Sometimes We Tell the Truth

by Kim Zarins

  So thinks young Sir Peter.

  “But what do women want?”

  Everyone turns around. Reeve’s perched on his bench, leaning forward, wide eyes asking. Still no sign of the clipboard. You can tell he really wants to know.

  “Not you,” Reiko quips, and everyone laughs. Reeve gropes for the clipboard, like he’s turning back into Gollum.

  Alison raises a queenly hand. “Hold on. If you think you know the answer, tell the person next to you.” There’s an uncomfortable silence, and then she adds, “Go on, I’ll wait.”

  The bus fills with the swish of soft voices. Pard lifts an eyebrow to say, So?

  I shake my head, but he demands an answer and leans in close so I don’t see his face anymore, just an ear and his thin white hair. “Fake question. You can’t boil down desire to one thing. The women he’s asking prove it. It’s a setup. You?”

  He pulls back, and his face is a mix of God, you’re hopeless and the look of a slapped kitten.

  “Then what?” I ask again. I’m frustrated and wonder what makes him the authority on women, besides one kiss from Alison.

  He tilts his head, and he’s not scornful anymore, just sadly resigned I’m not destined to get something so simple. “Love,” he says, looking right at me.

  I manage a pathetic, “Oh.”

  By the end of the year Sir Peter makes his way back to Camelot. He isn’t desperate anymore, just defeated. He’s collected a laundry list of things women want. None of them seem right. He plans to pick the best-sounding one and throw himself at the queen’s mercy. He doubts he’ll receive any.

  He walks as a penitent through the same woods where his adventure with danger began. Then he sees a strange sight: twenty-four young ladies dancing in a ring. All of them as beautiful as fairy folk. All naked.

  Sir Peter is in a pickle. If anyone can help him on his quest, they can. But Sir Peter is also pretty excited. He hasn’t gotten laid since the whole rape fiasco, and his body goes into overdrive. He has the sense to know that now is not the time to rush women with this major hard-on. Not the best PR, considering his case.

  On the other hand, these women might have the true answer, and the guy wants to survive. So he holds his shield low in front of him and pushes forward.

  He passes through the ring of dancers, and with a flash, they vanish by magic. Well, one woman stands at the center, but she isn’t naked, thank God.

  If the other women were supernaturally beautiful, this one’s supernaturally ugly: balding; drooping breasts; a wide and warty toad face; a square, squat body. She has to be at least two hundred years old.

  Sir Peter lets his shield droop at his side. He doesn’t need to cover himself any longer.

  Now, if he’d seen this woman this time last year, he’d have run screaming. But he has talked to women both old and young over the many months, so he’s seen all types. This hag was in a class by herself, though, and she gives him the willies—but he’s desensitized to some ugliness by now, and he’s desperate. So he asks her the question.

  Her cackle shows off her missing teeth. “Of course I know the answer, dearie! Very simple. But that answer comes with a price. What will you give me?”

  No one’s mentioned a price before, and he thinks maybe he’s onto something good.

  “Anything. Anything you want.”

  The witch’s grin makes his skin crawl. “Well, that is an attractive offer. I’ll take it. Let’s go.”

  “Oh, you needn’t come with me. Just tell me the answer.”

  “Ah, but if I did that, chickabiddy, would you come hunting for me in this forest, so I could redeem my prize? No, dearie, when we get to court, I’ll tell you what women most desire. And then—after you survive your test—I’ll tell you what I most desire.”

  She clutches him for balance, and he gags. It’s a long, slow walk to the court.

  And only when it’s time to approach the queen does the hag finally cough up the answer in Sir Peter’s ear before melting into the crowd of assembled ladies.

  “Tell us,” says the queen.

  Sir Peter hesitates for only a second. He has no other choice but to parrot the words he has just been told. His voice, like his body, is strong and manly, and everyone waits with bated breath on his every word.

  “Your Majesty, a woman most desires sovereignty over her man.”

