In the Details

by H. Claire Taylor

  And smaller were Tamara and Maddy and Jade and the rest, each in a pose that captured her personality so well, it made Jessica a little less upset about this entire display of insanity.

  Were she not herself, she would have appreciated the thought put into the mural. But as it was, she was entirely put off.

  Before she could snap at Kate for not giving her a heads up, the NAOs descended on her, and she only just handed off the rest of the boxes to Kate before she was surrounded in a group hug.

  The size of the sorority had almost tripled, and when Kate suggested Jessica take a seat on the couch and let the others gather around, that meant girls were sitting cross legged on the floor and standing around the perimeter of the living room just to squeeze in and catch whatever words Jessica happened to utter, which she desperately hoped made sense and didn’t come back to bite her in the ass.

  As Kate had warned, most of the sisters had their phones aimed at Jessica, but she could spot a handful who were actually posing for selfies with the front-facing camera on.

  “It’s so great to meet everyone,” Jessica said, tossing a pleasantry into the air to see if anyone grabbed it.

  It played well. The girls gabbed their own replies, and Jessica wondered at how big the age gap felt between her and some of these women who were only a year or two younger than her. Had she had this much energy and enthusiasm when she was only twenty? She didn’t suspect so, but there was no denying running a business had taken a lot from her.

  She would have paid good money for Jameson to be on the couch next to her instead of the twitchy blonde who smelled like a caramel corn. He would know exactly how to work a crowd like this. In fact, this was his ideal audience. She chuckled, thinking about how he would react when she told him about this. He would be so excited, so supportive, so …

  Well, she should just send him a picture now. “Can y’all scoot in?” she asked, motioning with one hand while she leaned over and pulled her phone from her back pocket. “I want to get a group selfie to send to Jameson.”

  Those were the magic words, and the girls practically clawed each other to make sure they were in the frame as Jessica lined it up. Only when she inspected the photo before sending it away to him did she notice something fascinating about it.

  She almost missed it, and she easily could have, because there was no single thing that tipped her off. More a general mis en scene that alerted her to the reality: she was in total control.

  Her arms tingled as the truth of it settled into her body. She controlled the room.

  For shit’s sake! There was a ten-foot picture of her on the wall to her right! Not only did she know the beloved Jameson Fractal, she had his personal cell number and was supposedly dating him.

  Oh, and she was the daughter of God.

  And all of them believed it.

  Holy shit. These were her people. These were her goddamn people!

  “Kate,” she said, letting the rush of power do its thing, “can you collect everyone’s cell phones?”

  The looks of shock and horror dissipated slowly as Kate went around, shaking down each person and not taking “I don’t have it on me” for an answer.

  Once she was finished, she nodded to Jess.

  “Great. Now we can have a real discussion.” What came next? Did she ask each of them to introduce herself?

  No, no point. Jessica wouldn’t remember anyone’s name, and if they said it, she would be expected to. Better to just jump into it.

  “I’m guessing you have some questions for me.” Heads bobbed. “Shoot.”

  “Is God okay with premarital sex?” blurted a bronze-skinned girl with large blue eyes and full, dark eyebrows. Jessica forced herself not to laugh at it. Of course the first question was “do we get to bang?”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t care. As long as it’s consensual, respectful, and doesn’t include non-human animals.”

  Another girl raised her finger into the air then followed up. “When you say consensual, that means both parties have to say ‘I want to have sex’ prior to penetration?”

  Jessica’s eyes searched for Kate, who winced apologetically.

  “Uh, I don’t know if there’s a specific set of words that have to be said. I think both parties just have to be up for it.”

  A sister with a pacific islander face and dark hair that seemed to generate its own glow said, “Does that mean there’s no take-backsies in the middle?”

  “Nooo,” Jessica said, suddenly feeling vastly under qualified to lead this discussion. “I think there can still be take-backsies … assuming I know what that means.”

  The girl clarified. “Like, if he’s already inside you and then you start thinking about how he’s actually a horrible person, like, he drives on the shoulder to cut bad traffic and tells the Starbucks barista his name is ‘harder, daddy’ and brags about the time he ran over his neighbor’s dog and got away with it. And then you also remember he was the one pushing drinks on you the whole night and maybe he was just trying to get you drunk so you’d bang him. If you are like, ‘this was a mistake and I’m not into it anymore,’ and you tell him to stop and he doesn’t, is that still consensual?”

  “No!” Jessica blurted. A flop sweat came over her, and she paused, cleared her throat and said more calmly, “No, it for sure stops being consensual the moment anyone involved says no. Also, you should probably report him for the dog thing.”

  The questioner appeared skeptical, then the doubt slowly faded as her expression drooped. “Oh. Damn.”

  “Yeah,” Jessica said, cringing. “I think you were raped. At least a little.”

  Another girl scoffed, drawing Jess’s attention across the room. “If that’s rape, then I’ve definitely been raped.”

  “It’s … entirely possible,” Jessica said, trying to read the girl’s sharp features. “And to be clear, God’s not cool with rape.”

