Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

"Forget the sky," wrote another.

I could see why Don wanted to shoot him, but these pieces had run some time ago. We had no use for Todd Wilkes now. But maybe Don still did. Once you've tasted the hate, it's hard to forsake that unique and heavenly flavor. It was maybe what got Don up in the morning. Surely it wasn't Sasha, or the promise of another day out on the pave-o-mento, the sun stabbing his scrawny neck, the humps swelling up, the girls on all fucking wrong.

The Best Place was one of those establishments that signaled the end of empire, or perhaps the advent of something much better than empire, at least to those who could afford it: spa facility, birthing center, archery gallery, breast milk bank, coffee shop. Who wouldn't want to quaff a latte, or shoot a few quivers, during prodromal labor? If the mother-to-be wasn't up to it, she could email JPEGs of her dilated cervix to her birthing community while her partner got a peel, or whiled away the downtime role-playing Agincourt in the gallery.

We few, we happy few.

There was no sign on the street but Purdy had texted me the building number and the password: "Ashtoreth." Somebody buzzed me into a chrome-sided elevator, and I slid stealth-phallically several floors up, stepped into a light-soaked atrium. The room resembled a rain forest tricked out with designer furniture, or a furniture showroom tricked out like a rain forest. Women, some pregnant, and a few men, milled about in plush robes. Michael Florida stood at a Lucite bar, sipped something beige and foamy.

"There's our guy," he said, waved.

Here comes the kid, I thought, took a stool a few stools over.

Michael Florida winked, flipped a notepad shut.

"Care for a drink?"

"What are you having?" I said, peeked into his frothy highball glass.

"I'm digging on this hind milk smoothie."

"Hind milk?"

Now Michael Florida let me in on the details of this place, the Best Place, the luxurious labor chambers, the bottled breast milk chilled in vaults, the mud baths and neo-Swedish massage and compound bows. Purdy was here with Melinda to screen potential midwives, but he wouldn't be long. There was a meeting with some Chinese bridge loan specialists. It concerned Purdy's new project, something to do with Bible stories and mobile phones. But first Purdy wanted a few minutes with me.

"Bible stories?" I said.

"Better than those midget psalms books, right?" said Michael Florida. "But what do I know? I pick this stuff up in dribs and drabs. I'm just a glorified driver, really. This milk is awesome. And great for the immune system. Mine's pretty compromised. So's yours, I'll bet."

"What makes you say that?"

"Your eyes."

"What's wrong with my eyes?"

"They're fucked up."

"Fucked up how?"

"Kind of sludgy."

"My eyes are sludgy?"

"Sorry, dude, don't mean to alarm you. An expert could tell you what it all means. Liver cancer, diabetes, who knows?"

"Maybe they're naturally sludgy."

"That could be. I'm just-"

"I know," I said. "You're just the driver. Michael, can I ask you something? Do you remember me from college?"

"Yeah, sure. You were around. Though to be honest, between the time we all split from there and the other night when I picked you and Purdy up, I hadn't thought of you once. No offense. I mean I'm sure I was that guy for you. That speed freak always lurking around. Did we ever even talk, just the two of us? I don't think so. We only knew each other in a group setting."

"I guess it goes that way sometimes."

"I was always pretty sure you didn't like me. But then again, why would you? I was kind of an animal. Still am. I mean, look at this."

Michael Florida flipped his notepad open. It looked like a list of names, women's names.

"I'm doing some inventory," he said. "But I'm still out there, man. It's a nightmare."

"Sorry to hear it."

"I've been clean and sober for years. But I have not been able to put together any real recovery around my sex addiction. I had a great thing going with this one girl, she was fantastic, a recovering garbage head, used to sell her ass a little, but she was really grounded and cool. Had her own business making vegan snake treats."

"Snake treats?"

"Snake treats. For boas. Save the mice. She was a sweetheart. But of course I had to go to my Everglades on her a few too many times, and she called me out. Sent me packing."

"Everglades?"

"Yeah, you know, because my name is Florida. When I do something shitty, something swampy and wrong, I call that going to my Everglades. Stupid, I guess."

Michael Florida took a tight sip of his drink.

"So, what's with the list?" I said.

"These are all the women I've fucked in the last month. Twenty-seven of them. I'm not bragging about it, believe me. I'm just trying to get a handle on my disease. Because it is a disease. Do you know about this stuff?"

"I think I have a very different disease."

"Which one is that?"

"The one where you don't sleep with twenty-seven women in a month. The one where you don't get laid at all. Ever. Even by your wife. Especially by your wife. You wouldn't understand."

I looked down at Michael Florida's hind milk smoothie. I wasn't sure why I was suddenly confessing to him. I knew why he'd related his problem to me. There wasn't exactly a surfeit of humiliation in confiding to another man that you have been copulating ceaselessly. Although maybe for him there was. Still, I remembered how he talked to everybody all those years ago. Everybody but me. His speech had grown less frantic and drool-specked since college. The cosmic itch seemed intact. Still, what was I doing? Don Charboneau's T-shirt snapped on a clothesline strung between mental tenements: "Thank You for Not Sharing."

"Yeah," I continued. "So it's hard for her. Hard for us. We did almost have sex recently, but in retrospect I don't think it was any kind of turning point. I think it was an anomaly. It's the kid, caring for the kid. She's just really touched out."

"Touched out," said Michael Florida.

"What?"

"No, that phrase. What's her name. ." Michael Florida ran a leathery finger down his list. "Nadine. She said that was what she always told her husband. Touched out. Like 'Sorry, baby, I'm touched out tonight.' "

"What was her name again?" I said.

Michael Florida laughed.

"Oh, man. That's good. Don't worry. It's not your wife."

"I won't worry, Michael. I don't think you're her type."

"No? You sure?"

"I think I'm sure. Anyway, I should congratulate you. Your disease is really putting up big numbers."

"Thanks, man," said Michael Florida. "But really, just to put you at ease, most of these bitches are sad and fat. A few, though, I would have paid. There was this seventeen-year-old, yeah, this one, Vanessa. She was something. Thank God for Viagra."

"You take Viagra?"

"Only with the kids. The kids are so demanding. With somebody my age, I don't take the stuff. They get what they get. Anyway, how'd we start with all this? Crazy. Purdy told me to keep you entertained while you waited. Hope I entertained you."

"You did your job."

"Yeah," said Michael Florida, drank off the rest of his milk. "I do my job."

"Remember," I said, "the night those guys broke into our house?"

"Wait, when?"

"Back in college. Those guys came in with ski masks. Tried to rob us. That one guy was getting up in Constance's face-"

"Jamie!"

"Right," I said. "They called him Jamie."

"Fucking idiot, that guy. I couldn't believe what a tool he was. His cousin said he was okay."

"What are you talking about? You knew him?"

"No, I knew his cousin."

"You mean you were in on it?"

"I needed money, dude. I had a disease. I made amends to everybody that was there. Except you, I guess. Forgot about you. That you were there."