Chapter 13: Assertiveness Training for Dummies
I decided to take the hint and went inside to pick up the assertiveness book, wondering if it would be possible to develop a proper backbone overnight. If there was any hope for Frank and me, I needed to understand myself a little better before I could understand whatever he might need to dish out tomorrow.
I poured myself a glass of cabernet and checked my email before sitting down with the book. I had a response from the submissive, Pixie Caldwell, who was open to the idea of getting together and had time for a late lunch tomorrow. Her Dominant had given permission for her to meet me at a café in Belltown. I couldn’t imagine having to ask anyone’s consent to have lunch. She anticipated my reaction, adding a note that giving and receiving consent was part of the Dominant/submissive agreement and something they both enjoyed.
“If you aren’t into Dominance and submission, you might not know that there is very little here that isn’t expressly agreed upon. Contracts are even drawn up describing what each party is supposed to do. If my partner isn’t properly Dominant, what’s the point?! That’s what I was looking for.”
There was a little smiley at the end of her email. “The Happy Submissive.” Hmm, that would be a good name for a one of those short stories I intended to write. Someday.
The book sat on the nightstand, looking very unsexy in its plain blue cover. I read the title again. Assertiveness and Equality in Life and Love.
I propped up the pillows, set down my wine glass, and made myself comfortable on the bed. I wasn’t sure how to go at a book like this. I flipped through the pages. There were a few tests inside. But this book seemed to be one of those that you could just open to a page and see what spoke to you. It was a good way to start anyway.
I closed the book, ran my fingers along the edges and opened to a page about a third of the way through. Beneath the chapter title was a quote from Henry David Thoreau. “It takes two to speak truth—one to speak and another to hear.”
I thought about that for a moment. Frank had a truth to tell me, but didn’t think I would listen. I had truths to tell him. And while he might listen, I refused to say what I really felt. I wanted him to do all the talking.
A swell of eureka spread throughout my body. Holy crap! Of course we had problems.
I looked back at the cover. Maybe this book would help me after all. I flipped back to the beginning, took a sip of wine, and snuggled in for a long read.
Chapter 14: Saturday Morning Breakfast with Mom
I woke to the sound of water blasting against the outside wall. I lifted the shade and saw that Asshole Bob had decided to power-wash his house. Our walls were only a few paces apart and the sprayer was turned up high enough to ricochet with near full strength. The light reflected in rainbow swirls as water sluiced down my bedroom window. Bob appeared impervious to the January chill.
The clock read 8:00 a.m. One hour until breakfast.
I hadn’t made it very far through the book. I had apparently fallen asleep right about the time it told me to keep a journal to track my progress. I wrote for a living. Writing anything on personal time, even for the sake of helping myself, had the same effect as a sleep aid. I had passed out with the light still on and the book tented on my chest to the offending chapter.
I listened for Sal doing her usual morning yoga routine with the bizarre porn video breathing. Granted I’d overheard enough of her sexual encounters to know that this same sound accompanied multiple activities. But then I remembered her accident. I hoped she was OK.
Vaguely anxious, I put the book on the nightstand, rolled out of bed and grabbed my robe. The room was nippy so Sal must still be asleep. Feeling magnanimous, I clicked on the heater. For once she could wake up to a warm house. I stumbled into the bathroom for a hot shower.
I dressed, sneaking a peek out the window. The day was turning out to be an atypical sunny Saturday. The sky was a cloudless blue with not a threat of rain in sight. My agenda included shopping for a leather outfit, meeting up with Pixie and preparing for a showdown with Frank’s fetish. But first it was time for breakfast at Cafe Luna’s. Mom and I met there every Saturday morning. They opened at nine o’clock and I hated to be late.
Mom was just getting out of her car when I arrived, nine a.m. sharp, at the restaurant. She slowly unfolded out of the vehicle. At just under six feet tall, she still insisted on driving the latest fuel-efficient miniature. The car du jour was a Prius. But, zealot that she was, she never condemned my chugalug Wrangler. She simply wasn’t like that.
