by Kyle SUNDBY

This is dur­ing our last child­less va­ca­tion. Some might say, “So, your last va­ca­tion then?” I might re­ply “Ha,” or maybe “Fun­ny.” This is on our tenth and fi­nal night in Nicaragua. And this is at a mo­tel, close to the air­port, in Managua.

“What the fuck is go­ing on? What the fuck?” This is what I hear soon af­ter falling asleep. Soon af­ter that, I hear the beep that prompt­ed my husband’s in­ter­rog­a­tive burst. It is an in­ter­mit­tent beep, and if I thought about it, I would re­al­ize that it had been beep­ing for some time. I had been able to in­cor­po­rate it in­to my dreams, sig­nal­ing seam­less scene and sit­u­a­tion changes like a metronome. My hus­band failed to demon­strate any com­par­a­tive capability. 

The time be­tween beeps is al­most a minute. Our flight is in about eight hours. We have been mar­ried for just over a year. 

I sug­gest that my hus­band at­tempt to an­swer his own ques­tion con­cern­ing the fuck and what it is. The source of the beep is some­where out­side our win­dow over­look­ing the al­ley­way be­hind the mo­tel. That is where I rec­om­mend he be­gin his investigations.

In the spir­it of a part­ner and not a mi­cro­man­ag­er, I do not weigh in on his ap­proach to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I say noth­ing as he sham­bles out of bed. I of­fer no re­veal­ing ex­pres­sion as he opts to clam­ber out the win­dow in on­ly his last-day-of-va­ca­tion un­der­wear. I dis­play no re­ac­tion as he comes back through the win­dow mo­ments lat­er car­ry­ing a smoke de­tec­tor that con­tin­ues to beep. I hard­ly re­spond when he asks, “I don’t smell any smoke – do you?” I do not ask him to pro­vide an an­swer as to why a smoke de­tec­tor is in­stalled and ac­tive in an alleyway.

The beep­ing is much loud­er in the room. The de­tec­tor has a red blink­ing light cor­re­spond­ing to the beep that makes it some­how loud­er. It can­not be turned off. I do ask my hus­band what the next step of his plan in­cludes. His an­swer in­volves putting on shorts, grab­bing the room key­card, and tak­ing the smoke de­tec­tor to the mo­tel office.

I hear the beep three or so more times as he ex­its our room from the front door this time and makes his way to the of­fice a few doors down. For five or so min­utes every­thing is qui­et. Ten or so min­utes af­ter that I lat­er learned that he’d been ex­plain­ing the ex­is­tence of the smoke alarm in the al­ley, ra­tio­nal­iz­ing him­self hold­ing the alarm, and jus­ti­fy­ing his de­ci­sion to bring the alarm to the front desk. This had not oc­curred with­out frus­tra­tions, as my hus­band and the per­son man­ning the front desk spoke dis­sim­i­lar lan­guages and both were on­ly re­cent­ly fast asleep.

My husband’s re­turn does not in­clude the beep­ing noise but is near­ly as loud as his ear­li­er ex­it through the win­dow. There are the ap­proach­ing foot­steps of a man who is tired and want­i­ng to share it with the world. There is the re­peat­ing chirp-click-wig­gle-swear se­quence as he ma­nip­u­lates the key­card and door lock. There is the ex­pec­ta­tion but ab­sence of the beep, which leaves a buzzing kind of tone/vibe/atmosphere in its place. There is the small num­ber of words ex­changed be­tween us. But sleep comes and lasts for the re­main­ing four hours of the night.

We wake at some point dur­ing the process of wak­ing up, then tran­si­tion to the process of check­ing out. We drop the key­card at the of­fice, where the beep­ing con­tin­ues muf­fled from a desk draw­er. My hus­band ex­changes a look with the de­feat­ed front desk per­son. By the time we leave the of­fice, the ex­changed look has be­come a head nod. An un­der­stand­ing. Recog­ni­tion of a shared ex­pe­ri­ence be­tween two peo­ple, one of which is my hus­band and the oth­er of which is not me.

