Jane.

by Riya Anne Polcastro

  4

  (Rose) Come to think of it, I wasn’t that bad. Yeah, I had my moments. But who doesn’t? I did a lot of good too. I took Janie to the park almost every day when she was little. Rain or shine. I taught her to be a true Oregonian, webbed toes and all. We did crafts and played games and danced to silly songs. When she started school, I took her there and picked her up every single day and helped her with her homework and made sure that she studied hard.

  Plus, she got a hearty lunch every single day. OK, so I was not so good at putting breakfast on the table, that’s true, but I did really good with lunch! Does she ever pack me a lunch to take to work? No! My stomach cramps and wails from all of the greasy fast food I’ve been forced to eat. And Janie always had clean, pressed clothes to wear to school. She doesn’t do anything like that for me. She moans and groans and tells me to do my own laundry. But she knows it’s too hard for me to touch that pile after the protective layer of green soap has worn off. It burns! She won’t run my bath either. Or cut my toenails. Or brush my hair! She refuses to do anything for me that she thinks I can somehow do on my own.

  But I can’t. I can’t!

  Janie doesn't understand. No one does. Shit, I don’t even understand it, but sometimes I just can’t. Sometimes it’s just too hard. No. Impossible! The easiest everyday tasks make these huge giant mountains in my way. How the hell does she expect me to push a mountain out of the way?

  She isn’t being fair! I did all of these things for her when she was little. Now I need her help; she should do the same for me. Instead, she’s abandoned me! It’s been days—no, weeks—since my Janie has been home! It’s been so long I can’t even remember the last time I saw her.

  Suddenly, it’s dark. Very dark. The sun’s hurled itself over the downtown buildings in the west, but the stars or satellites or whatever they are haven’t come out yet. Neither has the moon. Where is the moon? Where is it? It isn’t in the western sky. Or the northern one. Or the southern one either. I stand in the pitch black and inch back from the house to see the eastern sky. But it isn’t there either. The darkness swirls around me. It wraps me in syrupy silence. My cocoon is warm and cozy. The cold and wet are gone. Everything is gone.

  5

  I leave Angela’s around ten to cook Rose brunch, but she has not been home. The door is locked, and the house is quiet. No note. It is the same the next day and the next after that. I entertain the possibility that she moved out without saying anything. It does not sound too bad, except for the part where she does not pay the rent anymore.

  My thoughts wander amidst a host of possibilities, some comforting, some disturbing, some both. Rose could be dead—a thought that brings sick relief. It would certainly be the end of this mess and, in the whole scheme of things, what good does she do anymore anyway? My cheeks grow hot and red, and my heart sinks to my stomach. When did I become such a selfish and callous bitch? But life would be a hell of a lot easier, that sad fact cannot be denied. These are terrible thoughts, true, but they spring from the deepest darkest corner of my psyche, and I am helpless to stop that which my subconscious thrusts to the foreground. Besides, it sounds worse than it really is. It is not like I am going to kill her. There is no rational harm in the fantasy of a simpler life. But does not a fantasy in which someone that I love no longer exists border on the insane side of evil? This back and forth battle gnashes at my soul. What is going on in my brain? Who have I become?

  Maybe crazy is contagious after all. Or is it simply the stress of everything in bed with my escapism? Whatever it is, if this is just the beginning, I will surely outdo and outshine my aunt’s wildest outbursts. Such morbid thoughts already aflutter in my head. I marvel with disdain at my sociopathic potential and shudder in ambivalent anticipation. There is something appealing about the other side of sanity, something freeing about giving in and letting go. How long have I been fighting it? That pull at the nape of my neck? The call to follow the rabbit down the hole and into its mighty den?

  6

  It is a matter of way too much partying—too much alcohol, too much cocaine, too much pot, and all of it free—that has led to my downfall. Drunk and high most of the time, and Angela’s advances start to feel good, comforting. She has worn me down just like she set out to do. But she is funny and not just in that laughing at her sort of way like I first thought. And we have a lot of fun. So I decide to go with it, agree that she can call me her girlfriend. It was a reluctant decision. No more than a shrug. A nod. An accident. It happened the night we went over to Daniel Long’s for the first time. I was introduced as "Angela’s girlfriend, Jane" and then nodded hello, which would denote my acceptance of this title except that I did not hear the "girl" part of the word. And once I had accepted it, by accident or not, it just did not seem worth fighting anymore anyway. After all, the girl spends all of her money on me and licks my pussy and does not expect anything else in return; may as well give her the benefit of saying we are together. It is the least that I can do but also the most.

  It is an odd sort of together that I give into, a purely one-sided relationship: one of us giving freely of herself, the other without any romantic feelings whatsoever. It is freeing in a way to be without emotional obligation. Better yet, I negotiate the right to continue to date men just as before. Oh, the benefits of holding all of the cards!

