The Stud Book

by Monica Drake

  He said, “Except for bottles. Glass. That’s still separate.” He took a step into the store and balled his knit gloves in one palm. His thin mouth curved into a half smile.

  “We open at ten, tomorrow.” The canvas bag Nyla called a purse, with her phone and keys inside, was at the end of the couch closer to the door. She meant to leave soon. She wasn’t used to anybody actually coming into the store.

  “What do you sell?” He looked around.

  She hadn’t sold anything, ever.

  A knife rested on the glass top of a bistro table in the middle of the room. It was a long butcher knife. Nyla used it for slicing cheese and sometimes for breaking up thick squares of bulk dark chocolate. She’d brought it for celebrations, in anticipation of hosting events at the store, people in their good clothes, talks about the environment. Parties. Maybe a rain forest fund-raiser? It was her old kitchen knife, a wedding present, bigger and sharper than it needed to be to do the party cheese slicing. She saw the man notice the knife. Then he looked at her.

  She said, “You need to go.”

  “You’re inside and I’m outside,” he said, but he said it quietly. Nyla wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

  She asked, “What’s that?”

  He said, “You got a bathroom I could use?”

  She shook her head no.

  He said, “Where’s the money?”

  She said, “There’s no money here.” She tried to keep her voice steady. Really, there was no money. The last of her money had gone to fabric for her undyed hemp curtains.

  He smiled wider, almost laughed. He said, “Everybody’s got money,” like he knew something Nyla didn’t. “The only difference is how much.”

  The mini-fridge hummed. The computer emitted a steady hiss. When the man moved in the direction of the knife, Nyla moved, too, and she moved faster than he did. She had to. She shot out her right hand, from the shoulder, and hit him in the jaw. His head jerked back. She swung with the left, in a crosscut.

  She had surprise on her side; the look on his face was mostly shock. He came forward, angry now.

  As she swung, Nyla’s muscle memory knew the steps: She heard the electronic Middle Eastern mash-up of her kickboxing DVD sound track and saw in her mind’s eye that Barbie doll coach, a beautiful blonde, all white teeth, long hair, and a boob job, in a pink and black workout outfit. That angel of fitness, Barbie, smiled and said, “Remember—arms up, protect your face!”

  The man reached out to grab her. Nyla’s arms were already up. She ducked, knocked his hand away, then pulled back, danced in a boxer’s shuffle, and offered a fast uppercut to his soft jaw that made his teeth click together.

  She’d done this thousands of times—five days a week, an hour a day for more than ten years, in Tae Bo, kickboxing, weight training, and cardio.

  Angel Barbie in Nyla’s mind prompted, “Remember to breathe!”

  Nyla’s foot hit the man’s ribs in a roundhouse, from the right then the left. Her shoe, a soft leather clog, flew off on the way. It smacked the wall.

  Barbie said, “Good work! This is your cardio. Keep your focus, ladies!”

  The man grabbed his side. His face contorted, and he came at Nyla in a rage. He was a man she’d been waiting for, the man her father locked the house against at night, the man she wasn’t supposed to speak to on the city bus, the guy who offered her a ride once, the dangers. He was here. She brought out a front kick as he lunged—“Heel first! Straighten that leg!”—and used his momentum against him, doubling the impact. He bent in half, hands to the groin.

  “Okay, up the tempo! Do it again!” Barbie smiled, her glossy hair flipping side to side.

  Nyla dealt another roundhouse from the right automatically because it was the routine and she was deep into it and she was terrified. The man fell toward the floor. Thwack! Her foot found the side of his head on the way down. She panicked. She couldn’t let him get up, he’d kill her. If he wasn’t going to kill her before, he definitely would now. Don’t move, don’t move, she prayed. What came next was up to him. His decisions would fuel her own.

  Barbie said, “We’re halfway through, keep moving! You can do it! Eight more.”

  Eight more? Nyla bounced in her boxer’s shuffle and watched, ready.

  The man didn’t get up. He moved one hand slightly, that was all.

  Barbie said, “Don’t poop out on me now! Finish strong.”

