“—Noooooo!”
The whine tapered off as my eyes snapped open. The desert
landscape of flesh evaporated, leaving me in darkness. Only the scent of
leather and moisturizer remained. A sound had burrowed into my awareness,
causing me to wake.
“JERRY?”
It was Jennifer; her voice warbled in from down the hallway,
bright with curiosity and faint concern.
“Uuurrrgh…” I grunted in response. Thought was fuzzy and
indistinct; I was still too tired to figure anything out. A headache had lodged
behind my eyeballs. Plus, something was pushing up against my front, squashing
my insides. The bedsheet had been kicked away. I struggled to roll over, my
body felt like a log of lumber. Too much sleeping pill and my metabolism was
still trying to process it.
Driving my body with my shoulders, I managed to turn around
until I was lying on my back, only to be met with a confounding sight, and for
a second my brain simply refused to compute.
There was a huge, straight crack running down the bedroom
ceiling like a lightning bolt, through which the white daylight streamed
through.
But Jen was already up and about, so why had she not noticed
it when she’d first awoken?
I continued to blink up at it stupidly. Something else was
wrong.
If daylight was streaming in through the crack, why was the room
dark? It shouldn’t have been dark, crack or not; it was morning.
Or was it? I couldn’t figure anything out; my brain was
running at half speed.
I closed my eyes, hoping more rest would cure my
disorientation, and hopefully the crack would have disappeared the next time I
closed my eyes. Seconds later, I opened them again.
The white crack was still there, bright as day against the
surrounding darkness. My nostrils crinkled and flared; the room smelled like
someone had dumped hand sanitizer on the carpet, and the leather scent – shoes?
– leaked out of the cupboard. I reached blindly for a bed sheet that wasn’t
there.
“JERRY? JER-RY!"
Jen’s voice came in irritated spurts, echoing in from down the hallway. She was fast growing
impatient. “SOMEONE BETTER GET THEIR LITTLE BUTT OUT HERE, OR SOMEONE IS GOING
TO GET A LITTLE SPANK…”
She was
making it sound like I was misbehaving – hiding from her – when all I was doing
was keeping curled up in bed. I was sleeping in – so what? It was Saturday.
Bristling
at her tone, I rolled onto my side, drew my knees up to my chest and shut my
eyes again.
"UGH,”
she groaned, “I AM NOT DOING THIS
RIGHT NOW. I’M HAVING LUNCH WITH CHRISTINE AND KATIE, AND YOU’RE WHEREVER YOU
WANT TO BE, AND WE’LL COMPARE NOTES LATER!”
Bright rhythmic claps punctuated the air, the sound of her
high heels crossing the tiled floor. I waited patiently for the quiet again, but
for some reason, the sounds were not growing further away as if heading towards
the front door – but drawing even closer, until each clap shocked my eardrums.
The mattress even began to tremble as her clacking heels announced her presence
in the room, the driving clack turning to a dull thud muffled by the bedroom
carpet, and…
...she’d found me after all, in the bed, where I’d been all along, and
was now heading straight for me.
I shut my eyes and feigned sleep.
Neither of us spoke.
The mattress dropped out from below and my breath sucked in.
I clawed around blindly in the dim light for purchase, but – bizarrely – some
flooring was still there beneath my side and flailing hands – even as I could
now feel myself flying through the air.
My chest tightened as the soft flooring lurched sideways
like a car swerving around a corner, and then whipped back and forth through the
air. I was rolled one way, bumping into unseen objects and entities that sprung
up in my path out of nowhere, then, as the thrusting motion reversed, rolled
back the other way, into and over more objects; most of these hard and
uncomfortable as they connected with my legs, ribs and elbows. In mere seconds I
was a passenger of a sinking ship; bumping into sliding tables and chairs that
knocked into indiscriminate body parts, jangling my bones and grazing my soft
vulnerable areas, while my head swam as if I was already in the depths of a black
swirling ocean.
