My Sim, Hermione Stranger, busies herself striving to become a rock star. In between jobs, sleeping, and eating, she woo-hoos her way around town with any Sim I deem attractive. Sometimes she woo-hoos with a really old Sim, sometimes with girls, and sometimes with boys who look like girls. Then she goes shopping for groceries.
My stomach grumbles, and I realize that six hours have passed and all I’ve eaten is the entire tub of dried apricots. I curse myself for what I know will be the dire consequence of an entire tub of dried apricots. I stagger into the kitchen in search of any food my mom has labeled “binding” (her word for foods that have chemical properties to stop the unpleasantries of, shall we say, loose stool. Although that really didn’t sound all that much less pleasant than diarrhea). A serving of Uncle Ben’s white rice and two bananas later, and I’m pretty sure I may never leave the house again.
The couch looks deliriously inviting, and I curl up into a ball and fall asleep.
An hour later I’m awoken by the doorbell. My body tells me to ignore it, but the bell rings again. From my vantage point, I see a face pressed to the glass pane along the side of our front door. Lish peers into the living room, and I’m pretty sure she recognizes my blobuous shape on the couch.
Standing up, I expel gas, the odor of which can only be described as apricots with a hint of Satan’s butthole. It’s toxic, and I graciously offer it up to Lish as I open the front door.
“Jesus Christ.” She steps inside. “Did someone forget to take out the garbage?” She attempts to cover her nose with her hand, then a light of recognition shines in her eyes. “You were eating apricots, weren’t you?”
Who but my best friend would know what I ate based on the smell of my farts?
“You have a delicate palate,” I tell Lish.
“And you have a nasty digestive system,” Lish replies.
“Touché.”
“Tushy,” Lish responds with our classic and clever touché/tushy one-two combo.
Maybe things won’t be so different.
“What are you doing here?” I ask in a way that says I’m glad you’re here, but I’m surprised.
“I was on my way home from work, and I saw your car in the driveway.” Sweet, I think. “Plus, Travis won’t be home for another two hours, so I thought you and I could catch up.” Ignore the backhandedness of that, Aggy. Focus on the fart identification.
“Cool. Come on in.”
Lish walks to the kitchen and helps herself to a Coke. “You want one?” she asks. “Don’t tell Travis.”
“Sure,” I say, seeing as it is on my mom’s list of food items deemed okay for consumption during turbulent tummy times. I also like this hint at Lish’s dark side.
It feels like the first time in forever we’ve been on the couch together, Sanford and Son on in the background, but if memory serves it was only last week. Still, we have a lot of catching up to do. “Luke and I made out!” I explode at the exact time my best friend yells, “Travis and I had sex!”
Um, you win?
“You go first,” she prods, but a story about kissing and a minuscule amount of grinding seems like a pathetic warm-up act for her full-on penetration tale.
“No, you go. Your story sounds way more interesting.”
“You sure?”
Hell to the no, but what kind of asshole would I be if I didn’t say, “Definitely.”
Lish spends the next ten minutes expounding on every last gory detail of sexual intercourse with Travis. I tune out at the mention of his “lithe fingers” … and only tune back in when she mentions how they didn’t use a condom.
“What? What the fuck, Lish? Since when are you a total moron?” I crack.
“Harsh, Agatha. Part of the website we used to find each other requires a full blood workup and physical exam.”
“A website? You trust a website? How do you know he gave accurate results? Or what if he had sex with someone between the results and when you two met?”
“He’s not like that, Aggy. He’s honest and kind, and I love him,” Lish insists.
“You love him? Really? Already? Because he put his penis inside your vagina?” I reprimand myself internally for once again sounding like a junior high health teacher.
“That’s not why I love him, but, yes, technically because I love him I let him put his penis in my vagina. God, Aggy! I thought I could tell you this without you going all Mother Superior on me.”
“So you love him, and he is supposedly disease-free. Are you ready to just jump in and be a mom at eighteen? ’Cause last I checked, his semen inside you is how babies are made.” Lord help me and my sexual language disease.
“I’m on the pill,” she sneers.
