bed bugs
a short story
Two facts you have to know for context:
Fact 1. One month ago, on New Year’s Eve, my friend Fawn caught her always-off-again situationship Jake pressing some formerly unknown (now a regular subject of Instagram stalking—a model slash ceramic artist slash poet—not the subject of blame, just regular bouts of masochistic comparison) beautiful girl up against the wall of the alleyway smoking section at Caf. Jake had wrongly assumed this act of betrayal would go unnoticed in the holiday crowd.
Fact 2. Three days ago, at the Queen St W Aritzia where I work, one of the sales associates flagged that the boyfriend couch was infested with bed bugs. After a few late night FaceTime discussions with Fawn, our hypothetical jokes turned into genuine plans, and I agreed to pluck a few bed bugs from the couch, double-seal them in two Ziplocs, and bring them to meet her at a bar in Jake’s neighbourhood on a night when his band was playing an out-of-town show.
Now you’re all caught up.
Fawn is calling me. I hate her, I think idly. My entire body itches. I let my mind wander. If I sent her to voicemail and rode past Little Italy, just sat alone at some fashionably pared-down bar eating warmed butter on swoops of sourdough between sips of smoky sage cocktail, how mad could she possibly be?
Instead, I pick up her call. Where are you? I can tell by the shrill in her voice she’s calling from the sidewalk smoking section, irritated and freezing, dangling a Vogue a mutual friend had brought back from New York from her fingers. I loathed Vogues. They never felt substantial enough to satiate, like sucking for air.
The streetcar was delayed. I’m just at Bathurst now.
Did you bring them?
Honestly, this is ridiculous. We could just bail and go get drinks at Pompette and–
No, it has to be tonight! Please tell me you brought them. Her voice sounds whiny, atypically desperate.
Yeah, I did.
Okay, see you soon, love you.
Love you, I reply, be there soon, but she already hung up.
I feel worn thin. Earlier that day, a woman spat in my face. Not intentionally, she was just one of those women who spat while they told you that we really should organize the store better and yes, her teenage daughter liked to shop there, but she just couldn’t understand why when everything was just so plain and overpriced, and frankly, her daughter should probably commit to losing a little bit more weight before she committed to buying such expensive clothes—they’d just have to come back later for smaller sizes anyway. One of those days where you simply had to nod and smile, say yes ma’am I understand, and wait until the woman who spat in your face’s back was to you before wiping her spittle from your forehead.
After I closed up, as I shined my phone flashlight into the crevices of the Aritzia boyfriend couch in a determined bed bug hunt, I thought to myself that days like this deserve retribution. Girls should take revenge more often, while they’re young and beautiful and in their 20’s, so they don’t end up resenting their full-of-future teenage daughters later on.
The walk to the bar is all black ice. Fawn is still outside chain-smoking when I get there fifteen minutes later. I laugh out loud when I see her outfit.
What? She snaps.
You look so... sneaky. She’s done up in a thick black wool scarf tied around her head, halfway between someone’s Slavic grandmother and some spurned silver screen star. Super-spy babushka in a dark plush fur coat and Solomons, wearing sunglasses at night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear running shoes.
What if we need to make a quick getaway?
Jesus, I laugh. Should I be worried? I feign nonchalance, gesture to my platforms, but I am, in fact, actually worried.
She catches my poor attempt at deception. Relax, Annie, everything’s gonna be fine.
That’s what people in movies say before they die in a bank heist, you know.
Okay well, we’re not robbing a fucking bank, so again, we’ll be fine.
To be fair, we are breaking and entering.
If you want to be technical about it.
Not ‘to be technical about it.’ We are literally going to do that. What if someone calls the cops?
Look at us. We’re hot! That kind of thing doesn’t happen to girls like us.
I snort, smiling despite myself. It was what we would say to each other instead of, text me when you get home safe. We’d sway drunken through post-midnight poorly lit park shortcuts with blind faith in our safety, emboldened by this single ironic phrase binding us to one another. Knife-wielding rapists only happened to other, less-fortunate people. Ugly girls.
Anyway, we’re not really breaking. I still have the garage code, and Jake literally never locks the back patio door.
I hated Jake, mostly borne from an unspoken wish that Fawn wouldn’t care enough about Jake to hate him, although publicly, ostensibly, I hated him out of strict adherence to the girl code. If I’m to be completely candid with you though, I especially hated Jake because he ruined our New Year’s Eve.
