by Brian Hodge
By the time I pulled off the exit ramp, Yvonne was very upset. She kept checking her watch and telling me her mother was going to be mad at her.
“I heard you the first time. I just need to make a quick stop.” I’m getting impatient with her. “You’re the one who didn’t want to walk home from the zoo in the rain, now you can just—”
“How did you know I was at the zoo?” she barks accusingly, as I pull the car into the driveway. We were already here. “Help! Oh God, Heeeeelp!”
I look around kinda frantically at that point. Her screaming might have actually attracted attention had anyone been around to hear it. In the summertime, this place is hoppin’ with people boating and grilling out and enjoying the weather. Now it’s unfreezing slowly and the summer dwellers aren’t yet back. Still, I can’t have the girl carrying on like that. Anyone could be driving by.
“Yvonne … what are you yelling about?” I lean in close to her and take her arm hard. “You really don’t want to be doing all that screaming, do you?” I lift her up slightly and stare into her dark eyes, now widening with abject terror. “Do you?” She shakes her pretty head at me.
I lead her into the house, which is really clean, cleaner than I last left it. That means the owners, my buddy’s family, have been here since I was here last. I check the closet behind the Christmas decorations for my stash. Everything is still there, just as it should be, pretty little outfits in a box waiting for me to need them.
“Sit down, Yvonne,” I tell her, and she looks around the room as if I might be speaking to someone else.
“What? My name is—”
“Sit DOWN!”
She does.
“I was walking around the zoo. My Uncle Stan used to take me there when I was little. I go there now to make new friends. I was looking for a friend and I found you. You didn’t see me watching you watch the lions, or making awful faces as you watched the Komodo dragons feed?” Yvonne’s eyes go wide at these words; she’s visibly shaking. “Well, I was watching; I was there. Watching you; planning a nice day for us.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” Yvonne is speaking almost as fast as she’s thinking. She knows something bad is coming. How could she know already? I didn’t even know. Not really. Not yet. “You can let me go and I won’t tell anyone. I’ll—I’ll say I was hitchhiking and got lost out here.”
“We’ll see,” I tell her. “Kiss me. Kiss me nice and I’ll let you go.” She closes her eyes and leans forward, pursing her lips ever so slightly. I want to kiss her softly, sweetly. But my hands get the better of me and before I realize it I’m grabbing her, kissing her hard, thrusting my tongue into her tiny little mouth. Eventually, she starts to resist me. Little Yvonne is squirming in my arms, while I hold her closer and closer to me, her knees pressed against me in the cutest way imaginable. I know she isn’t really the one girl who’ll love me. I don’t care. I release her just a little and keep on kissing. She must think I’m a good kisser, because she does her very best to kiss me back. After a long, long time kissing, I lean back and loosen my grip on my sweet Yvonne.
“How was that?” I ask her, waiting for her to shower me with compliments. Everything is just so nice.
“Can I go now?” She leaps up from the cream-colored sofa with a blanket thrown over it. She wants to go. I stare at her, not believing the things she’s saying. She turns to reach for her coat, which I’d taken off during the kissing. I slap her hard in the face.
“After everything we just did, you want to go? Don’t I mean anything to you?” She’s so selfish. She needs to learn. “How can you just leave me after kissing me and letting me touch you for all that time? How can you go after all that? Whore.” I’m waiting for an answer. Instead of explaining her miserable behavior, Yvonne doubles over and throws up all over the floor. That’s going to be terrible to clean up. This isn’t even my house! When she stands, she has vomit all down her front. I take her by the hand and lead her to the bathroom. Water runs into the claw foot tub. I put bubbles in for her. Girls like bubbles in the bath.
Yvonne doesn’t resist me as I undress her. Soon she’s standing there, naked as the day she was born. She won’t look at me; she’s staring at the ground, or maybe her eyes are closed. I can’t really tell. She’s a lovely girl. I take her hand and help her step into the bathtub, where I clean every inch of her with a blue and white sponge shaped like a duck.
