L. A. Geddes
L.A. Geddes lives somewhere in Wisconsin. His work has appeared in numerous online and print journals.
You’ll hate me for saying this, but I was born to be a housewife. I played with baby dolls until I was thirteen. I graduated from Easy Bake Oven to the real thing before my eleventh birthday. I petitioned my high school to expand its home economics program and offer more than just two measly semester courses. I even begged Mrs. Bernard into letting me into Life Planning and Child Development, the class that the school’s resident pregnant girls were legally required to take. I cried when my guidance counselor explained to me that there probably didn’t exist a university that offered a home ec. major. All I’d ever wanted was to acquire a man who would provide me with a stable, comfortable life, who would impregnate me (one boy, two girls: Tristan, Frances and Sandra Dee) and leave me at home to handle the kids and to cook and clean and watch Passions. Is that so unreasonable?
So when, after seven and a half semesters of Mr. Wrong, I met Kip, I was beside myself with—well, not quite joy; let’s say accomplishment. A business major whose ambition was outmatched only by his wealthy father’s Rolodex of V.I.P. connections, he met all the criteria. He pretended to be sensitive when the situation demanded it. He bought me expensive gifts: jewelry, spa trips, a car. And he expected nothing more from me than to look striking hooked to his arm at social events (which he always treated like business anyway) and, after moving into our first home, to furnish the Sinclair heirs.
Why waste any time? We were married in June, just two weeks after graduation. A honeymoon in Paris (all funds supplied by Sinclair the elder) and a couple months of requisite unbridled passion later, we fell easily into our roles—I, the docile, the dedicated, the painter of the picture of domestic bliss; he, the breadwinner, everyday running the rat race at some vague, important corporation, all for the opportunity to arrive home, paycheck dripping bacon grease in his pocket, to be greeted by his dear, sweet wife. Wife—what a musical word it is! I’d hang his fedora (my wedding gift to him) as he’d relate his day—which stocks are up and which are down, the big report he gave, the impending merger, who he’d chewed out for getting his fat ass stuck in the cog of the money-making machine, how, in a brilliant move, he’d increased profits for so-and-so and whatsit. It’s not a wife’s place to understand a man’s world, so long as she listens attentively.
If he asked about my day, what else should escape my lips but a contented “fine”? There wasn’t much to discuss about the domestic realm, at least at first. In the morning, I’d get up an hour before Kip, fix my husband a healthful, hearty breakfast and lay the newspaper before him in the exact order he always read it; business section first, then funnies, world news, sports and finally local. When he finished, I’d kiss my man off to work, do a little tidying up and catch the tail end of The View. After a diet shake lunch—it’s essential that a wife maintain her figure—I’d run errands, scrub the floors, whatever. I wasn’t lonely as long as I had time to sit back and catch a couple soaps, which I almost always did.
And soon Roomba arrived, the UPS guy cradling the pink-ribboned package as he dropped it in my arms. I felt as if I’d been visited by the stork.
“Darling, what is this?” I asked Kip, who stood before the drawing room mirror tightening a half Windsor knot.
“A gift. What else? From your superstud of a husband, that’s who.”
I pulled back the ribbon and removed the box top. Inside, nestled among packing peanuts and tissue papers was a gray plastic disc, about the size of a large dinner plate and as thick as a pie tin. A black bumper shelled its front lip, and three buttons lined along the opposite side: S, M, L. Underneath were a couple wheels, brushes and a filter. Taped to its body, a business-card-sized note:
It’s Roomba, your personal
robotic floor vac. Simply turn
power on, then select room size
and let Roomba do the work.
“Oh, Kippy.” I slipped my arms over Kip’s shoulders and hugged him from behind. “You’re a sweetheart.”
“Anything for you, babe,” he said as I handed him his sack lunch. He tucked it into his briefcase and grabbed his fedora off the hat hook. After a goodbye kiss, he slipped out the door, leaving me alone with my new gift.
To test it out, I took the Roomba to the guest room, where I sprinkled some dirt from a flower vase onto the carpet. I put it down and flicked the on switch, setting room size to medium. It began to vibrate and hum, emitting a gradually rising vroom. Spurting forward, it swallowed the dirt and ran along the edge of the wall.
