Chemical Pink, page 13
Finally, Doughdee allowed Charles to manipulate himself and he grabbed the plastic bone and rode it up and down his rigid phallus. Charles had never experienced such sensation; he wondered if this was what the blow-up doll craze had been all about. Doughdee kept yelling “Don’t come inside my sleeve,” and Charles was just barely able to pull himself out at the last moment and release himself into the wad of paper towels that Doughdee had waiting.
* * *
Doughdee left the soiled wad of paper towels on the coffee table, packed her things in the suitcase, and walked naked to the guest bathroom. She didn’t speak or acknowledge Charles in any way. Charles put on his robe and slippers, then went to the entry hall to wait. When she emerged from the bathroom in her Sunday suit Charles held out three hundred dollar bills. She snatched them out of his hand.
“Next time maybe we could do one of your ‘episodes’?” Charles said respectfully. “Spend the weekend?”
“No.” Doughdee stuffed the money into the side pocket of her suitcase. “You don’t qualify.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You can beg all you want, sucker. I’m not interested in your business.”
For a moment Charles was insulted, furious in fact, but then realized that they were still playing. He smiled, winked at her, and said, “Whatever you say, Mistress.”
“I’m not joking, fool.” She opened the front door. “I came here ’cause I owed Hendrik a favor. I’ve paid up now.” She walked out and shut the door behind her.
THREE
Seven Weeks and Counting
Aurora’s second eight-week cycle had been easy and fun. After shedding twelve quick pounds of water, her body tightened up. She’d quit the insulin, stayed on the growth hormone, and started on the Parabolin, Masterone, and those magical little Dianabol pills that were shaped like little pink stop signs. Her muscles swelled like yeasty dough in the oven, separate, hard and full. Her skin was less blemished and the light blond hair on her face and shoulders was easily managed with a gentle depilatory cream Charles ordered from Switzerland. Her clitoris had swelled and was very sensitive but she didn’t mind. Charles kept her legs and genitals hair-free with a new hot wax kit he’d bought at the beauty supply. Aurora liked how she looked and it was cooler now without all that pubic hair. Her skin had the dusty smoothness of velvet.
With Aurora’s new, impressive body came new prestigious friends. She’d been invisible to a whole group of bodybuilders but now they welcomed her. Each morning she’d walk into the gym and greet Amelia Lockwood or Ladair Simms or Cookie Lazar; they’d call out to each other in their deep manly voices, like doves cooing in a secret language. Sometimes the girls would go into the posing room and show each other body parts. They all said that Aurora had one of the best backs in the sport. People were complimenting her daily on her developing physique until Hendrik told her she had to cover up. “Too much exposure,” he’d said. “Let’s keep them guessing.”
Aurora had her treadmill set up in front of the mirrored wall in her bedroom. She was nude. The overhead lighting highlighted her cantaloupe-round deltoids. She watched her legs grab and release as she took each step. She’d dropped another percent of body fat this week and her weight was holding steady. Some days she wanted to kiss Hendrik; sometimes she thought about fucking him.
“Why can’t you wear clothes?” Amy stood in the doorway looking down at the carpet.
“Come in, honey.” Aurora smiled. Amy wore the new denim skirt and vest they’d picked out from the mail order catalog. She looked almost cute with her hair pulled into pigtails.
“Can’t you at least put on underwear?” Amy stayed still.
Aurora stepped off the treadmill, grabbed a black cotton G-string from her drawer, put it on, and carefully got back on the running machine. Adolescent girls were so shy.
“A bra?” Amy met her eyes in the mirror.
“Enough.” Aurora smiled to let Amy know she wasn’t really mad. “Come in. You look so cute.”
Amy walked into the room and stood behind the treadmill. “Mom?”
They’d been getting along so well. Amy was getting fatter every day but at least she seemed happy. “What is it, my angel?”
“Can I get some cowboy boots? The short kind with a little heel?”
Aurora couldn’t believe it. Amy never wore anything but old sweatpants and dirty T-shirts. “What color?”
“Red and black,” Amy said without hesitating.
