Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,32

when I knew exactly what was in me. It seemed now that in those calculated hollows there had been total security, even though I knew I was never really safe. The hollows staved off another kind of emptiness, thick with terror and mystery. Now the unknown was sitting on me.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“About what?” I grinned.

I was hoping we were about to evaluate Andrew’s new haircut. The indie-rocker shag had sprouted bangs overnight.

“The tea,” she said. “Darjeeling. I usually do Earl Grey.”

I noticed that she said I and not We. I blew on the cup and took a sip, letting the warm liquid melt the piece of nicotine gum I had parked between my molar and my cheek.

“Great,” I said.

It was going to have to be me who initiated the shit-talk.

“So,” I said. “Having carefully read Ofer’s e-mail on internalized misogyny and safe spaces, I’ve reached the conclusion that no space is safe… from him.”

“Didn’t read it,” she said. “I saw sensitivity in the first line and deleted immediately.”

“Do you think it was your internalized misogyny that did the deleting?”

“It was my internalized something.”

“He’s become a real bro-choice activist,” I said.

“Mmmm.”

Was I losing her? Did she no longer like me? I could never tell how other people saw me. Most of the time I felt like I was riding around in a car with a fogged windshield that made it difficult to decipher the perceptions of others. They were all just kind of pantomiming outside, grunting, while I ran the wipers over and over. No matter how fast I wiped, I couldn’t clear the fog.

Still, I was pretty sure there was something about me that Ana was now rejecting. I was on the way out, no longer a fit for inclusion in her joyful exclusion of others. A them-ing had happened to our us. She could sense that I was becoming—what?

There was, growing within me, a great Fuck-You-ness. I didn’t know if this feeling was surrender, freedom, or a total delusion that was ultimately going to hurt me. Miriam had transmitted the feeling to me, like an infusion—or a disease. It was exciting. But at the same time, it scared me.

I googled How to stop the golem.

According to several Jewish tales, a golem came alive out of clay or soil when its creator walked around it reciting a combination of letters from the alphabet and god’s secret name. To stop the golem, its creator must circle it in the opposite direction and recite everything backward.

“Mairim Mairim Mairim Mairim,” I whispered. “Lehcar Lehcar Lehcar Lehcar. Ana Ana Ana Ana. Rehtom Rehtom Rehtom Rehtom.”

I felt no less gone.

CHAPTER 29

“I’m totally down to die in a mudslide,” I said into the microphone. “Like, as long as it kills me instantaneously, I’m available.”

It was Thursday night, and almost-me was up and running with a darker twist to my East Coasters care more about our weather than we do bit.

“Am I emotionally available for a mudslide? No. But if the mudslide is down for a quickie, I’m in.”

The laughter was decent. Then I heard a “woo” from the audience. The voice was familiar. When I looked out into the lights to try and decipher who the woo-er was, I saw Jace Evans.

“Hey, thanks,” I said, pointing to him. “I’ll be here all week.”

When I got offstage, he followed me through the crowd.

“Hey!” he said.

“Oh, hi. Shouldn’t you be in the dystopic future, wrangling zombies?”

“I do exist off camera.”

“I’m just surprised to see you here, that’s all.”

“My friend Paul from Akron is one of the comics.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “The guy who did the whole set about jerking off into a family heirloom. He thinks my shit is too pedestrian.”

“You were really funny. Definitely funnier than Paul.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He fumbled with the beads on his faux rosaries.

“Fred Segal?” I asked.

“What?”

“I was just wondering where you got those.”

“Oh, my grandma gave them to me for luck. She’s super Catholic. I never take them off.”

I was being pelted with religious people.

“Well,” he said. “Except when my fucking stylist makes me.”

“Did your stylist pick out those?” I asked, pointing to his bracelets.

“No,” he said proudly. “Those are all me.”

I noticed a table of four young women looking at him. They must have been from out of town, because they weren’t trying to hide their staring at all.

I asked myself again if I was attracted to him. The floof, unfortunately, was still floofing. But under the floof he had a pair of very earnest-looking brown eyes, round, like