by Denise Dietz
“No, thanks. I’ve had enough, more than enough. In fact, if you don’t mind, Karl, I’d rather go straight to bed. We can consummate our marriage tomorrow night. I’ve got this stupid headache and—”
“I don’t want to wait, Anissa. The sooner you get pregnant, the better.”
“Pregnant? I didn’t know you wanted a baby. You have med school and I want to get my degree. That’s why we postponed the honeymoon, remember? Finals.”
“Anissa, we have to make a baby right away.”
“Why?”
Karl’s excitement was palpable. “During the reception your father gave me a check for ten thousand dollars, and he promised ten more if we have a son. I’m not shitting you, Anissa, he really did. Isn’t that great?”
She stumbled backwards, as though her husband had suddenly developed a Ben Hurian case of leprosy. “Jacob did what?”
“I just told you. He gave us ten thou—”
“The Senator paid you to marry me?”
“No. To get you pregnant.”
“Dear God, he paid you to stud for him.”
“It was a gift.”
“It was a bribe.”
“What’s the difference? You can still get your degree, even if you’re preg—hey, where do you think you’re going?”
“Out.” She snatched up her car keys.
“But it’s our wedding night. You can’t just—”
Anissa slammed the door on his words. Afraid he’d follow, chase her down the street in his red and white pajamas, she drove to the first gas station. Tin cans rattled, but this time it sounded like a Halloween grave yard.
Parked near a pump, she yanked at the bumper strings, cutting her palms and fingers. Then she wiped the bloody scratches on her white wedding gown, took off the gown, and stuffed it into a trash receptacle that was already filled with grimy paper towels. If the gas station attendant saw her, he didn’t venture outside his safe cubicle.
Back inside her Mustang, she found the champagne bottle, popped its cork, and washed down a birth control pill.
She parked three blocks away. Wearing a bra, panties and half-slip, she approached Hillhouse. Clouds hid the moon but she needed no light to wriggle through a side window, climb the winding staircase, and enter Joe’s room.
His stereo needle was stuck on Helen Reddy.
I am woman, I am woman, I am
Taking off her underwear, she crept into Joe’s bed.
“Sorry, Sharon, can’t,” he mumbled, and began to cry. “Oh, God. You smell like my angel.”
“Hush, darling.”
“Anissa?”
“Quiet, my love.” She straddled his body.
At first he tried to push her away. Then his hands caressed the velvety skin of her back while his lips nuzzled her breasts. She rocked back and forth. The bed bounced, the floor boards shook, and the stereo needle scratched forward.
I am woman, hear me
Roaring with primitive passion, Anissa consummated her marriage.
Chapter Six
During the day Anissa performed by rote. She arrived early for her final exams and stared at the lined pages between the covers of her bluebooks. If the room had a clock, she stared at the clock. When the proctor warned, “Five minutes, boys and girls,” she answered multiple choice questions with “all of the above.” And every night she visited Hillhouse.
“Why are you doing this?” Joe groaned.
“Because, my love, I’m lost without you.”
Afterwards, she returned to her new husband. She bathed and powdered and perfumed, but she couldn’t lose Joe’s scent. It was in her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her fingers, even her feet.
Sometimes she felt Karl’s gaze boring a hole through the bridge of her nose, so she attempted polite conversation. “Please pass the butter. Wisconsin is known as the Dairy State. That’s why we use lots of butter. Did you know that the butterwort, an herb of the bladderwort family, produces a secretion to capture and digest insects? Yesterday I flunked botany. Today I’ll flunk English lit.”
“Anissa, why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? Flunking? Never mind the butter. My toast is cold.”
If Anissa treated Karl like a familiar stranger, she answered Joe’s questions with endearments, silenced his words with kisses, and halted his refusals with her pliant body.
All he understood for certain was that she had lied about Bobby. But why?
Every evening Joe swore he’d visit the lounge on State Street, the library stacks, the Rathskeller. Instead, he remained at Hillhouse, listening for Anissa’s ballerina-soft footsteps. She was a drug. He was stoned on lust. There was no panacea for narcotized passion, no anti-lude for love. Vaguely, he wondered if Karl knew what was happening.
