Lech

Beth fucks the exterminator while her son’s in New Jersey. It is the fourth time he’s come, jeans slipping off the hooks of his sunken hips, wielding his nozzle. For all Beth knows, the can is a prop, filled with nothing but water, but for the smell: birch beer, sweet as a soda float. She pays him, then overpays him, tipping 35 percent because she’s at his mercy and the flies keep on coming. He warned her there’d be no easy fix. They are tenacious mothers. He comes back the next day, and two days after that, hands her his card. . “Buzz me anytime.” He picks his face. He takes her