COSMOS magazine

Friday, June 13

When he turned back to her she was on the bed, leaning against the headboard, her knees raised, slightly apart. He peeled off his clothes, let them fall to the floor, lay down beside her. She shuddered as he ran his hand along the inside of her thigh.

She sat up. "We can't do this. I'm not on the pill," she told him. "I'm assuming you don't carry condoms around with you?"

"No, sorry. But you'd surely hate me if I did." Lauren's diaphragm had been riding around in the glove box of his car for a couple of months now. Dare he mention it?

Jill's gaze was longing, and she was playing absently with his pubic hair. Maybe he dared.

"Um, Jill?"

"Hmm?"

"Remember that diaphragm Alex pulled out of my pocket?"

Her jaw dropped. "You can't be serious!" She shook her head. "I couldn't possible use some other woman's— Paul, that's a disgusting idea."

"No, no, Jill—she hasn't used it. Lauren liked to be prepared. It was a spare diaphragm she left at my place a couple of weeks ago. And we weren't— We argued all the time, we hadn't— Still, yeah, sorry, it was a tacky idea."

But she was swinging one leg over and kneeling, straddling him. "Diaphragms," she commented with a remote, scientific air, "aren't more than seventy-five percent effective."

"You read that in Cosmo, right?" He could hardly breathe. All the oxygen in his body seemed to be trapped with the blood surging into his penis.

"If you must know, yes. Would you prefer a citation from Nature?"

"Seventy-five percent is better than noth—"

"But that's only if you don't use a spermicidal jelly with them." Jill leaned forward and toyed with his nipples.

He closed his eyes, waiting incredulously. Good god, she was going to go for it. Lauren would kill him. Still, maybe he could give the thing a good wash. Could you boil a diaphragm? It'd go all out of shape, surely. They must have some way of—

"I have some herbal stuff." Jill mused, moving her murmuring lips over his mouth and driving him crazy. "It's supposed to kill head lice—" She snorted, and he wondered if he'd explode or burst into maniacal laughter.

"It's not crabs I'm worried about, Jill."

"If it kills head lice, it'd probably work on sperm, don't you think?"

"And other delicate organisms," he said with a shudder. The blood was quickly running back where it belonged.

"It's very gentle," she assured him. "Guaranteed not to irritate the... skin."

"Sure," he told her. Anything for science. "Let's give it a try."

Delicately, she swung her leg over and stood up.

"You go get the diaphragm and I'll find the louse treatment."

Paul pulled his trousers back on and felt his way through the darkness of the living room, almost upsetting a flower pot atop a fern stand, went out to the car. Under his bare feet, the street's pavement felt cold. With a brief stab of guilt, he withdrew Lauren's unused diaphragm from the glove box. But after all, he had tried to give it back to her, and she wouldn't take it. He'd have to purchase a replacement for her. Did they come in different sizes? Of course they did, they had to be fitted. Was there a model number on the case?

Jill was examining the contents of a small glass jar. He handed her the diaphragm, and she scooped a yellow glob from the jar.

"I hope you won't find it offensive if I offer a suggestion," he said. "I mean, it's not as though I've ever inserted a diaphragm. But it seems as though you might want to apply the spermicidal after you've insert the thing. Isn't the ointment going to make the diaphragm very... slippery?"

Too late. Jill had already applied a liberal quantity of the yellow stuff.

"Turn around," she said. "I'd rather not have you standing there watching me."

Paul turned his back with gentlemanly consideration. She didn't say anything more for a long time. Something like a bat flew past his ear, hit the ceiling, bounced off.

Jill gave a ghastly, embarrassed laugh. "Oops." He poked around in the half dark, trod on something dank and disgusting with his bare foot, yelped. The dank thing slid away under the bed. Bending, craning, he fished it back out. It had picked up a dust bunny. He held it out toward her like a giant furry oyster. Convulsed with horror and mirth, Jill took it and stood naked by lamplight.

"I'm going to the bathroom." She regarded the diaphragm in her hand. "I'm going to wash it off and try putting it in before I apply the treatment."

Paul took off his trousers again. There was a book on the dressing table, Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. He picked it up, opened it to the middle. Jill's muffled voice interrupted his studious reading. "Oh my god... Damn!"

He got up and tapped lightly on the bathroom door. "Would you like me to help?"

"I think maybe we shouldn't do this after all." She flung open the door and burst out, the diaphragm, now beardless, clutched in one fist.

Paul stroked her back. "We don't have to do it if you don't want to," he said. "I'll be happy just to cuddle up with you." It was true, too, he thought. He could get off just hugging her. But still. "If you'd like, I can try to insert it for you. I might have better luck since I'll have a better view."