Karl didn’t but Jacob did. One week after the wedding ceremony, Anissa entered Joe’s bedroom and Jacob turned on the lights. Following a moment of temporary blindness, she glanced toward the empty closet. “You told him.”
“I warned you, daughter.”
“You really told him. How did he take it?”
“Very well, considering. He said to let you know he forgave your performance.” Jacob heaved a deep sigh. “You disappointed me, Anissa. So much for a strict upbringing. I did not remove Joseph from my life, merely my house.”
“Mama’s house,” she snapped.
“I’ll continue my support while he attends law school in Chicago. If you join him there, I’ll cancel his funds immediately. I still maintain a certain amount of political clout, Anissa, so if Joseph disobeys my orders his career is kaput. In other words, don’t tempt him. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Return to your husband. I’ll ring up young Karl tomorrow and garner a full report.”
“Garner? My body isn’t a granary and my bedroom isn’t the senate. Karl doesn’t have to take minutes.”
“Hopefully, he’ll take more than minutes.”
“You’re such a bastard, Jacob,” she said, enjoying his instinctive wince. “When I was a little girl, I wished with all my heart that Troy Donahue was my real father.”
“Who the hell is Troy Donahue?”
“I hate you,” Anissa said, softly. Then she turned and ran from Hillhouse.
Karl was asleep, snoring. On the bedside table, a bottle of Wild Turkey lay on its side, the remaining liquid dripping like a leaky water faucet.
Anissa packed her suitcases, hesitating when she came to her diamond earrings. Then, with a shrug, she put the small box inside her makeup case.
On tiptoe, she walked across the room to a wooden desk, opened a bottom drawer, pulled out a cigar box filled with wedding-gift cash, and separated the money into two equal piles. Finding Jacob’s check, she methodically ripped and flushed until ten thousand dollars worth of shredded paper vanished down the toilet bowl.
“Good-bye Wisconsin, farewell my only love,” she whispered, walking toward her Mustang.
The Mumm Napa Cuvee bottle from her wedding lay on the back seat. Re-corked, it tasted flat, but she drank some anyway. The night was filled with stars. Convertible top down, her blonde strands tangling like Medusa, Anissa sang “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”
Then, since the champagne had lost its bubbles, she changed her tune.
“California, here I come . . .”
* * * * *
California was beaches and freeway, tacos and truffles.
In Hollywood, thought Anissa, the Age of Aquarius will always let the sun shine in. The Age of Twiggy, however, had finished its long run and women were growing their breasts again.
She met Buzzy Beeson while sight-seeing outside Universal Studio, and spent her first weekend at his hotel. A famous comedian during the nineteen fifties, Buzzy had emerged from self-induced, drug-related exile, and wowed the public with a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live.
Inspired by the small script on her earrings box, Anissa changed her last name to Cartier. Yet it took Jacob’s private “eye” on
ly five days to find her lodgings, a small room in a boarding house run by a Mrs. Kathleen Kaye.
The certified letter from Jacob included annulment papers and an allowance check. Anissa signed the papers but destroyed the check.
Decent jobs were scarcer than hens’ teeth. She tried waiting tables, which looked easy but wasn’t, and found she didn’t have the temperament. Every minuscule tip became a personal rejection, every generous gratuity a covert invitation. Exactly one month later, Jacob’s money order arrived, with double the amount of the first check.
He’s keeping the door open, she thought. Karl didn’t work out but he still wants a grandson. Shit, I don’t care. I’ll cash the damn bribe.
Soon she was spending her days like her mother, watching soap operas on her tiny black and white TV. Evenings she hung out at a local bar called The Polka-Dot Unicorn, often picking up a partner to make the long nights less lonely.
She celebrated her twenty-first birthday at the Unicorn, eyeing its decor through the oversized glass of her margarita. The walls were filled with paintings of wizards, unicorns and dragons. Several suits of armor guarded tables. The regulars, mostly daytime TV personalities, could design their own blazons. Since she was a steady customer, Anissa had chosen the anise plant, a yellow-white flower with licorice-flavored seeds. “I flunked botany,” she told the artist who painted her shield on the mirror behind the bar, right next to Randy McNeal’s kangaroo Coat-of-Arms.
