Dreams of Jeannie and Other Stories

by Catherine Dain

  "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am," he said softly.

  "Lane, hello. Grabbing a late night snack?" A deep voice rumbled over my shoulder. "And Miss O'Neal, isn't it?"

  "Horton. Sure." Lane turned a soft shade of red and dropped my hand.

  "Hi," I said.

  "No problem," Horton chuckled. "What you do on your own time is your own business."

  "Thanks," Lane said. Once Horton had moved away, he added, "Is this going to be a problem for you?"

  "Not at all." I noticed a flash a few tables away, and I motioned for the club photographer to come over to the booth. "Make it good," I told her.

  I didn't have to tell Lane what I wanted.

  I checked with Matthews the next morning. Lowry was keeping his mouth shut, as I had figured. No mention of negatives or rifled briefcases. They had taken some hair samples for laboratory testing. The politician in the photos was coming in with his lawyer that afternoon. Matthews was almost cheerful.

  The photo from the Mother Lode arrived in the mail a few days later. I framed it and hung it on my office wall.

  So now anybody who walks in can see the handsomest man in Reno caught in the act of kissing me.

  That's my idea of justice.

  Self Defense

  This was originally a chapter in a novel, but the first two friends who read it both said that it was too long a break in the action, and that the protagonist's self-defense class would have to take place off-stage, as it were. I reluc­tantly agreed, and then turned it into a short story, which turned out to be my first fiction sale. Another friend sub­mitted it to Network, a feminist fiction magazine that is no longer around, and they published it in 1990. With the advantage of twelve years' experience, I've rewritten it for this collection.

  "A woman in the United States is raped every two min­utes," the instructor shouted. "In the three hours we will be together this morning, ninety women will be raped. And an­other ninety will be raped this afternoon. Rape does not just happen at night—we all think we are safer during the day—rape happens all the time! Look at the woman to your right, look at the woman to your left. Statistically, half of the women in this room—living in Los Angeles—will be raped sometime during their lives. According to FBI figures, one out of three women in the United States will be raped."

  Jessie and Karen glanced uncomfortably at each other and then at the women on their other sides, who also glanced and turned quickly away. The woman on Jessie's right looked tough—those were well-defined biceps under a "Take Back the Night" t-shirt. She didn't look as if she needed a self-defense workshop. But even so she glanced away.

  Jessie wondered what had happened to bring this woman here. Something had happened, surely. Something had surely happened to each of them, except Karen, who had agreed to go because Jessie didn't want to go alone.

  The instructor shouted on. "Each of you—because of the kind of woman you are—has discouraged at least one rape. You have discouraged a rapist because of the way you walk, because of the way you answered when he asked you a question, because you were not compliant!"

  There were some murmurs from the group. These women were not compliant. After all, they were here.

  "What are the common myths about rape?" the in­structor shouted.

  "Women ask for it!" the woman to Jessie's right growled.

  "Right!"

  "Rape is an act of passion," Jessie volunteered.

  "Right!"

  "Most rapists are strangers," another woman called out.

  "Rape is a good way of punishing uppity women," spat still another.

  The pitch of the answers rose higher, the rate of re­sponse faster.

  "Women secretly want to be raped," came a cry from the back.

  "Right!" shouted the instructor. "Right! Right!"

  Jessie's heart began to beat in rhythm to the shouts.

  "Another myth is that you will be hurt worse if you fight back." The instructor paced the room, looking each woman in the eye. "Most rapists look for the easiest possible target. They want compliant women! Women who don't know how to say NO! The rapist of a young Asian woman was found not guilty by a jury, just because she never said the word NO! He claimed he didn't know she was resisting! Well, she didn't know how to say NO! And some of you may not have learned to say NO! But you're not going to be victims! And even if you have been before, you're not going to be again!"

  She looked at Jessie on that one. Jessie had to look away.

  "No matter what happened to you, no matter what brought you to this class, it wasn't your fault." The in­structor moved on to the next woman. "Whatever it was, if you were attacked, if you were mugged, if you were raped, you were not to blame. You didn't know how to protect yourself. And now you're going to learn. You're going to learn to say NO! A victim doesn't say NO! But you are not a victim, and if you were one, you aren't one anymore. You will say NO! Now, let me hear it!"

