Michael, Antoinette, and Me

 

Part Nine

 

 

“Good Christmas?” Bill Locke asked as I climbed in the Ford pickup after checking the bed.

“The best, yours?”

“Pretty good.” He nodded to the back of the truck. “No bodies today. The roads are still messy. Don’t like taking the car out.”

“Right. The two inches of snow yesterday.”

He bit his lip for two blocks, finally asking, “Four separate occasions?”

“What is?”

“What you mentioned.”

“Oh, the rape? I’m not afraid of words.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”

“Not that it’s any of your concern, Bill, I had four rapists, one occurrence.”

“Did you know –”

“My brother and three of his friends.”

“Damn.” He gnashed his teeth. “I recall you standing at the bathroom, nodding, referring to piles of shit as perfect.”

“Eighteen and a half buckets. Yeah, right? I was in the Hey, universe, what else you got? mode. The universe answered.”

“What if I’d said no to house sitting?”

“I had plans. Only one of those plans involved the death of my brother. It’s not that I was mad or scared or anything like that. I simply wanted him to not rape me. You see how that worked out. I should have sunk a kitchen knife in his chest. Now that I know how to dispose of a body –”

“Call me.”

“Count on it.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“You think I am?”

We chuckled darkly.

“Pamala Edwards, huh?”

I blushed. “Yes, Bill. Pamala Edwards.”

“Good people. I kind of figured that might happen.”

“When did you figure I was gay?”

“You’re gay?”

“Wait a minute. You put us together?”

Bill shrugged. “It was more Bob’s idea. He watched you work, interact with people at the party. I got a hint at your inclination the way you and Jessica eyed each other.”

“I thought we were being discreet.”

“Oh, you were. Jessica always picks out a girl at the parties to mess up the closet with.”

“I don’t feel so special now.”

“Did she tell you she’s getting married?”

“Afterwards. She pushed pretty hard. I got sleepy when Jessica told me no one can ever know about us. I’ve lived my life obscure. My parents, brother, don’t even know where I am. I’m not about to get into the complexities of a secret relationship, be some woman’s bang on the side while her fiancé is sperming her up every other day. I mean, who wants to slush around in that swill?”

Again, Bill with the dark chuckle. “Given it some thought, huh?”

“I can’t even say Well, Jessica is a nice girl and all, because I don’t even know her. She’s accomplished, which I admire, yet her father has his boot on her neck, which I don’t admire.”

“Family can be complicated.”

“Bill, when my family got complicated, long before my father wacked me in the face with a hammer, I withdrew as far back in the shadows as I could, walking unseen, tiptoeing around as to not wake the beast. When I saw my opening, I hit the door, never looked back.

“If Jessica wishes to sit complacent in a boiling pot, that’s her choice. Did you hear what happened in Bailey’s Jewelers?”

“I did. Simon showed me the surveillance video.”

“I’m not comfortable with a permanent record of me being lost for words.”

“An astounding moment in world history.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Our love is so right and true and real, we’re not afraid of it or embarrassed by it.”

“At the party, when Bob asked, What’s with the girl, meaning you, I immediately thought of you and Pam. She smart, articulate –”

“Beautiful.”

“I agree. I avoid saying such things about people her age because it can sound inappropriate. You are all that, too. Bob and I figured all we had do was put you in the same room together.”

“So, he didn’t need help on Thanksgiving?”

“Oh, he did. He did. My house did need a sitter.”

 

Doctor Phil Kearny was Fred and Barney old, smelled of my forever damp basement, a white lab coat draped over ratty faded blue pajamas, round silver glasses like Coke bottles, full head of bushy white hair, a close match for his complexion. His dull blue eyes raked me up and down.

“Need an abortion, Huh? You have to take all your clothes off.”

“Not pregnant,” I stated.

“Well, you have to take your clothes off for the exam.”

“Phil,” Bill said.

“Yes, Mr. Locke.”

“Just draw the blood.”

“You say you were raped.”

“Yes, I was raped.”

“You sure you’re not just a little trollop? What makes you think you have a venereal disease?”

“I’ve had no symptoms. Peeing’s OK. No rash, fever. Discharge, not abnormal anyway. I just want to be sure my rapists didn’t give me anything.”

“Give me your arm, look the other way. You going to be wanting a lollipop?”

“How long is this going to take?” Bill asked.

“We’re done now!”

“For the results, Phil.”

“I’m going over the lab soon. Closed for the holiday. I’ll take care of it all myself. That way, I don’t have to fake the paperwork.”

Doctor Phil Kearny emotionlessly accepted a white letter-size envelope from Bill Locke.

 

“Can we trust the results?” I asked back in the truck.

“You mean because he’s a quack?”

“I do. Mean that.”

“That’s an act. He’s a really sharp doctor. He’s often doing this very thing for, well –”

“People who attend Mary’s parties? Needs to be discrete? He didn’t say.”

“I’ll let you know. Early lunch?”

“It’s not even 9 AM.”

“Late breakfast then?”

“You want to stop somewhere, I’ll watch you eat, maybe get a pastry or a muffin. If you wish to hang with me, you need not make up a premise.”

“Well, I’ve not eaten.”

 

Confronting his two eggs over easy, home fries, stack of pancakes, toast, and coffee, he nodded at my meal. “French fries and gravy?”

I shrugged. “Comfort food.”

“You got that at the Red Eagle.”

“I was comforted you didn’t bury me in the Pines.”

“You really thought we’d do that?”

“Not really, but I often entertain all possibilities, no matter how remote.”

“Anyway, I’d like to come visit tomorrow. Say two to maybe eight.”

“Do you want the place to yourself. Before you answer, let me first say that I would love to hang out with Billie. I’ll even make us a little dinner.”

“It’s difficult – around people.”

I shrugged.

“No trouble over dinner.”

“Promise.”

“Also, toward the middle of next month, I’m going to have an appraiser look at the house. I’ll give you the time and date so you can give him access.”

“OK.”

“I have a big tax thing coming up. I need to know the exact market value of the house at present.”

I nodded. I wasn’t concerned until he offered an explanation I’d not asked for. Bill historically did not provide explanations.

Tapping his fingers on the table, absently watching the busy highways, he said, as if to himself, “Don’t worry about your timecard any longer.”

I think my eyes got big. “You’re firing me?”

