All those women found that their live ones had drifted away, either to watch the football, or gather around the barbeque or the pool and drink and drink and drink until they could hardly remember their own name. Why, then her girlfriends were looking at Melanie in an entirely different light. That’s when conversations like this occurred.
“Well, just the way the warm ones do it! But, oh, it lasts a lot longer,” Melanie said in a confidential tone, enjoying the attention. “And he never complains about, y’know, eating at the Y!”
Dirty giggles all round, the kind of wolfish laughter girls made when they talked about getting the kind of sex they wanted.
“And so you say they’ve got a payment plan?”
She was willing to bet that more than a few relationships were going to end the next day and that Zombies Inc would be doing a brisk trade.
Melanie hadn’t been exaggerating. Billy wasn’t like the warm ones. He didn’t seem to get tired. He didn’t seem to tire of doing anything for that matter. She wasn’t sure what he got out of their encounters, because he always had that slight smile on his face. And he never, well, came―just, well, kind of deflated a while after they stopped. He just kept going until she said “stop”. If she didn’t take charge, why, chance was he’d rub her raw. After she showed him what to do it was all good.
She found, for the first time in her life, that she was in charge in the bed. He did whatever she wanted. Sometimes, she got brave and experimented. Sometimes she made him be the girl—hell, it didn’t hurt him and she started to understand some why men had done the things they’d done to her.
She also liked those days when she could put him in the bath and give him his weekly wash. It was just like he was her doll, so pliant, so obedient. The manual insisted he could be bathed only once a week: Any more frequent washing will cause the skin to slough off in an unsightly manner.Your EZ-Boy will have its own particular scent. Do not try to wash the scent away―you will get used to it. And she had gotten used to it. She never thought she’d start to associate mothballs with sex, but sometimes when she opened the closet in the spare room, where she kept the winter blankets and sweaters, and she caught a whiff of the camphor she’d carefully layered there at the end of season, why she just had to call for Billy.
Melanie found she had a lot of extra time on her hands. She could send Billy for the groceries, but she’d had to re-read the manual section on giving instruction because she wanted to get it just right.
Your EZ-Boy is receptive to requests of quite a complex nature but you must be very specific about what you ask for. Loose use of colloquial language could be dangerous, for example “Take my hand”, “Take your hands off”, or “Keep your eye on something” could lead to an incident that may void your warranty.
She’d sent him out to do the shopping one week and then had to go to the store to find him. Melanie found him standing in front of the rows and rows of different kinds of cereal, pulling on his left earlobe that way he did sometimes. When they finally got home, she lost her temper. He couldn’t show any reaction of course, no contrition and that drove her crazy―if only he’d said “Sorry”. If only he’d been able to say sorry she wouldn’t have gotten quite so mad, she wouldn’t have started hitting him. She wouldn’t have kept hitting him until her hands hurt. That’s why she stopped; her hands hurt.
Melanie looked at the list she’d given him, later, and sure enough, she’d just written ‘cereal’. It was all her fault. No point apologising, really, but she didn’t want him making any more stupid mistakes. She wanted him to do exactly what she wanted him to do.
The woman at the reception desk looked familiar. Melanie gave her a bright smile as she checked the reservation in the computer. Yes, the woman had been here a few months ago—and again a few months before that. She’d always been on her own before but not so this time. “Hello, Ms Donaldson. Welcome back.”
The girl next to her was tall and thin, with breasts really too big for her gaunt frame. She looked like a model, was dressed like one, except for her skin and eyes—the former a definite grey, the latter cloudy white.
“An EZ-Girl!” exclaimed Melanie before she could stop herself.
The woman’s eyes lit up. “Have you got one?”
“An EZ-Boy,” said Melanie quickly, anxious that the woman know she was straight. Melanie eyed the girl. There was obviously a high-end to the product, one beyond her price range―this one was very expensive.