I left it to finish the job on its own. That was the point, after all. With my time free, I could prepare hors d'oeuvres and dessert to go along with Kip’s dinner, dust the counters, even take in another soap. By the end of the week the Roomba had settled into its own routine. On even-numbered days, I’d start it in the bedroom, move into the upstairs hallway twenty minutes later and then let it roam free on the first floor until the batteries ran out and I plugged it into the recharge dock. On odd-numbered days, I’d send it through the other rooms.
The Roomba allowed for a lot of free time. Some days I spent an hour or more in front of the mirror, watching myself be a wife. Home alone, I practiced, studying my mirror image as she paged through cookbooks, shook a feather duster, bent down on her hands and knees and scrubbed the floor. Trying out my new wardrobe, I catwalked, observing my profile through the side of my eye. My favorite ensemble was a black and white polka dot number with a frilly white apron tied across it, a pair of bright red high heels over my stockinged feet, and the pearl necklace Kip had gotten me for our three-month dating anniversary. My Barbie had worn an outfit just like it.
When I became bored, I’d give imaginary tours of the house, as if old friends or reporters from Better Homes magazine were visiting. “As you can see,” I’d say, “it’s definitely not a starter house.” And I’d pause a moment to let my invisible guests take in the room, making sure they got an appraising look at the chandelier, the quaint Edwardian fireplace, the winding staircase. As I guided the tourists around the premises, I made it a point to linger on the most superfluous rooms: the sunroom, the lounge, the bar, the deck, the den, the drawing room, the pool house, the guest bedroom, the master (emphasis on master) bedroom and bathroom. I always concluded the tour in the study. “This is Kip’s office right now, but in a little while, it will be the baby’s room.” My hypothetical guests would smile knowingly, jealously.
All right, I admit I wasn’t always a perfect wife. When Kip worked late, it seemed pointless to cook dinner for one. Sometimes I’d find myself gazing remorsefully into an empty ice cream carton. And sure, Kip said it was a filthy habit, but I occasionally went out on the balcony for a smoke break, tossing cigarette butts into the air and watching them flutter like helicopter leaves into the water of the backyard pool. Save for that, we could’ve been on the cover of Good Housekeeping.
The thing is, I liked vacuuming, I imagine for the same reasons pilots fly planes and truckers drive. When I pushed a vac around with pure, human willpower, I was at one with the machine, a harmonious amalgam of woman and appliance, flowing within me the dominance of woman over home. Like a caveman chipping stone into a wheel or a painter carefully brushing over her canvas, with my vac I transformed the carpet, took it from its dirty state and beat it into immaculate submission. As I rolled up the power cord, I knew I’d owned that rug. So sometimes, I gave the Roomba the day off.
That is, until Kip came home early one day and caught me moonlighting with the old Dirt Devil.
“What are you doing with that?” He frowned. “Is Roomba okay?”
I leaned against the bright red upright and kicked its cord out of the outlet. “What? Nothing.” I ran my fingertips across my cheeks, waiting for the red to sink off. “It, uh—the battery ran out. So I thought, why not?”
“Oh, Madison. Can this wait? Yes, it can. Will Roomba take care of it tomorrow? Sure he will. Who needs this old thing? We don’t, that’s who.” Kip looked at the Dirt Devil like a hangman tightening the knot. “Anyway, we might as well throw it out.”
I helped him out of his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He heaved the manual vacuum over his shoulder. The cord dragged across the cement as he carried it outside to the curb. He threw it on a pile of garbage bags and wiped his hands on his pants. I’d had it since college, long before I met Kip. We’d been through a lot together.
“There, sweets,” said Kip, back inside. “All taken care of.”
“Thanks,” I smiled, rolling my tongue along the back of my gums. “How was your day? Honeybunch.”
“Listen, Maddie. You’ll like this,” he said as sat at the dining table. “We just closed the Halprin deal today and I’m in the break room talking it over with the guys when fat Eddie—you know how he’s all jealous—comes up and starts going on about how we strong-armed them into it and how he deserves the credit anyway, yap yap yap. So then Ricky P—goddamn, he’s a funny guy—says how he read an article somewhere that said guys that always wear red ties have small johnsons. Oh, that got Eddie red—redder than the tie he wears everyday, ha—and, you’ll never guess, he whips it out, right there on the spot! I couldn’t believe it. I gotta admit it was a sight to behold. Not as big as mine, though. Right?”
“Of course not, honey. You know I love how you fill me up,” I said.