“No, no.” He stayed with the traffic. “After our little romp in the woods, you’ve earn being on salary. That means –”

“I know what the means.”

“You’ll like the numbers.”

“Your numbers have never disappointed me.”

 

With Tammy replacing Mr. Blanc as my Harvest Stalker, though my bones were on fire to get to Harvest early, watch Pamala work, me pining with stary eyes, I thought it best to avoid the mall. “She was only by five times today looking for you,” Tex reported Friday early evening at the house.

“I’d thought Carol would have banned her.”

“Tammy’s fucking an older guy. That’s like a brass ring for some girls, making Tammy a hero to Carol.”

I scoffed. “I wouldn’t fuck him with your dick.”

“I certainly don’t swing that way, but if I did, he wouldn’t be on my dance card.”

“Anyway, enough talk about fucking my father. The weather is winter and going to be more wintery tonight. You going to be OK?”

“Brass monkey alert.”

“Huh?”

“If you have a brass monkey, best to bring it in tonight. It’s going to be so cold, it’ll freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”

“OK.”

“The kids laugh.”

“I was never a kid.”

“Sure, I’ll be alright. I have the heater. Compared with my spot down by the railroad, your garage is like the Ritz.”

“I don’t know what the Ritz is.”

“Better than down by the railroad.”

I bit my lip. “I wanted to ask you. Do you want a real job? I know someone in the restaurant business –”

He showed me his palm. “Harvest Chateau hardly qualifies as the restaurant business.”

“How about Michelangelo’s – in Philly?”

“Yeah, OK. That’s a restaurant but no. I can’t do a real job.”

“Do I want to know?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“I’m actually OK with that. Do you have a driver’s license?”

“A legal one?”

“Something that’ll pass for a legal one.”

“Yes. Do I want to know?”

“Would you want a regular job if paperwork wasn’t required?”

“Sure. Why not? Do I want to know?”

“Not at this time. I need you to do something for me tomorrow.”

“Your wish is my something-or-other.”

“I think that would be command.”

“Yeah, that.”

“From 11 AM to maybe 10 PM, I need you to be disappeared. Off the property.”

“Just me or all my stuff like I was never here?”

“Just you.”

Standing straight, he offered a terrible salute. “Aye, aye. I’ll be at the mall if you need me.”

“Thanks.”

I watched Tex from the dining room, Tex reading a magazine casually on the Lazy Boy, the fire crackling just beyond. I wanted to immerse myself in trust. My trust remained qualified, Tex laboring under the unseen weight of the men who’d done bad things to me.

“I know why old people go to Florida now,” he said as if knowing I was watching him.

“Why?” I asked, approaching.

“Like elephants, they’re drawn there when they feel the time is near.”

“I’ve been looking for that.”

“Florida?”

“The article.” I reached.

“Oh, I’m not done yet!”

“Please leave it on the kitchen table.”

“That’s my signal –” Tex said to the doorbell.

“Too early for Pam, as you were.”

 

“God, it’s cold out here,” Levy greeted. “Merry Christmas.”

Levy and Toni pushed in. Toni’s makeup was unusually heavy, not unattractive. Like me, though, she didn’t require makeup. As if I could see the future, I knew a time would come she’d need foundation and setting powder, maybe concealer. Unable to avoid her, we shared a pyramid hug and exchanged Merry Christmas.

Tex wandered from his spot by the fire, being polite, exchanging rote greetings.

“I’m glad you’re here. I can use a hand getting Toby’s present from the car.”

Tex obliged without objection.

“Put your shoes on,” I commanded as he passed me.

“You’re not my mother,” he answered jovially.

“I guess for a man who’s lived outside these five years –”

“I didn’t want to break a nail.” Toni fanned her left hand in the air.

Oh my fucking god. I did not telegraph my reaction to the world’s smallest diamond, a diamond just the same, on her forth finger. Taking her hand, I said, “Oh, you must have been a very good girl.”

“Oh, I was. Can we talk?”

Leaning, I tried to see what the men were wrestling from the back of Levy’s station wagon.

“Sure.”

I sat on the bedside chair in the far back bedroom room downstairs, having shut the door.

Toni paced. “I don’t like him.”

“Who?”

“Your friend. Tex.”

“First off. He’s not my friend.”

“Huh?”

“Friend is a special designation, like my hugs, that I don’t hand out like Halloween candy.”

She stopped in midstride, looking hard at me, I think the implications cascading down on her like a polluted waterfall. She smiled. “He said he loves me.”

I figured I’d given her enough reality for one day. “Wow, that great.”

She looked at her army boots. “I love him, too. I think.” Raising her head, she tethered my eyes.

Again, I did not telegraph my true reaction. “Have you told him?”

“Told him what?”

I hesitated, dodging. “That you don’t have a proper family.”

“Huh?”

“That’s why the Palmers and their church shitcanned me.”

“Oh, yeah. I figure once they’re so in love with me, I can confess what shitty parents I have. You know, all embarrassing, which is why I didn’t say anything, and they’re see themselves as heroes saving me.”

I nodded. “Good plan.”

“I told Levy I wasn’t allowed to date, which is why he can’t come around the house.”

I nodded again.

“It’s really sad.” Toni turned to the mirror on the dresser, leaning just a little, pulling at her short hair, straightening, fluffing the hem of her knee length skirt. “I think Dad would love me. He hates Michael. Everyone does.”

“I did not – I do not hate Michael.”

“You wouldn’t even be his friend!”

“I don’t have friends. It’s not that it’s personal.”

“I know, I know. Halloween candy.”

“Years ago, when Mr. Thompson’s an asshole asked who was friends with Michael, I raised my hand.”

Toni narrowed her eyes at me. “Because no one else did!”

I shrugged with all the dismissiveness I could squeeze into my shoulders. “Because I raised my hand, I got my face bounced off the concrete. If I’d not raised my hand that day, we wouldn’t have algebraed, I’d not danced for you in sanctuary, you’d not have Thompson’s an assholed me at the Harvest Chateau, we’d not had the Saturday night date, Antoinette would have likely never been – at least not this incarnation, you’d not crashed my date with Levy, stealing him away.  You’d still be slipping into your mother’s underwear jerking off alone in your bedroom for your jollies.”