Randy was tall and muscular, with the relaxed good looks of a California beach boy. Born in Australia, he had a delightful accent, and he was one of the minor characters on a soap called Children of the Night. Anissa greeted him warmly.
“G’day, love,” he replied, swiveling his bar stool around and raising his wine glass.
A bearded man introduced himself as The Duke. Clothed in cords, boots, and molded Stetson, he sat on the stool next to Anissa’s and casually placed his arm across her lacy white chemise top. His other hand stroked her legs in their faded denim until she trapped his fingers between her thighs.
“Let’s get out of here,” he mumbled.
She shook her head and last year’s birthday earrings glittered. “I want four shots, straight tequila,” she said. It was her favorite test. One drink, two drinks, three drinks, four; all of the above. If this duke person objected, it meant that he was rinky-dink schlock and she’d find somebody else.
“You’ll pass out cold, honey buns,” he said, nodding toward the bartender.
“You’re big enough to carry me home.” Anissa gulped down all four shots. Then slowly, emphatically, she licked salt from the back of her hand.
“I’m big all over,” The Duke promised. He appeared mesmerized by her tongue.
She felt his fingers searching and wriggled closer. He wasn’t handsome, but his cowboy clothes intrigued her, he smelled okay, and the alcohol had made her dizzy, tingly, which usually occurred before total oblivion. Fortunately, due to her Teutonic drink-and-plunder-without-consequence bloodline, she never got sick. Fortunately, inspired by her generous gratuities, the bartender tended to ignore her under-age status. Now she was legit. If she were a dog, she’d be one hundred and forty-seven years old.
“I can drink tequila all night long,” she slurred. “It’s ’cause I’m Mexican.”
“No shit. I could have sworn you was a kraut.”
“Krautess. I was raised by a countess. My father’s a bastard.”
“Mine’s a Baptist minister.” The Duke nodded toward the bartender again.
Glancing down the bar, Anissa met Randy McNeal’s gaze. His blue eyes were filled with . . . condemnation? Defiantly, she downed the first shot, licked her knuckles, squinted toward The Duke, and felt her vision blur. “Where’s Joey? You’re not Joey.”
“Who’s Joey?”
“The father of my baby.”
“You got a baby?”
“No. Jacob got the baby.”
“Who’s Jacob?”
“He’s not Troy Donahue,” she said mournfully.
“Finish your drinks and I’ll take you home.” The Duke pressed his hand against her crotch.
“Stop it, Bobby!”
“Who’s Bobby?”
“The father of my child.”
“But I thought you said somebody named Joey—”
“Shut up. Go ’way.”
“You must be kidding. I gotta pay the bartender for your drinks and I’ve already given Kath—”
“Are you ready to leave, Anissa?” Randy McNeal placed a wad of bills on top of the bar’s surface.
“Get outta here,” The Duke growled.
“This young lady is leaving with me,” Randy told the smaller, heavier man.
“The hell she is. Find your own girl. Don’t screw with mine.”
“I won’t, cowboy. Anissa’s my sister.”
“You’re full of shit. She don’t have no accent.”
“I’m his half-sister,” Anissa said. “I’ve got half-brothers all over the place. They seem to pop out of the woodwork when I least expect it.”
The Duke vacated his stool. “Shit, man, I didn’t know.”
“Are you ready to leave, love?” Randy placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Nope.” She shrugged him off and reached for the second shot glass. It spilled on the way to her mouth. So did the third and fourth. “Damn! Order me four more shots, Randy. It’s a test,” she added slyly.
“You’ve had enough, more than enough.”
“So I’m sloshed. It’s my birthday, Ran-man. I can get shit-faced if I wanna.”
“Yes. You’re definitely ready to leave.”
