Belt Buckles & Pajamas

by Michele Leblanc

  “Are you okay, Daphne? Was Gordon doing anything to you?” he asks.

  I try to hold the tears in, to calm down enough to talk to Kareem.

  “No, he wasn’t doing anything, it’s just, it’s just that I like him and I don’t know how to like him. I don’t know how to be with him. I’m scared, Kareem, I don’t know how to love.”

  He holds me, rocking me until I calm down. “Daphne, no one knows how to love. Not you, not me, not Gordon. Nobody. We all just fake it. What really matters is that we respect each other’s rules, that we don’t hurt anyone else. Then, when we try it with people we love, it doesn’t really matter if it’s awkward or difficult. Because if he loves you and you love him then all the other stuff just washes away.”

  I cling to him, to his kindness, to his empathy. “Can you… teach me?”

  He moves a little away from me on the bed. “Daphne, I care about you, I do. But I am not in love with you, and I can’t do that with you.”

  “I understand, Kareem. You’re just so nice I thought I would ask.”

  He hugs me good night and says he will tell the others I am okay and wishes me sweet dreams. He is so good. And maybe gay.

  Violet visits me a little later, before I am asleep. She crawls under the covers with me and it is nice to have someone I am used to there. Someone who is soft not hard. Who is gentle not forceful. Who loves me not uses me. I tell her about Kareem and she gives me a little smile.

  “Darling, don’t take it personally. I mean, if he could resist me…”

  “Yeah, I know. He’s just so nice, I thought maybe it would help me let Shy Boy, you know, be with me.”

  She guides my hand down between my legs. “You mean, be with you here?”

  I tell her yes.

  “Remember that favor you owe me?” she asks, her hand still pressing on mine, pushing it back and forth. I don’t say a word, my breathing getting heavier as I start to move in rhythm against her – our – hands.

  “I think I have it figured out. Tomorrow night I am collecting.”

  Her voice is deep and husky and I barely nod as she takes me to ecstasy.

  Forty-Five: Mean Old Doc

  I am nervous at breakfast when I see Shy Boy but he smiles at me, clear bright eyes twinkling like it didn’t matter what happened on the couch and he loves me anyway and it was another eat them eggs and not puke start to the day.

  “Just another day in paradise,” the hedgehog sings.

  He’s right. I eat my eggs and they aren’t slimy or runny they are just like ambrosia and I play footsies with Shy Boy under the table (not like Violet, foot to foot not foot to crotch) and Violet keeps saying “tonight, tonight,” but I tune her out, I don’t think about what kind of favor she could ask of me that I haven’t done for her already.

  Stuart counts the cameras and there aren’t any new ones and inspects the spoons for any hidden transmitters and doesn’t find any and even he has to admit that nothing horrible has happened yet. “Calm before the storm,” the cow says, and Stuart nods his head thoughtfully.

  We pick up our trays and head to morning session and we see exactly what the cow meant. Damn that precognitive bovine, there sits the mean old doc himself, clipboard and pen and paper in hand, sitting next to Andie. And to top it off Sam is there and not Kareem.

  “Good morning,” Andie starts, as if to say don’t be scared, don’t be worried, just because Doctor Martin is here I am still in charge and you are all still safe.

  “You want me to make you a card?” Violet asks the doctor. “Course, there is a certain prerequisite to having a card. But it would be worth it, you would go out with a smile.”

  Sam keeps Violet from demonstrating just how happy she could make Doctor Martin. After we all get seated Andie continues.

  “Okay, as you can see, Doctor Martin is here to observe again.” She pauses. “He is here because I asked him, I think it is important for him to see how… well things are going for us.”

  “Screech!” Pet Shop shouts, flapping his arms. “Screech!”

  “Well, that’s a new one,” says Doctor Martin.

  “Herbert, please settle down. Tell us what is bothering you.”

  Pet Shop keeps flapping his arms and screeching.

  “He’s scared Doctor Martin is going to take away the hedgehog again,” Stuart says. “He says last time he met with Doctor Martin he made him give up the hedgehog.”

  Andie looks at Doctor Martin. “Doctor?”

