Micaela Morrissette - Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom

Perhaps it was just that the spider and scorpion had picked each other, specifically, and had chosen their children, too. No one had ever chosen Tim for anything, except the HR manager who had selected him for the stock-boy job, which perhaps, he reflected, was one reason he loved working at Wal-Mart so much. But, he reminded himself, he had chosen Mimi, and she would be hungry and bored by now; so, on the verge of wandering into the barbecue to say hello and casually accept a beer or two, he made his way on to his own house, where Mimi was waiting with her face pressed up against the glass, making comic faces.

For dinner, Tim did pasta bolognese with a spinach salad, red wine for him and fizzy lemonade for Mimi. He’d queued up a documentary series on great art forgeries of parasitic mimicry to watch after they ate, but Mimi grew bored and complaining as soon as the first test-yourself quiz popped up onscreen, so Tim let her put on her favorite musical, about a human girl who marries her canine owner and becomes so wealthy that she possesses humans of her own. It was a made-just-for-humans movie, which explained the love affair between human and dog. Tim was always slightly disconcerted that the schlocky, sugar-coated forty-minute videos produced for human consumption tended to favor the same romantic human-on-animal plotlines as the ultraextreme, nearly illegal bestiality porn that some animals apparently were into, but the humans loved the films, and the relationships were, after all, entirely innocent.

While she watched cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, Tim stroked her hair and drank another glass of wine, listening to his new favorite album, of coyote calls in the desert recorded by space satellites and mixed with the rhythmic long beats of owl wings in flight. Then Mimi wanted a snack, so Tim had her read all the front-page headlines, feeding her an orange wedge each time she sounded out the words correctly. He sent her into the bathroom to wash the juice off her face, and heard her go from there into her bedroom and begin playing with her workout machine. She liked Shark Yoga the best, and panted out the screechy, keening names of the positions together with the instructor as she leaned and curved, shot forward, arced back on her gel-filled mat.

By nine o’clock Mimi was yawning, and Tim suspected she’d snuck some of his wine for herself, so he supervised her teeth brushing and they both got into their pajamas. Because Tim had to spend the night immersed in a moisturizing electrolyte solution, she couldn’t sleep next to him, to his perpetual disappointment, but he had erected a little platform with a mattress on it across the foot of his bed, and she nestled there while he tucked her in and kissed her cheek. He turned out the lights, climbed into his sleep-bath, and felt around on the nightstand for his mystery novel, which he switched on to lo-lite. But he was tired, too, and he realized that soon Mimi would murmur him to sleep, as she did most nights.

“Timtimtim,” she crooned blearily.

“Mmmph.”

“Can I have a car?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Can I have a spaceship?”

“No, you can’t.”

“Can I have a bicycle?”

“You don’t ride your tricycle.”

“Can I have an ice cream?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“My favorite flavor is red.”

“I thought you liked butterscotch.”

“No, my flavor for the car I want.”

“If you can find a car that tastes like butterscotch, we’ll think about buying it.”

Mimi snickered. “I want a swimming pool.”

“The yard isn’t big enough.”

“It would be if our house could float inside the pool.”

“Then we’d always be wet. And you hate the rain.”

“We don’t have to fill it with water.”

“What else do you want to fill it with?”

“Gold dust,” said Mimi. “Cake. Flowers, neon. Music, feathers, eyeballs, fire, shipwrecks. Locust shells.”

Tim thought he caught a hint of dissatisfaction in her tone, but then he heard her breath begin to stumble into a light snoring. He let himself drift away, too, before he could begin to worry.

When he woke in the night, Mimi was gone, as she always was. On his way back from the bathroom, he poked his head into her room to make sure she’d covered up with blankets in her pink cradle. But the cradle was empty, and so was the big round bed.

Somehow he knew, even before he went to her window. There she was, on the lawn with Yoyo, their pj’s in a dark heap, a stain on the grass, their bodies sealed together lengthwise, their faces in each other’s crotches, lapping and suckling. Yoyo had his hands clasped around her head as if he might twist it off. Dimly, through the merciful, deafening rush of blood to Tim’s brain, Mimi’s voice leaked in. She was emitting animal noises, bleating, whimpering, and mewling, like a ventriloquist. He returned to the bathroom, where he turned on the cold-water spigot in the tub and held his head under the frigid torrent until his skull was fractured with jolts of clear, clean pain.

He took a handful of aspirin and turned on his compy. On a site called Bonding Domestically Sexlessly and Meaningfully, he created a profile. On the partner checklist, he clicked female, any species. Any income, any diet. Literate, within ten miles. Pets and adopted offspring okay. The site sent him a Blind Date Super Match for an African Gray parrot named Hannah. She had dull, flat feathers and a chip in her beak, but Tim thought, squinting, nice sad eyes. He put in his credit code and clicked accept. For an additional fifteen credits, the site made a reservation for him and Hannah at a chic cocktails-and-canapés place called Canopy.

Canopy had a rainforest theme, which Tim guessed was why Hannah had put it on her venue list, but when he saw her waiting at the bar, hunched over her coco colada, the glossy leaves, orchids, and serpentine vines that covered the walls and ceiling made her look even dowdier than she had in her picture. Nevertheless, when he walked up and nudged her shoulder, she brightened and smiled, and nipped at her garnish with a rapid nervousness he found appealing.

“Hi!” she said. “Sorry, I’m early.”

“No problem,” said Tim. “I’m right on time. Pretty boring, huh?”

They laughed spastically at each other.

The bartender, a sleek albino boa with pale pink tribal tattoos all over her body, gave them a disdainful smile, and asked if they were ready to be seated. Lurching forward to pull out Hannah’s chair for her, Tim found himself in competition with their server, and they wound up pushing her in together awkwardly, their combined effort a little too forceful, so that her plumage squashed up against the edge of the table.

“Oof,” said Hannah. “Wow. What service!”

“I’m incredibly strong,” said Tim, approaching his own chair and scooting it in with trepidation.

“Ha!” said Hannah. “You’re very funny.”

“I have it all,” said Tim.

Feverishly, they regarded their menus.

“Do you want to hear the specials?” said the server, evidently still standing there.

“Sure!” said Hannah.

“Absolutely,” said Tim.

The server recited the specials like a priest giving last rites to the dying, craning his simian head back and pinching his nostrils as if afraid to catch whatever Tim and Hannah had. They nodded appreciatively to one dish or another. “Astute choices,” intoned the server indifferently, and glided off.

When he left, Hannah leaned over and confessed, “I can’t remember a single thing we just ordered!”

“Me either,” said Tim, although he could.

They said what they did. Hannah taught astronomy at a secondary-level nursery school for goats and sheep. “They couldn’t care less, of course,” she said, “or else they hate it with a passion, but then again, they’re all really good at it. Teenagers!”