  "No," a few of the women said uneasily.

  "Louder!" shouted the instructor.

  The "nos" became a little stronger.

  "Let me hear it louder! NO! NO!" The instructor led them, turning it into a chant.

  "NO! NO! NO! NO!"

  "And that's just the way you're going to shout it when you attack Ralph the Rapist!" The instructor held up a pair of stuffed jeans. "You will note that Ralph has no chest. In the movies, you see women struggling with men and hitting them in the chest. Those movies were made by men! Men don't want you to know how to hurt them. Never hit a man in the chest. You won't hurt him. And if you're going to hit him, you've got to want to hurt him. The chest, the upper body, is his strongest area. But your center of gravity is lower. You're going to learn today to use your strength against his weakness. You're going to learn all the vulner­able areas—the eyes, the ears, the nose, the balls, and the kneecaps."

  "The kneecaps?" Jessie asked.

  "Absolutely! The average man's kneecap breaks under forty pounds of pressure. The average untrained woman can smash down with a force of sixty pounds. That's one and a half kneecaps. And you're going to learn how to do it today! But we're going to start top down—with the eyes. Pick a partner."

  Jessie turned to Karen, who shrugged and nodded. The other women—about a dozen—paired off. Following in­structions, one woman from each pair picked up a pillow from a stack in the middle of the room and held it for the other to hit.

  Karen held the pillow at arm's length, eye level, with her head turned away, as if she were afraid Jessie might miss. Jessie knew she wouldn't miss. But she had to try it first, see how it felt to hit the pillow, so she punched it with a soft jab, an embarrassingly soft jab. Then she tried really hitting it. Almost. She began hitting the pillow harder and harder, annoyed that Karen was holding it so limply, as if it weren't a symbol of oppression at all. She finally knocked it out of Karen's hands.

  "Great! Keep it up!"

  The instructor had noticed. Jessie, pleased, hit the pillow out of Karen's hands again. She found it more awkward when she tried to scratch the pillow's eyes or break its ear­drums. But hitting it on the nose felt good.

  Karen couldn't knock the pillow out of Jessie's hands. Jessie shook it at her, to encourage her, but Karen never put any weight into her blows.

  "This is weird," Karen whispered when the instructor called a break. "I need a cigarette. You coming?"

  Jessie shook her head. She wanted to ask Karen why she had come if she wasn't really going to do it. But she knew why Karen had come. Jessie had asked, and Karen was compliant.

  Jessie stayed in the bare room, stretching her muscles and looking at the clock, fretting when the break ran past its allotted ten minutes.

  Then they were back, and the instructor lined them up. One at a time, they ran at Ralph the Rapist, kicking at his kneecaps, shouting "NO!" with each kick.

  Then his balls, they started kicking his balls. The balls were harder to hit.

  "Men will tell you not to try for the balls, that they pro­te
ct their balls, that you can't hurt them there. This is a lie! But you have to practice!" the instructor shouted.

  They lined up again. The room was large enough to ac­commodate a much larger class, but Jessie was glad there were so few of them. More practice. This time, her kick landed. Ralph the Rapist went flying. Off balance, Jessie did, too.

  "Great! Next time you'll stay on your feet!"

  She did, but she missed his balls. Annoyed, she pivoted and smashed his kneecap. The instructor cackled.

  "Now, this time, you're going to go for the balls with your hands. Like this." The instructor held Ralph in one hand, demonstrating slowly with the other. "Slap! Grab! Squeeze! Pull! Got that? Watch it again. Slap! Grab! Squeeze! Pull! Say it with me. Slap! Grab! Squeeze! Pull! Now again, faster, louder. SLAP! GRAB! SQUEEZE! PULL!"

  Jessie felt perspiration soaking the armpits and back of her t-shirt and starting to dampen the crotch of her jeans She wished that Ralph really had balls to grab, so she would know for sure she had hit them. The instructor told them that Ralph had originally been anatomically correct, but his balls had long since been lost in the stuffing. Jessie was an­noyed that no one had bothered to replace them.

