Fallopia’s Uprising

That night, the night of the election, The Billionaire turned to Fallopia, his face drained of color to a pale apricot. His spooked eyes, in that moment, looked like her son’s eyes staring back at a wall of flashbulbs at a campaign stop. Watery blue and utterly terrified.

“I am going to be The President,” The Billionaire announced, his voice catching on the final word.

Maybe it was the flash of resemblance to her son — Fallopia, like The Billionaire, often forgot that The Billionaire was Viscount’s father. Viscount himself seemed, at best, hazy on the concept. Maybe it was the way the pitch of The Billionaire’s voice raised ever so slightly at the end of his statement, making it sound almost like a question. Maybe it was that she herself felt weak, having passed up a grease-soaked hot dog at an early-evening rally with a turned-up lip and a dismissive wave of her gloved hand. She had subsisted on cigarettes and a can of mandarins since the night before.

For whatever reason, when he spoke, Fallopia felt something in her chest where she assumed her heart was. Not a pain, not really. More like a pinprick. Barely noticeable and fleeting, but in that moment she was compelled to reassure him.

“Don’t vorry,” Fallopia said. “Alvays you veell be Zee Billionaire to me.”

Fallopia’s mother, Ova, was even more beautiful than Fallopia. She was, in fact, the most beautiful woman in the mountain village of Vulvona. Ova put her beauty to work in attentive service to her husband and seven sons, brightening their dark mornings with her smile, warming their cold fingers and toes against her well-formed bosom, and charming shopkeepers into giving her the best potatoes, the freshest cabbage, and enough cigarettes to have the boys all smoking by age 10. She tended to them with the diligence of a nursemaid, watched over them like a shepherd. She asked for nothing beyond what was easily achievable and would give the giver pleasure in giving it to her. She anticipated their every need before they had a chance to feel the slightest twinge of a need themselves.

To Fallopia, she distributed only instructions. Milk the goats. Wash the men’s underwear in the river. Burn the trash in the backyard. Fallopia did as she was told, always. Her mother never praised her or thanked her, but Fallopia completed her tasks thoroughly and efficiently all the same, accompanied by a skinny, mangy runt of a dog who had followed Fallopia from the town square one afternoon as she struggled home under the weight of a sack of potatoes and cigarettes. Fallopia didn’t mind any of it. The dog was cheerful, loyal company, and Fallopia’s only dream was that one day she would please Ova.

Fallopia’s fourteenth winter was a harsh and difficult one. It was bitterly cold, and they were hungry. Everyone in the village was, except for the officials. The farmers had been forced to relinquish most of their harvests that autumn — for what purpose, no one thought to ask. Despite Ova’s best efforts, they hadn’t tasted meat in months.

And so one morning, Fallopia’s 5-year-old brother began to cry. “I’m hungry!” he wailed, hot, fat tears streaking his cheeks. “Mama, I’m so hungry!”

“Fallopia,” Ova said. “Bring me that dog.”

Fallopia did so, obediently. The dog squirmed playfully in Fallopia’s arms, and twisted its head to lick her face. The dog had no idea, but Fallopia did. She handed it to her mother with trembling hands, and watched silently as her mother took her favorite knife from the table and slit the dog’s throat.

“What happened to the dog?” The voice didn’t come from Fallopia, who stood mute and numb, but from her 5-year-old brother standing in the doorway.

Ova looked over at him and smiled, brushing a splatter of dog blood from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You said you were hungry,” she said. “Mama fixed it.”

Fallopia turned then, and ran out the door.

The Official saw her in the town square, sobbing, and approached with a kind smile. “Are you alright?”

She nodded emphatically through her tears. She knew enough to know that one should never tell The Official the truth. “Everything is wonderful,” she said, gasping for air.

He reached down and patted her gently on the head. Fallopia knew that The Official was the one who decided who got the bread and who got the farm equipment, who stayed in the village and who disappeared. But his touch reassured her, nonetheless.

