#jodie foster is still thick because I said so

[ratislatis]

if I had a penny for the amount of times I forgot to type “dndad” after “jodie foster” in google, I’d have three pennies, which isn’t a lot but it’s still enough

anyway I redrew this specific scene from s1 ep58 because I feel like I didn’t do it justice the first time

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Foster Au Fragments

She’s five and she’s one of the fosters.

 (She isn’t sure what a foster is, except that it’s a noun- like girl or cat or person.)

She knows it links her to some of the other children in the house- Jessie who likes to tear strips of paper- out of storybooks, from newspapers- and chew them up, and Asef who likes to tell people about all the dinosaurs he can name- and separates her (them) from the others- Amanda and Jody and Max, who are much older, almost grown ups.

  (Amanda and Jody go off to school every day on a bus by themselves, with proper bags- not bookbags and they like reading books that are all words and no pictures at all except on the cover. 

  Max likes Pokemon cards and turning off her light and holding her door shut.)

  She thinks a lot about what it is that links her to the other fosters: is it something good or bad? Is it like saying that she has blonde hair and two freckles on the back of her left hand? Is it like saying she’s stupid because she can’t tie her laces or tell the time?

  She tries to ask Aunty Meg what makes her a foster one morning but before she can properly ask, Jessie knocks her arm with accidentally-on-purpose precision as she’s pouring milk on her Weetabix and makes it spill- over the table and over the edge and into her lap, and questions come second place to sighs and cross mopping up in which the sponge in thrown into the sink and an exasperated ‘Why can’t you be more careful Joan, for goodness sake?’ said between pursed lips.

  She eats her too-soggy Weetabix in her milk-damp dress, forcing mouthfuls of cardboard-tasting mush past the tightness in her throat, and she doesn’t ask again.

  **

  She’s seven and they’re playing Hide and Seek- it’s the tail end of Max’s birthday party, and everyone is getting tired and irritable with each other and keeping an eye out for the appearance of the cake and party bags that will signal The End.

  (Joan has to share her birthday with Jessie and every year, he steps on her toe when they’re blowing out the candles on their shared cake and every year, she misses her wish. Every year, she peels back the hard, thick icing from around her slice and every year, Aunt Meg shakes her head at her for being picky and tells her to stop playing with her food.)

  The hiding places she would have picked- behind the sofa, behind the curtains- are taken by the time she gets to them and impatient hands push at her as she’s hissed at to find her own place Joan, just go away!, so she goes back out into the hall and wonders if she’ll be in trouble for spoiling things if she isn’t hidden by the time Jessie finishes counting to 100.

  (She knows already that she Spoils Things, that it Spoils Things when having to swallow scratchy dry burnt toast makes her gag and cry, that it Spoils Things when she tears off a new dress because makes her skin prickle and burn, that it really Spoils Things when a hundred voices clamour in her ears at once and bright lights sear into her brain and she has to close her eyes and put her hands over her ears because it’s tooloudtooloudtooloudtooloud-)

  The hall cupboard catches her eye and it’s actually empty: wedging herself between everyone’s old welly boots and winter coats is uncomfortable but it’s worth it, she thinks, to not Spoil Things as usual.

  It’s quite dark in the cupboard. 

  She hadn’t quite realised when getting in how dark it would be but she’s inside now and if she comes out and tries to find a new place, perhaps Jessie will have finished counting…. And so she stays.

  And it’s a funny thing- as she stays, the longer she stays, it’s as if the cupboard is becoming darker.

  Darker and smaller- she can lean forward and stretch out her hand and only just about touch the wall in front of her with the lightest brush of her fingertips…. But even though she knows this, can feel this, there’s a part of her that keeps telling her that really, the wall is just in front of her face, that the cupboard is barely big enough for her, that she can’t breathe-

  She can’t breathe and she’s cold (even though she isn’t, even though the cupboard is actually quite warm because it’s right next to the airing cupboard where the clean towels and fresh pajamas live) and she’s hungry too (except she isn’t hungry, she wasn’t hungry before…. But now it’s as if she can feel an ache in her tummy, except it’s a hungry ache and not a feeling-sick ache) and although she only just climbed into the cupboard, it also feels as if really, secretly, she’s been inside for a long, long time- just her inside in the dark and in the cold for hours and hours and hours and-

  When they pull open the cupboard door, her stomach turns over with a fear that she can taste- a familiar fear, somehow, though she isn’t sure exactly what she’s afraid of- and she’s shamefully sick down her for-best-only-and-no-exceptions dress. 

  It isn’t Jessie who finds her and opens the door so the game isn’t over- but everyone stops playing anyhow.

  Aunt Meg tells everyone it was too much birthday cake- and no one says anything, even though the cake is still uncut in the kitchen and remains uncut for quite a long time.

  After that, she dreams about the cupboard a lot. She supposes it’s the hall cupboard because she can’t remember ever hiding in one before, but in her dreams, it doesn’t look anything like it.

   Sometimes, the dreams creep into the day too and she remembers hitting hands and voices loud enough to make her cover her ears.

  The first, second and third times she has the dream, Aunt Meg comes into the bedroom to pick her duvet off of the floor and tells her to go back to sleep.

  After time number four, she sounds cross, and doesn’t seem to notice when Max pinches her for keeping him awake all night; after a while, Joan stops counting and Aunt Meg stops coming in.

  The dreams don’t stop.

  **

  Jane doesn’t come into her room without her permission.

  That’s what she says at least, has said right from the first day- but Joan is thirteen and she’s been told this often, knows that ‘never’ often means ‘never when she’s in the house’, or ‘never that they’ll admit to’, or ‘never until they become concerned’. She’s never had a room that locked from the inside- sometimes the outside but never the inside- and she isn’t stupid, she knows how to hide the things that she doesn’t want found.

  When Kitty bursts into her bedroom with an armful of laundry though, she’s taken by surprise and jumps so badly that her old walkman headphones are popped from her ears- lying in her lap, she can still just about hear the tinny strains of the song she’d been listening to reverberating from them. She’d let her guard down, turned the music up too loud to be keeping her usual one-ear-open (stupid stupid stupid) and now Kitty is standing awkwardly on the threshold, hugging the clothes self consciously to her chest.

  ‘Sorry. I knocked. I thought-’

  She trails off uncertainly- without looking, Joan knows what she’s staring at  and fights down the urge to cover the pathetic pile of crumbled stale biscuits with her hands.

  There’s no point- Kitty has already seen them, and now it’s just a toss up between what reaction she’ll get first. She knows she’ll get them all eventually- she always does- but the order tends of variate: the It’s Unsanitary hysteria, the It’s Just Greediness contempt, the Acting As If We Don’t Feed You Enough guilt-tripping, the Aren’t You Too Old For This Silliness headshaking, and sometimes- if she’s very, very unlucky- the You Obviously Won’t Be Hungry For Dinner- or breakfast or lunch or supper- Now.

  She wonders if Kitty will fetch Jane immediately or tease her by making her wait and beg and plead first: she doesn’t know the girl well enough yet really to be able to tell. She seems nice enough- just as Jane seems nice enough…. But still…..

  The limbo of not knowing is unbearable- it makes her throat tight and her eyes hot (pathetic pathetic pathetic)- and so when Kitty takes a couple of steps into the room, it’s almost a relief.

  She doesn’t say anything though, just keeps holding onto the clothes and biting her lip so Joan makes an effort to talk. It’s a slim chance, slim to non existent, but she has to try. 

  (Clearing her throat hurts.)

  ‘Please don’t-’

  It’s as if this shakes Kitty out of whatever reverie she’s in- she gives a little twitch as if she’s waking up and talks at the same time.

  ‘It’s alright-’

  ‘Please don’t tell-’ 

  (Of course Kitty will tell eventually but extracting a promise of silence will buy her enough time to throw everything away before she can get into worse trouble.)

  ‘It’s alright.’

  Kitty’s right next to her now and Joan is tensed up with the proximity- she wants to flinch away, knows she can’t without offending, she’s frozen-

  ‘I won’t tell Mum, I promise.’ 

  What is she saying? 

  ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t- I just- I-’ She wants to explain, she can’t explain, it’s too hard. She’s shaking, it’s making the words come out wrong.

  ‘Hey. It’s ok.’

  Kitty’s voice is very soft and very gentle- she doesn’t move, she doesn’t try to touch Joan, but she digs in her pocket and offers a crumpled tissue.

  ‘Here. It’s clean, I promise.’

  It’s embarrassing that she needs it, it’s embarrassing that Kitty is seeing her like this, the whole thing is horrible and embarrassing and uncomfortable …but at least Kitty doesn’t look impatient.

