The Accidental Siren (10 page)

Peals of distant laughter broke the spell;
Livy and her friends were still coloring shirts in buckets of dye
in the driveway. They were having fun. I pulled my eye from the
viewfinder and looked at Mara. “If you’d rather go back–”

“Nope,” she said. “And if you say you’re
sorry one more time, I’m gonna make
you
play dress-up.”

That smile again. Teeth like polished pearls.
Dimples!

“Now...” she said, “whatcha want me to
do?”

My lungs heaved as I scrambled to remember
the plan. “Well, I stole some makeup and a mirror from Livy–”

“She’s gonna be ticked.”

“It’s fine. She’s the makeup artist
anyway.”

“Cool!”

“I brought the costume chest from the
playroom to the tower so you have a place to change. It’s mostly
Livy’s crap from dance competitions and old Halloweens, but we
might find somethin’ that works for the movie. Dad’s gonna give me
money for fabric after I propose the costume budget, then Mom’s
gonna help me sew your dress.”

Mara grabbed the rim of her blouse and
wiggled it over her head, snapping her strawberry hair through the
hole and reducing her ensemble to a pleated undershirt and a
blue-jean skirt. “Your mom can do anything, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“What a sweetheart. I like her a lot.”

I avoided the sentiment in a panel of
camcorder buttons and knobs. Yesterday I feared Mara’s resentment
for what I did... but not today.

“So!” she said, twirling her blouse and
shattering the moment’s sobriety, “who do I play in this crazy
fairytale?”

“You’re the main character. The Girl.”

“Do I have a name?”

“No. Is that bad?”

“The Girl... kinda neat!”

The tiny affirmation lifted my spirits more
than the culmination of praise from my family and friends.

“What does The Girl do?” she asked.

My brain flipped into pitch mode and I
answered her question with elaborate hand gestures. “Right at the
beginning, The Girl goes back to her home and discovers that her
father is missing. He was killed by an evil prince, but she doesn’t
know that. She’s just a kid and doesn’t even know that people die.
All she knows is that her father’s gone, so she goes on a quest to
find him. She has lots of adventures on the way. There’s this war
between humans and monsters and she gets caught in the middle, then
there’s this lair with a monster who captures little girls–that was
Whit’s idea–then she gets to the castle where the prince lives and
learns that her father isn’t being held captive, he’s actually
dead.”

Mara’s eyes were wide with genuine
excitement. “That. Is.
Awesome.
How are you gonna make a
whole war?”

“Dunno yet. Guess we’ll figure it out when we
get there!”

She grinned. “This is gonna be a good
summer.”

Any response would have fallen short, so I
nodded then pointed to the tower. “Everything’s ready. Just try not
to touch my dad’s bird stuff or he’ll know.”

“Okay, okay!” Mara tossed her blouse over the
wrought-iron railing and bounded up the spiral steps using her arms
like an extra set of legs.

While The Girl prepared for test number one,
I pulled the mesh curtains across the massive window to soften the
sunlight. I double checked the tape deck for a fresh Hi-8 cassette;
it was firmly in place. I smelled my armpits–a growing habit–then
repositioned the camera to face a whitewashed brick wall lit by the
diffused sunlight.

Ten minutes later, a sensual voice beckoned
me to the steps. “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. Parker.”

Mara emblazed the balcony like a cabaret
Juliet; top hat, cane, and a sinister-red sequined leotard
sculpting her petite waist and chest. Her makeup became apparent as
she swaggered down the steps; lips that matched the sequins,
crooked eyeliner, and long, fake eyelashes on her right eye.

When she reached the last step, Mara slipped
her arm around mine, and I escorted her from the staircase to the
illuminated wall.

“Face the camera,” I said and positioned her
shoulders at the proper angle.

Without breaking her stoicism, she lifted her
right hand–a slight gap between her forefinger and middle–and I
knew what she needed. I removed a pretend zippo from my pocket,
flicked the chrome lid, cupped my hand around hers, and lit her
invisible cigarette. Raising it to her lips, she thanked me with a
lofty smirk and a bout of make-believe smoke.

I hit record. “Look left,” I said.

She did.

“Good. Look right?”

She did.

“
Nice.”

