Her beauty was rapacious and all the older women unanimously agreed that it would be no one else’s fault but her own if she took any longer tying Mukesh down. She needed to settle down with him, which was code for getting married and birthing at least two children, preferably boys. After all, where else would she find a pious man like him, one from a respectable family and a secure job, who didn’t even hesitate to move forward even after knowing she had a grown daughter?
Gayatri worked as a nurse at the Fountain City Urgent Care, which meant she was often assigned erratic shifts, and more often than not, overtime. She asked Mukesh to keep an eye on her daughter – an unpaid babysitter – even though Ushma was fifteen and didn’t need scrutinising. But if there is one thing you learned growing up in India, it is that you never cross your mother. If she says her boyfriend is going to watch you, then you adhere to being watched without any complaints.
Apart from that one time when Mukesh walked into the only bathroom in the house and found Ushma on the toilet seat– he immediately closed the door and left and they never mentioned it– the relationship they shared could be best described as cordial. On most days, they didn’t acknowledge each other’s presence or were simply indifferent to it.
That one incident, though, kept peeking back into his mind and made Mukesh suspect that Ushma had left the door unlocked on purpose. Surely, she had a crush on him. He was flattered by the thought. They would hardly talk to each other as she completed her homework and he lounged on the sofa, watching cricket or football (soccer, not American football) highlights. He was supposed to work from home and even though he had his computer screen open on the coffee table, Ushma hardly saw him look at it, let alone pay attention to it. It seemed to her as if he was getting paid for simply existing. Nothing about him, she thought, was monumental.
Ushma was glad he never brought up the bathroom incident although she didn’t trust him to move on from it. As long as it stayed between them, it would be okay. She could handle it. She couldn’t remember when and why they started watching TV together but it must have been one of those lazy Tuesday afternoons when she skipped gym to come home early and there wasn’t much to do after she’d hastily completed the response paper for The Color Purple. She had read the book thrice and watched the movie twice, and every time she encountered it in any form, it made her cry. So she went and sat next to him, feeling angsty, and without warning, took the remote from the couch in a quick motion. Before he even realised what had happened, she changed the channel to MTV, where the only music on rotation was Bruno Mars, Avril Lavigne, and Adele. Still, it worked. It shattered the quiet.
In the moments that followed, he was so furious that he didn’t even say a word. He sank into the couch, barely acknowledging her presence next to him. This was the daughter of the woman he was courting, and for what? Once he felt a little calm, he strutted to the kitchen, opened one of the cabinets, and took out the fancy china from behind, the one reserved exclusively for VVIP guests. He held the dish in his hands, carefully studying the white-on-white patterns on the rim, feeling its weight in his hands. This was one of the few things Gayatri had retained from her wedding presents and one of the few things she had carried with her from home. Thinking of what he was about to do next, he felt a current tingle through his body. He felt hot in his back, in his trousers, and as he held the plate above his head, moments before he smashed it on the floor, he felt himself get really, really hard.
The sound of the china shattering was loud enough to break through the music. It was as if there was an unspoken agreement that the loudest sound determined ownership of the house. At first, she thought something had slipped from his hand and was worried that he might have cut himself on accident, but when she walked to the kitchen and saw the look of triumph on his face, his eyes sparkling with glee, one hand on his crotch, she knew he had hit her exactly where it would hurt. Holding his phone in the air with his other hand, he said, “I have already written the text to your mom. Just need to send it. How do you think she will react when she finds out?” Ushma immediately knew he wasn’t just talking about the plate, and even though she wanted to scream at him saying you know nothing about her you really think she will believe you over me i will tell her the truth why did you have to overreact the television is as much mine as it is yours in fact it is mine more she did not, because she quickly realised that manipulation was a game he was adept at playing. She quietly mopped away the shards of china and they never spoke of it again.