“Come with me,” The Official said. “I want to show you something.”

The thing he wanted to show her, once they were inside his office, was an orange. She didn’t know what it was at first, having never seen one before — he had to explain it to her. It was from America, he said. He picked it up casually, like it was nothing, and handed it to Fallopia.

Gingerly, Fallopia put her nose near the orange and inhaled. It was the most delicious scent she had ever smelled. She imagined bringing the orange home, giving it to her father and her brothers, the way Ova gave things to them. And giving it to Ova.

“You can have it if you want, Fallopia,” The Official said, smiling. “If you only do one thing for me.”

“Anything,” Fallopia said. “Anything.”

“Do you know fellatio?” The Official asked.

Fallopia did not, but she learned.

It was suppertime when she got home. As her father and brothers feasted on the dog, complimenting Ova on the moist and aromatic meat, Fallopia sat on the floor in the kitchen. She held the orange to her face, and its sharp, sweet smell blocked out all the others. The orange was the most precious thing she had ever held in her hands, a gift from another world.

When they finished their meal, she peeled the orange carefully, as The Official had instructed. Inside, she found ten segments, and separated them out meticulously.

The sections glistened in her hands. They were beautiful.

She walked around the table, distributing one segment each to her father and her seven brothers. Her oldest brother looked at her with a new appreciation, his eyes meeting hers and then sliding down her body towards the orange in her hands. She smiled back at him, embarrassed, and adjusted her dress without knowing why. Her father put his arm around her waist, pulling her briefly to him. “Good girl, Fallopia!” he exclaimed with delight.

She could feel Ova watching her, and her excitement increased as she made her way around the table towards her mother. Eyes lowered, she pressed the final two pieces of orange into Ova’s hands. They were both for her.

When she looked up, she didn’t find joy, or gratitude, or love, in Ova’s face. Instead, Ova grabbed Fallopia by the chin, pulling her so close that Fallopia could feel her mother’s hot breath, her spittle on her cheek.

Ova hissed in Fallopia’s ear. “Get out, you little bitch,” she said. “There’s only one queen in the hive.”

Before Fallopia fully realized what was happening, she was out in the moonless night, the sky above her a dense tangle of cold, silent stars. The piercing wind cut through the holes in her dress, and she raised her hands to her mouth to warm them with her breath. Her fingertips still smelled like the orange. She stared back at the lamplight glowing warmly in the window of the ramshackle house, until she realized she had to get moving. She started to walk quickly in the direction of the village, picking her way over the pitted road in her bare feet.

She heard the front door squeal open behind her, and turned around. It was Ova, coming towards her, and for the briefest moment Fallopia allowed herself to hope that Ova had reconsidered, would welcome Fallopia to come back inside, to sit by the fire. She ran back to Ova, not even wincing from the sharp rocks embedding themselves in her heels.

But Ova had not reconsidered. Instead, she held out her hand. In it was her knife, the one with the rough wooden handle, the blade still slick with the dog’s blood.

Fallopia stopped short, briefly frightened that Ova planned to slit her throat too.

“Keep this with you always,” Ova said, pressing the knife into Fallopia’s hand. “You will need it.”

With that, she turned around and stalked back into the warmth of the house.

Fallopia watched her go, and then looked down at the knife. She would have preferred shoes. But she was willing to take Ova’s word for it. Ova was never wrong.

Fallopia had been living in the capital for four years when she met Macska. She had gone to the hotel suite of an importer/exporter, who promptly injected himself with heroin and lost consciousness. There was another girl there, and after checking to make sure that the importer/exporter was still more or less breathing, the two ordered room service and got to talking. Macska was briefly back in the country for some sort of complicated visa-related requirement but would soon be returning to New York. She was leggy and blonde and spoke English fluently. Fallopia was transfixed.

Fallopia told her about the dog, the orange, the knife, the banishment. She’d never told anyone before, but Macska didn’t seem surprised. All the girls had stories like this, she said.

