Inside The Mind Of Gideon Rayburn

by Sarah Miller

  "Amazingly enough, indentured servants were sometimes kept on a leash, especially when traveling. Too many opportunities to run off, you know, never to be, uh, indentured from again."

  As they ascend the steps to the Student Center, walking carefully together so that Gideon doesn't get choked, he starts to relax. No one's looking at him. Everyone else is dressed up too. Most of the underclass boys are dressed as athletes in gold chains and jerseys, gold foil wrapped around their teeth. Liam Wu is Dracula.

  Please God, Gideon pleads, don't let him bite Molly's neck.

  With that, Liam swoops in, pulls a giggling Molly into the folds of his cape, dips her, and bites her neck. Molly bounces back up exuberant and flushed. They watch Liam swirl away through the crowd. "Do you need some Bactine for that?" Gid says.

  "My, my, my," Molly says. "What a hostile tone you're taking. May I remind you that you're my servant? Is there something you'd like to take up with your master?"

  Thank God for the sudden appearance of Devon Shine, bizarrely floozied out in a blonde ponytail wig, leopard-print miniskirt, and high-heeled shoes. His face is powdered white, and his lipstick is bright red. "What the hell are these dumbass costumes?" Devon asks Gid and Molly. "Scooby-Doo and Velma?"

  Gid thinks, Maybe Devon finally likes me.

  It sounds like he's being mean, but Gid knows this is how Devon talks to people he respects.

  "No," Molly says. "I'm a Pilgrim, and he's my indentured servant."

  Devon nods. Gideon is pretty sure he doesn't know what an indentured servant is.

  "Who are you?" Molly says. "Marilyn Monroe?"

  Devon shakes his head. "Gwen Stefani," he says. "I'm hoping to have sex with myself later."

  There's an awful blare of feedback, followed by a not especially apologetic "Sorry, folks." Mrs. Geller, the headmaster's secretary, seems to be playing DJ. This is the trouble with campus parties—there's a lot of buildup, then it's just the same people whom you see every day in the same space and an old lady who, thinking she's being cool, puts on Green Day's "Time of Your Life." Gid, Devon, and Molly, having exhausted the costume topic, can't find another. Gid looks around and sees that the whole room is littered with similar clusters, people just staring awkwardly at one another with no idea what to say or do. The awkwardness of his fellow Midvalians is soothing.

  "I have some whiskey in here," Devon says, touching his purse. "I think purses were invented so chicks could cart around booze. I wish I could always carry one. Anyway, why don't Gid and I go outside with the bottle, and then you and Gid can go outside?"

  Molly nods and unhooks Gid's collar. "Now, don't jump overboard," she warns.

  Gid bows.

  Once they get outside, Devon ducks behind a bush. He guzzles whiskey from a silver flask, then passes it to Gid. As Gid drinks, Devon says, almost dully, "So I guess you'll be having sex with her tonight."

  "What do you mean?" Gideon asks innocently.

  Devon guzzles a little more, then cocks his head to indicate they should go back inside. His wig shifts. "Dude," he says, bounding up the stairs two at a time. "She wants your nut sack."

  Now Devon's wig is also falling off toward the back of his head. A few red curls have sprung out. Gid reaches

  out tentatively, and Devon leans forward, letting Gid tuck everything back inside. "Thanks, man," Devon continues. "Okay, dude...she'sgotyou on a chain. Man, I wish some hot girl would lead me around on a chain."

  "Monster Mash" ends as they come back inside. One of the rappers pulls Mrs. Geller out of the DJ booth, doing a sort of modified twist, and one of his friends ducks in. Interpol comes on, and a riot of sophomore hookers fill up the dance floor.

  "You think Molly's hot?" As much as he doesn't want to admit it matters, he wants to know.

  Devon thinks about this. "If she led me around on a chain, she would be."

  Gid finds this only slightly helpful. More alcohol would be very helpful.

  Gid takes Molly out with the flask. Stands guard while she, careful with her skirts, ducks into the bushes. When she comes out her eyes are all glittery. "I'm drunk," she whispers as she resecures the collar around Gideon's neck. She gets in so close to him that the top of her lip actually bends the top of his ear.

  "I'm surprised," Gid says. "I thought you were better behaved than that."

