The Bitch Posse (8 page)

His eyes seem bruised, like a flimsy petal she’s rubbed too much between her fingers, and she’s pulled him too close, she knows that, even as he’s fucking her one last time of the morning.
Goddamn it, I shouldn’t
have said that. I should have just written the evaluation and sealed it in the envelope like I was supposed to, oh, God.
He pushes into her, farther, farther, why can’t he fuck her harder, hurt her, make her bleed? She links her ankles behind his back to pull him in even more, and just as she’s about to come she opens her eyes and notices the flames leaping from the pan. The pancakes are burning, and she yells, “Fuck!”

Bay pulls away and grabs the sprayer from the sink as she rushes over and turns off the pilot light. He douses everything with water, and now the nice morning smell is wrecked, the scorched butter odor hanging in the air like smoke from a refinery fire. All she can fill the awkward moment with is “Whoa, close one.” The sex is ruined, of course, their heat burned into ash, and it’s useless trying to start again.

She fills the sink with water and drops the smoking pan into it. It hisses for a moment, steams up, then sinks beneath the soapsuds. There’s no time for breakfast, no time for anything.

“Should get going.” Bay grabs his lesson plan from the kitchen table, the beautiful, gorgeous lesson plan that’s perfectly typed and formatted. She did look at it, she
did.
He timed five minutes for warmups, ten for a freewrite, twenty for a group activity, and . . . Oh, Lord, she drank too much last night. Her head hurts. A swallow of red wine beckons her from the bottle on the counter, and she lifts it to her lips, finishes it.

She splashes the coffee into the sink with the scorched pan. If she had time she’d light a candle and kill the ruined, petrified smell, but of course it’s seven-thirty already and traffic’s fucked up by now. The mug clatters to the counter, and she follows Bay to the bedroom. From her dresser she pulls out her knit top and cardigan sweater and jeans for teaching, layers because it’s always so cold in the morning and hot by afternoon.

Next to her Bay wordlessly pulls on his clothes. Neither of them looks at the knife that sits on the bedside table, stained with Rennie’s blood.

March 1988
Holland, Illinois

There’s a test in French, and I never study, so I cut and headed over to Sam’s. Marian inhaled all her coke over the weekend, which means she’ll be a complete and utter bitch until she scores some at work tonight, so I’m sure as hell not staying home. Instead I’m lying on my back on Sam’s living room floor, the bottle of peppermint schnapps inches from my fingertips as we debate Marx, physical labor versus intellectual labor. I get a charge out of debating because it makes me feel smart, smarter than Rennie, even. Sam and I are always on the opposite sides of things, and sometimes things heat up so hot they scorch. It never scares me—Jesus, I live with Marian—and he rides me to the edge of the world; one breath and he could blow me into the universe. But we have to fight first. That’s just how we work.

I’m about to logic-ize Sam under the table, which means I get to pick where in Sam’s apartment we have sex and I get to boss him. I may
not be Rennie Taylor, Girl Genius who reads
The New York Times
from first page to last every day, but my mind works quick, even when I’m fucked up, or should I say
especially
when I’m fucked up. Sam and I are so fucking predictable, but not as predictable as Marian. I half-hope she
doesn’t
score some coke at work, because when she brings it home she feels generous and wants me to do lines with her, presses it on me, pushes, pushes, just like ordinary moms probably fill your plate with lasagna despite your protests. Only I will never try cocaine, never never never never.

“Cherry, you don’t even understand the most basic Marxist concept. Let me say it very slowly. Value. Derives. From. Labor.”

He’s being insulting, and half of me burns with hatred and half of me loves being given a reason to blow up, to fight, to release the tension that’s built up in me. I vow to be a difficult bitch about the whole conversation because it makes things a hell of a lot more fun. “Got. It. Sam.”

Sam always sweats when he drinks, and a few blond strands cling to his forehead, pulled together like snakes. “So. Next concept. In
Das Kapital
Marx says, ‘More complicated labor counts as simple labor raised to a higher power.’”

I know where he’s going with this. He can be such an ass. “What’s your point?”

“That means I’m doing intellectual labor by writing my essays.” See, he writes these fucking essays that no one but me and him reads, and he thinks that’s going to, I don’t know, start a revolution or something.

He takes the schnapps bottle from me and gulps a few times. “So you need to take care of physical labor like finishing those dishes in the sink and giving me a blow job.”

I burst out laughing. “Show me someone who’ll trade an essay for a blow job, and I’ll show you a truly desperate individual.”

“Come on, Cherry. How much training does it take to do a blow job?
Now, think about how many years of study I’ve put into understanding the works of Marx and Lenin and Trotsky. There’s no comparison.”

“Who are you to say how many years I’ve put into doing blow jobs?” He’s actually the first one, but I’ll never admit that. I’m the girl who’s been bad since the day she was born. “News flash, here’s how you get a blow job from me. Gimme some of this, then I’ll give you some of that.”

His eyes narrow as he drinks some more and wipes his mouth. “So, are you going to write the definitive work about the transition from the first phase of communist society to its higher phase, and the complete withering away of the state?”

“The problem with your stupid argument, Sam, is that this society you describe has never existed anywhere in the world.” The fact that Sam can use Marxism to make me do the dishes or give him a blow job proves that there is something seriously wrong with that philosophy. “Karl Marx can eat my sorry cunt.” Marx has a point, I guess, in that people are after money and power all the time, and the rich should share with the poor. But like most philosophies, it doesn’t stand up to reality. “You want to move to the Soviet Union and stand in a breadline? Or would you consider Cuba a better example?”