  ‘I’m really sorry, I wasn’t- I wasn’t trying to be-’ She falters. ‘Please don’t tell-’

  ‘I promise I won’t tell Mum, ok? I won’t tell anyone. You don’t need to be sorry. It’s ok.’

  The things she’s saying just don’t make sense and perhaps the incomprehension is in Joan’s face because Kitty gives her a sad half-smile.

  ‘I did the same thing when I first came. Hid food and things so that if I ever got- if I ever needed it, if things ever got bad, I’d have a supply. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?’

  Joan nods slowly- there’s no point in lying, and it’s a relief that Kitty doesn’t think she’s being greedy, or that she’s being unhygienic or ungrateful or weird.

  Still….

  It’s hard to square the Kitty in front of her with what she’s saying: the Kitty-from-before sounds scared and young and not unlike Joan herself. She doesn’t sound a thing like the cool, grown up Kitty that she’s shared a house with for nearly two weeks now.

   Kitty with her private singing lessons and pink tipped hair and her irrepressible giggle and her cool friends that swoop in and out like graceful, colourful birds- Cathy with her arms full of Honours-level textbooks and Anne with her bright red lipstick that she wears even with her school uniform and Anna with her long athletes legs and exotic hint of a German accent. Sje can’t believe this Kitty was ever reduced to hiding food like an animal making a hoard, that she was ever frightened enough to need to.

  The two Kitty’s don’t seem at all comparable but she can’t see why Kitty would lie- not about something like this- and she feels, behind her fear and her confusion- the very tiniest frizzle of something else, the tiniest of possibilities, the faintest flicker of hope that survives the cold douse of common sense that comes almost immediately after: Perhaps I could be like that one day.

  Kitty is still talking; Joan has to make herself listen again.

  ‘-Of course, you’re much cleverer than I was- you made a much better choice of things-’

  There’s a new tone to her voice now, a lightness, like she’s sharing a secret.

  ‘-Choosing biscuits is much more sensible-’

  She can’t believe Kitty is talking about this- something that has always been a shameful secret- so casually: moreso, she’s actually praising Joan for it. A clever choice? The biscuits were all she could think to hide without drawing attention to what she was doing. But Kitty is making it sound like Joan was doing something good.

‘What did I decide to hide? I was such an idiot- the social worker had stopped on the way to Joan’s, right, at this like bakery place? And she said I could have a cake- and they were these-’ Kitty gestures expansively ‘-these HUGE creamy cakes, and I was like, really pleased, because I thought it would last me for ages, it was so big… God knows how she AND Jane managed to miss me sneaking it in…..Actually-’ She stops, raises her hand. ‘No, I DO know, because we came in and suddenly it started raining and Jane asked the social worker to wait and SPRINTED to bring the washing in, and so they didn’t really notice me….’

  As Kitty tells the story, Joan notices two things. She’s stopped shaking. That’s one thing. The other is… that she’s actually listening, despite herself. She’s still anxious but she’s interested too, she wants  to hear how it turns out.

  ‘- and so I put it under my bed- I know, it’s a rubbish hiding place but I was only nine, remember- and just sort of thought it would be fine there. Big mistake.’  Kitty rolls her eyes theatrically. ‘I went off to school the next day and when I came home…. Just….’ She takes a moment, as if to let the horror unfold. ‘Ants. Like, so many ants. I didn’t actually know they could climb stairs so that was a shock and….oh my goodness, Jane had such a shock! I think she thought I was being murdered when I started screaming!’

  Kitty’s laughing as she tells it and Joan actually finds she’s smiling too- it’s not just the story, it’s how Kitty is telling it, like it’s a secret she’s choosing to share, something she and Joan are in on together because both of them understand.

  ‘I was just crying my eyes out- it took me SO long until I could even be near an ants nest without just completely freaking out. Jane was so lovely about it, though.’

  Kitty’s stopped laughing now, she has a soft, far-away look in her eyes.

  ‘She didn’t say a word- not as far as telling me off or anything. She looked at the mess, and just took me right back downstairs and sat me down in the living room and told me not to worry, that I wasn’t in any trouble at all, and she wasn’t the slightest bit cross and that she’d sort it all out… eventually I stopped crying and apologising and she gave me a hug and went and cleaned everything up…. And then later on, she told me straight out that I never had to worry about not having enough to eat with her, that even if I couldn’t always have exactly the food I might want, I could always be sure I’d have enough to be full and that I never had to be afraid to ask for more. And that things like being warm and clean and having enough to eat were things she absolutely promised I wouldn’t have to worry about ever again.’

  Kitty sounds so heartfelt as she talks, it makes Joan want to cry again- for the scared baby Kitty in the story…..and for herself, too, although she can’t quite articulate why.

  ‘Did you- believe her?’ She can’t quite believe she’s asking it but it’s out before she can reconsider.

  ‘Oh no, of course not!’ Kitty smiles as if it’s obvious. ‘Of course I didn’t- I was relieved she wasn’t cross and I was glad she said it… but you know how it is- people say things and it’s so easy, it’s easily said and easily broken.’

  Joan nods- she understands that all too well.

  ‘But after a while, I did.’

  ‘How?’

  Kitty shrugs. ‘She proved that I could. No matter what I did, she always made sure I still had enough to eat, that I was ok. She never shouted, she never lost her temper… even when I- no, I’ll tell you another time, it might give you ideas! No matter what happened, she made me see I didn’t have to be scared of her. And she was never cross that I didn’t trust her right away either. She said that too- that she hoped I’d trust her but that she knew it would be hard and that she didn’t expect me to right away but that she hoped I’d let her prove that I could.’

  ‘She said the same thing to me.’ Joan doesn’t add that it’s only now she’s contemplating that they were anything other than empty words: she’s had The Talk about trust from too many people who quickly grew irritated at her skittshness.

  Kitty nods. ‘Of course. And she did prove it. Like, she said that I’d always be fed but she also gave me this tupperware with energy bars and things that would last and wouldn’t go bad in it so that I wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen if she stopped. She didn’t stop me from preparing for the worst, she just….showed me that the worst would never happen with her. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Yes….’ Joan is more confused than before, she doesn’t know how to respond to all of this… but the knot of anxiety in her stomach is loser than it was before. And she isn’t shaking or crying or apologising.

  (That’s something.)

  Later, Kitty brings the tupperware- empty for many years, apparently, but now filled again from the kitchen cupboard- from her own room and puts it on Joan’s bed with a smile and a couple of books.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s ok. You can keep it. I don’t need it anymore.’ A pause, and then her head pops around the doorway again.

  ‘The books I DEFINITELY want back eventually though, ok? They’re Cathy’s. Tell me if you like them so I can tell her- she’ll be thrilled if I’ve managed to get another person into them!’

  Joan stammers another thank you, and when Kitty is gone, she looks at the box for a long time before hiding it away.

  She wonders if one day, she won’t need it anymore either.

  For the first time ever, it feels like a possibility.

[drabblesandheadcanons]

Tuppaware boxes and Second Chances

(All credit to @bessie-bass-on-the-bass for the original Foster Au headcanon and for her many wonderful fics and ideas and headcanons that made me want to write this- and for making me want to write Six fanfiction at all!)

She’s five and she’s one of the fosters.

 (She isn’t sure what a foster is, except that it’s a noun- like girl or cat or person.)

She knows it links her to some of the other children in the house- Jessie who likes to tear strips of paper- out of storybooks, from newspapers- and chew them up, and Asef who likes to tell people about all the dinosaurs he can name- and separates her (them) from the others- Amanda and Jody and Max, who are much older, almost grown ups.

(Amanda and Jody go off to school every day on a bus by themselves, with proper bags- not bookbags and they like reading books that are all words and no pictures at all except on the cover. 

Max likes Pokemon cards and turning off her light and holding her door shut.)

She thinks a lot about what it is that links her to the other fosters: is it something good or bad? Is it like saying that she has blonde hair and two freckles on the back of her left hand? Is it like saying she’s stupid because she can’t tie her laces or tell the time?

She tries to ask Aunty Meg what makes her a foster one morning but before she can properly ask, Jessie knocks her arm with accidentally-on-purpose precision as she’s pouring milk on her Weetabix and makes it spill- over the table and over the edge and into her lap, and questions come second place to sighs and cross mopping up in which the sponge in thrown into the sink and an exasperated ‘Why can’t you be more careful Joan, for goodness sake?’ said between pursed lips.

She eats her too-soggy Weetabix in her milk-damp dress, forcing mouthfuls of cardboard-tasting mush past the tightness in her throat, and she doesn’t ask again.