All the famous directors tested their
cameras, wardrobe and actors before filming; I wasn’t sure what I
was looking for, but if George Lucas did it, I had to do it too. I
tested the zoom and autofocus (bitchin’!), then reeled back to view
the whole costume. There weren’t any Vegas chorus girls in my
mediaeval fairytale, but it was important to test the camera’s
functions against a variety of colors and textures. Plus, I wanted
to see Mara act.

“Smile for me, Ms. Mara?”

She swiped back her hair, widened her eyes,
and bore into the lens with a carnal gaze. Her lips didn’t move but
I felt her smile.

She spoke with a dry purr. “My name? The
Girl. My home? The woods of Fairytale Land. My mission? To find my
father.”

I held the shot for an extra beat... then hit
stop. “Annnd, cut!”

Like a popped water balloon, Mara shed her
gravitas, grabbed her tummy, and keeled in a fit of giggles. “I
could only find one set of eyelashes.” she said. “I must look like
such a dork!”

I shook my head and smiled. “You were
perfect.”

“For real?” she pulled herself together,
spread her feet, and held her hips in a classic Peter Pan stance.
“Ready for more?”

* * *

Lust is primal. Lust, like violence, must be
repressed to maintain civil order. We’re born with lust. We die
with lust. Adults deny the ability of precious children to wander
into black fantasies or to seek unfamiliar excitement. But lust,
like all primal urges, unites us; boys and girls, young and old,
humans and animals. No one is spared.

I haven’t read Nabokov’s “Lolita,” but I saw
both movies in a college course titled “Controversies in
Contemporary Cinema.” Some would call me a heretic if I suggested
that Adrian Lyne’s made-for-TV interpretation is better than
Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece... but it’s true. Lyne bests Kubrick
in the first ten minutes of film by including Humbert Humbert’s
adolescent romance and depicting his deplorable deeds in golden
light. Of course it’s unfair to compare the movies as Kubrick’s
version was made during the era of the Hollywood Hays Code which
restricted the sensuality needed to tell the complete story. But
this limitation doesn’t change the fact that Lyne’s version is a
more realistic portrayal of forbidden lust.

Now I’m faced with the decision to play it
safe (to preserve the accessibility of my memoir; to keep you, the
reader, comfortable in your favorite reading chair) or to delve
headfirst into the taboo ramifications of Mara’s power. Forgive me,
friend, for siding with controversial honesty over benign
accord.

I tiptoed backward from the spiral stairs
until my butt rammed into the couch. I extended my neck like a
collapsable telescope and caught a glimpse of Mara’s head and
shoulders as she danced and changed outfits on the lid of the
costume chest. She wiggled. She mouthed words to a silent song. She
twirled steadily like a ballerina on pointe, scanning the forest
horizon from her new vantage.

Mara emerged a moment later as a fairy. A
light-green dress trailed in billows as she descended the stairs
with whimsical grace; her cream legs flittered behind the black
rungs as she approached the bottom step, then she slid in my arms,
leaned back, and I dipped her. (I wanted to explore–to douse my
senses in fleshy
girl
–but I held back; I bound my desire to
taste
the same way I sat on my hands in the tree.)

“Action!”
Left, right, smile, frown...
“Cut!”

Next, Mara became a chimera of halloween
clichés; a witch’s hat over a black wig, Whit’s mad-scientist robe
from last fall’s zombie movie, knee-highs with green and orange
stripes, a silver-painted squirt gun in her right hand and a
devil’s trident in her left (”Get behind me, Satan!” I suddenly
recalled. “Tempt me no more!”). Eyeliner raccooned her sockets,
white powder deadened her cheeks, and when she smiled, Dracula’s
plastic fangs had replaced her pearls.

“I vant to suck yer blood!” Mara spread her
arms and lunged, pinning me to the back of the beat-up sectional in
the center of the ballroom. I playfully pushed her away (if only to
have a reason to touch) but she strengthened her goofy assault,
stretched her mouth, and gorged my neck.

Shoot it.

Cut it.

Next!

Shorts to her bellybutton covered in neon
splats of paint, and a tee, hot-pink, knotted below her chest. A
zebra-print snap bracelet on her left wrist; a pony-tail stemming
from the top of her head.

Next!

Multi-colored tights and a leather skirt;
eyes hiding behind blue-tinted shades; balled-up
somethings
beneath a suede vest and white undershirt... a bold preview of
future cravings.