  "This is itchy," Molly says, rubbing where the dress meets her neckline. "The booze makes me feel less sweaty and gross." Gid thinks of her sweating inside her dress and is aroused. He likes this night, the sneaking off, the itchy dress.

  As if on cue, Cullen and Nicholas walk by, dressed as his virginity. "What are they?" Molly asks.

  "You don't want to know," Gid says. But he smiles. He is drunk. Not too drunk. Not throw-up drunk.

  Back inside, Cullen and Nicholas are the stars of the show, Cullen taking his few steps and Nicholas posing with his question mark nearby. They repeat this action several times. The dancing hookers cluster around them, giggling and pointing at the thong. Gid must be drunk, because as he surveys this spectacle, he's overcome with pride and flattery.

  Molly tugs on his collar, uncomfortably flattening his Adam's apple. "Sorry," she says, "but I do want to know about Cullen's and Nicholas's costumes."

  Nicholas stands perfectly still as Cullen pirouettes around him. Then they switch. Cullen's pirouettes are clownish and sloppy; Nicholas, even sandwiched between plywood, moves nimbly.

  Suddenly, Gid's view is blocked by a giant black cape. Mrs. Geller frowns at him. Now that she's up close, Gid can see that she has a fake wart on her face so the frown's a little scarier. "What do you have around his neck?" she asks Molly. Gid tries to breathe out his nose so she won't smell the booze on him, and sends Molly desperate, silent signals to do the same.

  "I don't know that I think it's appropriate for the two of you to be making fun of the slave trade," Mrs. Geller says. God, that wart's really grossing him out, even though it's fake. It seems to have been sculpted out of some kind of putty, and then painted.

  "He's an indentured servant," Molly explains, using the same tone of voice she used earlier with Gid. "Indentured servants weren't slaves. They came over to America with—"

  Mrs. Geller clears her throat. "I'm clear on indentured servants, Miss McGarry. Now, I have spoken to the other chaperones, and we feel your costume depicts a power dynamic we're really not comfortable endorsing. We'd like you to return to your dorms and change your costumes."

  Molly stands up and faces Mrs. Geller. "There are, like, twenty white kids here dressed as rappers! And you're kicking us out? I am not endorsing indentured servitude, I'm depicting it. There's a difference. God, this school is retarded!"

  Gid has a sense that this is going to be the thing that really gets them in trouble.

  Sure enough, Mrs. Geller turns white.

  "My son is retarded," she says.

  A few minutes later, Molly and Gid stumble across the quad together. "We're wasted," Gid whispers, and slips a hand under Molly's elbow, hoping to steady them both.

  "This school," Molly fumes, her face red, her eyes unfocused. "It's this weird combination of hippie stupid and totally uptight. I mean, can you believe Edie is writing Betsy Ross's diary for one of her classes? It's all in the same vein of this costume. It's not any different."

  They are both stupid ideas in exactly the same way.

  Molly continues, pausing at the John Midvale memorial. She starts to peel off her wool dress. She tries to pull it over her head and can't. She sits down on the marble edge of the memorial and starts pulling savagely at it with her arms.

  "Uh, hey," Gid says, amazed and excited. But then, she's wearing another dress, a lighter cotton dress underneath it. "Wow," he says, "you're wearing two dresses."

  Molly looks at him quizzically. "This isn't a dress, it's a slip."

  This doesn't register at all.

  "A slip? Your slip is showing?"

  "Oh yeah, I've heard that before," Gid says. "I never knew what it
meant."

  Molly puts her hands on her seventeenth-century hips and shakes her head. "You really are incredibly clueless," she says. "I mean, like, it's logic-defying." There's something nice about the way she says this. It's as though she's saying she likes him because of this, not in spite of it. He opens his mouth and quickly shuts it.

  Molly waves a hand in front of his face. "Hello?" she says. "What are you thinking about?"

  Molly narrows her eyes, taking in his weirdness. Or so that's what he thinks. As a girl, I know that she's just

  really uncomfortable and that narrowing her eyes is the only thing she can think of to do.

  "Okay," she finally says, "I guess me and my scratchy dress are going back to my dorm. This marble is cold under my butt anyway." She throws the dress around her shoulders, like an athlete would a towel. She starts to back away.

