Nicotine by Nell Zink Page B

than you. Or older, or fat, or with short hair.”
    Rob puts his arm around her and says, “I’m a tragic slave to my genetic program. I have no choice but to go with it. It’s like being born trans. I was born liking plain vanilla T&A.”
    â€œWho you calling plain vanilla?” Penny protests.
    â€œYou should be more upset he called you T&A,” Sorry points out.
    â€œI don’t see you herding any llamas in a bowler hat,” Rob says. “You’re a biz-ad major from Morristown.”
    â€œI was raised in Brazil by animist drug freaks!”
    Sorry says, “Ignore him. He’s jealous. You think she always tag-teams him like that? No way.”
    â€œThanks, Mom,” Rob says.
    â€œYou shouldn’t take it personally. He’s never had sex in his life.”
    â€œHey,” Rob says. “Cool it.”
    â€œWell, have you?” Penny asks.
    â€œHave I what?”
    â€œHad sex.”
    â€œOf course I have. It’s hard time pressure. If you say you don’t want it, they take it as a challenge. Girls are like, ‘Of course you didn’t want my friend, she’s a ska-ank!’ Then they rape me. I’m hugging some girl and— bam —she’s on her knees. They think it’s going to be easy, like abusing a child.”
    Penny is shocked into silence, and Sorry says, “You’re not any kind of child, Rob. Maybe you need to work on your communications skills—as in learn to say no—if all these women are taking it too far?”
    â€œNow it’s my fault,” he says.
    â€œWere you an abused child?” Penny asks softly.
    â€œI just meant it’s so weird they think they can physically dominate me. I mean, it’s one thing holding down a five-year-old—”
    â€œI get the picture,” Penny says.
    â€œYou just don’t like it when women make the first move,” Sorry says. “You’re a cis-het dude-bro on strike for better conditions.”
    â€œA blow job shouldn’t be anybody’s first move. I like being friends with women.”
    â€œYou like worshipping size-queen starfuckers,” Sorry says. She turns to Penny and adds, “He’s in vicarious love with Jazz. He wants her more than anything in the world. Just not for himself.”
    â€œJesus,” Rob says, turning away.
    â€œAre you a voyeur?” Penny says to him. “You get off living next to her?”
    â€œI don’t get off!”
    â€œMaybe women go for your dick because your mouth is full of tobacco?”
    â€œAsk him where Jazz sleeps when it’s too hot or too cold or too loud in her greenhouse,” Sorry says.
    Rob leaves the kitchen and stomps upstairs.
    â€œWe just annoyed the living shit out of him while acquiring no actionable intelligence,” Penny says to Sorry.
    â€œYou just don’t want to hear it,” Sorry says.
    THEY BORROW HIS MINIVAN TO drive to Stayfree because it’s raining. The house is on a dubious-looking block, with several abandoned houses on the same side of the street. The marshy vacant lot opposite is overgrown with high reeds. The facade is black, with the squatter lightning-bolt emblem in lavender.
    Penny follows Sorry inside. The dark living room is lined with books and posters. The only white objects are the smartphone and cylindrical loudspeaker playing pop songs from the mantelpiece. Husky men stand around the sofas, eating. Shrill women fuss over the arrangement of food on the buffet. Sorry plunks down the salad. “Is this good?” No reaction. She proceeds to the kitchen to take a serving spoon from a drawer and returns, via the buffet table, to the front porch, where Penny is standing looking out at the street.
    â€œWe’re the only girls here,” Penny whispers. “I mean, as in—what am I trying to say? Am I being trans-phobic?”
    â€œHey, I miss women feminists, too. But I’m not willing to