  The queen jerks upright in her throne, surprised at his answer. Murmurs among the assembled ladies break out. The attending audience erupts in discussion.

  The ladies murmur their approval, but it’s the queen’s face that people study, and when she nods, the room fills with cheers. Sir Peter lets out a huge sigh.

  His joy lasts for two seconds.

  “Your Majesty.” Everyone turns to see the squat old hag rise to her feet. “I gave the knight this answer, and in return, he promised to give me anything I desire.”

  The queen’s gaze penetrates the knight’s face. “Sir Peter, is this true?”

  He does not have time to blink or the wherewithal to lie. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  The queen faces the hag. “And what is your desire?”

  “To have this knight in marriage.”

  There are so many gasps that the breath is sucked from the audience chamber. Sir Peter staggers like an arrow has hit him. He faces the hag, grinning and hunchbacked. Then he falls to his knees and holds his hands in supplication.

  “No, not that. You can have anything else—all my possessions, all of them. Anything but my body. Please.”

  The hag’s gums gleam when she smiles. “You look lovely on your knees, my dear knight. And husband.”

  The wedding takes place the next day. The knight awaits it locked in a tower by orders of the queen. She does not want a runaway husband.

  He then takes his place at the altar. It is a simple wedding, but the guests are the king and queen and high lords and ladies. They are Sir Peter’s fellow knights with fair wives beside them.

  In a daze of horror the knight makes his vows. He kisses his bride’s wrinkled mouth. He walks her from the cathedral and to the banquet prepared for them. He puts roasted peacock to her lips and does not meet her hungry eyes. He has no appetite.

  Then his fellow knights grab him and strip him naked and throw him in his bridal bed. His bride is already there. He watches after the merry lords and sweet ladies, who retreat and shut the door behind them. He trembles like a leaf and lies on his side, facing the wall. In another moment he’s gone fetal.

  “Well, this isn’t what I expected from such a handsome, lusty husband.” His ancient bride runs gnarled fingers from his ribs to his pelvis, while he grips his pillow. Her foul breath steams around his ear. “On our wedding night too.”

  Now she’s clawing him, trying to get him to roll over to her, on her, and he can’t. He can’t do this. “For the love of God, please don’t,” he begs.

  But she does. She touches him, and every time she lifts her thigh to tangle with him, her hip bones pop. She’s on him now, trying to warm him into life, but he’s soft and weak, and the only moisture in his body are his tears.

  “This isn’t working, is it?” And she lets go with a sigh. Rolls off him.

  He returns to his fetal position, thanking God it didn’t happen. That said, he knows he’s married. It will happen, sooner or later. He thinks of locking her in a chamber and fleeing the land. There must be some way out of this.

  “You aren’t attracted to me, are you?” Her voice is a raspy scold.

  He almost turns to glare at her, but spares himself. “You’re the most hideous thing ever spawned. I should have died rather than agreed to this.”

  “Ah, so you don’t like me because I’m not beautiful, is that so?”

  He rolls his eyes. “That is so.”

  “How about this—would you like me if I looked like this? Go on, turn around.”

  He risks a glance, and then turns hard toward the gorgeous woman naked beside him. She’s even more beautiful than the fairy
ladies dancing in the woods, if that’s possible. She is a fairy queen. His body flushes with heat, and he wants to touch her, but he’s afraid.

  Her smile dazzles him. “Well, that’s better. Men can be so shallow. They long for pretty surfaces. But this shape comes with a price. Ah, I see your worry. Not another price, you think. But you get to choose your price, and it’s simple. Either have me ugly but faithful, or beautiful but faithless.”

  Quite a choice. He wants to say faithful, but she was so very, very ugly. He wants to say beautiful, but he can’t bear to have her beauty given to every man in the court. There are no good choices.

  “Well?” The fairy lady runs a finger over his chest, down the line of his belly, and he’s on fire. Except he’s trapped.

  “I don’t know. How should I choose? What’s the right answer . . . or can you choose for me? You decide. You’re the one in charge here. You’re been in charge all along.”

