Callie's Gift

by T. J. Jones

  Callie's Gift/Callie's Secret

  Chapter 1

  By the time she was twelve, Callie Fisher knew she was different from other girls. She wasn't the person her parents thought she was, and she couldn't tell them the truth. She had hidden parts of herself from them, and from everyone else. When she was seven years old she asked her mother about the people that watched her at night. Her mother questioned her and seemed angry. Callie told her that they were far away, and that she could only see them when she closed her eyes. She was sure her mother was upset when she made her tell her story to the doctor. She took the medicine and her distant friends went away. But she missed them, and when they came back, she didn't tell her mother. She had another secret.

  Her father called her his Little Princess, and she usually pretended that she didn't like it. But she knew that Princesses were supposed to fall in love with Princes, or knights, not the young housewife that lived down the street. Callie realized very early on that she wasn't interested in boys. Long before her own body began to fill out she was taking an interest in the growing curves of the other girls around her. The summer she was twelve, while her girlfriends played slip and slide with Mike Jepsen, the cute boy that lived two doors down from the Fishers, Callie was inside helping Mike's mom with cold drinks and snacks. Mrs. Jepsen had married young, and she was very fit and curvy. She had a wonderful habit of touching people when she talked to them, often resting a warm hand on Callie's bare shoulder or the small of her back. Callie made sure to stand very close to encourage as much contact as possible. She loved that Diane smelled of suntan lotion and strawberry shampoo, and that she always wore Daisy Dukes so short you could see the bottoms of the pockets. When the July afternoons became uncomfortably humid, Diane Jepsen usually donned an impossibly small bikini top, the strings of which strained to hold up her large breasts. Callie had never seen such cleavage, and she wondered daily about what she couldn't see. She spent the summer making Kool-Aid and chocolate chip cookies, hoping fervently for a wardrobe malfunction that never occurred.

  On her thirteenth birthday, Callie's parents threw her a small family party, and her Aunt gave her half a dozen DVDs that she found at a thrift store. The first one Callie watched was Tomb Raider. She had a used TV and DVD player in her room, compliments of her father's guilt. Her Dad owned one of the two hardware stores in town. It doubled as a pawn shop, giving out small loans to losers who couldn't wait until payday to get drunk, or buy their dime bag of weed. Some poor miscreant sacrificed his entertainment package so that Callie could watch Angelina Jolie's well-proportioned body dangle from the arms of a giant replica of the solar system. Lara Croft bore a striking resemblance to Mike's mom, who had since moved away, taking a part of Callie's young heart with her. Callie spent hours in her room with one hand on the remote while the other one ventured down the front of her pajamas, as she reimagined Diane Jepsen and the smell of strawberry shampoo. She had her first orgasm a few days before her first period, and she was terrified she might have hurt herself. Logically, she knew what it was, but it was her first time, and the amount of blood scared the shit out of her. She asked her Mom about it, but Callie couldn't explain to her that she had been sliding her fingers down there on a regular basis. It didn't seem likely her mother would understand, especially since the object of her affections was a woman. Her mother calmed her down and reminded her that all that blood was normal, that it was all part of God's plan to prepare her for motherhood. Callie thought that was a load of crap.

  Callie decided early on that God and religion weren't for her. She didn't see any evidence of a guiding hand, or that going to church helped anyone. It didn't sound to her like God was okay with girls who lusted after other girls, and she thought she knew what her parents thought about it. By the time she was ten she made it clear to them that she considered church a giant waste of time. Still, they were always dragging her along every Sunday, apparently hoping for some divine intervention that would help their daughter see the light. Callie would sit next to her father, and he would put his arm around her in the pew and call her his Little Princess. She watched him pretend to listen to the sermon while he played with his old class ring, a faraway look in his eye and a smile on his face. He told her once that he had worn it every day since high school. Sometimes, over supper he would tell stories about being on the football team and the glory days, like he was Al Bundy or something. Callie's father had never been the hero of the big game like Al, and he sure as hell wasn't as funny.

  Callie remembered listening to the preacher one Sunday when she was eight or nine, telling a story about some asshole that choked to death on a fly because he was making fun of God. She didn't usually pay any attention to what was being said in church, but it struck her as so ridiculous that she started listening. When she looked in the preacher's eyes she could see that even he didn't believe the shit he was saying. She started laughing loudly during what was meant to be the most dramatic moment of the story. Her father clapped his hand over her mouth, pulling the arm he had dangled around her in to cover her mouth with his hand. He had spun the class ring around so that the large stone and the class of '92 insignia struck her squarely in the mouth. It split her upper lip and released what seemed like a bucket of blood. She sat there nursing a fat lip and dripping blood into her mother's handkerchief while she tried not to cry, right there in front of God and the whole damn congregation. It did nothing for her spirituality, but it did get her a television and DVD player in her room. Callie learned early on that she could always get what she wanted from her father, one way or another.

