by Kim Zarins
No. If she had to cast one vote that was all her own, it had to be this. To reject Dan.
She’d rather die, even tell her father. Yes. She would tell him. That way, the film wouldn’t be a surprise. And perhaps, if he knew right now, he could do something to stop it. He was a powerful man in his own right. He would take charge, as usual. She was okay with that. She needed him to help her decide things.
After agonizing over it all afternoon, Virginia finally called her father. She told him everything.
“How dare he? I’ll be right there. He won’t get away with it.”
The next day, everything was ready. Virginia and her father showed up in Senator Lowell’s office.
“Ah, this is a surprise,” the senator said calmly. He extended a hand to Virginia’s father. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Virginia’s father ranted. “How dare you push yourself on my daughter? You think you’re so above the law that you can get away with this. You can’t.”
The senator smiled. “And how are those tax evasions working for you, Virgil? I’m sorry to say, it looks like your daughter will be at the center of a major scandal, and you’ll be in jail. No one is perfect, of course, but if you can’t let me help you, what can I do?”
Virgil grabbed Virginia by the arm. She knew what was coming. She and her father had discussed it late into the night, with tears from both of them. She knew his plan was the only way to save her honor and preserve it forever.
Virgil, who never used foul language, let Senator Lowell have it. “So, Dan. You want some head? Here you go!”
And then things took a nasty turn. Virgil pulled out a knife, and Dan called for help. It was just a cake knife, but it was the sharpest instrument he could get past the government building’s security.
Just before security burst through the door, he cut off Virginia’s head.
Screams erupted from all around. Virginia’s head rolled to Senator Lowell’s feet.
Within minutes the police surrounded the place. Virgil and Dan were arrested, and the scandal erupted around the world. When the footage surfaced in the investigation, Ryan was brought in for questioning, and the world learned from Dan’s accomplice about Dan’s sick plot to blackmail Virginia into his bed.
Thousands of men rushed to Virgil’s defense. He was just fighting back against a disgusting man abusing his power over a young woman. Virginia was called a sacrifice in the name of justice.
But just as many women didn’t see it that way. They saw Virginia as abused, murdered, and erased after death. The showdown was between two men—that was the power struggle society cared about. Virginia was her father’s property, and when that property was in jeopardy, he cast it aside to make a point.
The end.
There’s a slow clap from Cece. “That was brilliant. Brilliant!”
Mouse pipes up. “No, it was gross. I mean, chopping off Virginia’s head?”
“But don’t you see?” Cece is totally into it. “It’s a metaphor of the way girls are reduced to the power struggles between men. Virginia wanted to be on her own, but in the end, she was pulled apart between the men who claimed her for themselves. No one valued the head on her shoulders. Is that about right, Reiko?”
Reiko raises an eyebrow. “Pretty much, though I wasn’t analyzing it, just telling it.” It’s a known fact that Reiko doesn’t much care for Cece.
“Reminds me of Coach You-Know-Who,” Lupe says, and she shudders dramatically. “Ugh! Remember, Reiko, how he tied my shoe for me on the bleachers? His crotch pressed to the sole? So. Gross.”
Reiko nods. “One of these days he’ll rape someone, and he’ll get fired. Finally. It pretty much takes a body to get rid of molesters. He ran his hand over my ass freshman year. He was pretending he just loved my suede skirt, but it was pretty obvious what he was loving.”
I gasp, and Reiko turns. “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice comes out so small compared to all these strong women who are weighing in where guys fear to tread. I remember that skirt, how pretty she was in it. I feel sick.
She cocks her head and makes a pitying face. “What would you have done?”
What would I have done? Gotten angry? Cried? Yes, and I wouldn’t have done a thing, and Reiko knew it. She should have dumped me far sooner than she did.
Of course, I was a freshman then. What would I have done as a senior? I would have told Cannon. Cannon would have told me what to do—whatever a man is supposed to do. In other words, I still am completely useless as a man.