  “What about threesomes?” asked a bulky brunette, sitting on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest. “He cool with that?”

  Jessica hadn’t truly considered it before. Sure, she might have briefly fantasized about a sexy compromise between Team Chris and Team Jameson, but she’d never worried about whether her Father would approve. “Well, he’s never said anything against it.”

  “Assuming they’re consensual, respectful, and don’t include non-human animals,” the brunette added.

  “Right. Um.”

  THE LORD CONSIDERED INFINITE POSSIBILITIES BEFORE ESTABLISHING THE LAWS ON THIS.

  You considered threesomes.

  EXTENSIVELY.

  And He hadn’t ruled them out. Okay then.

  “Yeah, he’s fine with it. Maybe too much so.”

  The bulky brunette turned to her sister next to her and they high-fived.

  “Anything not about sex you want to—”

  “Going back to the rape thing …”

  Jessica searched the back of the room for the source of the voice and only found it when the girl spoke again.

  “Is it consensual if, like, he’s your friend, and you respect and trust him, but you’d never thought about him like that, and then one night you’re out at a bar and he’s there, and you’re a little torn up about a recent break-up so you confide that in your friend and he buys you a handful of drinks and shots to help you forget, and then he offers to give you a ride home, but instead he takes you to his place and makes you a few more drinks, and the two of you are just talking in his room and then you sorta black out but eventually you realize the two of you are going at it, and you decide it’s probably easier just to finish up and not piss him off than to stop in the middle, because even though you aren’t attracted to him, he’s your friend, and he’s already going to think you’re a slut since—”

  “You’re not a slut!” Jessica shouted.

  The room went so silent, she could have heard a mouse queef. Her desire to smooth over her sudden outburst was in direct conflict with her horror at the story.

  “He k
new what he was doing,” Jessica said. “You trusted him to be your friend. You’re not responsible just because you trusted the wrong person and they took advantage of you. And you’re not a slut because, well, all kinds of reasons! You’re a victim.”

  “But I don’t want to be a victim. And he’s my friend,” said the girl meekly. “And we’re still cool. Like, it never happened again.”

  This time, it wasn’t Jameson’s easy charm and command of a room she channeled, but Judith’s deep, morbid sarcasm. “What a gentleman to only sexually assault you that one time.”

  “I’m sure he just misread the signals,” said the girl. “I mean, I was letting him buy me all those drinks. And I asked him for a ride home.”

  “To your house,” Jessica cut in. The girl looked so young sitting there, and every defense that came out of her mouth churned Jessica’s insides. “You know, I was …” Should she go there? Did it even count? She hadn’t thought about it for years. Would mentioning it here around these legitimate victims seem melodramatic? Would it seem like she was just trying to get some of the attention back to her? It wasn’t like it ruined her life.

  But on the other hand, she was the daughter of God. And she could feel more than see the heaviness that these stories brought to the surface of the girls that told them. Maybe if they could see that victimization wasn’t a sign of failure …

  The taste of the words on her tongue made her sick and lightheaded. “I was sexually assaulted once.” She’d never said it before, never wanted to admit that’s what it was. She’d wanted the memory to go away, not claim more attention.

  “It makes you feel like a fool,” she said. “Like a goddamn fool. So much so that you’d rather make excuses and call it a million other things than admit you were tricked, outsmarted, or overpowered, and that someone stole something from you. That’s what it feels like, doesn’t it? Like they’re stealing your ability to trust, and not just them and other men, but yourself.” Her hands began to tingle in time with a stirring in her chest like a storm cloud gathering.

  Without any target watermelons in sight, she was forced to steady herself.

  “I was assaulted,” blurted the girl on the couch next to her. “By my boyfriend. Does that count?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if it was a girl who did it?” said another.

  “Still counts.”

  “What if you can’t remember it?” asked another, “but you were told about it later?”

  The tingling increased, and she flexed her fingers to try to work it through. “Definitely counts.”

  “My manager,” said another one. “I can’t quit my job, though. My tips are the only way I can afford to buy food and books each semester. No one would believe me anyway. I’ve … I’ve slept with a few of the other servers, so …”

  Jessica stood suddenly. “Will you excuse me for a moment?” Weaving between the girls on the ground, she stumbled through the crowd until she reached the front door, where she promptly let herself out, slamming it behind her without meaning to and clearing the stairs down from the porch in a single leap as she hurried across the lawn, looking for just the right tree at the perimeter. A large juniper made a perfect target. It was an invasive species, a plague upon the native vegetation that did nothing but cause seasonal misery when it blew its load of pollen indiscriminately each year.

  She could hear the door open and close behind her, but it was too late to stop. If she took her eyes off the tree, she’d end up smiting something else by accident.

  She focused on the space where the trunk met the earth, determined to root out every last bit of it, and then she let the heat rush through her and tug free.