I stood, narrowed eyes. “I have done more for you than anyone calling themselves a friend ever would. Accept what our relationship is for what it is. Stop whining about what it’s not.”

Toni stepped back, pulling the curtain aside. “Going to be a really cold night.”

“It’s December.”

“Can we borrow this room for a little while before we go?”

I rolled my eyes unseen. “Sure.”

She turned from the window, excited like a child’s first visit to the zoo. “I really like blowing him.”

A guilty pleasure, I liked that about her, that she could be that sixteen-year-old girl. I fell back on the chair. “You’ve said.”

“I’m not gay.”

“You’ve said that, too.”

“I mean, at first, I guess, well, it was about Levy’s excitement. Me being able to make him that happy, you know.”

“I actually kind of get all that.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded, not about to share any details of linen closets.

“Michael is not gay.”

“We have established as much.”

She rolled her eyes, blushing, bouncing on her toes. “Last week, on my way home, this guy picks me up. We’re talking. He asks me for a hand job, which is not uncommon. Naturally, I decline. He offers me ten bucks. Do you know what minimum wage is?”

“Buck sixty.”

“Right? You know how many hours I’d have to work for –”

“Six and quarter.”

“How do you do that?”

I shrugged.

“It’s dark, on the way home, he pulls in at the lake, the lake you look down on from sanctuary.”

“The first parking lot or the second?”

“What?”

I shrugged again, the story getting tedious, my sarcasm, as usual, alone it some void I was unaware of.

“You remember Michael is circumcised. So is Levy. This guy isn’t. Weird.”

“Toni, please.”

“OK. OK. One hand is alright but can take all night. I twist around, his dick in my left hand, his balls in my right – always a winning combination with Levy. Levy really likes when –”

“Toni.”

“OK. OK. This guy is moaning, groaning. He says twenty bucks if I bust a nut in your mouth. Funny thing is, I was just heading there. His dick sinks in my mouth, throbs once, then again.”

She blushed, looking at her boots. “I like dick, not just Levy’s. Even if they taste like pee at first. That’s what I wanted to know. The pee thing. Plus, twenty bucks for five minutes actual work, if I can even call it work.”

“$240.00 an hour. You have to account for set up, you know, finding the guy, getting his pant off.” My sarcasm was lost – again.

“I’ve decided to quit school, like you did.”

“I got thrown out, well, asked to withdraw or get thrown out. They didn’t get around to threatening jail.”

“Either way. Get my own place.”

“I have a GED prep book around here somewhere.”

“A what?”

“High school equivalency diploma. Study, take a test.”

 “I’ll worry about that when I have to worry about that. For now, I need a job – money. I like to think I could make enough money hitchhiking around blowing guys, maybe get regular, what do I call them? Clients? The guy I blew said he’d look for me. That’s not something I can count on. I don’t even know what rent is.”

“Two bedroom – buck twenty to buck sixty. Phone, utilities, food. They like a security deposit going in, month or two.”

Her eyes rolled, locked on the ceiling. “I don’t suppose you have money you could lend –”

“Tex, who is pretty close to being a friend – maybe someday if he helps me bury a body – lives in my garage. And he makes me breakfast, cleans the kitchen.”

“He lives in the garage?”

“Yes.”

“Why not the house?”

“He has a dick.”

“I see your point.”

“Take a breath, Toni. Relax. Enjoy the moment. Don’t quit school just yet. Give it a month.”

“What’s going to happen in a month?”

“Life – everything can change in the blink of an angel’s eye. Think about how the universe was when I stepped over Harvest Chateau’s railing, walking off into the mall with you and what the universe is now. A lot can change in a month.”

“Like being on a rollercoaster.”

“And we’re not talking the kid’s rollercoaster at the mall.” I took a deep breath. “He asked you to marry him?”

“Not like he means next weekend!”

 

Antoinette Blanc, my Antoinette Blanc, my friend, my lover real and true didn’t exist in objective reality. This mindscape creature, my wraith, was an important influence in my life. She reached across the void between the mindscape and objective reality, staying my hand from murder more than once, for example.

Yet, I never insisted anyone in objective reality accept this mind ghost, this wraith, as anything other than what she was. I couldn’t escape the glaring parallels between my creation and Michael’s, that wraith taken flesh, Toni.

In my tradition of accounting for all possibilities, I could she Antoinette – Toni – standing before me, snow swirling around us, her taking my hand, saying, “I’d like you to take me home now.”

I’d answer, “I cannot.”

“Why.”

“You’re not real.”

 

Three soft taps sang from the door. “Is everything OK?”

“We good?” I asked Toni.

She nodded.

“Yes, Pam.” I opened the door. “Girl talk.”

“Love the makeup,” Pam greeted Toni, kissing me.

“Merry Christmas.” Toni displayed her hand.

“Holy fuck!”

“Is that the first time you said the word?” I asked.

“Oh, that word. Practically. Congratulations?” She looked from Toni to me.

“Right? Surprised me, too,” Toni answered.

 

“A television?”

Levy stood proud next to the console TV. “I wanted to get you something you’d never buy yourself.”

“You got that right. Thank you?”

“Turn it on! Turn it on!” Toni said.

“Eh, maybe later.”

“It’s got UHF, too,” Levy bragged. “It may not be new, but it’s pretty good.”

“Your father didn’t like the color?”

“He bought a brand-new RCA Victor for Mom!”

I rolled my eyes.

“Congratulations, Levy,” Pamala said.

“For, oh, thanks. It’s not like we’re engaged. We’re like promising to be engaged.”

“Well, that’s really great.”

“Where’s Tex?” I looked around. “Levy, get Tex, he’s in the garage. For tonight’s entertainment, you and Toni can take the tree down. Tex can make us snacks, and I’m going to read some Dickens.”

“Out loud?” Toni asked.

“Maybe Andersen.”

Tex came in the front door, Levy close behind, Tex proclaiming, “Snacks,” on the way to the kitchen.

Levy hooked my arm, dragging me across the living room, down the hallway. “He lives in the garage?” he snarled in my face, shaking me.

I wanted to shut down, jump to the mindscape, escape to my sanctuary. I stepped in, looking up, nose to nose. “He’s been living in the woods. My garage is like the Ritz to him.”

“You’d better let go of her, now, Levy, or your night’s going to get terrible really quick,” Tex said calmly coming up the hallway.