“Damn right I do.”
Before serving myself, I got up from my chair and spooned some mashed potatoes (it was American traditional night) onto Kip’s plate, poured him a glass of wine, and cut his steak into manageably sized pieces. He elaborated, describing Eddie’s red penis in minute detail, but I was only half-listening. Every time some breadcrumbs trailed off of Kip’s lips and onto the carpet, and when he knocked the bowl of peas onto the floor, my mind turned to my abandoned Dirt Devil.
“Get this, babe. Because I totally slam-dunked the deal, they’re moving me to a corner office,” said Kip, picking a corn kernel out of his teeth and flicking it off his fingernail. I watched it fly in slow motion, landing by the heating vent. “And I get a secretary.”
“Not prettier than me, I hope.”
Kip’s cheekbones climbed so high his eyes squinted. This was his amorous look. “You make the prettiest wife. Oh babe, I could—”
“Save it for tonight, hon,” I said as sweetly as I could manage. My eyes were still fixed on the chewed up piece of corn, like a motionless bug hiding in the corner of the room. The Roomba wouldn’t be able to reach it. With its round shape, sharp corners were a problem.
My Devil, though, that was some vac. It’d glide into the corner and inhale the debris with ease. It would have, anyway. Now it lay helplessly in the street, garbage strewn atop it—a cruel irony, for even if it could plug itself in, its bag could never contain the mess. Most of it was too big to fit through the Devil’s esophagus, anyway. Tomorrow, the trashman would come and toss it into the jaws of the truck, mashing it into unrecognizable shards of vibrant red plastic.
But a husband knows best, right? The Roomba went back to work, and I dropped the soaps—how repetitive they can get—instead spending my time browsing private preschool brochures, snipping relevant articles out of parenting magazines, online wish list shopping for cribs, walkers, and toys.
No, there was no dough rising, so to speak, but Kip and I were preheating practically every night, three or four times on the dates the OB-GYN had highlighted on my ovulation calendar.
The impending baby gave me a new incentive. I started exercising and followed a strict wholefood diet—it increases fertility, the book said. I gave up my disgusting smoking habit with ease. I no longer had anything to hide. Before I had only been a good wife. As a mother, I’d be the perfect wife.
Sometimes it got on my nerves. Roomba, I mean. It was so finicky, always getting stuck under the recliner, crawling under the bed, falling down the steps; flipped like tortoise, it cried for help, repeating a grating little melody until I found it and put it to sleep. All the maintenance was hardly worth it. When the suction brushes became clogged, it suffered a fit of indigestion and wouldn’t work; I had to pat its back until it coughed it all up—disgusting! Every few days it required a sponge bath in the cleaning solution the company had sent upon receipt of the warranty card. Taking care of the little thing was turning into a 24/7 career.
The itch was still there. Every once in a while I’d catch myself clicking out of the Amazon.com baby page and into the housewares department to check out the new WindTunnels. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate Roomba’s help. I did. It’s just that I was Kip’s wife, his consort, his woman, his confidant, his cook, his homemaker. By doling out one of my essential wifely tasks to Roomba, I felt like a charlatan of a spouse.
It bothered me when I left the house to run errands and kept Roomba running. I’d get this guilty feeling in the middle of the supermarket checkout line or at the counter at the post office. It would suddenly occur to me, there was another woman in my home, doing my chores and acting just like me, and beginning with the simple task of vacuuming, gradually sneaking her way into the position it’d taken me all my life to earn. An alternate wife. Maybe my husband would arrive home one day and sit down to dinner with her, chat about his day with her and take this clone to bed, all without ever knowing it wasn’t his true-blue wife—the one he’d married, not bought.
Once I returned home to have Roomba greet me in the foyer, licking at the edges of the welcome mat. I could have sworn I’d set it upstairs and shut the door.
That night I lay naked on the bed, my ankles crossed around the small of Kip’s back. I felt like a drill sergeant, Kip thrusting in and out of me with the stone precision of a new recruit giving me twenty. He had his eyes closed. He always had his eyes closed lately. Something to do with the baby, I guessed. Anyway, this was different from sex. It was procreation.