  The lowest yard of the trunk exploded, and she shut her eyes against the splinters that flew her way. In her fury, she hadn’t considered what would become of the rest of the tree, and as it started to fall toward the gravel where the NAOs’ cars were parked, Jessica had to think quick. Luckily, she had more than one smite in her, and two more bursts made sawdust of the rest.

  Her heart raced but her blood pressure dropped quickly along with her adrenaline. She copped a squat on the manicured lawn, staring at the hole in the ground where the tree had been.

  “Let’s hope that wasn’t a heritage tree,” Kate said from behind her. “The city of San Marcos might give us a citation if they ever checked on that sort of thing.”

  “I didn’t know it was so common,” Jessica said.

  “Yeah, they stick those dumb little tags on any tree with a diameter of—”

  “No, not the heritage trees.”

  Kate squatted next to her and placed her hand on Jessica’s knee. “I know.”

  “Those girls look up to me, and I should have something useful to say to them. But I don’t know what to say to anyone.”

  “‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’ is a start. ‘Do you want me to smite him?’ would also go over well, I bet.”

  Jessica turned toward her so Kate could see the eye roll. “Women could really use a better rite of passage, couldn’t we?”

  “Yeah,” said Kate simply. “We really could.”

  “Have you ever—?”

  She shook her head. “No. I feel a little left out, honestly. My trust issues with men are all on me, I guess.” She stood. “Why don’t you go back in there and answer some more inane questions. And if assault gets brought up again, which it most likely will, you can practice what you’re gonna say to people from now on.”

  She agreed, and when she turned and glanced at the front window, openmouthed faces were staring back. “I’m going to be expected to smite a tree every time I visit a chapter, aren’t I?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Kate, and she opened the door for Jess.

  The girls were silent as Jessica crossed back to her place on the couch. “How about we pass out some of those cookies?” she asked, and Kate jumped to while the rest of the sisters gathered round again.

  “Did you just smite a tree?” one of them asked.

  “Yep. I did.”

  “Are you mad at us?”

  She didn’t mean to gasp; it just came out. Or, rather, in. “No! Why would I be mad at you?”

  “Because we’re sluts,” said another.

  A strange authoritative impulse welled up in her.

  DO IT.

  No.

  JUST SAY IT. IT FEELS INCREDIBLE.

  No way.

  I’LL START IT OFF FOR YOU. “THOU SHALT NOT…”

  If she were going to start issuing commandments, though, there was no way she would sound like her Dad.

  “Don’t say that word,” she said. Then, to be clear. “Don’t say the word slut. Not about you, not about anyone. It’s a dead word now.”

  “A— a dead word?” said one of the reasonably confused girls.

  She knew they would do whatever she told them, so rather than admitting dead words were just something she’d made up, she doubled down. “Yeah, it’s a dead word. Imagine it dying out from your vocabulary. From here on out, you don’t even know what that word means. And if you hear someone else say it, you tell them it’s a dead word.” She was spouting gibberish now, but she couldn’t stop.

  “Why?” said a muscular girl from the back with her toned armed folded over her chest.

  “Because it’s only ever been used to shame people.”

  “Women are reclaiming it, though,” said the same sister. “We’re taking it back and taking the power away.”

  “Oh bullshit,” Jessica snapped. “You can’t reclaim what was never yours. It’s nothing but a word men use to punish women. And one women use to punish other women. You don’t take on the language of abuse. You stomp it out!”

  “What if I’m proud to be a slut?” asked the same standoffish girl.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Jessica said, losing her patience. “You’re not proud to be a slut, you’re just proud to own your body. You lose the word slut, and nothing changes except you’re not acknowledging the abuse of people who ha
te you by using their word.”

  A freckly girl next to the muscular questioner jabbed her with her elbow. “Just do as she says, Beth. Jesus.”

  “Any other questions?” Jessica said, feeling like she could get the hang of this being-right-no-matter-what thing.

  Kate handed out cookies as the next one was asked. “Do we have to worry about God getting us pregnant?”

  “No,” Jessica said. “Just don’t have sex with him.”

  “You’re saying abstinence is the only way to ensure we don’t get pregnant by God?”

  Jessica put her head in her hands. If this was what being a female messiah meant, she was entirely underqualified for the job.

  Jessica’s head was still spinning as she laboriously climbed the stairs inside her building. The unearthed stories from the NAOs had swirled and melted together on her drive from San Marcos, forming a messy lump of fear and anger in her bowels. So many stories, all different but with one upsetting thread tying them together. Not all the girls had something to confess, but far too many did. One was too many, really, but one could be called an anomaly, an unlucky encounter with a demon, if nothing else. The sheer number she’d just heard, though … that went beyond bad luck to a deeper, more omnipresent threat.

  As her foot found the top step, she spotted a six-pack of Dos Equis on her doorstep, and her first thought was, It’s a miracle. She could really use a drink.

  Not far on the heels of that, though was the much more rational thought: Who is leaving me alcohol when I’m not home?

  When she noticed the letter propped up next to it, she froze, still ten feet away from the thing.