“Do you love me?” I need to test her. She’s doing her best not to bring the Red on me. I don’t trust her. I don’t trust any of them.
“Yes. I love you.” She takes my hand and puts it on her leg under the bubbles. I slide it up and down ever so lightly. She squirms around under the water. I tilt her head back so she’s floating on the top of the bathwater, her little baby feet resting on the edge of the tub. She’s a thing of beauty, her long, dark hair spilling out behind her.
I slip my fingers inside her and do my special thing for her. I feel her whole body tense as she stops floating and struggles to back away from my wiggling fingers. Resisting. I knew it. Women always lie. They’ll say anything to trick you into giving them money or love or a ride home. Then she does it. The Red comes. This time I don’t even bother to resist. It never works, anyway. My hands are all over her. She’s really struggling now.
I push her down into the water and hold her there.
“I love you. Don’t—” I only let her up for a second. I just want to hear her little voice again. I’ve grown to love that pleading sound they make at the end.
“Liar,” I say, as I push her back down and hold her there. She struggles some, but not as much as you’d think. I’d fight for my life if it were me. Soon, the last of the bubbles come to the surface and disappear. It could have been so much nicer. I feel very sad as I let the water run out of the tub. I wish it didn’t have to happen that way. It’s always so sad.
Chapter Thirty-Five
(Elise)
A Modest Proposal
People ask me if the work I do makes me depressed. A question like that reveals more about their ignorance than about what I do. My volunteer work is empowering, and valuable to women at large. It’s my day job that stresses me out, frankly. Working in a bookstore feeds my intellectual needs, but working with the public is a constant irritant. I much prefer sharing my knowledge and experiences to aid women in crisis.
This isn’t to say I’m in crisis, or ever have been. My life is going very well. I’m happy, secure, and I have a great boyfriend. He’s having a bit of bad luck at the moment, but he’s not letting a few stumbles get the better of him. I admire how someone can go from mechanical engineer to dishwasher, without losing a whit of dignity or self-respect. He’s really remarkable, if a bit socially awkward. I’m trying not to overthink it. That’s sort of an ongoing issue for me, overthinking.
Children are, and this might sound odd coming from someone who does what I do, what women were put on earth for. Nurturing is what women are best at. I don’t think there’s any shame in admitting that. I’d tell another woman in my position that she’s no less a woman for not being a mother. For me, though … I don’t know. I guess I could stand to follow my own advice. I can’t reason my way out of it, and I’ve tried. I will feel unfulfilled if I remain childless.
My boyfriend is embarrassed of his house, of how messy he keeps it since his divorce. Or maybe that’s just something he says, in a weird desire to keep me out of his space. You never can tell with men. They have all sorts of strange motives for things. Tonight, though, he’d invited me in for dinner. I felt a twinge of guilt when I realized how much I hoped he wasn’t actually going to cook the dinner himself.
I looked for my favorite blue dress, which set off my blondeness. He’d said many times how much he liked blondes. I paired some red shoes with a red bag and drove over to the house. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt unnaturally nervous on the drive. I turned up the radio, which didn’t really help. We didn’t have a station in town that played relaxing classical music. That smo
oth jazz program made me want to gouge my eyes out of my head.
“Right on time!” Michael said with a big smile, as he opened the door for me, stepping aside so I could enter. The house had that look like, if you touched anything, piles of pizza boxes and old clothes would come flying out from everywhere. The vacuum cleaner was propped in a corner and still plugged in. There was a vague odor of something sour or rotten in the air. I bet he had to clean out his fridge. I can recall, in college, the horrors some men kept in their tiny dorm fridges: old meat and moldy cheese, things you couldn’t even recognize. Maybe it was eggs; old eggs smell awful.
“The place looks … great.” I hoped he couldn’t hear disdain in my voice. His house had all the signs of a divorced man, carefully selected furniture and art—all neglected and covered in dust and cat hair. When did he get a cat? And seriously, what was that smell? My eyes were watering. How could I be expected to eat in the same room as that stench?