**

She’s seven and they’re playing Hide and Seek- it’s the tail end of Max’s birthday party, and everyone is getting tired and irritable with each other and keeping an eye out for the appearance of the cake and party bags that will signal The End.

(Joan has to share her birthday with Jessie and every year, he steps on her toe when they’re blowing out the candles on their shared cake and every year, she misses her wish. Every year, she peels back the hard, thick icing from around her slice and every year, Aunt Meg shakes her head at her for being picky and tells her to stop playing with her food.)

The hiding places she would have picked- behind the sofa, behind the curtains- are taken by the time she gets to them and impatient hands push at her as she’s hissed at to find her own place Joan, just go away!, so she goes back out into the hall and wonders if she’ll be in trouble for spoiling things if she isn’t hidden by the time Jessie finishes counting to 100.

(She knows already that she Spoils Things, that it Spoils Things when having to swallow scratchy dry burnt toast makes her gag and cry, that it Spoils Things when she tears off a new dress because makes her skin prickle and burn, that it really Spoils Things when a hundred voices clamour in her ears at once and bright lights sear into her brain and she has to close her eyes and put her hands over her ears because it’s tooloudtooloudtooloudtooloud-)

The hall cupboard catches her eye and it’s actually empty: wedging herself between everyone’s old welly boots and winter coats is uncomfortable but it’s worth it, she thinks, to not Spoil Things as usual.

It’s quite dark in the cupboard. 

She hadn’t quite realised when getting in how dark it would be but she’s inside now and if she comes out and tries to find a new place, perhaps Jessie will have finished counting…. And so she stays.

And it’s a funny thing- as she stays, the longer she stays, it’s as if the cupboard is becoming darker.

Darker and smaller- she can lean forward and stretch out her hand and only just about touch the wall in front of her with the lightest brush of her fingertips…. But even though she knows this, can feel this, there's a part of her that keeps telling her that really, the wall is just in front of her face, that the cupboard is barely big enough for her, that she can’t breathe-

She can’t breathe and she’s cold (even though she isn’t, even though the cupboard is actually quite warm because it’s right next to the airing cupboard where the clean towels and fresh pajamas live) and she’s hungry too (except she isn’t hungry, she wasn’t hungry before…. But now it’s as if she can feel an ache in her tummy, except it’s a hungry ache and not a feeling-sick ache) and although she only just climbed into the cupboard, it also feels as if really, secretly, she’s been inside for a long, long time- just her inside in the dark and in the cold for hours and hours and hours and-

When they pull open the cupboard door, her stomach turns over with a fear that she can taste- a familiar fear, somehow, though she isn’t sure exactly what she’s afraid of- and she’s shamefully sick down her for-best-only-and-no-exceptions dress. 

It isn’t Jessie who finds her and opens the door so the game isn’t over- but everyone stops playing anyhow.

Aunt Meg tells everyone it was too much birthday cake- and no one says anything, even though the cake is still uncut in the kitchen and remains uncut for quite a long time.

After that, she dreams about the cupboard a lot. She supposes it’s the hall cupboard because she can’t remember ever hiding in one before, but in her dreams, it doesn’t look anything like it.

 Sometimes, the dreams creep into the day too and she remembers hitting hands and voices loud enough to make her cover her ears.

The first, second and third times she has the dream, Aunt Meg comes into the bedroom to pick her duvet off of the floor and tells her to go back to sleep.

After time number four, she sounds cross, and doesn’t seem to notice when Max pinches her for keeping him awake all night; after a while, Joan stops counting and Aunt Meg stops coming in.

The dreams don’t stop.

**

Jane doesn’t come into her room without her permission.

That’s what she says at least, has said right from the first day- but Joan is thirteen and she’s been told this often, knows that ‘never’ often means ‘never when she’s in the house’, or ‘never that they’ll admit to’, or ‘never until they become concerned’. She’s never had a room that locked from the inside- sometimes the outside but never the inside- and she isn’t stupid, she knows how to hide the things that she doesn’t want found.

When Kitty bursts into her bedroom with an armful of laundry though, she’s taken by surprise and jumps so badly that her old walkman headphones are popped from her ears- lying in her lap, she can still just about hear the tinny strains of the song she’d been listening to reverberating from them. She’d let her guard down, turned the music up too loud to be keeping her usual one-ear-open (stupid stupid stupid) and now Kitty is standing awkwardly on the threshold, hugging the clothes self consciously to her chest.

‘Sorry. I knocked. I thought-’

She trails off uncertainly- without looking, Joan knows what she’s staring at  and fights down the urge to cover the pathetic pile of crumbled stale biscuits with her hands.

There’s no point- Kitty has already seen them, and now it’s just a toss up between what reaction she’ll get first. She knows she’ll get them all eventually- she always does- but the order tends of variate: the It’s Unsanitary hysteria, the It’s Just Greediness contempt, the Acting As If We Don’t Feed You Enough guilt-tripping, the Aren’t You Too Old For This Silliness headshaking, and sometimes- if she’s very, very unlucky- the You Obviously Won’t Be Hungry For Dinner- or breakfast or lunch or supper- Now.

She wonders if Kitty will fetch Jane immediately or tease her by making her wait and beg and plead first: she doesn’t know the girl well enough yet really to be able to tell. She seems nice enough- just as Jane seems nice enough…. But still…..

The limbo of not knowing is unbearable- it makes her throat tight and her eyes hot (pathetic pathetic pathetic)- and so when Kitty takes a couple of steps into the room, it’s almost a relief.

She doesn’t say anything though, just keeps holding onto the clothes and biting her lip so Joan makes an effort to talk. It’s a slim chance, slim to non existent, but she has to try. 

(Clearing her throat hurts.)

‘Please don’t-’

It’s as if this shakes Kitty out of whatever reverie she’s in- she gives a little twitch as if she’s waking up and talks at the same time.

‘It’s alright-’

‘Please don’t tell-’ 

(Of course Kitty will tell eventually but extracting a promise of silence will buy her enough time to throw everything away before she can get into worse trouble.)

‘It’s alright.’

Kitty’s right next to her now and Joan is tensed up with the proximity- she wants to flinch away, knows she can’t without offending, she’s frozen-

‘I won’t tell Mum, I promise.’ 

What is she saying? 

‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t- I just- I-’ She wants to explain, she can’t explain, it’s too hard. She’s shaking, it’s making the words come out wrong.

‘Hey. It’s ok.’

Kitty’s voice is very soft and very gentle- she doesn’t move, she doesn’t try to touch Joan, but she digs in her pocket and offers a crumpled tissue.

‘Here. It’s clean, I promise.’

It’s embarrassing that she needs it, it’s embarrassing that Kitty is seeing her like this, the whole thing is horrible and embarrassing and uncomfortable ...but at least Kitty doesn’t look impatient.

‘I’m really sorry, I wasn’t- I wasn’t trying to be-’ She falters. ‘Please don’t tell-’

‘I promise I won’t tell Mum, ok? I won’t tell anyone. You don’t need to be sorry. It’s ok.’

The things she’s saying just don’t make sense and perhaps the incomprehension is in Joan’s face because Kitty gives her a sad half-smile.

‘I did the same thing when I first came. Hid food and things so that if I ever got- if I ever needed it, if things ever got bad, I’d have a supply. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?’

Joan nods slowly- there’s no point in lying, and it’s a relief that Kitty doesn’t think she’s being greedy, or that she’s being unhygienic or ungrateful or weird.

Still….

It’s hard to square the Kitty in front of her with what she’s saying: the Kitty-from-before sounds scared and young and not unlike Joan herself. She doesn’t sound a thing like the cool, grown up Kitty that she’s shared a house with for nearly two weeks now.

 Kitty with her private singing lessons and pink tipped hair and her irrepressible giggle and her cool friends that swoop in and out like graceful, colourful birds- Cathy with her arms full of Honours-level textbooks and Anne with her bright red lipstick that she wears even with her school uniform and Anna with her long athletes legs and exotic hint of a German accent. Sje can’t believe this Kitty was ever reduced to hiding food like an animal making a hoard, that she was ever frightened enough to need to.

The two Kitty’s don’t seem at all comparable but she can’t see why Kitty would lie- not about something like this- and she feels, behind her fear and her confusion- the very tiniest frizzle of something else, the tiniest of possibilities, the faintest flicker of hope that survives the cold douse of common sense that comes almost immediately after: Perhaps I could be like that one day.

Kitty is still talking; Joan has to make herself listen again.

‘-Of course, you’re much cleverer than I was- you made a much better choice of things-’

There’s a new tone to her voice now, a lightness, like she’s sharing a secret.

