Laila blames her vanishing libido on moving into Kasim’s apartment. She tries to remember the last time they had sex and feels guilty when she cannot recall offhand. Days pile on days and weeks on weeks. Dating a TA once felt illicit and exciting; she would take him to bed between classes and still be up for more at night. Now it’s a Tuesday night after her closing shift at the housewares store, a job one rung lower than the office assistant position she was recently let go from, and she has to concentrate to make the requisite, reassuring moans that she’s not falling asleep. That, in fact, she might be enjoying it. As he thrusts into her, there is a pleasant fullness but nothing more. Ten months into their relationship is too soon to live together, she feels, but she can no longer afford rent in the apartment she shared with several other classmates who all just barely clawed their way to graduation. Kasim offered his place and she reluctantly accepted, if only because the alternative—having to confess to Ma that she lied about almost everything in her life over the past year—felt so intolerable it made her gag.
“Kiss me,” she says.
Kasim lowers himself to her mouth and parts her lips with the wet lump of his tongue. His beard is like a bristle comb against her cheeks. With one hand, he massages her nipple until it stands erect. She lets his mouth wander down to engulf it, enjoys his ravenous expression more than his technique. What does it say about her that she feels turned on not by his touch, but by satisfying his need? Like ticking off an item on her to-do list. She once believed sex was supposed to be enchanting—a memorable experience, overwhelming in all the right ways. Not efficient. Not effortful. Not bland or lackluster. To speed up its end, Laila guides his hand between her legs and grinds her clit against his knuckles until she feels heat rise in her pelvis. The barest whisper of want that all too soon hisses away. He mounts her again, slips himself inside. She stares up at the popcorn ceiling and allows her vision to blur the crumbs into constellations. He hadn’t bothered to turn off the overhead light before he reached for her.
The angular face of a woman juts out from the contours of the craggy drywall, too large a figure to be incidental. As if the ceiling is a malleable rubber mold cast from the other side, Laila can make out the details of her jagged lips and sunken textured cheeks. The woman’s eyes are closed, her eyelids rounded into warty ovals. Laila dreads to imagine them opening. Her entire body stiffens and Kasim, thinking he hit her G-spot, rocks more vigorously on top of her. Pinned by his weight, she closes her eyes and reopens them, but the woman remains.
“You like that? You like that?” Kasim repeats, parroting the porn she once caught him watching. With a shudder, he comes, still inside of her. She turns a furious glare to his sweaty face. Heat rises to her cheeks, a burning sensation.
“You didn’t pull out,” she says, flinty.
“I’m sorry, babe,” he says. “You took your pill today, right?” He wraps his arms around her in a conciliatory hug, then rolls off of her. A wave, high and wrathful, crashes in her chest. She would never have agreed to stop using condoms when she got on birth control if she knew it would be a free pass for him to treat her like a sex doll. Laila considers whether she has the stamina for an argument. Then the slight headache she brought home from work rumbles back into her awareness, her fatigue sets in, and the effort to push past her pain feels too great to surmount. He wouldn’t get it anyway. She recalls his dismissal of her panic when she was let go from her summer RA position, the one meant to placate Ma until she found her first adult job. She could just live with him and figure it out, what was the big deal? She beelines for the bathroom. As she wipes his sticky mess from her vulva over the toilet, the woman’s face hovers in her mind. She must have been lulled to sleep momentarily by the repetitive motion. She will allow no other explanation. When she emerges, the room is lit only by the bedside lamp. She tosses a quick glance to the ceiling before tugging on her nightshirt and new underwear. Nothing out of the ordinary.
◆
Their courtship started as senior year gossip amongst her suitemates. Kasim was the TA for her anthropology elective, a shaggy-haired U.S.-born Pakistani guy who made a uniform of worn oversized t-shirts and mismatched socks with sandals. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Laila zoned out as he waved his hands emphatically in front of dense PowerPoint slides, daydreaming about his personal life to entertain herself. He was one of the few South Asian people on campus who she could imagine being friends with. She wondered whether he experienced her same sense of discomfort around the wealthier Indian crowd who rolled their eyes at cultural events, having likely been to dozens of these functions as kids and teenagers at their parents’ request, but who nevertheless attended every one in perfectly-applied makeup and stunning salwar kameez. Laila, Bangladeshi American and broke, had found it refreshing that at least one other person had chosen to stop performing.
