"It means nothing really happened," she said. "Am I on trial or something?"
"We uh..." her father said, and scratched the back of his neck. If the answers were there, he hadn't scratched enough to discover them.
"We're concerned about you," her mother said.
"Well, I'm fine," she replied.
"We want to know what you're doing to yourself," her mother cried.
"Honey, please," her father said.
"Tell us!"
Jenna screwed up her face in disbelief. "Wait, you mean now you're all concerned, because I'm not fat anymore? Is that what the problem is?"
"Patricia!" her mother cried indignantly. "You weren't–"
"Oh, don't give me that shit," Jenna Swaine said. "Don't try to coddle me with that 'you weren't fat' line. I was fat, now I'm not."
"We weren't going to lie to you," her father said, with a glance toward her mother to tell her exactly what she shouldn't say. His tone was soft, not ingratiating or accommodating at all. "This is a radical change for you and we just, we want to know if it's healthy for you."
"Healthy for me?" Jenna all but screamed. She jerked back in the chair, as though her fat were suddenly back and pushing her away from the table. Then she was on her feet. "Healthy for me? I haven't missed a meal since I started losing the weight. I swear to fucking Christ, I've never felt better than this, and you want to ruin it for me!"
Her mother's mouth was open in a wide 'O' of surprise, while a bit of the flesh around her cheeks and jowls jiggled with fury. Color had appeared there, twin splashes of red wine on her pale, pale skin.
"Young lady, you sit down this instant," her father whispered.
"I'm not doing anything you say!" she shouted, "I hate you, both of you!"
And she, being a barely contained nuclear blast, left before the tears welling up could have a chance to humiliate her. She was done with humiliation.
"Hey Jake," Jenna Swaine said. She was down to one-twenty now, a nice weight that still left her rounded in the right places. She didn't have an ounce of fat in the places she didn't want it. Three weeks ago her mother had taken her clothes shopping again, but said nothing. Jenna knew her mother was still furious and confused over whatever happened that night at dinner, and dismissed it out of hand. She wasn't starving herself or doing the binge/purge thing, so why should her parents care? Sure, the little scraps of clothing she bought almost cost more than the plus sizes from those other stores (ones Jenna Swaine now thought of as 'fat people places') but Jenna didn't care. If her parents cared about her, they should be showering her with gifts, and more than just the clothes she should have been able to fit in all along.
"Hey Jenna Two," he smiled.
All that was past now, and she was hanging out at lunch with the other Jenna's boyfriend, Jake Graves.
"You're on the prom committee right?" she asked.
He nodded. "We've got the final arrangements on just about everything."
"Awesome!" the bright and cheery was easy now. Jake was hot. More than hot, he had a tattoo his parents had allowed him to get when he turned sixteen. Everyone in school knew about it, but only his circle of friends had seen it. A few weeks after Greg the Fullback got a hero's welcome for defending Jenna Swaine, the tattoo had been shown around again. It was a dragon, sort of, composed of spiky little blocks of black all arranged the right way. It seemed to rise up his shoulder, spread out its wings, and turn a speculative eye on whoever might be looking over his shoulder.
When he showed it off, Jenna Swaine fell in love with his smooth, tanned skin and muscles moving and bunching with his every movement. It had been lovely, feeling his heartbeat and sensing the blush of health in his body, until Jenna Hawkins had glided up and put her arms around him from behind, stroking him all over. Jenna Hawkins (who was not being called Jenna One) had looked over her shoulder and smiled derisively.
"What kind of tux are you doing?" she asked, with the pre-girlfriend-wrapped image of Jake fresh in her mind. Now he was like a paper doll, and she could dress him however she pleased. Or undress him at her leisure.
"Probably a double breasted, dark purple vest. Jenna's got purple picked out. Jenna One, heh." Jake drew out a little photo of the dress, printed out from a website.
"That is really pretty," she beamed. "Leave it to Jenna to pick out the most beautiful dress ever. How could anybody compete? Hey, can you share this on Facebook so I can order my dress off this site?"
