The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets

by Diana Wagman

  “But you seemed so cool."

  “Shaking and quaking on the inside.”

  His bedroom was familiar, the same Ikea furniture everyone had, done in boy colors of blue and brown. She smiled at his football-themed sheets.

  “Mom,” he said embarrassed.

  “I still have ballerinas.”

  The bed was a single but they managed to fit. As long as he kept kissing her anything was possible. His hand stroked her stomach. She squirmed, but it was good. She hoped Buster would be her boyfriend. It would be great to have a boyfriend at school. They could sit together at lunch. They could walk down the hall holding hands. She could put “in a relationship” on her page. And she really, really liked him.

  Buster’s hand slipped under the elastic on her underpants and between her legs. She was damp down there and she knew that was normal. Her breath came faster. Her whole body tingled. She lifted her hips so he could wiggle off her jeans. Good thing she had worn decent underpants, a favorite pair decorated with flowers and a little lace. Buster took her hand and put it on his thing. She gasped. It was so much softer than she expected.

  “Don’t worry,” Buster said. “You’re not hurting me.”

  “It’s like velvet.”

  “Glad you think so.”

  “Are they all like this?”

  “Frankly, mine is the only one I’ve ever touched.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’m honored. Really." He looked into her eyes. “Touch. Explore. Discover. “

  She giggled. “Like at the Science Museum.”

  “Exactly. My dick is your personal exhibit.”

  He laughed too. What a relief to be herself. With Buster she could say or do anything. With her older, mystery man she had to be Lacy Parker—wealthy, sophisticated, and abused young adult. She had not meant to lie to him. They had been on the phone for the first time. It was very late at night, after her mother was safely asleep. She turned out her bedside lamp so she could listen to him in the dark. He was looking at her picture online while they talked. He told her she was beautiful and obviously smart, not a combination he thought regularly went together.

  “Beautiful? Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She said no one told her she was beautiful and his response was so vehement and his outrage so comforting that she wanted it to continue. So she lied, just a little that night, about her father and especially about her mother. The divorce was true. Her famous father and the popular game show he hosted were true. Her mother’s anger and unhappiness were probably true, but the way she took it all out on Lacy was not true.

  “I’m a senior. I’m eighteen, but she won’t let me go anywhere by myself. She makes the chauffeur follow me everywhere—even to school. I had a chance to play flute once with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and she wouldn’t let me go. She doesn’t want me doing anything better than her.”

  He had been gratifyingly incensed. “She’s insane.”

  “She’s so jealous of me.”

  “What does your father say?”

  “He doesn’t believe me.”

  “Asshole.”

  The next time she had upped the ante.

  “My mother’s boyfriend followed me around the house. He stalked me. He came in the bathroom when I was taking a shower. He told me he wanted to rape me. And when I told my mother, she got mad at me. She slapped me. She took away my clothes and made me wear this enormous ugly dress.”

  He had shouted into the phone. He had been desperate to save her. He would not let this continue. He’d come and get her, wherever she was, break down the door if necessary. Lacy had loved his passion, loved that she inspired it. No man had ever wanted to fight for her.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Buster asked her. “We can just kiss.”

  His face was flushed and he was practically panting. He ran his hands over her naked body. He kissed her eyes and then her collarbones and then her tits. He circled her nipple with his tongue. She thought she might lose her mind, fall into this crazy sex place and never come out. His thing was hard, but soft at the same time. She looked down at it. A tiny drop of milky moisture came out the tip.

  “I’m… I’m sure."

  She was. She was sure. It was about time, she was sixteen years old. Losing her virginity was just another kind of piercing. So cool when it was done. And it felt so good to be wanted, to see the desire on Buster’s face that only she could answer. He needed her.

  “What do I do?” she asked.

  “I’ll try to go slow, but I am a teenage boy. We are notoriously self-centered.”

  Her confusion must have shown on her face because he smiled. “I’m just talking,” he said.