“Do you think he’s cute?” she asked her roommate who also took his class.
“Hard to say. He’s got male feminist written all over him. I’d give him a 6 out of 10,” Maryam replied.
“So low? I’d say at least 8.”
“Higher points if it’s just a hookup, but he’s not marriage material.”
Laila snorted with laughter. She savored being at the center of her friends’ attention for once, more accustomed to sitting sidecar to their romances and breakups, reliably picking up the takeout when they were called to counsel someone on whether she should get back together with her ex. Where advice-giving was almost a competitive sport for most of her friends, Laila often receded into her own thoughts, offering them only if asked directly.
“You should ask him to help you on the next paper. You know, a little teacher’s pet action.”
“I’m not going to actually do anything,” Laila said, her cheeks hot.
“Not even for the story?”
That semester, Laila stopped sleeping. At first, she thought of her insomnia as an advantage. Unlike her roommates, she could pull all-nighter after all-nighter and still make it to class in the morning.
But this time, in the buzzing yellow light of the dorm hallways, she could not shake the feeling of being stalked. She asked Maryam to check her closet, to open the shower curtain in their shared bathroom and declare it safe before she stepped in. Shadows pooled and gathered into distinct moving forms that appeared at random out of the corner of her eye and disappeared just as quickly when she turned around. Lying down, minutes stretched into half an hour, then an hour, then more. After several grueling days of this, she finally made an appointment at the campus health center where a nurse exhausted her further with a series of questions.
“We recommend that you follow up with counseling services to get evaluated,” the nurse told her as she requested a prescription for sleeping pills. “Major mental illness often shows up for the first time in your age group.”
“I’m not crazy,” Laila replied weakly.
“I know, sweetie. Not getting enough sleep can really do a number on a person. But even then, maybe you want to talk to someone about why you’re not getting enough rest.”
Laila wanted to tell the nurse that she came from a family of poor sleepers. That she is the eldest daughter and, after her father left, none of them got rest. Both her younger siblings are night owls. Ma wakes up to nightmares whenever she is worried. Laila relies on pushing her body to the point of feeling like a wrung-out rag. At home, her job is to anticipate and respond to all of Ma’s concerns or demands—a role she abdicated by moving as far away from Washington as possible for school. She cannot be forced home on medical leave. Maybe if the nurse knew this about her, she would understand why Laila immediately discarded her recommendation.
As she left through the frosted glass doors, she noticed a missed call from Ma. She texted her excuses. Can’t talk, studying. Big assignment due. It’s only a little lie, she told herself.
◆
After the sighting, Laila unearths her half-empty bottle of sleeping pills to guarantee a plunge into a solid dreamless sleep whenever she needs it. Over the next couple of days, her acute dread dissipates, replaced by existential reminders of how her life has stagnated. Six weeks pass and she does nothing but wake up, go to work, come home, and sleep.
“What are those?” Kasim asks when he catches her shaking a pill out of the vial.
“New type of birth control,” she says. “They make me kind of bloated though, I might switch.”
Her stomach roils as though at sea; with every undulation, her scant dinner bobs up and down. Kasim accepts bloating as a reason why she is not interested in sex that night. Dismissed, he falls asleep in a careless posture. His loud snores ricochet off the ceiling. Laila curls into a ball on the edge of the bed, but sleep does not come to her. The glowing clock on her phone screen menaces her each time she opens her eyes.
Facing Kasim, she spreads a palm across his chest hair, hoping to quiet him with her touch. She recoils, surprised to find the skin underneath is waxy, mannequin stiff in a way that conjures images of movie cadavers and dead dogs. She presses on him, but he is unresponsive. She sits up fully before she sees it.