‘-Choosing biscuits is much more sensible-’

She can’t believe Kitty is talking about this- something that has always been a shameful secret- so casually: moreso, she’s actually praising Joan for it. A clever choice? The biscuits were all she could think to hide without drawing attention to what she was doing. But Kitty is making it sound like Joan was doing something good.

‘What did I decide to hide? I was such an idiot- the social worker had stopped on the way to Joan’s, right, at this like bakery place? And she said I could have a cake- and they were these-’ Kitty gestures expansively ‘-these HUGE creamy cakes, and I was like, really pleased, because I thought it would last me for ages, it was so big… God knows how she AND Jane managed to miss me sneaking it in…..Actually-’ She stops, raises her hand. ‘No, I DO know, because we came in and suddenly it started raining and Jane asked the social worker to wait and SPRINTED to bring the washing in, and so they didn’t really notice me….’

As Kitty tells the story, Joan notices two things. She’s stopped shaking. That’s one thing. The other is… that she’s actually listening, despite herself. She’s still anxious but she’s interested too, she wants  to hear how it turns out.

‘- and so I put it under my bed- I know, it’s a rubbish hiding place but I was only nine, remember- and just sort of thought it would be fine there. Big mistake.’  Kitty rolls her eyes theatrically. ‘I went off to school the next day and when I came home…. Just….’ She takes a moment, as if to let the horror unfold. ‘Ants. Like, so many ants. I didn’t actually know they could climb stairs so that was a shock and….oh my goodness, Jane had such a shock! I think she thought I was being murdered when I started screaming!’

Kitty’s laughing as she tells it and Joan actually finds she’s smiling too- it’s not just the story, it’s how Kitty is telling it, like it’s a secret she’s choosing to share, something she and Joan are in on together because both of them understand.

‘I was just crying my eyes out- it took me SO long until I could even be near an ants nest without just completely freaking out. Jane was so lovely about it, though.’

Kitty’s stopped laughing now, she has a soft, far-away look in her eyes.

‘She didn’t say a word- not as far as telling me off or anything. She looked at the mess, and just took me right back downstairs and sat me down in the living room and told me not to worry, that I wasn't in any trouble at all, and she wasn’t the slightest bit cross and that she’d sort it all out… eventually I stopped crying and apologising and she gave me a hug and went and cleaned everything up…. And then later on, she told me straight out that I never had to worry about not having enough to eat with her, that even if I couldn’t always have exactly the food I might want, I could always be sure I’d have enough to be full and that I never had to be afraid to ask for more. And that things like being warm and clean and having enough to eat were things she absolutely promised I wouldn’t have to worry about ever again.’

Kitty sounds so heartfelt as she talks, it makes Joan want to cry again- for the scared baby Kitty in the story…..and for herself, too, although she can’t quite articulate why.

‘Did you- believe her?’ She can’t quite believe she’s asking it but it’s out before she can reconsider.

‘Oh no, of course not!’ Kitty smiles as if it’s obvious. ‘Of course I didn’t- I was relieved she wasn’t cross and I was glad she said it… but you know how it is- people say things and it’s so easy, it’s easily said and easily broken.’

Joan nods- she understands that all too well.

‘But after a while, I did.’

‘How?’

Kitty shrugs. ‘She proved that I could. No matter what I did, she always made sure I still had enough to eat, that I was ok. She never shouted, she never lost her temper… even when I- no, I’ll tell you another time, it might give you ideas! No matter what happened, she made me see I didn't have to be scared of her. And she was never cross that I didn’t trust her right away either. She said that too- that she hoped I’d trust her but that she knew it would be hard and that she didn’t expect me to right away but that she hoped I’d let her prove that I could.’

‘She said the same thing to me.’ Joan doesn’t add that it’s only now she’s contemplating that they were anything other than empty words: she’s had The Talk about trust from too many people who quickly grew irritated at her skittshness.

Kitty nods. ‘Of course. And she did prove it. Like, she said that I’d always be fed but she also gave me this tupperware with energy bars and things that would last and wouldn’t go bad in it so that I wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen if she stopped. She didn’t stop me from preparing for the worst, she just….showed me that the worst would never happen with her. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes….’ Joan is more confused than before, she doesn’t know how to respond to all of this… but the knot of anxiety in her stomach is loser than it was before. And she isn’t shaking or crying or apologising.

(That’s something.)

Later, Kitty brings the tupperware- empty for many years, apparently, but now filled again from the kitchen cupboard- from her own room and puts it on Joan’s bed with a smile and a couple of books.

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s ok. You can keep it. I don’t need it anymore.’ A pause, and then her head pops around the doorway again.

‘The books I DEFINITELY want back eventually though, ok? They’re Cathy’s. Tell me if you like them so I can tell her- she’ll be thrilled if I’ve managed to get another person into them!’

Joan stammers another thank you, and when Kitty is gone, she looks at the box for a long time before hiding it away.

She wonders if one day, she won’t need it anymore either.

For the first time ever, it feels like a possibility.

[artificialqueens]

Crossing pt. III (Katlaska) - Sebald

A/N: [4763 words] Sex is sex, the rest is just noise. And Brian would like to plug his ears.

As Paul goes on about his last photoshoot, Brian envisions the varied ways he can dismember Trixie and bury her plastic Barbie limbs across all of Los Angeles.

Paul is, undoubtedly, a gorgeous son of a bitch. Now, Brian isn’t typically attracted to model-types, and would like to think that he is often more drawn to coked-out amateur porn star-types, but when you see a piece of art so perfectly sculpted, you’d be remiss not to appreciate it. And Paul is some fine-ass art. Emphasis on fine ass. He looks like the type of man even Narcissus would have begrudgingly admitted to be beautiful—killer cheekbones tapering down to a strong, stubbled jaw; green eyes sitting coolly beneath the commanding arch of his thick brows; rich, golden skin that makes him look like he’s always trained by reflectors from every angle. And most importantly, Brian notes when Paul excuses himself to the restroom, his ass is sublime. Brian would very much like to touch it. Mold it. Sing “Unchained Melody” to it.

Too fucking bad Paul won’t shut up.

“It’s really hard work, actually,” Paul says, deep voice dripping with that SoCal drawl that used to annoy Brian but has now been Stockholmed into liking, months after moving to LA. Paul has an elbow perched on the back of his chair, and he’s leaning back with practiced ease. People walking by their table in the little sidewalk café openly stare at him, but he is unruffled. Probably used to admiring glances, Brian assumes. Paul takes a drag from his stick before he continues, “I know people have this misconception of models just sitting around and looking pretty, but there’s a lot of work that goes into it. My Calvin Klein shoot in particular was so demanding because their set was literally freezing, and I had to pose in nothing but briefs for hours.”

“Oh wow. How cruel,” Brian says in as sympathetic a tone as he can. He manages to bite back a snort, instead busying himself with putting out his cigarette and dropping the butt into the ashtray. Immediately he lights up another one. It seems a necessity, if he’s expected to carry on with this conversation.

“But that’s not even the hardest part. I was bought into the shoot blind—all I knew was that I was hired to do the campaign, but I knew nothing of the art direction, the photographer, the clothes. Nothing. So I get to the set and we start off doing solo shots, and then an hour later two female models come in, and I’m suddenly told that I’m supposed to pose with them—be all sexy and everything. So okay, that’s fine. A bit of a surprise, but I can handle it as a professional. What I’m not okay with was that I wasn’t told anything, and I didn’t get a say in anything. I was expected to just follow. And that’s how it goes for models. Ordinary people,” he brazenly gestures to the passersby, the withering curl of his lip expertly turning ordinary into an insult, “think it’s a glamorous job, but really we receive so little respect in the industry.”

It’s not like he doesn’t have a point, Brian concedes. His point is just severely unsharpened, and less a point and more a blunt hammer, completely lacking in finesse and forceful in its ways. He goes for a friendlier approach, partly to show that he can commiserate, and partly so that he can contribute to the conversation, which seems to be what dates are for, if rom-coms are to be believed. “I sort of get that, I think. I mean, drag queens are the furthest thing from models, I’m sure—for one because most of us are butt-ass ugly—” he pauses for a second, hoping Paul might laugh. But Brian gets nothing.

“—and, um, also because we have creative control over our art. But being a drag queen on reality TV, you do get a sense that you’re a pawn of some sort. That even though the show is putting your art out there for you, you’re first and foremost cast to sell the show. It’s a strange feeling,” he admits lightly, before smiling and saying, “But it’s not the worst gig in the world. Oh at all.”