“I used to have a pair like that, with real pointy toes.” Aurora looked at herself in the mirror and redid her ponytail. Her face was lean and hard. She looked younger now that she was shaping up.
“They have them at the mall,” Amy said.
“How do you know?” Aurora looked at her daughter. She hadn’t taken Amy to the mall in months. Amy didn’t like to go shopping.
Amy scratched at her hair, messing up one of her pigtails. She seemed to be having trouble answering the question. “This girl from school has them,” she said finally, and smiled as if proud of herself.
“What girl?” Aurora slowed the treadmill and studied Amy. She was wearing pink lip gloss. And her fingernails were clean.
“Someone on the yard.” Amy seemed confident now. “I don’t know her name.”
Aurora smiled. Finally, Amy was making some friends. It was all coming together, just like she knew it would. “Baby, we’ll go as soon as I finish training this afternoon.”
“That’s okay.” Amy came and stood next to the treadmill. “You could just give me the money. I’ll go after school. The bus goes right by there.”
“Is that safe?”
“Definitely. Lots of kids hang out.”
Aurora remembered when she was thirteen. Hanging out with Jessica Parks, smoking cigarettes, making fake joints with crushed up leaves and oregano, then selling them to Mandy Lincoln. Aurora smiled. Mandy Lincoln had told them, the next day, that she’d gotten really stoned and Aurora had laughed when she called Mandy an idiot and showed her the fake pot. Kids.
“Take a hundred dollars out of my purse.” Aurora watched Amy get the money. It was as if her daughter was blossoming right before her eyes. She was going to be just fine. Soon there’d probably be talk of boys. “Your lunch is on the counter.”
Amy waved as she left the room.
“Eat all your fruit and stay away from candy,” Aurora called after her. There was no answer.
The Mall
Skip waited in his car behind the school bus. The children loaded, single file, up the steps and through the door; some laughing and talking with friends, others alone and isolated. Sweet lambs in a flock. Except that kids are cruel. Those pretty girls with the nice clothes could talk to that skinny pimpled girl. They could say hello. Let her sit with them. But they never would. They didn’t see her and she hated them. She’d cover the whole group with gasoline if she could. Toss a match and watch them change their tune.
The bus pulled away from the curb and Skip drove forward. Amy sat alone on the bench. She’d finally worn a dress. Skip felt proud. Amy was still a long way off from being a lady but the dress was a start. He followed their routine and pulled up to the bus stop. Amy pretended to be surprised, then hopped in the car. Skip waited for her to buckle her seat belt.
“Got it.” Amy pulled a hundred-dollar bill from her backpack and waved it in Skip’s face.
“She say anything?” Skip said.
“She used to have the same exact kinda boots.” Amy was looking at him. “Isn’t that weird?” He kept his eyes on the road.
“When?” Skip sped up to pass the bus. He pretended to focus on driving.
“I don’t know. When I was little.” Amy dug in her backpack. “She was happy to give me the money.” Amy pulled out a kingsized Butterfinger and tore off the wrapper. “I could maybe get you some too.”
“Did she say where she got them?” Skip gave those boots to Jeanine after her twelfth week of training. It had shocked her. She blushed and said she felt bad taking such an expensive gift but she’d worn them every day. They were short ankle boots with just enough heel to make her calves pop. She was beautiful in those boots.
“All the money comes from Charles. Mom’s got a bunch of hundreds in her wallet.” Amy took a bite of her candy; it crumbled and a big chunk fell in her lap. “I’ll get you a couple.”
“I don’t want her money,” Skip said. He took a breath and forced his voice to stay casual. “She didn’t tell you where the boots came from?”
“Savannah, I guess.” Amy opened her pack and started hunting again. “Why?” She looked up at him.
Skip shrugged in a no-big-deal way and turned into the mall’s parking structure. Amy pulled out a big movie-sized bag of Skittles and was about to tear open the wrapper.
“Try a TurboCarb bar.” Skip held out his newest find. “It’s peanut butter.” For the last three weeks he’d been trying to get her away from the hard-core candy, offering her healthy alternatives. “You love peanut butter.”
“I don’t eat cardboard.” She pushed Skip’s bar away and gobbled a handful of candy.