  “You talk a lot.”

  “Not more than you."

  She put her hands behind his head and pulled his lips to hers. When they talked she was not as brave. She needed his kiss, his tongue, his breath in the back of her throat. He lifted himself over her. She spread her legs. He tried to find the right entry. She had not thought that part would be so difficult. But every time he missed and ran the tip over her special spot, she gasped. It was so much different than her own furtive explorations at home. So much better. She reached down and guided him back over that spot. Was that okay with him? He moaned. She assumed that was a good thing. Anyway it was too wonderful to stop, she never wanted to stop. She knew an orgasm would come, she was not a child, but dancing along the edge of it was the best feeling she had ever experienced. A little bit was good, but more was a whole lot better. Don’t stop. Never, never, never. Some small part of her worried she was becoming a sex maniac. Sex might be like heroin—one time and she was addicted.

  “Oh no,” Buster grunted and erupted in her pubic hair. His whole body went rigid and then shaky and then he collapsed on top of her. She pulled her hand away just in time. His semen squished between them, sour smelling and all globby. It couldn’t be over. This wasn’t it, was it? He was done and she was just beginning.

  He rolled off her and closed his eyes. This was it then. He had had his fun and he would drive her back to school and they hadn’t even really had sex. He said “oh no” which did not sound good. She had done something wrong by grabbing him, guiding him. Lacy began to cry.

  “Oh oh oh oh oh. Don’t cry.”

  It was just too much. Skipping school for the first time. The scary guy in the garden. Kissing Buster and now this. She wanted her mother. She wanted to be home on the couch with tomato soup and the TV, as if this were a fever from which she needed to recuperate. Buster stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks.

  “You’re even pretty when you cry.”

  “Really?”

  “Most people get all puffy and red. You should see my sister. It’s gross.”

  She smiled at him.

  “I love your smile."

  “You do?”

  “Since eighth grade. Well, I was in eighth, you were in seventh and those juggling clowns came to assembly and everybody was booing and bored but you had a great big smile on your face.”

  “My mom just said she wants to be a birthday party clown.”

  “She’d be a good one.”

  “Mortifying.”

  “No, it’s cool. Definitely a give back kind of thing.”

  It seemed so normal to be talking to Buster. Even though they were naked and her stomach was sticky and she needed to blow her nose. Buster. Buster and Lacy. It was nice.

  “Did I—” she began and stopped.

  “What?”

  “Did I do something wrong? Is that why you said oh no?”

  “No! It’s all me. I was—you were perfect. Really. And you’re technically I guess still a virgin, so if you want to save that for some other, more important guy, I mean, I understand. It—this was great, for me, but—”

  She started to laugh. “Why do we both think we suck so much?”

  “I just want it to be right for you.”

  She reached for him. “Can we try again
?”

  “As many times as you like. What I lack in staying power, I make up for in—”

  “Please shut up.”

  20.

  Oren blinked. He rubbed his eyes. Could this really be happening? He would get his iguana from the world’s greatest reptile guy and he could go home alone. This would all be taken care of. Kidney had offered him the perfect solution.

  “Oren!” She called to him. Her face was dirty.

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  Kidney looked at him and grinned. Winnie struggled under his boot.

  “I like a woman who will fight,” he said. “It’s more fun. For awhile.”

  “And then what?” Oren wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear.

  Kidney gave his weird, growling laugh. “Maybe I’ll take her to Paraguay with me. She’s a little thing. I can put her in the suitcase like I did the snakes.”

  Winnie squirmed and bucked. Her voice was squeaky as if it was hard for her to breathe. “Oren, you can’t do this. What is the matter with you? I thought you needed to teach me something. What about your plan? Haven’t I been good? You can’t give me to him. I’ll give you the rest of the money. You know I will.”

  Kidney moved his boot to her head and pressed her face into the pavement. “Have to get her a muzzle. Shut her up." He took a handkerchief out of his pocket. It was obviously well used. “We can use this.” He bent to stuff the grimy handkerchief into Winnie’s mouth.