Next!

Braided pigtails, OshKosh overalls and a
simple cotton tank; a portrait of farm-girl innocence that I longed
to corrupt in a field of corn, cuddling, as we try to distinguish
real constellations from random groupings of stars. (The warm
sensations returned and I longed to make my nocturnal passions
real.)

I forgot about the camera tests, reveling
instead in Mara’s sensual personas; molding her style to my liking,
sending her back to the tower for more of this, less of that (”Why
don’t you try them together?”); spoiling my standards for the
female form and defining–forever–my perceptions of beauty.

“Last one,” she called before she emerged; a
baroque angel with a pipe-cleaner halo and an inside-out tee (my
night shirt twenty-pounds previous) hanging three inches above her
knee. Strapped to her back were wings of white lace and feathers,
the origin of which I cannot recall. Her celestial demeanor was so
believable that my heart ached at the possibility of flight; that
Mara might soar away and never return. She wore lip gloss too
(watermelon flavored,
I could smell it
) and I recalled our
touching noses in the tree and wondered where exactly these new
conceptions were forming;
to bend that halo, to gnarl my fingers
against her scalp, to suck the shine from those pink lips.

The reverence I showed for Roselyn’s thigh
had been desecrated in less than two weeks. It was Mara’s
doing.

“I want to kiss you,” I said, an innocent
incarnation of my nasty thoughts.

She leaned against the wall. I knew I made a
mistake.

“James...” she said. “You’re like my brother
now.”

Ouch.
I leaned my head against my
camera.

“If your parents found out, I’d be so
embarrassed.”

“Dad’s at work and Mom’s meeting with
Fantasia’s birth mom. They won’t be back till–”

Mara was small against the great white wall.
Her wings–which seemed real only moments ago–were merely a costume
mashed against the brick. Her eyes shifted to some arbitrary point
across the room. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

I don’t have the talent to describe that
feeling of rejection, nor the resulting urge to take what I wanted
from that girl,
the ultimate tease
. My only desire stood an
arm length away; lonely shoulders propped against the wall, a
smudge of mascara below her left eye, mysteries hidden beneath
angelic garb that could only be explored in the flesh, not in some
encyclopedia illustration or my father’s cold speech.

Before you judge me, understand that these
desires were not selfish. The concept of
mutual
exploration
was the only concept that excited me. If a first kiss or
experimental foray made Mara uncomfortable, it would defeat my
purpose and defile my pleasure. All I could do was sit on my hands
and wait for the angel to let me in.

But was it too late? Did I already screw
things up? By asking for a kiss, did I prove I was no different
than the boys she called ‘ferrets’ or Ms. Grisham or everyone else
who fell slave to her charm?

I won’t describe that itch again in this
book, but as you continue with my story and read about my
interactions with Mara–even in the tenderest moments when a dirty
thought would be sacrilege–it’s reasonable to assume I was battling
these same feelings.

What separates me from the real perverts? The
fact that my fantasies grew as I did
.
Today, when I think
about Mara as a child, I recall her playfulness; her ability to
connect instantly with the plight of a Saturday-morning cartoon;
the way she called refrigerators “Frigidaires” and butterflies
“flutter-bys”; her kindness...

Today, my feelings toward that child involve
a savage need to protect–
to keep pure–
but, as a little boy
with limited knowledge of the developed female form, Mara Lynn was
eighty-five pounds of goddess perfection.

* * *

(Judge that boy if you must; for debauchery,
for objectifying innocence... but before you finalize your verdict,
oh
innocent reader
, I beg you to scan again that last
stanza. What you and I overlooked in our cloud of perversion and
nasty objectification was the unrestrained joy of a little girl
playing dress-up for the very first time.)

* * *

When left unsatisfied, lust becomes
violence.

Enter Danny B.

Somewhere in the valley–well beyond The Great
Divide–A.J.’s father was working with friends to plow a firebreak
through his acreage. Every few minutes a man would shout and the
tractor would stop. Sometimes they laughed, and the sound would
bounce and multiply through the trees, personifying my forest with
the illusion of masculine camaraderie. If the bullies were down
there with the adults, then they were either helping with the
firebreak, or playing at the end of a short leash. But I left my
camera at home, just in case.