Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls
delicious .
    “Actually,” says one scientist, “it should smell like plastic.”
    Leo sniffs again. He nods.
    Bill is holding a coil of sausage in two fingers, like it’s the world’s longest cigar.
    “Uh,” says Bill.
    This should be good.
    “I mean, do we have to eat something that looks so much like a you-know-what? Once in a while people even say the word ‘sausage’ instead of saying you-know-what.”
    “It’s just food,” I tell him. “It’s just meat.”
    “Well,” says the scientist, “it’s not just meat.” He goes on to list several items that aren’t normally found in either sausages or you-know-whats.
    We’re told that the eat-off contest will be taped and performed when the ship is hovering overtop the moon. The winning contestant and I will then travel in a small capsule to the lunar surface to perform the sex act. The way the executive describes it sounds oddly like a honeymoon, a man and wife being escorted off to more private quarters.
    Blast-off is hard. There’s a moment when my mind tells me that we’ve blown up, and it takes a few more seconds to realize that we haven’t. I feel like my bones are being chewed upon by a glacier with really dull teeth.
    Then everything stops. The cabin is instantly too still. When I look at my reflection in a chrome panel, the expression on my face seems a thousand years old.
    Bill mutters something about being a space cowboy. I’m staring at Dick, the only one here I really know. He’s looking out the window, and he seems horrified. Instead of coming with me and the contestants to train before the launch, he opted to prepare using his own regimen of hypnosis and magnet therapy.
    “Dick, are you okay?” My voice sounds weird. I decide I should just have a space persona, and that way I can quit feeling so uncomfortable about nothing being the same. I rename myself Lorna. I roll the r in a Spanish way and bat my eyelashes at the lack of gravity.
    Dick is not okay.
    He’s very tan, and loves being very tan, and perhaps this explains his sudden preoccupation with the sun.
    “Where is the sun?” He keeps screaming this. It’s making Leo unsettled. Guff is looking for the sun inside the cabin.
    Bill is trying to recite a list of one-liners from memory and keeps having to look down at the cheat-sheet in his hand. Most of the hottie-billing contestants try to memorize jokes before taping. Once the camera starts rolling, they never remember them. Never.
    The medical adviser/cameraman tranquilizes Dick and straps him into a cocoon on the wall. It looks as though some giant spider caught him and hung him there. I keep watching the cargo door for a human-sized space arachnid to enter and devour him whole. I rub Dick’s arm a little bit and drool comes out of his mouth. It’s decided that I’ll host the show on my own.
    We take about an hour or so to tumble through the air and get used to weightlessness. Quarters are tight and Bill keeps reaching out to tickle my feet. I can feel my stomach and my crotch in the same place; there is no middle. Just my head and then everything else.
    “I really don’t feel like eating,” Leo says as they give him his food-coil. After several debates, the execs decided to wrap it in yet another layer of edible protective casing. If the coil were actually dropped onto the ground on Earth, it would probably bounce.
    Bill points to my chest for the camera. “I’ve got all the inspiration I need right there,” he says. I want to remind Bill that even if he wins, he won’t be seeing or touching my breasts at any point in time. But I don’t. I get out my stopwatch for the eat-off. Guff has already opened his mouth wide in a head start.
    “Ready …get set… go!”
    The first thirty seconds of the race are always the best, showcasing an initial rush of adrenaline. For a moment, it seems like anyone’s game. Guff is by far the biggest, but the problem with large contestants is that they’re used to eating out of
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