Be in the Real

by Denise Mathew

  “That’s what it feels like to be kissed by a butterfly,” she said with a satisfied grin. “I’ve practiced it a hundred times on my hand because the pressure has to be just right you know, otherwise it doesn’t feel like an actual butterfly…”

  “Butterfly kiss? Where did that come from? Weren’t we talking about sex in the storage room?” Norm said in a quiet voice.

  “Yes of course, I haven’t forgotten, so will you do it?” Kaila asked as casually as if she had asked him to pass the salt to her.

  Norm shook his head, resigned to the fact that Kaila wasn’t going to give him a straight answer; she never did, so why did he think she would start now.

  “What time?” he asked, glancing down at his watch.

  Kaila’s expression remained impassive.

  “Based on my research and the activities of past inhabitants of Wildwind, the best time to have a successful liaison is between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Historically this is when the staff are on their down time and are usually found in the staff room or out back for a smoke break so…”

  “You’ve really done your homework, how long have you been planning this whole thing between us?” Norm asked, arching a bushy eyebrow.

  “Time cannot be measured by a number it is the act of continuous movement from one moment to the next, there is no intersection between the past and the future, unless you connect the two with the present moment,” Kaila said, gripping her hands together.

  Norm scrubbed his hands over his face then exhaled loudly.

  “I have no idea what the hell goes on in that brain of yours and quite frankly I don’t care, sex is sex, so yeah, I’m in. But it will have to be soon because I’m getting the hell out of here in two days,” he said.

  “I’ve already predicted that today is the day for sex, we will meet at the storage closet at 2:00 p.m.,” Kaila said with a wide childish grin.

  “But you just said that you don’t keep track of time, or at least I think that’s what you said,” Norm said, eyeing her through the lenses of his glasses.

  To Kaila, he looked like he had the eyes of a preying mantis. In fact much about Norm reminded her of the insect, how his arms seemed too long for his body and how he most times caught her in his embrace when she wasn’t expecting it, just like a preying mantis. There of course were more similarities, but nothing that Kaila cared to think about then, because all that mattered was how she had once again predicted the future. Norm would meet her and they would have sex like they did on the porno shows, and then she would know what it felt like. She wondered if she would moan and make faces like the girls on the shows did, and also if Norm’s penis would look the same as the men who had sex with the women.

  “Hello, earth to Kaila.”

  Norm was waving his hand a few inches in front of Kaila’s face. She didn’t know how long she had blanked out, only that it was unusual for her to go away two times in a day. Once again the moment had changed, becoming another vignette of life without her ever seeing the transition.

  She focused on his narrow face and tilted her head, not sure what he had just asked her.

  “If you don’t keep track of time how are you going to know when its 2:00 p.m.?”

  He said, obviously detecting her confusion. He knew as well as she did that she didn’t live a like attached to measured time. Many years before she had decided to live like the animals did, by instinct, reading the cues, predicting and sometimes when it was the right thing to do, just waiting.

  Kaila shrugged. “How does the tree know when to grow or the birds know when to fly south?”

  “Huh?” he said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “I follow the signs silly.”

  With those words she stood up and left Norm in stunned silence.

  CHAPTER 5

  The comments that people had left had doubled. Kaila had no idea what had changed since her last blog entry, only that something had definitely shifted. For some reason even more people had found their way to her site; she hadn’t predicted that. She closed her eyes and tried to do the opposite of predicting the future, to sink back into the past. Kaila knew she needed to regress to the space that would tell her how people had somehow linked to her, and why they were making their presence known on her website. She had tried this method of gleaning information before, but it had never been successful, as if the energy that would tell her the answers had been diluted by time passed.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, searching for meaning. When nothing came, she began reading through the blog entries again, hoping that their words would open a door to the reason for them being there.

  “I love you Trillian, you speak to my soul, we are one, we are all one…” Buttercup from New Jersey wrote.

  “Your words are RAD, you must smoke truck loads of weed to get that into the cosmos.” Hashbros from Nevada wrote.

  She scanned down the page, reading the comments that though written in different words all imparted the same sentiment, they liked what she had to say. Weirdly, instead of the seventy-thirty ratio of positive to negative, her rudimentary calculations revealed that she was hovering closer to eighty-five to fifteen, a fifteen percent bump. She had never really cared whether people liked what she had written or not, since it was more about the messages than the response, but this shift in reality fascinated her.

  An insane individual, though by all accounts she was exactly that, would have ridden the highs of the praise then would have sunk into despair at the lows, but she didn’t do that. Kaila received it all with unpracticed neutrality, knowing that she was doing her part to grease the cogs that ran the universe; whether people approved or not mattered little. Her job was to get the words out into the world, what happened after her fingers typed meant nothing at all. When Trillian took over, Kaila knew nothing other than her fingers on the keyboard; all else was away from her, and a way for Trillian to become.

  Kaila jotted down the number fifteen, the increased percentage of approval. She planned to see if there was a message to be found in the number because she wanted to find reason in what seemed unreasonable. Yet even after she had read through all the new comments she was as in the dark as when she had begun. Understanding that the answers could never be forced, she decided to let go and start her entry. She was aware that if she wasted too much time she would be late for her meeting with Norm. As soon as her fingers hit the keyboard she was lost.

