Lightspeed: Year One

She lifts her shirt, and there’s this hole where her belly button should be. It’s the size of a nickel, but it scoops in and up like the inside of a funnel. She does this right in the middle of the food court. People turn and stare. My mother tells her to pull down her shirt.

“So it’s like a vagina,” I say.

“Except you put your own pollen up there, push it in deep instead of flushing it.”

“What a relief,” my mother says. “I thought you couldn’t have children.”

“I can,” Bibi says. “But I won’t. Anyone who has a baby ends up dead.”

“Childbirth used to be risky here,” my mother says. “Thank God for modern medicine.”

“No,” Bibi says. “Procreation is suicide. Babies can’t come out the bottom. There’s no hole. To get out, they gnaw through your stomach. They eat the other organs on their way out.”

I sit there, shocked, my fries turning to mush on my tongue. “My God,” I say. “Why would anyone want to get pregnant?”

“They say it’s wonderful. Like being on heroin for nine months. The best euphoria there is.”

“Christ Almighty,” I say, “that’s some mad kind of population control.” I ask her if she’s heard of the one-child law in China, but she doesn’t answer.

“You’re in good hands now,” my mother says and gives her a hug, rocks her back and forth in her arms. Right there in the middle of the food court like she’s five years old. I just sit and stare at my food. As though I could eat after that.

My mother drops us off at school on Sunday, tells Bibi if she needs anything to call. We carry our laundry upstairs. Under our folded clothes, we find notes from my mother on matching stationery taped to bags of Hershey’s kisses. Mine says, “Loved having you home. So nice to spend time with you and Bibi.”

“Your mom’s really cool,” Bibi says. She props her turkey baster and note up on her dresser.

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”

Now that she likes my mom, she wants to be friends with me. Go figure.

I curl up on my futon with a piece of leftover corn bread. “So did you ever think of doing it?” I ask. “Just to see what pregnancy’s like? Don’t you think you will eventually?”

“Why would I do that?” she says.

“Don’t you think you’re missing out? You said it’s like drugs. I’d try that.”

“I don’t want to die,” Bibi says. “That’s why I’m here.”

“How does your planet feel about stem cell research?” I ask.

“They don’t understand why things should change.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of the same in America,” I say. “Stem cell research is a sin. Better watch out. They might throw you out of the country.”

She empties her chocolate kisses into the porcelain bowl my mother gave her.

“I think you’ll do it,” I say. “That’s what the turkey baster’s for, right? To stick the pollen all the way up?”

She just stares at me with her black eyes bugging out, and for a second I think she’s going to throw the bowl at my head. Either that or she’s going to cry. But she just turns and walks out of the room.

She didn’t come back that night. I wasn’t sure where she went. And frankly, I didn’t care.

Bibi didn’t speak to me for weeks. We gave each other the silent treatment and slammed the door a lot. I called my mother and told her I wanted to switch rooms. She said, “Angela, that’s not how we deal with our problems.”

I went to the RA and asked how long it would take to get a new room. She said I could file a complaint, but room changes were rarely approved.

It looked like Bibi and I were stuck with each other, at least for six more months. I started thinking I should muster up some sort of reconciliation. I thought about apologizing. Maybe she’d apologize for being such a bitch. I had a plan, was going to do it after my last class the Monday before finals. I swear I was going to.

But then I get back to my room, and Bibi’s in bed with Skippy. He’s straddling her stomach. His schlong’s way up in her belly, shoved up there real good. He’s riding her like a madman, and Bibi’s arching up so her belly keeps hitting his balls.

I slammed the door behind me and slept in the lounge.

Who did she think she was having sex with a human boy, and one from our floor? It’s not that I liked him. He was too pimply for me. But she’d been lying to me all semester, pretending she didn’t understand my crushes, and now this. She loses her virginity to Skippy. She loses her virginity before me. I couldn’t believe a Jupitarian had beaten me to it.

Still, I figured I’d be the bigger person. I figured we should talk. The next day, I get back from ballet, and she’s sitting at her desk reading chemistry, taking pages of notes, pretending like nothing happened. So I sit on my futon and sigh this huge sigh, hoping she’ll get the gist we need to talk. And when that doesn’t work, I say, “If you’re going to be one of those kinds of girls, we need a system.”

She says, “Skippy told me to put a bra on the door. I don’t have any. Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” I say. And then, “So what’s the big idea? I thought you were genderless. Were you lying about the self-germination?”