  “Wait,” Oren said. Then he wasn’t sure what else to say. “Wait,” he said again, and, “Someone might see us.”

  Not really. Not at all. The back of the restaurant was a blank wall of yellow bricks. The door to the kitchen was closed. An alley bordered the parking lot and across it was a high wooden fence. They were between the dumpster and the alley. If someone drove around the side they would see him, and maybe the top of Kidney’s head, but not Winnie lying on the ground. Winnie. His girlfriend’s mother. He had said it, but she didn’t believe him. She didn’t know he loved Lacy more than anything in the world. Even more than Cookie. He walked over to Winnie and waved Kidney away.

  “Say goodbye,” Kidney chuckled as he took a step back. “My turn now.”

  Oren squatted beside her. His head hurt. He was sore all over and he was so tired. Winnie’s eyes were closed. Maybe she was sleeping. He wished he could sleep. He circled her wrist with his thumb and forefinger. She was tiny. The women in his family, his mother and sister, his aunt the one time he met her, were large with stomachs that jiggled and breasts that flopped and threatened to spill in every direction. Winnie was compact and all in one piece. Her hands were half the size of his. He could not give her to Kidney to be folded into a suitcase with a filthy handkerchief in her mouth. He could not let her be used and thrown away. Even if it would help him. Even if it would solve all his problems. He was so tired. He needed to get more sleep. He did not want to continue with his plan. But he had to, he had to, he had to.

  Her wrist looked brown against his fingers. That olive color, so much different than his, so different than he expected. How odd that she was the mother of his beautiful, pale, long-limbed blond girl. “Huh,” he grunted aloud. Maybe she wasn’t really Lacy’s mother. Maybe Lacy was adopted. Or maybe this woman, this Winnie, was a kidnapper, a Jew or a gypsy, who had stolen that golden baby. It was not his fault she was so damn difficult. She was a trickster. A thief. A witch.

  Oren stood up. Let him have her. Let him take her and fuck her and throw her out the window. “Wake up,” he said.

  Winnie's eyes opened immediately. “I’m not sleeping.”

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Did you steal your daughter? Take her from the hospital when she was born? Are you really her mother?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe you aren’t who you say you are.”

  She pushed herself up to sitting. There were bits of gravel on her cheek. “Of course I’m her mother. Of course I am."

  She was crying, but silently. He had never known tears to fall without the woman wailing. She was such an oddball. The mother of his girlfriend.

  “I want to believe you,” he said.

  “We have the same nose. I have a picture in my wallet. She’s blond like her father and her grandmother.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

  “Believe me.”

  He considered her wide mouth, her brown eyes. She blinked slowly.

  “Do that again,” he said. “Blink like that.”

  She did and he saw something in her face. Something familiar. He had to see it. The picture of Lacy he had downloaded. There was something in the eyebrows, or the chin. Something. The nose. Definitely the nose. Yes, Winnie was Lacy’s mother. Daisy Juniper was Winnie’s mother. Jonathan Parker the game show host was Winnie’s ex-husband. Of course Lacy was blonde. It was just Winnie who had lost out, who was dark and small and like a little animal. An unfortunate mouse, he thought. Possibly a Jewish mouse, but that was not important to him. It was how she was. Who she was. Not what. Poor thing. So dark and dirty looking. No wonder she was so mean to Lacy. She was jealous.

  “Times a’wastin’, boy,” Kidney chuckled.

  He had listened to her beg for her life. He had listened to her pee. He had carried her to bed with his arms under her bare legs and been close enough to breathe in the flakes of her skin. As his fingers had tied the around her ankles, their sweat had blended. He could smell her on his fingers. There was so much more he had planned. He bent and whispered to her, “I want you to know me."

  “I do know you,” she said. “The way you talk. The way you move. The way your fingers close when you’re angry.”

