Slave Day

by Rob Thomas

  At first I’m pleased. I was able to teach Thomas something. But upon reflection this knowledge saddens me. Is this what students are gleaning from my class these days—dried-up old quotations used in place of original thought?

  TIFFANY

  7:54 P.M. Delvoe den

  “Oh sure, you could do that. Why I’ve heard of a guy who hacked into … Boy, you’re making everything,” says Brendan.

  I line up the eight ball. “Just lucky,” I say. “Go on.”

  “Anyway, this guy hacks into what he thinks is a MUD.”

  “Mud?”

  “Multiuser dungeon. It’s a place where people can go and pretend to be other people. There are different kinds: castles with monsters and treasure; Old West MUDs with saloons and gunfights. Anyway, this guy, he thinks he’s stumbled into a Goodfellas-type MUD, because the other people are all talking about delivering cocaine and who they’re gonna take out and all that. So this guy, he figures, What the hey? He joins the group, says his name is Nick Tulane, and offers ten thousand dollars to anyone who’ll rub out his psychology professor.”

  “And …?”

  “And a week later, they pull the professor out of Lake Pontchartrain.”

  I watch young Brendan shudder. I sink the eight ball.

  “Sounds like a computer version of an urban myth. Rack ’em.”

  Brendan starts doing as he’s told. “What’s an urban myth?” he says.

  “It’s one of those stories that sound outrageous—but everyone has heard it. Most of the people who tell you the story know the person it happened to. It’s never them, but they know the person personally. You know, stories about Richard Gere and his pet gerbils. Whoever tells you the story had a friend who worked on a movie set. The Dallas Cowboy cheerleader who had to have her stomach pumped—this time the friend is the doctor. And let’s not forget the classic of the close personal friend who bought a small dog in Mexico, brought it back, and then found out it was a giant rat.”

  “Yeah, but I really know somebody that happened to.”

  “Brendan, get with the—”

  But then I realize he’s fucking with my head. You go, boy.

  “Oh, yeah,” Brendan says. “There’s also the one about Playboy naming whatever city you live in as the biggest party town in the country.”

  “I’ve heard that one, too,” I say.

  BRENDAN

  8:12 P.M. Tiffany’s room

  Tiffany told me to wait up here. In her room. Where her bed is. Whoop, Whoop.

  I lay down on it—the bed, that is—just for a sec. (My impressions available at alt.sex.fetish on the World Wide Web.) I’m a little glummed there’s no mirror on the ceiling above me, but at least the bed spins. Or is that me? How many rum and Cokes have I had?

  Sitting up, I make an effort to memorize the details of the room. Like her locker, it’s pretty anticlimactic. I don’t know what I imagined—medieval torture devices, eunuch quarters—whatever it was, I was way off. On the other hand, the room doesn’t look anything like the fluffy quarters of other teen girls. I’ll admit that my experience in this area is limited, but from what I’ve heard they normally come stocked with foo foo wallpaper and pressed flowers. Not Tiffany’s. First of all, there’s nothing here—no Leonardo DiCaprio posters or telltale Lee High banners—that would give away her age, except maybe the stack of alternative rock CDs still in their shrink-wrapping on her dresser. Postcards in random male scripts and exotic languages are stuck inside the wooden frame of her vanity mirror. (Antonio blah-blah-blahs PER LA MIA. Eduardo, the conquistador of love, blah-blah-blahs CON MUCHO GUSTO.) I can see in her closet and I’m immediately reminded of the touring production of Evita the Doctors Young took me to in San Antonio last year. Enter? Don’t mind if I do. I wander in thinking maybe I should leave a trail of bread crumbs.

  The door to the bedroom slams shut and Tiffany soon joins me in the closet. “See anything you like?”

  “This is nice,” I say, holding up a black leather miniskirt, proud of myself for delivering such a cool line when I should be embarrassed.

  “I don’t know if you want to show that much leg, but if you care to try it on …,” Tiffany offers. I’m sure I blush. I reach up to hang up the skirt, but the movement makes me dizzy. I start teetering, and I latch on to some clothes to keep my balance. No good. The clothes slide on the bar. As I’m falling I try to grab for whatever I can. I wind up on my back, buried in Tiffany’s complete fall collection, a stiletto heel pressed to my throat.