Keeping Levy’s eyes, I said, “Tex, I told you I don’t need your help.”

“This is none of your business,” Levy said, glancing Tex.

“It sounds like where I sleep is none of your business.”

Levy released me. “I’m just surprised at you. Letting a human being live like that.”

“At Christmas time, too,” I bit back.

“Yeah!”

“I don’t know why I waste my time with sarcasm.”

“Huh?”

“Twenty turkey dinners,” Toni said from the end of the hall. “What did you put in the collection plate?”

“Sister Carolina confined in me –” Pam started.

“That’s enough, Pam. Really. But we’re going to talk about that later.”

“Levy,” Tex cut in again. “You’re talking out of school. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Come, enjoy the evening. Good people, good snacks.”

“You have to be careful, Levy,” Toni said. “People talk down from the mountain, eh –”

“Without know what’s going on in the valley,” I finished.

Levy kept my eyes, giving me a hard look, returning to the living room.

Tex came up on me.

“I told you –”

“I know. You didn’t need my help. I didn’t want you to hurt him. I’ve got a soft spot for people who don’t like hobo abuse.”

Hands on my knees, I pulled air into my lungs, Tex wandering back to the kitchen, Pamala coming up on me.

“You OK?” She glanced the direction she’d come.

“Sure. People, you know. I’m not good with people – that’s to say most people – putting their faces in mine and I’m doubly not good with the threat of violence. So odd that jumped out escalated. He could have calmly asked a question.”

“It is odd a friend would –”

“He’s not a friend.”

“Oh?”

I stood, rolling my eyes, a palm to Pamala’s cheek, kissing her softly, my free hand intertwined with hers. “Your face in mine is good anytime. Levy stalked me for a bit, then asked me out. I told him no. That didn’t stop him from asking. I wanted a Christmas tree. He has a station wagon. I agreed to a date. Toni showed up –”

“You rented two friends.”

“Levy went loopy for Toni. Toni went loopy over Levy going loopy for her.”

“The Dad and Tammy loopy circle.”

“Right? The day was near-perfect. There was this perfect moment. I’d stepped outside, looking in the window, Levy and Toni between the fire and the tree, kissing.”

“The little match girl.”

I shrugged. “Christmas Eve, with you and your family, was like stepping into her dream.”

“Forever and ever, Toby.”

“Nothing is forever.”

“In this moment it is.”

I sighed with a healthy shrug. “Sister Carolina.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to blurt that out, it was –”

“I know what it was. Did she have to discuss your history paper and the subject just happened to come up?”

“Eh, Western literature and no. She called to talk about your abuse and donation. Talked to Dad. He gave me a full report.”

“She seems like such a nice person, too.”

“Well, she is. It’s not like she was storming the shores of Normandy. You told her of the abuse. She wanted to make herself available for counseling, that is if you were interested or felt in need of.

“As for the donation, she was concerned the money may not have been yours.”

“Like, I stole it or something?”

“That’s what she implied. Dad asked how much. She told him. $2,000. Dad said that wasn’t the question. He said, At what amount do you figure a child stole the money? I think that settled that.”

“Western literature, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I’ll take her up on her offer. We can discuss Camus.”

 

“I could tell you’ve never had grilled cheese,” Tex explained, handing off a plate of triangle cut wedges.

“I really need to be careful with my telegraphing around you.” I nibbled. “Hmm. Good. Bacon, pepper, and what?”

“Sprinkle of oregano.”

I nodded, turning, crossing the dining room into the living room. Levy turned from his removal of string lights, stepping.

I showed him a palm. “Don’t come on me hard. It creeps me out. Inch up on me like you would a feral cat.”

Levy stopped, watching me.

Pamala took a wedge, biting. “My gosh, this is good!”

“I wanted to tell you, this afternoon, I saw a story in the paper, about a guy who died, froze to death, down by the railroad.”

“Did you read it?” Tex asked, setting two plates on top the television.

“Eh, well –”

“Ol’ Joe. He was eighty-four. Pushed the Nazis out of France. He was born –” Tex looked around, then pointed. “About three miles that way.”

“Wow, I have to read the story!”

“None of that’s in the story. Nobody cared about him – just people who cared he died. He was crazy, that one. Maybe the war did it to him. Maybe life. Maybe he was born that way. Nobody cared. Now, he’ll be beloved, it’ll say so right on his gravestone now that he’s dead in the ground.

“He was eighty-four. If he were here right now, he’d tell you to your face he had a full, rich life, not that you’d understand much of his rant. I enjoyed the rants, summer nights under the stars, fire crackling. He was crazy that one.

“The point, Levy, is you read a headline. You made up the story, got all riled up, put your hands on a girl.”

Levy looked at me. “I said I was sorry.”

Nothing he said was even close to an apology. “Hammer. It’s all good, Levy.”

Tex laughed.

“While I’m at it. Toni, Levy, tomorrow, all day – don’t come a-knocking. I have private personal business to attend to.” Bending, I turned the nob bringing the TV slowly to life. “You can see what’s on, Levy.”

I had gotten Levy and Tex five-inch folding Buc knives for Christmas because, well men. Toni received basic wardrobe items with the hopes of keeping her out of my clothes. Where once I viewed Michael in my clothes as charming, now felt like a violation. I gave her space in a closet in the back downstairs bedroom careful to point out for her clothes, not a bedroom for her.

I did some bud nipping at even the hint of encroachment.

I gifted Pamala and me matching light blue terry pajamas with a smiling cloud design because going a whole day without doing something corny is bad for my health.

With Tex sitting cross-legged stoking the fire, Levy and Toni flirting, taking the tree down, the television droning as an annoying backdrop, Pamala and I snuggled into the Lazy Boy, Andersen at the ready.

“Does that go for me, too?” Pamala whispered.

“I was hoping to keep you tonight.”

“If that’s OK.”

“It’s always OK.”

“Except for tomorrow.”

“Should be OK after work but call first.”

“He scared me, just a little bit.”

“I always have a fear of men, the fear hanging in the back of my closet.”

“Do you think that’s why you –”

“I was deeply in love real and true with Antoinette well before I developed that overcoat.”

With a story read, the tree dragged out to the curb, the grilled cheese wedges eaten, Tex swept the floor.

“How was that restaurant?” Pamala casually asked.

