Be in the Real (31 page)

A shudder ran through her. She felt locked in a block of ice despite the sweltering heat.

“Don’t do it,” Kaila said.

Her voice was barely a whisper. Her revelation had vacuumed the oxygen from her lungs, leaving them empty like unfilled balloons.

“Don’t do what?”
 

Pauline was now just a few feet away. Her eyes had taken on a glassy appearance like those of an animal that had been preserved by taxidermy. Her pallor was too white except for two blotches of pink on her cheeks, as if someone had used a paintbrush to mark them.

“Don’t come back, live here, live in this place, just live,” Kaila said, her voice returning to its natural cadence.

 
Pauline cocked her head to the side as though she didn’t understand, as if the idea of living in a place outside of Wildwind was ludicrous. Silenced by Kaila’s words, Pauline studied her friend for a few more minutes, clearly baffled by the statement. Another time, long before she had stepped into the real, seen and done things that she had only envisioned through the screen of a computer, Kaila might have been thrilled to have Pauline back in Wildwind. With Pauline back inside, they could pick up where they had left off, easily grasping onto their routines as old friends did. But not now, not when she had seen it all and understood all that she had been missing. Being in the real had been like tasting the sweet flavor of sugar for the first time ever, once it passed across your taste buds your tongue would never be the same, and you would crave that sweetness over and again. That was what it had felt like for Kaila, only her sugar had been real life and all the sweetness that came with it. Kaila understood that all of her experiences would soon come to an end and she would return to Wildwind, but Pauline had a chance in the real.

Pauline laughed nervously.
 

“This is all getting too heavy. I need to dance, let’s dance. Come on Derrick.”

 
She glided toward Derrick, grasping both of his hands in hers, then she tugged him to his feet. Before he could protest she had pressed her body against his, stealing his mouth in a kiss. Derrick leaned into the kiss, working his fingers down Pauline’s naked spine until they came to rest on her hips. Whatever space that had been between them vanished. Kaila watched with apt interest as their mouths worked in time with one another. Derrick’s hands explored Pauline’s body without abandon, as if Kaila was no longer there.

 
“He has a girlfriend,” Kaila blurted out.
 

She was suddenly jealous that Derrick was with someone that wasn’t her. “And you’re supposed to be a lesbian,” she finished.
 

Pauline broke free, then spun to face Kaila. A crooked smile filled her face, crinkling her eyes in a way that Kaila seldom saw, in pure happiness.

“We need to swim,” she said without missing a beat.

Kaila stared at Pauline for a few moments, mulling the idea over in her head.

“But I don’t have a bathing suit like you do,” Kaila said. Her attention had been diverted away from the anger that had been brewing at the sight of Pauline and Derrick together. She glanced down at the turquoise water of the pool. In that moment all she could think about was what it would feel like to be submerged in that water, have it rush over her body, just one more memory that she could tug out of her mind after she was back in Wildwind.

“Don’t worry, I have a bunch of spares, let me go inside and get something for you.”
 

She brought her focus to Derrick whose grin was unnaturally toothy.

“I have something for you too,” she purred.
 

“You like girls, why are you looking at him like that,” Kaila said.

 
The irritation that she had forgotten was back in full force.
 

“Why are you looking at him like you want to have sex with him? He’s not Janelle.”

Pauline’s face instantly fell, her eyes filled with tears.
 

“Don’t say that name again. Janelle is like everyone else, she used me and when she got bored...”
 

She shook her head violently. “She hooked up with some old boyfriend as soon as she got out and…fuck her, fuck them all…I’m just trying to be
normal
Kaila, boys and girls together is normal. At least that’s what my parents try to drive into my brain day and night.”
 

She screwed up her face and crossed her eyes.
 

“All attempts at individual beliefs are futile, you will be assimilated into the collective,” Pauline said in a robotic voice then broke into hysterical laughter.
 

Her behavior unsettled Kaila because she didn’t understand why Pauline would giggle when it quite obviously wasn’t a funny subject. Before she could mention this fact, Pauline had disappeared into the house, leaving her and Derrick alone.