“Thanks! I polished it up for your visit. I don’t really do a lot of housekeeping, normally.” He laughed, and looked at me like I should laugh too. A weak giggle escaped me.
“Dinner is already here, I mean ready,” he said, going into the kitchen and returning with two big bowls of steaming food. I couldn’t tell until he reached the crudely set table that it was Chinese food, pepper steak and almond chicken. My favorites, which I’d mentioned to him during our initial phone call. I’m not sure why that impressed me so much, but it did. He hadn’t cooked the food, of course. I could look past him into the kitchen and see the telltale white cartons on the counter. It was an endearing gesture. He was trying; I’d be a complete bitch if I didn’t at least try to appreciate it. Is it really deceptive to pretend to cook when you can’t? Technically, yes. Damn, I was overthinking again. I turned my attention back to my date, just in time.
“I really like you. Do you wanna marry me?” I blinked. Twice. I really like you; do you wanna marry me? Was he kidding? In what universe is that a proper, or even an acceptable, marriage proposal? —do you wanna marry me? Honestly. I didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t even mentioned the word love. Neither had I, of course; we’d never said the “love” word to one another. Is that a bad sign? Is it insignificant? It’s just a word after all; it doesn’t change the realities of a given situation, does it? Damn. Overthinking.
He was looking at me expectantly and suddenly told me to “hang on.” Michael reached behind him, his mouth full of pepper steak, and produced a small square box. He swallowed, opened it, and handed it to me.
A small diamond solitaire, nothing particularly ornate or spectacular. It just sat there, tiny and average looking. I began to wonder if this wasn’t all a huge mistake. But these were just things. The proposal wasn’t the marriage, and the ring had nothing to do with the feelings involved. How shallow to focus on eloquence or the size of a diamond. A good man was asking me to marry him. I was not going to dismiss him because he was clumsy with words and didn’t have a lot of money. That would make me a terrible person. I took a deep breath and answered him.
“Okay.” It seemed the appropriate response, given the informality of the question. He hooted a mighty “Woo!” and clapped his hands a few times.
“Oh babe, you’re never gonna regret this.” Even if it didn’t work out, he was a handsome man who could give me handsome children. That would have to be good enough.
Chapter Thirty-Six
(Mikey)
The Cell
I was pretty happy to finally be engaged to Elise. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but it’s not like she was ugly or anything. I knew she’d say yes when I asked her; I didn’t even have to ask her that good. Older chicks just want to find someone who’ll marry them. Next thing you knew she’d be wanting kids and all that. I wanted kids, but I wasn’t exactly sure she was the right woman to be their mother.
After everything with Dami, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to have kids. Once I met my Angel though, having a child with her seemed the normal and natural thing to do. Kids are tricky though. People are always accusing you of looking at them wrong. Is it bad when you notice that they need to put on a bra or that they dress too scandalously? I could admit now that I’d had bad thoughts about Dami’s kids. They shouldn’t have been walking around in those jiggly little outfits, anyway.
Mama says men get the best out of marriage. They just have to go to work and earn money for the family, while the wife cooks and cleans and tends to the house and children. That was such a good deal; it’s hard to imagine why feminism or whatever would want to change it.
Mama said her life was good until Dad went and got killed in that hunting accident. I remember it, of course, but I mostly remember being glad he wouldn’t be around to be mean to me anymore. And I remember running back to the house thinking I was going to be in big trouble. I wasn’t, though. I didn’t know if Elise wanted kids, she’d never said, that I could think of. Then again, I didn’t always remember to listen to her when she talked.
I’d figured something out when I was on my date with Yvonne the other night. I was going to need a new place for my new friends. My house was okay, but once I got married we’d either sell it or live in it. Elise would be suspicious if I kept a whole house just for myself. The vacation house was okay, but Yvonne’s screaming would have attracted attention if we’d been up there in season. I needed to build a bunker, a terrarium of sorts, where I could keep her for a long time and go see her whenever I wanted. That was a genius plan.