It wasn’t ceremonious at all, but after that incident, they grew closer in a way neither of them had anticipated. They would spend their afternoons together, not speaking to each other, but mutually admitting they needed each other to fill their respective lonelinesses. Mostly, nothing would happen. Three, four, sometimes five hours would pass by without either of them saying a word until Gayatri would be home from work and Ushma would retreat into her room. Sometimes though, they jabbed each other only because they knew they could. She would suddenly burst into song or stand in front of the TV screen, blocking the important highlights of his favourite team. It would be funny at first, him shaking his head and laughing, until it wasn’t. She wouldn’t stop, looking directly at him, a determination in her eyes worn by only those who had nothing left to lose. He didn’t say much to her, if it was a good day, he would squeeze her arm and throw her on the ground until she cried out in pain (this started becoming less and less effective because the stronger his grip became, the more she started laughing). On other days, when the team he bet on would lose, he was sour and terrifying and even the sound of her chewing made him torturous. He would hold her by her hair and thrust her face onto one of the cushions on the couch, waiting for twenty…thirty seconds until her gasping became fainter and fainter. She never fought back, at least not enough to show him that she wanted him to stop. What they shared was nameless, but they were unified about the fact that whatever happened in those afternoons was only theirs to share. Neither of them ever spoke a word about it to Gayatri, or anyone else for that matter.
On one Friday, when Gayatri was gone especially long– she was on a work trip to Asheville– something in the air shifted. It had been raining all morning, the sky grey and gloomy, and she could sense Mukesh getting flustered, as if he was anticipating some really bad news. Maybe he was just horny and angry at Gayatri, or himself, who even knew. She made sure to be extra coy in her attempts at triggering his attention, plotting ways of seduction where he wouldn’t be able to avert his gaze from her even if he wanted to. Even if he really, really should have.
As he was pacing across the living room, she walked right in, touched his elbow briefly, and when she had his undivided attention, lifted her skirt for a second too long for him to see that she was walking around the house without underwear. She then went to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and came back to sit on one end of the couch, cross-legged and unmindful. Ten minutes passed by without a reaction from him. She was starting to get impatient. When he finally opened his mouth, it wasn’t words that erupted but droplets of spit. He spat on her feet, watching it drool down to the gaps between her toes, then to the cold marble floor. He held her face in his hands and asked her if she enjoyed being a whore. If she had ever had a man inside of her, if her being fatherless was the reason her legs were always open and inviting.
They didn’t have a written, or even verbal, arrangement, but once they eased into their designated roles, her the exhibitionist, him the spectator, they fell into a synchronised rhythm. Neither of them ever said anything but it was evident that they spent their afternoons yearning to be noticed by the other.
On one such day, her mother called saying she would have to work an extra shift because her co-worker Joanna’s daughter-in-law’s water broke and they had to rush her to the hospital and she owed Joanna for that one time…you understand, right? and Mukesh will be there anyway you don’t need to wait up for me to have dinner there are leftovers from the previous night heat it for 1 minute 30 seconds not more not less and her voice drifted away as Mukesh drew closer to her study desk and gleamed, “Ushma, seems like it’s just us tonight.”
He asked if she would like to go to the mall. It would be a nice change of scenery, he said. Why the hell not, she thought and was getting impatient after browsing through seven skincare aisles in Sephora because Mukesh wanted her advice on getting Gayatri some expensive skincare for how hard she works when he finally revealed why he was so keen on them coming to the mall. “I want to gift you a doll,” he paused, “for being good.” She both understood and did not understand him at that moment but knew him enough to gauge from the ferocity in his eyes when to speak and when to be quiet.
He bought her two dolls, if you could even call them dolls, they were more like miniature mannequins– ugly and bald. After they came back home, his voice was the gentlest it had ever been. He asked her to unwrap them from their plastic cases, take their clothes off, and touch the dots of their nipples on their vinyl bodies. As slowly and delicately as she could. Nothing he did surprised her anymore. “If you tell your mother about this, you know I will just deny it. She anyway thinks you’re deranged after you broke her expensive china,” he added. “On purpose.” He slurped the last of his soda. He brought his mouth close to her face, exhaling his sour metallic breath on her, but never, not once, touching her.
They had their own ritual now. It always began steadily and felt elaborate, as most rituals do. He would ask her to go to her room, lie on the bed comfortably, or on the ground if she didn’t want to mess up her sheets, spread her thighs apart and Facetime him. He could never, would never, look at her sitting right in front of him doing heinous things. But when separated by a screen, it was different. He didn’t need to see her face. It could be anyone. It could be his girlfriend, Gayatri, whose nurse’s uniform he could mentally undress to reveal her supple body. Ushma didn’t need to do much, just listen to the sound of his voice and follow the instructions. She could even think she was doing it for a lover, someone you know, closer to your age.