Ms Donaldson followed her gaze and smiled; she ran her hand proprietally down the girl’s face, neck, collarbone and then caressed the pneumatic-looking breasts. The expression on the beautiful, blank face did not change, but she gave a little, learned sigh. “Aren’t they just fabulous?”
“Oh, my, yes. They are just fabulous. So well-behaved.”
“Oh, and reliable and tireless! I don’t know how I did without Felicia.” Ms Donaldson smiled fondly, possessively.
“I’ve put you in your usual suite, ma’am. Roger will take your bags. Do enjoy your stay and let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with.”
“Oh, I’ll be very well taken care of, thank you,” she said.
The washing machine was broken when she got home and water had flooded the laundry. Billy was mopping it up. He’d used the machine lots of time before; she’d given him very specific instructions so she knew he hadn’t done the wrong thing. He didn’t deviate from his learned patterns, his accustomed rhythms, nor did he think beyond the orders given him. So, she kept her temper. They bundled up the washing into big bags—she only had one uniform left for tomorrow. The girls in the laundry at the hotel wouldn’t mind if she threw a few things in with the guest loads.
Half an hour before Melanie’s shift started, she and Billy waited in the alcove just off the lobby. Billy carried the bags of washing and they were waiting for the service elevator to the lower levels of the hotel. Behind them came the clip-clip of high heels and they both turned to look, nothing more than a casual curiosity on Melanie’s part, and simply following a lead on Billy’s.
Ms Donaldson and Felicia walked past. Ms Donaldson caught sight of Melanie and gave a conspirator’s wave, smiling when she saw Billy. Felicia and Billy locked eyes, but neither Melanie nor Ms Donaldson noticed because they were too busy exchanging self-satisfied smirks.
Melanie left Billy in the laundry room. The girls were happy to let Billy sit there while the cycles went through. Melanie gave him a kiss on the forehead and went back to begin her shift.
A couple of hours later she looked up from plugging in reservations to find Ms Donaldson with a perplexed look on her face. “Have you seen my girl?”
“Sorry? Felicia?”
“Who else? I left her in the suite when I went to my meeting. Now I can’t find her.”
“Well, no, ma’am. I haven’t seen her but I will let you know if I do. I’ll ask around if you like, see if we can find her.”
“Thank you. They’re not supposed to wander off on their own like that!” Donaldson turned away, her heels making angry little sounds on the marble floor.
Melanie asked some of the busboys to look for the EZ-Girl and then figured she would take a break and check on Billy. When she got to the entrance of the laundry room, though, she found the Lucy and Susannah and Amelia crowded in the doorway. They were giggling quietly, craning around each other to get a good look into the room. Melanie walked up behind them, her soft-soled shoes making no sound. She peered over the shoulders of the three laundresses.
Billy was sitting exactly where she left him. Kneeling in front of him was Felicia, her head bobbing gently up and down as if in time to music no one else could hear. Melanie wondered how long they’d been going, if the EZ-Girl had the same kind of stamina as her male counterpart. She could hear a high pitched noise. At first she thought it was one of the machines in the laundry letting off steam, until the laundresses turned around and looked at her, their mouths o’s of surprise—then she realised she was screaming.
>
She’d kept Billy in his box for two whole days while she decided what to do. She’d walked through her job like a—well, like a zombie—all the while her mind was on how to deal with the situation.
Melanie hadn’t told Ms Donaldson. When she got her composure back, she just walked Felicia back to the suite and said she’d found the girl wandering in the gardens. They were booked for another week, so she figured she had time to think things through.
It wasn’t that Melanie hadn’t thought about telling, but she wanted to work this out for herself. She was going to take responsibility for this situation. She wanted to protect her investment.
And there was something else. Something else she wanted but couldn’t bear to examine too closely for it would interfere with her view of herself. She knew it in her heart, recognised it, but wouldn’t look directly at it. She wanted revenge, but she told herself it was justice. It was her right. But she couldn’t afford to lose her job.
