It was that damn travel kit that did it. If it hadn't been for that travel kit she'd be a free woman today. The fucking thing was too clean. Too organized. Too too. She shuddered just thinking about it.

A place for every thing and everything in its place. She remembered how unsettled she had felt the first time she saw it. There was not one speck of dust anywhere. Not inside or out. No fingerprints, no frayed edges, no bulging seams. The black leather shone like a brand new bridle on a thoroughbred. It might have been a Macy's display, for all the evidence of human ownership it bespoke.

The hairbrush looked as if it had never been used. Not one strand of his graying hair graced its bristles. A magnifying glass would not have disclosed enough to run a DNA test. The toothpaste was carefully capped and rolled from the bottom. There was no product residue around the edge of the screw-on cap. No thumbprint in the center, bending the tube out of shape. No sirree. The toothpaste stood there in its designated slot, eyes forward, shoulders back, uniform gleaming.

Everything else in the kit was equally clean. It made her skin crawl.

She was sure the travel kit would probably be considered a marvelous personal accessory by almost any standard. Three different sections fold out when the contraption is unzipped, and there is a handle by which you can hang it on the wall or in the shower. The kit, thus liberated, proudly displays all your creams and potions, your bells, whistles, and other instruments of transformation, all in one cohesive, organized whole available at your fingertips. Every item is held in place by velcro strips and customized pockets. When you're ready to roll you just fold it back up and zip it. Presto chango. You have a compact little bundle to toss in the suitcase.

She leaned against the cold, iron bars and pressed her cheek into the unforgiving metal, remembering. A sigh escaped her. She had known there would be trouble the first time she'd ever laid eyes on that goddamn travel kit.

There's something unnatural about a man who leaves no tracks. A man who offers no evidence of his existence. How can anyone be so fucking clean? How can a life be so band-box fresh, so completely untouched by use, unblemished by so much as a water spot? Can you really effect jet dry sheeting action in this dishwasher we call "life"? How do people wind up on the back of cereal boxes, anyway?

Dirt, decay and disorder constitute the inherent state of the universe. You don't walk through this life without getting a little of it on you. Those people on the back of the cereal boxes aren't real. Look at them. They can't be real. Nobody is that clean. Nobody has that many pearly white teeth. Nobody's hair looks like that, perfectly coifed, every strand serenely in place. No one is totally happy, totally pure, contrary to what the cereal makers would have us believe. But there they are, those pictures of picture-perfect people, provided by the corn flake folks for us to emulate if we dare.

Like the guy with the travel kit. Sure, he would have her think he was pure. Pristine. Tidy. Efficient. The kind of guy who would never get out of the shower and leave a cunt hair on the soap. But that was preposterous. One look at the wake of prevarication and manipulation rippling behind him belied that notion. Who did he think he was jivin'? Did he believe he could keep people from knowing the truth? Did he think the emaculate condition of his fucking travel kit was gonna fool anybody?

Take her, for instance. She wasn't fooled. She knew that just like his toothpaste, and his hairbrush, and his gleaming, stubble-free razor, she was simply another toilet article in his simulated life. She had some mysterious purpose, like the toenail clippers and the nail file, for which he needed her every now and then. Any time he wanted, all he had to do was pluck her from her place in his travel kit. He snored his way through the night, untroubled as a babe, a hint of a smile playing about his lips knowing that she resided in her little compartment, her little pocket of his life, held securely in place by velcro.

There was only so much space allotted to her. Only so much room to call her own. And no chance of dislodging. Yes, she could have this little portion of the kit, but none other. And she could never occupy some other slot, no matter what she did. She must remain where he had placed her, strapped down and silent. In the morning, when he got ready to go, he would fold her up along with all the other accoutrement and close the zipper.

"It ain't natural," she had said to herself.

"It's plumb sick," her self had answered.

"He has to die," they said in unison.