She flashed a big smile and waved as I navigated into the cramped parking lot. You couldn’t miss her in a crowd, not with the long, flowing robe and wrists jangling in a gauntlet of thirty or so silver bracelets. She must have been a gypsy in a past life.
“Good morning, Hon.” She gave me the Catholic priest hug, that loose embrace with no breast contact and a light triple pat on the back. Vigorous tree huggers and cheek-kissers did not exist in our family.
I returned the light embrace and then we made the short jaunt to the restaurant. I listened as she gave the running commentary on each plant, shrubbery and tree we passed. She always noticed how things changed from week to week. Winter had set on them in earnest and even the rhodies looked withdrawn and brittle.
I gave her a quick rundown on Sal’s accident. She liked Sal and always bought her a little something at holidays and for birthdays.
The host greeted us at the door of the small vegetarian café and took us to our regular table next to the circular stone water feature. The intimate garden room had floor to ceiling windows on three sides and was filled with giant Ficus Trees, flowering hibiscus and other assorted tropicals. I liked the plants because they seemed oblivious to the changing seasons outside, and made the restaurant appear exactly the same inside each time we ate. Consistency was a welcome change.
As we were taking off our jackets, Christof, the waiter, arrived and set two waters on the table. “The usuals?”
I nodded and he disappeared into the kitchen. Christof was a Saturday morning fixture and he always knew exactly what we wanted. He was cute in that thin, vegan, health-conscious sort of way. His head was shaven and he had one of those strange vampire-slave tattoos on the back of his neck.
I sat down. Mom’s bracelets clinked as she lowered her hands to the table to support herself and then slowly settled in. She wasn’t as young as she used to be. She snapped her napkin before putting it on her lap. “So. Anything exciting happen this week?”
Our breakfast ritual had officially begun.
“You mean, besides getting assigned a story about a sex club?” I took a sip of water, noting her reaction through the distortion of the weighted glass bottom.
She wasn’t shocked, merely curious. “Sex club. As in strippers? I didn’t think The Sun Times covered that sort of thing.”
“It is more of a participatory titillation club for intellectuals. Kenner thinks there’s something interesting there.” I set the water glass aside as our tea arrived, along with a tray of enough honey and cream to start our own Elysian Fields. I tipped the teapot lid and stirred the tea leaves, as if that would make them steep faster.
She frowned slightly. “You’d think intellectuals would be smart enough to know better. After all, isn’t that what the Internet is for? Meeting others of your own ilk, right?”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t have gone to such a place in your dating days.” Mom had been a bit of a flirt when she was younger. I spent most of my high-school years waiting for her to come home. Meanwhile she was sipping CC and Sevens at what passed for a nightclub in the little town where I grew up.
My mother had commitment issues and was married and divorced three times before I reached puberty. Finally, perhaps to eliminate legal fees, she’d adopted more of a rent-a-hunk policy with men. They’d live with us for a while. Soon there would be an argument, followed by a vacancy and then another hunk. I never got to know any of them well. I knew their tenan
cy would be short.
Mom shrugged. “That was before the Web, computer dating, all that. What’s the point anymore? We used to have to go out and just hope to God we’d be in the same place at the same time as someone interesting. There were no websites for posting your profile. We had nothing more than, ‘for a good time call …’ and, for that, you had to get into the men’s restroom to scrawl it down.”
I laughed, imagining her doing something just like that. “Well, after I go to this place and write my article, we’ll know all about it. Maybe there’s a good reason.”
I swirled the tea leaves again. Tea had to be strong enough for hair to sprout instantly on my tongue. It was difficult to make it too strong. I gave it a sniff and dubbed it drinkable. With Golden Heaven Yunnan it was hard to go wrong.
“When is this event?” Mom was already halfway through her first weakly brewed cuppa.
I told her about the night’s plans as Christof brought our breakfasts—scrambled eggs, potatoes, and toast.
