Jane.

by Riya Anne Polcastro

  There are plenty of cute guys but not much as far as approachable. They sit around tables in coed packs like gazelles insulated by the herd. Finally, I spy a young one at a booth all by himself. Judging by all of the half-empty drinks on the table, he is only alone for the moment, so I take my chance and saunter over right away. "Mind if I join you?" I smile and slide in beside him before he has the chance to respond. "So where are all of your friends?" I ask, scooting in close and at a slight angle so that my right breast is smooshed up against his bicep. His body heat radiates up and down my side.

  He takes a minute to spit an answer out. "They’re out smoking." He eyes me with curiosity but also that unabashed lust that comes to the surface so easily after a few drinks.

  I bat my eyelashes at him. "I was wondering, do you think you could do me a favor?"

  He smiles, timid, as if he is afraid of what he might be sucked into. "OK," he finally says. "What is it?

  I bite my lower lip and look up at him. "If you don’t mind, do you think you could feel me up?"

  He just stares at me, stuck somewhere between shock and intimidation, so I help him out, leaning in towards his ear with a sultry whisper. "I want you to touch my breasts." And I grab one of his hands and slide it up my shirt until he catches on. He stares at me in disbelief as he gropes, too soft at first but then with increased vigor. I close my eyes in ecstasy, an unintentional moan escapes my lips when he reaches under my bra and rolls one of my nipples between his fingers. My vagina clenches; violent and demanding, it has a mind of its own, and I whisper another request in his ear: "Touch me down there?"

  This time he does not hesitate, and the second his fingers touch my skin, it starts to tingle and drip. He undoes my jeans, then plunges two fingers up into me and stokes my wall. I have never felt such pleasure, such exquisite sensations, as this stranger’s public fingerbang. "Can I take you home?" he whispers as he plunges a third finger inside of me.

  Hoping to satiate my fetish for being groped in the open, I suggest a walk instead. He catches on quick enough, rubbing my ass as we walk and reaching between my legs to stroke my lips through my jeans. When we stop at a crosswalk, he comes up from behind and grabs both of my breasts in his hands, squeezing while his dick bulges in my back. The space between my legs is gripped by the urge to throw him down on the ground and climb on top. There is a parking garage across the next street. I suggest we find a dark corner.

  "I like the way you think," he smiles and smacks me on the ass.

  We take the stairs to the second level and slip down an empty row. He unzips his pants and slides down the wall until he is sitting legs out in front. Eight inches of hard rock spring out, and he invites me to have a seat. I lose my pants without a second thought and, without any bullshit kissing or foreplay, straddle his bare pelvis and drop down on him so that he plunges into me with exquisite force. Like driving drunk, I do not have a second thought about hitting it raw either. Diseases, pregnancy, neither enter my mind. There is no time to think of such horrible things when I am bouncing up and down, riding his shaft, dipping it in and out, swirling it around, and finally pushing it in so deep I think I am about to explode. And then we both really do explode in simultaneous orgasm, and it is the most intense climax I have ever experienced in my life. The contractions in my vagina spread through my uterus and up to my breasts and down my thighs until my entire body is overwhelmed by absolute ecstasy, and sex is ruined for me now because it can never be this good ever again.

  I slide off as his penis finishes its last thrust and thank him for the ride. He just looks at me in confused bliss as I yank my pants back on and head off in search of another adventure.

  The garage where my car is parked appears out of nowhere, so I try to sleep there. Not because I am tired, but because I am overdue for some shut eye. Except the backseat is too small and uncomfortable, and I did not bring any pillows or blankets, so I toss and turn and finally come to terms with the fact that, in spite of the invisible fleece that has wrapped me in its fuzzy dreaminess ever since the heroin district, I am not going to fall asleep. I move up to the driver’s seat and start the car. Where to now? After a series of random circles around the city, I find myself back on Oak Street and figure it is a sign from the gods.

  The return crossing is even more intense. There is a dog this time and tons more questions. Suspicion dances in their eyes, and who could blame them? I look like a nervous wreck. The cozy horniness is gone, and now it is like I have the energy of ten toddlers crammed into me. I cannot sit still no matter how hard I try. Sequestered inside, there is no one to talk to but myself. All the other detainees move to the far side of the room, as near to the exit as they dare. I’m a maniac, a maniac . . . It is the only part of the song I know, and it loops over and over in my head, and my feet tap out the rhythm on the shiny tile floor. The agents behind the counter watch me from the corners of their eyes. My constant movements and darting eyes, the inner dialog that spills out of boredom, those only encourage their wherewithal to find something, anything!

  Outside, the guards talk about me like they think I cannot hear them.

  "This is fucked-up," the one with a low-slung beer belly says. "I know she has something in here."

  A younger, fitter agent offers, "Cannabis for sure. Crackheads like that are the best mules. They don’t fuck with the product." Another suggests it is heroin—I was in Vancouver, after all—while yet another is sure that whatever it was, I took it into Canada, and now it is money they should be looking for.

  "I don’t think so," Potbelly says. He scratches his head. "I think it is something really out of the ordinary, something really weird."

  "Weird? Weird like what?" one of the others asks.

