by June Hydra
Caddy sighs. I let my sigh come right after for added effect, but Piranha, the oblivious girl that she is, simply ducks into the kitchen for her American plates. Three muffins go on a plate, to which she says, “Good American appetite,” her savvy translation for bon appétit.
“Piranha,” Caddy says, “you’re fucking insane but a Swiss knife at life. I love you.” He chomps easily into one of the muffins. I sample the last, and yes, the muffin has a stinging lemon zest followed by a punch of blueberry and licorice.
“American knife,” Piranha says. “You both were gone so long, I had to do something to fill up the hours.”
During freshman year, Piranha would make these horrendous mackerels. She'd forget them in the refrigerator for weeks and Caddy and I would have to dredge out the stinking remains. The amount of complaints we received had to be over five in one week. The RAs never let up.
Then she brought in anchovies. And then salmon. And then piranhas.
Those piranhas were the first edible meal she ever made.
I throw off my pants. They fly on my bed like two streamers, secretly declaring excitement.
I have some hot guy’s number. Bishop’s number.
Now, in general, I’m a queen at scoring all kinds of men. Humans are desperate creatures when they lack sex. There’s an entire slew of guys out there who would fuck anything floating on a pair of heels because their cocks tell them to. I think that’s why people hate “sluts” and “bitches” so much. Girls like me, who are freer than prudish counterparts, lower the power of others, who would prefer to wait for a prince or daddy-king. Except he’s probably not going to wait, he’s going to go to girls like me.
My hand shivers on my phone. My image stirs in the reflective glass.
Can I imagine him and me together? An all—I hate to say the word—American good boy plus a deviant bad girl who’s business is essentially the peddling of intellectual dishonesty?
I’ve chased riskier prospects.
XXX—XXX—XXXX
The phone rings, the low burr…burr…burr…and I sit by my phone, turning it on speaker mode. If it’s not on speaker mode, he’d feel too close. I’d become self-conscious and choke.
“Hey,” I say when he picks up. He picked up! “I was just calling to say I had a really good time meeting you today and I’m super excited for tomorrow.”
You can hear Bishop smiling. The beautiful laugh carries over the poor connection, and even then, his laugh is gold. “Really? I could’ve sworn I bored you silly with all my talk.”
“No, not at all. You were fantastic. What’re you up to?”
“Just cooking some dinner. Having pasta tonight. What’re you up to?”
“Just sort of sitting at home. My roommate’s fixing us dinner. American fettuccini.”
“Ah! You’re trying to one-up me aren’t you? Fet-to-chi-ni.”
I giggle into the phone, teasing out the most melodious sounds my vocal chords can produce. I want him to believe in me as a fantasy as I do him. Infatuation is a powerful experience.
“Not at all, not at all. It’s a very long story. More tomorrow. We’re still on for tomorrow, right?”
A pause.
“Yes, I’m excited. I hope you are too.”
And the pause unleashes a torrent of mesmerizing highs. I stare at the ceiling to ground myself. He’s talking to me and so interested. This isn’t a stupid college hookup, this will be an actual date, one that might probably not go bust.
“I’m stoked. Absolutely. We’ll meet for dinner after you work?”
“I’d love to.”
“Great.”
“Well, my pasta’s ready.”
“Right. Mine is too.”
“Thought you were having fettuccini.” And he smiles, mocking me for my blunders.
“Yeah,” I say, “have a good night.”
In college, guys would be easy lays. Some dudes could’ve gone without the pulse— all you needed were breasts and a vagina—and they would sleep with you. That’s how I acquired most of the test banks for my business. At the start, I slept in the highest ranks. Frat boys, party animals, football players, soccer, recreational, league, whatever. Penis plus answers equaled a quick lay and investment in my future.
Women would sleep with me too. Bi-curious or lesbian. I should really say that answers equaled a quick lay and investment in my future, but men were the usual pickings.
In the years after starting up, I renounced my “sluttish” dominance over the school and yielded to the younger, prettier “whores” on the up-and-up.