“Who are you going with, Sal?”
I filled her in on Sal’s upcoming presentation, hoping to forestall telling the news that I was taking Frank. She nodded, assuming by my omission that I didn’t have a date. Giving Christof an appraising look as he stopped by to offer more water, she said, “How about him?”
She was joking, of course, and Christof knew it. He just smiled. “Want something?”
Mom waved him on. “Well, not from the menu anyway.”
I could see her giving him a mental pinch. Unlike most mothers of the world, mine was a bit wanton. Friends often griped about their parents —the miscommunicators, the authoritarians, the parentis absentia—but not me. Mom and I had a great relationship. I mean how many girls would rush home to tell their mother when they lost their virginity?
Mom had married right out of high school with the singular goal of having a little girl as her best friend. My father was merely a footnote in that process and they divorced soon after. To this day, I have spoken to him only a handful of times.
She changed the subject for a while, talking about her own week as the finance manager for a corporation that made some sort of electronic widget. Discussion of accounting issues usually made my brain congeal. My checkbook balanced, and that was the end of my interest. Slowly, subtly, I steered the conversation back to the night ahead.
Mom was paying her half of the bill, as frugal with the tip as she was her fuel. I always left a little extra to make up for it. She looked distracted. “Well, as long as you don’t take Frank, I think you’ll have a wonderful time.”
The comment rankled. “Jeez. Was Frank really that bad? It has been like a mantra with everyone—no Frank, no Frank, no Frank.”
Mom just raised an unplucked eyebrow as she stowed her checkbook inside the boat that passed for a purse. “Emily, you have, unfortunately inherited my terrible taste in men. It is my fault, and I take full responsibility. But it is something you must understand about yourself. Romantically, you are definitely running at a deficit.”
I sat, a little stunned, as she stood and gathered her coat. Leave it to an accountant to keep a running tally of all my past relationships. It took no accounting knowledge at all to know she would view my date with Frank as nothing but one big bad check.
Chapter 15: The Black Light Clothing Exchange
After a pious hug, Mom departed without any further economic analysis of my love life. She had a point, of course. She wouldn’t be the first to note that I was on the verge of romantic bankruptcy. I wasn’t sure that I bought into the business of inheriting bad taste. I didn’t think Frank was that bad. And there had been other good fish. In fact, overall, I had dated a lot of nice men. I just never got to the marrying phase. And, considering my mother’s three failed marriages, a bit of caution seemed prudent.
I hopped into the Jeep and waved once more as Mom pulled out of the parking lot.
On to the shopping phase of my day. Once again I drove up to The Hill—home to the bulk of the city’s purveyors of used leather clothing, both on and off the rack. I didn’t have the budget to buy anything new, especially considering the likelihood of my wearing it again. But if Frank and Sal’s admonitions were correct, I needed something black and blatant before day’s end. At least Capitol Hill’s second-hand stores would ensure I’d still have enough money to eat next week.
It was a strange transition, leaving the tidy, Martha Stewart-like neighborhood of Madison Park to enter the Marilyn Manson-like atmosphere of The Hill. The distance was fewer than fifteen blocks. Once Mom’s brother had visited us from some tiny Midwest town. Upon seeing multiple pink Mohawks and multi-pierced eyebrows, nostrils and earlobes, he had flatly refused to get out of the car. This is a man who carried three rifles with live ammo in his truck.
The Hill was a visually arresting place. It was a little after eleven o’clock and the main drag, Broadway, was just coming to life. Clutches of young people dressed in goth fetish-wear loitered in front of the shops and restaurants, begging for change. Each face was afflicted with the sickly, colorless pallor that accompanied a massive hangover. A few slept sprawled on the sidewalk, arms and legs akimbo in unconscious abandon.
I never did anything like sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. In fact, Freud would have diagnosed me with an overactive super-ego. Mom affectionately called me “reserved,” but I suspect repressed was a more appropriate description.