Derrick’s eyes were glued to the door where Pauline had disappeared into the house, as though he was incapable of looking anywhere else.

Kaila moved toward the glass table. She locked on the remaining two lines of cocaine. She picked up the rolled dollar bill. Before she could copy what Derrick and Pauline had done, Pauline had returned. Kaila dropped the bill onto the table, her attention moved to the bathing suits in Pauline’s grasp.

 
Pauline tossed a balled piece of burgundy cloth towards Kaila. It promptly landed at her feet. A black bundle sailed toward Derrick next. He caught his gift in one hand. Kaila stepped forward, plucking the one-piece bathing suit from the ground where it had landed. She shook it out until it hung straight in front of her. To Kaila’s inexperienced eye, the suit looked smallish, but when she tested the fabric she realized that it was stretchy.

“You can change over there,” Pauline said, motioning to a small hut structure.
 

It appeared to be made from natural wood, knotted in parts, the grain exhibited in all its splendor by a wood stain that had been coated in varnished until it glimmered like the surface of a still lake. The hut was topped by what looked to be a genuine straw roof.

“Speedo? I’m not wearing a speedo, I don’t care how stoned I am, these are just wrong,” Derrick protested.

 
Kaila didn’t bother to gauge the piece of clothing that he was balking at. She was too eager to put on her own bathing suit.
 

She scurried to the place where Pauline had indicated.

“Take it or leave it, it’s all I have…I think you can pull it off though,” Pauline said just as Kaila closed the door behind her.

 
The space was economical in size, with an overhead light that couldn’t illuminate the windowless place enough to eliminate the darkish ambiance. A full-length mirror with another light attached to the top helped some, but nothing compared to the natural light outside.
 

Kaila stripped off her clothes. Despite knowing that the bathing suit would stretch somewhat, she was still a slightly surprised when the tiny piece of fabric slipped effortlessly over her hips, then her torso. The suit felt odd against her frame, compressing her body parts in a way that didn’t feel restrictive yet still hugged her curves, much like a brand new bra before it had been stretched by wear.
 

Kaila slid her hands down her front, gliding over her stomach. She noticed that the slight roundness of her belly had been diminished considerably, giving it the appearance of almost being flat. The bathing suit was cut high at the arch of her thighs, making her legs seem longer, more slender. The front was V-shaped with a clear stone clasp set in gold that pulled the two pieces together at her breasts, yet still managed to expose more cleavage than she had ever shown before. Kaila was surprised at how the hue of her skin had changed. Her freckles had become more pronounced from just a few days in the sun.

She had never felt comfortable with changing into clothes that weren’t to her particular specifications, but since this was her first bathing suit she didn’t have any preconceived notions on what she did and did not like. She turned a few times in front of the mirror, examining her body. The color seemed to blend seamlessly with her copper colored hair that on closer inspection was more tangled and askew than she had realized. Kaila longed for her brush, tucked away in her bag that was far away from her now.
 

As soon as she thought about Derrick an odd flush surged through her, warming ever part of her with something that felt a lot like when she and Norm had been in the storage closet. She wondered what Derrick looked like in his swimsuit and whether he would like how she looked, and if he would think that she was sexy. She had already seen him in just his underwear, but somehow this felt more intimate because it was on purpose.
 

Trillian suddenly pushed forward, doing her best to snatch the moment from Kaila, but Kaila resisted. There was so little time left for her to be outside of Wildwind that she couldn’t afford to lose even a second. After several minutes of internal battling, Kaila finally shoved Trillian away completely.

When she exited the hut she saw that Pauline and Derrick had already jumped into the pool. They were tangled together in a way that was so overtly sexual that Kaila might have felt embarrassed if she hadn’t been so angry. They were pushed against the side of the pool, Derrick’s back with his infinity tattoo, was facing Kaila. Pauline was arched away from him, her head resting on the ledge of the pool, but their pelvises remained clamped together. Derrick’s arm encircled her waist as if they had always been a couple, in a way that belied that Derrick had a girlfriend and that Pauline loved girls, not boys.
 