“My God. Crazy,” Toni answered. “I’m glad we were dressed like we were.”

Levy watched his shoes. “Oh, yeah. About that.”

“Didn’t like it?” I narrowed my eyes.

He looked up. “Best food I ever had. You know, I don’t keep a lot of money in my wallet.”

“I don’t know that. Do go on.”

“I keep a little. My wad in my pocket. In case I get robbed. They get my wallet –”

“I get the idea.”

“Well, the bill shocked me. I didn’t have anywhere near that kind of money on me, my wad on my bedroom dresser. Since we started at the church, I didn’t have that kind of money on me.”

Toni rolled her eyes. “I was broke.”

“I was going to call Dad to come over. How embarrassing. That girl – Jasmine?”

“Yes, Levy, that girl – Jessica.”

“Beautiful and a little scary. She caught on to what was happening, came over. Told our server – Jake I think it was, angry guy –”

“Scary, not beautiful,” Toni interjected.

“I thought he was going to give me a beat down – that we were cool, that she’d take care of it. She took my address off my driver license. I told her I could come back with the money. Then, I dropped your name.”

I bit my lip.

“Busy night, packed house. She remembered who we were, that you called to get us in, looked at the ticket, ripped it in half, handed it to Jake.”

“I’ll cover it,” I said indifferently.

“Thanks. Sorry. Let me know how much. If I’d known –”

I dismissed him with a crook of my head.

Toni caught my eye. With a subtle nod from me, she took Levy by the hand, leading him down the hall.

Leaning on the broom, Tex shook his head. “He doesn’t seem to like women much. You should have thrown him out three seconds after he grabbed your arm.”

“I considered it. However, it’s better not to let your enemy know he’s an enemy. And I didn’t much feel like taking the tree down.”

“I don’t mind it. Like getting closure for the holiday,” Pamala said.

“It’s like sex for guys. They get all worked up, then when done, feel let down,” Tex said.

“I can say that was pretty much my experience when the four guys fucked me. Well, they laughed, but the laughs were fake, like the laughs Marshal’s brother was giving Marshal’s stupid jokes.”

“And Marshal giving Eric’s,” Pamala added.

“Do I want to know?” Tex asked, applying the broom to the floor as his own answer. “I’m not done yet.”

 

I lingered – in the kitchen washing dishes, wiping down. I closed my eyes fully recalling Pamala at the kitchen table, forking egg into her mouth. I put her fork in my mouth imagining I could taste her, my bones melting.

“You’re weird,” I told myself.

I lingered – in the bedroom, making the bed, something I never did at home – their home, my parent’s home. No one in the house valued a neat bed, everything askew, unwashed for months at a time waiting for my mother to be taken with a manic rage, stripping everything, washing everything. If the rage lasted long enough, my bed would get made.

I curled up on the bed, my face buried in Pamala’s pillow, me drinking in the scorched pine, cinnamon, basil, sugar cookie dough scent. I wanted to ask Pamala whether she thought it too creepy for us to do ourselves, next to each other, under the covers.

I wanted our experience to be pure, original, a sharing of intimacy, not just masturbation like Michael did wearing my underwear, stockings, and dress. My hand was down my underwear. I didn’t know how it got there. I ran my tongue flat eight inches up the pillow, buried my face again, my brain bursting across the mindscape.

“Damn, you’re fucking weird.” I rolled off the bed on unsteady legs, fingers in my mouth, wondering what Pamala would taste like, what her woolly mammoth would feel like against my cheek. The doorbell retrieved me from my lingering.

Pulling a six-inch hair from my mouth, I flung the door open, assaulted by the bitter wind. “Right on time, Bill,” I greeted. “Oh, hairball.”

Dark brown bower hat pulled low, topcoat to match, Bill Locke entered dragging a suitcase and black duffle bag, glancing behind. “Toby.”

I hung his hat and coat in the foyer. “Coffee? Tea?”

“I’m good. Are we alone?”

“Yes. I’m expecting no one. I figured you can use my bedroom, next to the bathroom. Hang whatever in the closet or lay it across the bed.”

He let out a long sigh, shaking his hands at his sides. “OK, good. Upstairs?”

“To the left of the bathroom. I want to start a fire, sweep the floor again. Pine needles are a good argument for not getting a tree next year.”

“Right, right.” Bill disappeared upstairs.

 

Bill Locke dwarfed me, tall and broad. Apprehension nagged from the shadows, Bill being a man, a fear my constant companion lurking just out of sight often causing me to step away from people in the mall, change direction while riding my bike, all without conscious effort, often without my awareness.

I’d been doing better after my arrest, finding a courage to face fear I did not know I had. The trip to the Pines helped, too, alone in the darkness powerless before two men, raised up as an equal. They had killed a person – I assumed. We buried a body.

Levy grabbing me the day before brought my inherent fear back to my front door. My first impulse was not to argue with him. My first impulse was to put my knee in his nuts. If not for Tex –

Levy made me feel small, a child, the child’s mother’s face pushed close screaming. Helpless. Uncle Gropey’s face in mine, his hand pumping like the connection rods of an old time locomotive, his free hand pinning me to the toilet, violently groping my chest as if I had something to grope.

I looked up from the sink, my sunlight faded reflection looking back, trees swaying to an unheard song, leaves dancing across the yard beyond. “Antoinette,” I barely whispered. Not for the first time, I entertained the idea I wasn’t real. I’d not survived the abuse. I died, resurrected as someone – something else. A wraith.

I willed the glass in my hand to shatter, ripping me open to affirm I was flesh and blood.

It didn’t.

I did, however, have my white silk underwear hanging in my bedroom window where I retied the blood-stained material after I cut myself open. “If I am real – a being of objective reality – or a creature of the mindscape – a visitor to objective reality – the consequences of my actions, like Antoinette pulling my hand away from the bat by the door – are the same.”

The glass in my hand still wouldn’t break.

I’d heard Billie on the stair, two hours after she went up, putting my attention on the percolator.

“You’ve really done nice work on the house,” she said, slinking into the kitchen, onto a chair behind the table.

“A labor of love. I’ve literally bled into this house.” I showed my wrist.

Her eyes went big.

Once again tapping into my Herculean effort, I did not telegraph my relief Billie wasn’t dressed like a 15-year-old as so many of the older men at the party were. She wore an age-appropriate blue flowered a line dress dancing on her ankles, half sleeve, sensible brown loafers with a two-inch heel.

