Be in the Real (14 page)

Kaila felt, more than saw, that someone had entered the games room. It was a cue that her time was up. She snapped her computer shut, stood and spun to face who she expected was Belinda, but who actually turned out to be Derrick. He had been too engrossed in the thick stacks of paper that he was busily flipping through, as he hobbled forward on his walking cast that he hadn’t seemed to notice that she was even there. Kaila noted that he had changed from before. His hair was spiked and gelled with care, his maroon t-shirt clean and wrinkle free, a pair of dark blue jeans, crisp and freshly washed, finished his look.
 

Kaila had to admit that Derrick was one of the few patients in Wildwind who actually seemed to care about his appearance. It was true that Pauline was usually dressed stylishly with make-up and the trimmings, but even she had her off days. Those days she loped around in too-baggy clothing, foundation and mascara free with her hair in desperate need of a brush. Derrick’s need to be dolled up in a place like Wildwind seemed odd to Kaila. Since she had no real experience outside of the facility, she reasoned that this over-concerned desire to be exactly so might be commonplace in the outside world.
 

A cloud of spicy cologne wafted toward her and she instinctively plugged her nose, a feat that she was capable of achieving by somehow blocking her nasal passages without even having to touch her nose. Kaila despised anything that smelled too much. In her opinion the scent of too much aftershave, was just as unsavory as the stench of week old garbage that had been baking in the sun.

“What are you reading?” she asked, keenly interested in what Derrick might find so interesting that he would fail to even notice her in his midst.

Derrick’s head popped up. He appeared startled and was rapidly tucking the papers under his arm, as if worried that Kaila might discover one of his deepest secrets. This act made her interest fully bloom.

“Nothing,” he said abruptly.
 

His tone indicated that Kaila wasn’t permitted to ask any further questions. Instead of taking it as a warning, Kaila read his discomfort as an invitation. Mysteries were like a juicy worm dangling in front of a famished fish, irresistible. She narrowed her eyes in a suspicious stare that relayed unambiguously, that she wasn’t even close to drawing back from this query.

“What is written on the papers under your arm?” she said, posing a question that was much more difficult to squirm away from.

“Words,” Derrick said with a smirk.
 

Kaila’s breath caught at his quick uptake. How easily he had fallen into stride with her, answering, yet not.

“And what subject would those words detail?” Kaila said, exhilaration running through her as she took up the gauntlet that Derrick had tossed her way.

“Ahh, now that
is
a question,” Derrick said.
 

His smile was wide and easy like a person who hadn’t a care in the world, though Kaila knew that wasn’t in the least bit true. Derrick had many cares; it was why he was a patient at Wildwind. It was why most people came to Wildwind; it was in the caring that the hurting came.
 

She had seen it too many times not to notice. All patients came in for different reasons, but despite the multitude of labels that were given to patients, the underlying reason was all the same, caring. People cared about what others thought about them, or didn’t think about them. They cared about how they looked, if they were too fat, too skinny, ugly or not brilliant, it was in the caring about what the mass populace thought about you that set people crazy.
 

Kaila had figured out this gem of information many years ago, but it had seemed that the staff and doctors that ran the place weren’t privy to this same truths, nor the simplicity of them. She expected it was because they had too many books written by people who were authorities on so many matters. These authors had done all the legwork and research, so the doctors who came after didn’t need to think much, only to read what was already a known fact. Kaila didn’t agree with this sentiment. In her estimation this absolute trust in a person you had never before met, who might not even still be alive, might have been flawed.
 

She admittedly perused the Internet and every book and text that she could get her fingers on. She buried herself in the words of others, absorbing, assimilating, sorting and discarding most of the time, but not always. Sometimes, she just sat and was silent, and it seemed that it was in these times that even more insights came. Of course this was the very same time that Trillian took over, but that was the way it was. Though Kaila knew that she too had succumbed to the caring flaw, she had been too young to remember exactly what she had been bothered about. What had driven her to do the things she and Trillian were accused of, things that she had only snippets of memory of doing? It was just one more mystery that Kaila wanted to solve some day.