It took her two days of lurking, hours of re-reading the manual, carefully timing the calls from Ms Donaldson’s suite. Melanie was practised at being invisible, she blended in like a piece of furniture that no one commented on, that everyone took for granted. So she was the perfect observer; the perfect spy, really.
She was rostered on reception with Davey, a young man with a large Adam’s apple that drew the eye. Melanie caught sight of the food trolley going towards the elevators just after six. She casually picked up the pile of dry-cleaning (all of Felicia’s model-wear and a couple of Ms Donaldson’s suits) and gave Davey a nod. They weren’t busy; this was the time when she did little tasks like this. The guests liked a personal touch.
“Hold the lift!” she sang and made it between the doors just before they shut. The room service guy gave her a big smile.
“Hey, Antonio, how are the kids?”
As she moved deeper into the elevator she seemed to trip. The dry-cleaning dropped to the floor with a whisper of plastic, individually-wrapped pieces sliding over one another, slippery as squid in a dish. Antonio bent down to pick them up.
Melanie lifted the metal lid from the bowl of Felicia’s gruel with her left hand and with her right dug into the pocket of her jacket and scooped out the grains of salt she’d spooned in there before the beginning of her shift. The crystals shone under the fluoro lights as she sprinkled them over the gruel. They melted quickly into the beige-coloured mush, and she gently replaced the cover as Antonio stood, the dry-cleaning tidily arranged, the metal hooks of the coat hangers curved over his thick fingers.
In another day or so she’d let Billy out of his box. She’d explain to him again what he’d done wrong. She wanted him to know he could never do that again. She’d tell him what she’d done. She wanted him to know she was protecting him. Protecting her investment.
* * *
Light As Mist, Heavy As Hope
“My daughter,” breathed Miller, “my daughter can spin gold out of straw.”
This sudden boast struck his fellow-drinkers as interesting, if stupid. Miller had a tendency to open his mouth unwisely when ale had passed his lips. The bragging was, however, astonishingly egregious. Their king, after all, finding himself in something of a hole, financially speaking, was wont to do anything to refill the kingdom’s coffers. Those with wiser minds shook their heads; Miller was asking for trouble.
The Taverner, sensing the man was finely balanced between merely making noise and starting a fight, thought it best to send him on his way. He heaved Miller to his feet. The odour of flour that clung to the man crept into the Taverner’s nostrils. It was the smell of his profession, of his world; had he been asked, Miller would have denied the existence of any smell. Miller swayed, peered at the Taverner, and raised his voice so that all in the tavern could hear. “My Alice can spin gold from straw,” he bellowed.
Looking around, taking in the disbelieving looks with a bleary stare, he began to mutter. “A good girl, my Alice. Good, beautiful, industrious. Better than her bitch of a mother.”
Noticing the three soldiers in the corner, the Taverner propped one shoulder under Miller’s arm and manoeuvred the sot away. He felt eyes upon his back and sensed danger.
He sensed danger, too, in the way Miller spoke of his daughter’s beauty. The Taverner suspected when Miller got that look he was somehow confusing Alice with her dead mother in the most base of manners. Sometimes he feared for the girl; most of the time he decided she was her father’s property, like all daughters. And Alice was smart. She could take care of herself.
Miller stumbled into the night, muttering. A few moments after the door swung shut, a soldier detached himself from the huddle in the corner and approached the Taverner.
The sound of the front door thudding against the wall made Alice open her eyes. It didn’t wake her, for she never slept when her father was out drinking, or when he came home, drunk and reeking of ale. She never answered when he came to her door.
At first he would scratch quietly, as if ashamed, then the knocking would grow louder, until he was hammering at the door and shouting, calling her by a name not her own. He would stay until he remembered who she was, and then sob for a while before going away.
For a whole month after her mother’s death he stayed away from the drink. A whole month when he was her father and nothing more, not a monster or a nightmare or a beast. Weak, like all his kind, he succumbed soon enough and the visits to Alice’s door resumed. Thus far she had remained safe.