“Wait, wait,” Paul blurts, bringing a palm up to stop Brian. He leans back in his chair even more, as if to better look Brian up and down. “You’re a drag queen?”

Oh for fuck’s sake. Brian is really going to kill Trixie now. Or he’s going to cut all the strings on her guitar and the lace on her new BobbiePinz wig. “Yeah. Didn’t David tell you?”

“No. He just said you were a really nice guy.”

“Okay. I guess that’s fair. Come to think of it, Trixie didn’t tell me about what you did either. Just that you’re hot.”

“Who’s Trixie?” Paul is more perplexed than ever.

“Sorry, I meant Brian. Not me, David’s boyfriend, Brian Firkus? Milwaukee Brian? He’s a drag queen too. We’re friends.”

“Wait, country Brian? Gay Willie Nelson is a drag queen?”

“She’ll resent that comparison, but yes.”

”Okay, yeah I know him. But wait, you said you were on TV. Were you on the RuPaul show?”

“I was,” Brian affirms. “I take it you don’t watch the show?”

“No, sorry,” he says with a shrug, not sounding apologetic in the least. “I do know about it because I had a roommate who used to watch it, but I moved out and never heard of it again.”

“Wow. Well, congratulations. I didn’t know it was possible for a gay man in Los Angeles to avoid the show, but here you are,” Brian says, halfway between being complimentary and disbelieving.

“I guess most of the friends I run with these days aren’t necessarily gay,” he explains, flicking his cigarette behind him before reaching for his cup of coffee sitting right beside the ashtray. Brian can almost imagine the strains of a horror thriller building up to a crescendo as Paul continues. “I’m not even really gay myself, I think. I do say I’m gay on Grindr and all the apps, but that’s just to make my life easy. So people know what I’m looking for, you feel? But I’m not, like, gay gay, you know? Like into musicals and stuff. No offense.”

The imagined music hits a peak, and a markedly effeminate scream goes off in Brian’s head. For some reason he envisions the scream to be from Justin, clad in that ridiculous pink-and-yellow ski suit with a feather sticking out of his goggles. Truly the gayest thing Brian’s ever seen.

In front of him, Paul is an image of casual disinterest. How Trixie thinks this guy would be worth seeing, Brian doesn’t know. Is this a prank, perhaps? He represses the urge to walk out, or maybe throw coffee on Paul. It seems a bit dramatic. Instead he offers a tight smile and an apology. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed you were gay.”

“It’s cool, I don’t mind too much,” he says, again unbothered, as if he didn’t just malign all the Harvey Fiersteins and Kurt Hummels of the world. “I don’t really care what people call me, as long as I get laid.”

A pause. There it is, the lead-in they both showed up to the date for. Brian considers his options. He could tell Paul he is an asshole and then leave and find Trixie so he can rant about the date, or he could stay and see this thing through to its inevitable end—and it seems fair to reward himself with that. A well-earned prize for his patience throughout Paul’s blathering about the plight of male underwear models. What would Dr. Arroway do?

Brian’s decision is made when he watches Paul tip his head back to drain the last dregs of his coffee, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in a manner that should not be as sensual as it’s managing to come off. Feeling simultaneously reckless and disappointed in himself, he opts to concede to the only sound statement Paul has said in the span of an hour. Cigarette in his mouth, Brian noncommittally utters, “Amen to that.”

When Paul acknowledges his reply with a sly smile, Brian feels the need to whisper an apology into outer space and hope that it makes its way to Jodie Foster.

“I’m supposed to see my trainer by three—maintenance, you know? But I have some time before then, so do you wanna stop by my place for a bit?” Paul asks smoothly, in the practised way of someone who’s employed the same scripted cues before. He makes a show of checking his phone, as if he hasn’t already blocked off some time for a pre-workout fuck. “It’s just two blocks down. You cool?”

“You’re not turned off by me being a nelly faggot?” Brian asks around his cigarette, not unkindly.

“Oh. Um. Well, no,” Paul answers, suddenly uncertain. Brian feels a little thrilled, watching him stammer. “You don’t—you don’t really seem, um, too gay?”

“I hope you know I’m not taking that as a compliment,” he says with a snort, hoping to get the last word in.

When they make it to the apartment, Paul thankfully cuts back on the chatter. It’s no pretty fucking, just quick and graceless, Brian hammering away almost vindictively. Still, Paul’s ass lives up to its promise, and Brian almost feels like it was worth all the trouble of their coffee date.