All she needed to do was take the doll in her hands and play with it exactly the way he instructed her to— it was always the same, it was almost like muscle memory to her now— show some love to your doll, Ushma, he would start and what it meant was touch the doll as you would touch yourself. When that went on for five minutes or so he would be bored and aggravated and his voice would grow hoarser and more demanding. Take the doll’s hand to your lips, and obviously, lips meant pussy everyone knew that the boys in her school knew that all the boys in the world knew that so how could she pretend she didn’t so she would take the doll’s hand to the linings of her vagina and sometimes he would ask her to put some Vaseline or Parachute coconut oil. You should be moist she could envision his smile as he asked her to put the doll’s arm deeper Don’t tell me it hurts I know you can take a boy’s cock surely this isn’t too big so she does. Another lifetime passed till she was heaving and sweating and she hated her body her legs her hips for giving up on her nonetheless the next step was always the doll’s head. Rub with all your strength don’t go gentle now come on I know you play soccer show me how lesbians rub against one another I need to see the head of the doll drenched in your nectar.
After a few weeks, she started to forget that there was an actual person on the other side of the phone, let alone her mother’s boyfriend. She would close her eyes and think of the whole process as some kind of guided meditation. After all, she did feel good afterwards, although it was hard to bask in it through the blanket of whatever this new feeling was: perhaps a mixture of guilt and shame, heavily superseded by euphoria. The only thing she didn’t enjoy was having to act normal when her mother came home and she had to wash up, pull up her pants and sit with them at the dinner table, pretending they didn’t share a special moment, everything was normal, and this was how families typically were I mean a man obviously had needs and she was still a virgin, he had never laid even a finger on her.
The worst days were when she was on her period. He had synced his email to her ovulation cycle app and knew exactly when she started bleeding. Those were his favourite days because she was naturally lubricated. This is a woman’s gift do the same thing but thrice because blood makes me harder oh I wish your mother let me touch her when she had her time of the month but you oh you are so open-minded don’t you dare wipe the doll bring it to me ah fresh and earthy I can inhale this forever bring me the doll let me lick it clean. This was when he was in a good mood. Lord forbid he had a bad gambling day or somehow she did something to foul up his attitude oh on those days she had to kneel on the cold marble floor blood dripping on the white below don’t worry we can clean that up later but for now kneel and look at Durga Ma in the eye and tell her what you have done you filthy animal. If I were you I would kill myself.
It wasn’t like she didn’t try. It was just that she failed every time. One time she held the guitar strings so tight the lines on her fingers tore apart there was so much blood on her desk she screeched there was no time to nurse the wound and also write the note and also not wince in pain and also actually follow through the deed. Moreover, Gayatri always said people who kill themselves have no place to go after they’re dead, they float in the space between the spiritual planes no one wants cowards you will haunt yourself forever you will never be at peace your seat at the dinner table will be empty but no one will stop serving themselves rice and mutton curry. And then that other time when she was fiddling with her razor and her friend kept calling her to help her decide which dress she should wear on a date with a guy who was seven years older than her – if she should dress slutty or sophisticated and Was there even a way to do both? She had too long of a pause and then the razor felt heavy and suddenly she wanted to go to school the next day and hear her friend talk about how badly the date went and how in the end, it didn’t matter what she wore because like all men, he was a dickhead.
Besides, he was always lurking. You could smell him before you saw him and if anyone knew his smell by memory, it was her. It was a kind of smell that she couldn’t put a finger on but that felt like what she imagined was a ballsack dipped in spoiled milk, earthy, sour, remarkably pungent. Yet its lack scared her even more.
For every attempt that failed, she wrote a crisp note. She wanted her work to be remembered, even celebrated, posthumously, like Van Gogh, so she wrote and rewrote her last words until the metaphors sounded perfect but somehow it always ended with “I feel so good” or “This is exactly how getting high feels like.” If she wasn’t wet from imagining what the next afternoon would bring, she would visualise her mom and him having sex, or worse, jerking each other off, it wouldn’t be long before they got married and started to get to know each other intimately, and in those brief moments, she would feel like she was the dirtiest girl in all of America. Then she had to remind herself that her mother did always tell her to obey him, especially now that he was so close to officially becoming her father.
Her American classmates learned about masturbation the way girls are supposed to– you talk to your friends about it, and if you’re lucky, really lucky, your mother takes you to Target and buys you a vibrator thinly veiled as a body massager. Otherwise, you used electric toothbrushes or a jet spray until you learned the many ways in which your body had the potential to explode. You weren’t supposed to be given a lesson on touching yourself by your mother’s boyfriend who thought premarital sex was the biggest sin but looking at his girlfriend’s daughter stick her fingers into the crevices of her body was perfectly normal. Just a father-daughter bonding moment. You know, getting to know her better, because the day wasn’t far enough when he and Gayatri would be ceremoniously wedded.