“Secrets are not welcome in Wildwind,” Kaila said abruptly.
 

She felt a sudden surge of irritation turn on, full force.
 

The transition had been so rapid that even she was surprised. It made her wonder if Trillian was behind this shift. No one hated secrets more than Trillian. Trillian’s abhorrence was a study in contrasts since she was the master of secrets, never revealing all the interesting facts and details that she had lodged in her being. If Kaila was being honest she was marginally embarrassed by the surly tone of her voice that she now wanted to blame on Trillian. For some reason Kaila liked Derrick, much more than she should have.

Derrick shrugged, clearly unaware of the internal battle raging within Kaila. If she had entertained the notion before, now she was certain, Trillian was pissed at Derrick, in fact she didn’t much like him at all; Trillian didn’t trust him.
 

Kaila made a concerted effort to shove down Trillian, tuck her back into the recesses of her mind where she couldn’t make rude comments to people that Kaila wanted to talk to.

“I’m sure you have secrets too. Sometimes the secrets we keep are the only threads of reality that keep us together, and if we let people know the truths, it would snip all the lines and then we would fall apart. And all that was inside would be outside.”

Kaila cocked her head, unsure of exactly what Derrick had meant. She knew Trillian would have understood the meaning of his words. But she was by no means willing to allow Trillian to have control, especially when her rancor for Derrick had made the blood in her veins thrum like a torrent.

“You talk weird,” Kaila said, hitching her computer under her armpit.

Derrick appeared distinctly rankled by Kaila’s offhand remark, as if she had somehow affronted him. She didn’t much care if she had, people who reacted unfavorably to her words were of no concern to her. What
was
of interest was why in fact he was acting that way.

Derrick shifted his stance hastily, drawing back from Kaila without actually taking a single step away. Kaila knew that Derrick was in Wildwind because he was crazy, just like all the other patients, but she had to admit that he was quite good at hiding his peculiarity from people. They stood locked in place, an unsaid stare-down ensued until Derrick finally turned around and started for the door. For some reason Kaila wanted Derrick to stay, wanted to pick through his brain. She was certain his mind held many oddities, but also interesting facts.

“Please, don’t leave. I promise not to pry,” Kaila hollered after him.
 

He had already reached the door. She saw him pause, but moments later he continued on, walking until he was out of sight; the only remnant of his presence was the smell of his cologne. What was more surprising than Derrick’s unceremonious exit was Kaila’s disappointment at what felt like a loss. And though she had never gauged her behavior before in her life, that exact thought suddenly popped into her mind. A voice that wasn’t Trillian’s said that Derrick held so many answers to the bevy of questions that floated perpetually around in her brain.
 

Norm had meant something to her, but Derrick meant something completely different. Without trying, or at least it hadn’t seemed like he had been trying, Derrick had become an enigma that Kaila had to study, to discover what made him tick. If she hadn’t been fully convinced before, she was now. Derrick would be her mission, a lock that needed to be picked; she wasn’t going to give up until she had discovered all his secrets.

CHAPTER 15

“They caught Derrick with a laptop in the storage room. He was trying to hack into the Wildwind computer files,” Janelle said.
 

Janelle was reclined on Pauline’s bed; her ample form occupied all the space available, leaving Pauline to perch on the tiny corner at the foot of the bed.
 

“Who told you that?” Pauline asked. She glided a hand along the curve of Janelle’s thigh in what Kaila recognized as a seductive way. Kaila was aware that the two girls did things, sex things, like what she had watched online, where girls found what appeared to be ingenious ways to pleasure one another, despite no penis being involved.

Sex and all it entailed hadn’t been something that had touched Kaila’s radar, until it had. When she was around twenty-two her interest had peaked, after she had walked in on an old roommate having sex in the bed adjacent to Kaila’s. Danicka, who liked to call herself Petal, had opened Kaila’s eyes on the whole matter.
 