I’m staring at Reiko and mouthing I’m sorry when Alison says, as if to comfort her, “Eh, I think most of us have had love-pats by random guys. Take it as a compliment!” Reiko gives her that lopsided sneer she uses when she’s offended, but Alison isn’t finished. “Too bad for Virginia. She should have run off with the hot guy.”
Cece pretty much freaks out with a major “Noooo. Everyone wants a piece of Virginia. The whole point is how these men robbed her of everything she had. How can you be a woman and not see that?”
Cece looks like she’s ready to rant her way down the aisle, but Mari redirects her energy. “What she really needs is a dolphin, huh?”
Cece rolls her eyes as if to say, Of course.
“We all do!” Mouse squeals a few dolphin squeaks, and suddenly, almost all the girls practice echolocation, tipping their heads back and squealing in a way that’s both ridiculous and sexy.
I realize all the guys are just keeping quiet. What else can a guy do when girls are talking about sexual abuse and getting decapitated by their dads?
I don’t envy whoever has to go next after such a violent story. As Mr. Bailey draws a name, a girl’s name, I turn and look out the window. I’m not the only one. People tap their fingers on the glass as they point out the view. Manhattan rises in all its glory as we head south. I might be shy and reclusive, but what a beautiful city. All that energy and potential. All that life being lived.
As I’m loving this view and all it promises, Mr. Bailey calls Alison’s name.
“Sweet timing!” she proclaims. Feet firmly planted on the ground, she arches her back so she’s long and tall, her arms open to New York, her smile wide, her eyes shut, nostrils flared as she breathes in. She’s beautiful and free and I feel a little zing when she adds, “Check that out. Makes you want to change up the field trip and just take this city on.”
“Oh yeah,” Rooster booms.
“No can do,” Mr. Bailey says in a teacherly way.
“Aw, I had to try.” Alison laughs her full-body laugh. The mood on the bus completely lifts from Reiko’s tale of a girl with no choices to this feeling that anything is possible.
Alison has our complete attention.
She shakes her hair out like a wild, untamed mane. Her gap-toothed smile makes her look transgressive and free and inviting—that sly mix of beauty and humor that sets her apart.
“You’re all looking at me like this is the story you’ve been waiting for.”
Rooster shouts, “It is, baby!” and Mouse—cute little Mouse, who seems so young and innocent, despite her popularity and partying—hollers, “Teach us ladies some tricks!”
There are hoots all around as guys start to go primal. Alison rewards them with a wicked smile. “I could tell something from life, but we’re supposed to tell fiction. Those are the rules, right?”
Protests resound that a true story would be just fine. Even Reeve sets down his precious clipboard and splutters that, according to the rules, it’s okay to start out with a story from real life.
Alison purrs from all this attention. “You know, I wouldn’t mind telling you a bit about my life before I tell a proper story. It’s not like I’ll get to give a speech at graduation. So here’s what I might have said. I would have told you all to follow your hearts and put your own experiences before anyone else’s advice. No one knows you better than you do, so be true to that. And, sometimes, it takes a while to hit your groove. That’s the story I’ll tell you. I’m go
ing to tell you about first sex. No one loves sex more than I do, but even I’ve had some bumps along the road.”
She pauses dramatically.
ALISON’S TALE
In sixth grade, my class had an end-of-year field trip to the Liberty Bell. But instead of having a parent driver, our group rode with this girl’s older brother. We thought it was so cool to have a guy driving us. Let’s name him Pete. So I call shotgun, and Pete does a double take, right there in the classroom. We girls follow him out. I feel mature walking side by side with Pete—the other girls get into one of those little clumps and chatter away. Pete and I don’t say much. But we look. He sneaks looks at my hair, my breasts, my legs, and I devour the shape of him under his T-shirt, his jeans. He says he can’t believe I’m not in high school. A lot of guys used to say that, but this is a totally different vibe.