  I should be at least a little ashamed of how I exploit the situation. I should recognize what I do next and stop this sin in progress. But Jose is just too cute for words. He is thin and average height, probably nothing special if he did not dress to the hilt, groom meticulously (that mani/pedi/brow-waxing sort of guy), the whole nine; quite the metro sexual cover boy. He also has impeccable manners. Honestly, I thought he was gay, thought it would be impossible to get anywhere with him. He was just meant to be practice really, a subject to hone my chase, to sharpen my claws. I never imagined that he would play along.

  I never imagined that he could actually be straight.

  My biggest fear in the whole wide world is rejection. It is a rather harmless thing in the scheme of all the dirt and grime and horrible possibilities that are out there. Simple and base, so meaningless and yet so heartfelt, it is rejection that sets me to quiver in my boots.

  Rejection is my nemesis. I must face it and conquer it and break its hold, and to do so, I must live it. The safest way to practice rejection, I rationalize, is to pursue someone who could not possibly have any interest in me to begin with. Therefore, it follows that since Jose is gay, his rejection of me is safe. I can face my biggest fear without it reflecting on me.

  The scandal is that I meet Jose at Angela’s work. He is one of her supervisors—just a shift supervisor though, not like he is her big boss or anything. And yet, technically, is there really anything wrong with this? I am allowed to have relations with guys, right? This is a guy. It is only cheating if the other person is a girl; we agreed on that.

  It is all her fault, anyway. She enabled the whole situation. I warned her, "I’m going after Jose."

  "Good luck," she laughed. "You know he’s gay, right?"

  I nodded yes. "So?"

  "So you can’t get a gay guy!" Beneath her laughter there was anger. In spite of what she agreed to, Angela is pissed that her so-called girlfriend wants to go after any guy in the first place. Had she hoped I just wanted to reserve the right but never actually act on it?

  "Maybe I’ll turn him" I suggested, nonchalant.

  She guffawed, but I just stared back with perfect exaggerated seriousness. When she spoke again, her eyes were squinty with excitement, as if some unbelievable epiphany had dawned on her. "You want his number?"

  She is none too happy when pigs fly, hell freezes, and all of that jazz that must have preceded Jose inviting me to the movies. I am just as stunned as she is. But there is no going back now, no pussing out, no changing the rules mid-game. Angela comforts herself and taunts me with ideas of platonic boredom. "He’s just being nice," she jabs. "Doesn’t want to hurt your fee
lings."

  Except that it does not turn out to be either boring or platonic. Instead, there is excitement, passion and chemistry, laughter and great conversation. Alcohol plays a big role in the attainment of my one and only goal: to lay him down. Without alcohol, it would be just too awkward to take a one-night stand home to the one-bedroom cottage I share with my crazy aunt. Shit, her nest is a mere ten feet from my bedroom door! But enough liquid courage and that hurdle is easy enough to ignore. Luckily, all is quiet when I sneak in first to warn her. It is dark inside. No signs of life. Not even the hearty snores or bellows that she makes during REM. She must not be home. I am too excited to have the place to myself to worry about where she could be or what she could be up to.

  Now I can focus my attention on the challenge at hand. Sound stupid? Like why would a chick be worried about getting into a guy’s pants? All she has to do is ask, right? Enter morbid fear of rejection and its source: an ego riddled with holes from each of those times in the past when I have been shot down─in some pretty cruel manners by the way. Add that to the scars Jaime left. All of the hotness in the world could not repair the self-esteem he destroyed when he cheated with that ugly-ass androgyne, and I am left with little confidence to go after what I want. But Jose should not be too risky anymore. After all of the rubbing and kissing on the dance floor, he has got to be into chicks, and he is way too drunk to turn me down anyway.

  I lead him to the kitchen for a glass of vodka—a little extra insurance. When he leans up against the counter, I grab a hold of it on either side of him and press my body into his. He surprises me by making the next move. Leaning in, he places his lips on mine and slips his tongue into my mouth. His bulge swells with each slow swivel of my hips.

  I was worried for nothing.

  He follows me to the bedroom where I push him down on the bed. Our clothes fly across the room, the moans loud enough to wake the neighbors. This boy is completely and one-hundred-percent uninhibited. He licks my pussy like it is his favorite flavor of ice cream; he has no qualms about climbing on my chest and sticking his dick in my mouth. We flip from position to position, holding off orgasm until we have tried each and every one we can think of.

  7

  (Angela) It’s too cold for July. The sun’s hiding, stuck behind the clouds or something, and there’s a buncha wind from the north. I wrap my hoodie ‘round me like a blanket and sit on the metal bench behind the restaurant. Then I light a menthol and dial my girl.

  When she answers, there’s sleep and hangover in her voice. "Hello?"

  "Hey." I take a long drag, for dramatic effect and all. I’m trying not to smile when I ask her how her date with the gay guy went. But the story she tells ain’t funny at all. I drop the phone on the bench and focus on my cigarette.

  She yaks away for like five minutes. Takes her that long to realize I ain’t responding.

  "Angela . . . Angela?" she squeaks.

  Mad as hell, I shout, "What?"

  "What is your problem?"

  I pick the phone back up and growl, "You are." Then she gets all pissed and tells me that I ain’t allowed to be mad! "What the fuck is wrong with you? You have no feelings!"