  "I don’t know." He tosses up his hands. "Body parts maybe?"

  "Body parts?" the other three say in unison.

  "Maybe she’s not smuggling anything. Maybe she is a spy."

  "Run her name again."

  "Find an excuse to tear her car apart," Potbelly says.

  Heroin rubs his palms together and says, "Find an excuse to do a strip search."

  In the end, they find nothing and let me pass but not without first wasting a couple of hours of my time. No sooner do they let me pass, then it is the middle of the night and the middle of I-5 halfway to Seattle, and I am craving adventure, so I hit the gas and go fishing, fishing for semitrucks. There is not much traffic, and my little red car is able to hit 120 miles per hour. Or that is where the speedometer tops out anyway. Finally, in the distance, a long hauler with three trailers. He should appreciate it.

  He turns out to be a she.

  A BIG she. And with gray hair and a sweet grandma face to boot. She laughs at me. I laugh at myself. Oh, what fun!

  I approach another truck, this one is much smaller with just a single trailer, and lodge my left knee under the steering wheel so as to free both of my hands for the job. I pull alongside and pace him until he gives me his attention. It takes him awhile, but when he finally looks over to see what my problem is, I lift my T-shirt and bra and give my boobs the best little shimmy I can without shaking the steering wheel too much. He swerves onto the shoulder, and I speed off with a guffaw.

  Then the icing on the cake: a minivan piloted solo by a cutie in his mid-thirties. I would like to think that I give him something to rev up his engines before he goes home to his wife, an excuse to ravish her, but more likely he will waste his energy whacking off beneath the steering wheel.

  With complete directional obliviousness, I take an exit just after the suburbs give way to midtown Seattle. The roads are dreary, the rain a steady drizzle. The early morning is gray and sad, and there is an old cemetery to my right at the first stoplight. The gate is open. The mist beckons me to walk among the dead. A part of me is already with them, cold and numb, hidden from the surface, a clandestine fuel for the power that has overtaken me.

  I am on my third day without sleep—no big deal for someone on a meth binge, but sober it is a str
ange thing indeed. Instead of being tired and cranky, I have what feels like an infinite amount of energy and joie de vivre. Part of me recognizes that my affect is inappropriate in light of recent revelations and that all of this is a giant warning sign. The other part ignores it all and presses on with the fun for as long as it will last.

  I trot above endless rows of the embalmed until something whispers an invitation to come lie atop the muddy graves and absorb the energies of the dead below. In my swirling, twirling, jagged mind, it makes perfect sense, so I lower myself to the ground and lie flat on my back with my hands folded at the chest. The rain pours down in sheets; my lips smile, thankful for the drops that pelt me in the face and soak me through to the bone. The windswept voice whispers about baptism in retrograde; I am hereby forgiven for the sins I am about to commit.

  20

  (Janitor Bob) You know that nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach when something just ain’t right? That starts in as soon as the sign for Neskowin appears. It hits me with an extra wave after parking in front of the women’s bathroom. I don’t wanna go in there. Something ain’t right. I climb out of the truck real slow and beg the Lord above to make my fear unfounded.

  Knock, knock, "Janitor!"

  When there is no response, I reach out to push the door open. Deep breath. OK. Here goes nothing.

  Just a crack and some god-awful, indescribable fecal stench comes barreling through with a wallop. I let the door slam back on me, and I hack and gag on the foul-ass air, my lungs soiled with hundreds of poop particles.

  I knew I shouldn’t have come to work today. Shoulda stayed in bed and smoked bowls and watched movies and let some rookie sub deal with this shit.

  I don’t want it to, but my mind tries to imagine what could make such a smell. A clogged toilet wouldn’t do it. Diarrhea splatters, the kind with more corn than poo, all over the handicap stall? Probably not. Baby doo-doo caked on the diaper changer? A broken fucking sewer line?

  I pinch my nose and go inside. My eyes burn. I see the source as soon as I step in. The turd in the sink is long and wound in a coil like a snake. Now why the fuck would someone do that? What a fucking sicko, man! What a fucking SICKO!

  The pooper scooper's useless on the sink with its round bottom. There ain’t nothing in that damned janitor closet that will work for getting this thing out. I am completely unprepared for this situation! Of course, because who would ever think there would ever be a human dump in a bathroom sink? Dog shit in the grass left by lazy bitch-ass owners, OK, I get that. But this crosses the line. This crosses the fucking line! This is the work of a deranged lunatic for sure!

  21

  On a whim, I drive up to Port Angeles and down Highway 101. Top speed on a winding road in disrepair strikes me as the perfect way home. Adrenaline is my new drug of choice. It pumps through my system with each twenty-mile-an-hour curve I take at sixty, with each telltale crunch of the roadside gravel under my tires as they skid ever so slightly off of the road.

  It is a long drive though not nearly as long as I make it last with constant detours and a series of harebrained antics. I give hooking a shot at a couple of rest stops but make more stealing the johns’ wallets than on the tricks themselves. Then there is the shit that just seems to fit better in the sink than the toilet.