  Doctor Martin looks a little embarrassed. “He wasn’t talking. I merely told him that I would lock up his zoo if he didn’t cooperate. Obviously you are encouraging the opposite, adding to his collection instead of eliminating his manifestations.”

  Andie gives him a “we will talk about this later” look. She turns to Pet Shop. “Herbert, I promise we will not do anything to your animals.” He stops flapping his arms and quiets down.

  “Gordon, I showed Doctor Martin your drawings on the cards. He was very impressed, weren’t you, Doctor?”

  Doctor Martin may not always get along with Andie, but even he knew to follow that lead. “Yes, Doctor MacPherson. They were very interesting. Very detailed. Very capable renditions. You are quite the artist, Gordon.”

  Shy Boy keeps his head down. There are beads of sweat on his brow; he is trembling a little. I think he is scared of Doctor Martin. But we all are, what is causing this reaction? What has changed – the drawings? Why does he care if Doctor Martin thinks he is a good artist?

  Shy Boy just sits there and sweats and shakes. Andie reaches out, stroking his forearm, pulling him out of his isolation, back into the room with the rest of us. He lifts his head, meets her eyes; maybe for the first time, he looks into her eyes. I see his face lighten up as he is drawn into that angelic aura she projects. I see her own eyes widen at the recognition that Shy Boy is with us more now than he ever has been.

  She releases him, and he hangs his head again. Doctor Martin, for all his being here to observe, appears to have missed this whole exchange. He taps his pen on the clipboard. “It doesn’t look like Gordon wishes to share today,” he says, and I try not to laugh and I can tell from the way Andie rolls her eyes that she can’t believe the doctor is that thick-headed either. That he didn’t see Shy Boy connect with Andie.

  “I guess not,” she says, but Shy Boy and I both know she is lying.

  “Can I kiss you, Andie?” Violet asks. She must have seen the same thing. She doesn’t ask like she wants to shock her or even Doctor Martin, she asks like it is the most important thing she could obtain, like it would be a gift from above, to taste the sweetness of her lips. She asks like she has seen Andie the protector once more keep us from the clutches of the evil one and she wants to breathe in the very essence of that soul that guards us.

  The room is still, so sincere was the request, we all want to be Violet, we all want Andie to share this with her, to cross into our realm, to give us all through Violet’s lips a taste of the infinite.

  We all want that, that is, except the thickheaded idiot.

  “We will not have indecent propositions, young lady,” Doctor Martin says. “That is not permitted. There will be no kissing, no grabbing, no touching. And no talk of such. Understood?”

  The atmosphere returns, we are once again in a room sitting in chairs with a couple doctors and even though one is an angel and one is a demon they are human again. Violet turns away and we never hear Andie’s answer and we remain apart.

  Forty-Six: Favors

  Shy Boy is back to being shy after seeing Doctor Martin. He lets me hold his hand but he doesn’t try anything else and I am worried that he doesn’t like me anymore. Violet says don’t worry, after tonight it will be okay, after tonight you will know how to make him happy and she keeps smiling and skipping around and I am not sure I want tonight, I think I want yesterday, but I can’t stop it and soon it is lights out and I go to my room and put on my sleeping sweats and t-shirt and wait under the covers.

  I
lie in the darkness. I think about Shy Boy and Andie and Violet. How I love them all but in different ways. How they make me feel alive and good in different ways.

  Before too long, Violet snuggles next to me. “Hey, sweetie,” she says, “how’s my favorite girl doing?”

  Her hands roam over my body, circling my breasts, rubbing all over. “Strip,” she whispers in my ear, “take everything off.”

  I strip completely, throwing my clothes to the side, and slide back under the sheet. I wait for her hands, her tongue, her love. I wait, breathing heavily, in anticipation.

  I hear the door open.

  I hear the footsteps cross the room.

  I look up. He looms large in the darkness. I can’t make out his face. “Shy Boy?” I ask.

  “I’m not exactly shy,” Sam says, the belt hitting the ground, his member sticking out near my face. “But you can call me anything you want, baby.”

  I want to scream. I want to run. I want to close my eyes and sleep and make it to the morning. My mouth opens, ready to release my terror into the dark, when she stops me.