  8

  There is something ironic about being told that you do not have feelings by a self-professed gangster. Turns out under that tough girl veneer, there is someone way more sensitive than she lets on. "Didn’t you notice I put the phone down? I wasn’t even listening to you!" She is yelling now.

  "Chill the fuck out!" I yell back. "What are you so upset about? You agreed to this!"

  "I didn’t ask to hear all the little details about it!"

  What the fuck? Did she lose her mind? "Yes, you did!" I remind her. "You called me and asked me how it went! You could have asked me to stop at any time." But Angela is right that I do not have any feelings for her, and that is what she is really mad about. She cannot stand the fact that despite all of her wooing, all of the drugs, and the unreturned pussy licking, I am still not attracted to her. She is my friend and that is all. If she wants to provide me with certain benefits, great, but she cannot go attaching strings to them. There is silence on the other end. She probably put the phone down again, so I hang up and go back to sleep. She can get jealous and act a fool all she wants when it comes to females—I am not a lesbian, so I could care less—but there is no room for her jealousy to grow and encompass the opposite sex as well. Except that jealousy does not care about space; it makes room wherever it sees fit.

  Of course, this is not the end of it. Angela, as it turns out, can be quite vindictive and has plenty of space for jealousy. A woman scorned as they say. She runs to her general manager and sobs her story, salted and peppered as needed for proper effect. Whatever Angela tells her, I am sure is full of over-the-top embellishments. In the end, my one-night stand with Jose never gets a chance for a repeat, and my attempt at rejection-lite backfires as I pine for the unavailable simply because I cannot have it, and my conquest takes an ugly turn from what was supposed to be just another notch on my bedpost to unrequited lust.

  9

  (Rose) It’s a long night full of sounds I haven't made in years. Wails and moans, panting and heavy breathing, a headboard banging against the wall. Crouching in the corner, I can’t even remember a man’s touch. I curl up until my head’s between my knees and hum, and the humming bounces between the silk walls of my cocoon until it lulls me back to sleep. To sleep in its warm arms is to heal from the outside in. My anger melts away. Bitterness evaporates. By morning, the new me’s back. The phoenix really can rise from the ashes!

  I shower and sneak into Jane’s closet to borrow more of her clothes while she snores naked and dead to the world. Off to work and I’m walking on air. I'm going to sell a hundred cars today; I can feel it!

  10

  Months earlier, when Echo looked upon the face of the lake, she hardly recognized her own reflection. The girl who looked back from this mirror suffered. There was something terribly different about her, her eyes moist with betrayal yet dry of any consequential tears, her lips pursed with anger—their flirty pout buried amongst the muck and ruin. The fire doused. Her self-esteem drained to the last drop.

  Now Echo stares long and hard at what lies before her. Now that she has escaped, now that she is free, it is time to rebuild and find herself anew. She drowns in the green seas of her own eyes. She hikes alone in the wilderness amongst both thieves and beasts, and alone she stalks down dark alleys in the dead of night, daring the universe to bring her to her knees. She searches at the bottom of countless bottles of liquor and in the beds of strangers. Antithetical as it may seem to those who hold an ideology of gender, Echo regains a little piece of herself with each conquest.

  Her first victim is a coworker, just a bus boy but cute enough for all intents and purposes. She tugs ever so gently at his heart strings; a wink here, a soft whisper there, and he falls hard and fast. He declares his undying love over risotto, and that is when she goes in for the kill. "Oh," she frowns, the corners of her lips quivering impossibly against a terrible smile. "You didn’t actually think we were exclusive, did you?" With guiltless pleasure, she watches as his heart sinks into his gut; his eyes well up with tears, and he runs out of the bistro without a word. Score!

  There is therapy in one-night stands. With each experience, the ties that bind are loosed ever so slightly; with each drunken romp, Echo draws closer to herself. There is freedom in never knowing their names. There is power in objectifying them with semi-degrading pseudonyms (The Dry Humper, OverEnergizer Bunny, Stubby, Long Dong the Chinese Master, etc.) while she brags about the notch they each left on her bedpost. Her motto: Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am! Typically, she will go home with them but only temporarily; she is out as soon as she gets hers. Inside, she squeals with delight as they beg her to stay. "It won’t be long," they always say. "I’ll be able to get it back up in just a minute."

  "I don’t have time to wait on your refractory period," she answers haughtily as she jaunts
out the door. There is a big ocean out there with plenty of fish to be fried, and the next catch is on the line before she has even pulled out of the driveway.

  The surprise is even ruder when they come home with her. After the deed is done but before they can make the classic guy excuses about why they cannot spend the night, Echo kicks them out instead, such a shock that they often plead to stay. But she just wrinkles her nose and lets them down as rough as possible. Something like, "I would really rather you didn’t; it just wasn’t that good," usually does the trick. If they press and insist that they can do better the second time around, she admits that she has already texted another guy to come over for round two. "Sorry," she mocks, "I really need to get off, and you just can’t do it for me."