“I really love the hair.”

She bounced the curls of her sandy brown wig. “Thanks.” She blushed a little. “How’d you cut yourself?”

I shrugged. “Window repair. I love the eye shadow. I really like browns for me, too.”

“Window repair?”

Again, a shrug. “I like windows to go up and down.” I placed a mug on the table. “Touch of milk, two sugars.”

“How’d you know?”

“Red Eagle. I pay attention.”

I sat, my coffee with just coffee. “Do you have the photo, too?”

“What, oh, sure.” She pulled her blue velvet purse from the floor, digging. “Here.”

“We were rocking around at night in the pickup.” I drank the image. “My age?”

“I don’t know how old you are. Seventeen.”

“Stunning, Billie.”

“That’s my hair, too. They tried to cut it. I wouldn’t let them. Really good coffee.”

“My early efforts were terrible. I had no idea coffee could be burned, though I like it strong. Eggshells.”

“Eggshells?”

“Yeah. Scrunched up, put in the coffee grinds. Just a hint of cinnamon.”

“The stockboy?”

“What is?”

“Who gave you the eggshell tip.”

“Actually, the cook at the drug store.”

“Tex. Nice guy.”

“Yes. Says the same about you, or rather says the same about Bill. Not that Bill is ever the subject of conversation.”

“I’m sure.”

I sipped my coffee watching Billie. “Allow me to pontificate.”

“Please, pontificate away.”

“A very long time ago in what seems like a universe or two away, I suffered a terrible, horrifying Saturday night with my parents, both falling down sloppy drunks. I thought they might kill each other, maybe me. I actually entertained the idea of killing them once they passed out.

“Anyway, come the morning, I sat crying on the front steps, the sun on my face, the sun a promise of something normal, something not so scary. Lilly Martin appeared out of the sun, pointing her cane at me. She told me to go wash my face, put on a pretty dress, to be quick about it.

“Thinking about this now, I’m lucky it was Lilly Martin and not some pervert looking to rape and murder a child. I think I would have gone with anyone reaching out a hand. As it was, we went to church, walking the half mile, holding hands. Each Sunday, I’d get up early, wash up good, put on a pretty dress, Lilly Martin and I going to church.

“I knew no matter what happened during the week, I always had those two hours Sunday morning.”

I closed my eyes, taking a long sip of coffee. “You, Billie, bring Lilly Martin to mind. That makes you beautiful.”

She pursed her lips. “I appreciate – I have mirrors at home.”

“You don’t have my eyes. Maybe we’re just measuring things differently.” I held up the photo. “Maybe when you look in the mirror, you’re looking for her. You said it yourself.” I rolled my eyes. “What time and flesh have stolen. Let me tell you – keep in mind my door doesn’t swing that way – when it comes to men, Bill is an extremely attractive man.”

She sighed deeply, examining her freshly painted fingernails. “That’s the thing. I don’t want to be an extremely attractive man. I want to be a woman.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m pretty smart – for a girl.”

“I’m not sure it matters.”

Again, I held up the photo. “Your turn to pontificate. Tell me a story.”

She took the photo, sighing deeply. “I was such a pretty little girl. My mother died. Did I tell you that?”

“You did not.”

“I was eight, Mary nine. My father had no use for a boy, thought to make Mary his wife. You’ve mentioned your parents are drunks, so you don’t need details. He got arrested. With no one who cared, I was shipped off to the home, Mary went to live with a nice family.”

“I did not miss the sarcasm.”

She chuckled a little. “I like that about you. You don’t miss much.

“I was terrified and pretty. Abandoned boys are angry. I was more terrified than I was angry, quiet, hiding in the corner. Mostly older, I became the thing the boys focused their anger on. I don’t remember how it happened exactly. A dress appeared.

“White when new, but this was far from new. Half sleeve, scoop neck, tucked at the waist, flaring to my knees. They made me put it on, laughing at me, calling me names. Four or five of the older boys liked me in the dress, secretly as possible having sex with me. They protected me.

“I became like a celebrity. I got extra food, safety. I was no longer terrified. Much better than living with my drunk father. Mike came to the home. I managed to use what little influence I had to protect him.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You were regularly gang raped?”

“It wasn’t like that at all.”

“I’ll accept that without explanation.”

She stared beyond me. “I’ve wondered over the years if not for the home if I’d discovered me. Even after leaving the home, I’d dress up occasionally. Go out for a walk, a long drive. Shopping when I dared, church on the holidays – easy to get lost in that crowd.”

“Billie is your safe place, a place where you feel safe, comfortable, most like yourself.”

“She is, yes.”

“I understand more than you know.”

 Bill didn’t want to be a woman. Bill wanted to be that young, pretty woman, worshipped by her peers. He searched the mirror to find that woman, blind to the woman she had become.

“More coffee?” I asked, climbing to my feet, taking her mug. “I’m glad I get to meet Billie.”

With our coffee placed on the table, I went to the cabinets, opening a drawer, retrieving a color chart. “This,” I said, pointing. “It’s like an ever-so-slightly gray-white. Very neutral. Going to paint the whole house this color.”

“One color? So plain.”

“If I were going to live here forever, I might have picked out some serious colors. As much as I think otherwise, I often remind myself this isn’t my house, that you’ll be selling one day and a neutral white throughout is best for that.”

She nodded thoughtfully. I was looking for an objection, an assurance I’d be living in the house for years.

As I launched into my verbal gymnastics, my concern Billie didn’t like herself, the warning Tex gave me about women wanting to fix things came washing up. Billie wasn’t broken. She was a fine-looking woman of fifty. She didn’t wish to accept it.

I sat cross legged in the glow of the fireplace, Billie lounging on the Lazy Boy, swopping stories of nothing.

Bill’s wife, Stephany, interested me, the woman who he’d marry who didn’t approve of his crossdressing. “Marriage of convenience,” Billie called it, referring to the business. “Though we love each other a lot.” I thought of how Jessica and Jake love each other.

She poignantly steered clear of anything concerning the business.

Across the afternoon, I gathered he lived in the huge house with Stephany, Mary, and his mother. His mother appeared in the stories as a shadowy character of no real substance, but much say in everything going on.