But he’s still definitely killing Trixie. Maybe after he gloats about how luscious that ass is. 

~~~

The small convenience store on the corner of Paul’s block is thankfully empty. Brian gets himself a pack of Newports, stupidly having let Paul bum his last one off him after Brian already selflessly sucked him off and ate and fucked him out. For all his masculine posturing, Paul turned out to be a pretty lazy princess in bed. He needs to find more generous partners, really. As he waits for the bored young cashier to punch the cigarettes in, he scans the bright, beguiling menu behind the counter and stares dreamily at the image of a soft serve cone. The perfect upward swirl. The height of American culture.

“Wait, can I get a vanilla cone with that?” he hears himself saying before he realizes what he’s doing.

“Of course,” the cashier says, mustering up an unconvincing smile as she rings the item in.

He’s never been one for post-sex ice cream, usually a post-sex smoke kind of guy, on top of being a post-breakfast smoke, post-breakdown smoke, and post-smoke smoke kind of guy. But he indulges himself today, a congratulatory treat for making it through Paul. Not that it was much of a chore, the sex part. But the getting-to-the-sex part? A rough road. To that Brian raises his cone.

The store has one row of seats and a long table facing the street, and he settles in, licking his ice cream absently as he watches people walk by. Los Angeles is generally laid-back, a city of beaches and slow drawls, but Sundays are especially lazy, when passing time seems like pulling taffy. The rest of the week it might be more like chewing gum.

A young couple leisurely pushes a stroller carrying a beribboned Shih Tzu in a puffy princess dress, giving Brian one more reason to be glad of his lack of romantic attachments. Across the street, two twin ladies with fire-engine-red hair hobble into a nail salon hand in hand, looking like the Parent Trap twins sixty years into their future, and looking exactly like the type of people Brian would like to feature in one of his pipe dream documentaries that he thinks about when he’s showering. It’s always either a gritty documentary or a pornographic film with vague allusions to the Russian symbolists. An orgy in the snow. Kneeling down to kiss the ground, the night wraps everything around, my lips are feeling it is close… And then bukakke cum loads vanishing into the snow as bodies huddle together for warmth. He brought the idea up to Avi once, but he just said Brian needed help.

Beside the nail salon, a group of buff guys crowd around the entrance to a gym—Paul one of them, to Brian’s chagrin. He hides uselessly behind his cone, but Paul thankfully doesn’t look around, absorbed in conversation with his friends. His decidedly not-gay friends. Brian would bet his entire Kickstarter fund that they all take it up the ass. They disappear into the gym, leaving him to enjoy his cone in peace, imagining the locker room hand jobs they’re going to discretely gift one another. No homo, just bros looking out for bros. It feels almost obscene to lick away the trail of melting ice cream down to his wrist, but Brian’s broken out of his locker room imaginings when a kid taps the glass in front of him. The kid looks up at his cone with big, excited eyes, tugging at his mother’s shirt to point it out. Preoccupied with a phone to her ear, she just shakes her head and pulls him along. The kid glares back at him, like it’s Brian’s fault somehow that he’s not getting any ice cream. Brian offers the kid a mocking pout before reveling in another cool lick. Little brat.

When he looks back across the street, he sees Justin’s brother, of all people, walking out of the gym. He sits up, piqued, when he sees that Cory is followed by Justin and an unfamiliar woman who’s about half Justin’s height but looks like she could tap him with a single finger and send him toppling over. She and Justin have their arms linked, chatting brightly as they follow Cory across the pedestrian lane. For a second, Brian contemplates running out of the store to call their attention, but Justin beats him to it (quelle surprise!), spotting him from the middle of the street. Justin waves with his long, spidery arm and smiles before gesturing for the woman and Cory to look into the convenience store as well. The woman’s face lights up, pleased recognition spreading across her face. Cory, on the other hand, just squints in his direction before looking away. Maybe that’s how army men greet casual acquaintances, Brian posits.

He waves the remains of his cone as the trio, now led by Justin and the woman after speeding past Cory, make their way into the store.

“Fancy meeting you here, stranger,” Justin greets with a transatlantic affectation as he steps in first, holding the door open for his friend. “What’s up?”

“VH1 stocks are,” Brian fires back. “Logo down.”

“No shop talk on Sundays,” he tuts while going in for a hug. His cheeks are flushed red, presumably from the gym, but his freshly showered skin is cool against Brian’s post-sex heat.

“Don’t. I stink,” Brian warns.

“But when do you not?” Clicking his tongue, Justin ignores the warning and encloses him in a one-armed hug. With his free arm, he gestures to his companion. “Kiara, this is Brian. Brian, this is Kiara, fitness trainer to the stars. And Cory’s girlfriend, for reasons that elude me.”

Kiara laughs and shoves him lightly, and then extends her hand for a shake, until she realizes that his handshaking hand is preoccupied with ice cream. She shrugs and goes in for a quick hug instead. “Nice to meet you! I loved you on the show. That finale speech? Girl, I almost cried.”

“I’ll never escape the Team Katya folks, will I? I’m quitting drag.” Justin juts out his lower lip in a comically large frown.

“Plenty of love to go around,” Kiara says brightly, kissing his cheek, which Justin accepts with a laugh.

“Always so needy,” Brian teases with a smirk. Justin catches his eye and smirks back knowingly.

“Hey Kee, catch,” Cory calls out, walking from the cashier. He flings a bottle of water through the air, and Kiara catches it expertly. It’s fantastic, like a choreographed move. Gold medalists in the Olympics of water bottle catch. With Justin, it’s much less of a sporting event, the bottle safely changing hands between brothers. Probably for the best.

Cory stares at Brian for a solid second. It’s nerve-wracking, like passing through security and waiting for them to pull you aside for a bomb that you know you don’t have but is still afraid of being caught with. Brian lets out a breath when Cory finally turns to Justin and Kiara, hiking his bag over his shoulder. “Ready to go?”

“Oh, would you wait a minute,” Justin says, almost like a fussy mother. He turns to Brian with an exasperated look—a can-you-believe-how-rude-my-brother-is look, Brian would like to think. “Brian, you know my brother Cory.”

“Yes. Hi. Cory. Bro’Laska. Big fan. Huge,” Brian says rapidly, hoping to get in Cory’s good graces. He hasn’t seen but two episodes of their web show, but the words come stumbling unbidden out of his mouth. Like puke, but worse. “Really, really fun dynamic. Just hilarious.”

“Cool,” Cory says uncertainly, looking to Justin for help.

Brian’s mouth runs ahead of him, completely unmindful of the one smart voice in his head telling him to shut up, “No, I mean it.”

“Sure,” he grumbles. And then, under his breath, “I didn’t say you didn’t—”

“I really do! I love the show. My mother loves the show. My father loves the show. My sister loves the show. My brother loves the show,” he rambles. “No, wait, sorry, I don’t have a brother.”

“Oh-kay.” Cory can’t even meet his eyes anymore.

“But I wish I had a brother!” Brian offers, before he can stop himself. “Several brothers! So we can all watch Bro’Laska and love it. Together. And be… progressive gay brothers.”

“Right.” Cory regards him with a tired look. “I’m not really gay, dude. But thanks, I guess.”

Brian nods and wishes he hadn’t been blessed with the capacity for speech. It just seems a cruel thing to be burdened with, doesn’t it, when the supposedly benevolent Lord is not as kind as to give you a working brain to govern your tongue. Brian winces apologetically at Cory, who shifts his eyes away. Kiara may as well have a question mark bobbing over her head with the way she’s staring at him. Justin’s lips are contorted in an indecipherable twist, conveying something between schadenfreude, pity, and horror—Brian’s not sure yet. And he doesn’t quite want to know. He just wants to melt along with his ice cream. Which he still has. And which is now leaking all over his hand, down his arm.

“Katya, your—” Kiara gestures kindly, bringing out a handkerchief from her bag and handing it over graciously.

“Oh no, thank you, it’s fine,” he refuses. He’s not going to let her pristine kerchief be victim to his sloppiness. “I’ll, uh, go on ahead and wash this away.” He grabs his backpack with his clean hand and begins walking out. “Great to meet you guys. Have a good day.”

He backs into the door, but it won’t budge. He pushes into it again repeatedly, pressing the full weight of his body like a human battering ram. “Fucking hell. What kind of Superman strength does it require to fucking—”

“Pull,” Justin suggests gently.

Brian pauses his full-body hammering into the door and nods. “Right. Of course.” He bows once in their direction, turns, pulls the door, and stops when he realizes that he has smeared ice cream all over the handle. Shit. He wipes it with his shirt, to little effect. He takes a breath and hopes the cashier gets paid more than minimum wage as he resolves to leave the sticky mess behind in favour of marching out without another glance back.

Was that rude? He doesn’t know. He just wants to never interact with any human being ever again. He finishes the rest of his soggy cone as he walks away. Miserable fucking cone. He shouldn’t have gotten it. Just another American icon, shattered and exposed for the flimsy illusion that it is.

Quickening his pace, he walks in the direction of his yoga class. The thought of yoga isn’t quite enough to stifle his mortification just yet, but it’s a good start.

A hand lands on his shoulder. Justin, he recognizes before turning. Maybe he was expecting it. Justin is holding out a wad of tissues. “Got you some from the store.”

“Thanks,” Brian says. Wiping down his arm, he looks up at him sheepishly. “Sorry for being weird in there. I dunno what happened.”

“Yeah, that was something. But then it’s always something with you, isn’t it?” Justin chuckles. “Are you all right?”

“Totally. Your brother just kind of made me nervous. He can be pretty imposing. He’s so large and gruff and…big brother-y.”

“I’m older than him.”

“What? No way.”

“I am. But he’s a tough old military man, and I’m a flaming faggot blessed with eternal youthful beauty.” Justin shrugs.

“That you are.” Brian nods sagely.

“Anyway, no worries. It’s my fault, if it’s anyone’s at all. I mentioned to him that we’ve been fooling around, so I suppose he’s assuming some sort of protective brother role and being cold on purpose. Sorry about that. He’s usually nicer and chattier. Willam will vouch for him.”

“Oh. You told him?” Brian marvels, “So that’s what meeting the family is like,”

“Sort of. Usually with less ice cream and faulty gaydars.” Justin snorts. “You heading to yoga?”

“Yeah,” Brian confirms, tilting his head in the direction of his classes. “I’m walking. You?”

“Can I walk with? I’ll grab an Uber from your building. Then I’m just going home. Ordering Indian. Watching Feud. Regretting going to the gym,” Justin says, falling in place next to Brian as they stroll through the Sunday heat. “But you’re not getting rid of me until I hear about the date.”