  There was blood on the floor and on the side of the man’s face—what had she done? Nyla didn’t want to hurt him! She only meant to protect herself. She bent down and asked, “What’s bleeding?”

  He said something garbled, something like “Fuck you,” or “Kill you,” or “Would you—”

  Nyla said, “What’s that?”

  His eyes, when he opened them, were furious. He grabbed for her ponytail, catching her hair in his blood-marked fingers. Nyla swung a cocked elbow hard into the man’s bloody nose. She ripped her own head backward, leaving hair in his hands as she stood up fast and stepped away. He grabbed for her foot. Her second shoe slid off. She gave a ballet leap over the crumpled man, snagged the knife, and reached for the strap of her canvas tote where it rested on the couch. She made it out the door and pulled the door closed, but couldn’t stop to lock it. She’d have to find her keys—too slow! She kept going, then slid the rusted, reticulated metal gate across the outside entryway. The padlock was easy to find: It rested heavy in the bottom of her bag. She forced the padlock through an old metal loop, clicked it, and locked the gate. Inside the store, the man started to get up. Nyla’s heart kicked into higher gear. He got up, his head swaying, and then went down again.

  Her phone was in her bag. She called 911.

  “March it out!” smiling Barbie said. “Punch the sky! Great for the abs.”

  Over her own pounding heart, Nyla told the operator, “I’ve been attacked.” She said, “I have a store, on Williams. Somebody may be hurt.”

  The operator asked, “Are you hurt?”

  Nyla couldn’t catch her breath. She said, “No.” Her hands were numb, and she couldn’t breathe, but she was okay.

  The man in her store howled. From inside, he threw a vase against the front window, and the window shattered in a web of fractures. Nyla hid in the shadows alongside the building but kept an eye on her storefront. Her heartbeat didn’t know the fight was over. Adrenaline made her move.

  Her fingers tightened around the knife handle.

  When the police cruiser turned the corner, what officers might’ve seen first was a barefoot woman doing a victory dance on a dark patch of sidewalk. At Barbie’s command, Nyla marched it off. She punched the sky and lifted her knees and took deep breaths. The butcher knife in her fist glinted when it caught the streetlight, each time she raised her arm. Blood-darkened spots marked the blade, Nyla’s skin, and her clothes. If she stopped moving, she’d cry. When she tried to stop, her legs shook; her chest was ready to explode.

  An ambulance siren called to them from far down the street. A fire truck was on the way, too. They always sent a fire truck, like every emergency involved some kind of fire.

  The man was trapped behind the locked gate, just out of the store, but not free to leave. He let out a yodel, yelled to be let free. Amber police lights circled and played over the metal gate. Nyla walked in her cooldown, trying to shake this techno-pop dance version of terror. The police pulled over to the curb.

  One officer got out of the cruiser. He said, “Drop the weapon.”

  Nyla, still on the verge of tears, yelled, “Don’t shoot! He’s not armed!” She bounced up and down.

  The officer flinched. He said, “Drop the weapon.” His gun was pointed at Nyla.

  She slowed in her jog.

  “Weapon?”

  “Drop the knife.” A second officer got out of the car. He put a hand to his holster.

  “Ah, the knife!” Her fingers were numb, far away, and curled around the black knife handle. It was a weapon! She didn’t think of it as a
weapon, not when it was in her own hands. It was cutlery. It was a wedding present.

  “Now,” the cop said. She was in his sights!

  She let the knife fall to the ground.

  The attacker yelled, “She tried to kill me!”

  The wedding present butcher knife hit the sidewalk with a thud and rattle. She said, “No. I called help. I called help for you.”

  Humanity was trampling itself in search of reported action!

  On the other side of a plate glass window, in an enclosure, the mandrill patriarch lumbered through the artificial landscape to approach a female from behind. He reached a hand, spread the soft pads of her relatively compact butt, touched her, then smelled his fingers. When he licked his fingers, somebody outside, down below, beyond the window, barked, “Dude!”

  Sarah was at tree canopy level; her room looked down over the top of the enclosure, a secret perch. The female must’ve smelled like a hot monkey in estrus; the male stood on his hind legs and mounted her leisurely.

