Wallflower (25 page)

"We're facing Mama because we want Mama to
see,"
Beverly explains patiently. "Isn't that right, my dear? I mean we
do
want that, don't we?" Beverly squeezes her again. "Well?"

"I guess so," Diana responds.

"
Guess!
Well, I assure you we most definitely
do
want her to see. We want Mama to witness your correction." Beverly pauses. "You know why you're going to receive correction, don't you?"

"I think so," the girl mutters.

"Tell me?"

"Because I hesitated."

"You did, and now you're going to be punished for it."

Beverly does not feel unkindly toward Tool. On the contrary, she feels quite maternal toward her. But the tool has erred and must be disciplined. The principle of unquestioning obedience must be reinforced.

"You know I don't like to hit you, Diana. You know how much it hurts me," Beverly says.

"I know," the girl concedes in a whisper.

"Especially as I understand what you went through as a child, the beatings you took from your grandmother. You know how much I despise brutality."

"Yes, I know that, Doctor."

"So you must concede that when I strike you, there has to be a very good reason?" The girl nods. "What you did before down in the cellar, hesitating, standing there petrified, not even acknowledging my order, was deserving of the good, hard slap you got, wasn't it?"

Beverly feels another wave surge through Diana. "Yes, I deserved it. I know I did."

"
Well, what I'm going to do to you now is not like that slap at all. It's important for you to understand the difference. I slapped you to shock you into action. The purpose was to sting and stun, make you aware of your responsibility to obey. The correction you will receive now has an entirely different objective. It's to remind you of your status vis-à-vis myself. What is that status, Diana?"

"You're the doctor and I'm the patient," Diana says as if by rote.

"Correct. And who is in charge in a doctor-patient relationship?"

"Doctor is always in charge."

"Completely, in charge of everything?"

"Everything."

"And patient's role is—go on, girl, fill in the blank spaces?"

"Her role is to obey Doctor."

"Always."

"Always."

"No matter what Doctor prescribes."

"No matter what."

"And so if Doctor says, 'Kill the cat,' then patient must kill the cat, correct?"

Diana nods. "Patient must immediately kill the cat."

"Easy to forget sometimes, when the assigned task is disagreeable. Nobody wants to stab a helpless creature and make a bloody mess on the floor. We both understand that. But there are many disagreeable tasks to be performed in this life. Mama taught me that, and now I'm teaching you."

"Yes, thank you, Doctor."

"Good. Now we shall proceed with the correction."

Beverly grabs hold of Diana's hair, pulls her head back so her face is pointed up at the portrait. "Look up at Mama, straight into her eyes. Keep your eyes fastened to hers. Don't look down again until I tell you."

Beverly reaches to the little round marble-top table beside her chair and extracts a pair of stainless steel scissors. Feeling Diana tense between her knees, Beverly freezes with the shears as if posing for a photograph. She looks up at Mama, smiles, and nods, then, taking up a big handful of Diana's glossy black hair, abruptly snips it off.

Diana, finally comprehending the nature of her chastisement, moans while Beverly looks down at the hair lying inky black in her hand. It is beautiful luxuriant hair, thick and soft, the little lynx's protective fur. And it's going to come off now, all of it, every single strand, until Diana's head is as smooth as a billiard ball.

Snip! Snap! Snip! Snap!
The hair falls fast beneath the scissors. Beverly can feel the sweat on Diana's neck as she holds the girl's head steady, can hear the sobs that rack the poor lynx's body, too. Every so often, out of kindness, she reaches around to Diana's face to wipe away the tears. But still, she cuts, relentlessly.

"Now, now, my dear," she comforts.

Tool, for all her distress, is behaving well. Even as she weeps copiously for her loss, her eyes remain riveted to Mama's. Good little tool, brave little tool, but the hardest part is yet to come. Diana's head, now topped by a mop of ragged black, still must be clipped and shaved.

Beverly, finished with the scissors, takes up a small electric clippers, turns them on, applies the clipper head to Diana's skull.
Buzz, buzz, buzz
, she mows the hair straight off the top the way she's seen it done in films about marine recruits, slowly, inexorably shaming the girl caught tight between her knees.

More tears now, great rivers of them, as Beverly takes up a shaving brush, dips it into a bowl of warm water, stirs it around in a cup of soap, then applies the rich lather to Diana's head.
Swish, swish, swish
, she shaves the head clean with a razor. And all the while she whispers: "Now, now, little darling. Now, now. . . ."

Diana's hair is everywhere, on the floor, on Beverly's skirt, sticking to the girl's bare moist torso, front and back. Her pale shoulders and breasts are decorated with little flecks of black, and her skull gleams white like alabaster.

Beverly cradles the girl's head in her arms, tenderly petting the back of her neck. After granting permission for Diana to lower her eyes from Mama's, Beverly urges her to turn and sob upon her lap.

"There, there," Beverly says, gently caressing the well-shaved skull. "There, there, my little precious. It was difficult, I know, but it wasn't as bad as that. And I have a lovely black wig all ready for you, to cover you up when you go out."

Diana stares up at Beverly, her eyes large, beseeching. "You're not going to let me…?"

"No, my dear. Every few days we'll be shaving you clean again. I'm afraid you won't be allowed to grow another full head of hair until you've completed all your missions."

"Oh, Doctor!" The girl's red, teary eyes are filled with pathos. Beverly, slightly touched, knows she must not relent.

"Think of yourself as a Ninja warrior. They shave their skulls to symbolize their commitment."

"I so love my hair long."

Yes, long like a witch's.
"And so do I," Beverly assures the girl.
"Which is why we shall be saving all the trims. I have a lovely rosewood box to keep them in. Some evenings we'll get them out, feel them, and remind ourselves of the glorious mane you had and will someday have again."

