Castles (6 page)

I pushed against the wall again, my body as tense as I could make it. He breathed heavily and stared at me for a moment before finally walking away. I heard his footsteps across the living room then out the door. He was gone.

I was alone.

Grandma wasn't going to save me from anything, and I doubted I'd ever see those castles in the sky she told me about. But I
had
seen the tongue, and it changed.

I never said a word to Mama. Alfie made it clear that bad things would happen if I did. I was too scared to even mention anything to Michael. I didn't tell him I spent the night behind the maintenance shed or that the cut on my face was a side effect of Mama's wrath.

I fell on the steps, that was it.

I avoided Alfie as much as I could. When I returned from school, I'd go straight to my room, lock the door and do my homework. If Mama would leave without Alfie—go to work or whatever—I would find some way to get out of the trailer and see Michael. I'm sure Michael was aware of my increased need to be around him, but I also guessed he was proud to be my protector. He just never knew what he was protecting me from.

When I turned twelve, Michael surprised me with a gift: a dog of dubious origin, brown and tan and a little bit ragged.

Michael handed me the leash. "Picked him up at the pound. Thought you might like a dog."

I certainly did. As I held the leash and bent down to pet it, I couldn't help but feel a little ashamed: ashamed that I once considered the possibility of Michael's tongue turning against me, ashamed that I wasn't as truthful as I should have been. Michael was nothing but kind, and this gift was out of the blue. I stood up, smiled as best as I could and kissed Michael on the cheek.

"Thank you," I said. "But—"

Michael's smile dropped slightly. "But what?"

"I don't know if Mama will let me have a dog."

"That's okay. I'm allowed to keep him at my house if you can't. You can come over whenever you want to see him."

I beamed with pride. A man—and that's what I considered Michael despite his age—had given me a gift without the thought of what he could get in return. Grandma had always told me that all a man really wants is what's between my legs. A man will do anything to get there, wrapping their tongue around you in ways that will make you squirm in delight.

Once again, I thought Grandma was wrong.

Michael and I walked to his trailer and we tied the dog against a fence post. The dog looked up at me, his big tongue flapping with every breath he took.

I blinked. The tongue looked more like a dust eel than anything I'd ever seen. It was long and slender, slightly black and the tip was a little wider than the rest of it. I stared at it, flashing pictures through my mind of the dust eel in the Bus and the way it cried when it looked at me.

Michael tapped me on the shoulder and snapped me out of my daze. "What are you going to name him?"

"I don't know. Does a dog need a name?"

"Well, I don't think you can call him 'Dog' and hope he'll come to you."

"No, I guess not. How about Princess?"

"It's a boy."

I giggled. I guessed Princess would give the dog a complex, if such a thing were possible. "Okay, Dusty."

Michael smiled. "Dusty, it is."

I knelt down and rubbed my hand across Dusty's head. He looked at me, flopping that tongue out again and smiling in the way only dogs smile. I stayed there for a moment, relishing in the moment, in the realization that my twelfth birthday was as good as it gets.

I stood up and looked at Michael. "We should take him for a walk."

"Where to?"

"The Bus."

Michael didn't smile, and I wondered what thoughts raced through his head. We had something in common with the Bus, and no one else knew our secret. We rarely brought up the eel in conversation, but there are some things that are spoken loudly without words.

Michael nodded, and I swore I heard him sigh. "To the Bus."

It was close to evening when we finally reached the Bus. Dusty had led the way through the desert, stopping every once in a while to sniff a cactus or turn over a rock. He was a large dog and pulled on me more than I'd expected. I followed along, sometimes running, sometimes pulling back on the leash to slow him down.

My arm hurt by the time we stopped. I tied the leash to the front bumper and looked at Michael. He seemed nervous, opening and closing his fists and staring at the Bus. The sun was near the horizon and the light was starting to fade. It would be a good hour before it was completely dark, but between the reddening sky, the rust of old metal and the dusty environment, admittedly, there was a sense of the creepy.