“Wh–where are you –?!” I groaned, bumping up and down on the
constantly moving flooring, but my voice bounced and shook to pieces, and was then
muffled by the sharp staccato heel blasts as they traversed back over the hard
floor tiles. I went to yell again, louder, but the hard pointy corner of an object
stuck itself into my soft, unprotected stomach, stealing away my voice.
Meanwhile, a door handle and lock clanked very closeby, the
door banged shut again and the heel taps, rubber tip on concrete, were now
scraping over outside paving. The dark ceiling overhead burst apart and light
poured down, piercing my eyes. I shut them an instant before sensing a huge
shadow hovering down over me.
Sharp-tipped probing masses swept over my body without
stopping, grazing my head, torso, and groin, pinching and tweaking each of
these body parts as if trying to tactilely memorize my body surface. Just as quickly, they shuffled me aside with frightening, careless impatience. A metal and plastic
rattling came from one dark corner before a metal bar struck and scratched over
my leg. I yelped, tucking my legs in as the shadow lifted, taking the rattling
thing up over my head, into the bright light, and vanishing.
The car beeped to unlock – the thing that scraped me had
been the car keys. Then a car door opened and shut, while the surface I was
lying on became firm as a weight pushed up from underneath until I was resting
on it. The local motion of rising and falling in the air stopped, almost at the
same time, another type of motion started, a vibration which expanded into
uncontrollable acceleration in some direction, swerving. It was simply normal
car movement, but my puny size made these mundane motions seem more impressive
than they actually were. It was like I stood on a deck, feeling the boat
accosted by powerful waves, but I actually knew I was in a car, specifically,
resting on the passenger seat, lying at the bottom of Jen’s handbag.
But how had I ended up there?
At some point in the night, during uneasy sleep, I must have
sleepwalked through the bed, and tumbled out off the side of the mattress,
straight into the bag, which must have been lying open beside the bed, either
knocking myself out from the fall, or passing back into sleep once I’d landed.
Anyway, it wasn’t so important how I’d gotten inside. It was important how I
was going to get out.
I should have called for her attention, but was still so
tired and nauseated, embarrassed and in disbelief that I’d ended up here, now
wanting nothing more than to curl up in the darkness of the soft bag and go
back to sleep. Now that I was in the car, I worried that if I called attention
to myself, she would spin the mishap to her advantage; seizing the opportunity
to turn it into a big, exhausting shopping trip, employing me as her tiny
shopping cheerleader. Every passing second made it less likely that she would
return me home, as we drove further from the house.
The car engine shut off and the bag was lifted and sent
swinging through the air before slapping into a firm, moving surface. She had
the strap set long and the bag was over her shoulder, forced into a repeated
elastic bounce against the side of her butt as she walked, sending me
trampolining around inside. The springy turbulence enlivened my nausea, and worse,
the pendulous motion set the various possessions dancing again, like people
bumping into me inside a bouncy castle.
Objects blundered into me from all sides: packets and containers
and cosmetic tubs and tubes, until I felt like just another forgotten object of
possession being conveyed in the bag. A plastic packet somersaulted over me,
and multiple objects spilled out and looped around my arms and legs –
hairbands. I kicked my legs and whipped my arms out, trying to disentangle
myself. Then another object came rolling at me, a phone charger, I booted the
side with my foot, narrowly avoiding getting struck with the metal prongs. Then
a box of Advil tumbled over me, a corner jutting into my shoulder, the inside
foil sheet rattling. With the galloping motion and steady pounding of Jen’s
heels, I felt like I was stuck in the saddlebag of a horse.
The motions finally slowed as the voices of Christine and
Katie approached, and greeted each other, then I was being bounced along in tow
with them. Bright light – even brighter than before – slanted down from the
crack between the partially open zip above, and into my eyes – even flickering
and dancing as I was tossed around like salad. The sun had come out from behind
a cloud and beamed straight down.
“YOU LADIES DON’T MIND THE SUN?” Christine offered. “WE CAN
SIT INDOORS.”