  Gid has to think of a way to extend the evening. But without nightcaps, apartments, or walks along the promenade, he's got nothing.

  Gideon decides to use the only idea he has. The only weapon in his arsenal.

  "Molly," he says. "Do you want to know what Cullen and Nicholas's costume was about?"

  "Of course I want to know," she says. "I didn't pull on your chain just for the hell of it."

  Gideon hesitates. Confiding in girls, he knows, has helped him so far. That's how he got Pilar to like him, when he first met her and later, at Fiona's. It's how he got me to like him, though he doesn't know that. But Cullen and Nicholas, that's not how they get girls to like them. They're all cool and distant. Cool and distant is not going to work for Gid, because Gid's not gorgeous.

  And he doesn't just want to confide because he feels good. There is also the guilt. Molly is the subject of speculation in a way that's probably not so nice. He owes it to her to tell her something damaging about himself.

  It's funny that's how he thinks of it. Girls call this "sharing."

  He stuffs his hands deep into his suede jodhpurs. "Okay," he says finally. "They're my virginity. Their costume is my virginity."

  The Danielle story—the sounds of the brother making noise in the next room, his hand, working its way under the expanse of stretchy fabric, et cetera, all the way to the yellow thong and the question of is he or isn't he—comes out.

  He's very detailed, open, and honest. Without, of course, breathing a word about the bet.

  When he's done confiding—or more or less done, once the underwear is dirty, it's hard to think of what else you would say—they stand there in the middle of the quad under the bright hard stars. Molly's not quite smiling, but there's a peaceful sort of look on her face. "Shit, I'm drunk," she says quietly, then she lies down along the base of the memorial. It's circular, so naturally, she has to curve her body into a C shape. It's a process about which she is more matter-of-fact than sexy, and Gid smiles fondly, appreciating this. He lies down too, his feet near hers, so that their bodies take up almost half the diameter of the circle. The marble is freezing through his thin shirt, but he knows that lying down like this with a girl—even in a not very sensual position, even outside—is an opportunity he can't miss.

  "Something similar happened to me," she says, "but I was on the other side of the thong thing. I mean, it happened to me with a boy. And I wasn't wearing a thong. They hurt my butt. But I always wonder if I am or if I am

  not. I mean, I probably don't wonder as much as you do..."

  Gid is so stunned it takes him a second to feel insulted. "What do you mean, not 'as much as you do'?"

  "Oh, you know," she says. "It's just not as big a deal for a girl."

  "What are you talking about?" he says. "Virginity is, like, everything to girls! I think it's way less important to guys. I mean, you guys have, like, a cherry to pop."

  "Okay," Molly says, "if I am so obsessed with my cherry, why did you stand there half in tears wondering whether to tell me your little story and I just up and told you about mine without even thinking about it?"

  Gid doesn't know what to say. "Thongs hurt your butt?"

  Molly makes a face. "Mostly. I mean, it depends on what kind of day your butt is having."

  This is funny. They laugh. They laugh hard. They laugh so hard that they sit up, first just leaning against each other, but then they start clutching at each other.

  They clutch at each other for long enough and are drunk enough that they start to make out. Being in Gid's mind was a lot easier before all this making out started. Gid making out drunk is different from Gid making out in rehearsal. I can feel his brain go totally slack, and where I usually hear him wondering what to do with his hands, now he's just kind of on sexual autopilot.

  Molly pulls away from him. "You know what's good about this Halloween party thing?"

  Gid shakes his head.

  "No one's around. We can sneak back to my room."

  Gid grabs her and kisses her again. A long, hard kiss, but with no tongue. It's a grateful kiss.

  But he's not even thinking about the bet! He's just glad.

  As they walk toward the door, Gid unconsciously reaches for Molly's hand. He takes it and kisses it. "I never kissed a girl's hand before," Gid says. See, now, he's just remembered the bet. He thought this was a good move. Suave.

  The campus is totally, amazingly empty, a sea of quiet and cold green grass. They walk right in the front door of her dorm and upstairs without seeing a soul.

  Over Molly's bed is a framed Picasso print from someplace called the Albright-Knox Museum. Gid looks closer. "Wow, Buffalo has a museum," he says. Edie's side of the room is papered with drawings of the American flag. He wonders, Is Edie, like, really patriotic or something? God, that would make her even weirder. But then he remembers her Betsy Ross diary. Okay.

