He turned his head and saw her cross-legged on the ground, one foot already bare while she pulled the other sneaker off, not even bothering to untie the laces. Then she stood up, squirmed out of her t-shirt, and dropped it on the ground. Finally, she skimmed off the last of her clothes in one simple, uncoordinated movement, momentarily hobbled by the tangle of shorts and underwear around her ankles before discarding them. “Come on, Freddy. Help me look for thome featherth.”
Freddy turned towards her, his cousin naked in the full light of the sun, no motives beyond relieving the boredom of a hot summer day.
Could he say the same?
And in that moment, Freddy’s life ended as surely as if he had died and been reborn, his new life beginning in that fraction of a second where Cassie stared back at him just long enough to make sure he would follow before turning away and searching for bird feathers. And he had seen her, not his cousin, but someone—something—else with sun-browned limbs and an open expression, naked.
When they were younger, he remembered his mother making them take baths together; it saved time and water, but mostly her patience. Freddy had seen Cassie naked before.
But he had never really … seen.
Freddy’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. But nothing came out. He only stared, remembering something he had heard, but never understood or even much considered until this moment: girls are different from boys.
In that stolen moment before she turned and scampered across the field, his eyes traveled across her, no more under his control than his own heartbeat. He took in the straight waist and hips, her long, coltish legs and knob knees, flat chest and smooth, pale belly, seeing nothing special, nothing at all.
Then his eyes found it … and he saw.
Cassie was not like him. She was different down there, like what you saw when you undressed a doll, only not exactly.
He could never make sense of what he had heard all along, could never make the universal association. He couldn’t imagine his cousin was somehow part of what he had overheard: from his brothers, the boys at school, his parents when they thought him asleep. Everything before was abstract, terms applied to the nameless, faceless concepts of the opposite gender, an entity of the adult world that existed in a kind of unreal state in his brain, a set of hypotheticals, the shapeless, anonymous figures in health manuals that explained the location of unmentionable subjects like mammary glands and ovaries with line-drawings and cross-sectional diagrams that were more informative of the large intestine than the basic differences between boys and girls. These things did not apply to his cousin. She was a brat, a pain, a dodo-head. But she wasn’t a girl. Not like that. Not Cassie.
But there it was, and it had been there all along, the answers to all things he didn’t understand about girls running across the field, secrets bared, as innocent as when the world was new.
Freddy forgot all about being ditched by his brothers; about playing cowboys and Indians; about shooting Jake’s B-B gun. Baby-stuff.
“Cassie, wait up. I gotta get your clothes.” He grabbed up her shorts and underwear, her t-shirt and sneakers, awkwardly hugging them in his arms as he walked after her, trying to untangle some of the pieces as he went, though he had no idea why. And as he did, he felt a distinct tingling in his own … down there. He’d never been aware of it before. Before, it was just the place he tried not to get kicked, how he peed, something rude with a host of nicknames synonymous with silly playground insults. But like with Cassie, this was new, different.
For a moment, Freddy closed his eyes and felt a piece of himself shut down—the piece that yearned to shoot B-B guns at beer cans, to win the approval of his older brothers, to play Justice League of America on hot summer nights, running around the backyard with a beach towel tied around his neck for a cape.
And when he opened his eyes, he felt another piece, one he never knew about before, open wide.
He caught up with Cassie towards the edge of the woods. She was walking with her head down, scanning the stands of wild grass and hay and goldenrod bordering the woods. “Freddy, I don’t thee any featherth. Where are we gonna find thome?”
She turned, and Freddy found himself confronted with the first naked girl he had ever seen—now that he was looking. He stared at her, trying to understand what it was about the place between her legs, his brain desperately trying to attach terms from the health manual that seemed both distant and useless. And he was again aware of himself, of the tightness in his pants, uncomfortable and pleasant at the same time. The air felt hot and drowsy and close with the sweet smell of milkweed and hay, the buzzing of insects impossibly loud. He could feel sweat beading across his skull, running down his cheeks and forehead.