  “So are you going to do that movie with that guy?” I ask, still on the floor. (That’s good, Brendan. Maybe she won’t notice.)

  “You think I should?” she asks, surprising me not only by her willingness to play along with my charade but also by her desire for my opinion.

  “Director seemed like a real winner,” I say. Tiffany cocks her head at me. “Uh, that was sarcasm.” (There you go, Bren. Impress her with geekspeak.) I stand and start hanging up rumpled clothes.

  “You can leave those there. I’ll have Wilhelmina take care of it,” Tiffany says. “Why don’t you come downstairs with me? Daddy had some questions about his computer. I told him what a computer genius you were. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘genius’ exactly.” But Tiffany’s already grabbed my hand (!) and is leading me downstairs. Who am I to argue with such a perceptive woman?

  JENNY

  8:16 P.M. Clint’s Jeep

  Talk about a horror show. I sat between Clint and Damien at Alex’s JV game. Not only were we getting killed, but Clint was so upset about all those guys quitting the team that he hardly said ten words the whole time we were there. I watched him clenching his jaws over and over again. Meanwhile, I kept feeling Damien brushing up next to me. I couldn’t tell if I was just imagining it. Seemed weird, though. I volunteered to get popcorn, like, three times, and I took as much time as possible getting back.

  When the fourth quarter started, with Lee behind, 27–7, Clint said, “Let’s go.” I’ve never known him to want to leave a game early, but I don’t think he could’ve taken much more.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him as we left the parking lot.

  “I just want to drive around. Clear my head,” he said, but it seems to me that he knew exactly where he was heading. He drove straight up here to Water Tower Park, crawled into the backseat, and sat there waiting for me to join him.

  “May I help you?” I asked. I wanted to look nonchalant, so I started thumbing through the cassettes in his console.

  “You know you can,” Clint said, and he patted his chest, which I guess meant “Come here.” I picked up one of the cassettes and discovered it was a dub of the mix cassette “Romantic Songs” that he made for me, except on the label of his version it said IN THE MOOD!

  “Put it in,” Clint said. I wavered for a second, but then I slid it into the deck. I wanted to be mad, but the first song that came on was Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face,” so it was tough. I glanced down and saw the top of Damien’s note sticking out of my purse, and suddenly I was confused again. Everything that had been milling through my brain came rushing back to me all at once. That’s when I climbed into the back with Clint. It was easier than thinking.

  So now here I am—underneath him with my uniform half off. His hands are inching up the backs of my thighs and I can feel his fingertips start prying at the elastic of my panties. He’s breathing my name over and over, and he’s grinding up against me, which kind of hurts, but kind of feels good at the same time. His hands make it inside my panties. We’ve never gone this far. He lifts my butt up and presses his crotch even harder against me. As he does it, his head backs away from the crook of my neck and I’m conscious of my nakedness. I’ve still got everything on, but my top and bra have been pulled open. I’m embarrassed. I lift Clint’s shirt and pull him back on top of me. Partly so he can’t see my body and partly to feel his skin on my skin.

  “You’re trembling,” I say. He make
s a sound, but I can’t tell if it’s supposed to make sense.

  With his head pressed back against my neck, I’m able to see the lights of Deerfield spread out beyond the Jeep’s missing doors. I can see the high school, the stadium lights where the JV game must be wrapping up. I feel Clint’s fingers start to make their way around to the front of me. There’s the lighted steeple of the Methodist Church where we have our Fellowship of Christian Athlete meetings. Pastor Aitken says that in times like these we have to be strong for the Lord. Clint’s hands reach their destination. I can’t see my house, but I can see where the river bends, so I can pretty much guess where it must be. I lose my view of the city as Clint kisses me deep. I feel his finger slip inside of me. It’s cold.