  Molly takes off her slip and hangs it over the desk. She's wearing a white T-shirt and white underwear. No thong, but they are cute underwear. Gid likes the way the curve of her butt and her breasts look in the dim light from

  outside. She's soft and girlish, she looks younger somehow. She gets into her bed. Gid takes off his jodhpurs and starts to unlace his shirt when Molly beckons to him and has him sit on the edge of her bed. She puts Gid's hands at his side, and then she starts to unlace his shirt. His heart starts to beat fast—and beats faster when he realizes she's looking right into his eyes as she's removing his clothes. He's actually in Molly McGarry's bed, on Halloween, and he's actually about to...win the bet. But better than that, a girl is undressing him. He has imagined losing his virginity, but this, this seems like a lot to ask for.

  I don't think there's a person alive who doesn't like watching people have sex. Watching and hearing the narration, though, is a little weird. I almost feel like I'm directing them.

  The door is shut. Precautions are on the nightstand. He puts his hands on the hem of her shirt and lifts it up, slowly. He wonders if she thinks he's being purposefully sensual, but the truth is, he's a little afraid to see her bare breasts up close. "Let me get the something," she says. Gid enjoys watching her cross the room dressed in just her undershirt and underwear. Molly opens up her dresser, producing a shoebox, from which she removes a fat yellow candle and a pack of matches. She lights the candle. She lies back down and smiles at him. Molly smiles at him! He kisses her cheek, her lips, her neck, then her lips again. Getting enough courage to look at her breasts. He puts his hand on one of them and thinks, I am touching Molly McGarry's breasts. He's here. He's really here. He's a can-do kind of guy.

  Molly says, "You know what's good about this we-don't-know-whether-we're-virgins thing?"

  Gid shakes his head.

  "We can each take away, like, half of the other one's virginity. It's totally fair."

  Okay, he's ready. But his neck is feeling a little stiff. That collar. It was worth it, but there's a little crick. If he hikes himself onto his elbows and just turns a little bit to the right, there. There. He's relaxing back onto the mattress, admiring the colors of the Picasso print reflected in the window, and...what is that underneath i
t? "No," he says, "it can't be," slowly turning, pointing at the doorknob. "Look," he says. "Look there." Hanging on the doorknob are a pair of yellow thong underwear. The yellow thong underwear. "Oh my God," he says. "Those are Danielle's. Danielle's underwear."

  Molly sits up in her little twin bed, the sheet pulled over her chest. She rolls her eyes at Gideon. "Okay, why would I have Danielle's underwear in my room? They're probably Edie's."

  "No, because, I remember...when you shut the door, I remember seeing your hand on the doorknob, because..." He blushes, because he really did, as boyishly idiotic as it sounds, pay attention to her hand on the doorknob, thinking about...oh, you know! "The point is," Gideon says, not sure, not caring whether Molly knows why he remembers her hand in this very place, "the point is, that was an empty doorknob. I know it like I know my own name." He seizes the underwear and holds them up. "Size six. Medium. You're a medium. Edie's a...I don't know, a super-small. These are Banana Republic. Shall I go on? I mean, these are the underwear!"

  Molly is wide-eyed, shocked. And probably a little nervous.

  "Oh, Jesus." Gideon starts to pace back and forth. "Okay, i didn't finish the thong story. I mean, the fallout from the thong story. I'm having sex with you, well, I was about to have sex with you—because of a bet. I mean, I like you, I'm attracted to you. But the whole reason this thing got started is because of a bet I made with Cullen and Nicholas, like, on the first few days of school."

  "Why me?" She doesn't sound particularly mad. She just sounds curious. But Gid, so racked with guilt, doesn't hear.

  "God." Gid sits down at the foot of the bed. Molly, he can't help but notice, inches away from him in various phases.

  "So why are you telling me this?" Molly asks, now sounding a little more annoyed than curious.

  "Why am I telling you this?" Gid shakes his head in disbelief. "What do you mean, why am I telling you this? Because it's mean. Because... I mean, you're the subject of a bet. Doesn't that make you feel, like, cheap?"

  Molly takes a deep breath. As she exhales, her voice shakes a little, like she might start to cry. Her eyes are big and shiny.