Skip pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. “That junk will kill you.” He said it with real concern. Amy could do permanent damage to her metabolism. She was getting fatter by the day.
“I already have a mama, okay?” She winked at him and got out of the car.
Skip took the key from the ignition, hid it under the seat, and followed Amy into the mall.
Amy didn’t have any calves and she was clumsy walking in the heels. She paraded up and down in front of the two-foot high shoe mirror watching her feet, happy as a clam, and Skip pretended to share her enthusiasm. But it was depressing.
“Do you have a big mirror?” Amy asked the fat, old-grandfather salesman. Guy was sixty-five, easy. He was organizing the colors of the sock display and didn’t look up. “Excuse me,” Amy said sweetly.
The salesman wore a black-and-white striped shirt that looked like a too-small bogus soccer team uniform. His sloped, withered shoulders were narrower than his fat sagging gut. He had girl-sized feet. Loser; he probably shit in a bag. Put a fucking rope around his neck and hang him from the third floor railing here at the mall. Let him swing till his face turned blue. Put the rude-fuck out of his misery. He folded socks and ignored Amy.
Skip stood up, got in the man’s face, and grabbed his wrist. “She wants a bigger mirror,” he said, real quiet and mean.
The salesman dropped the socks and quickly led them to the back of the store, where there was a dressing room with a mirror. He held the door open so that Amy could stand back and see.
“They’re great.” Amy studied herself hard. “Right, Skip?”
Skip glared at the salesman, who said, “They suit you very nicely.”
Skip carried the bag with Amy’s old dirty tennis shoes. Amy teetered along next to him. They walked through the mall looking in the store windows. After a few minutes Amy got used to the new boots and walked more smoothly. Skip talked her into a diet soda today instead of a Coke and she seemed to like it.
Jeanine used to love Coca-Cola too. She showed up that first day at the gym with a plastic liter bottle of Coke in her gym bag. Skip explained to her about sugar and calories and Jeanine switched to diet that day. He never had to say it twice.
Jeanine was good in every way. Her body responded to his training like plants to sunshine and rain. Her ears were perfect little flowers blooming on that long, fine neck. And when she’d sweat there’d be gentle misty-wetness on her chest like sweet morning dew. Skip would sometimes poke her there, hard, on the chest, pretending to point out the separation between the upper and lower pec. Sometimes he hurt her a little but he had to be rough or she might realize that he was just wetting his finger in her freshness. He had to be close. He watched and waited for her to give him a sign, something that said she wanted him. But except for that one beautiful night, the most important of his life, she never let on. She was as cold and distant as that plastic bag full of his mother’s chunky ashes. Sometimes, Skip dreamed about wrapping his fingers around Jeanine’s neck, feeling her resistance as he squeezed her hard. He’d watch her struggle for breath, her face turning red, but then her neck would stretch and change into a snake that lunged and coiled around Skip’s body until it was he who couldn’t breathe.
Amy put her empty cup into Skip’s hand. She’d chewed the straw all the way down to the plastic lid so now it was flattened and curled with bite marks. They were standing in front of a woman’s clothing store. The mannequins had black wigs and were bone-skinny with slouchy hips and shoulders and had earrings threaded through their plastic nostrils and brows.
“You don’t like skinny girls,” Amy said.
“Nothing uglier than a starving woman.” Skip wanted say he hated fat women too but they were having such a nice afternoon.
“Think I should dye my hair blond like my mom’s?” Amy took out a bag of Big League Chew, gum made to look like chewing tobacco. She pulled long strings of pink bubble gum from the pouch and stuffed them into her mouth.
“Dyed hair always looks fake.” Skip walked over to the trash can and threw out Amy’s cup. “You couldn’t get that natural look of your mama’s.”
Amy turned to face him. “She totally dyes her hair.”
Skip smiled at Amy’s ignorance. He put his arm around her shoulder. “I’ve known her a long time.” He gave Amy a squeeze. The poor girl was so jealous of her beautiful mother. “Your mama is the real thing.”
