Drawn to You

by Natalie Vivien

  I sigh gratefully, too overwhelmed with emotion to do more than squeak out a barely audible, “Thanks, Paul,” and give her another quick hug. After waving at Brad, I step out of the artic apartment and onto the breezeway, breathing in a deep gulp of the sultry, starless night.

  ---

  Ohhh…wow. Oh! Where did that mouth come from? You have two? Wait—three?! Ohhhhh…my God. How did you do that?

  “W-what?” I wake from luxurious dreams of Venusian vixens—who’d have guessed they’d be so, well, skilled with those three-fingered hands? Or that they’d possess three mouths, three tongues, each?—to the piercing, insistent, non-dulcet tones of…

  Hmm.

  I sit up—upsetting M.L., otherwise known as the fuzzy black ball napping on my chest—and rub my eyes, shoving long, knotted strands of hair out of my face. It takes me a moment to realize where I am, but as I soak in the too-bright light streaming through the lace curtains, my eyes skip over the room, recognizing the white-and-pink flea market décor.

  Right.

  Sadly, I’m not being ravished on the dunes of the Red Planet. I’m sitting on the four-poster queen bed in the cottage, wearing an old college t-shirt and my Ghostbusters underwear (Who you gonna call? they ask in drippy slime-green letters), and my life is far less interesting—and far more pathetic—than even the worst B movie ever made.

  But thank God for awful sci-fi flicks and the X-rated dreams they inspire. And no thanks to anyone for unwanted wake-up calls that interrupt said dreams just when they’re about to get...climactic.

  I glare toward the window, frowning with my whole face, my whole body. I feel like a birthday girl who was just given a mountain of presents…only to have them taken away before she had the chance to tear off their spacesuits—er, I mean, wrapping paper.

  To put it bluntly, I feel cheated.

  Because I think…

  I think I was just awoken from the sexiest dream of my life by a rooster.

  There aren’t any roosters in Normal. And there definitely aren’t any roosters in my house. Or…there weren’t, last time I was within its walls. But that’s where the avian squawk originated from, no question—and that’s where it’s continuing to emanate from now.

  My brain makes some sleepy but swift calculations: Juliette’s still squatting at my place; I haven’t yet drummed up the gumption to kick her out. In fact, I’m so devoid of gumption that I feel as if I might never be able gump again—let alone get through a whole day without sobbing and seeking psychiatric evaluations from houseflies.

  So, what’s the most likely scenario? I’d put my money on this hypothesis: Juliette has to perform a duet in Bathing Beauties Live! with a chicken—and decided to get some practice in with her co-star, appropriately enough, at the crack of dawn.

  She always was a morning person.

  The more I consider it, the more convinced I become that this is the only possible explanation. After all, it has historic precedent: Juliette once took a part in which she was required to milk a live goat onstage, and she brought the goat home with her after every performance—“to promote bonding,” she said, “at the director’s request.” But I bonded more with that goat than Juliette ever did, following it around with a mop and a bucket every time it decided to take a casual, bladder-emptying stroll—and to snack on the living room curtains. And Mona Lisa’s poor, still slightly misshapen tail.

  I put up with the goat—her name was Nanny, naturally—because I loved Juliette and wanted to support her in her career, and because, honestly, that goat was kind of cute…if you overlooked the yellow puddles pooling on the hardwood and the “gifts” Nanny deposited in my shoes—and, once, quite memorably, in my favorite handbag. Which had to be thrown away.

  But Juliette and I are no longer together; I can’t even contemplate our being in the same room together. It’s irritating enough to share a driveway with her. If she thinks for one second that I’m going to scrape rooster droppings off of the kitchen tiles, well…I mean…I probably will.

  Somebody’s got to do it.

  But I’ll…I’ll…

  I’ll what? March into the house and demand the immediate removal of all uninvited barnyard fowl? I guess I could do that. But I don’t want to take out my frustrations with Juliette on an innocent rooster.

  If I’m honest, I just don’t want to deal with Juliette at all.

