TWENTY-SEVEN
Homearium, Week 3

When she was a child, the family collie, Got-Fleas, used to try to hump her leg. She wasn’t sure why he chose her. Perhaps because she was the one who fed him, or maybe, at the age of ten, she was the only nearby female close to his weight. Some days his desire seemed to get worse. On those days, anytime she stood still, he would try to wrap his leg around her knee. Even after she shook him off, his hips would continue to work wistfully back and forth, as though not yet willing to believe she had pushed him away.

Thus she wasn’t that surprised when one afternoon, during a language lesson, Junior tried to rub against the back of her leg. After all, he’d humped nearly every object in the homearium (the inflatable raft, the ball, the base of the bed, the stairs of the pool).

At the point he did this, she was standing by the stove making breakfast. He rotated sideways to angle his lower belly against the back of her calf. With his first thrust, her knee gave way and she fell over, luckily missing the edge of the stove. Struggling to stand up in the water, she saw his erection and understood.

From then on, each time she saw him about to try this, she’d jab at his side with the broom’s bristles. He moved so much faster than she did that generally by the time she had raised the broom a few inches, he had scooted 10 feet away. He continued, however, to watch her, clearly plotting his next attempt. She was the only other living being in the pool with him, and her calf was the easiest part of her to access.

* * *

It was difficult in the homearium. She slept each night on a wet roll of foam. Her salty skin was itchy all the time. She took showers in the pre-dawn, pulling the shower, curtain tightly shut while Junior wove around her legs, watching everything she did. She rinsed the dirty outfit in the shower, and when she and the clothes were clean, she turned off the water, dried herself as best as she could and pulled on a clean pair of bike shorts and a bikini top. Yesterday’s outfit she spread on the cement beside the pool to dry.

At the research center, she had transformed, was now the color of café au lait, wet all day and nearly bald. She had become like Junior, smooth curves and practical muscle. She felt sexless, exhausted and not completely human. She didn’t want to wear the chafing clothing but did so because of the men.

Food was just fuel. She ate the same type of fish Junior did, fried, bolting it down with a few pieces of fruit on the side, everything slightly soggy. She wanted to earn the right to be that woman researcher, to show the men she could do this, to live with the dolphins, studying them for the rest of her life. She struggled to prove herself.