“One more,” she pleaded, “and then we’ll celebrate my birthday. I’m one-hundred-and-forty-seven. You won’t be sorry, cross my heart.” She crossed her heart with Randy’s first finger. “See? I don’t wear a bra, Ran-man. I’m lib’rated. I’m woman, hear me roar. Hap’ birthday to me, hap’ birth—whoa, wha’cha’ doin’?”
Placing his hands about her waist, he lifted her from the stool and supported her through the crowded room because her legs didn’t work too good. “Meow, meow, meow, Ran-man,” she chanted. She halted. On tiptoe, she rubbed against the front of his tight jeans. At the same time, she squinted past his shoulder, toward a sign that read: NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE.
“Never saw that before.” Pulling the chemise up over her head, she stepped from a pair of sandals. The bar patrons whistled and cheered.
Randy picked up her sandals, pushed her out the door, and shoved her into a Volkswagen convertible. “Put your gear back on, nit,” he said.
She ducked her head through the chemise straps and gathered the material under her chin. “I’ve got incredible tits, Ran-man. That’s what Bobby Hoffman said. Bobby duced . . . uh, see-duced me with a piña colada umbrella, only he didn’t know it, the dumb slob.”
“Belt up, Anissa.”
“What?”
“Shut up.”
“Where we goin’?”
“My duplex.”
“You don’t wanna visit my room?”
“No.”
“Are you mad?”
“No.”
“You sound mad. Hap’ birthday to me?” she asked, her gray eyes huge, tear-bright, uncertain. “Don’t be mad, Ran-man.”
Silently, he drove and parked, then helped Anissa climb a short flight of steps. He led her through his living room, down a hallway, into the bathroom. Scooping her off her feet, he deposited her in a claw-legged tub and turned on the shower.
“What are you do-doing?” she sputtered.
“Sobering you up.”
“Let me out of here, you Aussie bastard!”
“No.” Randy rotated the faucet so that only cold water poured from the shower head.
“Stop it! What’s the matter with you? Are you kinky or something? Do you plan to screw me under ice-cold water?”
“I don’t plan to screw you at all, darlin’. I’m gay.”
“You are? I did
n’t know. Then why’d you take me home with you? I want a drink, Ran-man.” She fumbled for the faucet and turned it off.
“Anissa, you have a bloody problem.”
“I have a problem? You’re gay and I have a problem? I want a drink. Now!”
“Okay. Wait here and I’ll bring you one.” He returned, holding a tall glass filled with a white liquid.
“Is that a White Russian?” Defiantly, she gulped every drop, then gave a surprised little urp and vomited down the front of her chemise.
“I blended a special grog called a White Australian,” he said, handing her a wet washcloth. “Cream, vinegar, Milk of Magnesia and raw eggs. It’s my home-made remedy for too many sleeping pills. Sometimes gay leading men find their closets claustrophobic.”
“Who do you think you are? My real brother? God?”
“Neither. But I’ve had problems and my mates have been there for me. Please, Anissa, I can’t just stand by and watch you poison yourself. Are you finished being sick?”
“I never get sick. I pass out first.”
“Right. Are you finished not being sick?”
“Yes. No.” This time Randy bent her forward, toward the commode, and pressed the washcloth against her brow.
How convenient to plumb a toilet next to the shower, she thought. That way one can bathe and puke at the same time.
Randy’s hand was above her rib cage, instinctively cupping her breast, and she felt an orgasm build, her first since leaving Wisconsin. But the throb went away when tiny hummingbird wings fluttered inside her throat. Please, God, not again. Despite her fervent prayer, she issued forth a desperate moan, clearing a path for the liquid that gushed through her open mouth.
“I’m going to d-die, Randy,” she cried. “You’ve killed me with your damn grog.”
“It’s not my damn grog anymore.” He removed the cloth from her brow and cleansed her mouth. “It’s your damn tequila. Hold on, darlin’, here we go again. Don’t fight it, baby. Okay, good, you’ve got the dry heaves. That’s the last of it.”
She leaned weakly against the tiled wall as Randy stripped off her clothes. He rinsed and draped them across the shower rod, then helped her stand under warm water, wrapped her in a fluffy pink towel, and half-carried her to the living room. “Sit down,” he said. “We have to talk.”