  Violet whispers, “It’s okay, love, I asked him to be here. This is the favor you owe me, this is how I am collecting. I want you to do exactly what I tell you, what he tells you. What he wants. So you know how to do it with Shy Boy. So you can be happy.”

  She takes my hand and puts it on Sam’s penis. “Come on, stroke it,” she tells me, as Sam rocks his pelvis. He is large and stiff and I feel dirty and I don’t want to touch him. I release him.

  “Hey, you just got going, girl, don’t stop now,” Sam tells me.

  “No, no more, I don’t want to.”

  “You promised,” Violet whispers. “This is good for you. For you and Shy Boy.” She makes me pull the sheets down, exposing my body to Sam.

  Sam smiles, “Okay, I guess if you are ready we can get right to it, we don’t need any of that foreplay crap.” He climbs into bed next to me, starts pawing at my breasts, kissing my neck, my ears, my face.

  His hands are rough as they grab at me. I flinch when he squeezes my nipples.

  “Sorry, baby, didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just been a while and you have such a hot little body.”

  “Do it again,” Violet tells him. “Squeeze them harder.”

  He does and I cry out a little and he laughs and says “crazy bitch.”

  I feel his hardness brushing against my leg. He reaches down, pushing a hand between my legs. Violet urges me to grind against his hand, to reach around and massage his butt, to enjoy the ride, to let myself go.

  I try to pretend it is Violet inserting her fingers inside me but they are too big and too forceful and it is pain not pleasure they are inflicting. I struggle, I try to pull his arm up and his hand lands on my breast again and with Violet egging him on he thinks everything that is happening is what I want to happen and he is wrong and she is wrong and I am wrong.

  “Okay, enough prep, huh? Let’s get it on,” he says, spreading my legs and rising above me and he is going to enter me. All of a sudden I smell cigars and aftershave and bacon burning and I cry out “No, don’t do this Daddy, don’t hurt me.”

  He stops. But just for a moment. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Sam says. “I’m going to make you feel real good, I promise. Just like you asked me too.”

  And he moves against me and I feel him pressing into me and I shove him away with all my strength. He falls out of the bed and sits on the floor, stunned at my sudden resistance.

  I stand over him, naked but armored in my resolve. “No!” I scream at him. “You can’t do that, I don’t care who you are or who I am, I say no! She can’t give you my body and you can’t take it. It’s mine, nobody else’s and you can’t touch me unless I say so.”

  Sam sits there, his penis going limp as he listens to my tirade. “But you asked me – you told me to come tonight.”

  “No I didn’t, Violet did, and she doesn’t own me anymore. This isn’t her body, she can’t give it away anymore. Get out!” I throw his pants at him and he jumps into them and leaves.

  I sit down on the bed — naked, alone, spent. I cry from the pain and the loneliness and the freedom I have found this night. I cry until I sleep, and there are no dreams, only an empty void that I know I must fill myself.

  Forty-Seven: All Grown Up

  Breakfast is somber. I sit there, picking at my eggs, not really eating anything. Shy Boy is still acting withdrawn; Pet Shop is having a quiet conversation with the cow and the hedgehog. The third time I don’t answer him Stuart figures out that I don’t feel like talking.

  I follow them to morning session. Andie is waiting for us. With Sam. I don’t look at him and he doesn’t look at me. At least Doctor Martin isn’t there.

  “Good morning, everyone. Who wants to start?” Why is she always so cheerful, so completely Andie, I wonder. How can each day start like last night didn’t happen? That there wasn’t a strange man invited into your bed by your best friend? That your best friend didn’t leave you forever. Again.

  The silence hangs and Violet isn’t here to break it up and Andie must know something is wrong, can’t she tell?

  “Strangers in the night,” says the hedgehog and I give Pet Shop my stare that says if looks could kill you would be pushing up daisies and he gives me a what, don’t blame the messenger shrug as if he didn’t know the hedgehog was going to talk. How the hell did that thing ever keep any of our plans secret?