Lish actually sneers at me. And she’s on the pill. “Since when?”
“Since last week. I haven’t had a chance to tell you. You’ve been busy at work, and I’ve been busy with Travis—”
“So I hear,” I grumble, albeit in an attempt at humor. “Well,” I concede, “as long as you think you’re being safe.”
“We are,” she assures me. This conversation isn’t complete, the I love him still dangling in the air, but I’m not ready to hear more on the topic. She asks me to tell her about Luke, but what I have to say sounds silly and frivolous. Still, she is currently my best friend. I want to be able to tell Lish everything. I want Lish to be able to tell me everything. I just wish everything wasn’t what she just told me.
CHAPTER 22
That night I text Sahana to see if she wants to hang out. It’s better than being alone with my thoughts or, god forbid, my computer or phone. Unfortunately Sahana has family over and can’t escape. I seem to remember this being a common theme in our friendship of yore: She’d often miss events outside of school due to familial obligations. I wonder how super-tight-knit families deal with MTBs; people whose parents are completely devoted to each other, like Lish’s. Her parents chose to ignore their Empties and even renewed their wedding vows as a symbol of their commitment.
But there has to be a tiny twinge for both of them, perhaps on those days when Lish’s dad is chewing too loudly or Lish’s mom criticizes her dad for leaving the toilet seat up for the 7,562nd time, an occasional tug of what if? It sucks for my generation, not having any say in who we choose for love, but it sucked even more for my parents’ generation. Thinking you’ve already figured it out, then having your own body slap you right in the face.
I swear Hendrix Cutter is making me itchy.
How can someone I know not even a modicum about have a physical effect on me? It’s disturbing to say the least.
I walk into the bathroom to see if I’m imagining things. Maybe the itch is nowhere near Hendrix Cutter’s signature. Lifting my shirt, I instantly spot the blotch of redness from me scratching myself through my shirt. It is located directly over Hendrix Cutter’s name, like a pink cloud from hell highlighting this bane of my forever.
I send Luke a message.
Busy?
He doesn’t respond right away, so I take that as my cue to research international amusement parks. Fuji-Q Highland in Osaka, Japan, looks enticing, with both an attraction called Mizuki Shigeru’s Ge-Ge-Ge Haunted Mansion (the third Ge is the kicker) and a Super Scary Labyrinth of Fear. Who wouldn’t love visiting an attraction offering the Third Operating Room (I love the enigma of numbers one and two) plus the beguiling Bacteria Lab.
I add the park to my “Amusement Parks” Chapbook page, but being on Chapbook almost leads to some dangerous Internet searching. Willpower tested, I wrestle my laptop closed and begin the arduous task of digging through my underwear drawer to rid myself of any pair that has a hole or period stain. I turn on some music and divide my undies into three piles:
1) Keep.
2) Wear only when I know no one will see my underwear.
3) Throw to the dogs.
I consider donating my substantial pile of throw-to-the-dogs to a charity, but I question whether anyone wants used underwear let alone holey and
/or stainy ones. I make a mental note to buy some new underwear for the next holiday clothing drive.
Drawer successfully weeded, I pick up my phone to make sure I didn’t somehow miss the cackle of a message.
Nope.
On to the sock drawer.
My sock collection hasn’t been culled in so long, I actually find a sock with rubber lettering on the bottom reading “3–4 years.” Naturally I try it on. In a way it still fits, if I don’t mind the heel of the sock bunching up underneath my foot. A shame. The turtles around the top are so cute.
Still no message. I resist the urge to turn my phone on and off, lest it’s merely a problem with my phone and not Luke Jacobs ignoring me. Instead, I succumb to the call of my computer. A note from Lish is waiting on my Chapbook.
Are you mad at me?
She included a pouty face emoji, which is irritating to look at but means that she’s asking in a cutesy way instead of an angry way.
I type:
Because of the penis-in-your-vagina thing? It’s forgotten. Really. What is this penis I speak of? I’m not mad. I’m happy you’re happy. I just care about you and want you to be careful. That is all.