No one protested, and then, chair joints creaked, grinded,
and scraped over concrete as the women took their seats, before firm backing
rose up and planted itself into my spine. The handbag didn’t have a firm
structure, but was floppy and relatively shapeless, like a big leather pouch
with a shoulder strap. When the bottom came to rest, it collapsed and folded,
making the hard ground distinct against my body.
When the bag had come to rest, I guessed it must be beside
Jen’s feet. The unzipped opening had folded over, leaving a small unfolded gap
through which bright light filtered in. I got the briefest glimpse of shining
nail tips forking into sight before my eyelids shaded in protest. These nail
tips rattled painfully over my skull before I was nudged aside, and then a long
object like a black sack flew into the air and disappeared. A moment later, my
sight went completely dark as the black cloth sack – now empty – dropped onto
my head and slipped down my upper body, to my waist. A cloth bag for storing
sunglasses. I ripped it off and threw it into the corner.
The women chatted, while I closed my eyes and tried to sleep,
and soon their voices comingled with the drone of voices of all the other people
in the vicinity of what seemed to be a restaurant or café. But the urban noises
kept interrupting my rest. Rousing laughter came from another table, while the
metallic clangs of cutlery and rings of ceramic dishes, interspersed with
intermittent clomping footsteps, sometimes sounding alarmingly close to my bag campout.
Further off, there was the crackle of a moped idling at a street light before
the light changed and it departed in a burst, a car horn, and a booming car
stereo system playing through open windows, before being swallowed up by the
chorus of traffic rumbling. Then the squeal of a baby seemed to pierce the
tiny, sensitive membranes of my ears, making my insides crinkle.
Eventually, I abandoned sleep, my attention returned and the
conversation sharpened into focus again:
Jen was saying:
"I’VE GOT HIM FOR THE WEEKEND. HE FLIES BACK MONDAY.”
“HOW IS IT ALL GOING THERE?” Christine asked.
“HE WAS FINE LAST NIGHT, BUT WHEN I LEFT HIM THIS MORNING HE
WAS IN A MOOD."
"WORK PRESSURES," said Katie, sounding as if she
was speaking from experience. "DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY."
"WHEN HE'S HOME,” Jen mused to no one in particular, “I
PLAY WITH DIFFERENT WAYS OF GETTING HIM INTERESTED."
"THING IS," answered Christine, "YOU'RE AN
ACTION GIRL. SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO WEAVE A ROMANCE WITH WORDS."
“SO, I USE MY BODY – WHAT IS NOT ROMANTIC ABOUT THAT?”
"SEE, WITH ME," Katie chimed in, "THE
OPPOSITE PROBLEM. BUT IF I DIDN’T TALK, LEVI WOULD SPEND HOURS ON HIS TECHNICAL DRAWINGS IN SILENCE."
"COOK HIM HIS FAVORITE MEAL," Christine offered,
to both Jen and Katie simultaneously. "OLD-FASHIONED BUT IT SOLVES ALMOST
EVERYTHING."
"HE PULLS AWAY IF I ASK FOR TOO MUCH," Jen went on,
carrying on a self-propelled spiel. "IT'S LIKE, PUSH-PULL. THEN HE
HIDES."
"I’D GO CRAZY," Katie sympathized. There was a
clink of cutlery as food was forked around a plate. "HAVE YOU HEARD OF
PRE-MARRIAGE COUNSELLING? I LOOKED INTO IT, BUT LEVI DIDN’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO
WITH TALK THERAPY."
“IT MIGHT BE YOUR APPROACH, SWEETIE,” said Christine. “YOU
GIVE HIM DISCIPLINE WHEN HE WANTS DELICACY. YOU WANT TO MASTER AND TAME HIM,
BUT MARRIAGE ISN’T CHECKMATE.”
