“He sets down the duffel bag, then he starts talking. It’s the strangest proposition Harmony has ever heard—and trust me when I say a woman in her line of work gets a lot of unusual propositions. First, he wants to see the Oxy. He wants to know the dose, which he then proceeds to look up on his phone. Apparently, far from being an addict, he claims he doesn’t have much experience. He’d like to know her professional opinion on how many he should take to effectively dull the worst of the pain but remain conscious.

“Conscious for what, Harmony wants to know.

“DG opens the black duffel bag to reveal a small cooler of dry ice, rubber gloves, a knife, a hacksaw, and a hammer. Harmony starts to freak out. Oh no, oh no, oh no, the guy rushes to assure her. This has nothing to do with her. It’s all for him. The whole evening, the Oxy, the setup, it’s about his leg. It doesn’t belong to him. It never has. From the time he was a toddler, he knew his leg was alien. He’s tried to adapt, he assured her. To convince himself, even if he couldn’t love it, he should accept it, pretend it was a prosthetic or maybe a plastic leg. He even saw a therapist for a while. But nothing has worked. And he just can’t keep living with an alien anymore. The leg must come off. It’s time.

“He’ll do the hard part. He just needs a little help from her. And in return, he’ll pay her five thousand dollars. For one night’s work. Deal?

“Harmony doesn’t know what to say. She’s still pretty confused. Then there’s not really time for talking. The man is already in motion. First, he downs three Oxy with a handful of water from the sink. He’s worried it’ll either be too much or not enough, so he says he must move quickly. He lines the tub with a trash bag, then, donning the rubber gloves, dumps in the dry ice. He’s very polite, according to Harmony. Warns her not to touch the dry ice with her bare hands. It freezes at a temperature even lower than regular ice and can cause instant frostbite.

“He positions his tools in the bathtub. Then he comes back out to the main room and carefully removes all his clothing. This is it, Harmony figures. Man’ll want a quickie, some sort of last hurrah with both legs intact before he completes his journey to the land of completely crazy.

“But no, he piles his clothes neatly. Carries his phone back to the bathroom and sets it on the toilet seat. Then he comes back and picks up the tie. He’s getting a little bit sloppy now, his eyelids heavy as the Oxy starts to kick in, but if anything that seems to make him more determined.

“This is what he’s going to do, he explains to Harmony: He’s going to fashion a tourniquet with the tie above his right knee to eliminate blood flow to his lower leg. Then, he’s going to position himself on the edge of the bathtub, which, having seen green slime rimming the tub, Harmony already knows is the action of a desperate man. He’s going to place his lower leg in the bath of dry ice.