Chapter_27

She put the pie in the oven. She felt like shutting herself inside with it. Soon she was opening the door for Dylan and Lark. “Sorry,” she said. “Jordan’s been... overserved. I’m sorry he screamed at you through the window.” She locked eyes with Dylan, attempting to telepathically convey the violent swirl of lust, regret, embarrassment, panic, and doom that she was experiencing. Lark smiled at her.

“All good,” Dylan said, looking around. She slipped off her shoes, exuding total calm. “Hi, everyone. This is Lark, and I’m Dylan.”

Noguchi handed them each a drink. “A pleasure! Wow, you’re tall! Everyone calls me Noguchi.” He looked around. “That’s Alice, and you know Jordan and Rosie.”

“Yes,” Dylan said with a laugh. “We do.”

“So,” Jordan said, wasting no time. “You guys are users of TikTok, I take it?”

“Jordan,” Rosie said.

Noguchi held up a hand to Jordan and turned to Dylan and Lark. “We were hoping to chat with you both. As I’m sure Rosie has told you, Jordan and I just had a successful soft-launch for our start-up. The early numbers for our pilot are really promising. We wanted to hear about your experience and bounce some ideas off you, since you’re our target demographic.”

Dylan looked at him skeptically. “What’s your target demographic?”

“Gay women. Queer women. Nonbinary folks,” Noguchi said. He glanced at Dylan. “And people of the, uh, unlabeled experience. But that’s just our initial target demographic, of course, before we expand. Queer people aren’t a huge share of the potential market.”

“What exactly is the start-up?” Alice asked.

“It’s really convoluted,” Rosie said.

“What?” Noguchi said with a laugh. “It’s not that complicated. I’ll give you the pitch. What’s the biggest problem facing the LGBTQIA+ community today?”

“Where?” Dylan said. “In what part of the world?”

“Here,” Noguchi said. “In the United States.”

“It’s hard to choose just one,” Lark said.

“Attacks on trans youth and trans women of color,” Dylan said.

“Access to affirming healthcare,” Lark said.

“Right, yes,” Noguchi said emphatically. “Those are definitely big problems.” He turned to Dylan and Lark. “And, of course, there’s an even more obvious one. What if I told you that you could start a family spontaneously, like a straight couple can?”

“Um—” Dylan started.

“Imagine this,” Noguchi said. “You’re a lesbian. The mood strikes. But wait, you don’t have the genetic material. But you do have a phone. Enter Swimmrs. No e. You pull up a list of handsome, rugged potential donors. You swipe left or right, and then—this is the sickest part—a drone delivers the goods to your precise location within two hours.” He waited for the impact of this last fact, looking between Dylan and Lark. “Do you get how huge this is? Sperm donated the moment you want it.” He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. “No waiting around. The drone element was actually Jordan’s idea. He liked the idea that sometimes couples don’t want to wait. It takes the sexiness out of the whole process.”

“Well, it wasn’t entirely my—” Jordan said. Rosie looked at him. His face had turned red, and he was rubbing his earlobe.

“Yes it was,” Noguchi said, slapping him on the back. “It’s so smart. It’s like... lesbians just can’t have that spur-of-the-moment hot recklessness that straight people have.”

“Well,” Alice said, “pregnancy doesn’t always happen so easily for straight people, either.”

“Do you see how cool this is?” Noguchi said. “Swimmrs gives lesbians the chance to knock each other up without the bureaucracy, the red tape, the long waits. Obviously lots of legal hurdles, which is why Jordan and I have been working around the clock.”

Rosie closed her eyes. “Jordan—why didn’t you tell me this was your app?”

“What are you talking about? I did!”

“No.” Rosie shook her head. “You didn’t. You called it a healthtech app that would disrupt the family planning economy.”

“Yes, precisely,” Jordan said. “That’s what this is.”

“There’s a term for that,” Dylan said. “Sperm bank.”

“No, no, no, it’s more than that,” Noguchi said. “We’re trying to build a real community. There’ll be online forums and meetups and fun stuff like that. So, I guess the question I have for our friends here is: Would you benefit from such a service?”

Dylan and Lark looked at each other. Rosie felt ill. The house felt like it was on a tilt. The kitchen had begun to smell like cinnamon and apples.

“Um,” Dylan said. She took a sip of whiskey and cleared her throat. “I mean, I have always wanted a kid. But I don’t think a sperm bank is the route I’ll be going. I prefer things more DIY and intimate, less... I don’t know... strangers with online profiles... drones... No offense.”

“That’s fair, that’s fair,” Noguchi said. “But maybe your friends would be into it?”

Dylan laughed. “My friends? Like other queer people? I have no idea. You’d have to ask them.”

“Well, that would be great—”

“No,” Jordan said. “Let’s not. I think that’s enough.”

“I’m going to check on the pie,” Rosie said. “Alice, could you come? I never know when they’re done.”

“What the fuck,” she whispered sharply, opening the oven.

“Do you think he was trying to keep it from you?”

“Honestly, no,” Rosie said. “I think I just truly hated listening to his app pitches so much. I am way too sober for this.”

“It could be worse,” Alice said. “He’s not, like, stealing old ladies’ Social Security numbers. I have to pee. Where’s the—”

“Upstairs,” Rosie said. She rested the pie on top of the stove. A plume of steam lifted off the crust. She was unable to tolerate any of her thoughts: that Jordan had sublimated his kink into a business plan; that Alice seemed to feel uncomplicated joy over her pregnancy; that she couldn’t read Dylan’s or Lark’s feelings toward her. She opened Instagram and tapped through stories of people she hardly knew, obscure clothing brands, and climate collapse infographics, her mind mercifully blank. Then she saw a familiar image, which at first glance stirred in her all the same feelings she’d had when she first encountered it years before: Jordan, standing in the forest beside a heaping pile of chopped wood, his left leg propped up on a gold tree stump. He wore a white T-shirt and waxed canvas pants. A bandana was tied loosely around his neck. He slung an ax over his shoulder and gave the camera a crinkly, weathered smile. He appeared exhausted yet invigorated. It had been Rosie’s favorite photo from the series, the one that had prompted her to message him in the first place.

But this was not an ad for the ax company. It was an ad for something else entirely. Meet your Swimmr, the text read.