  Shortly after noon, they broke for lunch. There was a courtyard behind the small building, nothing more than three picnic tables and a tree. Jessie had promised Karen that she would take care of lunch—chicken salad, bread, cheese, pears, mineral water. The woman with biceps, Sarah, and her pillow-punching partner Rita, a young black woman with hair in cornrows and a lean, gymnast's body, sat at the same table. They had each brought a sandwich and bought a soda from a battered machine near the door.

  Jessie had barely taken a bite of her lunch when Sarah plunged into the story of the attack that had brought her to the class.

  "I kept screaming and flailing at him as he banged my head against the sidewalk," Sarah was saying as the in­structor joined them, pulling an apple and mineral water out of a paper bag. "And—I'm really sorry to say this, Rita—but for weeks afterward I couldn't look at a black man, any black man, without wanting to cry, or scream, or run, or something, I didn't know what."

  Rita shrugged. "I know a few black men I'd run away from. You were lucky he didn't have a knife."

  "I know a few white men I'd run from," Karen said, smiling at them.

  Jessie looked at the bit of mayonnaise-smeared chicken on her plastic fork. She didn't understand how Karen could wolf chicken salad and nod sympathetically at the same time.

  "Yeah, I know." Sarah's voice was flat. "But if it hap­pens again, I'll be ready for him, knife or no knife."

  "I'm sure it won't happen again," Karen said. "Why should it?"

  Sarah smiled a little lopsidedly at her. "Why should it happen the first time?"

  "Nobody can promise it won't happen again, you know that," the instructor said. She was short and heavy, as if she normally ate more than an apple for lunch. She had strong features and might have been attractive if she had wanted to be. But nobody looked attractive in a self-defense class.

  "All I can promise is that you will be more cautious and you'll be better equipped, if somebody tries it again," she continued. "Although you might want to think twice about fighting if he has a knife. You'd have to use your own judg­ment."

  "Yeah, that's what I tell my boyfriend, I gotta use my own judgment," Rita said. "He didn't want me to take this class, but I told him I gotta learn to protect myself. He didn't think I could learn much in one day. Well, he sure has a surprise coming!"

  The instructor shook her head. "Don't do it. Women leave this class, and they go home, and there's a man waiting for them. And he says, 'What did you learn?' And she says, 'I learned to protect myself.' He says, 'Sure you did. Prove it. Protect yourself against me.' And he goes for her. And she doesn't want to hurt him. So she can't hit him, she can't break his hold, she can't throw him. She can't hurt someone she loves, so she thinks she can't hurt someone who threatens her. And her power is lost all over again. So don't do it. Practice with each other, take another class, but just tell the man you love that you had a good time today."

  "Suppose I wanted to take another class. Where would I go?" Jessie asked.

  "There's a place on the Westside, run by women. I'll give you their card when we go back in. Most martial arts places are run by men, and they're pretty condescending to­ward women who come in."

  "Thanks," Jessie said. "I'd like the card."

  "Really?" Karen was surprised.

  "Yeah, really."

  "But after that whole thing with Greg, after you broke up and he—because he—" Karen stopped as Jessie stared at her.

  "So?"

  "I just have trouble seeing you into violence."

  "I'm not into violence. I'm into protecting myself from violence." Even as she said it, Jessie remembered the rush she felt when her foot had connected with the dummy's kneecap. She wanted that rush again.

  Karen looked away. Sarah nodded.

  After lunch there were chokeholds and bear hugs to break. They learned how to throw a man who pinned them down. Jessie was pleased when Karen threw her. Karen laughed and wanted to do it again.

  The class ended at four. The women hugged each other and wished each other well before they dispersed.

  Jessie's muscles had started to stiffen by the time they reached Karen's house. She had pulled over on the way, to put the top up on her convertible. The slight breeze made her shiver as her sweat dried, even though the sun was still warm.

  When they reached the house, Karen invited Jessie in for a drink.