It was disgraceful to even imagine saying dirty words like “masturbation” and “orgasm,” thanks to her orthodox upbringing, let alone talk about them to another person. And her friends? Well, you needed to actually have friends to ask them personal questions like these. It wasn’t that she was unlikable (or worse, bullied). In fact, the girls in her high school were always nice to her, waving and smiling whenever they passed each other in the hallway, exchanging small talk when they were paired together in Chemistry class. She was amicable, even pleasant if she tried, and sometimes would even go to Sammy or Rachel’s house to work together on group projects. But that was the end. They knew nothing about her – not where she lived, not who her parents were, not what she liked or hated or feared. In the beginning, they tried to include her more in their social gatherings, inviting her to birthday parties and movies and art fairs but she would always pull some weak excuse – I have a headache I have homework for AP Lit My mom doesn’t like it when I stay out late – so they stopped asking.
The reason she rushed home from school and sprinted to her house from the bus stop was what awaited her. At first, it was deep embarrassment, she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror after, but as weeks passed by, she began to feel like she was some kind of special. She felt proud that he considered her grown enough to keep a secret, especially from his girlfriend, her mom, and this particular thrill accelerated knowing that this was something no one else in the world knew or could touch. It was hers, only hers.
Ushma wasn’t resentful of her mother but she wasn’t exactly grateful for her either. It had always been the two of them, with occasional visits from her grandmother or her uncle, but they started to become few and far between as she grew older. After pestering her daughter for years to remarry, her grandmother decided it was best to leave her alone. The decision to move to America had been sudden, at least to her, but her mother had it in the works for years. It took her four lawyers and seventy grand to even apply for a Work Permit. But to Ushma, all of this was new information, shielded from her innocent eyes. Gayatri only told her two weeks before the end of the school year, she would be done with fifth grade and wouldn’t have to repeat any classes I made sure you’re up to date, you’re so smart, Ushma, a new life awaits us, we will be so happy. It wasn’t a matter left for choice and Ushma had learned early in life to not waste time and energy fighting for things that were already fated. In that way, she had always been too mature for her age. There was no protest, no enthusiasm, just nodding of the head, packing up her clothes, donating the old ones to the children’s shelter, cleaning up the fridge, visiting her uncle, running around until it was time to board four flights that would bring them to Knoxville. She was so detached through it all that she didn’t even tell any of her friends. It made the process simple, there were no tears, no obligation to throw or attend a surprise farewell party, no goodbyes and stay in touches. The idea of being able to disappear without letting anyone know made her shiver but in the best way possible.
Everything they had here was coloured by her mother’s touch. Anything Ushma wanted or needed, had to go through Gayatri first. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world but it was a thing nonetheless. So to have this piece of clandestinity to herself made her feel powerful in a way she hadn’t experienced before. It made her feel like she was becoming a woman.
Every time he didn’t show up (Mukesh and Gayatri were at the movies, Mukesh was on a work trip, Mukesh’s parents were in town), she found herself doing exactly what she would when he had been there. Without his voice guiding her, she felt lost, directionless. She wanted to be owned by his voice. She kept trying to touch the familiar parts of herself, trying to envision being on a video call with him but every time the silence grew louder and louder until her trance blasted open and she would drown in sweat and something that felt a lot like shame. She rushed to the bathroom, drenched herself under the glaring showerhead, still fully clothed, and wailed and screeched until her voice felt like it wasn’t her voice anymore, like it was coming from three blocks away, until her skin turned red with blisters until her mother came back from work until she craved and craved for something she was too afraid to name.
What made it worse were the days when he wouldn’t speak to her or even acknowledge her. After she was back home from school, she would find him either napping on the reclining chair or on the couch, catching the highlights from the previous day’s soccer game, his feet up on the coffee table. He would hear her turn the keys into the knob but wouldn’t even spare her a glance. She would linger around the living room, heating leftovers in the kitchen, pretending to read a book on the balcony, watering the plants and… nothing. On those days, she wanted to strip herself down and scream beg throw herself on the floor for him to just look at her, just once. She wanted him to be hungry.
