Hazel hadn’t seen hours of footage of Fiffany speaking—she couldn’t bear to watch Fiffany and Byron’s prenuptial celebrity interview that appeared to be unilaterally aired and streamed on every major network and Web site—but she didn’t need to. She just knew. That had been the agreement that Fiffany had entered into, which was part of Hazel’s punishment: the only sentences Fiffany would be able to speak in public were sentences Hazel had spoken to Byron during the context of their marriage.
Why would Fiffany agree to something so messed up, Hazel wondered, to whatever neuroalterations were required for this software to function? Incredible wealth and also celebrity, she supposed. Hazel hadn’t wanted these—the judgment of the general public frightened her, plus the general public did not seem to go out of its way to find Hazel fascinating or engage with her—but Fiffany was well received and liked being in the media. And it was clever, the way Fiffany used Hazel’s former responses, often metaphorically. Maybe it was a fun sort of game for her. Hazel found herself wondering how its mental software worked, if Fiffany thought an internal question and then got to “see” her possible responses.
Hazel also wondered how Fiffany felt about her, and how much Fiffany knew about what Byron had done. Maybe Fiffany knew everything and married him anyway. Maybe she didn’t think of him as evil.
Maybe she just saw Hazel as an idiot. Ungrateful in the extreme.
IT ALL MADE HAZEL FEEL EXTRA LONELY—THE PERSON TRYING TO kill her had a lover but she didn’t. One night she decided to try an anonymous hookup service. It was dangerous, but her life was already in danger and she’d spent so many years, her married years included, not really being touched. Since companionship was out of the picture, she thought random sex might be the nicest physical thing she could experience with another person.
The way the service worked was that you called in and gave a day and a time but no name, and then you chose whether you wanted to get an address or give one. She gave her real address since she already lived in a seedy motel. There were no possessions to indicate her extended stay; they’d just assume she’d rented the room for the evening. “Is there anything specific I should tell him?” the operator asked. Make sure he likes the smell of French fries, Hazel thought. She requested someone sober, so there would be more of a chance that he was as miserable as she was. “As little talking as possible,” Hazel decided. The operator went on to ask what she’d like to consent to, then recited a long grocery list of activities that Hazel could say yes or no to ahead of time, including things she hadn’t ever thought about. “Afterward, can your partner use the bathing facilities?” Hazel thought again of the possible drain camera. “Well, the toilet is totally fair game at all times,” she said. “But no shower.” Because if Byron was spying on her with a toilet cam, it seemed like the shame was more on him no matter what her guests or activities entailed.
When the guy showed up, he looked normal to the point of obscurity, like an extra in a movie. He was well dressed and Hazel wondered if he would change his mind when he saw her. His consent list was far longer than hers; she was allowed to take initiation liberties, and she figured she should just go for it right away and know immediately if he wouldn’t be partaking. So when he closed the door she ran to him like a beloved fiancée returned from overseas, throwing her arms around him and kissing and groping him passionately.
Right from the start she simultaneously wanted it to never end and already be over. She hadn’t expected to feel jealous, possessive feelings when they got into her bed—it was an awful bed, but almost immediately she resented having to share it, even though it had been her idea. Though she was comforted by the fact that she’d get to sleep in it alone. For her, an overnight sleepover was a nonconsent item, though she hadn’t ruled out the possibility of a tandem nap.
It surprised her how it felt affectionate. She’d always assumed that intimacy required love or at the very least a baseline of shared familiarities, but she decided now that that wasn’t the case. The man was kissing her neck and rubbing her nipples with the firm-but-not-hard grope she’d requested over the phone, and she felt incredibly close to him, incredibly thankful for the feel of his skin against hers. He spooned around her, running his fingertips up and down her inner thighs while they kissed and she moaned and writhed, and when she was ready she faced away from him and buried her face in her pillow and the musty linen and the French-fry smell transformed into something deeper and sweeter, and for a moment she escaped herself and all things entirely—her head rose out of the ocean of her life and she took a clear breath of everything beyond her situation before sinking underneath again and opening her eyes.
When they were finished, she found she didn’t want to turn around to look at him and realized she couldn’t remember his face at all—she hadn’t taken a long glance before attacking him with her mouth. The man couldn’t secretly be Byron because he was far better at touching and kissing than Byron. But what an awful shock that would be: if the man’s mustache ripped off then the skin around his neck lifted up and turned out to be a latex balaclava with Byron’s face beneath it. Hey, gotcha!
Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, she could turn to find her anonymous lover seemingly at rest, start to cover him up with a sheet then notice a long blade protruding from his abdomen and the spreading pool of warm blood. Was he bothering you, darlin’? Liver would ask, drawing the blade back, his right eye coming to life with a few enthusiastic twitches. Or did I overreact? And he’d proceed to tell her how he’d tracked her down using mammalian intuitions and techniques that technology could never replicate. And then she’d have to stay with him, since he’d killed someone for her, even though it hadn’t been for her at all, really. Kind of like how since Jasper had saved her life, she no longer felt that she was allowed to kill herself. Even though the saving was more about him and she hadn’t really wanted to be saved.