Girl Desecrated 1984: Vampires, Asylums and Highlanders, page 4
The soft paper gave easily as I crushed it in my hand, choking the string of words into silence.
I tossed the paper into the garbage can. Then fought the temptation to drop a lit match into the garbage to erase the evidence of my mother’s disappointment in me. A sharp pain cramped my heart, useless stabs of self-pity. I hammered a fist against my chest and blinked back the hot tears that threatened to spill down my face.
“Who cares?”
I didn’t sound convincing. I said it again, in my head, over and over, and drew on anger to push the pain away.
“Who the hell gives a shit!” I barked into the empty washroom, and this time I sounded like myself. Pissed at the world and ready for a fight. Now I could go back out into the bar.
I wet my hands and scrunched them into my hair to pat down my mess of blonde curls. A few swipes under my eyes cleared the smudged eyeliner and mascara, and I was good to go. The black and gold case on my fire-engine red lipstick flashed at the mirror as I twisted it open in my cold fingers. Drawing even higher peaks on my upper lip, I turned my naturally full mouth into a sharp jagged line.
The cold metal grips of my Rambo knife kissed my fingers when I slipped my lipstick back into my pocket. It was a reassuring promise that if life ever got too painful, I always had a way out.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: THE SCENT OF MENSES
~
THE GREAT SHIP ROSE ON the rolling swells, the wood groaning out in protest as the waves pushed against its belly. The sun was up with the wind, the sails catching the brassy rays as they billowed like the white chests of sea birds. The yellow sky sliced a horizon across the deep azure of the sea, inviting the ship forward with astounding beauty.
Despite the scenic allure, all eyes were turned inward to the small section of deck where the women took their walks. Ladies from all classes mixed in this place where social status mattered less than on land. Petite feet in delicate slippers whispered alongside well-worn leather cast-offs from older brothers. The sandy hues of coarse wool swayed alongside the brighter gemstone shades of silk and cotton hems sashaying like polishing rags along the deck boards.
The captain examined his cargo with reserve.
“Women.” He scowled and shook his head.
There was a time when a woman would not have been allowed on a seafaring vessel. A time when the mere presence of the finer sex would have tapped the sailors’ passions, made volatile by months at sea. There was even a time when it was believed that the scent of a woman’s menses would draw up the giant squid from the black depths. Those times of ignorance and superstition were fading in the face of justifiable reasoning.
This captain’s merchant ship carried spices from India, brandy from France, and timber from the colonies. Those were the cargoes the captain preferred. But ships had to be repaired, and men had to be paid, and it was the age of human cargo, which brought more profit.
The captain wasn’t a slaver. He hadn’t sailed to the Dark Continent and traded with tribes selling their captives. No, this ship’s human cargo was European and willing.
His callused hands felt the change in the ocean as it pressed against the great ship’s rudder, seconds before the lookout in the crow’s nest called out, “Land ahoy!”
The ladies’ cries of excitement chimed over the strong winds. In disarray, their fluttering across his deck to see their first site of Jamestown further irritated the captain, who preferred order above all else.
“First Mate,” he spoke over the ship’s wooden wheel, knowing John Allington was ever-listening for his command.
“Captain!”
“See that the females are taken below.”
His first mate gave a curt nod, though the captain had still not looked at him. “Right away, Captain.”
Allington leaned over the quarterdeck and called down to the sailors assigned to the care of the women.
“All passengers to the hold!”
“Aye, aye!” A sailor saluted in an offhand manner.
Changing winds were the captain’s forte. He could smell a change in the cool breezes that pushed the crests into white peaks even before the sea responded. When bartering for cargo, he could sense the weakening will of a trader before the man himself knew he would lower the prices on his goods. The captain’s senses were as sharp as they ever had been. Change was in the future of his ship. Change brought on by the slave trade. It was a distasteful affair, but for now, he would ferry brides to the Southern Colonies, for his ship was fast and clean, and his crew was disciplined.
The captain’s musings were disrupted by the image of a lone woman still standing on his main deck, the deck that would soon be crawling with sailors preparing for the journey up James River to Jamestown.
“Allington!” The captain released the wheel to point an accusing finger at the woman.
His First Mate looked shocked that there was still a female standing there. “Captain!”
Allington’s boots clattered down the quarterdeck stairs as he quickly made his way to the burly sailor standing by the woman’s side. The young man’s irritation grew as the sailor continued to fail in carrying out his orders, even as he marched towards the two.
The woman stood at ease, her gloved hands folded against the front of her long stomacher above her skirts. Her cap failed to contain the ebony strands of silky hair that escaped to whip about her comely face in the strong wind.
The sailor stepped up to meet Allington. “She refuses to go below deck, sir.”
The refusal posed a problem for the First Mate. This woman was not a sailor or a soldier to be struck about the head with a cudgel until she did what he wanted.
Allington stepped past the sailor, placing his body between the lady and the captain’s view.
“My good lady.” He removed his hat and tipped his knee.
She lowered her eyes, her lashes dark against her pale cheeks. “My good sir”.