Pauline’s hair had moved to the side and her star-shaped scar seemed to glare at Kaila, reminding Kaila of all the things she couldn’t have. Pauline’s hand was lost in the front of Derrick’s trunks. Derrick’s hand was wedged beneath Pauline’s bikini top, massaging her breast as he kissed a line down her neck. Kaila cared as much about Pauline as she felt capable of, and Derrick had somehow grown on her, even so, seeing them together like that had fury roiling in her stomach. She wanted to rip them apart, toss them out of the pool and…

“Kaila, come on in,” Pauline said, breaking away from Derrick.
 

Derrick turned toward Kaila, his face was flushed more than before. His expression was dazed like he had just woken up; his face was so red that he looked as if he had been sitting in a thousand degree sauna. Pauline reached Kaila’s side of the pool in a few graceful strokes, the tips of her wet hair trailed behind her like a mermaid.
 

“What’s wrong? You look pissed,” Pauline said. She rested her arms on the side of the pool, directly in front of Kaila.

“Why do you and Derrick do those things together, are you going to have sex?”
 

Even saying the words seemed too much for Kaila to bear.

Pauline shrugged.
 

“Maybe,” she said.
 

Kaila’s temper had reached the limit; all she could do was release it the best way she knew how. Thankfully she was still thinking straight enough to know that she didn’t want to hurt Pauline or Derrick. She raced toward a small metal-framed patio table. Her fingers made purchase and she heaved it up.
 

“Kaila,” Derrick hollered much too late.
 

Everything seemed to slow in pace as the table sailed through the air for what felt impossibly long, until it finally smashed into the stone wall that enclosed the back yard, about forty feet away. It bounced off the stone, a leg buckled from the force, then it proceeded to mow through half a dozen ceramic pots, over-brimming with flowers. It promptly stopped moving moments later, where it lay inert on the grass.

Kaila drew in a long sigh, appeased by the violence that she had released. She was pleased that she had done so well to control it; Trillian hadn’t even been there to help.

“Fuck Kaila.”
 

Pauline was suddenly standing beside her, her mouth agape. She broke into raucous laughter. Derrick joined them seconds later. He gazed at the scene of the crime, his expression was awestruck.
 

“That’s some real muscle,” he said, slicking back his wet hair.
 

Derrick quickly joined in with Pauline, laughing so hard that he was forced to bend over at the waist from the effort. Kaila watched them, completely baffled by their odd reactions. She was reminded that this real world was so very different from Wildwind, where right now she would have had the needle and would have been on her way to the White Room.

Kaila shook her head, all remnants of her anger dissolved. She turned her back to them, then moved to the shallow end of the pool. She gingerly sat at the edge then let her body slip in.
 

The water was cool against the summer heat, delicious and refreshing at the same time. She ducked beneath the water, opening her eyes to the clear surrounding her. When a body splashed into the pool several feet away from her she watched the snowy white clouds of bubbles dance across the water, then settle to reveal a pair of legs that were undeniably Pauline’s. When Kaila’s air finally ran out, and she was forced back to the surface, it was as if she was entering the world again, as if beneath the water she had been transported to another time, another space.
 

Pauline was just a few feet away from her, her hair smooth against her head. It framed her face in dark sheets. Derrick teetered at the edge of the deep end. He belly-flopped with a loud splat long before Kaila could get a good look at his mostly naked body. When he surfaced a few seconds later he swam with expert strokes toward the two girls, half-grinning. And Kaila saw his beauty, and that he had once again transformed into being all man. He was different from Norm, and all the other men she had seen on her screen, but also so perfect. She didn’t care that his chest was narrow or that he wasn’t muscled like men were supposed to be. It mattered little that his nose was too narrow, his lips too cute, because he was everything she had never known she had wanted, but had found all the same.