Rodge Glass wrote an extraordinary, touching love story. The falsehood of this mobility is keenly exposed in the bitter-sweet story before us: she is a caregiver for the terminally ill, he is an unemployed young man, and together they are trapped in the vicious cycle of financial survival — day in, day out, night in, night out. The magic solution, the only escape from their daily hardships, much like that of workers at the bottom of the social ladder, who sell the only asset they have, themselves — is the body.
Thus — sex! They fuck. They pretend. They role play. Sampling the tablets. Asking dumb questions. Pulling her into the supplies cupboard for a quickie while some war vet was spluttering his last on the other side of the wall. You cooked prawn linguini with chillies the night you were sacked, vegetarian lasagne the next. The whole first week you hoovered and dusted like a demon. Jennifer called you her bitch and you laughed together. She predicted your periods would synchronise soon; she made you pinky-promise to run her a bubble bath whenever she demanded it.
That was when you were still buzzing from the freedom and every task was fun — then the role-play started. At the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff , you mutter to yourself, clicking the mouse with your free hand. At the Saguaro National Park near Tucson. Just thinking about it makes the back of your neck wet. Your mouth dry. When it all gets too much, you revert to mastering FIFA It was just till she felt better, they said.
You hoped that once you were out of the call centre it might mean a chance to discuss starting again, perhaps somewhere life was cheaper and the sun was more likely to shine.
Six times a week she leaves home after sunset and gets back before sunrise. Day is night and night is day. On the Apache Trail, overlooked by the majestic Superstition Mountains. The last moments of ordinary men and women, stripped of themselves. So you lie there in bed, pretending to be asleep, listening to her move in the kitchen, picking from things in packets in the fridge and eating standing up as night becomes morning outside.