I also knew from earlier his mother was dead, which is why he got dumped in the home. I did not challenge any of the many contradictions in his pontifications. Like with my father, a story is a story. Given that, each story was a message, not just a narrative.

Entering the downstairs powder room, discovering the toilet seat up, I immediate locked the door. Over the hours, I’d come to fully accept Billie.

Returning to my fire, with the Lazy Boy upright, Billie said, “I need you to do something important for me. Let me warn you: Much is riding on what you do next.”

I stood a child looking down, bracing for the worst of bud nipping and misconception dispelling. “OK, Billie.”

“I need to see you naked.”

I did not telegram my surprise, shock, and disgust.

Or fear.  

I did not believe Bill would physically hurt me. He’s already sunk an icepick deep in my soul with the command.

Much is riding. I tethered his eyes, storking, flipping the laces on my right boot. If you think you’re getting striptease, think again. My boot hit the floor, me storking again, keeping his eyes, his eyes wandering.

I dropped my jeans, kicking the pants free.

“Satin?” he asked.

“Silk.” I removed my right knee sock. “I have no idea what you expect.” I offered the sock. “Want to smell it?”

“No! That would be creepy!”

Ship/sailed. I removed my other sock.

My sweatshirt and tee-shirt danced over my head, landing on my pile of clothes. Dropping the straps, I spun my bra, releasing the clasp, taking his eyes again.

I was relieved she didn’t lick her lips.

“I like them, too,” I said, breaking his trance.

“Eh, um.”

“Nice definition, no mistaking me for a boy in the dark. They don’t flop around when I run.” I dropped my underwear, kicking the silk aside.

“Put you right foot here.” She patted the chair cushion.

I gave her a huh face.

“Come on. I’m not going to touch you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

Four steps, I put my foot up on the chair.

His eyes raked me slowly from my foot to my eyes. “Untie your hair, shake it out.”

She hiked her dress revealing stockings, garter, and white cotton full briefs, his erect penis apparent. “You are so beautiful. I really wish I were you.” Raising his butt off the chair, he pushed his panties down, his penis flopping out.

“If you put your underwear on over your garter, you’d be able to sit to pee, you know, like a girl.”

He twisted his face in response, completely missing my sarcasm, his right hand, the hand toward me, taking his penis.

“Uncircumcised, huh? My rapists and uncle were all circumcised.”

“You can shut up now, Toby.”

His eyes circled from my face to my breasts pausing an odd about of time on my right underarm, examined my navel, dropping to my labia all the while his hand moving from his mouth to his penis until his penis was slick and shiny in the fire’s dancing fingers.

My rapists’ penises, them being barely not children, were comically small compared with Bill’s penis. I realized how fortunate I was not being raped by an adult.

“You like watching, huh?” Bill asked.

I was staring at his penis, not intentionally. I crossed my arms under my breasts, looking away. “Not particularly.”

“Drop your arms.”

I did, telegraphing is this going to take much longer? with my entire body.

He grabbed his balls with his free hand, grunted, arched his back, tightened his legs, squinted, his right hand pounding hard like a judge’s gavel trying to get order back in a disruptive court room. “Here it comes! Here it comes!” he announced, squirting up on his dress to his fake breasts.

I backed off quickly as he hurried to his feet. “Time for a shower,” came his next announcement, his slobber-soaked hand bouncing off my bare butt.

“Ew,” I said to his back, him hurrying upstairs, me to the kitchen to towel bleach on my butt.

 

Forty minutes later, Bill came down the stairs sharply dressed in his blue pinstripe suit. “You can wash my things,” he said. “I’m sure, like you said, you have a drawer for me, closet space.”

“I was thinking the other bedroom, not mine.”

“They’re all my rooms.”

“That they are!” I did not telegraph my true reaction.

 “You are truly beautiful. Maybe we can do it again next Saturday. I’ll let you know at the party.” He removed an envelope from his jacket pocket. “Oh, your pay. I did it early since I was coming over. I did wish to mention to you that splitting your money between our account and your secret account isn’t a good idea. Has to do with interest the bank pays. Mike can explain it to you.”

I accepted the more than usually heavy envelope. “OK. I’ll get by the bank, close the account.”

“You’re such a good girl.” He dropped the black duffle on the Lazy Boy. “Something else you can do for me. This needs to be well-hidden.” He pulled the zipper.

Holy fuck! Again, herculean effort not to telegraph my surprise. “OK. I can do that.”

“I have no doubt. You have exceeded our expectations.”

I wondered who this our was and what expectation they had. “I’m glad you think so, Bill. You have been nothing but good and kind to me.”

“I’ll see you Wednesday, then.”

“You will.”

Bill signaled we should hug. I signaled, clearly, we shouldn’t. I’d thought about asking Billie for a hug, Billie reminding me so much of Lilly Martin, that I could hold Lilly one last time, not that Lilly Martin was a hugger. She wasn’t.

Even as the thought formed, I realized how stupid that was. Billie wasn’t Lilly Martin. Lilly Martin was dead. I should leave her dead. I shouldn’t have hugged Mr. Blanc that day in the mall.

Antoinette Blanc was dead. What I called Antoinette, my friend and lover across the mindscape was no more the Antoinette who I watched say the Pledge of Allegiance mornings in school than Toni was – than I was, watching myself in the mirror as I masturbated.

“Ew.” I shook my head, feeding the washing machine. “I can’t blame Bill for wanting to do what I’ve done for years.”

Escalation concerned me. Of course, willfully getting naked for Bill to watch while masturbating wasn’t any different from letting Michael watch me clothed.

 At least Michael asked. Bill commanded. But then, Michael didn’t drop one-hundred thousand dollars on the Lazy Boy.

 

I almost felt uncomfortable with the bathroom door open, steam crowding down from the ceiling, water almost too hot screaming at me. I felt dirty, unable to get clean.

A shadow moved across the curtain. “Hey,” Pamala greeted.

“Hey.”

The silhouette performed an odd dance, the shower curtain finally pulling open. “Long day. I need this.” She stepped in, crowding me.

I wrapped around her holding on as if our first hug, our last hug. “I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for coming.”

She snickered, just a little. “Sure. Are you OK?”

“I am.”

We spun. I pushed. “I’ll wash your hair.”

“Hot!”

“Too hot?”

“Eh, no.”