I click on the return to sender button, and the note folds itself with basic computer animation and whisks off as though being delivered by owl. Admittedly one of my favorite Chapbook features. You can even choose the silly sound the letter makes when it flies away, my selection a chuggy old-fashioned car sound with an ah-ROO-ga horn.
As long as I’m sitting here at my computer with my Chapbook open, my chest itching, and no one named Luke Jacobs calling me … I click on the space labeled FIND A CHAPFRIEND.
H-E-N-D-R-I-X
I start with the first name. Maybe I’ll find out there are a lot of people named Hendrix Cutter, and that way I won’t have to worry about finding the actual one with only a single search. Multiple people’s Chapbook covers pop up, some with photos, some with artwork, and some with simply a typed name. All the ones I see are people with the last name Hendrix. I casually scroll, proving to myself how much I really don’t care.
I care so little, what the hell, why not type Cutter?
So I do.
And there is only one Chapbook cover that pops up.
Shitshitshitshit.
I click on the x to close my browser as quickly as if I accidentally stumbled on a porn site just as my dad walked into my bedroom (which may or may not have happened when I was twelve. I can still remember the uncomfortable look on the woman’s face).
I didn’t see anything.
But I did see something.
It wasn’t a picture of him, so I didn’t actually see Hendrix Cutter. What I saw was his name. My brain recognized the arrangement of letters instantly, possibly because the same arrangement is permanently taking up precious real estate above my boobs. What I wish I didn’t see was the extremely cool way the name was hand-drawn, in full color, on a piece of notebook paper. Creepy-looking characters hooked together to form Hendrix Cutter.
I only saw it for a split second, a guilty porn second, but my stupid brain photographed the letters perfectly to store alongside my suddenly evolving collection of Hendrix Cutter memorabilia.
Is Hendrix Cutter an artist? A pretty good one at that?
I don’t want to care. I don’t want the urge to open the screen back up, to type those letters again, to stare at something created by an actual human being who is connected to me by—what? Fate? Faith? A cruel intergalactic practical joke?
I wish seeing his name, his art, in something other than my flesh didn’t stir something inside me. It almost feels like there’s a candle in my belly, one that sat unlit until this moment. Now a small flame clings to the wick. It’s not enough to brighten a room or warm anyone, but there is a faint glow.
I’m disgusted at myself for feeling anything for this person forced upon me. I don’t touch my laptop for the rest of the night, and instead lie on my bed and read a book written pre-Naming, so I’m not reminded of my recent indiscretion.
As I close my eyes to go to sleep, my phone pings. It’s Luke.
Sorry. Was at my great-uncle’s wake. See you tomorrow at H.H. Wear something revealing. Or orange.
I smile at the cuteness and the fact that he did not ditch me, making sure to take a moment to feel sad about his great-uncle. The gushiness of a message from Luke is almost enough to eclipse the memory of Hendrix Cutter’s drawing. Until I tell myself that thinking of Luke will eclipse it. Then Hendrix’s drawing is all I can think about.
CHAPTER 23
I stride into work with a purpose: to take back control of my body. My life. Yes, I cannot change the fact that there is a ridiculously cool, or possibly dorky (leaning toward the former) Name on my chest, and now that Name has even more dimension after seeing it drawn in Hendrix Cutter’s hand (which, technically, I don’t even know is true. Maybe he had a friend draw it or ordered it on Etsy or paid an artist at a carnival. My vote is the carny. Although my gut says it was Hendrix Cutter himself. Why you gotta play me like that, gut?).
I’m ready to fight this. Hendrix Cutter has done enough damage to my body. I know Luke and I said what we have wasn’t going to be anything, but if I convince myself that I truly don’t care about Hendrix Cutter maybe I can turn this nothing into a something. With a spring in my step and my brown ponytail wagging high on my head, I skip over to the Ghoster to kibitz with Luke before the park opens. Keely is virtually rubbing her scent onto Luke, she’s standing so close. He looks engaged, but does not exhibit any body language that screams, “I want to touch that underaged hussy.” As a matter of fact, the second my orange torso fills Luke’s peripheral vision, he extends his arm to gather me into a hug.
