Taxidermy

I look around the room. This round bed, covered with white satin, like a monstrous wedding-cake. The smiling stuffed cat on the dresser. “Did you know that when you taxidermy a small animal, you have to pull the brain through its ear?” he says.
 

Afterward, Eva turns her face to the wall and falls asleep immediately, smacking her lips like a newborn. Her husband and I are left alone, wide awake and clueless about what to do with our naked bodies. He fondles his half-limp dick underneath the blanket. His arm is thrusting mechanically, without much enthusiasm or hope.
“It’s okay, really,” I say.
“You think I’m pathetic,” he says.
“It’s normal, I guess. We’re tired. It’s late.”

This story is part of the Pushcart Prize XLI Collection.
It was originally published in Ploughshares in 2015.