  “It is only in death that we truly are alive. You may ask dear reader what this phrase means, and though I cannot give it the justice that such a statement requires, I will in fact attempt to bring some light to the subject. From the time we are born, death is our destination, the when, how, and why are set in the stones of fate, and like someone much wiser than me has already written, when the page turns and your name is on it, then it is done. But life is not really about death it is in fact about life, a life that we squander away with every moment that we ignore the world around us. When we forget the destination and only know the time that anchors us to the earth, we limit ourselves, clip our wings, prevent ourselves from ever soaring, or seeing. There is so very much that we turn away from, each moment that we do not see that bird with its brilliant red breast take flight from the tree that is glowing with life, it is lost forever.

  I have always been capable of seeing life force, the tic of energy that makes something alive, some people call it the aura, others the chi, but giving it a name does not mean that you in fact might see it. There are precious few who allow their eyes to open to the seeing, to experience the world around us in the vibrant colors that become grey and dirty when we perceive it through the lens of what we believe to be true. When you have already decided the future, how can the future be different than that which you imagined, we are master creators who tell the universe what we expect to happen, and when it does we are validated that in fact we always get the same.

  Some may ask the question as to why the universe always creates that which they fear th
e most, the future that they had dreaded, rebuked, never wanted, but in imagining the unwanted have manifested just that reality. And they ask, why, why, oh why is the life that I am living so poorly, and why am I distraught, why has the world turned a cold shoulder to my needs. And here is the secret, one that no one but I Trillian will tell you, it is the emotion and its intensity that makes the creation breathe and come alive. Of all emotions that we of the human race have felt, lived, allowed to wash through us, clinging to the parts that are tender and raw. It is FEAR. It is the most powerful of all emotions. This my dear readers is a truth that you must absorb, because if the fear has no power, if you divest it of all its abilities, imagine what you could bring into existence.

  We are all one dear readers,

  Trillian.”

  The soft squeak of Belinda’s Naturalizer shoes brought Kaila out of her trance and she was back in Wildwind, away from the world of Trillian.

  Belinda was a sour-faced woman who looked to be about forty or so. She had a strong Russian accent, one that Kaila loved to hear. Belinda was one of the few people who was actually tall enough to look Kaila in the eye. But unlike Kaila, who bordered on the heavier to normal side with more muscle than the average woman, Belinda was as straight as a stick, hipless, with breasts the size of the buds of a prepubescent girl. Her hair was mannishly short and slicked away from her face. What you could see of her arms, were riddled with amateurish tattoos that most patients said she had carved herself. But despite her butch appearance, her voice was high-pitched and shrill like the sound of air passing through the stretched mouth of a balloon, or ones voice after a dose of helium.

  Belinda being in the games room meant that it was close to 1:00 p.m.

  She was right on schedule.

  Norm had asked Kaila how she could know the time without keeping a watch, Belinda’s arrival was one of the ways. To Kaila’s experience, watching other peoples routines was just one of the methods that could be used to tell time.

  There were many other ways too, like using the places where the sun cast its light on sunny days, to see that it was afternoon, the space between lunch and dinner. Even the quiet that came when the staff retreated to their room was another clue, and Kaila loved clues, thrived on them in fact. These were all signs that pointed the way to what time in the day she found herself.

  Kaila folded her laptop, pleased that she had actually managed to finish an entry without Norm troubling her. If she had known that offering to have sex with him would have given her the freedom to write, she might have suggested it a long time before. Yet though Kaila’s predicting skills were getting better all the time, she surmised that for some reason certain things she couldn’t predict were none of her business. Maybe this was true for the blog followers and their reasons for finding her.

  “Hello Kaila,” Belinda said with a nod of her head.

  Kaila tilted her head in acknowledgement, nothing more. She tucked her laptop beneath her arm. Knowing that she was just minutes away from having sex made an odd tingle sing through her body. She felt heat rush to her cheeks when she imagined what it would be like.

  Before she made her way to the storage closet she went back to her room, hoping that she would find Pauline there, so she could help her out. Kaila had never believed in wearing makeup and feminine enhancements. Other than brushing her hair and keeping her body and clothes spotlessly clean she had never worried or much cared about more than that, but today being a special day made her want to do something different. Unfortunately, Pauline wasn’t in the room. Kaila didn’t have time to wait around or even look for Pauline, so she decided to take matters into her own hands.

  She took a quick shower in the tiny shower stall that barely accommodated her body. The facility, in their economical use of space had managed to squeeze the shower, a toilet and freestanding sink into a closet-sized space in her room. Kaila appreciated having her own bathroom, enough so that the size didn’t bother her much.

  She toweled her skin off then pulled her brush through her copper locks, tugging until the curls that naturally appeared after a shower were reduced to soft waves. Kaila used one of Pauline’s elastic bands to pull her hair back into a ponytail, so tight that it pulled the skin on her face taut.