“What are you going to do?” Macska asked. “What are you going to do to say ‘fuck you’? To your mom, and The Official, and everyone else?”

Fallopia hadn’t really thought about it.

“A good fuck you,” Macska suggested, “Would be to have a million dollars.”

Fallopia considered this. She couldn’t imagine having a million dollars, but there was something she could imagine: “I vould like to zay ‘fuck you’ a zouzand times.”

Macska considered this. “Then you will need a billion dollars,” she said. “Come with me to New York.”

It took several years and an unreasonably large number of fellated officials, but Fallopia finally arrived in New York and moved in with Macska, who lived in a one-bedroom Hell’s Kitchen apartment with a rotating cast of as many as eight other girls, all “models.” They were from all over — Russia, Nigeria, Japan, Utah — and communicated using a particular lingua franca, an Esperanto of international prostitutes. It was there that Fallopia was first introduced to the concept of the shishiki, the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men, all of whom, for some reason Fallopia never fully understood, liked to pay beautiful women to pee on their faces.

“Vy?” Fallopia asked Macska.

“Does it matter?” Macska asked.

“No.”

Fallopia didn’t see the harm in peeing on anyone’s face if the price was right, but what she really wanted was to sign with an agency — a real modeling agency, the kind that sent girls to go-sees and fashion shoots, not the kind that picked them up in Hell’s Kitchen and drove them to the service entrance of the St. Regis.

She got close, once. She’d finagled a meeting at one of the top agencies and had made her way through a gauntlet of receptionists and scouts and agents. Everyone seemed amenable to signing her until she got to the head of the agency, a former model herself who took one look at Fallopia, declared her to be “flinty-eyed,” and dismissed her.

There was no use crying about it. Fallopia went back to the apartment, where she allowed herself to sit on her single bed with the collapsing mattress and eat can after can of mandarin oranges. It was her favorite treat, a luxury and a comfort. She loved the smell.

She was drinking the juice from the bottom of her third can when Macska burst in, full of news. They were going to a party that night, a special one. A party with billionaires.

Macska was the twenty-second woman to pee on The Billionaire’s face. Fallopia was the twenty-third. And the last.

“You taste so sweet,” The Billionaire said to her, amazed. “I can’t quite place the flavor.”

Fallopia smiled at him. “Just me, I guess,” she said humbly.

The first date between Fallopia and The Billionaire went well. They had a lot to talk about.

“What’s your favorite color?” The Billionaire asked her, after the waiter had taken their order.

“Vat ees yours?” she asked.

“Gold,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Me too.” It had the advantage of actually being true.

He lurched towards her then, quite suddenly, and kissed her hard, on the lips, his hand deftly sliding underneath her skirt. He tasted like Tic Tacs.

The day after the election, the family flew to DC to visit the White House together. As they disembarked from the plane, Fallopia kept her hand on Viscount’s shoulder. She could feel him trembling as they walked down the steps to the shouted questions, the snapping of the lenses. She hustled him into the limo while the others preened for the cameras.

“Mama?” Viscount asked when they were alone. “Why did people vote for that man?” “That man” was how Viscount referred to The Billionaire, his father.

“I do not know,” Fallopia said. “I voted for zee old lady.”

Fallopia didn’t like the effect all of this had on Viscount, and wished The Billionaire had abandoned his political ambitions. Several years earlier he had decided to be a fashion designer and spent $300 million to build a company that manufactured and sold extra-long neckties, but then she bought him a yo-yo and he took that up instead. Once she had realized that he was actually running for President, though, it had been too late to distract him or ask him to stop. Fallopia had learned from Ova. She asked for nothing beyond what was easily achievable and would give the giver pleasure in giving it to her.

Finally, the others got into the car. Fallopia had hoped The Billionaire’s daughter, Hymena, would ride in the limo behind them, but of course not. Of course she was here, along with her husband, The Jew. Hymena thought she was terribly interesting for having married a Jew, and The Billionaire agreed. Of course, The Billionaire thought Hymena was the most fascinating person on the planet. His magazine had named her “The Planet’s Most Fascinating Person” 17 years in a row.