Not that I was incapable of enjoying myself. I was unwary. The whole time, there Roomba was, resting in its recharge dock atop the dresser, its LED eyes leering at me in the dark. The more I tried to ignore the gaze the harder it was to not sneak peaks at it. All the while Kip galloped along like a workhorse. I imagined a slithery tongue licking Roomba’s outer plastic lip. As Kip approached his peak and his breathing became harder and heavier, I could have sworn he sounded exactly like Roomba on full suction.
I closed my eyes, tried to clear my head by focusing on the white noise of Kip’s motor-like panting. Finally, he climaxed and set his head on my shoulder. His breath was relaxed and human again. Sliding out, he crawled down my abs and, cheek slapping my thigh, whispered at his sperm. “Go get ‘em, guys,” he said. “Chase those eggs!” It was sweet, really. Then he rolled over to his side of the bed, set his hand on my breast and gave it a playful tug. “It doesn’t matter tonight, honey?” he said. “You don’t mind. This is about making something out of our love, not individual pleasure.”
Before I could answer, Roomba darted out of its dock and crashed to the ground, carrying with it a framed picture of Kip’s mother. I shrieked, quickly calmed myself and stepped on Roomba. Flipping the off switch, I said, “Surprised me,” and shrugged. I set Roomba wheels-up in a basket of laundry. It looked like a crib.
I couldn’t sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes, nightmare images played on my mind. Projected onto my eyelids, I watched a movie of myself breastfeeding, little baby Frances nursed in one arm and Roomba suckling from the other.
Over omelets the next morning I told Kip I was thinking of going shopping for a new vacuum cleaner. “A normal one,” I said.
I might as well have peed on his Valextra briefcase, he got such a look on his face. “Are you joking?” he said gravely. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, but—”
“Why drag some old thing around the house when there’s Roomba? If it works better than you do, let Roomba do it.”
I excused myself to retrieve the newspaper, scooping it off the porch and carrying it to the dining table. Kip reached his hand out for it, but I slipped past him and spread it open before me. I began to browse the business section while he gobbled the last piece of toast. Once finished, he clawed at the paper, pinched tightly between my fingers. “I care about this stuff, too,” I said. “You’re not the only one with a degree.”
Kip smirked. “Cute.” He reached over the table and brushed my hair with his fingers. Pulling the paper out of my hand, he flattened the stocks page on the tabletop, picked out the Life & Style section and handed it back to me.
On his way out, Kip tripped on his shoelace and stumbled into the Bonsai. An avalanche of soil surged across the carpet. He got up, brushed himself off, and with a satisfied smirk, waved at the carpet. “See? See how handy Roomba will be?”
I smiled wider than I thought my lips would stretch before I kissed him goodbye. As I shut the door, I caught my reflection in the foyer mirror. My hair was frazzled, tangled in that sleepless sort of way. The polka dot dress that had served me so well in the beginning had stained indelibly, an amoeba of ketchup over the right breast, drops of wine across the hem of the skirt. The apron had torn, was no longer a vibrant white, but a lifeless gray. On my feet, only socks; I had broken off at least one heel of each of all my pairs of high heel shoes. The only thing that looked the same was the pearl necklace, as opalescent as the day I was married.
When I was sure Kip was gone, I went to the bathroom, crouched and opened the cabinet under the sink where I kept all my cleaning supplies. Reaching behind an industrial sized jug of Orange Clean, I pushed open a false back and pulled out my secret stash: a carton of Lucky Strikes.
I spent the rest of the morning out smoking by the pool. Reclining on a deck chair, I took only one drag off each cigarette before tossing it aside. Roomba ran along the patio floor, chasing the steaming butts and swallowing them eagerly. I stared blankly into the glistening water and listened to the puppy yipping away in the neighbors’ yard. The pool hadn’t been cleaned in a while; leaves, cigarette butts, moss, a deflated football floated across the surface. It was the only terrain Roomba couldn’t manage.
I never felt like this before it rolled into our lives. Who knew it’d be such a hassle when I brought it into our home? I couldn’t sleep at night, and so I was grouchy in the daytime. When he came home from work, Kip always asked how Roomba was doing before he asked about me. We never talked anymore, not about anything important. The sex was still satisfying—for Kip. Having Roomba threw something off in our marriage, like serving red wine with fish. I had begun to think of home as a three-person household, and it was crowded.
The next thing I knew, I was at the computer in the study, placing an order for a new Dirt Devil. It wouldn’t be the same as my old college one—they didn’t even make that model anymore—but I just knew once we’d gone through a few rugs together, it’d be like old times—just like before Roomba, even before Kip. I paid extra for overnight shipping, my fingers quaking excitedly against the mouse button as I confirmed the order.
