I awake with a wad in my throat. I turn to the prostitute sleeping beside me and viciously nudge her jailhouse-tattooed shoulder. Frantically, I try to tell her about the wad in my throat but everything comes out all garbled.
“I can’t fucking understand you, you little creep!” She’s very abusive. Has been ever since I paid her. When did they start staying over anyway?
I jump up on the bed, bashing my head into the ceiling, pointing at my throat and spouting jumbled gibberish.
“You need a doctor, honey!” Why does she talk so loud?
I flip on the light but can’t find the phone. I hold my hand to my ear in the universal phone gesture.
“Yeah yeah. Hold your horses. I’m gettin to it.”
She rolls out of bed and squats down. The phone tumbles from her vagina. I vaguely recall the antics from earlier that evening before I went into the haze.
“I’m takin off. You make it impossible for a girl to sleep.”
She pulls on some stained underwear and a white snowsuit before heading outside.
I dial emergency. A woman answers. She sounds tired. “Yeah?”
I growl and gurgle into the phone.
“Hold on,” the operator says. I hear a feverishly whispered conversation followed by a burst of laughter.
An authoritative male voice comes on the line. “What seems to be the problem?”
I growl and hiss.
“Sounds to me like you have a nice-sized throat wad.”
That sounds about right.
“We’ll send somebody out.”
I turn on all the lights in the house so I don’t feel so alone. Two hours later, just before dawn, the prostitute barges through the front door. She now has a dripping red cross painted onto the front of her snowsuit. She smells gamey and glistens with sweat.
“I had to run all the way back here. They sent me to take care of your throat wad.”
I nod and point to my throat.
She crosses the room and straddles me in a way familiar to the lap dance she gave me earlier.
“Open up,” she says. “I’m the only one who can do this on account of my small hands.”
She holds her right hand in front of my face, flexing it. It is ridiculously small.
I open my mouth and she reaches down into my throat. She pulls out a screaming newborn. I try to talk—to express dismay, utter thanks, anything—but I’m still choked up.
She plops the baby, male, onto the floor and says, “Twins?”
She reaches in again.
She pulls out another baby and places it next to the first one.
This goes on for the next several minutes. I lose count after twenty-one.
Finally, she says, “All clear.”
Now, looking at the squirming mass of babies, I’m too astonished to talk. The prostitute heads toward the door and says, “I’ll be back in a couple hours. You’re gonna need a babysitter.”
She’s absolutely right. I don’t know what to do with all these babies. I strip off my clothes, collapse to the ground, and pretend to be one of them.
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