Read Online Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alissa Nutting
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in fast, airplane-stunt ways: the beauty of CT’s locks spiraled in a hurricane of rock, the beauty of my sister so strong while her body is weak, the beauty of Mother’s white leotard becoming the color of camels and tea and milk beneath my leather suit. “The beauty beneath”; it is something I know. I say it to CT all the time now, and of course he understands. CT has always understood.
A NT C OLONY
When space on earth became very limited, it was declared all people had to host another organism on or inside of their bodies. Many people chose something noninvasive, such as barnacles or wig-voles. Some women had breast operations that allowed them to accommodate small aquatic life within implants. But because I was already perfectly-breasted (and, admittedly, vain) I sought out a doctor who, for several thousands of dollars, drilled holes into my bones to make room for an ant colony.
After being turned down by every surgeon in the book, I finally found my doctor. Actually he’s a dentist. I had to lead him on in order to get what I wanted—he only agreed to do the procedure because he is in love with me.
“I have all your movies,” the doctor told me during our first consultation. “I think you’re the most perfect woman in the world.”
Since bone ants had never been attempted, I was a study trial. My participation in the experiment had a lot of parallels to modeling, which I used to do before commercial acting. Once a month I went into a laboratory and removed all my clothing. This latter step probably wasn’t necessary, but I did it because I was grateful, and also because it was interesting to feel someone looking at my outsides and my insides at the same time. When I lay down onto an imaging machine and certain buttons were pushed, the doctor could see all the ants moving around in my body, using their mandibles to pick up what he said were synthetic calcium deposits. The ants were first implanted within my spine, where their food supply was injected monthly, but they quickly moved throughout the other various pathways that had been drilled into my limbs and even my skull.
The ants’ mandibles were the only part of the insects that disgusted me; they reminded me of the headgear I’d had to wear with my braces in grades six through eight. I’d refused to wear it to school or even walk around the house when I had it on. Instead I wore it for two hours each night before bed, and I spent this time reading fashion magazines in my closet. I wouldn’t allow anyone, even my mother, to see me. She used to stand at the door and beg for a kiss goodnight. This was of course before the cancer—she had already been dead for several years by the time the organism hosting movement started. When she began dying I didn’t want to watch; I usually grew angry when she’d ask me to come see her in the hospital. The cancer overtook her body until she looked parasitic herself. Near the end, if I felt her lips on my cheek while I was hugging her I’d pull away—I knew it was ridiculous, but I was afraid she was somehow going to suck out my beauty.
“Can you feel them inside you?” As he watched the scan from an outside control room, the doctor would whisper into a microphone that I could hear through a headset earpiece. His voice sounded sweaty. “Does it seem like your blood is crawling? Does it tickle? Are you ticklish?” He’d ask me questions the entire time, but even if I were to answer, there was no way for him to hear my response.
In truth I didn’t feel a thing; it was hard to believe they were even there. On my first follow-up visit I made the doctor show me footage of myself in the large ant-imaging machine to prove they were actually inside me. But after awhile I got used to the thought of their presence and even started speaking to them throughout the day. The doctor said this was healthy.
“It’s not uncommon to feel a shift of identity,” he assured me. “It’s okay to talk to your organism,
A NT C OLONY
When space on earth became very limited, it was declared all people had to host another organism on or inside of their bodies. Many people chose something noninvasive, such as barnacles or wig-voles. Some women had breast operations that allowed them to accommodate small aquatic life within implants. But because I was already perfectly-breasted (and, admittedly, vain) I sought out a doctor who, for several thousands of dollars, drilled holes into my bones to make room for an ant colony.
After being turned down by every surgeon in the book, I finally found my doctor. Actually he’s a dentist. I had to lead him on in order to get what I wanted—he only agreed to do the procedure because he is in love with me.
“I have all your movies,” the doctor told me during our first consultation. “I think you’re the most perfect woman in the world.”
Since bone ants had never been attempted, I was a study trial. My participation in the experiment had a lot of parallels to modeling, which I used to do before commercial acting. Once a month I went into a laboratory and removed all my clothing. This latter step probably wasn’t necessary, but I did it because I was grateful, and also because it was interesting to feel someone looking at my outsides and my insides at the same time. When I lay down onto an imaging machine and certain buttons were pushed, the doctor could see all the ants moving around in my body, using their mandibles to pick up what he said were synthetic calcium deposits. The ants were first implanted within my spine, where their food supply was injected monthly, but they quickly moved throughout the other various pathways that had been drilled into my limbs and even my skull.
The ants’ mandibles were the only part of the insects that disgusted me; they reminded me of the headgear I’d had to wear with my braces in grades six through eight. I’d refused to wear it to school or even walk around the house when I had it on. Instead I wore it for two hours each night before bed, and I spent this time reading fashion magazines in my closet. I wouldn’t allow anyone, even my mother, to see me. She used to stand at the door and beg for a kiss goodnight. This was of course before the cancer—she had already been dead for several years by the time the organism hosting movement started. When she began dying I didn’t want to watch; I usually grew angry when she’d ask me to come see her in the hospital. The cancer overtook her body until she looked parasitic herself. Near the end, if I felt her lips on my cheek while I was hugging her I’d pull away—I knew it was ridiculous, but I was afraid she was somehow going to suck out my beauty.
“Can you feel them inside you?” As he watched the scan from an outside control room, the doctor would whisper into a microphone that I could hear through a headset earpiece. His voice sounded sweaty. “Does it seem like your blood is crawling? Does it tickle? Are you ticklish?” He’d ask me questions the entire time, but even if I were to answer, there was no way for him to hear my response.
In truth I didn’t feel a thing; it was hard to believe they were even there. On my first follow-up visit I made the doctor show me footage of myself in the large ant-imaging machine to prove they were actually inside me. But after awhile I got used to the thought of their presence and even started speaking to them throughout the day. The doctor said this was healthy.
“It’s not uncommon to feel a shift of identity,” he assured me. “It’s okay to talk to your organism,
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