With that done, I cleared the browser history and deleted the e-mail invoice. To be safe, I had used Kip’s MasterCard, which billed directly to his father. Of course I was going to tell him, just not yet. I’d wait until the vac was here, after I’d tried it out and was sure it was the right thing for me. Then when Kip returned home from work, I’d sit him down on the couch, show him the Devil and quietly explain to him how much it meant to me. Then he’d understand.
I pictured myself taking the new Dirt Devil for its first cruise across the living room carpet tomorrow. Giddy, I spun around in Kip’s leather office chair until a high keening from outside the door caught my ear. Roomba was singing its help signal song. It must have gotten stuck somewhere again. It’ll be the last time, I thought with a smirk. Before I turned out the light in the study, I leaned against the doorframe and looked back into the room. It was so well decorated—all mahogany and clean, sharp edges—it’d be a shame to change it. I liked it as an office. Honestly, I hoped it’d stay that way.
I found Roomba behind the recliner, fixed in place and buzzing. It took a tentative step forward then jerked back. Suddenly it burst into motion and crashed head-on into the corner of the wall. Rolling back, it braced itself then charged again. It was stuck on repeat. It kept ramming its teeth into the wall like it was trying to put itself out of its misery. It had always had a problem with sharp corners.
The poor thing was capable—all the parts worked and everything—but it’d gotten itself into such a constrictive position. I should’ve done something—about the carpet, I mean. The corners really were filthy—lint, dirt, dust, cookie crumbs, a rusty old penny, all lying out of Roomba’s reach. All I could do was stand back and watch Roomba’s kamikaze mission of cleanliness. It was so forceful that the paint was beginning to chip, but even the flecks of wall plaster had fallen out of its grasp.
As I watched its fruitless pursuit, I started thinking of the time a Roomba salesman had called, trying to shill off some new attachment or something. (Word of advice: Never give your real phone number on the warranty card.) I don’t know if this is true. He said that the Roomba was developed by NASA and that earlier, more advanced models had been used to collect particle samples on Mars. It wasn’t until a few years ago, he said, that they realized the technology to make the Roomba an affordable household appliance.
What wasted potential. Mercifully, I kicked the Roomba’s off switch. I picked the self-vac up and cradled it in my arms, carrying it upstairs and placing it in the recharge dock. “You’re going to sleep for a long time.” I’ll save the rest of the vacuuming for tomorrow, I thought with a grin.
The Dirt Devil arrived early the next morning—too early. The doorbell chimed just as Kip sat down to breakfast, a vague disappointment playing on his face. I was so anxious I had spent all morning breaking egg yolk after egg yolk; in the end I settled for scrambled eggs in lieu of Kip’s preferred sunny side up. At the sound of the bell, he threw down his fork and groaned. “Is breakfast time an appropriate visiting hour for solicitors? No, it is not.”
Hands on his shoulders, I held him in his seat and said, “Kippy, don’t get up,” and pattered out of the kitchen before he could object. The plan was for Kip to come home to find me running the new vacuum along the carpet. When he saw how much I enjoyed it, he’d understand how much it meant to me—that although I appreciated the Roomba, I preferred to clean by myself. But now that I thought about it, tomorrow would be a much better day to tell him. Or the day after. I’ll just have a week alone with it first, I decided.
I asked the UPS guy to put it in the garage. It took every ounce of restraint I had to keep from tearing the box open right there on the porch. I watched impatiently as he threw the garage door open, lugged it in and deposited it in the corner, behind the bumper of Kip’s Lexus. I waved the UPS guy out and, to keep my husband from asking any questions, backed Kip’s car out into the driveway, locking the garage door before returning inside.
In the kitchen, Kip held the plate to his face, licking the maple syrup off and spilling egg and sausage bits and breadcrumbs on the floor. Oh boy! I couldn’t wait to let my Dirt Devil get a taste of that mess. “Who was it?” Kip asked as he wiped his chin with a greasy palm.
“Just the paperboy.” I smiled. “He forgot to collect last week.”
“What took you so long?” Kip stood and buttoned his sleeves, tightened his necktie. “Flirting, huh? Kid’s got a crush on you? Yeah, that’s right.”