  Frustrated by my utter gumptionlessness, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and notice The Venusian Triangle DVD case lying on the floor, where I shoved it last night while I watched the movie on my laptop. I lean over to pick up the case and trace a finger over the Martian stars’ shapely silhouettes. Were these actresses anything like Juliette, I wonder? Did they lie, cheat and steal to get what they wanted out of life? Or were they just brave and determined—unafraid of new, alien experiences—like the characters they portrayed in the film?

  The latter, I decide, as I bring the case close to my face, staring hard into the women’s glinting (and vaguely reptilian) eyes.

  Right now, I need to follow their example, whether I have the gumption to confront Juliette or not.

  Pauline was right: it’s ridiculous, my camping out in the cottage while Juliette, who has no legal claim to the house, does as she pleases with my 2,000 square feet. I need to put a stop to this now. I need to become the fierce woman Pauline insists I am. I need to remember who I am, and what I want, and—most importantly—what I don’t want.

  I don’t want Juliette (or her rooster) to be part of my life, my heart, or my real estate anymore. And I intend to stomp into my house—just as soon as I put on some pants and de-rat’s nest my hair—and tell her as much in clear, concise, metaphor-free language.

  At the very least, I should be able to manage a cliché “Hit the road, Juliette,” with the necessary thumb gestures.

  My eyes alight, then, upon a spider on the wall, and I almost backslide into Crazyville, almost address her as Carlotta and ask her if she thinks I’m making the right choice… But something stops me, unsettles me. The strands of her web are flickering in the morning light in an odd, shimmery, disorienting way. I blink and rub my eyes again. It almost looks as if…

  But that’s impossible.

  Impossible.

  Still…

  I lean forward, squinting at the threads of silk, chewing on my bottom lip in mute astonishment. Because I can almost imagine—no, I can almost see two small words spun into the delicate webbing: BE FIERCE.

  Be…fierce?

  I swallow and blink nine hundred times in a row.

  But then the light shifts, and the spider scurries off, web tangling, the weavings broken, the words—which weren’t really there, couldn’t have been there—gone, reduced to a twist of silk.

  I stare, dumbfounded, mouth hanging open, and M.L. chooses that precise moment to whack me in the forehead with her thick tail, effectively knocking loose my senses—Come on, Molly, even if spiders could spin words into their webs, why would they spin them in English? Surely they have their own spider language. Don’t be so American—and jarring me into action.

  Okay.

  First directive: put on pants.

  I jam my feet into the legs of yesterday’s jeans, and those words—those impossible, must-have-been-hallucinated words—keep marching through my head: be fierce, be fierce, be fierce, be fierce.

  I zip my fly, consider putting on the bra slung over the bedpost, and then dismiss it with a regal wave of my hand.

  I don’t need a bra. I don’t even need to brush my hair.

  I’m fierce.

  And I can do this.

  …I think.

  ---

  Juliette is lying naked on my mattress.

  Again.

  This time, though, she’s lying alongside another woman—who is not naked. Honestly, I’d prefer it if she were naked. Because she’s wearing an odd confection of feathers and see-through organza that can only be described as, well, haute couture rooster lingerie.
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br />   Damn.

  Hypothesis refuted. Juliette is apparently not, in fact, rehearsing for a showgirl-plus-chicken song-and-dance number but having sex—in my bed—with a woman in a chicken outfit.

  Who, I can only assume, crows when she’s having an especially good time.

  I almost laugh, but I can’t seem to move my jaw out of its current what-the-hell position.

  As expected, Juliette gives me her lazy, red-lipsticked grin, and I marvel at her commercial-perfect, unsmudged face. She and her unlikely, feather-headressed bed partner have obviously been going at it for a while, judging by the state of the bird woman’s crushed feathers. But Juliette swears by this incredibly expensive, red-as-blood lip stain that never rubs off, not even after hours of passionate lovemaking. It’s made by some mad scientist in Alaska who claims to have discovered the secret of “immortal life—for your lips.” He appears in his own product advertisements dressed as an Anne Rice-style vampire, complete with lacy cuffs and sexy, red-lipped victims.

  But the staying power of that lipstick has creeped me out on more than one occasion. Maybe I’m weird, but I like messy, unrehearsed, how-did-my-panties-end-up-on-the-lampshade and oh-my-God-my-hair-looks-like-the-bride-of-Frankenstein’s-bouffant kind of sex. And Juliette likes things clean. Sexy…but clean.

