The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

with it? Nothing. If you’re talking about I-sleep-over-and-go-off-to-class-the-next-morning and then you go and take a dump, that’s understandable. But when we spend two, almost three days together, eating surf and turf, and you do not take a dump the entire time, I can only conclude that you are more than a little anal.”
    “So what? It’s embarrassing!” Madeleine said. “O.K.? I find it embarrassing.”
    Leonard stared at her without expression and said, “Do you mind when I take a dump?”
    “Do we have to talk about this? It’s sort of gross.”
    “I think we do need to talk about it. Because you’re obviously not very relaxed around me, and I am—or thought I was—your boyfriend, and that means—or should mean—that I’m the person you’re most relaxed around. Leonard equals maximum relaxation.”
    Guys weren’t supposed to be the talkers. Guys weren’t supposed to get you to open up. But this guy was; this guy did. He’d said he was her “boyfriend,” too. He’d made it official.
    “I’ll try to be more relaxed,” Madeleine said, “if it’ll make you happy. But in terms of—excretion—don’t get your hopes up.”
    “This isn’t for me,” Leonard said. “This is for Mr. Lower Intestine. This is for Mr. Duodenum.”
    Even though this kind of amateur therapy didn’t exactly work (after that last conversation, for instance, Madeleine had more, not less, trouble going Number 2 if Leonard was within a mile), it affected Madeleine deeply. Leonard was examining her closely. She felt handled in the right way, like something precious or immensely fascinating. It made her happy to think about how much he thought about her.
    By the end of April, Madeleine and Leonard had gotten into a routine of spending every night together. On weeknights, after Madeleine finished studying, she headed over to the biology lab, where she’d find Leonard staring at slides with two Chinese grad students. After she finally got Leonard to leave the lab, Madeleine then had to cajole him into sleeping at her place. At first, Leonard had liked staying at the Narragansett. He liked the ornate moldings and the view from her bedroom. He charmed Olivia and Abby by making pancakes on Sunday mornings. But soon Leonard began to complain that they always stayed at Madeleine’s place and that he never got to wake up in his own bed. Staying at Leonard’s place, however, required Madeleine to bring a fresh set of clothes each night, and since he didn’t like her to leave clothes at his place (and, to be honest, she didn’t like to, either, because whatever she left picked up a fusty smell), Madeleine had to carry her dirty clothes around to classes all day. She preferred sleeping at her own apartment, where she could use her own shampoo, conditioner, and loofah, and where it was “clean-sheet day” every Wednesday. Leonard never changed his sheets. They were a disturbing gray color. Dust balls clung to the edges of the mattress. One morning, Madeleine was horrified to see a calligraphic smear of blood that had leaked from her three weeks earlier, a stain she’d attacked with a kitchen sponge while Leonard was sleeping.
    “You never wash your sheets!” she complained.
    “I wash them,” Leonard said evenly.
    “How often?”
    “When they get dirty.”
    “They’re always dirty.”
    “Not everyone can drop off their laundry at the cleaners every week. Not everybody grew up with ‘clean-sheet day.’”
    “You don’t have to drop them off,” Madeleine said, undeterred. “You’ve got a washer in the basement.”
    “I use the washer,” Leonard said. “Just not every Wednesday. I don’t equate dirt with death and decay.”
    “Oh, and I do? I’m obsessed with death because I wash my sheets?”
    “People’s attitudes to cleanliness have a lot to do with their fear of death.”
    “This isn’t about death, Leonard. This is about crumbs in the bed. This is about the fact that your pillow smells like a