  "Jesus, you both stink," Wayne, Karen's husband, said in welcome. "Sit down, and I'll get you some wine."

  Jessie and Karen slumped in their chairs.

  "So what did you learn?" Wayne asked, handing them their glasses.

  "Oh, God, it was great. Thanks," Karen said, taking a sip of her wine. "We learned so much. Where to hit, how to hit, how to get away, how to throw somebody who pins you down."

  "What?"

  "We had a good time," Jessie said.

  "No, come on. How to throw somebody who pins you down? Come on, Karen. If I pinned you down, you couldn't throw me. You just aren't strong enough."

  "Yes. Yes, I could. I could throw you. I could use my strength against your weakness and throw you."

  "Try it," Wayne said, setting down his glass.

  "Wayne, forget it, we had a good time," Jessie told him.

  "No. Put your glass down, Karen."

  "Sure. Okay."

  Karen lay down on the floor, and Wayne sat on her, pin­ning her wrists. They were still for a moment, and then Karen started straining. She struggled with her hand, kicked out with her feet.

  "I don't remember," she finally said. "I don't remember how to do it."

  "Yeah. I didn't think so." Wayne got to his feet and winked at Jessie.

  "Pin me down," Jessie said softly.

  Wayne shrugged. "Okay. If you want."

  Wayne sat on her easily, holding her wrists tightly, but still smiling.

  Jessie lifted her knees, thrust with her pelvis, and stuck her left wrist out. Wayne was suddenly on his back.

  He lay there stunned for an instant.

  "Let's try that again," he said as he got up.

  This time Jessie could feel the tension in his thigh mus­cles as he braced himself, and he pulled her shoulders as he stretched her arms out. Her wrists hurt from his grip. His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened as he looked down at her. She thrust with her pelvis. And she threw him.

  "I guess you did learn something, Jessie, didn't you?" His mouth smiled again.

  "I guess I did."

  "Excuse me a moment."

  Wayne walked down the hall toward the bathroom.

  Jessie looked at her untouched wine. "Well. I guess I'd better go now. Thanks for the drink."

  Karen walked her to the door.

  "Are you sure you don't want to stay?"

  "I really need to get home." Jessie said i
t politely. She didn't want to hurt Karen.

  "Oh. Sure. I'm tired, too. I'm—maybe we ought to prac­tice on each other sometime."

  "Yeah. That's a good idea. Let's do that."

  "Jessie?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "I'm sorry, too."

  Jessie had a muddled sense that they were sorry for the wrong things.

  Karen reached out and hugged her tightly. Jessie hugged back the best that she could.

  "Do you want to call me about the martial arts classes?" Karen asked. "Maybe I could go with you."

  "Sure. Of course I'll call you."

  Jessie separated herself carefully. She turned back and waved good-bye as she reached her car.

  She had intended to go straight home, but the more she thought about the way Karen had lost her power, had be­come compliant, and the more she thought about how good it had felt to throw Wayne, the more she felt there was a stop she needed to make first.

  And really, Greg's apartment wasn't that far out of the way.

  She could feel her heart beating, her blood pounding, as she parked the car in front of his building, as she walked up the stairs to his apartment.

  "Jessie!" he exclaimed, startled, when he opened the door to see her there. He was in his bathrobe, towel around his neck, hair still damp from the shower. "Listen, this isn't a good time to talk."

  "I didn't exactly come to talk," she said softly. "I came to say NO!"

  He wasn't expecting it, of course, and that was in her favor. And he was naked under his robe.

  Still, Jessie was surprised at how easily she found them with her left hand. Slap! Grab! Squeeze! Pull!

  Her right hand became a fist that connected squarely with his nose.

  Greg crumpled so easily, barely making a sound, just a whimper as she let go and he belatedly moved to protect himself, curling into a fetal position in the doorway. His face was stark white, bloodless from the shock.

  One of his legs had come out from under the bathrobe as he twitched on the floor, and Jessie considered stomping the exposed kneecap. She shook her head. Not this time.

  She walked back down the stairs to her car, right hand aching from the force of the blow to his face.