A naked woman, outlined in the thin glow of light from the window, crouches on top of his torso. Wild matted hair halos out from her head. Impossibly long, it flows over her gray corpse-like flesh and blurs against the dark comforter. Laila tracks the woman’s ravenous gaze to Kasim’s loose open mouth. At first, the woman shows no indication that she registers Laila’s presence at all. But her body shrinks back as if she were prey. Achingly slow, the woman turns her pupil-less eyes in Laila’s direction.
She jolts away and tumbles out of bed, shrieking as her knee connects with the hard edge of the nightstand. The pain brings on another wave of nausea. Away, away, all she can think is: away. She thrashes to extricate herself from the sheets but only ends up more entangled. Then the bedside lamp snaps on. Kasim stands over her. Her relief at seeing him warm and alive blooms and dies in the span of time it takes to read his sour expression. Laila puts a hand to her mouth to restrain a sob.
“What are you doing?”
She opens her mouth to speak and hot soupy liquid floods in. Her hand fills with chunks of undigested leftovers which squish in her fist until they overflow. Wave after wave of sick rises from her esophagus and out, staining the carpet. It feels as though she will never be empty. She dry heaves even when there is nothing left.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she repeats, shaking.
“It’s ok,” Kasim says, but he looks away from her. “I’ll get the cleaner.”
“Don’t leave.” But he is already in the hallway opening the closet. He tosses a roll of paper towels to the ground next to her and hands her a spray bottle.
“I don’t want it to stink.”
“Are you ok?” she asks tentatively.
“I’m fine. You’re the one who just puked your guts out.”
She could tell him right then about what she saw, she thinks. But a part of her knows he would just brush it aside. Kasim prides himself on not being superstitious like his aunties—he doesn’t believe in ghosts or jinn, actively loathes the invocation of omens and fate. For him, every part of this universe is explicable with some investigation. Fear is just a response. The smell of the cleaner makes her want to heave all over again, but she holds her breath as they scrub in silence.
“I need you to sleep on the couch tonight,” he says, matter-of-fact, “I have to go back to sleep. I have that presentation tomorrow.”
“I just had a nightmare,” Laila says, five years old again and bewildered.
“We can talk about it tomorrow afternoon.”
She stops herself. Her mind whirs through all the possible outcomes and, overloaded, locks her in place. Kasim squeezes her shoulder and steers her toward the shower. He steadies her with one hand as she stumbles over the tub edge.
“Will you stay in here with me?”
“Something must’ve really spooked you.” He pauses. “I’ll get the couch set up. ”
Under the spray, Laila’s body aches. Slow silent tears roll down her face and mingle with the water as it slides down the drain.
There’s a knock at the bathroom door. “If you’re still feeling bad, we can go to urgent care in the morning.”
Laila dries off, avoiding her own gaze in the fogged mirror. When she emerges, the bedroom door is shut.
◆
Back at work, the ephemeral objects she sells inspire in her a destructive rage. Soap tins. Gauzy cotton scarves. Single air plants in thin glass orbs. She thrills at the thought of lobbing them hard against the tile floor to watch them burst. She imagines Kasim’s flat expression from that night and her rage multiplies. As she restocks the inch-long porcelain salt spoons, one breaks free from her hand and shatters into three jagged shards. She is tempted to swipe her arm along the shelf and stomp them all into powdery nothing. But there is only so much purpose fantasy can serve. Even her fury, over time, whimpers into a quiet resentment.
Laila stopped taking the sleeping pills. She slept on the couch for a few days until her neck started to pop angrily and, with reluctance, she returned to his bedroom. She threw the covers completely over her head and hugged a body pillow to force sensory deprivation and block out the woman’s face from appearing behind her eyes. But, contrary to expectation, she soon started to fall asleep easily. No dreams. No waiting shadows in the corner of her vision. Perhaps she completed the cycle on her own and healed herself.
Yet when she is alone at the cash register, Laila’s skin prickles with the inescapable dread that something or someone still watches her. As if to affirm the need for vigilance, she hears a rustling sound in the stockroom and after a moment’s hesitation, uses her staff key to unlock the door.