I had been raised in a transposed household, one where the mother ran around in miniskirts and black lace nylons, while the daughter wore baggy pants and a turtleneck. As a result, I rebelled early on. But instead of doing drugs and alcohol, I overdosed on religion. Over the next few years I had my escapades, but it was flirting with god(s). Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, Druid, Eastern, Western, New Age, Pagan—I tried them all—flitting from one to the next like a hummingbird in search of some exalted nectar. I graduated high school as one of the few virgins. Had I been in ancient Greece, perhaps I might have found employment as a Sybil at the oracle in Delphi. Strangely enough, one of my fellow church mates got upset because I wouldn’t go out with him and denounced me as a minion of Satan. Things were a little less clear for me from that point forward.
I drove around the Hill for about ten minutes before finding a parking spot. This one required that I wedge my car in using the classic double bumper kiss. Luckily neither the forward nor aft vehicles had alarms.
A couple of drag queens with disheveled wigs and overly pink cheeks passed me as I strolled in the brisk morning air toward the first store. They were clearly just getting home, making their unsteady way perched on six-inch platform heels. Now that was what I needed. Shoes that made a statement. I had a closet of practical shoes that, in Alabama, would get me pegged as a Lesbian. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I had several lesbian friends who were certain that I’d eventually realize my true calling. But the truth was, I liked men, though Lord knows it would have been easier sometimes if I didn’t.
I pushed open the door into the Black Light Clothing Exchange and was instantly assailed by the mélange of perfumes, as if each article of clothing had been dipped into a separate and unique vat. Underlying all this was the musky smell of old saddles. I snorted, trying to clear my sinuses, but the odors finally numbed all my nasal follicles and I was left with only a sharp chemical taste on my tongue.
The shop clerk looked up from her book and smiled wanly, setting off a cascade of silver from all her lip rings. She looked to be in her early twenties. Her hair was black and blue, parted in various odd shapes with tiny yellow duck barrettes. I nodded, trying hard not to stare as she gazed back at me through her green plastic fifties-style eyeglass frames.
“Can I help you?” There was a larger question in her voice. I was evidently outside the standard Black Light clientele and it wasn’t Halloween. So why was I there?
“Yes. I need some leather. A jacket and a skirt. And some shoes.” I looked around, trying to determine how things were organized.
Not by color or size or style, that was sure. Maybe by vintage.
She scooted the glasses up her nose, sizing me up. “Is this for a party or something?”
I wondered how much you told a clerk at a time like this. “I’m going out to a club tonight, to do some research for work. I need an outfit.”
She set down her book and slid off her stool, apparently seeing that she had an official project ahead of her. “The leather is all on the back wall. Shoes are back here behind the counter. What sizes do you wear?”
I gave her sizes for everything and she started pulling things from the rack and hooking the hangers over the door of the tiny closet that passed as a dressing room. “What club? The Phoenix?”
I was embarrassed, but figured it was good to practice saying it. “No. The Slutterati Salon. I’m doing a story.”
She hesitated for a long moment, glancing at my practical shoes, blue jeans and pullover sweater. She seemed to be wondering if maybe, hidden under those clothes, there was an alien incognito. Then she breathed. “Oh, you’re a writer.” As if things suddenly made sense to her and this was a costume party after all.
She smiled and pulled back the drapes beside the dressing room to reveal another room. “I have just the thing.”
I walked into the back room, feeling for a moment that I had entered the Star Wars costume shop. One whole side wall was crammed with Darth Vader black shiny. I couldn’t tell the shape or form of any of the outfits, but the materials ranged from plastic to latex to vinyl—all black and emanating the ominous threat of the Death Star. The opposite wall was Wookie/Ewok land: fur-like garments of every kind, including a nice array of leopard and, at the far end, a few Big-Bird type costumes. Before me was Princess Leia’s private collection of slinky slave suits.
Ms. Duck Barrettes pointed to a small dressing room off to the side. “You can try stuff on in there. The Salon is pretty open. You could wear any of this.”
Breakfast in Stilettos Page 8