“Where are we going?” Viscount asked, worried.

“Ve go to zee Zee Muslim,” Fallopia said, reassuringly. “Ees okay. He ees very nice man.”

Hymena and The Jew began murmuring to themselves. The Jew shifted slightly in his seat.

“Fallopia, sorry to interrupt, but you really shouldn’t call him that,” The Jew said. “He’s not actually a Muslim.”

Fallopia was puzzled by this.

“Wait,” Viscount said to her. “Is he a Muslim or not?”

“I do not know,” she said. “First zey tell me one zing, zen zey tell me anozer zing.”

The Billionaire glanced up from his phone, where he had been tweeting. “Yeah, he’s not.”

So they met with The Not Muslim, who was very kind to Fallopia and Viscount. Less kind was Katherine, The Not Muslim’s wife. Katherine tersely introduced Fallopia to Nala, the Secret Service agent who had guarded Katherine and whom The Billionaire had picked to guard Fallopia. Nala was young, black, and quite beautiful. All of this pleased The Billionaire. “It’s about the optics,” he announced, clapping Nala on the shoulder. “The optics are terrific, just terrific.”

Nala smiled at The Billionaire and Fallopia and shook their hands. “Honored to be working with you,” she said. Katherine looked at all three of them with loathing.

Glancing nervously at his wife, The Not Muslim cleared his throat. “Nala is our finest agent,” he told The Billionaire and Fallopia helpfully. “The team relies on her for all kinds of things — we all do. She’s in charge of everyone’s schedule.”

“Not like she gets paid any more for it,” Katherine muttered.

Nala maintained her bright smile, smoothing over Katherine’s words. “I’m honored to be of service,” she said.

Again, The Not Muslim stepped in. “Katherine, why don’t you give Fallopia the advice we were talking about.”

Katherine glared at him.

“Fallopia,” he said, filling in the silence. “I’ve heard Katherine say that if there was one piece of advice she wished she’d been given before becoming First Lady, it would be never to look at the comment sections on the internet.”

“Yes,” agreed Fallopia. “Ees good advice. Zee ozer day, I read post on feminist blog about whether I have agency. Very confusing.”

Everyone waited.

Finally, Katherine spoke. “And do you? Have agency?”

“No!” Fallopia exclaimed. “Ees vhat I keep saying. I never had agency. Ozer models, zey get agency no problem, but I never had agency.”

There was a long silence.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Katherine said.

On the day of the inauguration, Fallopia presented Katherine with a Tiffany’s box when she and The Billionaire arrived at the White House.

“Open eet alone,” Fallopia whispered to Katherine. In the box was a piece of paper, on which Fallopia had written instructions for eating canned mandarins to make one’s urine taste better. Fallopia had never before shared her secret with anyone, but she thought that Katherine would need it to continue to please her husband. The woman seemed to have a lot of opinions.

They came for the Muslims first, which was bit of a surprise to Fallopia, because it was her understanding that they always came for the Jews first. She figured it was one of those ways in which America was different on the surface. And of course they came for the Jews soon enough. After they finished the wall they built the camps, and the camps were very large. Someone had to fill them.

The protesters outside the Gold House had disappeared by then, of course, but the day they started rounding up the Jews a tall, rangy young black man broke through the barriers and ran onto the long-closed Pennsylvania Avenue, bearing a sign that read, simply, “RACIST.”

Fallopia, watching from the window of the Oval Office, frowned as they shot the young man. She didn’t understand why people thought The Billionaire was a racist for building walls and camps. He wasn’t a racist. He owned a cement company.

“You shouldn’t have to see things like this,” The Billionaire said, coming up behind Fallopia. “Sad. Why don’t you go to Florida for the weekend? Take Hymena with you. She’s really upset about this Jew thing.”