I thought of the vac waiting for me in the garage and giggled. “I pulled your car out for you, honeybunch.”
“With the A.C. on? All right.” He wound his arm as if pitching a baseball. “Throwing a thanks your way, babe.” Kip’s cheekbones rose and he squinted, looking me up and down. “We have a little extra time—for this.” He grabbed my hips and pulled me into his chest, kissing me in a first base kind of way. He rolled his tongue around mine. I rolled back, but I kept my eyes open, gazing over his shoulder at the pieces of food that had dirtied the floor.
“Tonight,” he whispered in my ear, and headed out the door. I lingered in the foyer, listening for the sounds of his car starting, of it backing out and driving away, of it leaving me alone in the house for the rest of the day. I waited an extra minute, just to be sure the coast was clear, then hurried to the garage and brought it in. I didn’t waste any time getting it out of the packaging and onto the floor.
As I plugged it in, as the electrical surge went through the cord and into my new upright, another electricity surged through my own veins. It had been so long—too long—since the last time, since Kip had thrown out my old one so unceremoniously. And the sound, god how I had missed the sound—so loud and windy and unlike the polite and constant Roomba. No more of that nudging the carpet into cleanliness. It was like old times again. I was going to beat that dust, that dirt, those crumbs into submission, starting with the corners.
From the first push I felt like a cripple leaping forth from her crutches. All day I vacuumed. Carpet, rugs, tile, hardwood flooring, even the neglected basement shag, it didn’t matter. Some rooms I went through twice. Other rooms didn’t need vacuuming but I vacuumed them anyway. I pulled out all the attachments, gave each a little time on the hose. I ran it along the walls, even the ceiling. I took my Devil up the stairs, down the stairs and back up again, dragging the hose along the handrail. I vacuumed Kip’s ties. I vacuumed my shoes. Heck, after I washed the dishes, I vacuumed them dry. Pushing through the house with a manual, woman-powered vac, home was mine again. Only mine.
I was so engrossed in it that I didn’t hear Kip’s car idling in the driveway, or the door when he slammed it shut, or his voice when he called my name. I stood on the bed running the Devil over the mattress, immersed in the sound of the vacuum’s panting as it sucked the lint off the sheets. Faintly, I heard Kip’s footsteps as he plodded up the stairs. I ignored them, rocking the vacuum over the pillowcases, devouring a couple loose feathers. When I saw the doorknob shaking, I reached for the power cord but didn’t unplug it. I held it in my hand, dropping it when my husband burst through the door.
What’s going on in here?” He looked around, wild-eyed. Behind him on the dresser, the Roomba sat oblivious in its recharge dock. Kip’s jaw sank, his cheeks seeming to have instantaneously grown a five o’ clock shadow. He loosened his collar and said, “Are you going to unplug it?” He turned his head up at me and nodded.
I leaned on the handle, the vacuum still running. I didn’t make a move toward the power cord. Instead I attached the hose accessory and guided it along the edges of the mattress. Kip staggered into the bed, but I held him off by pushing the mouth of my vacuum at him. He seized the hose and tore it off. My Dirt Devil only gasped for more. Kip turned and gazed at the Roomba, its LED eyes faded. Unplug it? Kip mouthed silently. He crossed his arms and tapped his foot.
I lunged my vacuum forward, jumped off the bed and moved it along the perimeter of the carpet, circling Kip’s feet. I slid it under the bed and in the crack between the nightstand and the wall. I opened the sliding glass doors and vacuumed the balcony rug, meanwhile looking out at the neighborhood's identical rooftops and thinking: All I've ever wanted was to be a wife. As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember what it was about having a husband that had once appealed to me so. The vacuum was reliable, didn't work late and then come home and complain about overcooked potatoes. The vacuum was quiet, wouldn't interrupt me in the middle of the conversation to tell me about his day and his work. The vacuum respected me, went where I pushed it and cleaned what I wanted it to clean. Really, my vacuum was all I'd ever really wanted.
I turned back. Kip, bent in the corner, held the plug between two fingers, his knuckles resting against the outlet. But I knew he wouldn't stop me. I had my vac now, and that's all I needed. No husband, no fancy house, no chandelier, no winding staircase, no pool and no baby. It wouldn't take long to pack my bags. Actually, the only bags I needed were a few spare refills.
© Copyright 2008 L. A. Geddes