At the air­port, I go to the bath­room and stare in­to the mir­ror for more than a few min­utes. On the flight and con­nect­ing flights home, I re-watch down­loaded episodes of “The Of­fice” for more than a few hours. At home, I share a bed and last name with my child’s fa­ther for more than a few years. In all that time, I hear the beep or some­thing like it on more than one oc­ca­sion. For each, I lis­ten for the beep and the re­sponse to come un­til the re­sponse no longer does.

Filed under Fiction on March 13th, 2026

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by R. K. WEST

Our ten-year-old saw video clips about snakes in Guam com­ing up through toi­lets, and now he would rather soil his pants than en­ter the bathroom.

We point out that Guam is two thou­sand miles away. He just says, “Snakes are everywhere.”

Of course, we im­me­di­ate­ly in­stall very strict parental con­trols on the home net­work, but once he leaves the house, we can­not shield him from god knows what else is out there, so we make him an ap­point­ment at the Youth Coun­sel­ing Cen­ter, and in the mean­time we have pro­vid­ed adult di­a­pers (size Small), the cost to be de­duct­ed from his allowance.

Just to see what we’re up against, I lo­cate the videos on­line and watch them all: nasty-look­ing ser­pents lung­ing at the cam­era; grainy, sub­ti­tled news clips show­ing huge snakes coiled in­side toi­let bowls and sinks or slith­er­ing across the floor; in­co­her­ent hos­pi­tal in­ter­views with victims.

It’s ridicu­lous, ex­ag­ger­at­ed sen­sa­tion­al­ism, ma­li­cious­ly de­signed to spread fear, and I scoff.

Lat­er, I find my­self stand­ing out­side the bath­room, un­will­ing to open the door.

Filed under Fiction on February 13th, 2026

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by Erin PETTIS

Mon­day. I wake at five when my train­er Sam knocks on the door. To­day is what my hus­band calls “leg day”. We squat and swing ket­tle­bells in our gym un­til I want to col­lapse and af­ter­wards I med­i­tate in the out­door cedar sauna that my hus­band im­port­ed from Mis­sis­sauga last win­ter. I don’t even want to name the price be­cause it’s obscene.

When I walk in­side my chil­dren are eat­ing break­fast with their nan­ny Lo­la, their eyes glued to their iPads. I first wash my face with the Bi­ologique Recher­ché Lait VIP O2, which smells like spoiled milk, and then ap­ply the Skinceu­ti­cals CE Fer­ulic serum, whichI re­cent­ly start­ed buy­ing in bulk — one for my­self af­ter my son’s bed-wet­ting sleep re­gres­sion left my skin dry and crusty-look­ing and an­oth­er for my teenage daugh­ter, whose dis­tress at her first pim­ple war­rant­ed not one, but two vis­its to a very ex­pen­sive out-of-net­work child psy­chol­o­gist. “I had break­outs at your age, Daisy, and I sur­vived,” I told her, to which she replied, “Yeah, but you were born be­fore the in­ter­net was even in­vent­ed.” My make­up is sim­ple, just theClé de Peau Beauté Con­ceal­er SPF 27 and the Dior­show Icon­ic Over­curl Mas­cara in 090 Black.

I kiss my chil­dren good­bye and step in­to my wait­ing car. My der­ma­tol­o­gist, Dr. Ot­to Pup­pen­spiel­er, calls to ask if the 440 units of Botox he in­ject­ed last week had tak­en sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly. We did fore­head, elevens, brows, crow’s feet, bun­ny lines, traps, DAOs, mas­seters, nos­trils, jowls, tech lines — which does mean nee­dles in your neck — and a lip flip.

“Please don’t for­get our ap­point­ment tonight,” he says be­fore I hang up. “Bi­week­ly. I have a no-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy for no-shows.” I check my cal­en­dar and there it is — Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er, 5 E. 66^th St. I text my as­sis­tant Meg­gy and ask her to be bet­ter about re­mind­ing me about these things ahead of time.

About Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er. I can­not in good faith rec­om­mend him be­cause he is im­pos­si­ble to book. ****** ******, a fa­mous ac­tress, who is al­so a mom at my son’s school, re­ferred me. She cor­nered me at drop-off one morn­ing to set up a play­date be­cause she had heard about my son’s dyslex­ia and thought that her son, who is rather plain-look­ing and shy, might en­joy be­friend­ing an­oth­er boy who is al­so, in her words, fly­ing his kite against the winds of pop­u­lar­i­ty. It was over cof­fee one morn­ing while our sons played in her brownstone’s back­yard that has, get this– fruit-bear­ing trees. In Cob­ble Hill ! —  that she told me about the very taste­ful work she had re­cent­ly done. “He’ll shave twen­ty years off your face,” she said. “But he’s very par­tic­u­lar with who he takes on as a client. I’ll tell him you’re a friend.” I trust­ed her be­cause she has very ex­pres­sive eyes and talks like every­thing she says is a secret.

I stop for a pis­ta­chio-milk lat­te and get to the of­fice by 8:30. I spend the first hour of my day catch­ing up on emails and read­ing the news — WSJ, FT, HEMLOC, and Bloomberg. I keep the Pra­da Beau­ty Hy­drat­ing Lip Balm ($50 — I’m so sor­ry) at my desk and reap­ply like a tic. I’ve been at Brim­stone for eleven years. I was pro­mot­ed to se­nior man­ag­ing di­rec­tor the day that I found out I was preg­nant with my son and re­turned four weeks af­ter he was born, still wear­ing di­a­pers (Fri­da Mom Boyshort Dis­pos­able Post­par­tum Un­der­wear). 

I walk in­to my boss’ of­fice and his face is cold and tight. He tells me that he has pro­mot­ed Jen­nifer to part­ner. Jen­nifer is ten years younger than me and bare­ly qual­i­fied to be an MBA as­so­ciate, let alone man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, let alone part­ner. “Did you fuck her?” I ask, which makes him laugh. I smile wide and feel my teeth slic­ing through my gums.

Back in my of­fice (sound­proofed) I scream and scream and kick over a trash can. I watch the dry-clean­ing tags fall to the floor like snow and then I reap­ply my mas­cara, Dior­show Icon­ic Over­curl Mas­cara in 090 Black. I can’t stand to look at Jen­nifer and my hap­less an­a­lysts so I leave ear­ly for my Platelet-Rich Plas­ma Fa­cial with Stem Cell Ther­a­py — it’s eth­i­cal — with Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er. His of­fice is sur­round­ed by floor-to-ceil­ing win­dows and the glass is so clean it seems like you could walk right through it and on­to the street below.

A glossy nurse walks me in­to the treat­ment room, which smells like a Dip­tyque Am­bre can­dle. “You here for Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er?” she asks, smack­ing her hot pink gum. I put my feet in the stir­rups while she takes vial af­ter vial of blood. My vi­sion goes slack then dou­bles as I watch it spin around and around in the centrifuge.

Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er walks in and lines up dozens of tiny nee­dles on a sil­ver tray, talk­ing while he wipes my face with a cold al­co­hol wipe.

“There will be blood, yes, lots of it. I hope you don’t faint, most women don’t, es­pe­cial­ly moth­ers, but the men you wouldn’t be­lieve. Fainters, all of them! You got kids?”

I tell him that I have a daugh­ter and a son.

“Good, good,” he says. “If you do faint, don’t wor­ry. I have de­fib­ril­la­tors in every room.” I look around and in­deed there are de­fib­ril­la­tors alert and wait­ing in the cor­ner of the office.

“You won’t be­lieve how good your skin will look af­ter this,” he says, “like a teenage girl’s, so full of col­la­gen, you’ll hate your own daugh­ter be­cause her skin just does this nat­u­ral­ly. Of course, time will catch up to her as well. Now, hold still.” 