  “That is an interesting point,” Andie says, and I realize she knew something was up all along she just wanted us to say it first. “There were a few disturbances last night, from what I have heard. Anybody care to discuss those?”

  Sam keeps not looking at me and I wonder if I should rat on him but it was really Violet not Sam so I look at Shy Boy instead and I jump in my seat because he saw me looking at Sam and has the angriest expression on his face I have ever seen. He quickly looks down and hides his face and Andie takes my movement as an opening and asks, “What happened last night, Daphne?”

  She sees Shy Boy hiding his face and I am blushing and I don’t know what to tell her. “Did Gordon visit you? I know what happened on the couch when you were watching TV. Daphne, if Gordon was in your room last night you must tell me. Please, for both of you, tell me what happened. I promise neither of you will get in trouble, but you have to tell me what happened.”

  Those eyes, those soul-capturing eyes, pull me in and I want to tell her everything about how I was strong and kept my body my own but I don’t know how to. And I don’t want to get Sam in trouble, even if he called me a crazy bitch. And I especially don’t want Shy Boy to think I did it with Sam, when I wouldn’t let him even touch my breast.

  “It wasn’t Shy Boy,” I say, and I see Sam swaying in the background, knowing I hold his job in my hands, knowing a few words and he is done for. “It was Violet.” And Sam looks relieved but Shy Boy doesn’t, Shy Boy doesn’t believe this lie I tell, and he is looking at Sam and looking at me and I silently pray he isn’t thinking what I know he is thinking.

  “Violet came to me last night,” I tell Andie, looking at her lips, the curl of hair over her ears, the rims of her glasses. Anywhere but in the eyes. I cast my own gaze down, feigning shyness and embarrassment, trying to convince her it is the words and the deeds that are causing my difficulties, not the fact that I am lying to the herald of Eden. “She came to me, and we took off our clothes, and she wanted, well she wanted us to do things. To touch. To kiss. To make love.”

  “Violet came to me and she demanded these things. She wanted to own me, to possess me, to control me. She wanted everything I had.” I look up at Andie. These words were truthful, I could face her for these. “And I decided that it was my body, no one else’s. That it was my choice who could touch me and where they could touch me and when they could touch me. I wasn’t going to let her do that to me anymore.” I looked down again, prepared for my final lie. “So I cast her out of my bed, and she wasn’t happy and we yelled at each o
ther until she left. That was what all the commotion was about.” More truth now, to seal my story, to close the lie. “So Violet’s gone now. She knows I don’t need her. She isn’t coming back. I hope she finds her way to Glen and Theodore, she’d be happier with them anyway.”

  Andie hugs me and tells me she is so proud of me for making the right choices. That I was right, that it was my body, that I didn’t need Violet, I was a grown woman and could take care of myself. And I cry on her shoulder, all grown up and bawling like a baby. “I’m going to miss Violet,” I sob, “she was my best friend. My bestest friend since Melissa.”

  “I know, I know she was,” Andie says, stroking my hair, holding me tight, lending me her strength. Andie holds me and I let her, it isn’t the same as Violet but in some ways it is better. Cleaner. More caring. Less needing.

  Through my tears I see Sam thanking his gods in silent prayer. I look over at Shy Boy and he isn’t crying and he isn’t happy and he doesn’t seem shy in the least.

  Forty-Eight: Kareem And Shy Boy

  We are sitting at lunch. It is still pretty quiet. Shy Boy is at least looking at me again and when I smile at him he gives me a little one back. Maybe he was listening at session. He knows Violet is gone, so hopefully he bought the whole story.

  Pet Shop is going around to all the tables and getting leftover vegetables. He is worried that the screech owl isn’t getting a balanced diet. Too much toast, I suppose, isn’t good for owls. I offer him my carrots and a couple spoonfuls of applesauce.

  “Violet left on purpose, right? She wasn’t abducted, was she?”

  “No, Stuart, no one took her. I told you, she decided she wasn’t needed anymore. She left, that’s all there was to it.”

  “Good. Not good that she’s gone, good that there wasn’t a government strike force picking us off one by one. Because that is how they would do it. We’d disappear one by one until nobody was left and they would take it all over. One by one, that’s how it works.”