  Pauline had a wide assortment of makeup, including some heavy theatrical products that she used to minimize her scar. Kaila picked up a bottle of flesh colored makeup and slathered a thick layer over her whole face. In her opinion she looked a lot like a geisha girl but she was pleased how the cream made her freckles disappear. Next, she smeared on a coat of fire engine red lipstick, then lined her eyes with a black pencil, making little sweeps on the corners of her eyes like a cats. Since the thought of putting mascara on her eyelashes with a tool that could very well puncture her cornea disgusted her, she decided to forego that option. Last was the blusher, which she painted in perfect circles on the apples of her cheeks. When she glanced at herself in the mirror she was both surprised but oddly exhilarated that she had actually succeeded in applying the makeup by herself. Though she admittedly did look a bit clownish, she felt proud of her first attempt.

  She tugged her tee over her head, managing to smear her makeup. Kaila was disappointed that she hadn’t thought to dress before she had applied the face paint. A fresh pair of white cotton Fruit of the Loom panties were next, and then her grey sweats. Fully dressed, she moved with purpose out the door, striding toward the direction of the storage closet that was on the west side of the building, the exact opposite to where her room was located.

  As she drew closer to her destination another odd flutter appeared in her belly. She wasn’t sure if it was fear, excitement or anticipation, only that it made her feel jangled. Kaila wondered if everybody felt like this when they were about to have sex, or if it was just her.

  Though she predicted many of the events that occurred in her daily life, she had been given no clues on what would happen with Norm. She wasn’t sure if her exclusion from knowing this future made her happy or sad, only that it was the reality.

  The hallways were empty, making the slight squeak of her white tube socks on the linoleum more noticeable. When she spotted the door of the storage closet at the end of the hallway, her stomach gave another flip. Kaila ignored it; it was what she did when her body gave her signals that were mixed up. Her body was telling her to feel fearful, turn around and go back to her room, yet there was absolutely no reason for her to feel that way. She had seen it happen on too many occasions to allow mindless drivel to affect her reality; fear was nothing unless you let it have its way. And if you were so weak to allow it to take control, to give in and curl into a ball of anxiety, frightened of everything in your world, then you deserved whatever you got.

  The door to the storage closet cracked infinitesimally just before she reached it. She noticed Norm’s blade sharp nose poke out and wondered how long he had been waiting, also how close to 2:00 p.m. she was. It would have been easy enough to check the watch strapped to her wrist, but if she had done that it would have spoiled the spool of anticipation that was ready to unwind in her. Norm spotted her moments later. He locked on her with the precision of an expert marksman. His brows knit together in a peak and he mouthed the words holy shit.

  Kaila was a little taken aback by his over-the-top reaction, but when she recalled that she had applied a hefty amount of Pauline’s makeup, she had more of an inkling why he was watching her with such keen interest. As soon as she was a few feet from the door, Norm swung it wide, motioning for her to hurry up. Kaila moved past him, giving him as wide a berth as she could manage. The door clicked behind her just as she crossed the threshold.

  The place reeked of industrial cleaner and fabric softener. There was little space for them to move amongst the roller-wheeled racks that were piled high with clean linens folded into stiff squares, and scrubs in various colors. As well as an assortment of buckets, mops, and the cleaning supplies that the staff used to sanitize Wildwind, work coveralls in brilliant yellow,
hung lifelessly on hooks jutting from the far wall. All sorts of storage might have been a more apt name for the space, as it seemed everything the place used to run was contained in the minute area.

  Kaila trained her gaze on the makeshift bed that lay on the only free piece of floor. Box weave cotton blankets were piled one atop another, and a mound of towels formed a kind of pillow. Norm had been busy. His attention and care in making their escapade perfect didn’t go unnoticed by Kaila. Though she had no idea what it was, something flickered inside her, like a spark that was so small that she wasn’t sure if it would start a fire or blow out.

  Kaila brought her full gaze to Norm. He too looked miles different from normal. He had combed his hair flat to his head; something in all his time in Wildwind she had never seen him do. He wore a black tee that was snug on his petite frame that managed to accentuate how truly scrawny he was. To make matters worse he wore black skinny jeans that made his runners look like boats on his feet. A scent of aftershave clouded the air, though this smell spoke of old men shuffling around, not twenty-two year old guys, she still appreciated his effort. Despite the oddity of his look, Kaila quite liked his attempt at grooming himself. An image of a couple of chimpanzees picking tics from each other’s fur formed in her mind for a fraction of a second.

  “So how are we going to do this?” Norm asked.

  There was an uncharacteristic wariness in his tone, as if he was unsure of himself. Once again Kaila found herself appreciating him, more than she had expected to. Prior to walking into the closet she had felt the whole operation was more of an experiment, where there were no emotions attached just the sexual act. Now she felt warmth push into her heart, but also a slight pain because he would be leaving her forever in a couple of days.

  “Well, you’re going to put your penis into my…”

  Norm released an exasperated sigh and shook his head.

  “I know that part of the procedure Kaila, its how we’re going to do it when you hate when people touch you, because as far as I know there’s going to be a lot of touching involved.”