Nightbitch

On the Sunday of that weekend, Nightbitch’s son carries a raw steak in his mouth into the living room and drops it at the feet of his father. Inadvertently, he introduces him to the fact that Nightbitch and he have been playing “doggy games.” Later that evening, Nightbitch and her husband argue, with him saying: “I just think the dog stuff needs to stop” (127).

The next night, Nightbitch discusses the frustrations of putting her son to sleep, which is the one thing above all else that she cannot stand, and which her husband never helps her with. Her son waking and wanting to suck on his pacifier is one of the key problems she must contend with. However, Nightbitch is able to get her son to abandon the dummy by playing another “doggy game” with him, where he sleeps in a kennel in the corner of their bedroom. Nightbitch then manages to get a night of pleasant, uninterrupted sleep in an empty bed.

Nightbitch meets up for lunch with a mother that she knows from graduate school. The friend teaches in a university and produces art, yet for the first time Nightbitch feels no jealousy and is content with her life as a mother. Their conversation is interrupted when Nightbitch and her son run off to chase a squirrel. Later that day Nightbitch is invited to have dinner with that friend and another old graduate school friend who is now famous.

That weekend Nightbitch has animalistic sex with her husband. In a rare moment of post-coital bliss, she worries about what she might lose if she fully became a dog. Nightbitch tells her husband about White’s book but is reluctant to show it to him, as the book now seems “holy” to her. Nightbitch writes White another email asking whether she has “some sort of instruction manual” for women like her who are transforming into animals (140).

Nightbitch has dinner in a restaurant with her two graduate art school friends. She becomes frustrated with their pretentious discussion of their art projects and competitiveness. She also feels ignored, seeing herself as a failure in their eyes for not having continued with her art. Her frustration with the situation builds into a rage: She barks, knocks over the table, and shouts—“I could crush a walnut with my vagina!” (146)

Nightbitch then breaks down in tears and storms out of the restaurant, running into the woods and howling with anguish. Once back at her house, she trips over the cat, leading Nightbitch to hurt herself. This causes Nightbitch, in her frustration, to stab the cat with a knife before mauling and killing it with her mouth.

Nightbitch describes her childhood and how her mother had wanted to be an opera singer, even having the chance to study at a vocal school in Europe. However, her mother gave up this opportunity when she became a mother. Nightbitch also remembers her grandmother making a spell for her out of herbs to ensure a group of kittens remained at her home rather than following her to school and encountering potential danger. Nightbitch sadly reflects on how she has forgotten and repressed much of her past.

Nightbitch’s son sees the cat that she killed and lets out a howl of delight. They dig a hole together in the garden and bury the cat. Nightbitch fears that with the act of killing the cat “the doggy games had gone too far” and that she is out of control (168). She endeavors to be “sensible” from now on, cooking meat, eating vegetables, and doing other normal human activities.

Nightbitch cleans her house with the help of her son and worries about what she will tell her husband about the dead cat. She reads a chapter from White’s book about “the WereMothers of Siberia” (173). White discusses how this group of women use telepathy rather than language to communicate, and how she spent time in the den of a group of them after getting lost in the Siberian tundra. White recounts how, returning to the location of the den a year later, she could find no trace of the WereMothers.

To turn over a new leaf, Nightbitch agrees to attend Jen’s “herb party” and makes a list of 10 things that she wants to do before she dies. However, these things all end up being dog-related aspirations, such as “to stink” and “to hump legs” (178). Nightbitch’s husband tries to ring her. She ignores his calls, recalling all the occasions when he ignored her attempts at communication while he was away. When they do finally speak, Night tells him that their son has fallen asleep on his own for the first time ever.

Nightbitch spends the next day watching videos of foxes, dogs, and wolves on the Internet with her son, and looking at books about dogs borrowed from the library. She explains how she has stopped shaving any of her hair and has covered up all the mirrors in her house.