  Last month Tina MacQuarie handed me this Sidney Sheldon novel with the corners of almost fifty pages bent down, marking all the sex passages. I remember the heroine saying she “lost herself” when making love. I close my eyes and try to lose myself, but when I do, I see my mom and dad, my little brother, scenes from when we went camping at Big Bend. Why?

  Clint’s mumbling things that sound like “Jen” and “Baby.” Then he raises himself back up on his knees, and this time he makes himself clear. “You make me feel so good,” he says. Then he starts unbuttoning his jeans.

  “Don’t,” I say as kindly as I can—I don’t want to embarrass him.

  But he keeps going. Then he pulls it out, and it’s right there in front of me. It’s pointing straight up. This is probably stupid, but I’ve always pictured them, when they’re like this, pointing out instead of up. Clint takes my hands, and he starts pulling them toward his thing. I resist.

  “Clint, I can’t.”

  “You have to. You’re my slave. Remember?”

  I wonder if he’s joking and decide he probably is. But then a funny thing occurs to me—I really haven’t thought much about being a slave at all—Slave Day doesn’t feel much different from any other.

  “Button up your pants, Clint.” This time, when I say it, I don’t care so much about whether I embarrass him. I start fixing my bra and shirt.

  Clint starts doing as he’s told, but he’s got this mean look on his face.

  “Sometimes, I swear, you must think you’re the only girl in school,” he says.

  Before I know what I’m saying, I scream, “Fuck you!”

  Clint looks horrified. “God, I’m sorry, Babe. I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I said that.” And he leans in to kiss me, but I push him away. He stares straight into my eyes for a moment, then he jumps out of the back of the Jeep and starts running down the road we drove up, leaving me here by myself.

  TIFFANY

  8:18 P.M. Mr. Delvoe’s study

  The old man is working his magic. I love watching the master at work. He started off calling Brendan by name, but it didn’t take five minutes for the boy to get promoted to “son.” I don’t think I would have noticed the shift of nomenclature if I hadn’t been listening for it. Daddy’s explained to the newest addition to our family all about evil Mr. Milligan’s plans to take over Delvoe Ford through phony computer entries followed up by the pretense of an audit. Martin better not screw this up. I’ve kept my end of the bargain. I’ve delivered a buzzed lech.

  We shouldn’t have even had to go through this. I told Daddy years ago that he needed to move into the computer age, take some classes. Mom even got him the loaded PC sitting on his desk. What’s he done? He’s played the Sim City and PGA-Tour CD-ROM games that came with the computer. That’s about it.

  “Now, Tiffany tells me that you’re legendary around campus. A kind of computer Mr. Know-It-All,” says Daddy.

  “I’ve been playing around with them for a long time. I’m not sure if—”

  “Super. Then you must know a way we can stop that Yankee son of a gun from driving me out of business. I just need a couple weeks, just long enough for me to get all the paper records organized.” Daddy reaches out and cups Brendan’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come around here and take a seat in my chair. Take a look at what we’ve got here.”

  Take a seat in his chair? I don’t even get to sit in his chair. Brendan stands unsteadily and makes his way around Daddy’s giant oak desk and takes a seat in his ibex-upholstered highback throne.

  “It’s a nice computer,” Brendan says, fingering the keyboard.

  “That’s what they tell me,” answers Daddy. “So how does it look? Think you can dial into the computer down at the office and throw a wrench in the works, scramble the files a bit?”

  Brendan starts dragging things around on the computer’s desktop. I move around the desk and look on from behind his shoulder. I let my hair fall down in front of his face, then I move my head parallel to his body so that my hair grazes his face, shoulders, all the way down his arms. His fingers stop pecking at the keys momentarily.

  “Uh …,” he says.

  “Oh, sorry, Brendan. I just wanted to see what you were doing.”

  Brendan inhales before speaking.

  “This computer doesn’t have a modem hooked up.”

  “Is that bad?” Daddy says.

  “It’s not good, but we can get one. Now if the computer down at the dealership doesn’t have a modem—and if it isn’t currently on—this is going to be impossible.”

  “It damn well better have a modem,” Daddy says. “I paid to have an extra phone line installed just for the damn thing.”

  “Do you know the password?” Brendan asks.

