Susanne Grabowski’s work has appeared in the Iowa Review and Salt Hill. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband. The Man in the Moon Susanne Grabowski        Be a whore.        Funny thing is, you don’t even have to try. You’re scared; it comes naturally. You wake up half-blind in a room you’ve never been in before with your belly split open. Around you, everything silver-white, beeping, cold. And you’re a baby. You’re worse than a baby. You’re not small and you’re not new. You’re a useless slab of flesh with a stapled-up gut. What are you?        And there’s this sound. For a long time you hear it, and hate it, and then you realize: it’s you. It’s whatever you are, crying. A hairless baby bird, veiny beak opening and closing: horrible, hungry. But you don’t want food. You don’t know what you want.        Someone appears, and instantly, you love her. The pink smear of her face hovers over you like a sun, and you bask in it. You would reach out for her, but your arms are so heavy. You would plead with her—don’t leave me please don’t please stay—but you have no words. You have nothing.        Okay now, she says. You’re okay. She spoons a spoonful of ice chips into your mouth, and you are shocked into silence, because that is exactly what you wanted. You didn’t know, but she knew.        More, you say, because you can speak now.        Not too much, she says, voice hard.        Please. And the sound begins again. Your cry.        Not too much, she says, or you’ll be sick. But you can hear her softening, word by word. Then, another spoonful.        Thank you, you say, ice melting in your mouth. Thank you, thank you, thank you.        We don’t want you to be sick, she says. But after a moment you can hear the spoon digging into the cup.        I love you, you say.        She laughs, a sound like something being crumpled, and pats your arm.        You say it again.        When your people come, you clutch their hands and tell them too: I love you. I love you. I love you all.        And then you are talking, because you are starting to remember.        I couldn’t see anything, you say. The orderly had to hold my hand.        The operating room was like a spaceship. And so cold!        The anesthesiologist was kind of sexy.        At that, you can feel them smile.        I couldn’t see him, you say, but he had a sexy voice. I was like, Damn!        You vamp one shoulder, flutter your lashes: cartoon coquette in hospital gown.        They laugh all at once, a sound like a sob. They laugh because you are amazing. You are the girl who wakes up doing a bit about a sexy anesthesiologist. The human spirit! they think. Or whatever: the gonads! Sick girl wanted to fuck some dude’s voice, right there on the gurney.        For a moment, you dazzle even yourself.        When you get to your room, the nurse is there to greet you. He is a man, tall and dark-skinned, but that’s all you can make out. You ask him to bring your glasses. So I can see you, you say.        You want to see my face? When he speaks, a flash of white.        I want to see who’s taking care of me, you say, and smile desperately into the blur of him.        He slides them onto your face. The stems are cold.        People say I look like Tiger Woods.        But more handsome, you say.        You push the button—beep—and feel your smile melt into something awful. What is a mouth but a lurid arrangement of lips, teeth, tongue, spit. What is a mouth but a mess. You cover it with your hand.        His smile is dazzlingly coherent, his teeth very straight.        A million, million, million times more handsome, you say.        And it’s true. It’s all true. It’s true, but.        In the night your sleep is shallow. For this you are grateful. Shallow is the opposite of deep, and deep is scary.        The clot-preventing cuffs do their rhythmic work, squeezing up and down your calves, wheezing softly. The blanket makes you hot and its absence makes you cold. Your gut hurts and your IV hurts: a rippling, enormous ache at your center, like an ocean, and a distant secondary throb.        You push the button, drift sideways.        Every night, several times, a woman comes to check your vitals, the squeaky wheels of her cart announcing her arrival. She’s not the nurse; she’s the not-nurse. She’s a dark woman in pale-glowing scrubs, a stranger you will never see in the light.        You feel for your glasses.        It’s okay sweetheart, she says. Sleep.        But you slide your hand between pillow and mattress; you touch the things on the tray beside you. You need to see.        Shh, honey. Everything’s okay.        You find them, finally, and put them on. You gaze at her face in the dark. There she is: frowning at her instruments, touching a button.        You love her, and so she is sweet to you. You raise your arm to meet the blood pressure sleeve. When she pulls the thermometer from your mouth, you thank her. You are her favorite girl. Her sweetheart. She wants you to be one of the lucky ones.        I’m okay? you say.        You’re perfect, sweetheart. Everything looks perfect.                                                      * * *        When it’s all over, you won’t be able to turn it off. You’ll be a beautiful, sparkling whore. Everyone’s favorite girl.        You have a beautiful laugh, they say.        God, you’re always laughing.        You’re beautiful.        Thank you, you say. And smile, baring teeth.        At a wedding, you dance with a child. He is someone’s little cousin, nameless and angel-faced, with a desperate crush on you. It’s the end of the night and the dance floor is empty. You grip the boy’s hot hands and spin, pulse ticking in your neck. From their tables, people watch, soft-eyed. This night has them feeling expansive. It’s the champagne, the occasion. The white tent and the dark lawn stretching out around it. The fairy lights twinkling everywhere. You spin, spin, spin, blurring it all together, and the people follow you with their eyes. You’re a bridesmaid in an iridescent dress, green taffeta swishing at your ankles. You’re a goddess, with a red mouth and tangled hair. You’re the miracle girl, mesmerizing a child.        You stop to catch your breath, and the boy stands staring up at you. He is five, and so he might remember this—you. It’s possible, at least.        Behind him, the moon is fat and orange, low enough to see from under the tent.        Look, you yell over the music. Look, buddy. It’s the man in the moon.        The boy’s blue gaze shifts from your face to the sky and back to your face again. He doesn’t know what you’re talking about.        So you crouch; you point. It’s like this, you say, and you make the man in the moon’s face, that lonely mask-face, its mouth a frozen howl.        He’s crying! you say. He never stops crying!        The boy frowns at the sky, blond eyebrows contracting.        See? you say.        His face smoothes: he sees.        I want you to always remember this, you say. Are you going to always remember this? I taught you the man in the moon.        The boy nods, round-eyed: an earnest, trapped creature. You are grasping his shoulders, you realize, the tips of your fingers pressing into his slender neck. But when you let go, he doesn’t move.        Promise?        Yeah, he says. Okay.