  “Not that,” he said. He wanted her to understand. “That’s barely anything.”

  She had not begun to see the real him, the good Oren. He liked people. All kinds of people. Anybody, any kind of person, could be his friend. He had a cheerful greeting for each and every co-worker in the morning. Everybody at Carpet Barn liked him.

  She patted his shoes with her bound hands. “Oren. Don’t give me away. Not to him. He’ll hurt me. He’ll kill me. Please. You’re better than this."

  She looked up at him and her eyelashes were wet and dark and her eyes were so terribly disappointed. In him. She dropped her head and he felt her reproach in his chest.

  “You’re better than this,” she whispered it again. “Would you let someone treat Cookie this way?”

  Kidney snorted as he walked over to them. “Over and out, Oren boy. I got lots to do today.” He easily lifted Winnie off the ground and held her in both arms like a bride about to cross the threshold. She opened her mouth to scream, but Oren shook his head no, and she didn’t. Her eyes were pleading with him. Like Cookie when he was hungry. Like any creature who needed taking care of. And Oren could do that. He was good at that.

  “Put her down,” Oren said.

  “This means no female,” Kidney said. “I don’t get one, neither do you.”

  “I’m taking her with me.”

  Kidney laughed. “C’mon, boy. What’re you gonna do with her?”

  The way he said it was insulting. “Put her down. I want my money back.”

  Kidney slung Winnie over his shoulder, like some kind of big game, and started for his car. “I’ll get you the best little lady iguana you ever saw.”

  Winnie was fighting now. She did not want to go with him. Oren could see she was desperate not to go with him. “Oren,” she screamed. “Please.”

  But Kidney was a big man. He reminded Oren of his uncle, his father, all the men he had known. He stood there, afraid to move forward. “Stop,” he said feebly.

  Kidney swung around to laugh at him.

  “The gun,” Winnie shouted. “Use the gun.”

  Oren had forgotten his gun. He took it out and pointed it at Kidney.

  Kidney’s squinty little eyes opened. He stopped laughing. Then he shrugged. “Oh, right,” he said, “like you’re really gonna use tha
t.”

  Oren took a step toward him. He began to smile as he saw Kidney’s concern, his involuntary step back. “Put her down and give me my money.”

  “Jesus Christ. Have your old housewife.”

  Kidney dropped Winnie and she fell awkwardly onto her knees with a crack Oren could hear. He grimaced. More bruises. He had forgotten her ankles were tied and she couldn’t catch herself on her feet.

  “Now my money.”

  “No iguana for you.”

  “Give me back my money.”

  “I drove all the way down here, sat in there drinking god awful coffee waiting for you.”

  “I drove all the way down here too.”

  Kidney just gave a humpf and turned to go to his car.

  “Wait!” Oren shouted.

  Kidney kicked Winnie as he walked past her. She had been struggling to her feet and she fell again. He should not have kicked her. Oren launched himself at Kidney, leapt onto his back and wrapped his arms around his neck. He pounded Kidney’s face with the fist not holding the gun.

  Kidney roared and twisted and tried to peel Oren off his back. He pulled at the hand holding the gun.

  “Hey,” Kidney wheezed. “This gun ain’t real!”

  “What?” Winnie spoke from the ground.

  “Give me back my money!”

  Kidney twisted the gun out of Oren’s hand as he shook him off. He threw the gun to the ground and stepped on it. It splintered into pieces. Winnie moaned.

  “Don’t,” Oren whined. “Don’t.”

  Kidney pushed Oren to the ground and kicked him once in the ribs. “You little twat.”

  Oren curled into a ball. He saw Winnie getting to her knees, trying to crawl with wrists and ankles bound. “Winnie!” he called to her. She couldn’t leave him now. He had protected her from Kidney. He pushed himself up, all the way up, until he faced Kidney, who had his fists out, prepared for a fight.

  “Dickwad,” Oren said.