  “Password? I shouldn’t need a password! This is a partnership!”

  “Most computers require one to log on. Have you ever logged on to your partner’s computer?”

  Daddy shakes his head no. Brendan shakes his head in what looks like futility. He continues hunting and pecking through Daddy’s system folder. When it looks like he’s found everything he needs, he lifts his head.

  “It’s possible,” he says reluctantly. “This is what I need you to do …”

  CLINT

  8:19 P.M. Water Tower Park

  I just sprint. Sprint to clear my head. My toe catches some big tree root that’s stickin’ up and I fly. Tear the shit outta both palms when I land, but I get up and keep runnin’.

  Sometimes I think I got things figured out, and it’s like someone just pulls a rug out from under me, and I realize I don’t know shit. It’s over with Jen. The way she just looked at me. I coulda been dead and she’da been dancin’ on my grave. So what’d I do so wrong? What everyone else is doin’? Nothin’ more, that’s for sure. How long did she think I was willin’ to wait?

  I oughtta get back to her, but if I had my way, I’d just run all the way back down to school. I start to turn around, but I hear this sobbin’. I look up where it’s comin’ from, and I see the front end of Trim’s Mustang just behind the guardrail at the highest point of Water Tower Park. I just stand there for a moment, listenin’.

  There it is again. Cryin’.

  I start climbin’ the hill because it’s faster than takin’ the road all the way up. I’m grabbin’ weeds and rocks. My hands are stingin’ from where I scraped ’em on the pavement. As I get closer I hear Madonna sayin’, “Please stop. Please stop.” She’s sorta cryin’, sorta whisperin’ it. It fades in ’n’ out. I finally reach the guardrail. I hop it, and I can see the top o’ Trim’s blond head. I assume Madonna’s underneath him. The window’s open, so I can hear Trim just fine sayin, “It’s all right. Come on. No one’ll know. It’s all right.” Suddenly I’m embarrassed ’bout bein’ up here. I start back toward the road. I’m hopin’ Trim doesn’t lift his head and spot me. Then I hear it again, and it freezes me.

  “Stop it.”

  Somethin’ inside me snaps. I turn and head back toward the car. Who does he think he is? This is what we’ve been hearin’ ’bout in the locker room. Druggin’ girls and pinnin’ ’em against the door of his car. Makin’ ’em cry? Man, what bullshit. What lame-ass bullshit.

  I reach inside the passenger wind
ow, grab Trim round his neck, and pull.

  “What the fuck!” he yells, but he can’t tell who’s got him just yet. I got his head out the window, now his shoulders—he starts flailin’ around—out comes his waist. When his feet reach the window, I just let go and watch his head drop to the ground like someone jumped off the other end of a seesaw.

  While Trim’s tryin’ to pick himself up, I stick my head in the window right in time to see Madonna—I mean Annabella—pukin’ all over the floor mats.

  “Come on. I’ll get you out of here,” I say, but that’s about the same time I get hit in the back—not with a fist … with a rock? What a pussy. I turn and see Trim about ten yards away. Blood’s runnin’ down his face. He yells at me.

  “Get the fuck outta here, asshole. What the fuck’re you thinkin’?”

  I don’t say anything. I just start walkin’ at him and he backs up, keepin’ himself a first down away. I make like I’m gonna chase him, sprint a couple steps forward. He takes off into the trees. I go back to the car and help Annabella out of it.

  “You okay?”

  She nods, but she looks like shit. Her eyes are all puffy, and she didn’t quite miss herself when she heaved. I can’t even tell if she knows who I am. It doesn’t look like she’s focusing.

  “I’ll give you a ride home.”

  She nods again, and we start walkin’ back down the road toward the Jeep. I can hear Trim scramblin’ round in the bushes. ’Bout halfway down the hill, Annabella starts cryin’ again, and I think that the last thing in the world she wants is some dumb guy puttin’ his arm round her. So I do nothin’. Out o’ the blue, Trim goes speedin’ by, comin’ too damn close to us as he passes. I may hafta kick his ass next time I see him, just on general principle.