Perhaps he got the memo?
“I guess that’s my cue to go back to Games. See ya.” Keely slinks away while I attempt to find my breath against Luke’s expansive chest. I manage to tilt my chin up and use my palms to press away from his firm embrace.
“Sorry.” He looks down at me. “I needed an out.” I suppress a slump at the notion that he didn’t hug me just for the delightful physical contact until he says, “Plus, you know, we get to hug.” Luke Jacobs, can you do any wrong? I make a mental note to write this anecdote in the journal that I shall someday keep about the summer Luke and I fell in love and knocked this Empty bullshit on its ass.
I’m riled up.
This becomes more evident at lunchtime when Adam expounds upon the pluses of finding his MTB, Anita Lopez, online over the weekend. “She didn’t even need to see me, and she’s already interested in me!”
“So you’re saying that seeing you used to work to your advantage?” I muse.
“Shut up, Jugsy,” Adam shoots at me.
“Excuse me?” I stand up. “What the fuck did you just say?” Our lunch table becomes pin-drop quiet.
“What, you’re allowed to throw digs at me, but I can’t throw one at you?” he asks.
I’m about to spew some venom when I realize he is kind of right. I did just make fun of the way he looks. Still, his obsession with my breasts is only slightly less unnerving than his commitment to the janky hat he’s worn for three years straight.
“What do Anita Lopez’s ‘jugs’ look like?” I air-quote the word, as it is not particularly one of my favorite breast epithets.
He looks appalled. “I don’t know! I just started talking with her this weekend. She lives two states over!”
“How would Anita Lopez feel if she knew that every conversation you have with a particular coworker had to include, subconsciously or not, allusions to her larger-than-average-size breasts?”
I hear snickers from some of my colleagues, but I refuse to feel self-conscious because Adam has a dick for brains.
“She doesn’t get to know about it.” He looks around as if trying to solicit breast-ogling team members.
“What if Anita Lopez has size-A cups? What if Anita Lopez doesn’t even have A cups, just tiny bumps like newly formed mosquito
bites?”
The table chitters at the thought of this. “What if she is breastless, and yet she is supposed to be your MTB? How will you handle that?” My voice is louder than I planned, but I’m done. Maybe it’s that, once again, I’m focusing on my body instead of my life. Maybe it’s because Adam is sleazy, and it makes me sad that Anita Lopez was slapped with an MTB who will probably spend the rest of his life subscribing to Internet porn. Or maybe I’m mad that another eighteen-year-old has fallen into the clutches of the Empty. Whatever the reason, I surprise even myself when I say, “I give you permission to temporarily ogle my boobs.”
Gasps and guffaws resonate from the table. Luke, sitting next to me, attempts to quell me with an “Aggy,” and his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s fine,” I dismiss him.
“You want me to look at your tits?” Adam grins.
“You are not allowed to refer to my breasts as tits. Breasts or boobs, but not tits. Certainly not jugs. Or hooters. Whoever named that restaurant chain is a fucking dickhole,” I aside. “And I’d like this on record,” I address the audience of the lunch table. “I do not want you to look at me in any way, shape, or form. The thought of your beady eyes coveting any part of my body makes me want to bathe in acid. However, I really am tired of you talking about my breasts no matter how casual you think it is. Referencing a woman’s body part, unless you and this poor woman are, or plan on, becoming intimate, is grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit. And, frankly, it defines you as a perverted loser.”
“But I can still look at them?” Adam questions.
“Lord. Yes. But here’s how it’s going to go down: You get five seconds. I am not removing any of my clothes, and you are only to view them over both my bra and t-shirt. Once your eyes are on my breasts—or singular breast, your choice—the clock starts. After five seconds is up, you must avert your eyeballs immediately, lest I stab you in the nutsack with a spork. And after that: nothing. You don’t look at my breasts, talk about my breasts, or make any sort of casual reference to them bouncing or jiggling or slapping me in the eye while I’m jogging. If you mention my breasts to anyone at this table and I get word of it, my compensation is one—or more, my choice—punch in your face. Do you agree?”
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