He groans. “Horrible. I called my date gay too. That’s twice today. And guess what, Joanne, he said he wasn’t.”

“What?”

“He’s not gay-gay, just gym gay.”

“Oh god, not one of those.” Justin sounds both sympathetic and personally offended.

“But you know what’s worse? I enjoyed the fuck out of the sex. He’s got, hands down, the firmest ass I’ve ever seen in my entire wretched existence. And I loved every spray-tanned inch of it.”

“Well, that’s a happy ending.” Justin laughs. “Will you go out with him again, then?”

“Hell no. God, I hated the date itself. I don’t know why people do it. Horrible. You’re both trying to impress each other and trying to be polite even when he’s being an ass, and it’s just such a chore, the whole thing.”

“You’re being cynical. Dates can be fun, you just had a bad one.”

“I guess,” he concedes. “I guess meeting your friend’s brothers can also be fun, I just happened to make an ass of myself.”

“Precisely,” he says. “We’ll get you a life coach, girl. You can be saved. Just trust and believe.”

“My first introduction as your fuck buddy of one week, and I’ve already made a bad impression,” he laments. “Whatever will that mean about our future?”

“You won’t get my hand in marriage, but we can always elope,” Justin suggests. He clears his throat, loops one arm around Brian’s, and gestures grandly to the streets of LA with the other. “Where to, my star-crossed lover? The world is ours, though lawful companionship not be.”

Passersby look on at Justin’s theatrics and keep a safe distance away. Brian laughs. “And I’m the embarrassing one.” Despite himself, he affects a Maxish accent and projects loudly, “The world indeed, my dear, is ours. As my heart is yours, and your cock mine forever.”

Justin drops the act and cackles wildly, unmindful of the people sending glances their way. He wipes a fake tear and turns to Brian. “That was beautiful. See, you’re one for romance after all.”

“God, if dating was anything like that, I’d be into it.”

“You’re such a grump. Dating can be fun and comfortable. It just has to do with compatibility. It’s just like sex, really. Sometimes you find someone who can get you off twice, thrice in a night. Sometimes you end up with someone, and neither of you are able to get it up, and you both hate yourselves a little. But you don’t blame the entire practice of sex for bad sexual encounters, do you?”

“I hate how sensible you’re being about this. But I dunno, dating, it’s just so much pressure. And for what? So you get to fuck someone exclusively for a couple of months until your insecurities eventually come out and eat the relationship from within, and the whole thing inevitably dissolves and leaves a trail of misery and bad blood in its wake? Fuck dating then, just skip straight to the fucking.”

“Slow down there.” Justin laughs, holding Brian back and pointing his head across the street. Brian blinks in that general direction, until it clicks that he’s been too preoccupied talking to pay heed to the ‘STOP WALKING’ light.

Justin looks straight ahead for a while, and then he speaks quietly, perhaps addressing Brian, or the streetlight across the way, or himself. “You’re right. Fucking is nice. I think I’m sticking to it right now actually, just to disentangle myself from the whole relationship aspect. Maybe just sleeping around for a while and not being in anything serious will help me be less of a needy, whiny bitch.”

“Oh.” Brian is taken aback. Justin’s no prude, and he’s always been happy to fuck a race chaser, but he’s also garnered a reputation for being a sappy romantic. “That’s an interesting exercise in self-control.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking down at his feet now. “Dunno what my goal is really, just wanted to try it out. No actual dating for some time. None of the fancy dinners and movies and all that. Just sex.”

“Seems excruciating for you, I’ll be honest.”

“Well, sex isn’t a bad thing to be stuck with,” Justin reasons.

“Oh no, not at all. That’s my MO anyway. I support it. Just doesn’t seem like you, is what I’m saying.”

“Yeah? Do you think it’s stupid? Am I kidding myself here?” Justin asks, looking sincerely worried, and Brian feels bad for walking him to that edge, when he’s already made the decision for himself.

“No, no. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to want to get into,” he placates him. “And anyway, if you find that it isn’t for you, you can always go back to dating. That easy.”

“Yeah. You’re right,” Justin says, nodding to himself. “I’m trying this, then.”

“Tell you what,” Brian begins, a smile playing on his lips. “Let’s make it fun, so you’re not worrying yourself over this. Because really, the point of sleeping around is that it should be fun, not a lonely way of forcibly deromanticizing yourself.”

“How?”

“Let’s make it a game.”

“A game?”

“Yeah. I’ll match you. For every guy you sleep with, I go out on a date with someone,” he offers, surprisingly not regretting it the moment it leaves his lips. But there is time for regret yet. When the first date with the next Paul commences, most likely. For now, Justin’s face is breaking out into a wicked smile, and that’s reason enough to commit to the game.

“No fucking way.” Justin looks like he’s having way too much fun now. “What if I get into an orgy?”

“I’ll do those speed dating things,” Brian haggles, laughing fondly at the sight of Justin furrowing his brows and seriously weighing the offer.

“Okay. That’s fair,” he decides with a firm nod. “So how do I win this game?”

“Does it have to have a winner? I think you win anyway, since you get to sleep around without the boring rituals of dating.”

“Well… then that’s not such a fun game for you, is it?” he says, frowning.

“Okay, fine. If you drop out of the no-dating life first, I win. If I drop out of the dating life first, you win.”

“Okay.” Justin beams. As the ‘WALK’ light comes on, he cheekily turns to Brian. “May the best woman,” he pauses and walks ahead, and then yells over his shoulder, “win!”

Brian laughs and wonders just what he has gotten himself into.

[baldeductoe]

Hot Potato

           They both stood in the room forehead to forehead, leaning against each other.  In the darkness, they couldn’t see anything but they felt the silent orchestra of emotions swell.  His brow would rustle and pull inwards as he leaned his heft onto her only to have his aggression soften into quiet apologies and rock slowly back onto his heels to allow for her furrowed brow to push some unspoken emotion back onto him as if he were some malleable mound of blame.  Back and forth, the slow rock of guilt and blame would shift from one to the other.  They were two entities spiraling around the same idea only resisting the coagulation of the two spirits into that conclusion.  The two forever swirling around a single point with enough energy to forever keep the two from coalescing onto an end.

           The room was void of everything except boxes stuffed frantically with memories.  There were only five boxes in the room but each with enough kinetic energy built from the colosseum of domestic abuse that registers, at this point, intimacy as large, dumb red flags.  

           The boxes, compounded with the stubbornness of the participants, made the affair far more heavy than any casual arrangements of broken hearts.  Here, in this realm of relation, the world itself is a dark, violent game of both blame and responsibility, where both parties try at their maximum capacity to shift the focus of guilt to another as if some dirty game of hot potato.

           But, the two found their center and maintained themselves in perfect equilibrium in the center of the room.  Both forehead to forehead; both on the pure scale of blame before mighty Justice herself; and, most importantly, both humbled before the powerful realization that they are both on a level playing field.  Neither of them would come to accept this of course, but they know it.  If even for a moment, this knowledge provided both of the combatants to become humbled before the unrelenting threshold of consequence the opposing party met prior to, and even preceding, the moment of breakage.  But neither would acknowledge this.  Not one of them would openly accept their conclusion in the face of their friends, because having the power to degrade and denounce someone would grant both of them enough distance—“transcendental” leeway—to enable their departure and their movement away from an ex to completely belittle their blindness to remain in whatever shithole relationship they had established under the perfect guise of harmony and love (the two easiest fronts to fake).

And then she made him leave.  While they sat there wallowing in the past, she called it quits.  She told him he had to go, no words from him, because he knew. But he hated it.  So he leaned in to her neck.  And they melted back the anger to two years before, when they were young and stupidly passionate.  And those strong negative boxes formed into beautiful monuments to the past filled with meaning.  Their clothes slid off in the flux and flow of time while their minds drifted away in the wake of their remembrance.  

But her mind was drawn back from the past due to the functionings of the present and the future.  Her fiancé would be home soon.  He would be devastated.  Johnny had to leave.  So he did but with all of his clothes adjourned and relinquished and left behind as if his own soul.  He walked out to his car.  He started the engine; he felt the thing turn over with harsh finality.  But he sat there reveling in the sadness pouring from his pores as he leaned on the wheel and listened to the engine purr.  For a long time, he sat there, naked save for his underwear listening to the violent sounds inside of his skull.  The world itself vanished under the sensory overload the racket caused him.  The relationship between the silence of the real world and the cacophony of his mental world were completely inverse; as one marched slowly into the limelight, the other would scrape and crawl away into nothingness.  That’s when her fiancé, Alex, pulled in.  

           He was a tall slender man with a nice pair of chinos and a white button up on.  He looked like he had walked directly out of a fashion catalogue from the 40s, despite the modernity of the look.  Across his large and contoured nose rested his horn-rimmed glasses that laid carefully above the crook in his nose.  With the darkness surrounding and the angle of the car, he had no good visual on who was in the beat up BMW.  All of the features of the being in the car faded away leaving the figure looking like a large, jagged cutout.  He walked in close, hand on the knife he kept in his pocket, and peered in from the passenger side to get a better view of who or what had come out to his house, especially so late.  

           Illuminated by the stereo system like some new age votive of anguish, Alex could recognize that it was Johnny, but had problems syncing up his memory of Johnny and the creature that wallowed before him. Still, in the vibrant blue light of the stereo, Johnny’s face was stripped of its emotion, of its depth, and to Alex still looked like a large cutout of a man with the same name as Johnny, but only more removed and resigned, and flat.  Alex knocked on the window out of both curiosity and worry.  

           Johnny turned, but he turned slowly.  It seemed like it would take minutes for him to return the gaze that had been given to him.  The man took his time as if he had no more time in the world that could be wasted. His movements were heavy with time and memory and weighed down by the influx and combination of emotions that somehow arose organically in light of their Frankenstein-esque origins; all emotions whirling about in a Heisenbergian randomness that caused collisions of feeling a powerful as clashing tectonic plates and the consistency heard with the steady popping of popcorn.  Alex had only darkness in his eyes.  Tension blanketed the two of them then.