“Feathers …” He choked the word, gurgled involuntarily, and started again. “Feathers will be on the ground,” he said and dropped down closer to the grass, setting Cassie’s clothes aside. “You have to look from down here because they sink into the grass.”
He looked up once and realized she was even closer, everything revealed in greater detail. Did she even know, even suspect?
I wonder what it feels like?
NO! Absolutely not! Never!
It’s so hot. Can we just go home?
“Aren’t you hot?” Cassie asked, reaching out and touching a finger to the sweat on his face.
“Kinda,” he answered.
“Take your clotheth off. We can both be Indianth,” she said. “But we need featherth.”
Cassie planted her feet wide, arms windmilling in long carefree arcs as she stared off towards the deep woods, oblivious. And seeing her like that, legs set apart, Freddy knew instantly what he should do.
Freddy, you need to stop, now!
Girls are different from boys.
He should have Cassie get dressed, take her home, let his brothers catch hell for abandoning them. They would get him back for it later, when mom and dad weren’t around, but that’s what he should do.
What he should do.
… should do.
He set her clothes aside and got undressed. And as the air touched cool against his skin, he finally felt relief.
Cassie was already creeping through the brush to the woods beyond. “Come on,” she called. “Maybe we’ll find thome featherth down by the crick.”
Freddy followed her, winding along a narrow animal track that ducked low under twisted bows of sumac, feet sliding lightly on muddy earth. The creek was only twenty feet off the edge of the field, concealed by a sloping embankment and thick tangles of trees and brush. Freddy wasn’t even sure if they were still on his parent’s property anymore. He was certain he didn’t care.
Just ahead of him, he saw Cassie, skin pale against the verdant backdrop of leaves and dark earth, picking her way carefully along the muddy shore of the slow, shallow stream, looking for feathers. Why was she so different to him now, but not yesterday, not this morning, not five minutes ago?
… should do should do should do …
“Freddy, look!” Cassie had turned, her hand up high, a long, black crow feather held between her thumb and finger. “I think there might be thome more over here. Hold it tho I can braid my hair.”
She paused long enough to hand him the feather then started to braid the back of her hair; not great, but passable. Enough to anchor the feather, he supposed; not that he gave it much thought. Not really. Standing beside her, their toes squelched into the slick, silt shore, he squatted down, looking towards the bank of tall reeds, brush, and touch-me-nots, ostensibly scanning for more feathers. But that wasn’t what he was doing, wasn’t what he was looking at. Crouched down, eye-level to her bellybutton, he peered into a reality he had never known before. He wanted to reach out and touch it, stroke it like a butterfly’s wings, take the slippery mud at his fingertips and paint circles and designs upon Cassie’s skin. But he knew it was not what he should do …
… should do should do should do …
He delicately flicked the tip of the
feather between her legs, causing her to giggle and jump. “That tickleth! Now help put the feather in my hair.”
She turned her back to him, squatting down so that he could reach the tangle of uneven braid she had created out of the back of her hair. Freddy reached up with trembling fingers, looking to tuck the point of the old crow feather into the thickest part. It might stay, it might not. It might stay long enough for Cassie to pretend to be an Indian for an afternoon then be forgotten.
But he would not forget. His thing had stiffened, sensitive even to the light breeze that infiltrated the woods. He promised himself he would never forget.
Strange, the things we tell ourselves when we are children.
The sound was nothing, a pop-and-plink somewhere downstream.
But Freddy knew instantly: a B-B had missed its target, gravity sending it harmlessly down into the water to disappear unnoticed.
Almost.
JakeTommyKevin! God!
That quickly, every feeling turned into terror.
“Hide!” he hissed, grabbing Cassie and pushing her down into the mud beside him, concealed beneath the thick overhang of leafy brush. “We can’t let ‘em see us.”
“Who?” she said.
He clamped a hand over Cassie’s mouth, his lips beside her ear, her body pinned underneath him. “Jake and Tommy and Kevin.” Freddy’s other hand was trapped underneath, holding her tightly.