Jake was often responsible for a number of ruined evenings I’d spent out with Fawn.
We’d have fabulous girl’s nights out, always getting ready at her overrun-by-houseplants apartment where I’d try to control my breathing, shaky and slow, as she’d swipe blue eyeshadow across my lids and explain that she was so jealous that as a blonde, I could pull off pastels while she had to stick to earth tones. We’d get wasted off soju and Ultra Strawberry Dream Monster Energy, tell outrageous tales to our Uber driver, scam alternating bumps of coke and ket from friends of friends in bathrooms, exchange playful kisses whilst getting air in some parkette across the street, move our bodies against one another in the plausible deniability of intoxication and house music, and end up crashing at her place, foreheads pressed together, giggling in the dark between her cool linen sheets. In the morning, we’d transform back to pumpkins, exchanging friendly hugs adieu in sweatpants whilst clutching beyond meat farmer’s wraps, as if she didn’t know exactly how my cunt tastes.
All too often, a text from Jake, the absence of a text from Jake, or an offhand remark from a casual acquaintance about Jake would cause our nighttime cavorting to quickly descend into Fawn scarfing down a falafel shawarma in-between sobs on some side-street curb, which made for decidedly less fabulous nights out.
On New Year’s Eve, she left Caf before they played Blue Monday at midnight. When she got the text from Eric that he’d seen Jake making out with some girl outside, I braced myself for a massive blowout confrontation, but it didn’t come. She just said she was feeling really tired, she was going to call it a night. We nudged our way through the crowd on the packed stairwells towards the entrance.
Listen, Fawn turned to me, you should stay.
I’m going to. I’m just gonna make sure you get in your Uber okay before I go back in, I’ll go find Sara and everyone else.
Oh. Right.
You should stay, too. Cancel your Uber and stay and dance with us. I don’t understand why you’re letting a loser like Jake ruin your whole night.
Annie, I love you, but you’re so judgmental about guy stuff. I’m allowed to have feelings.
Okay, whatever, fine. I’ll go spend New Year’s Eve dancing with our friends and you can go home and feel your feelings about some guy who probably literally still has his tongue down some girl’s throat as we speak.
You know what? Don’t walk me out. I’m good.
Fine.
We eventually made up over text, brushing off our harsh words by blaming cocaine’s dastardly influence, but Fawn had been uncharacteristically antisocial throughout the first month of the new year. We hadn’t seen each other in person again until tonight, walking arm in arm to stabilize ourselves on the icy sidewalk.
How was the show last night?
Honestly, I should’ve stayed home. The acoustics there are brutal, and I was so hungover for my shift today. Not worth it.
Why don’t you just quit? Your boss is such a dick and you’d have way more time to–
Girl, there’s this crazy thing called paying rent, you may have heard of it?
Move in with me!
It isn’t the first time she’s asked me. I roll my eyes, immediately dismissing the suggestion as inherently ridiculous, feeling a chill despite an unseasonably warm winter and my thick fur coat.
It’s the most expensive item of clothing I own, only made possible by my not having paid for it. Fawn bought it for me last summer, after an afternoon spent dipping in and out of Parkdale vintage shops as our iced strawberry matchas beaded sweat down our arms, gossiping in outside voices with full names, flush with sunshine and skinny love friendship. At the time, staring at myself in the dusty weathered sticker mirror of the thrift, I thought acquiescing to her cajoling was only fair. Fawn locked her deep brown kohl-rimmed eyes to mine and tapped her card without a glance towards the machine. I can just tell we’re going to be best friends.
We parted with a cheek kiss goodbye. I watched as she stepped from the curb into the back of a black car, noticed her toenails painted pink and glossy peeking from grass green Miu Miu kitten heels before the door slammed shut, and thought to myself as I watched the car shudder away into traffic that biting into a pinkie toe that perfect would be similar, texture-wise, as biting into a gummy bear. It would have a little bounce to it before the flesh gave way.
I hauled the fur coat slung over my back on the 506 eastbound in the heavy heatwave haze back to my boarding flophouse bedroom apartment. I almost fainted onto the delivery driver e-scooters locked all across the porch, steadying myself on the railing. I flung my shoes and dress off immediately upon shutting my door, and slipped naked into bed beneath the coat. My skin felt tacky with cool sweat in the damp of the basement, underneath all those chinchillas or whatever kind of fashionable rodents had died brutally to make my glorious new coat.