That was how Fallopia ended up in the Florida palace with Hymena, whose placidity had evaporated in recent days. It gave Fallopia some pleasure to see how Hymena’s dark roots were showing, her manicure chipped. Fallopia peered at her closely, noting the lines between her eyes for the first time.

“You have,” Fallopia said, gesturing to the smooth space between her own eyes, “A leeeettle zomezing.”

Hymena stared at her, eyes wide. “What is wrong with you?”

Fallopia tilted her head to the side questioningly. She was just trying to be nice.

“How can this be happening? My HUSBAND is Jewish! My father HIRED HIM!”

Fallopia suppressed a sigh. Hymena was very stupid. How could she not understand that The Billionaire hated her husband most of all?

They stood there for a moment, in the gold-plated kitchen, Hymena staring at Fallopia expectantly, as if waiting for Fallopia to help her, to do something different.

“Vell,” Fallopia said, reaching out a manicured hand to pat Hymena on the shoulder. “Jewish ees through zee mother, no? So you keep zee children.” Hymena had previously expressed fondness for her children, and Fallopia assumed this would cheer her up.

“But my husband!” Hymena wailed. “His whole family!”

And indeed The Jew and his family came to Florida. Apparently they thought hiding in The Billionaire’s home with The Billionaire’s daughter would offer them some kind of protection. Fallopia had always heard that Jews were smart, so this confused her.

Hymena had a lot to say over the next couple of days. She railed against her father and his advisers, shouted incoherencies about protecting her husband and his family. They were supposed to take the Mexicans before the Jews, she told The Billionaire on the speakerphone, her voice shaking. He explained calmly that he had delegated the final solution on the Jews, and he didn’t want to micromanage. She thanked him for taking the time to speak with her, hung up, and screamed.

The police would have to get through her first, she told her in-laws, shaking her fist like a chorus girl in Les Misérables. She would stand between them and the family, she promised. Her father’s Super-Secret Service would never hurt her, and if they did, that was okay. She was willing to give her life.

Fallopia turned up the volume up on the TV.

And of course, eventually, the doorbell rang. Fallopia and Hymena were in the dining room inspecting a new set of gold candlesticks that Fallopia had ordered, and Fallopia watched as Hymena inhaled sharply.

“You get zat?” Fallopia asked. “I zink eet ees for you.”

Hymena went to the door and opened it, saw them standing on the porch with their machine guns and their snarling German shepherds. She closed her eyes briefly, reaching up to smooth down her hair.

“Hello, officers,” she said, opening her eyes and smiling. “The Jews are hiding in the attic.”

Back at the Gold House, Fallopia became frustrated with the linens. She was supervising the table settings for a State dinner welcoming the President of Syria, with whom The Billionaire was negotiating a large contract. She’d seen the photos of State dinners hosted by Katherine, and saw that there had been a set of jewel-encrusted napkin rings. Now she couldn’t find them.

She asked Nala for Katherine’s phone number.

Nala’s face contorted a little, as if she were in pain. Fallopia considered warning her that her face might get stuck like that, but restrained herself. Nala liked to keep it professional.

“They don’t have access to a phone,” Nala said. “They’re being, uh, hosted in a house in McLean.”

“Take me zere,” Fallopia instructed. The napkin rings weren’t going to find themselves.

The Not Muslim, his hair gray and his face drawn, greeted them at the door after the guards let them through. When Fallopia offered her right hand he grasped it in both of his, looking searchingly into her face. “Fallopia. Hello.”

“Ees your vife here?” Fallopia asked.

She walked past him into the wide foyer and headed into the kitchen. She heard Nala greeting The Not Muslim behind her, calling him “Mr. President.”

Katherine was standing at the counter, whipping cream by hand with a whisk. She glanced up warily at Fallopia, and started turning the whisk even faster, small specks of white liquid spraying onto her housedress. Good for the arms, Fallopia thought.

“I look for zee napkin rings,” Fallopia announced, holding up a photo of a table setting from 2009 and pointing to her prey.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Katherine asked, setting the whisk down with a bang and taking a step towards Fallopia. Fallopia glanced behind her, wondering where Nala was.

