by Simon Rich
I heard glasses clinking in the next room and the rumble of a Pearl Jam song. The party was in full swing.
“We should probably get out there,” I said.
Alan didn’t respond. He had begun to pace back and forth, a look of panic on his face.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“How do you know?” he cried.
“Because you love her.”
Alan sighed.
“I guess that’s the important thing,” he said. “Right?”
“It’s the only thing,” I said.
Alan stopped pacing. For the first time all night, something close to a smile appeared on his face.
“She is pretty amazing,” he said. “You know, this morning I cut myself shaving and she hobbled right over and applied a salve. By the time I got to work, my face was completely healed.”
“That’s so cool,” I said. “Julie would never do that. She can’t even watch House—she’s afraid she’ll see blood!”
Alan chuckled.
“Teresa loves House.”
He looked me in the eyes and grinned.
“Thanks for talking to me. I’m sorry for being so crazy.”
He polished off his drink.
“Besides,” he said, “I’m sure it’ll get better after we’re married. I mean, it’s probably just something we have to work on.”
“Totally,” I said.
“And even if it doesn’t get better, who cares? I mean, it’s just sex, right?”
“Exactly!” I said. “Who cares?”
A boisterous cheer sounded in the next room.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Looks like Aja has entered the building.”
I opened the door a crack and we watched the stripper remove her coat. She slid it off slowly, revealing her smooth, bare shoulders and her high, firm breasts.
Alan stared at her for a moment, his jaw clenched tight.
“Come on,” I said, forcing a laugh. “Let’s get this over with.”
My friend sighed heavily and followed me out into the light.
The Last Girlfriend on Earth
SO WHERE’S HE TAKING YOU?” Leon asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“I think we’re just going to have dinner,” Ellie said. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Yeah,” Leon answered robotically. “Cool.”
Ellie ran her fingers through his thinning hair and kissed him playfully on the nose.
“Baby?” she asked. “Are you jealous?”
“No,” Leon lied.
Ellie laughed.
“He just wants to hear my perspective on the Epidemic. I mean, I have a pretty unique perspective.”
“I know!” Leon sputtered. “It totally makes sense that he wants to talk to you. I just…”
He looked down at his lap.
“I just don’t understand why it has to be at his house.”
“Because his house is the White House.”
Leon tried to turn away, but she grabbed his chin and tilted his face toward hers.
“Sweetie,” she said. “If the president makes a pass at me, I’ll just tell him the truth. That I have a wonderful boyfriend whom I love more than anything in the world.”
Leon sighed. He knew that Ellie would never do anything to hurt him. They’d been through so much together in the past three years. Still, it was hard not to be paranoid when your girlfriend was the last woman on earth.
He threw his lanky arms around her body and squeezed so hard that she started to giggle. He was about to kiss her when she cocked her head suddenly toward the window. Outside, the drone of an engine sounded, as loud as a lion’s roar.
“Oh my God!” she gasped. “It’s Air Force One!”
She smoothed out her dress.
“How do I look?” she asked, twirling around in a circle.
Leon realized with mild panic that she was wearing her sexiest outfit: a backless black dress. In profile, he could see the sides of her breasts. He wanted to tell her to change, but he knew the request would infuriate her.
“You look beautiful,” he mumbled.
Ellie laughed and kissed him on the crown of his balding head. In heels she was slightly taller than him.
“Don’t wait up,” she said as she headed out the door.
The Epidemic struck in the fall of ’13, just a few weeks after they’d moved in together. Leon didn’t know about her immunity at first, so he tried to shield her from the virus, feeding her vitamins and draping every window with plastic sheeting. But as the weeks passed, their fear gradually subsided, replaced by a cautious optimism. The government scientists arrived in December, a few days before Christmas, and confirmed all of their hopes. Ellie was perfectly healthy—completely unaffected by the plague.
“So I can go outside?” she asked one scientist, a tall bearded man in a white lab coat.
“You can go anywhere,” he told her, smiling broadly. “In fact, I’ve got Knicks tickets for tomorrow night. Courtside. Perhaps you’d like to join me?”
That was when it had started.
In the months since, Ellie had received over ten thousand marriage proposals from billionaires, movie stars, generals, athletes, and kings. Love letters arrived each day—a bushel of envelopes heaved into their entryway by a squat Cuban mailman who always seemed to linger a second too long. When Leon and Ellie went outside, the blitz intensified. So many drinks got sent to her at restaurants that they often ran out of table space. When she hailed a cab, men had fistfights in the street for the chance to open the door for her.
And then there were the assault attempts. Nobody had been successful so far—thank God. But Ellie had used her Taser too many times to count. When Leon first bought her the weapon, she laughed out loud and accused him of being ridiculous. She wouldn’t even hold the thing at first—he’d had to place it in her bag for her. Now she was so proficient with the device she could hit a man’s neck from twenty yards away, sometimes while maintaining a conversation.
Leon often wished he could keep Ellie locked in their apartment so nobody could hoot at her, or grab her ass, or worse. But he knew that wasn’t fair. She was a strong, confident woman and he had no right to try to control her. All he could do was trust her and love her and hope for the best.