  She smiles, and there’s a gleam of mischief in her face that frightens him. “So I have sovereignty?”

  “Yes.”

  She throws herself on him, hugs him like a vine. “Then, if you will be ruled by me, I choose to be beautiful and faithful.”

  And they have the hottest sex of anyone at court, the kind of sex I wish upon you all. The end!

  Alison ends with a flourish, but we’re quiet and uneasy. Or at least I am. Rooster and a few others cheer her benediction for hot sex.

  She smiles at me. “Hey, writer boy, how did you like it?”

  Why do they keep calling on me? I love Alison, but I hate her story.

  “I was kind of hoping Sir Peter would learn his lesson that raping people got you in trouble, not hot sex.”

  She waves a hand like I brought up something minor. “It would be so predictable to end with the knight getting executed, or having to have sex for the rest of his life with an old hag. All my stories have to have happy endings. And since it’s his story, he has to have a happy ending. Plus, it isn’t fair to the hag to watch her husband squirm like that. She needs to be happy too. So it’s better this way. For everyone.”

  I nod, but I don’t think it’s better. I want to rip the whole story out and start over. It’s like Alison knew the real story was about that unnamed girl raped in the woods, but she chose to tell the knight’s story. Why tell a rapist’s story when it’s that girl who’s worthy of love? Why? Unless . . .

  “What?” Pard whispers. He has me by the sleeve.

  “You were right, not just about women—we all want love.” I shiver, whispering all that in a hoarse rush, but the words need to come out now, and he gives a quick nod to let them keep coming. “But this story was about sex. He gets what he wants, both times, but he never asked for or got or gave love. It’s . . . empty. But for Alison to tell a story like that . . .”

  “Yeah?” He’s leaning in again, fingers on my wrist.

  “It’s just . . . I don’t want her to call up Pete now that she’s eighteen.”

  He looks her way, considers her. “I don’t think she’ll call him. She’s smart. Still, we’ll look out for her, right?”

  “Right.” And I look at Alison again, all cozy back and center, so strong she could pick up this bus, or dance naked, or do anything, and not let it hurt her.

  Or does it?

  BRIONY’S TALE

  We’re back to the hat. Mr. Bailey calls out, “Ah, another woman this time. You’re up, Briony.”

  Briony looks a tad green. Following Alison was never her plan in terms of high school popularity, and it isn’t her plan now in this story competition.

  “My story idea doesn’t really work well with Alison’s,” she says, stalling, her face pinched as if she’d found a wad of gum in her pom-poms. “I’m not keen on going after a romantic comedy with rape.”

  “Stories aren’t socks,” Mr. Bailey says. “No need to match them.”

  “Just go for it!” Kai says with that dazzling smile, though not a naive one. His cheeks are just a touch tight under Briony’s knowing glare, and I feel for him.

  Alison was Kai’s old flame freshman year. Briony has had more than her share of old flames—and stayed friends with lots of them—but Alison is different. Alison’s post-romance friendships have all the energy and flirtation they always had. Once Alison’s boyfriend, always Alison’s boyfriend, in a sense. Alison and Kai might not be messing around, but she’s too likable not to root for and care about and be attracted to, which is enough to make any regular girlfriend freak out.

  Briony rolls her eyes, but a moment later she squares her shoulders, straightens her back, and puts on a cheer captain smile. “All right.”

  So I’ve always been interested in what makes us who we are. Is it nature or nurture?

  In ninth grade, Zac went to his first big party, and it wasn’t going very well—leave it to him to smack into a super cute girl he’d never met before, practically the only other black person there, and spill soda all over her.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so, so sorry,” he gushed, while his friend Wil just laughed.

  “It’s okaaaay,” the girl insisted, and then she did a weird double take. “Hey, do I know you? From Philly?”

  He said no, he’d always lived in D.C., but the girl kept looking, tugging on a braid as if to tug the answer from her brain.

  The three freshmen exchanged names.

