Tiger, Tiger (27 page)
Hearing about his life got depressing after a while, though, and I just wanted to get back to having fun. So I said, “Peter, I’d like to climb up the waterfall. Right now: to show you I’m not afraid of anything.”
“I don’t want you to climb it unless you want to. Don’t try to impress me.”
“Well, maybe it is a bad idea,” I said, eyeing the waterfall. “I don’t have a swimsuit. I’ll get soaked.”
“Go up naked, then,” Peter said, chuckling. “I dare you!”
“Okay,” I said, and started to undress.
“I was just kidding! Margaux, no!”
But it was too late. I was determined to show Peter just how daring I was. Peter kept saying the waterfall was too close to the road, the cars going by could see me and my nudity could cause a serious accident. I wasn’t concerned. Naked as a grasshopper, I started scaling the small waterfall, using the stones above my head to hoist myself up and keeping my feet poised on stones below me. The slowly trickling water was icy cold and the stones were slippery and mossy beneath my bare feet and hands. I liked that feeling, of the moss, and also the cold water; more than anything, though, I liked knowing Peter was watching me from below.
“Hey, Peter!” I called through cupped hands, sitting at the top of the waterfall. “Look at me!”
I was so triumphant about having conquered the waterfall that when we returned to Peter’s house at early dusk to give Paws his evening walk, I leaped off the motorcycle, forgetting about the hot engine, which Peter warned me about whenever I wore shorts. I burned my ankle.
Peter helped me limp upstairs to his room, where I lay, leg extended on his bed. The burn had puffed itself into a large, clear bubble. He got a plastic cup and a roll of Scotch tape from the kitchen and said, “That bubble is there to protect and help heal the burn. I’m going to tape this cup over it to keep it from breaking.”
I nodded, wincing as he taped the cup.
“Now what?” I asked.
“I’m going out to buy some antiseptic spray,” said Peter. “Something to help speed the healing and take away any pain. In the meantime, just be very careful that you don’t accidentally burst the bubble.”
When he came back, Peter detached the tape and lifted the cup.
The burn looked awful: the bubble had increased in size and was now oozing clear fluid.
“Everyone gets those. Everyone who rides,” Peter said as he sprayed the burn with Solarcaine. Ricky came in and watched, which was rare for him. He was sixteen now and had recently shaved his head and gotten an eyebrow ring. Ricky and Miguel communicated with Peter only by grunting, but as it was, we rarely ran into them. The boys were so into their own business that, besides the occasional hi if they saw me alone, I was certain they barely even knew I existed.
I said to Ricky, “Do you think it’ll scar?”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“Do you have one?”
He lifted the leg of his plaid pants and unlaced his Doc Marten. “Yup. See?” he said, pointing to a circular patch of skin that was whiter than the rest of his ankle. “You’ll be branded, like me.”
“Cool,” I said.
Peter said, “Ricky used to ride with me all the time. Right, Ricky?”
Ricky grunted.
“Used to talk up a storm too, when he was younger. Now I can’t get two words out of him.”
Ricky reached into his pocket and handed me a Tootsie Roll. “Here, feel better,” he said, and walked out of the room. I was so touched by his kindness that I never ate the candy, but instead saved it in the wooden keepsake box I’d made in shop class.
The air in Peter’s room was blue with cigarette smoke. It was also blue because the only light on was the ghostly alabaster lamp, and the fabric that covered the ceiling seemed to cast everything in that strange, planetary hue.
I had called my mother and told her about the burn. Then I told her that Peter suggested I spend the night on the couch in Inès’s room. “Is that Richard around?” she asked, and I said, “No, he’s gone back to Linda.” I could hear Poppa screaming in the background when my mother proposed the idea, saying that if only he hadn’t sold the Chevy, he would have easily been able to pick me up. Then I heard Poppa say that if I hadn’t worn shorts this wouldn’t have happened; my mother agreed and said, “No more shorts on that motorcycle. Your father and I have agreed to let you spend the night on one condition: no more shorts on that motorcycle!”
So the deal was made, and for the first time Peter and I had all night to cuddle and talk. Maybe he would decide it was time to complete everything by finally having sexual intercourse with me. I’d then have an excuse to call Winnie again and tell her about how I was a grown woman at last. We were talking less and less, and our conversations had become more and more stilted.
Since Inès and the boys didn’t know I was in Peter’s room, I had to be careful not to talk too loudly. Also, he gave me an empty vase just in case I had to pee.
“This is so exciting,” I said. “It’s like I’m totally invisible.”
“Yes, and let’s keep it that way,” Peter said. “It’s fun for me, too, you know? I feel like a teenage boy who’s hiding his girlfriend from his parents. It’s naughty, don’t you think?”
“Peter, now would be a good time for us to watch dirty movies!” I opened the dresser drawer of his walnut commode, hoping this would get him into a romantic mood.
I pulled out a movie called
Loves of Lolita
. “This looks interesting. Let’s watch it.”
He laughed. “I’m almost afraid to let you watch that one. You see, this girl Lolita is unfaithful.”
“To who?” I said, intrigued.