All the while, I’ve sought, in the back of my head, a guy, to sleep with and care about. To share intimacy, conversation. To have my back. Nothing more than one single man to lavish affection over and to cook for and to squeeze cheeks with and all the girlish nonsense you find in romance novels. I want Him, wherever he is.
Dating is so masochistic though. The standard advice will either be to wait for miracles or to “put yourself out there” or some permutation of the aforementioned. I’ve done both. Admittedly not always well, but after college, I tried. Fine, twenty one isn’t spinster mode, but when you’ve had a collection of non-connections—a sex-buddy conveyor belt— you’d want true companionship too, aside from the platonic.
It’s not even like there’s only One Compatible Man out there. Several exist. Like Caddy says, proximity is important. I just haven’t been running in the right circles.
“We’re trying to ease our way out,” Caddy says over his plate of American fettuccini. “Suddenly stopping your main source of income isn’t easy.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry to be such a pain sometimes. I know. But you guys, it’s dangerous, don’t you think? It’s a dangerous operation.”
“Still, stopping immediately just can’t be a possibility. Violet’s got the entire operation going on and it’s hot.”
Piranha mumbles something while sipping from her glass. “I guess,” she says. “I want us to be safe.”
“And your looking out for us is super appreciated,” I say, “but don’t ask questions about stuff you don’t want to know. It’s better off you’re not worrying. For all of us.”
After dinner, Caddy confers with me. We go over the normal business stuff, like projected income, where we’re headed in terms of growth, competitors. You have to be on top of the market to compete at a high level. Piranha sits in amongst the sheets of data even though she has nothing to do with the finances. She feels left out otherwise.
“If we were ever busted, you know you’ll be an accomplice,” I say.
“American law doesn’t say anything about this. At least not that I know of.”
I sigh. Caddy’s sigh ensues.
Chapter 2
My problem with guys is that I have sex experience but no relationship experience. Thus every boy who breaths near me becomes an intense fantasy, a walking dream incarnated from multiple letdowns and projected whims.
He can’t be muscles and no brains. He can’t be brains and no bum.
I want both.
So I await for my potential brains and bum at a local taco joint. The place is run by Mexicans who’ve immigrated recently. The waitresses speak English badly, but the food steams piping hot and tickles your nostrils with aromas most home at a five star restaurant. I order a taco for myself, and the food arrives before he does. Five minutes, ten minutes—has he stood me up?
Bishop strides through the entryway, twenty minutes late, apologizing as if admitting sin to Blessed Virgin Mary.
“I’ll pay tonight, don’t worry. I just got tangled in the horrible thing at work. Lots of drama, yikes.”
“It’s okay.” Though I’m disappointed, I won’t deny the loin-jumping fever roiling beneath my skin. You could call me a nympho, surely. I restrain myself. If relationships are the goal, then the personality has to shine too. “What exactly do you do for work, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I run a business too.”
“
Really? That didn’t come up yesterday.”
“It’s sort of an embarrassing one, very stressful. Don’t like to talk about it much. I’ll spare you the office drama.”
“I can tell you it’s the same about my work. People angry, people yelling at you. It’s actually time to start up for my last quarter of the year. We’ve been doing well though.” Our waiter arrives and Bishop orders. He apologizes to her too, as if she were a saint. “You’re a kind man,” I say. “At least you’re sorry about being late.”
“The people who aren’t are killer, aren’t they? They show up like nothing’s happened and expect you to cater to them. Then they think they can boss you around like it’s nothing.”
“Infuriating.”
“Anyways, you look great tonight.”
“Yourself as well.” His leather belt cinches a tiny waist and his cardigan emphasizes the broadness of his shoulders. He scoots his feet close to mine, and I use the cramped table-booth setting as an excuse to knock ankles.
“I speak so much, I don’t get to hear your side. Tell me more about yourself.”