The guy having sex with Danicka was a skinny cleaner named Sean, with cystic acne that even peppered his white buttocks. The two had been too immersed in the sex act to realize that Kaila had moved into the vicinity. She had studied the backside of Sean, his behind moving rapidly, slapping so hard between Danicka’s spread legs that the noise of smacking flesh had drowned out all other sounds in the atmosphere. She had been amazed at how the sac of Sean’s scrotum seemed stretched and loose, and had hit against the lower part of Danicka’s vagina like a wet rag. Kaila had wondered if it felt like a half-filled water balloon that she and the other residents sometimes played with on hot days. Sean’s face had been red, his cheeks puffed in pain or pleasure, Kaila wasn’t sure which.
 

Kaila had seen Danicka’s breasts before, since Danicka had never seemed to care who was around when she stripped naked. But now, even that part of her anatomy had changed, the nipples were drawn up into taut peaks, everything swollen. Danicka’s face was just as flushed as Sean’s had been, her eyes half-closed, an expression of satisfaction colored her face. On and on the steam engine chugged. To Kaila it was like watching an episode of National Geographic, only this show had humans doing things that she had only seen animals do, prior to then.

Kaila could have watched the two forever, studying every nuance and shift of their bodies and listened to the groans and the steady squeak of the mattress. Unfortunately it all came to a halting conclusion when Danicka’s huge brown eyes had spotted Kaila, standing just a few feet away. As soon as Danicka had realized that they weren’t alone, her gloss-slicked lips formed a pout, her brow furrowed and all the pleasure that had marked her expression seconds before vanished. Absolute panic ensued.

Danicka began pounding Sean’s naked shoulder with a red nailed fist, urging him to stop. It seemed to take forever for Sean to receive the message, as he continued to move like a mad man, thrusting in a steady rhythm, as if any thoughts apart from pumping were impossible. Then he went stiff, his whole body jerking like a live wire was electrocuting him. Only then did he seem to get his bearings and understand the message that Danicka had been so adamant to give him; they were no longer alone. Kaila hadn’t thought his already flushed face could have become any more rouge, but it had, even his neck looked like it had been dipped into scalding water.
 

Kaila refused to turn away. She had needed to see his penis since she had never seen such a thing in real, and most definitely not one that had just been performing sex. Her eyes were literally glued to the main connection point. Danicka’s orders to look away, her attempts to shame Kaila into averting her stare hadn’t worked. Danicka hadn’t understood that Kaila didn’t feel shame about anything she did, because everything Kaila did had a reason, a justification.
 

Finally, Sean had slid his penis out and Kaila had eyed it with interest. It was roughly five inches in length, with a condom pulled like a tube sock right up to the thick bush of his pubic hair. Kaila watched as the condom began to wrinkle around his partially swollen member that was rapidly deflating. The fluid that had gathered at the tip, milky and white, hadn’t dodged her keen eyes, and the sight of it had Kaila practically exploding with glee that she had just witnessed a man ejaculate in real. She had clapped her hands together enthusiastically, as if she had just watched an applause worthy event, which in her opinion it absolutely had been.

“You’re completely fucked in the head,” Danicka had said, spinning her finger in a circle at the side of her head…

“Kaila?” Pauline’s voice broke through, shuttling her back to the moment.
 

She wasn’t sure how long she had been away only that Janelle was now sitting on the side of the bed next to Pauline. Both of them stared at her with concerned expressions.

“I don’t understand why it’s not okay to have sex with someone who’s the same sex as you,” Kaila said, completely shifting the conversation away from Derrick and his hacking.
 

Pauline’s brow wrinkled as if she hadn’t quite understood Kaila’s bold statement.

“Who said it’s not okay?” Pauline said.
 

There was acid in her tone, something that Kaila didn’t often hear in her roommate’s voice.

“People say it. I’ve read things, petitions, people saying that being gay is a sin and wrong…”

This exact concept had baffled Kaila for quite a long time, but she had never asked anyone about it. She wasn’t sure why people believed it to be true, or even why it was important to talk about it right at that moment, but somehow it was. Kaila needed someone else to shine a light on a notion that had never made sense to her; it was one more puzzle to be solved.