A loud crash hammered her nerves before she heard Miller’s voice, calling her down, calling for help. Tightly wrapping a robe around herself Alice unlocked the door and made her way downstairs.
Her father was crumpled near the kitchen table, blood flowing from a wound on his head. He looked up at her, pale eyes unfocused as they caught at her, taking in the tumble of golden curls, the eyes so darkly blue that they seemed almost black, the crushed strawberry lips and the swell of her breasts under the robe. He reached out, the gesture unfinished when he passed out.
Unhurriedly, Alice left the house to draw water from the well. When she returned, she knelt by Miller’s fallen bulk and wiped away the blood, gently wrapped his head with a bandage, and turned away. His hand found her, kneading her thigh like dough, then clawing upward to her breast. She scrambled backward, falling in her haste to escape him.
He was asleep, but even in his sleep he craved her flesh. She took two swift steps and sunk her foot into his ribs. A loud gasp of air escaped him but still he slept; he would ache in the morning without knowing why.
In the safety of her room, the memory of her mother came to her with equal longing and resentment. Three months in the ground; three months Alice had spent evading her father. From her window, Alice could see the forest. Somewhere beneath the trees was the spot where they had buried her mother. As far away as Miller could get without exciting tongues; far enough, he thought, that she wouldn’t haunt him and dog his conscience, far enough that he could forget her and take refuge in his daughter’s flesh. His daughter with her mother’s face.
Alice remembered her mother’s face, thinner than her own, pale skin, bloodless lips, eyes bruised with sickness. A hand fluttering to draw her daughter close. Alice had stood back, believing her mother chose to go, thinking love was something corporeal that existed only as long as the body in which it resided lived. She refused her mother’s final gift, her kiss, and ignored the dying woman who cried that she must pass a secret to her daughter. When her mother’s sobbing ceased there were cold tears on Alice’s cheeks. Angry and afraid, she stood at the door, refusing her mother’s last kiss even as she lay: still, silent, and growing cold.
Now there was only her father, who watched her, day in, day out.
“Where’s your daughter, old man?”
The uniformed men were impatient. Halfway between the mill and the house the four soldiers had reined in beside him; Miller stopped in his tracks. His bruised cut showing a week’s worth of fading, Miller was in no mood to argue.
“Alice, get out here!” he roared. Squinting at the lead soldier, he asked, “What do you want my Alice for?”
“Word of her has reached the king,” said the captain.
“Who’s been talking about her?”
“You, Miller. His Majesty was very interested to hear that your Alice spins gold from straw. Got all those empty coffers at the palace, he has. Maybe your Alice can fill ’em. And an empty bed, too. Maybe your Alice has something he can fill in return.”
“Alice!” cried Miller as his daughter appeared, her cornflower blue dress and white apron very bright in the sunshine. Alice moved with grace, raising her eyes to meet those of the captain, ignoring her father as if she knew what he’d brought upon her.
“Your father says you can spin gold,” said the captain, dark eyes raking her.
Alice eyed her father. Her cold contempt was unveiled for the first time and he shrank to the size of a child.
“If my father says so.”
“The king has commanded you come with us.”
“If the king says so.”
“Is there anything you wish to take with you? Is there anyone you wish to bid farewell?” He shifted in his saddle.
Alice touched the small gold locket at her throat, then dropped her eyes to the thin ring on her finger. Both her mother’s. All she needed of her old life. She shook her head. The captain reached down and she grasped his hand, swinging up behind him. The last Miller saw of his daughter she was clinging to the waist of the dark captain, eyes straight ahead, her rigid back the only farewell he would ever have.
The castle appeared like a faded starburst on the hill. The captain had told her over and over that the king was poor, yet Alice had been unable to comprehend a king with no fortune until she saw the faded grandeur of a palace no one could afford to maintain. They rode through the gates of a ruin as utter as her own.
The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales Page 10