"What's wrong?" I asked. I hoped he wasn't going to say he wanted to go home just yet. My arm needed a rest.

"I haven't been here since I found the eel."

"Are you afraid of something?"

He swallowed. "Just more eels."

I hadn't thought of that. What if there were more of those things inside, slithering around and feeding on dead people? I must have pushed those images out of my mind in my attempt to justify what I'd seen. I didn't consider the possibility of another body, another meal for the eels to feast on. I wanted to be with Michael on my special day, and entering a world we shared together seemed like a good place to relax with each other.

I told Michael just as much. "I don't think we'll find another one."

"How do you know?"

I quickly opened the passenger door. Without thinking, I stepped on to the seat and looked inside the back. Bravery is such a sudden and reckless thing.

"Because there's no dead body," I called out from inside. "And I don't see them."

I turned back around and stepped out of the Bus. Michael was still opening and closing his fists. Apparently, my little act of courage hadn't persuaded him otherwise.

"I want you inside me." I blinked as the words I'd just said fell out of my mouth and bounced around in the air beside me. Did I really?

Michael turned from the Bus and finally looked at me. He wore an expression of fear, and I wondered if it was a fear of the eels or a fear of the unknown journey I'd just invited him to take. Hell, I was scared. I didn't really expect to say those words, and although I'd had thoughts of Michael inside me for a while, I honestly feared the reality more than I could say.

He stood motionless, speechless and my words just echoed in the air between us. I tried to look inside of him, through his eyes and see that spark of interest I'd ignited. His breathing was heavy, his chest rising and falling.

I swallowed my own fear, convinced I knew what I wanted. I turned to the Bus and sat on the passenger seat. "In the back of the Bus, Michael. No one will see us."

It took a moment, but he finally took a step forward. I smiled slyly and slipped out of my shirt. If his eyes lit upon my body, my tanned skin and bra that begged to be removed, and he wasn't aroused in the slightest, then I was about to be embarrassed. My heart pounded as I waited.

"
Watch the tongue of a man.
" Grandma's voice rang through my ears. I suddenly felt cold and exposed to the world like a bad dream. I shook her off, trying to focus on Michael. What did she know? She was a bitter, old woman, probably put off by men all her life. She invaded Mama's life and took away any chance she might have had to be happy with another man. I wasn't about to let that happen.

Michael stepped up to the side of the Bus and looked in. I smiled nervously, then carefully stepped into the back, keeping my back to Michael.

"Watch the tongue, Maggie. He'll turn on you."

I closed my eyes and let my mind scream at Grandma.
Leave me alone!

Without thought, I reached behind me and unsnapped my bra. I slid it off my shoulders and dropped it on the floor of the Bus.

I could feel Michael's breath on my bare skin. I relaxed a little, confident my feeble attempts to lure him inside of me weren't going to be met with rejection. He slid his hand around me, cupped my breasts and kissed my neck. He kissed my shoulders then ran his tongue around my ears.

I shuddered. It wasn't a sexual sensation exploding within me, though. It was the tongue, slightly rough and a little too cold on my skin. My thoughts shifted from Grandma to the dust eel to its skin against mine. I suddenly imagined lying in the Bus naked, a thousand eels crawling over me, in me,
through
me as my body disintegrated into their horrid little mouths.

I pulled away from Michael and turned around. I covered my breasts with my arms.

"What did I do?" Michael looked stunned. We'd crossed these bridges before, going so far as to lay completely naked against each other. This was nothing new, but the thought of him inside me at that moment was. If it weren't for Grandma's damned voice and the visions of eels crawling on my body, I think so much would have gone differently.

"Nothing. I'm sorry." I felt horrible, like a train hit me and I was left to rot on the side of a road while a million people walked by and told me how foolish I was to step onto the tracks in the first place. I really
did
want to feel Michael inside of me, maybe because I'd convinced myself I'd fallen in love or maybe just to quiet Grandma's advice once and for all. If I let a man inside me—spread my legs
willingly
—then I couldn't blame the tongue. If I couldn't blame the tongue, Grandma would have disappeared and I would finally be able to rid myself of the curse she must have held over me.

