Eileen

by Ottessa Moshfegh

My daydreams of fingers and tongues and secret rendezvous in the back hallways of Moorehead kept my heart beating, or else I think I would have dropped dead from boredom. Thus, I lived in perpetual fantasy. And like all intelligent young women, I hid my shameful perversions under a facade of prudishness. Of course I did. It’s easy to tell the dirtiest minds—look for the cleanest fingernails.

A psychoanalyst may term it something like a formative trauma, but I know little about psychology and reject the science entirely. People in that profession, I’d say, should be watched very closely. If we were living several hundred years ago, my guess is they’d all be burned as witches.

Perhaps I envied his self-possession, I don’t know. He did always seem very pleased with himself. Although it barely masked his stupidity, there was a sureness about him I guess I found attractive.

Her sweater looked so soft—it must have been angora, cashmere—it seemed to float around her like cotton candy.

It was impossible to tell what he might be thinking. His mask didn’t waver. It was not my stony, flat mask of death, nor was it the stiff, cheerful posturing popular among housewives and other sad and deranged women. It was not the cutthroat bad boy mask set to ward off potential threats with the promise of violence and hot rage. Neither was it the lily-sweet bashfulness of men who pretend they’re so weak, so sensitive, they would crumble if anyone ever challenged them even a little. Lee’s look of calm contentment was an odd mask, peculiar in its falseness as it hardly looked fake at all.

“Thank you, Eileen,” she said, looking at me oddly. “You know, you remind me of a Dutch painting,” she said, staring into my eyes. “You have a strange face. Uncommon. Plain, but fascinating. It has a beautiful turbulence hidden in it. I love it. I bet you have brilliant dreams. I bet you dream of other worlds.” She threw her head back and laughed that evil laugh, then smiled sweetly. “Maybe you’ll dream of me and my morning remorse, which you can count on. I shouldn’t drink, but I do. C’est la vie.” I watched her get into her car—a dark two-door, is all I recall—and drive away.