  All of those feather bits on the sheets are probably driving her up the wall.

  “Hi, Molly,” she drawls weakly, grin fading. Her blue eyes flit uncertainly between me and the now-silent brunette curled beside her, who looks remarkably uncomfortable. “Allow me to introduce you to Norine. She’s the costume designer for Bathing Beauties Live! Remember that patriotic swimsuit I was wearing at the cottage?”

  I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe, nodding slightly.

  “Well, Norine made it! She’s a fantastic artist; you ought to get a look at her portfolio. She designed tin soldier costumes for the Rockettes’ Christmas show, and she’s done a ton of interning in Europe. Someday she’d like to—”

  “Juliette,” Norine murmurs softly, closing her eyes and exhaling a longsuffering sigh. “I don’t think your girlfriend’s interested in a recitation of my resume right now.”

  “I’m not her—”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Juliette interrupts me, gliding her hand over Norine’s orange-feathered wings, her organzaed hip. “It’s like I told you, Norry. I just needed a place to stay after I finished that revue in Paris, and my…friend Molly—” Blue eyes turn on me, begging, pleading. “She offered me this room until I could get on my feet, find work and my own apartment. And now that the work part is settled—”

  “I expect we’ll have to part ways very soon,” I say meaningfully, gaze narrowed, one brow up. “And just when we were getting reacquainted. But… We all have our own destinies to follow, don’t we?”

  For a moment, Juliette pouts, blonde lashes lowered and brushing against her china doll cheeks. But then she raises her chin, confronting my eyes with her own hard, hooded gaze. “That’s right, Molly. We do. In fact, Norry was just telling me—well, not just telling me; I mean, we’ve been kind of busy for the past, oh, what? Three hours or so?”

  She looks to Norine for confirmation—while sliding a hand beneath the woman’s transparent negligee and squeezing her nipple. Juliette grins wickedly at me before she begins to nuzzle at Norine’s long, arching neck. Startled, Norine moans and grips the sheets at her sides, but she remembers my presence and stiffens, easing Juliette’s hand and mouth away. “Bad girl,” Norine whispers, reaching around Juliette’s hip to sharply smack her naked rump.

  “Oh, I think we both know who’s the bad girl here,” Juliette laughs huskily, tearing the chemise down to suckle at Norine’s breast.

  But Norine only sighs and pushes her away again. “No biting when we have company,” she chastises, giving her lover another loud spank.

  Eyes aglow, Juliette regards me again, her grin less wicked now and more, strangely enough, triumphant.

  “Anyway,” she continues, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if we’re sitting in a coffeehouse, as if she and Norine aren’t engaging in erotic exhibitionism before my eyes, “last night, Norine told me about a sublet opportunity that opened up in her condo complex, and we’re going to take a tour of the place after we’re…finished here. Which might not be for, oh, you know—”

  “Right. Hours and hours more.” I smile, then, really smile, with teeth showing, eyes crinkling—the works. Despite the fact that I’m probably going to have to throw out my super-comfortable, super-expensive mattress—I’ll never be able to lie on it again without remembering the sight of rooster gal fluttering beneath Juliette’s vampire lips—I feel oddly relieved.

  It appears as if the actress is going to leave of her own free will, and I’ll have my house back, my peace of mind back. I’ll be able to concentrate on work, the gala, on wedding planning with Pauline. I’ll occupy myself with normal things, Normal things—local events, community projects. I’ll go to Adult Book Discussions at the library, join the gardening club, the Historical Society.

  Maybe I’ll even adopt a dog.

  It’ll be… It’ll be great—the freedom. The blessed normalcy. I’ll never have to worry about unwanted bouquets or inopportune knocks at the front door or naked women in my bed…ever again.

  The small matter of my twice-broken heart is inconsequential, really, in the grand scheme of things. I mean, in a month or two, I probably won’t even remember that artist’s name. I probably won’t remember how lovely she was, how her voice made my bones tremble, how her eyes—grey as dove feathers—pierced me so deeply that I felt, for the first time, the physical presence of my soul.

  I’ll forget all of that…probably…soon enough.

  Fighting back hot, traitor tears, I draw in a deep, ragged breath and set my jaw.

