Micah sighed. “Is that the only script they give you?”
“You don’t like twenty-something guys with thick thighs and bubble butts?”
“I didn’t say that, but this happens every time I call. I want to know whatyoulook like.”
“This is fantasy, babe.”
“I’d rather imagine a real person. All bodies are beautiful.”
There was a pause, and the operator’s voice lost some of its gloss. “Not mine. Better to stick to the script.”
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or dysphoric, but I’m also not going to pay three eighty-nine a minute to listen to you read a script. I’ll hang up.”
“If I describe myself, you’ll do that anyway.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“I’m not anyone’s fantasy.”
Sketches on the wall fluttered in the draft of the ceiling fan – some were busts, others full body exercises, with models both clothed and nude. There were downy lashes and sparse ones. Hooked noses and broad ones. Barely-there breasts and huge, sagging ones spidered with veins. So many curves, muscles, rolls, wrinkles. “That’s not true.”
The operator clucked his tongue. “I weigh three hundred pounds, and I’m going bald. Twenty-three passed me up a long time ago.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve got a big gut and flabby pecs.”
Micah sketched broad shoulders, a wide chest, and prominent stomach. “Strong arms? Square jaw?”
“You’re into this? Shit, man. Alright. Um. More round, I guess. I’ve got a beard.”
“It’s good. I like details.” Micah blocked in the operator’s face and brawny arms. His left eye ached, struggling to focus on the fine lines, and he looked away, blinking hard.
“There’s a long scar on my thigh from a car wreck five years ago,” the operator said.
“I bet you have nice hands. Wide palms. Thick fingers.”
“I guess. Never really thought about it.”
“Hands are my favorite. Keep talking, please. I like your voice.” He sketched the suggestion of veins winding across the backs of the operator’s hands, little shaded canyons between the tendons, and half-moon strokes for knuckles.
A deafening crash came from down the hall. Micah jumped. His heart rocketed into his throat, and he strained for more sound, but the beats of “Tainted Love” and the operator saying something about his pinkie finger made it impossible to hear anything else.
He ended the call abruptly and slid off the stool, so much adrenaline lightning through him that his legs were unsteady. No one was in here with him. It was only something falling over. Even so, groping beneath the drafting table and finding the knife he’d duct-taped there was immediate comfort. He peeled it off, the handle gummy with tape residue, then padded past the kitchen. Something rolled across the floor in the dark hall, and he made a noise in his throat.
No one was here. The windows were always locked, the slide chain and two deadbolts secure on the door, and the motion sensors he’d installed months ago hadn’t gone off. And if all of that somehow failed, the intruder would at least trip over a potted plant or two in the dark. Micah was alone. He shook out his tingling fingers and reminded himself to breathe, then tightened his grip on the knife – just in case. Switching on the hall light revealed a bottle of pills amid bits of something glittery. He peered into the bathroom.
“Oh god.”
Shards of glass from the cabinet mirror littered the tile and sat at the bottom of the toilet bowl. The cabinet stood open, and combs, eye drops, floss, and a host of other things from the shelves scattered the floor. What a mess. Micah hadn’t felt the bass from the neighbor’s music, but maybe the slight vibrations had been enough to shake the mirror loose. Ximena wasn’t going to be happy about replacing it. The two am synthpop was a terrible enough invasion of his privacy; the idea of letting maintenance people inside to install something sent fresh electric panic racing through his body.
He blew a slow breath through his nose. Ximena preferred someone present when maintenance was working but surely she’d make an exception for him. He could make a day of it and visit the new aquarium or catch a movie in that luxury theater that provided mystery boxes to be opened at certain points during the viewing. If Ximena wouldn’t budge on the issue, he’d just do without. She could have the mirror installed when he eventually moved out.
Crisp xylophone notes and bursts of drums drifted through the front room. Micah rounded the bookcase that doubled as a room divider and collapsed back into bed. Some small toiletry hit the floor in the hallway and bounced away. More bass rattling the bathroom cabinet. Well, let the whole place fall apart if it wanted to – he wasn’t getting back up.
He must have eventually fallen asleep, because morning light streamed through the window when he opened his eyes. After texting Ximena and cleaning up as much of the bathroom mess as he could, he pulled out the vacuum.
Bits of mirror sparkled against the baseboards, and he ran the vacuum hose along the edge. Half the toiletries that hadbeen littering the floor were now in the trash; some were expired pills and others were makeup compacts and flowery lotions that his ex must have left, even though he couldn’t recall her ever wearing sparkly chartreuse eyeshadow.