I slept deep, from late afternoon until the next morning, heady from light heatstroke and a suspicion that I had made the wrong call that afternoon in the thrift store. My mother, certainly, would’ve exploded in equal parts shame and fury had she found out I’d let some girl I barely knew pay for something so extravagant on my behalf. On nights out together, in a borrowed slip and heels a half-size small, I’d wrap myself tight in its teddy embrace, brush my cheek against the soft collar, and pretend all the beautiful clothes I was wearing were mine. I’d tell myself Fawn didn’t see things that way, as if I owed her something.
Still, I felt as though I owed her something.
I hoped halfheartedly that Jake’s landlord had updated the garage door code, but the keypad beeped green after Fawn punched it in. We’re in. Fawn said, mimicking a 90’s blockbuster hacker as the garage door rolled open, ready to admit us entry.
Okay, super-spy.
It was pretty funny, how easy it was to break into someone’s home. I often thought about this, about how easy it would be to tip over shelves at the pharmacist or get up on a table at the cafe on the corner and start screaming—making the wrong move was simple enough, like slicing a sharp blade through a finger instead of a baby carrot. One swift decisive motion. How tenuous everything was to hold onto. You had to be very careful.
Jake’s backyard was large, but consisted entirely of discarded cigarette butts and broken plastic lawn chairs. I used to love spending hours gardening growing up, listening as my mom told me to twist off the fragrant tops of basil plants to make them grow stout and leafy. I should’ve realized how competitive community garden plot openings were to get in the city, and often missed plunging my hands into the dirt, warm from the summer sun, since I’d moved.
Fawn was right, the patio door slid open sans protest. Jake’s apartment was sparsely furnished but not as disgusting as I’d hoped, just walls lined with plastic milk crates of records and a few dishes in the sink. We move like ghosts to his bedroom. His bed is loosely made. I fold the comforter and top-sheet back, handing the baggie to Fawn.
She holds it up to her face, inspecting the goods. Gross. How do you know they didn’t suffocate in there?
I honestly have no idea.
Can you hold my coat? I don’t want any to get on me.
I hold her coat in my arms and watch as she leans over as far as possible from the rest of her body, carefully opening the baggies to shake the bed bugs out into Jake’s bed before tucking the sheets back into place. She looks back at me, clearly underwhelmed. I guess that’s it, then.
We tiptoe back towards the patio door. I slip my shoes on, relieved that this particular escapade is almost over, but Fawn lingers in Jake’s living room, running her fingers over the spines of his records. It finally hits me that she’s spent time here with him, that before this was our space for some silly revenge caper in our story, she probably listened to him tell her about his favourite artists, flipping through streaming service offerings post-coital on the couch, curled up in the crook of his arm sharing a joint. He probably told her about his parents. For the first time, I wonder if she feels any guilt over hurting him. If she would about me, someday.
Can you hurry up so we can get the fuck out of here?
I’m just looking for something, it’ll only be a minute. She turns to me grinning, holding up Maggot Brain. Just taking something for the road.
Won’t he realize you stole it?
You’re so paranoid, it’s hilarious. He’s not going to be like, oh one of my albums is missing, Fawn must have broken into my apartment and stolen it!
I guess.
Besides, he’s got so many people coming through here all the time, it could have been anyone.
Okay, but–
He definitely never knew me enough to realize I’d take it, anyway.
We’re out the door and through the backyard, down one baggie of bed bugs and up one Funkadelic record slung in my tote bag, already planning to catch the streetcar and head to Houndstooth to continue our night. My heart is pounding from the thrill of easy transgression. As the garage door closes behind her, Fawn turns to me, grabbing my arm gently to stop me from walking away just yet.
Can I ask you something?
Sure.
Why don’t you want to move in with me? I feel like you’re not even considering it when I ask you.
I imagine telling Fawn I’m not some charity case, not going to move into the spare room and smile politely at her Hinge hookups in the kitchen on Sunday mornings, creative-type boys who are bisexual in the way that’s modern at parties but not in any way you’d have to explain to your mother. It would be so easy to press her back up against the graffitied garage door and kiss her the way we never do sober, like she belongs to me, like we mean it. Her nose is flush pink from the cold.
Instead I lie, tell her, I’ll think about it. I promise.
Thank you for reading my short story, bed bugs.
For this short story, I am still unsure about it but ultimately am uninterested in spending more time editing it. I just wanted to write something short, irreverent, and silly. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you connected with my work, please comment and let me know your thoughts—it would mean a lot to me.
Until next time <3