We get in his car. When I need to pull my seat forward to make more room in the back, he reaches and puts his arm between my bare calves to lift the lever by my ankles. His arm hairs tickle. He’s narrating how to do it, but he’s doing it, and his elbow bends as he pulls the lever up, and his elbow slides between my thighs, and he turns his head, and he’s still narrating, and his breath curls up my legs. I don’t move. I was watching it like you watch a movie, the way my skirt lifts as his elbow rises, and the way his fingers graze me from ankle to knee when he pulls away. He shoots me a quick look, like, Was that okay? And I slide my skirt up, like my thigh itches, and I scratch it higher and higher absentmindedly. It just takes a second, but he gets it.
And when we show up, there’s no parking, so he drops us off at the front, where a parent group is waiting, except I don’t pile out with the others. It’s unfair to make him walk alone, I tell them. So Pete and I drive off and spiral our way up a parking garage. We’re way up in the darkness, the only car there, and he turns the key, and it’s like we both know. He climbs between the seats to the back and pulls me after him, and we are making out like I never have before, and he’s touching me like I’ve never been touched before, my breasts, between my legs, and I’m clawing him when he gets out his condom, because I can’t wait, I can’t, then he’s inside me, and we come at the same time.
I’d seen movies, and it’s like a movie. I finally understood how a woman makes that face, moans like that. Suddenly, I understood everything I’d wanted to know. And it’s all I want to know.
Pete does himself up, says we got to hurry, and when we’re down the flight of stairs I say I forgot to put my panties back on, and he’s like, Shit, shit, shit, but then he says, “It’s cool—I’ll just come back alone to get the car for you guys,” and he wants to know exactly where they are, but I have no idea. I mean, I was pretty busy just then. He makes a face when I describe them—pink with Hello Kitty—and I’m embarrassed I wore them on the trip. Like maybe he’ll never want to do it again, because I’m such a kid.
I stand with my friends, and I’m looking at this wide-mouthed Liberty Bell, but I’m still thinking of Pete inside me. So full, so complete. And the bell cracked after just one ring, one of my friends tells me, and instead of getting scrapped as used-up goods, it became a monument. Cracked, but still the icon of freedom. I like that.
After the trip, Pete and I steal time in snatches—and they are the minutes I live for. I don’t care much for his sister, but I sleep over there every chance I get. When she’s showering, I’m in Pete’s bed. Pete is there the whole summer, home from college. And I’m stoked. I’m twelve, and I have a man who eats from my hand.
Then, I’m in seventh grade, and Pete goes back to college. He doesn’t want to text, says this kind of love can get ugly when it goes public. He wants some distance, but he says he’s never had a lover like me, says I’m a natural. The moment I turn eighteen, he wants me to please get in his life for good.
I don’t want him to get in trouble for something I wanted as much as he did, so I don’t text much. The few I send either get answered formally—like we’re almost strangers—or not answered at all. I mostly keep to high school boys for the next year, keep it simple. Take a wider field once I get into high school. But now I sometimes think about Pete. I’m eighteen. Would you call him up?
I’m mouth breathing and waiting for some sort of resounding NO! to flood the bus, but it’s dead silent. No one speaks, and even Rooster stares awkwardly at the boot propped once more on his knee. I wonder why Mr. Bailey says nothing, but I can’t look away from Alison, so calm after saying something that makes me want to rush in a time capsule and beat the crap out of Pete, and after I did that I’d tell Alison . . . no, I don’t know what I’d tell the girl facing the Liberty Bell without her panties, and I don’t know what to say to Alison now.
Completely unfazed by our silence, she shakes out her hair again.
Anyway, that’s the slice of life. Now for the story!
I’m going to shift things up with something from King Arthur’s court. I’ve been hearing lots of stories about women, so I’m going to take the guy’s perspective here. I’m a bit inspired by the King Arthur story Mari wrote a couple years ago.
Mari beams, totally flattered. It was a really great fantasy.
So there’s this young knight. He’s brave, gorgeous in his shiny new armor. Has performed well at tournaments. King Arthur admits him to his court. He gets to sit at the Round Table with the best of the best.
Everyone loves young knights. The tried and true ones are muscled gray beards, but young knights have this potential that makes you bend over backward to see them succeed. But to succeed, they must be tried.