Amy pulled away from Skip. “Her real hair is darker than mine.” Her voice was shrill. “Her pubic hair is black. Only now she doesn’t have any ’cause she shaves it.” Amy made a harsh laughing noise. “Those boobs. She’s completely fake.”
Skip felt like he was wearing a heavy wool sweater on the hottest Savannah day. He wanted to shake Amy. “Don’t you ever talk about your mama like that.” Little unappreciative bitch. He started walking fast back toward the ramp to the parking garage. Amy clumped along behind him. He stopped and faced the child. “Your mother is beautiful.”
Amy looked confused. “I didn’t mean anything.” Her eyes were brimming with tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Say you love your mother,” Skip said in a stern voice. He had a duty to teach this child. Amy looked off in the distance, her eyes unfocused. Skip raised his voice, “Say it.”
A woman with a baby in a stroller slowed down and stared. She studied Skip like he was some kind of a pervert.
Amy walked over close to Skip. “I love my mother,” she whispered. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Of course you do.” Skip patted her head. “We both do.” He wiped her face with the bottom of his T-shirt and the two of them walked past the woman with the stroller and back to his car.
Five Weeks and Counting
Underwear, even the smallest G-string, ruined the lines of the faux-leather halter jumpsuit. It was made of shell-pink nylon and fit Aurora like shrink-wrap, all tight and shiny-wet looking. The back was cut in a low wide V and the bottom of it rode just above her butt crack. The gloss of the fabric highlighted muscle separation and definition better than skin; Aurora’s legs looked Superhero-hard when she flexed them, shredded and beautiful. Humans weren’t supposed to look like this but she did.
Aurora pulled on the jumpsuit carefully, so as not to snag the fabric. She fastened the three snaps at the neck, hit a front abdominal shot, and gazed at herself in true admiration. You could see everything. Her abs were perfectly etched, each lump separate from the rest. Aurora felt excited. She looked at her crotch. The jumpsuit highlighted her pussy, too; without the pubic hair to mask detail, the lips and distended clit showed through as clearly as her hip flexor tie-ins. Nice as it was to look at, Aurora couldn’t walk around the gym like that. She went into the bathroom and got a roll of clear, two inch, heavy duty packing tape from the drawer. She took down her jumpsuit and pulled off a three inch long piece. Charles had just waxed her two days before and so there weren’t any wispy hairs; her skin was smooth and very soft. Aurora stuck the tape just above her cleft and pulled it down over her meaty genitals. She molded the crackly adhesive over her clitoral ridge, past her vagina, and fixed it to the innermost crease of her ass. There was a nice supportive feeling with the tape. Aurora pulled the jumpsuit back up and studied her crotch. Perfect. Just like Barbie. She threw the tape into her bag, in case she needed to pee, and left for the gym.
Aurora waved at Leo and pulled into her parking place. Each morning, for the past two weeks, Leo had wheeled his trash can into the first spot next to the door and left it there while he pretended to clean in the area. When Aurora arrived he moved his can with a flourish and waved her into the privileged spot.
“Good morning, Mrs. Aurora.” Leo bobbed his head when he talked and left his tongue lying on his bottom lip so he slurred whenever he spoke in his slow-dumb voice. He had black stringy hair, bulging eyes and the clammy, over-round fatness that made him look ageless, like a manatee. The gym let him clean the parking lot and the bathrooms inside.
Aurora waved and got out of her car. She bent over to get the gym bag from the backseat.
Leo panted. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.” He shifted from one foot to the next. “That’s the prettiest outfit I ever seen, Mrs. Aurora.” Leo’s head and chest were bobbing together now.
Aurora straightened up. “Thanks for saving my spot.” She punched Leo on the shoulder. Last week she’d made the mistake of kissing Leo on the cheek and he’d grabbed her and held on to her waist, burying his face in her chest. He was surprisingly strong and she had to use her knee and nudge him hard in the groin to get free. Once she was inside the gym she looked out and saw him dry-humping the air, his pelvis thrusting wildly and pumped with the overfiring of sexual impulse from his poor damaged brain. Leo’s hands flapped at his sides like the spastic wings of a dying swallow, his mouth opened and drooling, head thrown back and bobbing in retarded ecstasy.