"Yes, thank you, Doctor," Diana says gratefully, hugging Beverly around her waist.

Beverly hesitates. There is more correction to be administered, and she wants to assure herself now that the little lynx can take it. It won't do to push the girl too far; the purpose is to humble her, not to wound or break her spirit. There is also something about this additional correction that causes Beverly to pause. She wonders whether she'll be able to inflict it without trembling a little bit herself. Shaving Diana's head was one thing, but the other more intimate area. . .

Beverly looks up to the portrait, asks Mama what to do. The answer comes back immediately.

"Make the little bitch shave her own pubes," Mama says. "Have her lie on her back on the bathroom floor, spread her legs before the mirror and scrape herself. Stand behind her, watch her as she does it, and smile as you do. The correction will be more forceful and the submission more complete if she's required to do it under supervision."

"Thank you, Mama. You're so clever about these things."

Beverly Archer leans down and whispers into Diana's ear: "Come with me, dear, into the bathroom. There's still a little more hair to be removed. . . ."

B
ertha Parce, Cynthia Morse, Jimmy and Stu MacDonald, Bobby Wexler, Laura Gabelli—I got six of them, Mama, six so far. Cindy was best, I think. Tool did a first-class job on her. Not only glued her up tight but her daughters, too, who (their bad luck!) stayed over with her in Seattle for Memorial Day. Tool also glued Cindy's hands together so I could imagine her begging me for mercy and, while she was at it, webbed her feet as well.

Remember Cindy, Mama? Remember what she did? I could never ever forgive her for it. My best friend, the one I trusted more
than anyone else, whose declarations of sisterhood I naïvely believed. The roommate to whom I confided my secret yearnings, passions, fears. And then, after all of that, to have her turn on me so cruelly.

You probably guessed it. We were lovers. I'll never forget those wintry nights at Bennington when we pleasured each other, then slept together warm in each other's arms. I'm not ashamed of having loved her, Mama. There should never be shame where love's involved. And I
did
love her; that is why her betrayal was so calamitous, why it did a hell of a lot more than just sting me to the quick.

God! Remember what a wreck I was when I came down from Bennington, told you I wasn't going back, that nothing would ever ever make me return? And the way I cried, days of weeping it seems like now, and you were worried because I wouldn't eat and barely got out of bed.

"Bev's having a little breakdown," I overheard you tell Lisa Walters. But it was a major breakdown I was having, Mama, and it was that lousy traitor bitch who brought it on. What she did was unforgivable. And I never did forgive her for it. No, I never did.

What I still can't understand is
why
she turned. I never did anything to her except love her. So . . . maybe that was it. She couldn't take my love. It was too powerful, too consuming. Fearing it, she betrayed my trust.

A year after it happened I wrote her a letter.
"
Please," I begged,
"all I want to know is why. Please just tell me why?" She didn't answer. I should have known. So there I was, humiliated again. And then I vowed that one day she'd beg something from me, beg me not to glue her.

She was an ice goddess, was Miss Cynthia Morse, with her thick blond hair, parted to the side, so she could throw it back whenever it fell into her eyes, fling her head and throw it back like the fine Thoroughbred mare she knew she was. Her skin tanned more beautifully under the sun than any human's skin should be allowed to, her eyes were clear and gray, and she had a wonderful smile that made her whole face light up like a sunrise. I don't think I'll ever forget the touch of her, the satiny feel of her flesh, the fresh salty flavor of it, and the smell. Her small but perfect breasts cupped in my hands, the feel of her ribs through the skin of her flanks. She was a knockout beauty and I was plain, she was popular and I was disliked, she was gregarious and I was a loner, but still, she chose me to be her friend.

I was proud of that. I believed I was envied for it. Anyone in the whole college would have been happy to be Cindy's roommate, but she had chosen me.
"
You'll keep me honest, Bev," she told me one afternoon, spring of freshman year, when we took a long walk together across the meadows and she broached her proposal that we room together in the fall.
"
I can talk to you. You're always there to listen. Know what I think you should be? A shrink. Ever think of it, Bev? I know you'd be good at it. You're so giving, you know. Such a good listener. And you have such good intuitions about people, too."

Oh, I was giving all right! I gave her everything I had. Friendship, affection, love, later my passion. That was my undoing.

"This it, Cin?"

"Oh, yes, Bev. Down there, yes. There. That's the place.
Yes! Right there! Oh!
Do me, Bev. Please do me there again. Oh, yes, yes, your mouth feels
so good. . . .
"

And I did. I reveled in it. Before I knew what she was up to, I would actually beg to be allowed to taste her. That's how stars-in-my-eyes stricken I was. Well, ha!, she's the one begging now!

There were nights, I remember, January and February nights, when we'd put a Mozart horn concerto on the stereo, then lie together in her bed in the dark of our room, watching the snow falling gently outside.

"This is great, isn't it, Bev?" she said, hugging me. "This is the way it should be. Just the two of us together like this, together and forever. I truly wish our lives could go on like this forever. Don't you, Bev? Don't you?"

One night I asked her if she thought a day would come when we'd each have a man in our lives.

"Men! Oh, Bev, sometimes you're just so screwy. I haven't seen any men around here. Have you? All I've seen are boys, and I don't mean just the kids, I mean the whole damn male faculty, too. Men!
Ha! Who needs 'em? I sure don't. On a night like this, what could a man do for me that you can't do?" Cindy paused, stretched. "Hey, wanna go down under the covers? Feel like it, huh? It's so nice when you're down there taking care of me. Helps me to sleep, you know. Hey! What're you doing? Oooo! I
like
that. You never did
that
before. Where'd you learn
that?
You've got great moves, kid. No boy I ever went out with knew how to do
that.
Oh! Yeah! Yes!"