“What’s wrong, love?” Leon asked when she slunk into bed at 4 a.m.
“Nothing,” she murmured.
“Sweetie, if something happened, you can tell me.”
Ellie sighed.
“He tried to kiss me,” she said, her jaw clenched with rage. “What gives him the right? Sure, he’s the president. Sure, he has a secret safety orb. So fucking what?”
Leon squinted at her.
“He’s got what kind of orb?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Under the earth’s crust. He’s got some kind of massive bunker built. It’s ten square miles, with a self-sustaining forest, and a thousand years of rations, blah, blah, blah. He asked me to go down there with him and his scientists. He wants to nuke civilization and start a ‘new world order’ with me as his mate.”
“I told you so,” Leon muttered.
Ellie glared at him and he averted his eyes, instantly regretting his comment.
“What?” she snapped. “What did you say?”
Leon swallowed.
“You know,” he said. “I just meant that… I told you that sort of thing might happen.”
“Not every guy is trying to fuck me, okay? Some men—and this might shock you—are actually interested in me as a human being.”
Leon winced. They’d had so many versions of this argument. There was the time Bill Gates asked her to “advise him on philanthropy.” Or the time Bono asked her to “cosponsor a fund-raiser.” There was the time Mario Batali wanted her to sample a “five-course meal” or the time Cornel West asked her to “guest star on a spoken-word album.” All of these invitations had led to sexual advances. West, she’d had to Tase. St
ill, whenever Leon warned her that a man might have ulterior motives, she exploded with indignation.
“I bet you think Brad’s trying to sleep with me,” she said.
Leon sighed. He did indeed think that.
“I just find it a little interesting that Brad Pitt—who lives in California—would hire a Brooklyn-based interior designer to decorate his beach house. It’s not that you’re not talented—you’re great at what you do. I just think it’s pretty strange that he didn’t hire somebody local.”
She turned away from him and flicked out her light.
“Sweetie,” Leon whispered in the dark. “I’m sorry.”
“Good night.”
“Sweetie, don’t do this.”
He tried to rub her shoulder, but she shook him off. There was nothing he could do but retreat to his side of the bed.
He thought back to the early months of their relationship, a heady blur of laughter, wine, and sex. Sometimes, she would text him in the middle of the afternoon, begging him to leave the office early.
“Please,” she’d write. “I need you.”
He’d find her in the bedroom, already under the sheets, her nude arms reaching out to grasp him.
Now he was always the one who begged for it; and nine times out of ten she turned him down. Part of the problem was exhaustion. (Ellie had to go to the military lab five days a week so the scientists could do studies on her body, and by the time she got home, all she wanted was a bath.) But Leon knew he couldn’t blame fatigue for everything.
He looked at Ellie. Her eyes were clamped shut, her little hands balled up beneath her chin.
“I love you,” he whispered.
She didn’t respond. He stared at her for a minute, wondering if she was actually asleep.
Kayla was a senior at the New Brunswick Girls’ Reformatory when the Epidemic struck. Since there weren’t any males at her school, she assumed that the plague had affected both sexes equally. She spent two years alone on her isolated campus, convinced she was the last person alive. It was boredom more than anything that spurred her to steal a car and drive off toward civilization.
“I just don’t get what people see in her,” Ellie said, flipping through the latest issue of Vanity Fair. “She’s not even really that pretty.”
Leon peeked over her shoulder. Like every magazine on earth, Vanity Fair had run a cover story on Kayla. She was wearing a prison uniform in the pictures, her orange jumpsuit partially unzipped to reveal her youthful cleavage.
“I think she’s kind of interesting,” Leon admitted. “I mean, two years ago she was arrested for stealing lingerie. Now she’s dating Bill Clinton.”
“She’s dating Bill Clinton?”
“You didn’t know that?”
He passed her the new issue of People; the couple was posing happily on the cover.
“I’m sure the scientists will want to do tests on her,” Leon said. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we ran into her at the lab?”
“Yeah,” Ellie answered robotically. “Cool.”
“I love your hair!” Kayla said to Ellie, running her fingers through it. “It’s, like, you’re not even trying.”
“Thanks,” Ellie muttered.
“It’s so nice to hang out with a girl again! I mean, I guess you’re more of a woman. How old are you? Thirty-five?”
“Thirty-one.”
“Oh.”
Leon cleared his throat.
“So, Kayla,” he said. “How are the scientists treating you?”
Kayla rolled her eyes and made a gag gesture.
“If one more scientist asks me out, I’m going to shoot myself.”
Ellie nodded.
“I can relate.”
“You don’t understand,” Kayla said. “They’re, like, all over me.”
There was a long silence. Eventually, Kayla clapped her hands and squealed.
“Hey!” she said. “We should all go out to dinner! Mario Batali wants me to sample a ten-course meal.”
Ellie’s eyes widened.
“Ten-course?”
“That sounds great,” Leon said politely. “Maybe you can invite your boyfriend and make it a double date?”
Kayla made another gag gesture.
