Creepy Come Ons

Channeling my youth. Awakened thinking of this one:

My bff in hs, Claudette, invited me to visit her older sister who was living in Questa, NM. Her sister had one kid and was expecting another. We took a bus out to Questa which is in the sticks and beautiful country. A small town, lots of mountain scenery.

Her sister's husband was in the armed forces, I don't remember which one, and he'd been wounded. There was something about a plate in his head, but I didn't pay too much attention cause I'd just gotten my license before we left and Claudette's sister owned a '66 Mustang.

Wow, was she insane to let me take that car out on the open road or what? I drove the mountain roads with the pedal to the floor and with both of us squealing as only almost sixteen-year-olds can do. I wheeled around switchbacks skirting the edge until Claudette begged me to stop. Deer and bunnies spread the word to stay off the road.

The husband hadn't been home for a few days. On the bus ride to Questa Claudette shared tidbits she'd picked up about him; he drank and had psychological problems, what we'd term post traumatic stress disorder nowadays, but again adult stuff - not all that interesting.

The house was small and Claudette snored, so I slept on the couch. One night the husband was home. He took us out for burgers, but was mostly quiet during dinner.  In the middle of the night he crept into the living room where I slept. Literally folks, the man was on his hands and knees. I'm a light sleeper, and I'm also near-sighted, but the blurred vision of his stealth crawl is vivid in memory.

He crawled over to the couch and started touching me on top of the blanket, kind of petting me like I was a cat or something. I was totally freaked and pretended to be asleep. He reeked of liquor and mumbled some b.s. I could barely understand telling me I was beautiful and that he wouldn't hurt me. My heart beat so hard it filled my ears and drowned out all other sound.

I've always wondered if my heartsound woke up Claudette's sister. She tiptoed into the living room, but stepped on a squeaky floorboard as she rounded the corner. Busted! He immediately laid down on the floor like he was passed out. She went over to him whispering, and he acted like he didn't know how he got there and that he'd fainted. I was still pretending to be asleep.

I could barely look at them the next day and remember nothing more about our stay there.

Shite like that was always happening to me. For a long time I thought I must have some sort of electromagnetic draw for all the adult creeps in the world.

Her Life in Bed

Lydia had her own bed, but it provided cold comfort, especially after she’d wet it, making the climb into the Everest of the parental bed all the more desirable. She snuggled between her parents and their body heat lulled her into a secure sleep, the best of her life.

            Her parents divorced, and Lydia had her own room, but she still slept with her mom more often than not. Her baby brother slept there, too, and the dogs, and the cats. She never noticed any bad smells. One Easter, she took a baby chick into bed with her family. Her mom rolled onto it during the night. 

            Lydia didn’t cry when she found the chick in the morning, its eyes closed. She petted its feathered body, now flat and peaceful and utterly beautiful. She wished she still had it. The after, not the before. She’d keep it in a clear plastic container in the freezer and take it out on stressful days.

           A nest of dreams, her teenage bed threatened to never let her go. Every night the music and adventure of her sleeping life grew more vivid, rich and lovely. Lydia slept for fourteen hours straight. She awakened only out of curiosity, wondering if the world had changed. Not only had it not, but no one had noticed her absence. She got up to eat and to change her sheets. Fresh and crisp, the flat coolness of clean sheets calmed her overheated imagination.

            Lydia floated on the magic carpet of that clean, cool bed into her twenties. Not the same bed, but its essence. She exchanged the intangible for the physical. She traveled far from the free flow of fantasy into the hard reality of total control. A life raft, her bed provided entertainment. Lydia was the captain and peopled it as she chose. She doesn’t remember sleeping. Afterwards, she changed her sheets and fell into them exhausted and dreamless.

            Her box spring and mattress sat on the floor. Lydia and her husband—not yet her husband, just a good lover—changed the sheets together. They faced off on either side of the bed, senses on alert, muscles flexed. Same height, about the same weight, they were evenly matched. The last tuck, a flat playing field, and the attack began. Full-on wrestling, dirty tricks allowed—tickling, pubic hair pulling, pinching, a finger up the butt—his trick, not hers. The giggling was ferocious. Glorious, feisty sex followed, and then a mellow straightening of the sheets.

            She worked. He worked. They had children, a dog, and a housekeeper. A decade and more of never making her own bed passed. They no longer wrestled. Lydia doesn’t remember the sheets.

            The children left. The dog died. Lydia and her husband bought a mattress that silenced the existence of the other person. No rolls, no ripples, no creaks or groans. Lydia could pretend she was in bed alone. She liked the pretense, not actual aloneness. So did her husband. For extra insurance, they placed a king-sized pillow between them. 

            Lydia hugged the pillow in the night. Sometimes her husband stole it from her, but they didn’t struggle over it. That would have required interaction. Her new life in bed made no allowance for that. 


Appeared in the Spring, 2015 issue of Pilgramage, the SLEEP edition, Volume 38, #3
pilgrimage press.org

The Icing Twins

The old man’s hooded eyes focused on the photo of two teenaged girls smashing their faces into slices of birthday cake. He tapped the picture and said, “Snuck up on them for this one, but they heard me coming. Yep, last picture of the girls we have.”

The reporter glanced at the picture. “That’s the picture the FBI used?”

The old man sighed. “Lotta good it did them. Change their hair color. Use a different color of icing and all youse got is a headline—”

“The Icing Twins Strike Again!” the reporter said in the exaggerated tones of an anchorman announcing late-breaking news.

“Most successful bank robbers ever!" The old man raised his chin, proud and defiant. "Never been caught. Never heard from them once they began their life of crime.” He looked down at the picture again. His hand trembled. “My granddaughter broke her mother’s heart.”

The reporter consulted his notes. “Debbie and Ellie swore they were twins even though they had different parents?”

“They had a connection. It ran between them strong. You ever seen a dog and an electric fence?” He didn’t wait for the reporter to answer. “It was like that. A line of electricity between them that warned everyone away, like they might get shocked if they got too close. We figured it was just teenage lesbo stuff.”

“Yes, well, according to reports Debbie and Ellie finished each other’s sentences, had the same gestures and facial tics and made the same impulsive decisions.”

“They got tired of people saying, ‘But you don’t look anything alike.’ It made ‘em angry. ‘Nobody sees us,’ our Ellie said. It was then they decided to never have their pictures taken again."

“Why do you think they started their life of crime?”

“If I knew that, mister, I wouldn’t be sittin’ here in my pajamas talkin’ to you. Oh sure, maybe we shoulda told Ellie she was adopted, but how was we to know Debbie was adopted, too?” The old man set the picture down and twisted his arthritic hands together, agitated. “What are the chances of them endin’ up in the same neighborhood? Plenty of folks is adopted and they don’t rob banks!”

“Hmm, do you think Ellie and Debbie, um, became lovers?”

The old man struggled to his feet. “What kind of a sick sumbitch are you? That’d be incest!”

He showed the reporter to the door and went over to the mantle to raise a picture he’d lowered just before the man arrived. He smiled down at the latest photo of Debbie and Ellie. A new one arrived on their birthday every year. This one showed the sisters with their three children. All five of them had their faces smashed down in birthday cake.

Flash written in response to the photo above.