"Plus," he noted, "I like the way your breasts jiggle when you scrub the dishes." "My breasts don't really jiggle," I said, calmly scouring a serving plate. "I've been wearing a training bra since I was thirteen." "They jiggle enough for me." I looked down. Sure enough, each swipe of the Brillo pad facilitated a chain reaction. "Tell me about your scar," Ryan suggested. "A lot of people think it's a C-section scar, but it's actually from a ruptured appendix. The doctors misdiagnosed my stomach pains as gas, and a few hours later I was chewing Pepcid AC's at home when it burst. Soon thereafter, gangrenated appendix matter poisoned my blood. I almost died." If Ryan had a boner, it must have wilted as I described the oozing, bloody hole on my stomach that I was forced to pack daily with Bacitracin-covered gauze. When I looked up from my monologue, his face was sheet white. He looked like he was going to be ill. "If you squint, my scar actually looks like a second ass," I offered. "Yeah, except for the belly button," he concurred, squinting. 
I handed him the last of the dishes, which he dutifully dried. "What's next?" After scouring the microwave and countertop, Ryan refilled my wine glass and checked his watch. When you're paying fifty bucks an hour, it's important to prioritize. "Well, we don't have time for laundry," he deduced. I heaved a massive sigh of relief. When it comes to cleaning, laundry is my Achilles heel. I guessed Ryan wouldn't be too pleased about wearing a toddler-sized shirt to work on Monday. "Your floors look very shiny and clean," I noted, attempting to save myself from cleaning them. "Yeah, they're pretty clean. I guess we'll move onto the bathroom." In the bathroom, I pulled out my weaponry — the Scrubbing Bubbles I'd become so emotionally involved with — and sprayed a heavy layer onto the bathtub's surface. "What does it do now?" he asked. "It does the work for us," I said. "Which means I can move onto the sink." As I scoured the sink, Ryan and I chatted like old friends. Maybe it was because we were around the same age, or maybe it was because we bonded over the varying levels of high-SPF sunscreen I found in his cabinet, but I felt comfortable around him. "This SPF 30 looks a little old. You might wanna throw it out," I said. "I didn't realize I would get a running commentary on the products in my bathroom." "What's this? Hydrating seaweed and mineral-water spray? Do you actually use this?" "No, and I have no idea where it came from. Do you want it?" "Sure!"
Once we'd fully exhausted the topic of his cabinet contents, the conversation turned to love woes, ambitions and desires. We veered from mindless chatter into deep conversation. Like Alice consoling Jan over an unrequited love on The Brady Bunch, I consoled Ryan over his poor choices and hankering for his ex-girlfriend, and he listened as I described my exasperatingly unpredictable love life. "Do you ever want to get married?" I asked. "Yeah, you?" "Yeah, but only so I can wear a pink mini-dress and matching veil to my wedding." What life choices had we made, we pondered, that had brought us to this strange point in our lives? Maybe the wine or the cleaning fumes impaired my judgment, or maybe I thought it would make the story more sordid, but I desperately wanted to kiss Ryan at that moment, even though he claimed he was physically holding out for that special someone — an actual girlfriend or, in the best possible scenario, his ex-girlfriend, whom he still loved. This just made me crazier, as it fulfilled every Richie Cunningham fantasy I'd harbored since well before puberty. And the worst part was that Ryan seemed to think of me as his naked friend, platonically hanging out with him in the bathroom. As my mind quietly conjured debauched scenarios in which I corrupted the seemingly uncorrupted Ryan, glistening vaginade began to flow. Quickly, I turned my attention back to the bathtub before I was forced to mop up a puddle on the floor beneath me. I triumphantly ran my Scotch-Brite pad over the tub. "I can see myself," I marveled. Indeed, his bathtub gleamed like Oz in the distance, but as I stood up, the resulting head rush almost knocked me off my feet. Maybe the paper-mask idea hadn't been such a bad one. Ryan glanced at his watch. I figured that he didn't want to spend a thousand dollars for me to chitchat his ear off all night while subsequently emptying his wine rack. As we left the bathroom, I walked over to his bed and lay down. "I think I'm inebriated," I said bluntly. Either Ryan was the most gentlemanly human alive — or he just thought I was a pathetic nude-housecleaning whore — but nothing actually happened, even though I suggested we do some necking. "Don't you want to make out with me?" I asked from the edge of his bed, still wearing the giant yellow gloves. "I think it's really cool that my nude housecleaner is coming onto me, but I can't." "Damn!" "You can sleep over if you need to," he offered. "I have to get home to my Chihuahua. We've never spent a night apart," I explained, searching for the contents of my wardrobe and tossing my bra into my purse. "In that case, I insist you take a cab. I'll pay for it." Is there a factory that makes Ryans? I wondered, as he escorted me out the door and put me in a cab. As the trees of Central Park East disappeared behind me, I felt a little sad about the whole experience. Maybe it was the way Alice felt after consoling Jan, when she realized she really wasn't part of the Brady Bunch. She could serve them dinner but could never eat with them, because she was a slave. That's exactly what I had been, no matter how much I enjoyed it.
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