“Just an average girl living. Five foot eight. Did cheerleading in high school and moved around a lot as a girl. My dad was an offshore rigger. My mom was an accountant. They live in New York City now, in Brooklyn.”
“I’ve got family in the Bronx. Don’t know them though.”
“Do you?” I grin. “More in common then.”
“You’re not going to eat?” He points to my taco.
“I don’t like eating when others aren’t. Unless you’d like to share? I can’t finish it all.”
“Are you sure?”
Bishop’s nose startles me. It’s a heavy slanting feature under the lamplight, a stark contrast to the comforting plainness of his eyes. I could climb his face if it was a mountain. There would be water and gravel, silt and grit.
His ankles knock mine again. Occasionally, after tearing into my taco, or wiping his mouth, he’ll beat his knees outwardly. Our feet shuffle in the limited space, but it’s a casual, ready dance, inviting one another to play. Without shoes we might instigate a game of footsie or tickle one another gently.
“You’re pretty kind too. I came in late, twenty minutes late, and you’re accepting of me like nothing. And you offer me your food.”
He offers me some of his when the waiter sneaks up on our table again.
He ordered chorizo in a sandwich, and I munch immediately, hungering to taste his offer.
“It tastes like ham, grilled on the outside, but with an aftertaste of heat.” Juices run down my mouth. I blush, and Bishop reaches over, sopping the fluids up.
“Your taco was good.”
“And your chorizo. Good choices for the both of us.”
We crumple our napkins and relax into our seats, admiring one another. Bishop keeps his eyes trained on the most hated corner of my face: left side.
A scar runs the length of the cheek there. It’s not deep or cragged, but it is noticeable by virtue of nearly everyone in my life pointing it out.
“My dad did that to me,” I say. “One night he just swung and pow. Scar tissue.”
“I wasn’t even looking at that.” Bishop brandishes his hand at me. “No, no, I was thinking is all. Not about your scar—it’s hardly visible, not at all.”
I stare him down. My gaze penetrates through and he admits fault.
“I was thinking that it’s fitting. I mean, really, really, truly, I don’t mean to offend you in any way. But the way it sits, the way it melds into your skin, the way your eyes hang over it. The scar fits you. It’s like a molten flower almost.”
I choke on leftover chorizo, heaving over to laugh. “That’s a valiant description, sir. You haven’t offended me. It’s hard to compliment a girl.”
“The way it is to approach a man.”
“Sort of,” I say. “You going to take me home now or what?”
Bishop pulls out his wallet, leaving a ten dollar tip on our twenty dollar bill. He helps me out of my seat and opens the door. His convertible lies in one of the nearer stalls. “If you’re so adventurous.”
I’ll admit, I’ve been in some seedy places. Sex with strangers used to be my forte. Sliding in the back of a van would be commonplace on a boring Saturday night, the proper spice to electrocute myself out of ennui. Danger, unknown. Men who could kill you.
Absolutely dangerous, not recommended. I packed mace every time, had 9-1-1 ready at hand, even though the police were more likely to find a body ditched roadside.
The most dangerous sexual encounter was the anniversary of my father cutting me. The boy, [Spade], was a totally unhinged creeper. He had droopy cheeks and a pointed, cone-shaped head not unlike a spade. It’s mean in hindsight, but once I told him that he would be the type to shoot up a school. Jerk comment. It didn’t please him to know my base opinion about his hygiene either. He breathed “wrong”, like a carbine firing off in the distance. You heard creeper Spade was around before he showed his face. The creepiest part was when he charged me after sex.
“Fifty bucks, bitch.”
“This was an equal transaction.”
“You’re a prostitute,” he said. “I’m pretty much your pimp now, getting you every guy over.”
I’d sapped him of all the recourses he had. I wasn’t going to pay when we’d agreed on a deal: answers for sex, sex for answers. We argued until he launched an attack, fists aimed at my throat.