Nala, of course, was still standing in the foyer with The Not Muslim. They were murmuring, forcing smiles at each other. “I truly believe it’s going to get better,” The Not Muslim was saying.

“I do too,” Nala said. “I have to believe that. We have to believe that.”

“It has to,” The Not Muslim agreed.

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Katherine said, stalking past Fallopia and pushing the swinging door closed so hard that it swung back and forth on its hinges with alarming energy. “Obviously. Not. Getting. Better.”

She returned to her place behind the counter and picked up the whisk, gesturing so violently with it in Fallopia’s direction that Fallopia had to step back to avoid the splatter of cream. “What do you want?” she demanded.

“You are very rude,” Fallopia informed her.

“Oh, rude? I’m rude? Well gee, Fallopia, I’m sorry about that. I’ve been detained indefinitely in this house, the world is disintegrating, and you’re here asking me about fucking napkin rings.”

“You never zanked me for zee gift,” Fallopia said. She hadn’t planned to bring this up, but it didn’t seem like Katherine was following any of the rules of common courtesy.

“Zee gift? I never ZANKED YOU FOR ZEE GIFT?” Katherine imitated Fallopia’s accent, which Fallopia thought was poorly executed. “You gave me a piece of paper telling me to eat canned mandarins to MAKE MY URINE TASTE BETTER. WHAT THE FUCK, FALLOPIA?”

Fallopia felt hurt by this. “To make your husband happy. I zought you vould need eet.”

Katherine stared at Fallopia. Several times, she opened her mouth, and then closed it. Finally, she just said, “Huh?”

Fallopia wondered why she was confused. “You pee on hees face, no?”

“I — . Wha — . I don’t — . I — . He would ne — .” Katherine took a deep breath, as if unable to bear one more aborted sentence, and tried again. “No, Fallopia, I do not pee on his face.”

“But he ees shishiki, no? Very powerful man. All shishiki.”

“I don’t even — I don’t know what that is.”

How strange, Fallopia thought. Maybe this was why The Not Muslim hadn’t been a very good President. He didn’t understand anything.

Now Katherine was looking at her intently, leaning close. “Fallopia,” she said. “Fallopia, listen to me.”

Fallopia listened.

“Fallopia, do you remember when we talked before? About agency?”

Fallopia nodded.

“You know that you have agency, right? Do you know that, Fallopia? Do you understand that you have agency?”

Fallopia frowned. The previous conversation had had the same somewhat bewildering results. She wasn’t sure that repeating the experience was necessary for either of them. “I told you,” she said. “I never had agency.”

Katherine strangled a groan. She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. She had that look on her face that people often got when they were trying to explain things to Fallopia and couldn’t figure out how.

Fallopia waited patiently to see if she came up with something. It wasn’t her problem either way.

Finally, Katherine looked directly into Fallopia’s face. “Fallopia, I want you to act as if you have an agency.”

Fallopia brightened. “Zey zend me on go-zees?”

“Yes. They send you on, uh, go-sees. They have a nice portfolio of your pictures. They rent you an apartment and make sure you have plenty of kale chips. They take care of you and protect you.”

“Zounds very nice,” Fallopia said, meaning this.

“What would you do differently, Fallopia?” Katherine asked. It seemed clear to Fallopia that there was a right answer.

“I vould go on zee go-zees,” Fallopia said. “I vould make bookings.”

Katherine nodded. “What else?”

Fallopia shrugged. She was out of things.

“Maybe you could make your own living?” Katherine suggested. “Maybe you can take care of yourself? Maybe you don’t need a rich husband? Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Fallopia shrugged. Sure, everything would be easier if she had an agency.

Katherine sighed, sounding resigned. “The napkin rings are in the second pantry, on the third shelf.”

Nala cried on the way home. It took Fallopia a few minutes to figure out what was happening — the woman cried almost silently, just a faint rhythmic wheezing.