“I dumped him.”
Leon raised his eyebrows.
“You dumped Bill Clinton? Why?”
“He was just so egotistical. I like a guy who’s modest, you know? Plus he was too tall. I like men to be closer to my size. You know, like you.”
Leon blushed and tilted his eyes toward the floor. When he looked up he noticed that Ellie was glaring at him.
“Thanks for the invite,” she said. “But I’m exhausted.”
Kayla grinned at Leon.
“Then I guess it’s just the two of us!”
Leon fixed his tie in the mirror.
“How do I look?”
“Fine,” Ellie said.
He kissed her on the forehead. In socks she was slightly shorter than him.
“Have fun,” she mumbled.
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
He smirked.
“Sweetie,” he said. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
Ellie forced a laugh.
“Of course not!”
They stared at each other for a moment in silence.
Then they took off their clothes and fucked for the first time in weeks.
BOY LOSES GIRL
Is It Just Me?
WHEN I FOUND OUT MY ex-girlfriend was dating Adolf Hitler, I couldn’t believe it. I always knew on some level that she’d find another boyfriend. She’s smart, cool, incredibly attractive—a girl like that doesn’t stay single forever. Still, I have to admit, the news really took me by surprise.
I first found out about them from my friend Paul. We were at Murphy’s Pub, watching the World Cup. Argentina was playing, and when they showed a close-up of the crowd, he chuckled.
“I wonder if we’ll see Anna and Adolf!”
I could tell by how casually the names rolled off his tongue that they’d been a couple for a while. Everyone, apparently, had been keeping the news from me. I took a sip of bourbon and forced a smile.
“Yeah,” I said. “I wonder if we’ll see them.”
Paul’s eyes widened.
“You knew they were dating, right?”
“Of course!” I lied. “I mean, everyone knows that.”
That night, with some help from Facebook, I pieced it all together. Anna met Hitler a few months after dumping me while vacationing in Buenos Aires. He’d been in hiding there ever since the war, earning money as a German-language tutor. She saw him at a café, recognized his moustache, and struck up a conversation. They hit it off almost immediately.
The relationship progressed quickly, and within a few months, he’d agreed to move into her place in Prospect Heights. It made me nauseous to think about them sharing that apartment. I could still picture it vividly—the clanging of her radiator, the smell of her toothpaste, the softness of her sheets. He’d taken all of it away from me. I knew it was irrational, but I couldn’t help hating the guy.
A few weeks later, I was at a friend’s party when Anna strolled in with the fuehrer. I bolted for the kitchen and closed the door behind me. I hadn’t seen Anna since we broke up. What was I going to say to her? And what was I going to say to Hitler?
“You’ve got to at least say hi to them,” Paul begged me. “If you don’t, things will get weird.”
“Things are already weird,” I said. “She’s dating Adolf Hitler!”
Paul stared at me blankly.
“So?”
I closed my eyes and massaged my temples.
“Well, for starters, he’s a hundred and twenty-four. That makes him old enough to be her great-great-grandfather.”
Paul shrugged.
“Other than the wheelchair, he seems pretty youthful.”
I craned my head out the door just in time to hear Hitler quote a li
ne from Parks and Recreation. His accent was pretty thick, but Anna burst into laughter anyway. The sound of it made my stomach hurt. We’d dated for almost two years and I couldn’t remember ever making her laugh like that.
“I just don’t like that guy,” I whispered. “I mean, he murdered millions of people.”
Paul laughed.
“You don’t like him because he’s dating Anna.”
I sighed.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But don’t you think it’s weird she’s dating him, of all people? I mean, I’m Jewish—he hates Jews…”
“Don’t make this about you,” Paul said. “Come on, you need to be adult about this.”
He grabbed my shoulder and shoved me into the living room. As soon as Anna saw me, she sprinted over and hooked her skinny arms around my torso.
“How are you!” she cooed.
“Great!” I answered, my body tensing. “Really great!”
Hitler wheeled over and stretched out his palm.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Adolf Hitler.”
“Hi,” I said, shaking his hand. “Seth Greenberg.”
Hitler’s pale lips curled into a grin.
“Greenberg?” he said. “Uh-oh!”
Everyone laughed, and I had no choice but to join in. I looked down at my cup; somehow, I was already out of bourbon.
“Seth’s an artist,” Anna told Hitler. “You should buy some of his paintings.”
I started to protest but she ignored me.
“Adolf’s got a great collection, but I keep telling him, he needs to get some postwar pieces.”
I watched as she ran her fingers across his scalp, delicately massaging his spotted, wrinkled head.
“I used to paint when I was your age,” Hitler told me, clearly trying to be polite. “Do you have a website?”
“Come on,” Anna urged me. “Tell him.”
“It’s sethgreenbergpaints.com,” I mumbled.
Hitler neatly copied it down in his address book. Then he wheeled to the bar, grabbed a nearly empty bottle of Jim Beam, and poured the last of it into his red plastic cup.
Anna had cut her hair short, but otherwise she looked better than ever. Her skin was tan from her trips to Argentina, and her smile was wide and bright.