Fresh Complaint. Jeffrey Eugenides

against the womb’s walls and, finding no purchase, hurtled downward through the plumbing, human and otherwise. Maybe they stayed alive in the toilet bowl for a few seconds, like goldfish. She didn’t know. But with three abortions, one official miscarriage, and who knows how many unofficial ones, Tomasina’s school bus was full. When she awoke at night, she saw it slowly pulling away from the curb, and she heard the noise of the children packed in their seats, that cry of children indistinguishable between laughter and scream.

      Everyone knows that men objectify women. But none of our sizing up of breasts and legs can compare with the cold-blooded calculation of a woman in the market for semen. Tomasina was a little taken aback by it herself, and yet she couldn’t help it: once she made her decision, she began to see men as walking spermatozoa. At parties, over glasses of Barolo (soon to be giving it up, she drank like a fish), Tomasina examined the specimens who came out of the kitchen, or loitered in the hallways, or held forth from the armchairs. And sometimes, her eyes misting, she felt that she could discern the quality of each man’s genetic material. Some semen auras glowed with charity; others were torn with enticing holes of savagery; still others flickered and dimmed with substandard voltage. Tomasina could ascertain health by a guy’s smell or complexion. Once, to amuse Diane, she’d ordered every male party guest to stick out his tongue. The men had obliged, asking no questions. Men always oblige. Men like