You want to know what it feels like?
No! Yes! If his brothers caught them like this, naked as babies, him and Cassie … He could not begin to imagine what would happen, every train of thought leading down ever darker, more hideous visions of his imperiled future. Freddy, what are you doing!?
Cassie stared across the empty stream, motionless, concentrating as only a child can when the rules of a game are tantamount. He felt her breath warm across the backs of his fingers. She flicked a wide glance back at him, eyes gleaming, caught up in the game, before continuing to search the silent woods for any sign of the older boys.
Freddy refused even to breathe, listening intently: the gurgle of the stream, the rush of blood pounding through his veins, voices—distant, but there just the same. How had he missed them?
“It went over here somewhere.” Was that Kevin? It sounded like he was up in the field, close, too close.
Freddy pulled Cassie closer, shrinking into the shadows, trying to melt into the water, into the mud. He relinquished a slow, noiseless breath, afraid to disturb the air, as if holding back the air in his lungs could hold back time, slow it down, control it.
There was a pause, a reply too distant to know what was said, then: “Well, where are they?”
Freddy hugged Cassie to him, hoping his brothers wouldn’t stumble upon their clothes, knowing they would search them out if they did. And when that happened, they would know, everyone would know. And then they would make him go away: to juvie hall or jail or the nuthouse or wherever they send you when you’re a sick, disgusting pervert who touches his little cousin. He should stop. He knew he should…
… should do should do should do …
Cassie made a small squeak behind his hand, barely audible over the rush of blood in his ears, every nerve straining upon the knife-edge of self-annihilation. The arm pinned under Cassie’s body ached and tingled, but still his fingers clutched her tightly, his brain rattling insensibly in ecstasy and terror—boys have a penis and girls have a Freddy, you need to stop, now! —his penis trapped in the thick mud, straining, oblivious to the danger as he surrendered to the excruciating sensation, unyielding, unstoppable.
… should do should do should do …
“Little dickslap probably went home. Let’s go.”
And silence.
Relief so sudden and palpable, it felt like the first breath of cool air after swimming under water too long, a fraction from drowning. It happened in an instant, the spasm bursting through him like an electric surge running straight up from his toes, catching him, paralyzed by the fluttering sensation that rippled through his body and made him lose all control. His hands released Cassie completely, body jerking uncontrollably as an excruciating flood crashed headlong through him, followed a second later by a wave of horror and bewilderment.
Cassie turned slowly, eyes wide, and whispered, “I don’t think they’re gonna find uth, Freddy. We win, right?”
And she was smiling, the whole thing nothing more than a game.
The spell of the hot afternoon and the angry meadow shattered, and Freddy’s wonderment collapsed at once into shame and horror. Freddy saw—truly saw—what he was doing for the first time. And he knew, as surely as he knew the moment was burned into his brain forever, that it should never, never have happened. Not with Cassie—especially not with Cassie. He was a pervert; an evil, dirty, perverted criminal. If anyone ever found out—if they ever even suspected—they would send him away, hate him like they hated no other. Or maybe they would strip him naked, hold him down and cut his penis off. Maybe they would. Wasn’t that what you did with naughty boys who diddled themselves, and looked at their naked cousin? Castration?
“Freddy, are you okay?”
Cassie crawled out from under him; he could no longer hold her down, not even if he had wanted to. He felt hollow, the spent husk of a dead insect, as light as last year’s fallen leaves and just as useless.
“Uh … yeah, I’m okay.” He realized she was covered from knees to neck in mud. “W-we should get cleaned up.”
He directed her to the edge of the stream while he scuttled on up to the field and grabbed their clothes, crawling to the edge of the tall grass, mindful of any eyes that might still be around. How had this seemed okay only moments before? How had he ever imagined that he would never get caught?
He had Cassie stand by the stream’s edge so that he could use the water to clean away the dirt, turning her around to get her front and back. Whatever intrigue her nakedness held for him a moment ago was arrested by the need to wash her clean, wash away what had happened.