It was getting close to Gayatri and Mukesh’s wedding date being finalised and Ushma was growing impatient. She would text him links of videos that she thought he would like, women grinding on horses, men fucking goats, roleplays of men pretending to seduce girls who look like they could be their daughters – anything to pique his interest. But on those days, he gave her nothing. He would wait patiently for her mother to come home, and act so normal it scared the guts out of her. It felt ominous, like the door to some portal that one could only enter but never exit, like once you walked in, you would be trapped in there for a long, long time.
On the day of her mother’s marriage, Ushma had skipped school with a doctor’s note from the family physician. Gayatri decided she didn’t want a big celebration; they would sign the marriage license and maybe go out to an Indian restaurant to celebrate, as a family. Maybe they could invite some of their coworkers, but she didn’t want to entertain any of the ladies from the temple, not wanting to provide them with an opportunity for further gossip. Mukesh was fine with this arrangement. Anyway, he didn’t have any friends except some of the guys he met at the temple; they were married and inviting them would mean inviting their wives, and he knew better than to infuriate his new bride.
Even though there wasn’t going to be a ceremony, Gayatri decided to put on her mother’s Kanjivaram Silk saree and picked fresh flowers for her hair. She had taken the day off, and even though she was making such a big leap into the next phase of her life, it didn’t feel adventurous or risky. It felt like she was merely following the path charted out for her. She looked at the clock on the wall and yelled at Ushma when she realised they only had about thirty minutes to get ready, eat breakfast, and leave for the Knox County Clerk’s office.
Even after her name was repeatedly called, there was no response from Ushma. Gayatri went to check her room, then her closet, to enquire what was taking her daughter so long. Ushma had been behaving weird since the previous night, skipping dinner and refusing to speak to either her or Mukesh, but Gayatri had taken that as her anxiety about this new transition. It was normal, she’d thought, and moreover, it wasn’t like Mukesh would be moving in overnight, he had spent the past few weeks on their couch, preparing for this day. When she finally found Ushma, her daughter was sitting on the floor next to the toilet, clutching her stomach and sobbing. Gayatri could tell she had gotten sick and brought her a glass of water. She kept standing, not wanting to ruin her expensive saree. Ushma took the glass from her but neither of them looked at each other. “You’re supposed to be happy for me,” Gayatri finally broke the silence, “This is good for me… for us.”
Ushma didn’t respond to her but threw up again, and looked up at Gayatri with swollen eyes. “I don’t think I can make it. I’ve been throwing up all night,” she said. “I’m just… tired.”
Mukesh heard noises from the bathroom and peeped in to see mother and daughter exchanging glances, neither one of them ready to back down.
“Gayatri, maybe we can postpone?” he suggested, “It’s not like we had planned a party anyway.”
They decided to wait for a couple of hours and let Ushma rest while they discussed the best possible course of action. Eventually, Gayatri was the one who caved; they had already waited for months, and a few more days wouldn’t hurt. It’s not like they had spent any money yet. Nothing was irreparably damaged. Maybe Ushma wasn’t faking whatever she was doing for attention, maybe she really wasn’t well. When Gayatri came to her room to check on her, she noticed her daughter’s face turn yellowish. She put her hand on Ushma’s forehead and was startled by how sharply it burned. She gently coaxed Ushma to scoot over and lied next to her – the first moment of intimacy they had shared in years. Ushma grumbled, half-asleep. “Just so I can keep an eye,” Gayatri whispered, “in case it gets worse.”
Mukesh had changed out of his three-piece suit into his home clothes and brought Ushma a glass of warm water and some paracetamol. She was too exhausted to resist so she let him feed her. Even though he usually slept on the couch, he offered to sleep on the bed that evening, volunteering to take turns watching Ushma, to keep her temperature in check. This was now his family, too.
Ushma tossed and turned all night, sweating off her fever, the sheet under her hot and sticky. When she opened her eyes, it was three am, and both Gayatri and Mukesh had dozed off next to one another, a small pillow keeping their legs from touching. She gave up on trying to sleep, deliberating ways for her and Mukesh to keep playing their little game, now that they would be closer than ever. The thought made her feel warm and exhilarated but quickly turned into disdain as she imagined having to share this man with the woman who was sleeping next to her. She would find new and imaginative ways to sustain his attention, she pondered, maybe something gelatinous, like pork fat, or fruit bursting with juice, a tomato or nectarine. She knew she had the power to turn any object into an object of desire. As the darkness outside shifted and the birds began their dawn chorus, she drifted back to sleep, wishing for nothing else but for him to want her more and more, knowing he would never actually come close to touching her flesh, the shadow of her mother too gigantic to let his desire seep through.