Her accent was unfamiliar to his well-traveled ears, but it mattered not. The women came from all parts of Europe as marriage chattel for the New World. It did not matter where she came from. All that mattered was where she would go, and that was down to where the captain ordered her to.
Satisfied with her demure behaviour, Allington continued. “It is the captain’s orders that all ladies retire below deck.”
She raised her eyes and Allington was struck at how dark they were. “I understand the captain’s reasons, good sir, for this is not my first voyage at sea.”
The First Mate nodded in acknowledgement of the woman’s prior experience. “Then you will retire with the others?”
The sailor moved forward, as if to take her arm.
“No,” she said softly, and Allington leaned closer to hear her.
“It is my wish to see with mine own eyes the shore that will be my new home.”
Allington was shocked at her disregard for the captain’s orders. He blinked and then tried to insist, but the words stuck in his throat as the woman’s eyes darkened and forced him to consider their depths.
Any concern the First Mate might have had for the captain, who was glaring from the quarterdeck, was washed away by the desire to please this woman, a desire greater than any duty he had ever felt in his service on board a ship.
“If it pleases you sir, I would express my wishes to the captain in person.”
Dipping his knee, Allington tore himself from the woman’s enticing presence to escort her to the wooden stairs that led to where the captain watched their approach. He watched, first, with disbelief that a woman was about to set her tiny boots on his quarterdeck, then with a resigned sense of grudging acceptance of the changes that carrying human cargo would bring.
The captain purposefully did not look at the woman as she moved to stand at his side, preferring instead to gaze out onto the ocean at the waves, which were much more predictable than the female sex.
Arlington hovered behind her, as if afraid she would do something even more drastic than speak to the captain.
The woman spoke first. “My apologies for this intrusion on your very important duties, Captain, but I would like to request to stay topside during our approach to land.”
The captain still did not acknowledge her presence. His eyes squinted within the lined leather of his face, watching the shoreline that was his destination. He made her wait until he was good and ready to speak, and then he released the tone that made men shiver to obey.
“This is my ship and it is my command that you go below.”
Arlington seemed confused as to whether he should nod or not. Instead, he looked down at the shine on the toe of his black boots.
“I understand,” the woman said, her voice so soft the captain could barely hear it.
Triumphant, he shifted his eyes beneath his coiling grey eyebrows to observe the woman.
The first thing that struck him was her astounding beauty. Not beauty formed by curve of cheek, or colour of lip, but vital beauty, a glow of vibrancy that pulsed beneath the skin and shouted to the winds “I am alive!”
The second thing that struck him was her eyes. Once the captain had seen a cyclone ripping across the ocean. That’s what her eyes reminded him of, deep, swirling tunnels of dangerous water waiting to suck him down.
“I understand, sir, and now I say to you, I will remain on the quarterdeck and watch land come into view.”
To the captain and the first mate, this seemed a most logical request. The captain nodded and looked out across the water, thinking no more about it.
Satisfied, the lady moved to the railing and looked down behind the ship.
The great rudder strained against its hinges as the water swirled, cresting behind the stern, pushing them towards her new home.
The people on this ship were pliable like water, and she, hard and unswerving like the rudder, could easily sway their will. And as it was on sea, so it would be on land.
CHAPTER 3: SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
~
RETURNING TO MY TABLE, I pulled the collar of my biker jacket up to make myself appear relaxed and uncaring. I held the casual James Dean pose for fifteen minutes, while I finished my beer. Had Man-boy read my mother’s note?
She was wacked, and everything she said and did was crazy. I knew this, but I had so little from her, I couldn’t completely disregard her words. Mom had written that a temptation would come from “across the sea”. The States was only over the border, but still it made me wonder if Donald was the temptation. The one who would release my inner “familiar”. And what the hell was that anyways? The only thing he had released in me, so far, was a little patriotic anger.
I stopped trying to make sense of my mother’s lunacy, and forced my attention back to the newspaper article about the Pope’s tour that was still splayed out on my table. The man was the image of benevolence, his eyes reflecting unconditional love. His mouth set in the position of forgiveness. John Paul II held his right hand up to the crowd, palm out. It was meant to be an embrace, an acceptance of those gathered to view his holy presence. Yet gripped in the Pope’s other hand was Christ, strung out like sinewy taffy along a staff-like cross. It was a cruel icon that drew my mind from my own problems. Christ’s own father had allowed the Romans to stake him, when he could have easily wiped them out. I never understood the whole “sacrifice for the people” thing. To me, Christ’s suffering seemed unnecessary and wasted.
At that bold thought, my heart kicked up a notch, and a truant string of words spewed out of my mouth like verbal vomit.
“You cain string up your own image but you cain nevah erase your own sin.”
I slapped my hand to my mouth to stop the words, for though the vocal cords were mine, the tune being played on them did not belong to me. The voice I had spoken in had a slick and silky Southern accent.
Oh, I should never have mentioned those Southern ancestors in my argument with Donald. For whenever I did, it was like speaking of the devil, and now I was going to see Satan’s tail. I had to get the hell home.