Fallopia tried to make conversation. “He looks like old man,” she said.

Nala quickly swiped the tears from her cheeks. “He was the reason I joined the Secret Service, did you know that?”

Fallopia had never thought about it. She said nothing.

“Do you know what he said to me, the last thing as I was leaving?” Nala asked. “He quoted Dr. King. He said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.’”

Fallopia didn’t know what the moral universe was; she wasn’t fully clear on the concept of the regular universe. But she imagined it looked like the wild stars outside the house in Vulvona on that moonless night when she was forced to leave, and she found it hard to believe that the universe was anything other than ice cold and very, very far away.

“I do not zink zat zee universe cares,” Fallopia said. “One vay or zee ozer.”

That night, Fallopia couldn’t stop thinking about what Katherine had said. Was it possible that not all powerful men were shishiki? She wanted to ask someone who would know. It only took her an hour of research online to find Macska, who was running a Saudi prince’s harem in Riyadh.

Fallopia and Macska talked for hours, like no time had passed. Macska was full of news of the girls. Apparently they all followed each other on Instagram. Fallopia told Macska what Katherine had said about The Not Muslim.

“Ees eet pozzible?” Fallopia asked.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing!” Macska exclaimed.

They speculated. Maybe black men didn’t like it? But then they remembered an African leaders’ summit they had worked in Nairobi and quickly discounted that possibility.

“It transcends culture,” Macska said, laughing. “I feel like I should be at least halfway to a Ph.D. in comparative anthropology by now.”

When she finally hung up the phone, Fallopia’s face ached from laughing. For the first time in almost two decades, she found herself thinking fondly of that apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, all of the girls together. She spent the rest of the night looking at their Instagrams, liking everything.

Viscount found Fallopia supervising the table setting for the State dinner. She was pleased to have the napkin rings, and was pleased to see that he was happy.

“Mama!” he said. “I finished my report on Canada!” The assignment was to write a report on a foreign country, and Viscount had chosen Canada. It was an unusually ambitious choice for him, as there was a lot happening there: radical Islamic militants who had come to the country as refugees had just killed 35 worshippers at a church service.

“Zat ees vonderful!”

“Thanks for the extra info!” he said. “It really helped.” Fallopia had explained to him that The Billionaire’s Super-Secret Service had hired the militants. They were out-of-work actors.

Later that evening, Fallopia mentioned Viscount’s report to The Billionaire.

“Tell him to pick another country,” The Billionaire said, busy on Twitter. “We nuke Toronto on Thursday.”

Fallopia frowned. Viscount had been so proud of the report. She hated to see him have to do it again.

“Can you vait?” Fallopia asked. “Zee report ees due Friday.”

Fallopia, of course, asked for nothing beyond what was easily achievable and would give the giver pleasure in giving it to her. That was how she and The Billionaire made things work. He didn’t like children, especially when they were talking to each other, so she asked for just one. She asked for shoes and handbags and a full-time gay to do her makeup, all of which The Billionaire could easily afford. She didn’t ask him not to run for President. That was how he had never said no to her, how he could plausibly tell her, “I could never say no to you.” And she didn’t expect to hear no now.

“No,” he said.

She was stunned. Did he just say no to her? What could be more easily achievable than not nuking Toronto?

And now it was his turn to make a request. “How about later, when I’m done Tweeting, you pee on my face?”

Historians and psychologists would debate it for decades, as would the Fallopia episode of the true-crime series “Snapped” on the Oxygen network. Was it her meeting with the former first lady? Was it re-connecting with Macska? Was it to prevent the nuking of Toronto?

Here’s the truth. That night, as Fallopia peed on The Billionaire’s face, she thought, I’m tired of this.

Later, after everyone else was asleep, she called Macska. “Do you ever geet tired of eet?”

“Of what?” Macska asked.

“Of peeing on zeir faces,” she said.

“I do,” Macska said. “We all do.”