So our young knight is out in the forest, returning from a quest. He’s done well. He killed a man-eating manticore that had been attacking a nearby village. He’s happy about that, but his horse died in the fight. It’s been a long trek back to Camelot, but he’s close now.
Then he hears something.
He doesn’t hide, because young knights boldly meet danger. But it’s just a young woman walking alone. Standing there, watching her, he thinks there’s no danger after all, but he’s dead wrong and just doesn’t know it. The girl’s new to womanhood. He can tell by her hips, by the way she moves her skirts, playacting a fine lady.
He calls out to her. The girl’s lower class, so she curtsies low. He pulls her up. Pulls her coaxingly to his body. Then, when she tries to free herself, he yanks her down hard on the ground, on her back.
The young knight rapes the girl.
He was wrong about danger. He was the danger. He saved a village and then devoured a girl. Once he takes what he wants, the knight ditches her in the woods with her legs still open, her skirts still up, like she doesn’t even have the sense to straighten them.
The girl has no social standing, no recourse. She has nothing but seed dribbling down her thighs as she walks home, nothing but a baby coming to life inside her. She is almost out of this story, which is about the knight, not her.
But she does one thing more. Two, really.
First, she goes home, and when her mother scolds her for sneaking away from the loom again, she cries before the first lash even falls. She sobs hard, and her mother smells something amiss. The mother questions her daughter, and the girl makes a choice. She tells her. Not just what happened, but what the knight’s shield looks like. That design on the shield is his calling card. And the mother tells her husband. Together, they kneel before King Arthur’s throne and tell him about their daughter. And now all three of them are out of the story.
Arthur condemns the young knight to death.
“What’s his name?” Lupe asks.
Alison shrugs. “I don’t know, but I’m not playing this passive-aggressive game of naming someone on this bus.”
Still holding his pencil, Pard lifts his hand like he’s in school. “How about Sir Peter?”
She cocks her head to one side and gives him a knowing smile.
So Sir Peter is going to lose his head. Except that, long story short, it turns out Sir Peter is gorgeous and quite a favor
ite with Queen Guinevere’s girls . . . or, at least, he was a favorite. Rape, even of some nobody, does not go over well. They demand to settle his case for themselves, or at least defer to Guinevere’s judgment.
The king is not pleased, but he won’t go against the ladies, especially since it’s a crime against ladies, though the weaving girl is hardly a lady. So, obviously, she’s not a part of this judgment. She’s out of the story while her next chapter is growing inside of her.
Sir Peter is brought forth bound before the queen and her ladies. If Sir Peter was hoping his curly hair and shapely limbs would buy him freedom, he’s mistaken and learns the precariousness of his life as he kneels facedown before a stern queen.
The queen rises from her throne and looks down on him from her dais. She does not bid him rise. “Your duty is to defend the maidenhead of ladies, not to glut yourself on it like a swine. Your crime is punishable by death. So says my king and husband. But I will grant you one opportunity to save your life.”
Sir Peter risks the tiniest peek at his queen.
“You must discover for yourself what women most desire. Ask as many women as you please. By this day next year, you will give us your answer. If you answer correctly, you will live. If you answer incorrectly, you will die.”
Sir Peter becomes a questing knight, or the Knight of the Question for Ladies. As soon as he approaches women and poses his question, a familiar pattern repeats itself.
“Ah, so you are that knight who raped a defenseless girl.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“That was not nobly done.”
“No, my lady.”
“Well, for starters, women do not wish to be raped. I suppose you could aim higher than that, but maybe start with the basics. We also don’t like being beaten—not with your shoe, not your fists, nor a kick to the ribs. Getting murdered is right out. Any other questions?”
When the queen gave him his quest, he figured a couple weeks would be all he needed. The problem is that women kept saying different things. Things to do, things not to do. Some want money, some power, some beauty, some sex. Unsettling variety. He’s pretty sure he can have only one answer, not the hundreds he gets. Surely, killing the manticore was much less strenuous. Why, the women didn’t even seem to know for themselves what they wanted!
