"Maybe I'm lucky," she thinks to herself. As he presses his bloated stomach like one of those round recess balls that's been filled far beyond capacity against her ribs. She wonders if it would make that electric echoing sound if she slapped it. He purrs. Some gargantuan sexed up cat trying to press his hands between her thighs. She tries to empty her mind by inventorying the room. So much emptier when they'd moved in a year ago. Before the vinyl wood tiling mosaic on the far wall started letting pieces loose. And water started leaking. Everywhere. And they'd covered all the windows with aluminum foil. The reflective side. In. Always makes her think of the dinners one of her old boyfriends used to make for her. Delicious flavors mixed and then sealed inside tiny tin packages. Baked in the oven until perfect puffs of steam released the tops. She can't remember now how those days tasted. But this isn't about sealing in the flavors. He thinks the foil will cut down on the air and heating bills. He thinks it will interfere with the constant communication from the aliens.

"Suck me or fuck me," he says blankly. As if he'd just asked her to change the station on their television or to get him another cold beer from the stinking fridge in the garage that they share with his uncle's slaughtered beef parts.

When they first moved in, she used to tell the chunks of not-cow wrapped and stored in that refrigerator stories. But she got in trouble for letting the cold out. She imaged all of her imagined words now. Locked inside the door and chilled into inertia. The word dead creeps into her mouth with his tongue. She tries to wipe it away with her own. Tracing the shape of her teeth. She can't seem to distinguish the difference between him and the word. Another tile falls from the wall. He pulls her hair. And she wonders when he started smelling like hamster bedding.

She can't exactly remember now why she agreed to marry Travis. He'd promised that he would never hit her. And that they could have sex as often as she wanted. And maybe that felt like power. But just now, she couldn't be sure--Of anything--with the crash of another tile on the pile to the floor--except that she doesn't deserve this. She's sure she feels lucky.