He shrugged. "Sure, no problem." He grabbed out his phone and was tapping when Jenna Hawkins appeared.
"Piggy, oh, I mean Jenna, what're you doing with my boyfriend?"
"Nothing," Jenna Swaine said, looking at the grass of the school's courtyard. Why the fuck did the goddamn prom queen keep calling her Piggy? The rest of them had forgotten it, or at least stopped calling her names. They were all talking about her in hushed whispers, about how good she looked. Even the social circle of Jenna Hawkins had taken to calling her Jenna Two. Why couldn't she let it fucking go?
"We were just talking about prom, you know," Jake said.
"Oh, who are you going with?" Jenna Hawkins asked, and her voice was full of amusement. It seemed to say 'I've got Jake, so whoever you're going with can't possibly compare.' She looked from beautiful blonde Jenna Hawkins, with her perpetual strawberries and crème scented hair, to her beautiful boyfriend.
"I don't know. I've had a few guys ask me, but I haven't decided." It was a lie. Nobody had asked. She hadn't turned anyone down. She didn't understand why. The possibility of asking a boy, or perhaps her old cache of friends, never entered her mind. She sat alone most nights, after her homework and body reduction were done, and wondered. Hating the guys for not asking.
"Who?"
"Don't worry about it, Jenna," she said, standing up, "You worry about Jake and your purple dress and I'll take care of myself, all right?"
Jenna Hawkins seemed to float above the grass, to glow with overpowering teenage sexiness, and that perfect strawberry and crème scented blonde hair glimmered like divinity.
Jenna Swaine felt the triumph, not hers, sure, but how much could that matter? All eyes were on her, and Jake was in the middle of crowning her. Later she'd let him do whatever he wanted, because it wasn't her reputation she was ruining. This perfect mask was going to serve her well. Her shining, styled, stolen strawberry and crème scented hair gleamed in the spotlight. Nobody knew the difference. She was Jenna Hawkins right down to the stolen scalp grafted onto her head.
It had been strange stroking her bare, wet skull before replacing her mousy brown head of hair with Jenna Hawkins's own.
Now, the purple dress fit her Jenna-Hawkins-sized body. She had Jake on her arm, radiating manliness like a Greek god. They matched. So what if she'd had to borrow the real Jenna's hair to do it?
Somebody gasped from the darkness. Somebody screamed something, but the sound of gagging drowned it out. There was a sickening, unmistakable splash of vomit striking tile floor.
A hulking shape lumbered into the hall, and Jenna Swaine squinted into the light. The silhouettes of the other students parted into an aisle, like the Red Sea. A spotlight went to the figure, until someone screamed.
"You bitch," came a cold voice, the voice of the real Jenna. Jenna Hawkins. "You cunt. Come out here, Piggy."
"What?" Jake said from beside her. "Jenna?" He turned towards Jenna Swaine. "That sounds like you. Wait..."
"No! I'm Jenna!" Jenna Swaine almost shouted at him in her desperation, "Give me that crown, do it now."
Jenna One, who was no longer herself either, screamed from where the crowd gave her a wide berth. It was high-pitched, with a lost edge of sanity. The scream turned into a few gibbered words, then trailed off into laughter.
Jenna Swaine took the crown out of Jake's hands and put it on her head. A light was back on the other one, the monster she'd made. The spotlight trembled against the echo of flab and flesh she'd sculpted out of the prom queen bitch. Jenna Swaine hopped off
the stage and went straight for it.
"I'm queen now, I'm queen! No more Piggy, not ever again!"
The massed form of fat and skin loped towards Jenna Swaine. It reached out with an arm that had too many joints and caressed the stolen hair. Somewhere in there was a load of the old Patricia, and somewhere in a dank basement the head of a dead dog lay amongst pools of dark, vile liquids. This monster had only stumps for legs; Jenna Swaine had stolen the feet and thrown them away. She'd used the shins for extra forearm joints. Apparently she'd made it stronger than she thought. Set in the middle of the ragged scraps of purple dress and skin and flesh sat a pale, perfect face.
A quick swipe of the disjointed looking arm later, and the little diadem was skidding across the floor.
