Where's my martini?
A man sits at the bar. He wants a drink, gin and vermouth with two olives, one for taste and another to lay on the napkin beside his drink until he's done drinking, until there are five olives and it's time to go home. He will eat the five olives all at once and savor this last sip of the night as they melt alcohol into his mouth. Just last week it was four olives.

Where's my fucking drink?
A woman stands in her kitchen. The buzzer rings but she does not move, unable or unwilling to break her stare, staring at a spot on her sleeve, the spot more a change in texture than in color, stiff and dry, the place where his semen dripped out of her mouth and down her hand. Her husband is not home from work and his dinner is burning on the stove.

Hey asshole, fix me a drink before I smack one out of you.
A married couple fights in their apartment. The noise from the city passing below their window muffles the sound of their argument—his yelling, his swearing; her screaming, swearing, crying. He turns to leave the room and she swings limp arms against his back. He shoves her too hard and she falls to the hardwood floor. These are the sounds broken and buried by trolleys and cars and cell phone conversations. If asked, the neighbors would say it's the television.

Alright. Please, may I have another drink?
The woman wonders where to sit. She's never done this before and the motel room feels cramped, like one giant bed surrounded by four close walls. He lays on the bed, ready and waiting, with eyes hungry and glazed, invited here by her, the wife now looking to break her vow, no longer bound by the sullied ideals of love and truth and honor. She wants to fuck this boy to show love and truth and honor just what she thinks of them. To treat them the way they treat her. She turns off the light to hide the bruises on her hip and unzips her skirt.

Please.
The man misses his wife. He leaves work early, comes to this bar, counts olives and gets home late, earlier and earlier each day, later and later each night, unable or unwilling to choose her over this, the glass before him now empty, the gesture made for a refill. He knows that he is losing control and this is what he thinks about at home with her, with a dinner prepared and the bills paid, that he needs control. Of something. The most important thing. Her. The fights are brief, each insult a desperate attempt to suppress what he can only stomach until she brings it to light. He now drinks five martinis and can't control anything.

Please?
The couple wants a child. Try as they might it won't work, she and him just won't fit and no drug or schedule will change that, no doctor will manufacture what God so cruelly leaves unfinished. Instead of a baby, the city feeds them gin and sex, which are nothing more than loneliness, pale sedatives for a crowded lonely place. The man believes that he is to blame: wrecked body. The woman believes that she is to blame: wrecked spirit. The truth is that the unborn child is to blame. It won't accept a drunk for a father and a cheat for a mother and a marriage diminishing into empty conflict.

Cut me a break. It's been one of those days. Come on.
She tells him to stop. The boy does not understand but does as he's told, always does his homework, always listens to teachers and this teacher—his favorite in the whole school—deserves his respect and attention because, after all, she is naked under these sheets. His tongue tastes funny with her. She hesitates, tells him to go on, then tells him to stop again and pushes his face from between her thighs. She cannot do this. She will not, despite all of the anger and the bruises and the unborn child in her prayers. Sex with this boy is not an answer, nor is it a remedy. So she decides, and noticing the boy's expression, takes his penis into her mouth. A lesser act of indiscretion.

Fuck you then. I'm going somewhere else.
He would leave but the olives number only four. The heavy drinking started last month, five weeks ago to be exact, the day he found his wife crying in the bathroom and unable or unwilling to keep trying, past the point of caring, faith in medicine and miracles lost, an ache where there used to be hope. The bartender knows him by now, knows enough of his story to pity and, on occasion, protect him from excess. Tonight is such an occasion. Tonight he's cut off at four and the fifth olive remains in its jar. The man can taste it. He can crave it. But he cannot have it, not the way he wants it.

At least give me the olive. I can pretend, right?
The city is San Francisco and fog blankets its streets. A man at a bar decides four is enough and a woman in a motel room decides a blowjob is enough. The man tips his bartender, tells him thanks, promises to never see him again. The woman wipes her student from her mouth, dresses, promises to never see him again. The man walks toward home. The woman drives toward home. She arrives before him and begins to cook dinner, the dinner that burns on the stove as he walks through the front door.

The child does not exist but its presence blankets the apartment. A husband, mind swimming in four martinis, approaches his wife, mind trapped by the stain on her sleeve. They look at each other for the first time in five weeks. Her eyes beg compassion. His eyes beg forgiveness. Her eyes tell his eyes how much she wants him back, how lonely it feels without him or the child, how worthless that seems. His eyes tell her eyes how much he wants to come back, how much it hurts without her or the child, how shameful that seems. The buzzer rings and the dinner burns.

He reaches into his coat pocket, finds it and holds out his clenched fist to her. He opens his hand. There is a napkin and on the napkin, an olive. She hesitates, then takes the olive and puts it inside her mouth. The olive tastes like olive. She eats it, and the child leaves the room.


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