“Old argument, Cherry. I don’t think I have to explain that the dictatorship of the proletariat . . . ” And he goes on, and on, and on, and I tune out and watch his face instead. Someday I’ll reach way inside him and pull out that little boy I see in his eyes. Someday I’ll make him care.

I half-listen, but mainly I’m ticking away time until I can fall into bed with him. Really, what would solve things is if the Russians dropped a half dozen nukes on us and we’d have to start from scratch. When I saw
The Day After
I was only twelve and terrified out of my skull, but if they show it again, I’ll cheer. Better to blow up the whole sick planet than try to fix what’s unfixable. It’s just too late for stuff like communism. I used to believe in anarchy, but to tell you the truth, that idea scares me too. If there were no laws, what would keep people from hurting each other? Anyway, anarchism’s an ism too.

Yeah, I know what I’m
against,
all right.

I just don’t know what I’m
for.

Probably nobody does. “Come on, Sam, the concept is dead.”

Animal hunger flashes in his eyes. This is the hot, sexy moment when he’s angry, when the hard cast to his gaze sends chills up and down my legs. Sam really thinks we’re on the verge of revolution, that his essay matters, matters more than the papers he doesn’t write for Psychology 203, Shakespeare, whatever classes he’s cutting today, all the “capitalist bullshit” he’s supposed to be studying, and why he’s on academic probation. But it’s endearing in a way—hell, at least he thinks I’m worth discussing this with. I kick off my shoes, pull my sweater over my head, sit up and shrug off my bra. “Give me the fucking schnapps.”

“Where did those pretty tits come from?” Pie hands me the bottle, and I take a long swig. I just want to get so drunk that I forget how pissed off Sam makes me, that the dirty dishes lie unwashed in his sink. It’s never that I buy into his bullshit philosophy, but part of me feels sorry for him. Hell, his parents can’t stand him, he doesn’t have anybody either.

As peppermint’s clearing my nostrils, Rennie pops into my head. Something’s worrying her. Her face was creased Friday night with some kind of frustration, and it’s probably school because Rennie freaks out over a B-plus, a grade that would thrill me and most people I know. I vow to coax it out of her later and do some Cherry-therapy, which usually involves a great big ol’ fatty in my room and some fuck-the-world music like the Dead Kennedys. I love that kind of music nobody likes, except lately it’s occurred to me that even the Dead Kennedys have press people, a marketing campaign. I try not to think that way, but I know in the end I’m just another consumer and it doesn’t really matter which cassette I buy as long as I buy one. Which is why I try to shoplift as much as I can.

Yeah, I think I’ll have the girls sleep over tonight. No one ever
wants to go home, and even though I don’t either, at least we can have the room to ourselves and Marian won’t annoy us about getting so stoned we fall asleep.

Sam pinches my breasts, and I choke on the schnapps. “What the fuck’s that about?”

“You’re not paying attention.”

This is his challenge; we’re just getting started now. “You’re such a dumb fuck.”

He grabs my wrists. “Bitch.”

I sink my nails into the fleshy part of his forearms, slicing open the skin, and he squeezes my wrists harder. “You bet I am.” He grabs my tits again and squeezes them so hard it feels like he’s ripping them off me. And it feels good to hurt, to be hurt. I feel real.

My lips tremble, but I’m not scared. Just to prove it, I slap my open hand across his face. He looks a little surprised but grabs my hair and pulls the curls near my ears, hard. He presses my lips to his, and they’re searing hot. I want to reach the top with him, to kill him, just for the high. “Fuck you, Sam,” I whisper against his lips, and now he lets go to unzip his jeans. He grabs me by the waist of my skirt and yanks it, breaking the elastic. “Asshole, I hate you.” This time I want to be the one to drag him to the bedroom kicking and screaming. I want to be the one to rape him. He’s not much bigger than me, and I grab his hands and yank them behind his back, reaching for the set of handcuffs we keep in a little secret place behind the TV.

He bristles, pulls away. “No.”

This is part of the game, so I slap him a little more. My handprints float across his back and his ass like butterflies. “Kitchen table, now, you son of a bitch.”

A curtain of fire hangs in the air between us. “No, Cherry. You this time.” I sting another slap across his cheek, and the flames light his eyes again.

He balls his hand into a fist and punches me in the face.

Goddamn,
fuck!
I put my hand to my nose and it comes away with blood. This is a line we just don’t cross. The choke of sex flakes away to anger. “What the hell’d you do that for?” I make a fist too and land one in his belly before he grabs my wrists and pushes them over my head. The cuffs snap shut.

“No one does that to me, Cherry, no one.” Even though I’m already bleeding, his fist lands on my cheek. But I’m strong and I kick him in the shin, hard. Tears are running down my cheeks. Am I supposed to be liking this? I’m a jumble of confusion and anxiety, and most of the sexy feelings have drained out of me. Somehow, I distance myself from the scene as he pulls me away from the kitchen table and tosses me onto the sofa, rolls on a condom and rides me. In my head my two best friends are holding my hands, and I watch Cherry Winters cry out and beg him,
Fuck me, fuck me hard!
despite herself. Inside I’m saying,
I’m really pissed off at you, Cherry Winters, how could you be so weak?

When it’s all over, Sam fixes my skirt with a safety pin. His I’m-sorry-it’s-just-a-game kisses land all over my body, and he rubs my back, brings some tissues for my nose. When the bleeding stops, I pull my makeup bag out of my purse, hand shaking as I brush mascara back across my eyelashes, smudge cover-up over my nose. Why did it happen? Is he losing control?

Or am I?