He in­jects my plas­ma in stac­ca­to bursts across my face, neck, and chest. When he’s done my skin is as red as a field of pop­pies. He turns my head around in his hands and tells me that a few more mil­lime­ters of lift would make a world of difference.

“The world opens up when the face does, my pet, I have al­ways said this, it’s why I pre­fer those with flat­ter faces. Ms. ****** was a Choate lacrosse goalie, I knew the sec­ond she walked in. Flat­ter faces, you see, they per­ceive more of the world’s sub­lin­gual mes­sages.” Do you mean sub­lim­i­nal? I ask, and he ig­nores me.

“Three mil­lime­ters,” he says, “will make all the dif­fer­ence. I’m go­ing to book you for next week­end. Your hus­band won’t even no­tice the su­tures un­less he knows your face very, very well. In­vent­ed the tech­nique myself.”

Who am I to ar­gue with three mil­lime­ters? I pay for the fa­cial at the front desk ($2,150) and the glossy nurse sched­ules me for an Up­per Ble­pharo­plas­ty with Gen­er­al Fa­cial Re­con­struc­tion per the Doctor’s Dis­cre­tion ($103,000). I’m sup­posed to be ski­ing in Sun Val­ley with our in­vestors next week­end, but I sup­pose Jen­nifer, whose face doesn’t yet show all of life’s lit­tle dis­ap­point­ments, and cer­tain­ly not melas­ma, is now at­tend­ing in my place.

I email Meg­gy and ask her to book me three nights at the Car­lyle and to pay in cash. I find a bar near­by, even though Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er for­bids al­co­hol, and or­der a gin mar­ti­ni, straight up with a twist. I down it it in three big sips and then I or­der an­oth­er. I text my old deal­er, still saved in my phone as An­ge­lo Snow ❄️. My pleas re­turn un­de­liv­ered and green.

When I get home my daugh­ter is still awake, fin­ish­ing an es­say on Oth­el­lo. “They have you read­ing Shake­speare al­ready?” I ask, and Daisy says, “yeah, but I pre­ferred Loli­ta. It was way creepi­er.” She’s beau­ti­ful like her fa­ther, with full lips and big eyes and a tee­ny-tiny chin. I re­mem­ber read­ing once that women are at­tract­ed to men their own age, but all men are most at­tract­ed to 20 year-old women. You know what I think? They’d fuck a teenag­er if they could get away with it. Fuck­ing per­vs. We eat pop­corn to­geth­er over the sink and then I send her to bed.

When the house fi­nal­ly qui­ets, I tip­toe to the bath­room. I wash my face with the Bi­ologique Recher­ché Lait VIP O2 twice, scrub­bing for sev­en or eight min­utes straight, and then I ap­ply lay­er af­ter lay­er of top­i­cal anes­thet­ic be­fore I be­gin the lasers, which Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er rec­om­mends for pro­fes­sion­al-grade der­mal resur­fac­ing: the Frax­el® FTX Laser Resur­fac­ing Sys­tem, the Re­ju­ran® RF Mi­croneedling de­vice, which us­es salmon DNA to re­gen­er­ate lost col­la­gen, and an­oth­er called Der Geist 4, which Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er flies in from Korea.

All I will say is that the lasers are not as painful as childbirth.

I slather on Crème de la Mer Mois­tur­iz­er an­da Fe­tal Colostrum and Pla­cen­tal Stem-Cell Night Cream that Dr. Pup­pen­spiel­er sells in his of­fice and fi­nal­ly, the Rhode Pep­tide Lip Tint in Wa­ter­mel­on Slice, which I stole from my daughter.

In the mir­ror I no­tice the edges of my body fad­ing away, like sta­t­ic on TV. It’s sub­tle. Three mil­lime­ters, max. I lift my hand up to in­spect, ad­mir­ing the way the light fil­ters through my shim­mer­ing fin­gers. It’s beau­ti­ful. Weightless.

I slide in­to bed next to my sleep­ing hus­band and I dream all the way to morning.

Filed under Fiction on January 30th, 2026

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