She grabbed him and gave him a slurpy kiss on the mouth.

"We could call Lauren and ask her how to do it." Jill handed him the diaphragm, laughing, revealing her white, perfect teeth.

"Oh shit! What's happened to it?" With dismay he saw that the formerly pink diaphragm was now stained with dark blotches.

"It's the louse treatment. It was yellow in the jar, but it turned purple when I rubbed it on."

Oh well. It wasn't as though he and Lauren were ever going to be best friends anyway.

"Let's forget about the diaphragm and just go with the louse treatment." She collapsed against him, pulled him on top of her, wrapped her long legs around him.

No turning back now, he thought.

As they lay with their bodies still pressed wetly together, she asked, "Why were you carrying your old girlfriend's diaphragm around in your glove box?"

"I haven't seen her for a while. Hadn't got around to giving it back to her."

Jill lay relaxed against him, and from her regular breathing he guessed she was asleep; he was beginning to drift off himself when she said, "You should go now, Paul. I don't think it would be a good idea for you to be here when Alex wakes up. It'd be too confusing for him."

As quietly as he could, he slipped out of bed and dressed, kissed Jill softly. This time she was truly asleep.

Saturday, June 14

Jill stretched luxuriously and sat up, feeling happier than she had in a long time. It was nice to be touched, she thought.

On the kitchen table crossed by the long early morning light, she found a sheet of notebook paper with her name scrawled across the top. "JILL, I enjoyed last night. Will you and Alex honour me by coming to my hovel for dinner tonight? I promise it'll be interesting and maybe even delicious." She kissed the note, laughing joyfully.

Paul's apartment was less than a mile from Jill's house, on the second floor of a rambling stone house that had been divided into six apartments. Built in the early twentieth century, before the little boxes all the same, the place had high ceilings and large double hung windows that created a feeling of spaciousness.

"This is no hovel, Paul! It's totally charming." Jill admired the large windows that lent a spacious feeling to the room, took in the M.C. Escher print opposite the futon sofa.

"Hey Paul, can I look at this?" Alex had already pulled the Pictorial Atlas of the Solar System from the built-in bookcase.

"Sure. Make yourselves at home. Which means take a look in the fridge and see what you'd like to drink."

"Whatever you're cooking smells wonderful." Suddenly shy, Jill stood in the open doorway to the small kitchen.

"I promised you something interesting. Every dish contains at least one wild ingredient, harvested fresh just this afternoon."

"Really? From where?"

"Right around here. Try a bite of this. It's Turk's cap sauce for the cake."

"You made cake?" She took the spoon he offered, sampled the sweet red sauce. "Yummy."

"I have to confess, I bought the cake at the bakery." He leaned forward and lightly kissed her lips. "Would you mind bringing the white wine from the fridge?"

Saturday, June 14

Wayne felt something wet on his face, opened his eyes, straining to see through the darkness. He could barely make out the shape of a square railing and beyond that a car. Fern's car. He twitched, startled, as something loud began rhythmically thumping behind him. Gretchen. He relaxed. The wet thing he felt on his face must have been his dog's nose.

"Hey girl." He reached in the direction of the thumping and groaned. His back was stiff and sore from lying on the wooden planks. What was he doing lying out on the deck at night, anyhow? Where was Fern? With great effort and pain, he sat up. Gretchen pressed her head under his arm, wanting him to pet her. He ignored her, got shakily to his feet and tried to open the front door. It was locked. What the... He and Fern never kept their door locked.

"Hey, Fern!" He beat on the door with his fists, stopped at a horrifying thought. Something bad had happened to Fern. What if he had... But no, now he heard her moving around inside the trailer. The light came on, the door flew open, and she stood there in her white nightgown glaring at him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? How dare you stand there banging on the door at three in the morning?"

He didn't want to admit to her that he had no idea. He remained mute.

"Where have you been with my car this time?" Fern seemed perfectly willing to talk for both of them. "Did it never occur to you that I might lose my job if I didn't have any way to get to work? Did it? Look at you standing there like a complete idiot! You don't give a shit about my job, do you? You don't give a shit about anything or anybody but yourself." She blocked the doorway. His first impulse was to push her aside, but he felt too... broken. What did she mean about missing work? The last thing Wayne remembered was going to sleep in his own bed.

"Fern?" He took a deep, shuddering breath. He had to know. "What day is this?"

She turned without a word and walked away from him. But she left the door open. Wayne followed her into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Outside, Gretchen gave a mournful, lonesome howl.