The chair squeaked as Jennifer shifted, and her shoe scraped
the ground. The bag opening rustled and, opening my eyes, her hand was hovering
over me, nearly making me start. Her nails grazed indifferently over my face –
I used every ounce of willpower not to move – trailed over my body, poking,
prodding, inadvertently jabbing me in the gut as they felt around for something.
Making a sweeping motion, her hand shoveled under me and flipped me – plus a
couple of other objects – over to the side of the bag in its single-minded
search for something else distinctly not shaped like me.
Plastic wrapper crinkled as she found a tissue-packet and
withdrew it. A moment later, the plastic packet, still half full of tissues,
flew down through the bag opening and bounced on my face. I winced.
“I GET IT,” Katie offered. “HE'S HAD A TASTE OF LIFE AND
YOU’RE SCARED HE WON’T COME BACK.”
“WHY SHOULD I BE WORRIED?" Jen scoffed. "HE’D DO ANYTHING FOR ME IF I ASKED
HIM.”
“IT MUST BE HARD,” said Christine. “THE SIZE BACKFLIPS, MY
GOSH, IT'D GIVE ME WHIPLASH. DOESN’T HE MOURN HIS PREVIOUS FORM?”
“AND WHAT ABOUT ME?" Jen challenged. "I'VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER.”
“YOUR FACE GIVES IT AWAY. AT MY HOUSE YOU COULDN’T STOP
SMILING.”
Jen laughed with the recollection of Christine’s dinner
party.
“I’D BEEN DYING TO SLIP JERRY ON MY FINGER ALL DAY, THAT'S WHY.”
“HE LOOKED STUNNING ON YOU,” Christine agreed. “NOT TO
MENTION, HE MADE A CHIC LITTLE EARRING.”
“ARE YOU GOING TO STAY HERE?” asked Katie.
"I NEED TO, WITH WORK,” replied Jen. There was a pause
as if she was considering it more seriously. “BUT THE HOUSE SEEMS BIGGER,
QUIETER. ORDERLY.”
“YOU LOVE IT HERE,” Christine remarked. “CLOSE TO THE BEACH
AND THE BOARDWALK.”
“I DON’T KNOW,” Jen murmured.
"WELL, YOU LOOK
GOOD. FIT."
“JOGGING. DANCING. OTHERWISE I’D BE CLIMBING THE WALLS.”
The conversation shifted to diet, and exercise and sleep,
and my mind drifted again. They talked about work, Jen mentioned her own work
issues. Then she said:
“WE HAVE ENOUGH FOR LIVING DECENTLY SO I THINK ABOUT HIS
MOTIVE.”
“TO WORK?” Christine laughed a little. “LET HIM. MEN LIKE
THEIR PROJECTS.”
"THIS," Katie agreed. Then elaborated: “WHEN LEVI
WENT TO JAPAN, HE CAME BACK SAYING EVERYONE NEEDED SPIRITUALITY IN THEIR LIVES.
THAT LASTED A WEEK. SOMETIMES MEN NEED TO GET THE ‘ADVENTURE’ ALL OUT OF THEIR
SYSTEM.”
The musical ding of a church bell echoed in the distance.
This spurred the women into talking about the wedding, Christine (already
engaged to Tyler, but in no rush to officiate) ran some ideas past.
“ARE YOU
GOING TO CHANGE YOUR NAME?” asked Katie suddenly, “– ‘JENNIFER MOUSSEAU’?”
“NO,”
Jennifer said firmly. “LIKE I’M CHATTEL. BUT I WOULDN’T REFUSE IF HE CHANGED HIS NAME.”
The moment
she’d branded the ‘T’ on my chest she’d made that painfully clear to me,
literally.
There was a storm of furious vehicular honking from some
nearby street, and footsteps passed very near, a little kid’s voice rang
directly above, “MOMMY! MOMMY!”
I flinched, but mother and child must have passed right by
the table. Mostly, day-to-day I didn’t have anything to do with kids – plus bad
memories of being a bully target of neighborhood kids – and the thought of tots
who would now tower over me was disturbing. I hated to imagine the scene if I’d
been spotted. I released a heavy breath in relief that the danger had passed,
and remained in the bag, happy to continue to lie low for the time being.
