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Contents ( 25)
  1. keith prime
  2. the age of love
  3. frequently asked questions about your craniotomy
  4. WHAT HAPPENS DURING A CRANIOTOMY?
  5. IS IT TRUE I WILL HAVE TO BE AWAKE DURING MY CRANIOTOMY?
  6. WON’T I BE IN PAIN IF I’M AWAKE DURING MY CRANIOTOMY?
  7. WHAT WILL MY BRAIN BE LIKE AFTER MY CRANIOTOMY?
  8. WHAT ARE THE COMPLICATIONS THAT CAN OCCUR FROM A CRANIOTOMY?
  9. WHY SHOULD I CHOOSE ST. TERESA OF ÁVILA HOSPITAL FOR MY CRANIOTOMY?
  10. CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT YOUR SURGICAL TEAM?
  11. YOU’RE KIND OF ANGRY, AND THAT’S NOT VERY PROFESSIONAL. IS EVERYTHING OKAY?
  12. HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT NOT BEING A NEUROSURGEON?
  13. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE?
  14. DID YOU TAKE THE ADVICE OF THE DEPARTMENT STORE REINCARNATION OF YOUR MOTHER?
  15. WHAT ELSE DID YOUR FAMILY THROW IN THE POOL?
  16. architecture for monsters
  17. the promised hostel
  18. you will never be forgotten
  19. camp jabberwocky for recovering internet trolls
  20. to save the universe, we must also save ourselves
  21. realtor to the damned
  22. not setsuko
  23. acknowledgments
  24. A Note About the Author
  25. contents

Cunty, sipping his coffee, comes up behind the woman, as if psychically sensing he might be needed to rescue someone’s character, and idly leers at Madison.

“That’s amazing, Madison is still kicking around,” he says.

The woman queues Madison in the violation column in her screaming panel.

“I swear if I ever marry and my woman pops out some brats, I’m raising them Amish,” he rants—not just for her benefit, but for the benefit of the group, though he doesn’t budge from his buzzard-hovering over the woman. “Can you imagine if that were your daughter? I never want to be in a situation where I’m looking at my daughter’s vagina online and thinking to myself, Her vagina isn’t as hot as a hacked celebrity vagina candid.”

“You have to be so careful,” BabyJesusUpchuck replies. “The internet is forever.”

“After we’re dead and rotting in the ground or cremated and turned to ash, our vaginas will still be on a server somewhere for everyone to see,” Cunty says.

Sometimes, after too many hours in front of her screaming panel, the woman will start to float above her own body, as in the testimonies of those who have had near-death experiences or been the victims of a crime—rape, for example—aware that it will end but being forced to wait until that end. The woman feels that same floaty sensation as she signs into the dating site and types her reply to the rapist. To be honest, she doesn’t know if she’s ready to date. Not so long ago, she met someone on this site. After they went out a few times, he asked her up to his place. Though she was interested in him, she wasn’t interested in sex that soon. When she first said no, he respected her request, but he didn’t heed the second no. The rapist pinned her hands with one of his hands and then ripped apart her lace panties, not troubling to undo her clothes. She was wearing a vintage calfskin leather skirt and a silk peasant top printed with flowers. It is the most expensive outfit she owns, and she can no longer put it on. As she was retreating from him post-rape, the rapist said she was missing something, and he threw her ruined underwear in her face. In conclusion, the woman would like to ask: Do you remember me?

Anxious since hitting send, the woman stares at her messages waiting for something to happen while she tries to determine what she hoped to accomplish with this fake profile and correspondence scheme. Did she want the rapist to acknowledge that he is a rapist? An apology? Professions of love? For him to kill himself? What she gets is nothing. The rapist ghosts. Her need for a reply, even if only a nasty one, becomes more and not less urgent. She follows the rapist online and in real life with greater persistence. She rereads each digital clue left by the rapist and then rereads the rereads. She watches him take lunches, do drinks, socialize. She watches him train for his next charity triathlon, buy bright new curtains over which she wishes she could, but can’t, make a curtains-matching-the-drapes quip, walk his dog, recycle, be a well-adjusted individual and valuable member of the community. Confrontation is her fantasy, of knocking on the rapist’s door and, when he opens it, bluntly informing him, “Hi, you raped me.”