I could build it up really pretty for her, my Angel, I mean. I could make sure she had music and TV, cable even. I couldn’t let her on the internet, or have a phone or anything, but I could get her a nice bed and some pretty clothes she could wear just for me. It would be heavenly to have her here. Heavenly. Project Heavenly Angel was underway.
The first thing I had to do was find a location, and the vacation house was a good place to start looking. That part of the state anyway. It was sparsely populated, the kind of place you’d hole up when the world was ending and everyone was turning into zombies. There were militiamen around here, so the area was pretty safe. Nothing kept an area crime-free quite like the Michigan Militia. Maybe what I was looking for was something like a bomb shelter, but furnished by Barbie and Ken. My Angel had to like it. If I couldn’t keep her happy, none of it would matter.
I didn’t have as much time to plan as I wanted. Elise kept making me do stuff for the wedding. Chicks always expect men to get excited about wedding plans, as if any man gives a rat’s ass about what color napkins they have, or what kind of crappy little gift you give everyone to take home. The thing that kills me is the actual wedding dress. They spend crazy amounts of money on a dress they’re gonna wear one time, and they say shit like “He’s going to cry when he sees me in this dress” or “He’ll be so emotional, he’ll tear up.” If a guy starts crying because he sees his girlfriend in a dress, that guy is a pussy. C’mon, crying in front of a bunch of people? Weak.
I didn’t have to work today, but I thought I’d drive by the diner anyway to say hello to Fran and see if my Angel was there.
“Mike! What brings you here on your day off?” Fran patted me on the back and then moved behind the grill to put a cheeseburger on for me. She didn’t ask if I was hungry; she just assumed. She was a handy sort of woman to have around, that Fran. I liked her, and was glad she let me work here.
“Just thought I’d pop by and check the schedule for next week.” That was a total lie. My schedule never changed, and surely Fran, as the scheduler, knew that.
“Is that right? You’re not looking for certain young customers that come in at this time?” Fran looked down her nose at me, frowning. I shrugged. “Listen, Mike. This is no good. I can’t have you flirting with underage girls here; that’s not right.”
“Flirting? I’ll have you know I just got engaged!” That would certainly throw her for a loop. It threw everyone that way.
“Really? To that bookstore woman y
ou’ve been seeing? Mike, that’s wonderful. Congratulations. Really. But that doesn’t mean—”
I could talk to whoever I wanted. That damn Fran. It was just talking. Fran didn’t know it, but I have a way with young women.
“Okay, I get it,” I said, cutting her off. She had some nerve talking to me like that in front of everyone. “You don’t have to embarrass me.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. Just knock it off!” She was being so mean to me. I made a sad face at her so she knew just how much she was hurting me. Bitch. She sighed. I had her. “Mike, be reasonable. It’s just that—”
“Just that she’s a pretty young girl and I’m a big mean gorilla?” That was what she meant, that I was a big, dumb, ugly guy who could never be loved by an Angel like her. I’d show that Fran. She thought she knew so goddamn much with her fancy café bullshit.
When my Angel got up to leave, I grabbed my cheeseburger and followed her out the door. It looked like Fran was watching me. Nosy bitch.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
(Chandra)
A Plan at Fruition
We went to that cheap diner for information. I pouted convincingly at the old woman, telling her I needed my stepfather’s schedule so I could surprise him. Thomas called it a feeble lie. He was still trying to keep me from the task at hand. It wouldn’t work. The woman told me all I needed. When we left the rundown diner, Thomas rounded on me again. I wouldn’t be fooled. I knew what this was really about.
“Dammit, Chandra!” He was almost screaming. “This has nothing to do with sex. I can’t stay with someone who aspires to be a murderess. Why on earth would I?”
“You have no idea what that Villain put us through. He’s not right, and if we weren’t so diligent, he’d be a rapist molester too. He went to Durga’s school even after the police told him to stay away; what else does he have to do before you’ll see? You have no idea what it’s like to wake up with him at the edge of your—”