"This is mine, you stole it," the monster said. "You'll always be little Piggy. You were nothing and you're still nothing, that's all you are, don't you see that?"
The monster was ripe with the smell of decay and richer, more potent reeking. Its Jenna One face turned into a mask of pain and rage.
The whole evening was totally screwed. Jenna Swaine, Patricia/Piggy, looked at Jake, who had wet his pants and slowly backed away now. She looked at her beautiful friends, who stared with horrid fascination. She looked at Evan, and at her old friends. Evan shook his head, then moved into the crowd and disappeared.
"You ruined everything," The Jenna-face said, then latched her elongated fingers around Jenna Swaine's pretty neck. She noticed the ragged flaps of skin at the wrists, where she'd bound them, bleeding onto the prom dance floor.
"What am I supposed to do?" Jenna screamed at the monster.
"You're supposed to totter around and squeal," the monster rasped. "Forgetting your place." Jenna's face nestled between mounds of flesh held a strange mocking tone.
Jenna Swaine stared into the horrified crowd. Most of them were lost in darkness, but those faces she could see confirmed how she felt. Nothing mattered now.
She dove at the thing in the center of the gym floor and tore it apart.
No one moved to stop her.
Jenna screamed and pulled off the monster's flesh, handful by handful. She screamed, and that was the cue for a chorus of other screams. The hands disappeared first, skidding on the waxed floor, then the forearms, the arms at the shoulders, then gobbets of fat and organs and skin. It went on for minutes, where the only sounds were the sloshing and ripping of the monster she'd created. Blood poured rapidly onto the floor, soaking everything.
When it was over, Patricia-Jenna-Piggy Swaine was soaked with gore and knee deep in piles of skin. Everyone still left in the hall watched silently as she left the building with Jenna's pretty face in her hands, cradling the mask like a doll. Tears dripped from one Jenna's cheeks to another.
About the Author
Brent Meske writes to find out how it ends. He currently lives, teaches, writes, designs, and does the dad thing near Seoul, Korea.
Come back for more:
bmeske
www.Brentmeske.com
[email protected]
Mermaids
by Robert Pope
Summary: Recently graduated from college, with no work prospects, Aqua-boy—so called because of the webbing between his toes—watches and listens to a group of musicians at a bar/restaurant when he notices the woman playing a diminutive red accordion has six fingers.
Aqua-boy sat at the bar sipping a beer, listening to the three women of Mermaids making music on a low stage. The one front and center in the fedora, a little older than the two behind, held a guitar on one knee, leaning to the microphone, producing random sounds that almost formed words. Behind her, on the right, a fat girl played a mournful fiddle, and to the left, in a puffy hat, a blonde played a red accordion. He couldn't see her eyes, just the dirty blonde hair hanging out from under the puffy hat, a small nose, and full, wide lips. She had on a loose vest so he couldn't see much of her figure, but he did notice her right hand resting on her knee.
The way it glowed in the dim stage light troubled him in some ineffable way. When he saw the reason, it frightened him a little. He counted several times to make certain. Six fingers lined up on her knee, against brown corduroy, the thumb longer than normal. The hand rose, latched on the keyboard side of the accordion, her fingers moving against keys as the piece swelled to conclusion and applause.
At a nearby table, several women smiled as if reliving pleasant memories. Of two bartenders, one nodded at him. A desperate basketball game ran up and down the court silently on a television behind the bartender. A cook peeked through the window in the door below the television and disappeared. When Mitch looked back at the resting accordionist, the strangeness of the hand spread through her whole person.
The guitar player sat sideways, talking quietly and searching for some tune. The violinist smiled hopefully—the only one smiling. The accordionist hadn't moved, head down, waiting for the music to emerge sufficiently that she could join it.
"Have you decided on something?"
The bartender had a thin jawline beard, which made his skin look pale. His brown eyes were professionally inquisitive, his mouth set in a smile made to carry easily. His shoulders looked painfully narrow, his body insubstantial in white shirt and black pants.
"Something I can get you?"