“You can’t tell anybody, okay?” he said, unable to look her in the eye.
“How come?”
“It’s like a secret, okay? Just don’t tell anybody what happened. ‘Specially not mom or dad. You understand?”
“But we were jutht playin’ hide and theek.”
“Just promise you won’t tell nobody about what happened, okay? Promise me you won’t tell. Please.”
“Okay, Freddy. I promith.”
And he hugged her, her small body cold and wet against his own.
He used his t-shirt to dry her off so that she could get dressed while he washed the mud off himself. The worst was not that he knew what he had done was wrong, or even that he had done it in spite of knowing. The worst was knowing that a part of him—You are evil, Freddy! Evil!—wanted to do it again.
Just don’t tell anyone. Just don’t tell anyone. It repeated over and over in his head, some kind of medicinal mantra that would make it all go away, every part of it, from the moment his brothers invited him to play cowboys and Indians right up until now. Just make everything go away.
But he knew that it wouldn’t.
A part of him would forever remember with horror.
A part of him would forever remember with something very different.
“Freddy,” Cassie whispered from behind him, “I want to go home.”
“Me too.”
Cassie never told anyone about that afternoon. Neither did he. His older brothers caught hell from his mother for ditching them, and would have little to do with him after that, not that Freddy cared. Their approval meant nothing now; and B-B guns were for babies. He realized that day that his brothers were the quintessential examples of dumb rednecks bound for nowhere and getting there fast. From that day forward, he and Cassie treated each other differently. He looked after her, made sure she was okay, made sure that she never, never told anyone about that afternoon or ever had a reason to.
And she never did.
Cassie died at nineteen. No one was exactly sure how long she had been using heroin. By middle school, Cassie had fallen in with a bad crowd: losers and druggies, future criminals and welfare cases. Cassie dropped out at seventeen, worked a few part-time jobs; none would last. There were a lot of boys along the way. Fiercely protective—not jealous; how could he be jealous?—Freddy hated them all. He buried the memories of that afternoon, knowing them only in the world of half-remembered dreams and nightmares ending very differently.
But Cassie never told anyone, and Freddy’s guilt died with her, buried along with her body in the Sunset Hill Cemetery.
Still, long after he had repressed the memory of that ill-fated afternoon and the foolish notions of a prepubescent boy, he still remembered one thing: there was no reward without punishment, no pleasure without pain, no dreams without nightmares, no desire without cost. All were simply two sides of a coin spent indifferently by those who somehow thought a quarter would always land on heads. But he knew the truth. He learned it one hot afternoon long ago. And that was what he remembered. That was all he remembered.
Until today.
Ellen Monroe awakened that memory, her sandy hair and gentle eyes and pouting lips, her dark past of drugs and indiscretions, her head full of dreams, oblivious to the reality around her. She brought it all back. It took him until today to see the similarities; vague, but there all the same, their subtlety escaping him at first. An openness of mind. A fairness of heart. A willingness to forget, to forgive. A propensity to escape into a world of dreams. It took him until today to realize that she reminded him of Cassie. And it took him until late this afternoon—after Ellen Monroe had left his office in the rain, her dress sticking to her skin, after he had masturbated to a fantasy about her being naked, submissive—to realize why someone who reminded him of his little cousin, dead for more than twenty years, should interest him, even excite him. It wasn’t until this afternoon that the memory of that long ago day came back to him, his sessions with Ellen, the heated longing deep within his mind, evoking a kind of self-analysis.
Not on a conscious level, no, certainly not. Like his hatred of the boys that hovered around Cassie, examining these ideas about Ellen too closely would be an admission, an opening of doors better left closed. So his mind worked in secret, prodding and poking the wound until it festered and oozed and finally ripped open, disgorging the long-buried splinter of memory, the jagged sliver thrusting up from the stinking wound just as dangerous as ever.
The Edge of Madness Cafe (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 2) Page 14