Everything is in its same spot; nothing is visibly disturbed. She is ready to turn back to the store when a lightweight cardboard box perched on a shelf teeters just out of place. A small, brown mouse peeks out from behind it. Shit. Her thoughts race in ten different directions trying to decide her next move. Yet another thing her boss will not be happy about. It seems like all she can do is deliver bad news.
And then there is the fear she has been unwilling to invite in despite a handful of signs. It’s a small creature, like the one in front of her washing its whiskers unperturbed, that can no longer be denied. Laila closes the storeroom and pulls down the front gate. She shakes the pregnancy test she has been carrying around from its packet in the employee bathroom. Minutes later, two pink lines appear.
◆
For the first time in a long while, she picks up the phone and dials Ma.
“You’ve been busy lately,” Ma says when she answers.
“I know, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to call you back.”
“Have you talked to your sister? She’s not well. She disappears. She may not be able to graduate this year.”
“No, I haven’t heard about this at all. What is she going to do?”
“I don’t know. She won’t stay in the house long enough to talk to me. Maybe she would listen to you more.”
“I can talk to her.” She closes her eyes. “Mama, I lost my job. I need to come home for a while.”
In the momentary silence that falls between them, Laila wishes more than ever that Ma could read her thoughts. She can only speak them slowly, in pieces over time. Tears well up in her chest.
“Nothing is working out,” she says.
“It’s alright, ammu. It will be alright. I’ll send you some money for the plane ticket.” Another pause. “It will be nice to have you back.”
◆
Laila is embarrassed by how much practice she has obscuring the truth; even now, a part of her churns out elaborate excuses to feed Kasim about why Ma needs her to come home now. She can tell he is in a bad mood from the way he jerks the steering wheel to change lanes as they make their way to the airport, huffing at other drivers that are too fast or too slow for his liking.
“Don’t just sit there, drive,” he growls.
“They’re probably just trying to figure out directions,” she says.
“Sure, whatever.”
“Can we please just leave on a pleasant note?”
He sighs but says, “Yeah, I can do that. You’ve had a rough time lately.”
When they pull up to the curb, she almost tells him. He pulls out her suitcases from the back and wraps her in his arms.
“I’ll miss you. Don’t stay away too long,” he says.
She wills herself to feel warmth in those words. But when she pulls back, she reads only a lonely kind of hunger in his expression. Had it always been there? Had she mistaken it for tenderness? The parts of herself that she renounced in order to maintain her relationship now jostle for attention in the crowded cellar of her mind, too loud to ignore any longer. Her possible futures stretch out in front of her, seemingly inexhaustible. And yet she would give up any of them to achieve what she now knows is impossible—to return to the euphoria of their early romance. To make things easy again.
“I’ll call you.”
◆
The nurse’s instructions give comfort in their clarity. Laila takes the first pill in the clinic during her appointment, then lies down for the rest of the day. She waits until night to take the second set, so she can be alone. When she opens the fridge, a fragrant mound of Ma’s chilled pullao and beef curry greet her. She eats it with pleasure as she waits for her dose of pain medication to kick in.
Then she tucks the first two pills into her left cheek, pushing them into place with her tongue until they stick with her saliva and repeats the process again with the other two on the right. Her young self used to do the same with Halloween candy when squirreling it away before her sisters could get into it. A sweet memory. The slurry dissolves, coating her teeth. She surprises herself with the strength of her conviction. It is the first decision she has made for herself, uncluttered by obligation, in a very long time.
Outside, the wind picks up and whistles through the gaps in their old windows. The screen door comes loose and bangs against the side of the house. When Laila goes to relatch it, the soft hair on her arms stands up. Beside a nearby tree, the woman watches her. In the glow of the moonlight, she is illuminated. She wears a white sari, the end tented up over her smoothed black hair like a beacon. Color has returned to her gray skin, now a rich bronze. Alive again, almost. A woman again for a moment. Only her hungry eyes give her away.
Laila lingers in the threshold, captivated. Something knotted in her finally relents.