“You wanna roll the window down, buddy?” Alex’s muffled words barely moved into Johnny’s ears and he rolled down the window.  It was a manual, so it took some breath and time to get the window down, but it only went down halfway (Johnny gave up the efforts to fight the frost and ice to roll the thing down).

“What?” Johnny said after a long, awkward silence that made both men uncomfortable.

“You’re the one in my drive way.  I’d like you to tell me ‘what,’ and where are your clothes, man?” And then it hit him.  The driveway was long and the night dark, and on any given night it was nearly impossible to spot Jodie’s small black Toyota.  But be being closer to the man, seeing the car he did not account for, and smelling the smells of his bedroom on this half-stranger in the car Alex was no longer in need of an answer from Johnny.  

           Just as Johnny went to say something, Alex was already pulling away from him with the thick black knife in his hand and unfolded it with a quick sheen and a decisive, mechanical click.  The snapping open of the knife scared Johnny into silence and forced Alex into action.  He walked about the car and stabbed each of the four tires one time with a savagery that mismatched his clothes and precision.  Slowly, Johnny felt himself shrink down closer to the earth along with his vehicle and the thing felt rooted like a two-ton metal shrub.  Alex made one pass around the car with his tire rampage and sauntered back around to the driver’s side.

“Now you sit here while I go and get some answers.  If you try and leave or run I swear I’ll find you and I’ll drag your ass back here naked for every inch you moved from me.”

           Inside, the air was thick and tense.  The blanket of unease seemed to cover the entire house. All the boxes laid scattered across the floor like beige monuments; stout and heavy, they rested in all areas of the house.  Alex could hear everything so much more clearly than typical.  His senses were heightened out of some animalistic reaction to the ever growing tension in his chest.  It felt like his sternum was crumpling inward by some void just beneath the bone.  He entered their room and saw her there on the mattress on the floor with the half packed, half unpacked boxes, gripping her knees and rocking back and forth. Her head kept knocking the wall and the vibrations jingled the pulleys on the fan like some sort of wind chime that funnels the moroseness of the world.  

           She was taking it all in. The past and present collided within her mind and melted into a shimmering display, like an oil slick—where some colors and some shapes are only seen in a glancing moment before the angle, the movement, some variable, takes away that level.  Here, Jodie’s mind was between the room she shared with Alex and the room the shared with Johnny.  The conditions of moving had provided her with an already unstable surface to conduct business, but Johnny’s touch and presence opened the flood gates of Jodie’s memory that had been fighting and holding back the brackish waters of their past.  This was no ordinary arousal of emotion, this was the growth of something that never should have lived and never should have been allowed to continue to live.  The thing grew even in neglect.  The turning away of eyes does nothing against the chewing of food and the scavenging for life.  

           Left unattended, the thing was allowed to grow unnoticed and grew ravenously with a spirit that would grow to devour exponentially. Rather than letting his and her memory die, Jodie fostered the memory but never caring for it.  She knew the removal would be essential, but the pain and misery extracted from the removal of something so critical to her life—past, present, and future—that she left as if all meaning would be stripped away from life if she was allowed to so readily rearrange herself.  

           So, it grew.  And it pressed at the bounds of her consciousness when the skin of those two meaningless souls touched.  And it shattered everything around her.  Alex stood before her in fear.  His sternum felt as if it has reached his spine and gone farther, like his structure was being crippled.  He tried to speak to her, but her eyes never seemed to focus on him.  They shifted restlessly in apprehension jumping between here and there, past and present; but that’s all—only the vague, empty historicity to attempt to mend her fractured mind.

           The bland beige of the room and the boxes lost even more of their neutrality, sinking into husks of objects that used to have purpose but has shucked it off in that limbo.  The two of them became enveloped in their own uncertainty.  Alex had felt this rift before, he had seen it on her, smelled it in the air when they made love.  His nights, long nights of hard work and immense apathy, had driven him away (he claimed this, but he still couldn’t convince himself this was what happened).  He knew she wanted to leave this town.  Year after year of stagnation breeds a hunger in a person.  The lack of fuel for a soul turns ravenous, but only inwardly—because a soul can only affect itself.  So he ran off to work so they could run away to a new life, a new sanctuary.  However, the past never really dies; the embers of unwatched fires becomes the fires of God’s own wrath.  Johnny had come in, his stink of nostalgia wafting off of him, and given those coals new life, new fuel.  

           Her eyes were no longer on this world.  Her essence was torn between impotence and meaninglessness.  He said no more words, they all sailed away in the sea time.  Alex went to turn, to find Johnny, to spill that blood and kill that future, and, in turn, bleed out the pain of the past like sucking the venom from a wound.  His footsteps shook the house that now was paper thin, almost fake.  

           He left her there like that, alone and throbbing in the dim light of the beige walls.  As he walked through the house, he turned off all of the lights.  Slowly, one by one, he marked his path out with darkness. Each click of the switch seemed so loud to him, so decisive and definitive.  His feet drug over the creaky floors boards.  Just as he hit the last light switch and the darkness fell on him, thick and heavy, he saw the headlights of Johnny’s truck making horizontal slats of light break through the blinds.  

           He stood there in the darkness illuminated by Johnny’s car.  He held his knife limply in his hand, relaxed.  A shadow passed over the lights with sluggish steps and a bowed head as if some monk had wandered too far from his monastery.  The jerking movements and swinging of limps disturbed Alex to his core and the drumline of Jodie’s head slamming the wall only added to the bastardized symphony rolling out of the world.  Then he heard the sloshing, like water.  He heard it as he watched the votive statue shuffle around the yard with a beat and a rhythm all his own.  Everything clanged together while his mind assessed all of the sensory input and try to analyze it properly through the ragged system he was currently working with despite broken time ripping away at his mind.  The bitter effluvium from the fluid stung Alex’s nose and he couldn’t pin the scent to the object, his mind was too hung up on events; hung up on the build up.  

           The door creaked open with an agonized groan.  And the gasoline filled his nose completely. It was almost as if his very brain was encased in the aroma of the gas.  Johnny never gave up his part of the orchestra, his movements remained in time and purposeful even before the eyes of Alex.  The two men made eye contact once Johnny emptied the can in the living room.  Alex fell on him.  Johnny’s retort was lost in the fumes and Alex’s knife was buried into his chest and the blood spilled out in ebbing waves, slow and thick.  As the blood mixed with the gasoline and the copper smell only worsened the harshness of the gas, Alex continued to pummel in the face of the man he once never had any opinion of, some ghost of his girlfriend’s antiquity, and here he was, moving that poor soul into the most profound antiquity—death. The storm of fists continued so that the bones in Alex’s hands were nearly obliterated and hung like wet sacks of gravel, dripping with the red wetness of his solidified jealousy and confusion.  

           Alex rose and stood above Johnny like God looking upon man.  His horn-rimmed glasses still there, only splattered with red like his shirt and the floor.  The gurgling, mumbling, bursts of Johnny’s breathing nearly drowned out the sound of crackling wood.  Alex had, in his frenzy, completely transgressed into a different world; he had somehow not noticed the blaze swelling in from the front door.  All over the porch, the fires danced in its red and orange hue as if hell had come early to take Alex away.  The complete darkness of the house was now destroyed by the swirling, chaotic illuminations of the fire around the still and dead looking contours of the two men’s shadows on the wall.  Below the growing roar of the fire, the thudding in Jodie’s room continued with sickening steadiness.  

           With the flames nearly at his face—truly, they were licking out at him as if to taste him with their long heated tendrils—he gathered up Johnny, knife and all and left the room.  His walk was slow and heavy,but not because of the cargo.  Each step echoed in his mind a memory.  Some pure and real, others artificial; like the speculation of Johnny’s time walking through this house, of him holding Jodie on the couch of the listening room while they listened to all their shared favorites that Jodie never told Alex about (she said it was too painful, but not enough to throw them away, and definitely not enough to prevent from her being caught listening to those antiques when not expecting him).  He followed the banging on the wall.  The smoke grew too thick for his eyes to be his best guidance.  Once in Jodie’s room, the banging stopped.  When Alex rolled in with the smoke and a near corpse dangling from his shoulders, a hush fell and the fire whispered behind them.  Alex threw the man on the ground with a mortal thud, rolled the man over, and pulled the knife from the bare chest—he put his foot on the dying man’s neck to assist in the removal, pushing down while ripping the knife away.  

           As Alex turned to leave, the blood began again to pool out and away.  Once out of the door, he turned back to look and saw the blood reaching out to the bed where Jodie sat and she reaching out towards it.  The door slid shut and he was back into the inferno that tore through the house like a titan.  The swelling in his brain pushed out all of the sounds and he felt as if he were weightless, as if her were in some painting, staring into the red void of hatred that was summoned before him (possibly out of him).  He took this as his moment of retreat—surrender, rather.

           The fire trailed and reached for Alex as he walked coolly out the back door, and once through the frame, after the click of the knob, sound blasted his ears.  The screaming—of the fire and of the girl inside—disoriented space and time itself. Every crackle and pop by now had matured into the snapping explosions and crashing.  Like a swarm of locus, the house sang its macabre melodies into the orange black of the night reaching up over and above the trees where the fire raised to and set fire to.  Stepping back, giving himself the perspective he needed to take in the proud monster he had begot.  Red ate everything.  

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