“HAVE YOU TALKED ABOUT IT WITH HIM?” Katie was saying, in
response to a context I’d missed, being distracted by the kid.
“SHE’S GOING FOR THE SURPRISE ATTACK,” Christine chuckled
under her breath.
“NOTHING IS A SURPRISE ABOUT IT,” Jennifer replied with a
mock scoffing noise. “I MEAN, IT FOLLOWS NATURALLY.”
“WELL, YOU QUESTIONED HIS MOTIVE FOR GOING UP THERE,” Katie
said meaningfully. “MAYBE HE’S SCARED.”
“SURE,” said Jennifer, “I’VE BEEN DISCREET ABOUT IT BUT I
HAVEN’T BEEN DISHONEST.”
The conversation had moved on. One of the women said
something funny; Christine let out an ebullient laugh. She must have tossed her
head back because her earrings chimed – my hearing was so fine I picked it up.
It seemed long ago I had been swinging from those very earrings; a bizarre
thought. I felt a little more alert now, my nausea migraine had dulled.
The chairs scuffed the ground and then I felt myself being
hefted up into the air in one shot, like I weighed nothing. I tumbled around
against her hip, and then the bag yawned to let the sun in, and
an outstretched hand whose nails tapped over my body parts as they journeyed
unconsciously for the purse, which was quickly retrieved so Jen could pay at
the counter. A moment later I had the wind knocked out of me, almost buried
beneath a leathery mattress that flung out of the sky. This was the purse,
which instantaneously flattened me before bouncing off to the side as the bag
interior repeated its earlier washing machine cycle of tumultuous motion, as a
result of the bag’s vivacious rebound against the buxom curve of Jen’s
posterior, until my stomach was curling with nausea again.
The bag swung and dropped onto the padded car seat, before
the door clapped shut and the engine came to life. The bag’s possessions
stilled where they dropped and mercifully stopped tackling me like football players.
The floppy leather was vibrating all around as the car rolled down the road.
“WEIRD
DREAM LAST NIGHT,” Jennifer was saying, and I wondered if she was now on the
phone, “LIKE SOMEONE PAINTING A LINE, STARTING AT MY TOES AND SLOWLY SPREADING
UP MY BODY, STOPPING AT MY NIPPLE. TOTALLY RAW, PURE TOUCH. BUT IT ENDED RIGHT
BEFORE MY FAVORITE PART.”
There was a
weighed silence.
“YOU
WOULDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT, WOULD YOU?”
After more
silence:
“THE GAME’S
OVER NOW. I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE.”
“How did
you know?” I grunted, hauling myself into a sitting position.
“JERRY, I
KNOW WHAT YOU FEEL LIKE.” She continued: “YOU HARDLY HAVE TO GO TO THIS TROUBLE
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN ME FOR LUNCH. YOU COULD HAVE JUST ASKED. WHAT I WANT TO
KNOW IS, WHY YOU’RE NAKED.”
“Bad sleep.
I must have sleepwalked or something, I woke up in here. “
“AW, YOU
DIDN’T KNOW WHERE YOU WHERE?” she said with earnest sweetness.
“I worked
it out. I was just napping.”
She sighed
with amusement.
“YOUR VOICE
SOUNDS SO CUTE COMING FROM INSIDE MY BAG, LIKE I’VE GOT A LITTLE GREMLIN LIVING
IN THERE.”
Worried she
was in no rush to displace me, I cried out:
“You have
to take me home.”
“WHAT DO
YOU THINK I’M DOING?”
Relieved, I
lay back on the soft interior fabric. After a minute of silence, she said:
“YOU HAVE
NOTHING ELSE TO SAY?” There was a lilt of expectation in her tone.
“Like what?”
“HOW MUCH
DID YOU HEAR EARLIER?”
“I was
napping.”