The singing goes fine. We just step to the edge of the desk so Julia can get a better look at us. She makes no verbal comments, but starts madly scribbling into her notebook, as if she didn’t already have all the parts doled out in her mind. Julia gives me an extra little grin after I finish my version of the song. The dialogue goes similarly. It’s some random gibberish crap about the two lovers saying they have to be together somehow.
Julia’s strong suit is definitely not writing. Personally, if I was her career counselor, I’d tell her to scrap musical composition and join a target grabbing team in the CIA.
We pull it off fine as well; none of us really want to do it so we don’t exactly throw ourselves into the part with insane drama, but we try enough so that Julia won’t think we’re skimping on her.
About thirty minutes later, the irritating ordeal is over. It’ll be even more fun to have to do this in a darkened room in a little costume Julia’s no doubt going to make for me on the end of the desk, with Julia’s huge beaming face as the only audience member, fantasizing that I’m singing the lyrics to her.
Ugh. Why me?
Once the music is put away, Julia leans back in her chair, nodding her head slowly before clapping for us.
“I’m VERY impressed, everyone. I didn’t know I had a little group of musicians and actors here, we’ll have to try this a little more often, won’t we?”
We all nod or make some sort of noise of approval. I want to gag at the idea.
“Now, TONIGHT, I’m going to be giving you some extra free time, and dinner will be in the house today. And bath time will be early tonight, before dinner. Sound good?” she says.
She asks it as if denying the goodness of her decision was an option. We all nod and approve, again.
We load up in the bus. A second later, as usual, the illusion of being in a motor vehicle is shattered by the massive fingers snaking in the windows and taking on the light weight of the plastic toy. The rush of going up in that thing is hard to get used to, it’s sort of similar to that one theme park ride where you get strapped in to the ring and shoot up the pole at insane speeds.
I never liked that ride much…
The bus approaches the closet door. Outside my plastic framed window, the massive fold of Julia’s jean jacket swings around in the breeze, occasionally covering up my window as it accidentally bumps against her side. We reach the closet, and Julia’s other hand, at a distance of what seems like fifty feet at least, twists open the closet door, revealing the house, which she drags out with ease. However, before the bus is set down on the table, Julia, hesitates. Her fingers curl inward as she lifts the bus even higher than waist level and up to her face, where she turns it to face her. We can see her eyes through the front windshield before she pulls it back a little.
She bites one side of her lip in thought. “Poor babies. You almost get cooped up in there, don’t you?” she says.
We’re taken back a little bit. To be perfectly honest, the house doesn’t bother us that much, because it’s the one place we can be to talk freely about our feelings without fear of repercussion; however, from the way she said that, it seems the correct answer is, “yes, we are cooped up.”
All of us look at each other questioningly before nodding slowly, praying that this IS the correct answer. Who knows, maybe being in a relationship with someone has given Julia a less sadistic approach to life and her handling of other lives she has control of.
She nods, brushing her hair out of her face quickly before disappearing from view. The bottom of the bus vibrates for a second; she seems to be resting it on her other hand for extra support. “That’s what I thought. I’m sorry that we have to do that, it’s just for your own safety, you know. It’s my job to keep all of you safe, and one way I make sure I do that is by making sure you don’t have the chance to hurt yourselves.”
We nod.
“But I’ll tell you what,” she says a bit playfully. “I’m in a pretty good mood. Who wants to do something fun instead of going back in the house?”
Again, we look at each other, questioning silently. Does “fun” really mean fun, or does fun mean pretending to be dolls? I’m guessing it’s the humiliating latter, but again, there is evidently a correct answer. We all nod readily at her. She smiles.
“GREAT. Okay, let’s have some fun. Should we play a game?”
Nods.
“I think so too. But what game? Does anyone have any ideas?”
Wow, that’s a new one. Actually putting the choice in our hands, to an extent. She obviously has extensive veto power still.
Kelly raises her hand. We are still students right now, after all.
Julia nods. “Yes, Kelly?”
Kelly clears her throat. “How about we play with a stuffed animal?” she asks.
Smart choice. We’ve done that before, and it’s hardly a game, but it tends to entail the least risk for personal injury.
Julia’s head tilts. “Hmmm… no, I don’t think I want to play that game. Any other ideas?”
My hand goes up. The nod of approval to speak from Julia.
“Checkers?” I say. This is probably the second safest thing, since it doesn’t really require us to move outside of pushing our team’s pieces around on the board.
“Ohh, no. I don’t think so, Jack. C’mon, everyone, no one wants to be creative?”
We all give some neutral version of “yes, we do want to be creative.”
“Well, okay, then…” she says, clearly disappointed (but not angry) at me failing to pick one of her made-up or sort of dangerous games. So much for letting us choose the game. “I have a good idea. I’ll get the other buildings out, and we can play with those, okay? Let’s try it.”
She doesn’t even wait for our formal approval. She lowers the bus to waist level and walks to her large room’s other closet. As I said, her parents are loaded, so it’s really a spacious room. The second closet I’ve seen quite a few times over the last two years, since this is where she keeps her massive collection of doll stuff. She probably got most of when she was a lot younger, and then just let it sit in there; most of it is falling apart. However, I’d be willing to be that once she got ahold of all of us, it occurred to her how fun it might be to stick us in there and let her pretend she has her own little city with life in it, so now every few weeks or so, it gets dragged out and put to use.
I have no idea what scenario we might be forced to play out today. A hospital, an office building, a train, an airport, a magic castle, a race track… she’s got it all, and forced us to try it all no less.
The bus drops to the carpeted ground. We rarely are down here, so it’s a little weird for us. I peek out the window and see Julia for the true skyscraper that she is, all the way up there. Her green butterfly socks twist around on the carpet, looking powerful enough to snap off the sides of our plastic box with them. Realistically speaking, her foot is wider than I am tall, and more than three times longer. The damn things are like armored vehicles of muscle and flesh; they have to be to carry that mountain of girl standing on them. I thank Jesus she’s never used them to incur her wrath on us for breaking a rule, and I dread the day she does. Squeezing us a little in her hands gives us bruising, but it’s controllable. If it ever occurred to her to tuck us comfortably under her humongous, overly warm soles and just press a little to scare us, she could so easily burst our vital organs and end it right there without meaning to. I shudder at the thought of getting out of the bus and being within crushing range of those massive harbingers of messy doom, even when she’s fully aware of my position on the floor. The thought of being liquefied against the wrinkled skin of Julia’s heel sends a cold shiver down my spine. Since they’re so difficult to control in relation to using her hands as punishers, in my mind her feet are practically like chained up wild animals only partially under the command of Julia.