Mitch nodded, overcoming his desire to leave this restaurant entirely. "Do you have a hamburger?"
"We don't have beef, but veggie burgers and a bison burger."
Mitch thought a moment. "Bison isn't beef?"
The bartender shrugged. "That's how it's listed. People want to know what they're eating these days. It's good, I hear, though I'm vegan."
A shudder went through Mitch, and he had to lower his head a moment to control it. But then he nodded and said, "I'll have the bison."
"We have sweet potato fries with that."
As the bartender went back through the door to the kitchen, Mitch turned sideways, to watch the group. The music began quietly, slowly, everything normalizing for him—just a restaurant, set on a balcony over a natural foods grocery store. A woman in a long blue sweater danced in front of them. Three young girls, eleven or twelve, stood to one side, like they wanted to join. Each wore shorts over black tights, all three had long hair: a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette—coincidence? The music paused briefly, by design, and started again. The hand on the keyboard of the red accordion still had six fingers.
He knew a guy in college who had a large forehead. A little Frankenstein the first time you saw him, it jutted over his face like a cliff, a normal face inset underneath. It was physics, and Aqua-boy wondered if the big head gave him any advantage. Not everyone noticed anomalies like he did. In high school, he lost every hair on his body, even his eyebrows. Other guys on the swim team shaved the head and legs to reduce resistance, so they thought him crazy enough to have done it to himself. That and connective skin between his toes earned him the name Aqua-boy.
No one would have noticed if he hadn't been a swimmer. Rivals accused him of taking unfair advantage but couldn't disqualify him for what he was born with. Teammates laughed, but he had dreams with scales involved in the shape of his head, slightly blue-green, where he swam an ocean strange with sea monsters armed in claws and fangs. Other times, he swam higher: as if air became water, he breast-stroked through the sky.
Late after school, waiting for his mother to pick him up from practice, he stared through the glass front doors as sky transformed into airy ocean. He imagined opening them and swimming out over the town in which he had grown up.
Otherwise, everything about Aqua-boy was normal. Five-ten when he graduated high school, acceptable even to girls who preferred someone taller, he grew two more inches by the time he graduated college. He had short brown hair, light green eyes, and considered himself just good looking enough not to constitute a disadvantage. He dated a girl in high school, a couple of women in college, but nothing lasted so far. He hoped this would come in time. He quit the job that had g
otten him through college, on top of what his parents contributed, with enough saved to last a few months. He moved back in with his parents to look for a job. He thought about grad school, but he wanted a paycheck now.
Life was in the air. He had recently become anxious that it all work out.
When the burger came he went at it in a way which didn't allow thinking. He hadn't eaten since breakfast–oatmeal, banana–and that gave out hours ago. He had mixed emotions about eating the buffalo. He thought they had been hunted out by frontiersmen, but there must be some left. Did they roam free, as when they were the sustenance of some Indian tribe whose name he forgot though he could recall studying them in school?
The music stopped and the woman in the puffy hat sat at the bar a couple seats from him and ordered salad and a cup of tea. He glanced, but still could not see her eyes. He sipped the beer.
"That was nice," he said, thumbing the stage.
She smiled and said thanks, but when the bartender brought tea, she gave it her undivided attention.
"Do you play here often?" he asked.
She shrugged and said, "Off and on. This is our first time in a few months."
She blinked more than normal. When her meal arrived, she said, "Excuse while I snort my seaweed."
"Are you vegan?" he asked, but she was forking greens into her mouth.
"Well," he said. "I guess I'll be shoving off. My name is Mitch."
He offered his hand and, after a moment of hesitation, she took it. When he felt the six fingers, liquid fire ran up his arm, down his back, into his groin, where it stayed like a glowing lump. He forced himself not to look at the hand.
"Melody," she said.
He laughed a little. His face burned. "What a great name for a musician."
She nodded, putting away another enormous forkful of salad.
He pointed at the stage again. "You rarely see someone playing accordion these days," he said, "never a red one."
UnCommon Bodies: A Collection of Oddities, Survivors, and Other Impossibilities (UnCommon Anthologies Book 1) Page 6
