The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

it’s like a species barrier that must not be crossed.
    “Can’t do it in love,” you said. “And what about sex? Can you do it in sex?”
    You see, toots, I actually have, ever since we got together, stopped seeing other women as women. I’m not kidding. It’s not like I don’t see the inexhaustible variety of women, their butts, and all the other things a normal dude sees around him—I do, and quite clearly, but none of it feels like a cause for action anymore. I just don’t want it, and that’s it. As if there were a single woman left in the whole wide world—you—and the all the other members of your sex, they’re just people. So when Yulichka paraded her G-strings and miniskirts in front of me, I sort of felt sorry for her: like a child whom some bad people taught to put on this show, and who wouldn’t get it if you tried to teach her that she’s a big girl now, and it’s not appropriate to act like that. But, to becompletely honest, I can’t be sure that if you hadn’t come into my life, I wouldn’t have done the merciful thing one day and kindly fucked Yulichka in my office—to be humane, or whatever, given that the poor thing is always begging so hard.
    Vasylenko banged her; he’s the one who brought her to the company. He’d take her to the bathroom in the middle of a day, too. I remember I grumbled (because I didn’t like it, there’s a proper time and place for everything, damn it) that it must’ve been Lyonchik Kolodub’s Komsomol whoring that infected our office with some airborne virus that compels the corporation’s director to unzip his pants when we need him to be thinking with his other head—not for nothing is it said that spaces retain the karma of their previous owners. There was a reason all the Party’s district committees were always housed in former bordellos.
    But soon enough it turned out that Vasylenko’s acquisition could do more than wear skirts that end above her panties and bend over in bathrooms—the Melitopol (or Mariupol, I can never keep it straight) orphan had a well-oiled brain, too, and was already taking accounting (or secretarial) evening classes somewhere and quickly became not just our secretary (three hundred dollars a month plus bonuses), but a true comrade in arms: whenever we, the three of us back then (Vasylenko, Zaitsev, and I) discussed any new projects, Yulichka was unfailingly there to assist and, more often than not, would make a useful suggestion right at the moment when we were about to go for each other’s throats.
    As long as Vasylenko was there, she felt very comfortable; even the time I pointed out to her that she had semen in her hair; she just smiled at me winsomely and said, Oh! (And that, by the way, was the only time when I felt the tiniest urge to unzip my own pants and ask her to repeat the procedure with me, purely for sport, because how am I worse than Vasylenko?) I don’t know if she rolled over for Zaitsev, too. Apparently, as far as she was concerned, once my partners departed in search of better hunting grounds—from the very beginning, they were both interested in making money much more so than they cared for antiques; they didn’t care whatthey sold—and I remained the sole owner of the business, with her as my secretary (five hundred dollars a month plus bonuses). I was the one who was supposed to take her to the bathroom. And since I didn’t do that, she decided to teach me a lesson.
    What do you say to that, Lolly? What do you think about that theory?
    I know, you won’t say anything because you’re asleep already—you’ve sunk yourself under the blanket (you have a very cozy way of curling up there, under the covers, and without you, my own bed now feels like a hotel one) and zonked out, as if unplugged. Very still, only making a small noise as you breathe regularly into the pillow—funny, like a bunny rabbit.
    Sitting up with you now, while you sleep, with the nightlight on, I catch myself smiling. Like I’ve smoothed out inside a little. “Sleep, one little eye, sleep, the other,” Mom used to say to me when I was little, kissing me before sleep: a fairytale charm. Sleep, my brave girl, you did everything right; you held your ground, and I am really proud of you. But I can’t sleep, despite how tired I am: I’ve wound myself up, and smoked too much—burned through three packs almost—to a wheeze in my chest and my heart pounding just under my Adam’s apple. And tomorrow I have to be