  Sarah felt the male’s push and thrust as though in the cavities of her own body. We could be asexual populations, single-celled drifters, built to reproduce without fusing gametes. But we’re not. The mandrill touched his mate with a gentle, determined hand. Sarah held her breath.

  Guffaws broke out beyond the glass, out of her line of sight.

  The female shook off the male’s long-fingered grip and scampered across fake rock, hesitating near a clump of hanging foliage. The male rocked back on his striped ornament. He ran his thumb over the folds of his pink member, picked something off the head, and flicked whatever he’d found into the shrubs.

  Male mandrills drip a secretion. They rub their sternal gland drippings on mates and on trees, too, until their chests are bloody and riddled with splinters. Their world is one ripe advertisement of virility. Sarah stood above the habitat where the air was thick with musk, breathed in man-ape, kicked a foot through straw scattered on the floor—debris left from bales stored there—and willed her last good egg to stay viable.

  She could feel the heat of her own body fluids gathering.

  Her timer beeped. She peered through the grate. Baby Lucy picked at a tire on a rope, and trailed a finger through the straw. “Foraging,” Sarah wrote. Ignoring the adults getting it on.

  A horde of teenagers shrieked the mixed yodel of excited pack animals. The patriarch followed his mate. She waited. He checked her scent again, pulled apart the folds of her vagina, and touched his tongue inside.

  It was science!

  It was a peep show. The mandrill put his hands on her hips. This time, she stayed still.

  “Dude, you taping this?” somebody yelled below. There was a cackle. The humans were loud; the mandrills were silent and purposeful. The patriarch bent his knees and pushed his erect baby maker into his mate. She stayed on all fours. Humans hooted, their voices an ever-expanding choir.

  Sarah’s cinder block cell, bleaker than the cheapest of hotels, was pungent with animal sex. She was paid to watch, and now it was like watching porn. The male pushed his hips back and forth, in and out.

  Sarah leaned against the bars of the narrow window. Where was Ben? Her mate, her only mate, her legal love.

  The door to the outside stairs opened. A cold breeze cut through. “Hey,” Dale called out. “I checked on our expectant mother. The baby still has a heartbeat. There’s signs of placenta previa, though—”

  Sarah turned to him.

  He said, “I want to apologize, for the other day, by the car. I was out of line.”

  She put her clipboard on a folding chair, met Dale halfway as he walked over, and lifted his T-shirt over his head. He said, “Hey. What’re you doing?”

  She tugged. He gave in, raising his arms. She had him trapped inside his own shirt; his head was hidden, his armpits said a big hello, his torso was that model of anatomy, pale and lightly marked with the curl of hair. He tugged an arm out of the shirt. Sarah sank into his skin. He smelled like Dial soap, clean and chemical, a man fighting off his own dripping secretions. She breathed his scent in until she found the real smell, human sweat trapped in the hair under his arms, the smell of an animal, new genetic material.

  Sexual selection.

  She unbuttoned his jeans, following the happy trail of curled hair down his belly. He said, “I don’t know—” His voice was gentle. His pants dropped to the floor. He stepped out of them. His cock tented his briefs. Sarah kissed him openmouthed, felt the warmth of his breath.

  This was imperative.

  She’d be doing Ben a favor. Not a biological favor so much, but a sociological assist. He’d be a father. She’d be a mom. Pressure off.

  She’d be faithful to him ever after.

  It wasn’t about love. It was about maximizing reproductive chances. They’d retain the marriage paradigm. She curled down to the straw-covered cement floor, in air heavy with mandrill secretions. Dale followed her down. He didn’t say anything, but let his body follow her lead. She took her clothes off in the cold. They could hear the hoots and hollers down below, the audience gathered for the mandrill porn show. Sarah pushed her clothes away, felt her skin rest against the near-frozen concrete, and against Dale’s heat. Those clothes had been a costume, hopeful and civilized, hiding and holding back her animal urge.

  Arena spanked a lump of red clay with her fist until it grew warm and soft under her knuckles.