  Callie loved her parents, but she often questioned their intellect. She couldn't understand why they would spend their whole lives in the small town where they were born, surrounded by people Callie considered complete losers. She watched her mother peruse the New York Times and the Minneapolis paper every morning, presumably dreaming of a bigger life somewhere else, then spend most of her afternoons with women from the local church. It seemed to Callie they talked mostly about who was having a baby, and if there was enough rain to grow corn, not the fate of the nation. Her father's friends were even less interesting to her. Her Dad let some of the locals hang around in the back of the hardware store, supplying them with free coffee and fresh doughnuts every morning. She started working at the store part time when she was fourteen because her Dad insisted she do something to earn her allowance. She listened to them complain about the economy and their wives while they ate free doughnuts, blaming everyone but the lazy asshole in the mirror because they were destitute. When they weren't complaining about the state of their miserable lives, they were sneaking peeks at Callie's behind. She was pretty sure there was some sinning going on in those little brains.

  Callie was a pretty girl, and grew more beautiful as she matured. By the time she was sure she had more interest in Lara Croft than the boy down the street, she had begun to fill out. She had dark blond hair that hung onto her shoulders, and a narrow face with high sunken cheekbones, that pulled the corners of her mouth up a little. Her nose was just a bit too long to suit her, and turned up a little at the tip. She wasn't tall, a few inches over five feet, something she'd inherited from her mother. But she didn't get her eyes from her Mom. Callie's eyes were the lightest blue that anyone in their little town had ever seen, and they got her a lot of attention. Despite her dirty blond hair, her complexion was quite dark, and the haunting blue grey of her eyes stood out sharply, drawing people's attention like sapphire magnets. The attention didn't always please her. By the time she was in eighth grade, men who owned boots older than she was, would stare into her eyes like they'd discovered the fountain of youth, or the reason for their existence. Some of the more obvious degenerates at the hardware store looked at her the same way, giving her
the up and down like she was a cocktail waitress. She saw them smirking at each other and she wondered if they thought she didn't see them doing it, or worse, thought she was okay with it. She wanted to kick every last one of them in the nuts.

  As she got older and began to fill out, boys her own age began to notice her too. They would ogle her and gaze openly into her icy blues, looking for some sign that they might have a chance with her. They didn't creep her out as much as the old men did, but she certainly wasn't interested in them. Usually, they fumbled around stupidly and lost their voice when she looked back at them, undone by her steady gaze. She liked the feeling it gave her, like she had some mystical power over them. The more interest they showed, the more she ignored them. She gave them just enough attention to keep them captivated. She loved to feel like she could toy with them if she chose. She imagined that she could stand on the edge of a cliff, and call them one by one, like a bunch of mindless Lemmings, and make them jump to their deaths. She didn't think she would miss them, their existence didn't matter to her at all. Callie learned at a young age that being attractive was useful, just another way to always get what she wanted, and not just from her father, but from everyone. Girls were no exception.

  Callie didn't have many friends. Jennifer and Holly had been her friends since grade school, and as they grew older, and Callie became increasingly more beautiful, they gradually made her the leader of their little squad. She knew they weren't like her, in intellect or persuasion, but she could tolerate them. They babbled about guys continually, about who was screwing who, or who they wanted to go out with. But she caught them staring at her like everyone else, always mesmerized by her blue eyes. Callie spent hours in front of her mirror, practicing looking coy, or seductive, or intimidating. She imagined that she could bend people's will with just the right look. And the girls always did what Callie wanted, movies, the mall, rollerblading, it didn't matter, they did what she wanted to do. They would look into those pretty blue eyes and any thought of challenging her quickly disappeared.

  Callie realized by the end of ninth grade that her parents seemed to think that she was going to stay in their town forever, as they had. Her parents weren't poor, but they were talking about the local community college for her. She knew they hoped she would take over the hardware store someday, find a nice boy to marry, and supply them with grandchildren. That wasn't what Callie had in mind at all. By the time she was finishing ninth grade, she decided that she would go to college in Minneapolis. The idea of a big school, filled with young likeminded girls, sounded very good to her. She didn't know how many gay women there were in the Twin Cities, but she was pretty sure there weren't any in her high school. If there were, they were hiding out, like her, and she wasn't about to throw a pride parade to try to find out who they were. Being gay in her little town, or anything other than straight, white, and a Presbyterian, wasn't a good option. As her friends began exploring the pleasures of the backseat of their boyfriend's cars, she retreated more often to the safety of her bedroom. She tried to show just enough interest in guys to keep her parents from asking questions. But she made it clear to them that she planned to leave town and go to the University when the time came.

  Getting good grades came easy for Callie. While her girlfriends spent their time gossiping about who was screwing who, Callie was paying attention in class and taking notes. She was sure, that when it came right down to it, her Dad would pay for college, rather than disappoint his Little Princess, but she made up her mind early that she was going do whatever it took to leave town right after graduation with grades good enough to get her into any college she wanted. She spent a lot of time in her room studying, obsessing about her grades and the fact that she didn't have a girlfriend. When she didn't have a book open, she was looking at her laptop, dreaming of the places she wanted to be, and the women she wanted to be with.