The day started in Tokyo, where the car manufacturer drank strychnine-laced sake. In Seoul, the chairman of the technology company was killed in a small, localized explosion that was initially attributed to a faulty cell phone battery. There was a string of suspicious auto-erotic asphyxiations across China. In Dubai, a trade conference was mobbed with emergency vehicles and doctors in hazmat suits as the heads of industry succumbed to a mysterious poison gas. In Moscow, the blood ran into the streets. The Greek shipping magnate drowned in his hot tub. Macska cut the brake line on the Saudi prince’s Lamborghini. She knew a lot about cars and it had always bothered her that he didn’t let her drive.

As the news reports trickled in steadily throughout the day, Fallopia began to worry. When the Iraqi girls started using their urine to waterboard the generals, Fallopia got quite concerned — surely the shishiki would take precautions.

But it’s amazing how hard it can be for a person to accept that the end is coming. Fallopia thought it would probably be days before someone identified the coded messages on the girls’ Instagrams; maybe they never would. People always assumed that beautiful women were stupid.

Fallopia’s only concern was Nala. As a beautiful woman herself, Nala knew that there was a big difference between not having a brain and just not having to use it very often. So Fallopia waited until Nala went out for her evening run.

The Super-Secret Service had removed all the knives several months before, to protect against Gold House staff with “ideas.” But there was still a knife sharpener, and after several minutes rummaging in the bottom cabinets on her knees, Fallopia found it.

Fallopia had one knife. It was very, very old, and stained with dog blood. But it sharpened easily.

Fallopia turned to leave the kitchen, knife in hand.

Nala stood in the doorway. She was dressed in her running clothes, but she hadn’t left. Fallopia had been tricked. “I knew it,” Nala said. “I’ve been watching the news, and I’ve been following you on Instagram.”

Fallopia said nothing.

“What are you doing, Fallopia?”

It was either over, or it wasn’t.

“I sharpen zees knife,” Fallopia said, “To keel Zee Billionaire.”

Nala was silent for a long moment.

The two women stared at each other.

“Cool,” Nala said, finally. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

Unlike the dog when Ova slit its throat, The Billionaire didn’t struggle. He seemed to assess immediately that it was pointless. Fallopia did Pilates for two hours every day and was very strong, and besides, she had caught him in a vulnerable moment — on his back, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, awaiting that sweet stream. There was no point in screaming for help — Nala had adjusted the shift schedule to send everyone on break.

He didn’t even look surprised, not really. He looked, Fallopia thought, like somehow he had always known that this is how it would end: his throat slit with a rusty, dog-blood-stained peasant knife on the new gold bedspread in the Lincoln Bedroom by a middle-aged hooker from Vulvona. A part of him had known it from the first time she’d smiled at him with her mouth but not with her eyes.

Yeah, he’d known then that this was going to be huge and very, very bad. But her urine had tasted…what was that flavor? He could never quite place it until that moment when his life slipped away.

Canned mandarins. Of course.

Fallopia wondered if the bedspread could be saved.

Afterwards, but before they came, Fallopia wiped the blood from her face and examined herself closely in the mirror. She was still beautiful, she knew that. If she went to prison, she would probably be treated well, could probably find a large lesbian to watch over her. And she might not go to prison at all. Maybe the new President would give her a medal. She hoped it would be gold. Or perhaps another man would want to marry her. Knowing, as she now did, that not all powerful men were shishiki, she thought it might be possible to find one whose face she wouldn’t have to pee on.

She was very famous, and would be even more so now — maybe her modeling career wasn’t over. Maybe she could get an agency after all. Maybe Katherine wasn’t wrong.

“Mama!” a voice from the doorway startled her. It was Viscount, gaping at the mess on the bedspread. “What happened to that man?”

Fallopia went to him, kneeling before him and wrapping him in her arms. His small body, warm and trembling, pressed against her.

“Ees okay, Viscount,” she said. She liked holding him like this. “You can turn een your report. Mama feexed eet.”