  “Paper!” the teacher, Barry Gibb, barked across the room, and shook out the tendrils of his honey-toned mullet. He wanted her to lay newspaper between the damp clay and the nicked tabletop—a table laced with cutout hearts and the etched curses of kids who’d already graduated or maybe just wandered away. There was a stack of Oregonians in the middle of the table. Arena took the Metro section and spread the sheets out.

  She picked up her clay and the words ekiM sevol aniT were raised in the back of it, lifted off the table’s carved face along with half a broken heart. She poked a finger through the words.

  Other kids were busy, their heads bowed over the fat strokes of tempera paintings or the crazy hatch marks of detailed ink cartoons. One guy seemed normal except for a crying problem; he charted whale migrations on big sheets of white paper tacked to the wall. His drawings were beautiful.

  Who wouldn’t cry over that?

  There were smart students in the special room, and others who lagged. There were kids struggling with autism and Asperger’s and extreme hyperactivity. One tapped his pencil all day, the same rhythm, tap, tap, tap-tap-tap. There were kids with problems Arena didn’t understand, who managed well enough and then suddenly broke, and didn’t manage at all, like their little internal computers had been hit with a virus.

  In that room they ate snacks, like in kindergarten. Granola bars and cut oranges! Snacks left them smelling like children.

  She dropped her clay hard against the paper, and pushed her thumb into it.

  “Hey, dealer!” A voice broke through the room. It came from a guy who leaned in the doorway. The pencil tapping stopped. All the kids looked, like maybe they were all secretly dealers.

  They were all dealing—they were coping. Arena knew he meant her: drug dealer.

  He said, “Seen your mom on the news.”

  The pencil tapping started again.

  Barry Gibb waved a hand and said, “Keep moving.”

  The guy at the door flashed a peace sign, pointed at Arena, and said, “Righteous!”

  Was that a good thing, or bad? She gave him a thumbs-up. It seemed expected. He disappeared.

  She couldn’t read by herself in the cone zone anymore without smokers saying how awesome it was, her mom kicking butt like that. They’d say, “Awesome,” their heads bobbing.

  She tried to pass it off as cool points.

  The thing was, now her mom moved like she’d been the one beaten up—limped like she hurt her leg or her back but wouldn’t admit it. She mumbled broken sentences like, “God, I hope not,” or “Geez,” or sometimes “Holy mackerel”;
she’d murmur to the toaster or the shower curtain or their potted plants.

  She’d quit doing her workout DVDs. Instead she spent her afternoons fussing with a bread dough recipe, a baking project, the “mother starter,” she called it. Nyla said baking was wholesome. It was science. It was love. Arena saw it as food. They had plenty of food.

  AKA was the face on the other side of the conversations in her head. She stored her thoughts to tell him later. He’d skipped work crew. She’d asked their group leader where AKA was, but he’d only muttered, “Confidential,” and put a pair of gloves in her hand, then gestured for her to get going on litter patrol.

  Maybe it actually was confidential or maybe that word was code, meaning their crew leader didn’t know squat.

  She pummeled her clay, pulled off a piece, and rolled a clay snake. Her hands turned rusty brown. Making art kept students busy and gave the teacher and his assistant time to focus on kids who needed more help.

  They didn’t focus on Arena. What help did she need?

  She’d called AKA’s phone and gotten his voice mail, his own voice saying, “Sorry. Not here! Ha! Leave a message or whatever. I’ll call you back.”

  “What about our trip to the country?” she said, into his machine. They’d made a plan the last time they talked to see his house in Boring. Maybe it was about meeting his parents. The way he talked about it, it was like the trip mattered to him. Besides, he’d end up back in the Donald E. Long Home if he didn’t finish work screw.

  Mostly, Arena needed him. He was her only friend.

  She’d gone back to the Temple Everlasting once, since bringing AKA there, but Mack treated her like a customer, like she needed a reason to be there, like she’d come looking for something.

  Like he had anything to offer?

  She coiled her clay snake into a low bowl. The class was working toward an art show. Her project was the installation. She had a roll of gauze. She had Anchee Min’s mosquito net. She had an ache like she was meant to be somebody else and was trapped in this body, this place, this school.