If I spread my legs for Alfie, though, my castle in the sky would have disappeared forever.

Michael shied away, and I could see the hurt on his face. He didn't deserve this, as much as I didn't deserve to be haunted by a dead woman's advice.

I relaxed and let my arms down. Slowly, I rose up on my knees and unbuttoned my shorts before pulling them down to my thighs. Michael leaned forward, timidly, and kissed a hardened nipple. I wanted him, and I prayed the next time I felt his tongue, it would
feel
like a tongue.

When the sun set and the last of the light escaped, Michael and I put our clothes back on. His tongue was nothing like I expected, nor was our coupling. I felt no shame and very little pain; there was just a keen sense of being a woman, of taking a man inside me that I loved and feeling his thrust, his sweaty chest, his pulsating penis as he came inside me. I was complete, as complete as a twelve-year-old could ever be. I smiled at him, kissed him softly once more before we left the Bus and silently told Grandma she was wrong.

The walk back to the trailer park was difficult, but our minds were elsewhere. Dusty tried to pull me farther ahead, but I wanted to savor my time with Michael, to experience our first moments of being one for a little while longer. We said little, but held hands. When we finally reached the fence and crossed over, I kissed him one last time, handed him Dusty's leash and walked on clouds back to my trailer.

Alfie was waiting for me the moment I stepped through the door. From the look on his face and the number of beers on the table, I knew he'd been drinking heavily. He smiled and took a long drink from the bottle in his hand.

"Where have you been?"

"Out with Michael." I wanted to run to the bathroom, wash myself up and hop into bed. With Alfie on the couch, my escape through the hallway seemed narrow.

"Liar." He stood up and adjusted his pants. "You've been fucking Michael, haven't you?"

I swallowed. Had he seen us leave? I know he wasn't at the Bus while Michael and I were making love, but— Where was Mama?

"No." I felt my face grow flush. "I was just out, walking his dog."

"He don't have no dog."

"He just got one. We were—"

"You're nothing but a slut. You know that? Your mama was right—you ain't nothing but a whore."

I pulled all of my senses together to try to quell the fear rising inside of me. I didn't want to fight. I wanted to turn and run, my tail between my legs. This wasn't Alfie's business; this wasn't something I wanted to discuss with him—especially in light of the alcohol in his system.

I took a step toward the hallway.

"Where you going?"

"To wash up and go to bed."

Alfie stepped in front of the hallway and unfastened his belt. I would have thought he meant to beat me with it, if I wasn't convinced he wanted to take me to bed. I stared at the belt and watched him reach for the buttons on his pants.

"You couldn't wait until I showed you."

I turned and ran for the door. Mama obviously wasn't home and no matter how loud I screamed, the neighbors weren't going to help me. If I didn't make it outside, if I didn't make it as far from Alfie as I could, I was sure to be raped.

Mama swung the door open just as I reached it. It hit me on the head and pushed me back against the kitchen table.

Thank God! Mama could beat me all she wanted—wooden spoon or closed fist. I knew she wouldn't let Alfie have his way with me.

Mama took one look at Alfie with his hands on his zipper. His pants were loose around the waist. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Nothing." Alfie quickly zipped up his pants and sat back down on the couch like nothing happened. "I was just tucking my shirt in."

Mama turned and looked at me. If I tried to put on a scared face, it would have looked nothing like the scared face I already wore. I think she saw something in me that day, and whatever motherly instinct she never felt like sharing before suddenly reared back and prepared to attack her daughter's attacker.

"
Get out of my house!
" Mama lashed out with all she had. All the anger I'd seen her bestow on me, all the hatred that boiled in her eyes before—all of it was directed at Alfie. She leaped forward, grabbed not one, but two beer bottles off the coffee table and threw them at Alfie. They broke open on his forehead. He pushed back against the couch and screamed.

"Get the fuck out of my house!"

Alfie struggled to get up. He wiped broken glass from his face just as Mama picked up another beer bottle.