  What’s important now is to make a final break with Juliette, to try to wish her well, despite my less-than-admirable urgings to take Norine aside and assail her with Juliette’s history of wrongs, for her own winged heart’s protection.

  But Norine has the right to make her own choices, and she doesn’t seem like the doormat type—far from it. Juliette may have met her match in this woman, and a challenge might be exactly what she needs. Maybe Norine can provide for her the missing element that I never, despite my best efforts, could.

  Anyway, I’m certain she can provide a wide array of animal-themed lingerie (with accompanying animal sounds) to keep their sex life interesting, at least.

  A bittersweet relief floods my chest, and I swallow my heartsickness to embrace this moment, this long-overdue goodbye. “You know, Juliette,” I begin, taking a few steps into the room and swinging open the hinged closet door, “I have a good feeling about this condo. Oh, I know you’re the psychic one—it runs in her family,” I tell Norine behind my hand, “but I have a deep-down conviction that you’re going to sign a lease for that place. Today.” I stare deeply into Juliette’s eyes—cold now, glinting like ice—and put my hands on my hips. “I think it would be a wise move. Maybe the wisest move you’ve ever made. In fact, I think it’s a move you have to make—to assure your own, well, best interests.” I slant her a less-than-friendly smile as I reach into the closet, unhooking five or six hangers from the bar.

  “What are you—”

  “Hey, have you ever watched any of those New Age documentaries, the ones about the power of thought?” I ask, sliding clothes off of the hangers. With small, livid eyes, Juliette watches her filmy wardrobe descend to the feather-strewn floor. “Well,” I go on, “I think it would send out a positive message to the Universe—capital U—if you acted as if you had already signed the lease. I think you should pack up all your stuff now. That way, by simply believing this new place is the one for you, you’ll shift reality with your mind and make it so. It’ll be the condo of your dreams, and you’ll have your suitcases right there in hand, ready to move in.”

  I heft the rest of Juliette’s clothes out of the close
t and, without bothering to remove the hangers this time, open my arms, letting the skirts and lacy slips fall onto the floor in a crumpled heap. Then I drag out her suitcases and bags and toss them on top of the clothes mountain, brushing my hands together with satisfaction. “So! Shall I help you pack?”

  “No, thank you,” Juliette growls, folding her arms at her narrow waist. “I’ll do it. You always wrinkle my delicates.”

  “You know me. I’m a wash-and-wear girl.” I gesture at my less-than-fashionable ensemble and tilt my head of unwashed, tangled hair, unsmiling. “Life’s too short to worry about wrinkles.”

  “Well… Life’s too short to linger where one no longer has any reason to stay,” she retorts, blue eyes slitted. “But, you know, Molly, you’ve got a thing or two to learn about hospitality. Your mother’s a very polite woman. Pity you didn’t take after her.”

  “Didn’t I?” I trod over the clothes scattered on the floor and pause in the doorway leading out to the hall. For a moment, I just gaze at Juliette, the beautiful woman I once loved with all of my heart, the woman who I thought loved me with all of hers… I can’t read her mind, can’t pretend to understand her actions or her motivations. Maybe she did love me. Maybe part of her still does. But whatever we had together has long passed its expiration date. I think of the years we spent together, the adventures we had, the kisses, the laughter, and I don’t want to let those memories go—not ever, not the bright, golden moments. They’re mine to keep, no matter what comes next.

  But this moment… I won’t store any of the past several days, since her return, in my mental scrapbook. I’ll cut them up, let the pieces gust away, like torn-out pages lost to the wind. I’ll always cherish the fireworks Juliette made me feel, but I refuse to let her burns scar my heart.

  “My mother,” I say softly, meeting Juliette’s achingly blue gaze, “taught me that the home is a sanctuary. She was a curator, too, in a sense, always fine-tuning her house’s aesthetic, donating the odds and ends that didn’t belong. Never keep anything in your home that is not beautiful or does not make you happy, she used to say. And I live my life by those words, Juliette.” I draw in a long, deep breath, so deep that my chest lances with pain—or…maybe it hurts for another reason. Juliette watches me warily, cheeks flushed, lower lip trembling. Her short blonde hair surrounds her face in mussed, cherubim curls.