  From the northern end of the Washington coast, through Oregon, and all of a sudden there is the Frisco junction. After a short stop in the city for some food and osmosified hallucinogenics, I take the first highway east towards I-5, and then it is north and back to Salem. I pass Ashland up in a hurry for fear that its Lithia water will end my wild ride. Somewhere around Eugene, the voices start. They are quiet at first, even muffled, and my ears have to strain to hear them. There is a moment of apprehension as I consider that perhaps that door should be left closed, that once I go in, I may not be able to come back out, and there begins a very serious—even cataclysmic—battle of my wills. Part of me revels in crazy, gets a thrill from the ride and thoroughly enjoys insanity for the sake of insanity. But there is still a tiny sliver left that fears the point of no return is just around that corner. Mood swings and risky behavior are one thing, voices quite another.

  I would still like to think that I have control over it all, that I can tell it when to wax and when to wane. The truth of the matter is that power is slipping. Somewhere in the muck, I thrash about and grasp at whatever is in reach.

  22

  (Julia) "Finally," Angela mutters under her breath. She puts her cigarette out on the cement step. She cracks her knuckles, and her breath speeds up. Her face is paler than usual, like she is about to confront a ghost. Now that Jane is here, I regret coming along. There is tension in the air; it radiates from Angela. She has dragged me to this little house every day, sometimes two or three times a day, for almost a week now.

  I’m a little shocked that Jane is finally here. I was sure she had run away, hopped a plane to California, France, Borneo, wherever. She seems the type to just walk away like that.

  Jane shuts off her car and walks towards us, a puzzled look on her face. Angela stands up, squares her shoulders, and exhales, prepared to walk into a thunderstorm.

  Except that it doesn’t go down like that at all. Jane gets closer, and Angela takes one look at her and loses all of her cojones. Instead of anger, her face twists up with worry over Jane’s dirty clothes and matted hair; the vague hint of urine, sweat, and cum wafts up the steps with her. Her eyes stare off in the distance as if she were in a daze. She ignores us while she unlocks the front door.

  "What the fuck happened to you?" Angela asks, sounding more and more sad and less angry.

  She plops down in her aunt’s rancid bedding and tells us she’s fine.

  23

  Angela frowns at me. "Why didn’t you answer your phone?"

  I shrug, "It didn’t ring."

  "What do you mean it didn’t ring? I called you at least a hundred times a day," she insists.

  "Why would you call me a hundred times a day?"

  She frowns harder, and so I follow suit, and soon we are in a frowning match. My forehead starts to hurt, and I am relieved when she breaks the stare. "Because you dropped off of the face of the Earth, that’s why."

  "Oh," I shrug again. "Well, I didn’t hear my phone ring, sorry. And I didn’t drop off of the face of the Earth anyways, just went for a little drive."

  "A little drive?" Angela is incredulous. And even more so when she spies my cell phone on the coffee table. She picks it up and shakes it at me. "Nice. Five-day road trip and you didn’t even bother to take your phone? Where did you go anyways?"

  "All over."

  But it is not enough and only serves to ruffle her further. "What the fuck do you mean all over?"

  As Angela amps up, Julia looks more and more uncomfortable. Normally a fan of aggression by proxy, for whatever reason, the dynamic between us shuts her down. She does not look at me right now. Instead, she stares off into the kitchen. Better at nothing than at me, right? The temptation to explode, to give her what she wants and fears, eats away at me while Angela goes on and on about what a mess I am. That alone is annoying in itself; so much exaggeration, so much grandeur, I really am not as bad off as she makes it sound. But I could be. Perhaps snapping at Julia out of the blue is just what they want? She has always recoiled at my rage though it has never been directed at her. How would she react if it was?

  "What the fuck are you staring at?"

  She starts and then slowly turns to face me. Her eyes are moist, and her chin quivers below the surface. Then, suddenly she rises and darts out the door. She is hurt not scared, and yet I have never seen her move so fast. Every emotion I encounter now presents an internal war where I am torn between the part of me that feels guilt and the part that enjoys such power over others. I should regret my actions, but I do not; the god inside of me is too busy killing the first part off, throwing the upper hand in the latter’s favor.

  24

  (Julia) It was the
re when she got out of the car. So obvious it was like it smacked me in the face. It took this long, but I finally see what drives the tightrope between us. It is wracked with static, nothing more than a flicker, but it is clear enough for me to see my mother in her. No doubt about it. There was a hint of it before with the bi-polar and all. But I thought, by mistake I guess, that Jane had more control over it. Seeing her today, in the middle of this psychotic break, I'm realizing that even though she might be a strong woman, the war inside of her is even stronger.

  I pray to God as I walk home through the flea-infested Flats. I pray that she’ll snap out of it on her own. I pray she doesn’t end up in the psych ward, medicated. I’ve seen what a lifetime of psychotropics can do to a person, and it isn’t something I would wish on my worst enemy.

  Mom had her first break when I was eight. It was the scariest time of my life. I grew up more in that month than the rest of my childhood. Tears flow down my cheeks. I still remember walking in on her in the bathroom when she had the bare blade pressed to her vein. My scream startled her out of her daze, but it was too late, the blood was already gushing out. The ambulance came and took her away in a fog of swirling lights.