I jumped up, almost tripping over my chair, and half turned to the door. Unexpectedly, it burst open, and I was struck by the final rays of the setting sun. I threw my elbow up over my face and shrieked in surprise as the blinding light pierced my eyes.
The sound of laughter and conversations filtered in behind my raised elbow. The after-dinner crowd were coming in. Normal sounds. Normal people. They didn’t notice me, even though I was not acting normal.
The exit was blocked, leaving me to turn and head into the darker back room. My eyes had not adjusted from that initial sunburst, and half-blinded, I stubbed my toe and almost fell into some empty chairs.
“You’re definitely cut off,” taunted the same voice.
Followed by the bartender’s gentle order, “Leave her be.”
Supporting myself with my hand on the back of a chair, I stopped and got my bearings. The back room shimmered before me as if heat was rising from the floor. I rubbed my face but it didn’t do any good. This had nothing to do with my eyes. This was an ‘episode’. I had to get out of sight.
I crossed through the connecting doorway, weaving like a drunkard between the tables to collapse into a chair, my back against the far wall.
Thankfully, no do-gooder had followed to see if I was okay. Granted only a few seconds of relief, my stomach lurched as the walls shifted against their frames, and then mushroomed out, distorting the space within.
A cramp in my guts tightened into a knot as the room pulled in at the middle, the furnishings squeezing into new positions like organs under a corset. Another loop-de-loo tried to spill my ingested beer onto the floor, but I gulped back the rising bile.
Gripping the table with my fingers, I watched my fingertips turn white as they grasped for grounding.
The shrinking of space within the room forced the air to wheeze out, leaving behind a draw that tugged me deeper into the black vacuum. I could not move my arms, could not call out, as much as I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs for help.
The draw sucked me deeper and deeper down a tunneling black hole. I had to stop falling, but all I had were visuals—pictures to replace action. So, I imagined myself a lizard with a wide fringe of neck skin. As soon as the image was clear, I flicked my tail and flailed my legs. My bone fan burst open with the sound of a web umbrella springing into place. The sharp edges caught and a jarring drag shuddered through my jaw. I hung, suspended, for a few seconds as the image held me at the edge of the abyss. Then, reality slapped back, and I understood I had no lizard’s jaw, no clawed feet to dangle.
Cold threads of dismay wove diagonally through my mind shattering the image of the lizard into a thousand sharp-edged pieces. An echo of shattering glass tipped me over into that ever-waiting darkness.
The feeling of falling, spinning end over end, shredded at my sanity like claws on silk. The more I tried to hold onto what was real, the more frayed I became. Then, I did what I always did to survive. I invoked my anger.
Rallying my will with curses, I silently charged myself to action, because there was no damn way I was going to lose it in my favourite drinking hole.
Get control, bitch!
“Holy gloom and doom,” a voice spoke from the murkiness.
I clutched the sound wisps, manipulating them like cat-in-the-cradle strings until a fractured sense of my friend, Lene, materialized in front of me. I concentrated on her presence, recalling the olive shade of her skin, the metal shine of the filling in her back, left molar.
Gradually, her jet-black hair materialized, draped like an oiled fringe over a pale gold, reflective, half jacket.
She slipped away from me, impossible to hold for there were no facial features, no body, no backdrop to cling to.
I tried to focus on the blank, flat oval where her high cheekbones should have been.
Climb out of it! I demanded of myself.
Then her perfume caressed my nostrils, and my mind decoded the scent. The translation ruffled the layers of time and place, spinning them away before they buried me.
Climb!
The Albion’s wooden chairs popped, one-by-one through the negative space like stars being birthed in a new universe.
With a sense of gratitude that washed my eyes with hot tears, I saw Lene standing beside my table. A normal teenager in a normal world—everything I wanted to be.
She surveyed the bar. Conscious of the seconds passing since she had spoken, I knew time was stretching thin between her greeting and my expected response.
“Hey,” my voice cracked, as I tested it, hoping to hell I wasn’t speaking with a Southern accent.
“What’s crackalackin’?”
“Hey yourself.” She hung her jean jacket on a chair, while I licked my parched lips, blinked and worked at acting sane.
She was grinning from ear-to-ear, giving off a golden, party energy. I let it wash over the darkness tugging at me.
I knew I should say something else.
“Done work?” I asked, puffing out the words as if I’d been racing.
“Yeppers.”
I clamped my mouth shut and silently counted to four, while drawing a slow breath in through my nose. I could do this. I’d had years of last minute, pulling-it-together practice from the many times Family and Children’s Services had launched a surprise visit on our home. Thankfully, Lene was naturally self-absorbed and didn’t notice I was struggling
I assumed a pose of nonchalance as the sweat cooled on my forehead.
She dropped her purse onto the table with a loud thump. Slipping a hand in past the open clasp, she pulled out three rolls of quarters wrapped tightly in brown paper. She wanted me to ask about her tips, so I did.
“How much tonight?”
“Fifty,” she grinned. “I’m buying!” She pulled out another two rolls.
