The Seven Year Bitch by Jennifer Belle

loft,” Sherry said, her voice filled with the particular guttural rage all New Yorkers felt when this happened to them.
    â€œOh no,” I said, my whole body tensing at the thought of it but also flooding with relief that it was in her apartment and not mine, although our apartments were only separated by a wall, a stairwell, and an elevator. I really couldn’t stand water bugs. It was a challenge I hadn’t been faced with yet as a mother. If I saw one, I would normally scream at the top of my lungs and leave the apartment for several days like a prehistoric woman surrendering her cave, but I knew I shouldn’t do that now that I was a mother.
    â€œI’m tired of having to deal with everything alone,” Sherry said. She was a single mother of a teenage daughter. “I want to get married if for no other reason than this.”
    â€œThat’s the only reason to get married,” I said.
    â€œHow am I going to sleep with that thing in my house?” Sherry said.
    â€œMaybe you shouldn’t wear that nightgown,” I said, pointing to the fireflies. “Maybe he was attracted to you.” I immediately regretted saying something so stupid when she hadn’t had a date in two years. I had to find a way to help. “Russell will kill it,” I said.
    I got Russell out of bed and he dutifully went into battle, wearing only his boxer shorts and carrying a rolled-up New York Post for a club. Sherry and I stood in the hall waiting. Moments later Russell came out. “I got it,” he said. “I hit it with your scale.”
    When I got into bed with Russell I felt grateful to him. He had barely grumbled, just gotten out of bed and taken care of it like a man. I thought of Sherry sleeping safely next door. I thought of Duncan in his crib and Shasthi somewhere in the Bronx, with pillows under her so her pelvis was tilted upward as I had instructed her to always do after sex for at least an hour.
    I was grateful to be married for this if for no other reason.
    â€œThanks for doing that,” I said.
    â€œIt was a really big one.”
    I lay there for a few minutes considering having sex with him, despite the fact that I was so tired and had absolutely no desire to. There wasn’t one cell in my body that wanted to have sex with Russell. It was after midnight and the baby would be up by five. I should at least touch him, I thought, try to do something affectionate. I reached over and gently tugged on a small bunch of his hair.
    â€œ Hmmm , thank you,” he said.
    He seemed satisfied with that, and frankly sex seemed just a little bit pointless. Now that I knew what it was like to make love and get a baby in the end, doing it just for the sake of doing it sometimes didn’t seem worth giving up the sleep for. Russell wanted to use birth control, which seemed almost like a bitter joke, considering all we had been through to have Duncan. It seemed wrong to leave Dr. Heiffowitz’s office with your beautiful baby boy and rush to the store for condoms. Russell said it felt dangerous to have sex unprotected, but to me it felt dangerous not to be unprotected, like we were slapping the face of God.
    â€œI’m tired,” Russell said.
    â€œI’m soooo tired.”
    â€œYou have Shasthi coming tomorrow?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œShe’s really great, isn’t she?”
    â€œYes, she’s really great. I just wish we could get her pregnant.”
    â€œWell, we can’t,” Russell said.
    â€œI think we should get her a cell phone,” I said. I started to get excited thinking of how happy she would be when I presented her with her own cell phone. “It would be good to be able to check up on the baby.”
    â€œDo you think we can trust her with it?” Russell asked.
    â€œYou’re kidding, right?” I asked, completely exasperated.
    â€œNo, why? I don’t want her calling—where is