  “Zac . . . doesn’t strike a bell,” Leila said, tapping her chin, “but I swear I know you. Not trying to hit on you or anything, it’s just really bugging me right now.”

  Zac just stood there, wishing she would hit on him rather than weird him out with her déjà vu issues.

  Then Wil piped in. “Maybe you’ve heard he’s the guy with two dads.”

  “Hey!” Zac protested. He was known for his dads, but it would be so nice for once to just be known for himself.

  Leila turned to Zac. “Really? That’s cool.”

  Zac’s stomach tied up in knots wondering what she really thought, but Wil was oblivious to it all. “They’re white!” Wil added. “And get this. One of his dads found him on the Metro!”

  “No way,” Leila said, eyes popping. “That’s amazing.”

  It was amazing . . . and sad. True, it’s a nice story: A man headed to his job interview finds a newborn in a duffel bag riding in his car and adopts the unclaimed baby. All the TV reporters gobbled up the heartwarming news. But it also reminded Zac how his mother put down the duffel bag with him in it and walked out of that train.

  At that moment some girls called Leila’s name, and she gave an apologetic shrug. “Gotta go, guys. But I’m going to think about you and figure this one out because I know we’ve met.”

  “Man, are you lucky,” Wil growled, watching Leila disappear into the laughing cluster of girls. “She’s going to think about you.”

  But Zac figured Leila would never speak to him again. She’d done that freeze thing when she heard about his dads. Everyone did that. When people saw his family in a restaurant, you could see them stealing glances and trying to figure out if the white guys were coaches taking him out to dinner. Because they didn’t look like a family. He loved his dads, but for his whole life, he’d had it rubbed in over and over that he was in a family that didn’t look like a family.

  But he was wrong about Leila. She rushed up to him at the lockers on Monday, and Zac was thrilled. He was finally friends with a girl.

  “Guess what?” she asked, and he got a weird trembly feeling, like maybe she was going to tell him about a movie or something big, and then maybe ask him out.

  “What?” He tried not to look too hopeful or to blurt out “yes” before she asked.

  “I wasn’t crazy! I found your look-alike! He must be your twin or something!”

  Not that again.

  Then she showed him her phone, and his whole world tilted and came crashing down.

  After a dazed day at school Zac sat at his laptop and stared at the guy’s profile picture online. It was like an elaborate joke, l
ike some hacker had modified pictures of him hanging out with strangers. The look-alike’s name was Aaron. Aaron had uploaded a bunch of photos. All with Zac’s face, but in a kind of popular, fantasy life: Aaron with his arm around a beautiful girl; Aaron howling with laughter while his friends carried him after a football game; Aaron giving the peace sign at a party glittering with lights. It made Zac feel like he’d done nothing with his life compared to this guy, but maybe he could have done these things—they looked identical, so why weren’t their lives?

  After combing through these glamorous photos, Zac clicked on a more quiet photo album that really messed with his mind. Just some family photos, the kind you’re often reluctant to be in, but you force yourself to smile and do it anyhow: Aaron, not quite a teen yet, holding a baby (his cousin, by the comments), him laughing as she grabbed his nose; childhood photos with heaps of cousins in front of the Christmas tree; a photo of Aaron looking exactly Zac’s age now, but standing with a mom and a dad in front of a church. Parents black like him. And if these were Aaron’s parents, just maybe they were his own mom and dad . . . right? Was that possible? He looked carefully at the picture, both parents good-looking and smiling. The mom looked like Miss Day, the kindergarten teacher he’d hoped would fall in love with his dads and marry them, and they’d all live happily ever after. He’d so wanted a mom, like everyone else. Someone in the family who looked related to him. Now he found her.

  Zac had to back off from his laptop when tears wet the keys. He slammed his screen shut just in time to sob hard. He didn’t even make it to his bed, just fell onto the ground and stared at the desk’s legs and the outlet, and he sobbed until his teeth were sore from rattling.

  So sick to his stomach that he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat breakfast the next day. He couldn’t face his dads.