With Pamala facing the showerhead, I lathered her hair, working my fingers on her scalp.

“I could get used to this.”

“Plan on it. Rinse.”

We repeated.

With a glop of shampoo in my palm, I worked my hands together, watching her eyes watching me. Hesitating, I took a deep breath, my palm engaging her woolly mammoth, working up a lather.

Her soft brown eyes went big. “Careful there. I’ve been hypersensitive in that area since our first hug.”

“Good. Then this won’t take long.”

I wrapped my free arm around her back, my hand on her shoulder, my mouth just below her ear.

It didn’t take long.

 

The fire painted us in shades of yellow and orange, us sitting cross-legged on the floor in matching pajamas and robes – my Christmas present to us – our knees touching, sipping tea with lemon and ginger.

“I feel like I’m glowing. Am I glowing?”

I giggled slightly. “Since the day we meet.”

“I’ve never – I mean, no one’s ever. That, Toby, was everything I thought it’d be. I mean, well, I’ve done myself a million times, I think.”

“Pamala.”

“Yes?”

“I get it.”

She watched the fire, then turned to me. “I have a confession.”

“Me, too. If I knew we’d be sitting on the floor here together tonight, I’d have told you that night over roast beef sandwiches and sloppy French fries.”

She shrugged with all the dismissiveness she could squeeze into her shoulders, keeping my eyes with a cold stare. “I have loved you before we met.”

I blinked three times, lost for words. Again.

“Back in 9^th grade, I fell in love, as we say, real and true. Gail. Deep sigh. Let me first jump out in front of a mess of nonsense and say you look absolutely nothing like her.

“I let Diane, others, even God make me feel guilty. All that and Gail not liking girls in that way doomed my love. Crushed, confused – the Diane, others, even God thing eating at me. I’ve never made friends easily anyway. I blamed it on the nobody likes the fat girl thing – I know, I know. I’m not fat – I know in reality this smart girl doesn’t play well with dumb kids.

“I really don’t mind much people not liking me because I’m smart. Finally, I broke down to Mom, gushed about everything for an hour. I’m only the smartest person in the room if Mom’s not around.

“Talk about some pontificating. She starts out with a disclaimer: I’m going to tell you many things. Since I am not God, these things are for you to think about. Mom’s a master at well placed sarcasm, dismissing God’s opinion right there in the disclaimer.

“I loved you before we met,” Pamala repeated. “That is to say I accept you for who you are. Here’s the big thing: I trust you. I had decided when I meet the person who looks at me the way you looked at me, I would love that person real and true with all my life, with all my being.

“That’s why I asked you flat out if you were fucking with me. I knew you weren’t. I wanted to watch your eyes as I heard the words.”

Pamala placed a palm on my knee. “Not too creepy?”

“Just the absolute amount of creep, Pam.”

“You see, Toby? All that makes whatever your confession is just words that will not impact my love for you.”

I rolled my eyes, wiping a tear from my cheek with a palm. “Did you know your father and Bill Locke put us in the same room together intentionally?”

“I did not know that, but I glad they did.”

“Bill figured we’d hit it off.”

“I barely know him. Been over the house a couple of times. Didn’t say four words to me, though once or twice he got all creepy staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. Comes in Harvest, greets me by name, which is nothing special.”

“With the nametag and all.”

“I peg him as a schmoozer. Like your father, someone who works hard at being liked.”

“He does seem to invest a lot of effort in that department.” The $100K aside, I couldn’t imagine Bill Locke throwing all the money at me just so he could masturbate while looking at me naked.

“Let me start with Michael, who you know as Toni.”

“You told me the story.”

“I didn’t tell you Michael and I made out pretty serious. Well, like I said, I thought he could be my Antoinette. After years watching myself in the mirror pretending I was seeing Antoinette, doing myself, I thought I finally had the opportunity to touch Antoinette.”

“I follow all that. I actually understand. What went wrong?”

“He left the toilet seat up.”

Pamala laughed. “Sorry.”

“Kind of burst that bubble. Then, I let him eye fuck me while he masturbated.”

“Now, that’s some major league creep.”

“It was like, well, since 6^th, he’s wanted to be me or fuck me. I gave him the opportunity to be me.”

“But really, you wanted him to be Antoinette. Then he left the toilet seat up.”

“Straddling him, my tongue down his throat, I could feel his erection. That not only creeped me out but burst that bubble, too.”

Pamala closed her eyes.

“What?”

“I was just imagining you straddling me, your tongue down my throat. I’m glad he left the toilet seat up. I’m also glad I look nothing like Antoinette. That would complicate things in ways neither of us could imagine.”

She nodded. “OK. You made out with Michael totally disregarding you could be the host to an assortment of any number of sexually transmitted diseases.”

She waved the comment off like shooing flies. “That says a lot about your feeling toward me as opposed to your feeling toward your fake Antoinette. Remember what I said in Bailey’s. You’re my official girlfriend. Accept no substitutes.”

“Speaking of substitutes. Jessica.”

“Michael – I mean Toni – when we had a moment alone, said she’s smoking hot. I thought she was going to nut in her panties.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know how Levy hasn’t caught on. Yeah, Jessica is an attractive woman. You’re going to get to meet her Wednesday.”

“Oh?”

“She’s working the party. That’s how we met. Both of us working Bill Locke’s party. I really want to roll my eyes and say, since she’s an older woman, she seduced me. The reality is the entire night, we seduced each other. We landed in the linen closet, my tongue down her throat, her hand up my skirt.”

Pamala closed her eyes.

“Pam! Get out of the linen closet!”

“That’s really a cute story. Did you do her?”

“Eh, no.”

She rolled her eyes toward the stairs. “Is that the first you’ve done anyone?”

I blushed. “Yes.”

“Am I glowing? I feel like I’m glowing.”

“Since the day we met.”

She smirked. “So, you let this woman put her hand up your skirt totally disregarding you could be the host to an assortment of any number of sexually transmitted diseases.”

“I did exactly that.”

“Since the day we met you’ve made me feel special.”

“Jessica’s an odd one. I have no idea how she’s going to react.”

“You mean to you having a date?”

“Well, she has a fiancé.”

“Ooh, you’re just like your father.”

“I didn’t know it at the time.”

“I bet Tammy says the same thing.”

 

 

 

Part ten