Page 2 of Satisfied By the Slime
The unit was going to hold retail displays.
That was two years ago.
The shelving unit holds overflow stock now. Fourteen boxes of unsold lavender bars from a batch I overproduced in a panic after he left, convinced that if I just worked harder, moved faster, mademore, I could outrun the hole he’d carved in my finances.
He had the vision.
I had the credit score.
When the vision evaporated—along with Kyle and roughly nine thousand dollars ofmy borrowing capacity—the debt stayed.
He was a tech bro who had visited Coyote Springs on a wellness retreat, met me, and thought my little soap-making business was the quaintest thing, that type of artisan business that would totally take off with his social media expertise.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
I finish the wine and consider pouring another half glass.
Though what I really should be doing is going to bed, because my alarm is set for five-thirty and I need to run labels before the first batch is done curing, and my back is a solid wall of misery from my tailbone to my neck.
Instead, I lower myself to the floor, because the studio stool makes the spasms worse and at least the concrete is flat and cool against my shoulder blades.
I press the heating pad harder into my spine and stare at the ceiling.
This is the part of the night where the quietgets loud.
Where I notice that I’m alone in a way that has weight and texture and a specific quality of pressure against my chest, like someone resting a hand there.
I can feel my own heartbeat.
I can feel every place where my body is holding tension, which is everywhere, every hinge and joint and fiber clenched against something I can’t outwork.
I haven’t been touched by another person in a way that felt good in two years.
My body has become a piece of equipment I maintain.
Feed it, medicate it, force it through another sixteen-hour work day.
The idea of someone else’s hands on me exists in the same category as beach vacations and retirement accounts: Theoretically real. Functionally imaginary.
I pick up my phone.
Therapeutic deep-tissue massager.
That’s what I type into the search bar.
Legitimate and responsible. The kind of thing a woman with a wrecked back and amassive order deadline buys so she can keep functioning as a productive member of the economy.
The results are expected.
Massage guns shaped like power drills. Heated neck wraps. Foam rollers that look like medieval instruments of war.
I scroll with the glazed efficiency of someone who’s been managing her own pain long enough to know that none of these things are going to touch the knot between my shoulders that’s been there since October and has apparently filed for permanent residency.
And then the algorithm does what algorithms do.
The listings shift.
Slowly, the way a conversation changes direction at a dinner party after the second bottle of wine.