I sent him staggering backwards with one side kick to the thigh—I’d taken Muay Thai lessons in college—and when the boy tried pinning me down, I rolled him into oblivion, mounting him as if he were a horse. I did Brazilian jiu-jitsu too. Didn’t call the cops at the time, though I should’ve. Half of me wanted to spare him the humiliation, second wind, second chances sort of deal. Another reason I took pity on him was because he looked similar to my father. Guys who look my father used to receive the bitch in me. I’d be cruel.
Now my father, he taught “discipline” a la cruel beatings. I failed an exam once. English Literature. I can recognize a beautiful passage on paper or when it’s orated at some fancy speech or press conference. Beautiful passages where everyone just stops to recollect their lame thoughts into formidable, “meaningful” thoughts in vain effort to gain personal insights.
Like the average person though, I’d forgotten whatever insights I’d formulated. Exam came, I failed. Dad’s brutal punishment for came relentlessly after every “failure”. Sit on your hands. Have someone take a belt buckle to your chin. Your teeth loosen from the pressure. Smack. Lash. There. The metal whirled audibly through the air, a diabolical torture device, except it was so mundane, so ordinary. I feared the ordinary which became extraordinary: my own parents.
How did Dad cut me? Failing one exam led to failing another which led to failing the entire class and retaking it over the summer. By the end, even though I’d finished with a B, Dad took out a butter knife…and pinched. The exact assault I can’t recall, but the pain was like a pinch. Immediate and annoying, then gone, the skin having fallen away, opening an ugly fissure on my cheek.
I was trying too. I hid the fissure with gauze and said I fell at while working out. And I wasn’t pushing for F’s, D’s, and C’s, but genuine As. It’s just C’s were the most likely to appear. Mom would scold, threaten.
“Do you want Dad you find out? Do you want Dad to see?” Then she’d slap, hard against my wrist, right where Dad had struck. “You need to learn how to be aware,” she’d say.
Thus started my scrounging around for test banks. A’s to keep them at bay. I wasn’t successful until after high school. No one likes girls doused with baggage. I did manage to graduate early though. That one failure of a class led spurred on my education. I learned to drive, took community college courses, sped up my credits earned and nabbed my diploma at sixteen. Dad and Mom tried another beat down, but I stole their car, a noisy truck, one that sputtered out of life upon arrival to college.
“How’s life
with your parents,” I ask, “if it’s not too much to divulge.”
“I’m not with them now. But they were challenging and strict. They liked to compare me to other kids a lot though.”
“Competition.”
“It’s stiff no matter where you go. Business, love, life, everyone’s vying to be number one. Everyone wants their kid to be number one.”
His hand rests on the console between us.
I swat it away.
“Two hands, mister!”
“Sorry, sorry.” He plants his hands on wheel, though I climb the console and plant a kiss on his cheek. Heat suffuses across his skin. The idea of tearing away the barriers—the steel, the leather, the clothes—courses through my mind. I want sex but I have to temper myself. Have to temper these urges.
I linger before pulling away.
Bishop swipes at his cheek. “You’re soaking wet. What a sloppy kiss.”
We stop at a red light. He turns to me and jolts across, planting one firm kiss on my scar.
I refocus on his personality. Kind, sweet, apologetic. Focus on the cerebral, Violet.
“I don’t want ruin anything between us,” I say at the green light’s appearance. “I like you a lot but don’t want to rush.”
“Understandable. We’re in no rush.”
“But, are you down for cuddling?”
Bishop grins. “You’re a very strange girl.”
On online forums there are guys who want a cuddle buddy. It’s too bad American (sigh) social mores constrict the genders so. Men must be stoic and uncomplaining. Women must be emotional and chaste. To crisscross the roles means confusing society. It means existing outside of society—homesteading on unknown territory, all the while people whisper and gossip about you. How odd, how queer, she’s living over there and not here!
How strange.
“I’m telling you now though I didn’t plan on taking you home. You charmed me though.”
“I have that capacity. My secret is castrating goats at home and casting spells in the bathroom.”
Bishop flicks on and off the vanity light above himself. He growls, tilting the wheel evermore rightward.