  Through it all, the 'eyes' watched her. She could feel them, when they came, never ominous or threatening, just there, almost as if they were just curious. She wondered sometimes if they were a creation of her own mind, a paranoid reaction to not being honest with her parents about the fact that she liked girls. They often entered her thoughts at night as she lay in her bed trying to fall asleep. In that half-conscious state between wakefulness and sleep, when reality begins to twist, she felt as if she could almost reach out to them, talk to them. Sometimes they followed her into her dreams.

  Callie had a lot of dreams, and they were always vivid and realistic. Frequently she was aware that she was dreaming. As she grew more aware of her sexuality, these lucid dreams became more frequent and erotic. She soon realized that she could control her dreams to some degree, as if she were the director in her own private movie, watching herself and guiding the content. Often, she woke up, covered in sweat, aroused by an erotic encounter in a dream of her own creation. Other times her dreams seemed dark and mysterious, filled with faces just beyond recognition. Sometimes she was filled with dread, and could hear the sound of gunshots and sirens. It seemed like she had no control over those dreams. Jenny began to make more appearances in her nocturnal fantasies, always as her lover.

  Of the two girls Callie considered friends, Jennifer Mconvil was the one she spent the most time with. She was the more tolerable and easily controlled of her two friends. When Callie became too demanding, Holly would occasionally storm off in defiance. It was Jennifer that usually stayed with Callie and made peace between the two girls. Jenny rarely got upset with Callie, or anyone else. She talked habitually and shrieked with laughter at the slightest provocation. She was almost as likely to burst into tears for little or no reason. It bothered Callie that she trusted everyone and everything. Jenny believed in God and destiny and a lot of other shit that the blond girl considered ridiculous. Callie learned to ignore her prattle and dismissed her as brain washed and empty headed. But Jenny was always the one that stuck by Callie and put up with her temper and brow beating.

  If she were honest, Callie tolerated Jennifer because she found her body intoxicating. Callie's pulse always quickened when the girl hugged her, or slid an arm around her waist. Jenny wasn't exceptionally pretty. Her hair was reddish brown and usually flipped up at the ends, like she was a contestant on a game show or a Stepford wife. She had too many freckles to be considered cute, some of which were large and plastered all across a nose that was half again the size it should have been. But nobody looked better in a sweater and a pair of jeans, and Callie thought it was worth listening to her nonsense to be able to peek at her backside occasionally. She was tempted occasionally, to seek entry into those tight pants. She wasn't sure that Jennifer would deny her, if she really insisted, but she never let her desires get the better of her. The redhead loved to gossip and Callie was sure the fact that she was gay would be spread around the school quickly. Most of the time, it didn't seem worth the risk.

  It wasn't always easy to keep up the façade of being interested in the opposite sex. Callie agreed to a couple of double dates when she was a sophomore, with Jenny and Holly. By that time, most of the guys from her school had decided she was either stuck up, frigid, or suspected the truth. She went out a couple of times, to stop the girls from pestering her. They ended up going to a keg party both times. No amount of beer could make her enjoy being groped by some farm boy in the front seat of a Taurus while Jennifer or Holly were giving it up in the back seat. Finally, she let it slip that she was dating an older guy from two towns away, and that she snuck over every Saturday night to spend time with him. Her girlfriends accepted that and spread the rumor quickly. If her parents thought it odd that their attractive teenage daughter was always dateless, they never said anything. Callie remained convinced that they would never be able to accept the fact that she was gay. She withdrew more often to her room and laptop, refusing to share her secret with her parents or anyone. She ached for the day she could leave the backward little town she'd grown up in and start her life.

  Chapter 2

  Margaret Brennan h
ad been the Art teacher at Callie's high school for thirty years. Tenure, and the fact that her husband was firmly entrenched on the school board, meant that she had one of the best Art departments in the state. It also meant that Art was still an elective for seniors. Callie loved to draw and paint, and took every class she could with Mrs. Brennan because it meant an easy A. The old lady was thrilled when people signed up for her advanced classes, and Callie was a gifted artist. She had convinced Jennifer to take the class as well, just to be sure she didn't end up sitting next to some horny jock. Jennifer's boyfriend, Greg Johnson, fit that description. Callie wasn't sure how he had ended up in the class, but she made sure that they sat as far away from him as possible.

  Most of the girls thought Greg Johnson was the best-looking guy in their class, an opinion he shared with them. He played football and basketball, and went out with Jennifer when it suited him. Most of the time Callie wanted to kick his arrogant ass for making her little minion feel bad. Greg's family owned a small garage and gas station down the street from the Fisher's hardware. When he came into the hardware store looking for an assorted screw or bolt, he always sought Callie out and made an attempt to flirt with her, which only made her like him less. He told her that Jennifer wasn't a serious thing and that they should get together, as if he expected her to drop her pants right then and there. She wanted to dump a can of paint on his fucking head, but the opportunity never presented itself. But, there they were, the three of them, with another dozen kids, all of whom Margaret had decided were worthy of her advanced Art class. Margaret, unfortunately suffered a small stroke at the end of the summer, leaving only three days before classes to find a replacement. It turned out, her niece, a new teacher and artist in her own right was available.