“To her dad. They’re also lovers. Like us. It’s very good for a porno movie, it’s artistic.” He slid the tape into the VCR. “And upbeat. What I don’t like about porn is the girls sometimes look so sad and jaded, as if they don’t enjoy anything. Instead of getting turned on, I start feeling depressed. But this movie is different. The actress who plays Lolita is cheerful; she honestly enjoys sex. When she gives a blow job, she doesn’t treat it like a chore. Some girls in these movies have expressions on their faces like they’re mopping the floor or taking out the garbage.”
“Maybe to some people it’s like that,” I said, shrugging. “A chore.”
Peter paused the movie, which was just about to start, and looked at me. “If I ever thought for one moment you weren’t enjoying things as much as I was, I would stop everything sexual. I mean that.”
We had this conversation often.
“You do enjoy it, right?” he said.
“I like being Nina.” It seemed as though Peter’s other self Mr. Nasty was dependent on Nina and that he needed her to survive. The favors she gave him made him feel guilty and caused him to owe favors in return. This all amounted to me being in charge.
“Nina,” he said, shaking his head. “Nina is a naughty girl.”
“Yes,” I said, “and Nina would like it if you rubbed her between her legs while we’re watching this movie.”
“Okay. But don’t you have to go to the door first?” Peter had grown more dependent on me going to the door than I was. It was easy for me to conjure Nina now, as easy as flicking on a light switch. Peter, however, liked the old ritual of me walking to the door, turning off the light, tossing back my hair, and sliding into bed with him.
“I don’t want to walk because of my burn,” I said. “Just call her and she’ll come. Like a doggie.”
“I don’t think of her as a dog,” said Peter.
“A cat, then. A wildcat.”
“Ni-na. Ni-na. Oh, Nina. Where are you, Nina?”
“Help me, help me, I can’t get out,” I squeaked. “I’m trapped in here. It’s all these clothes. They’re suffocating me.” I took off my clothes.
“Is it you now, Nina?”
“No,” I said. “One more thing.”
“What?” said Peter.
“This plastic cup on my leg.”
“Margaux, you know that can’t be taken off. The bubble might break.”
“Oh! That name! Don’t say Margaux! It’s acid, dissolving me!”
“I’m sorry,” said Peter. “But, Nina, do understand that the name Margaux is a beautiful sound to me. It’s the name of the girl I love.” He watched as I removed the plastic cup.
“Much better,” I said as Nina and Peter started the movie. “I like pornography.” I grabed Peter’s hand and placed it between my legs.
He laughed uneasily. “We better be careful about that burn.”
“Oh, you silly man,” I said. I could feel that I was fully Nina and it was thrilling. “That burn isn’t anywhere near my pussy.”
Peter winced at the use of that word. “I’m sorry . . . Whenever I look at it, I feel bad. When I’m with you, I’m responsible for you. Can you please put the cup back on? For safety’s sake?”
I shook my head no and we silently watched the movie as Peter rubbed me. Lolita must have been about nineteen in real life but she was made up to look much younger than I was. She had two floppy pigtails, a plaid schoolgirl’s skirt, white kneesocks, and was even skinnier than I was. Peter was right, she was cheerful. She smiled and laughed as she had sex with different men: two guys who came to fix her air conditioner, a doctor who examined her, and later her father. He spanked her for seducing those men and she pouted because she didn’t understand how she’d been bad. After the father spanked Lolita, he had sex with her to show her he still loved her and that she wasn’t ruined in his eyes. After a while, I put Peter’s hand back because the movie wasn’t turning Nina on. Nina was aroused only by fantasies of domination over guys.
“So what did you think of the movie?” Peter asked after it was over.
“I liked it. Hey, someday we need to watch a movie of gay men.” I said it casually, though I badly wanted to. I didn’t enjoy seeing women give blow jobs or have intercourse; however, I found the thought that a man could substitute for a woman exhilarating. I wanted to see a male do to another male what seemed boring or even degrading when done to a girl. I wanted to be reassured that men and women were not so different. Peter’s movies made it seem that the whole world was just women submitting to men, and I knew that wasn’t true. Once I’d nabbed one of Richard’s porn magazines from the living room and learned about dominatrices. I wanted more than anything to get a movie about them, but I knew Peter would never rent a movie about women controlling men.
Lighting another cigarette, Peter said, “I guess I can get a movie about gay men, though I’d be embarrassed to pay for it.”
“Well, were you embarrassed buying this movie? Considering that she’s like a little girl and all?” I pointed to the cover. “She doesn’t look like whatever her real age is at all.”
Peter snorted. “Are you kidding me? Everybody buys movies like these. All men like young girls whether they admit it or not. Most guys are just dishonest about it. But if people didn’t like it, why would there be so many movies with older girls dressing up to look so young or so-called underage girls dressing sexy? The whole society is hypocritical, if you ask me. If you were to openly admit, yes, I find young girls attractive, you’d be burned at the stake.”
Nina was losing power; I’d already started thinking about the blood and pain Winnie told me accompanied a girl’s first time. Winnie, my best and secret friend. Winnie, who’d always so graciously offered me tips on how to improve myself. As the image of Jill stared down at me, I could only think that she was a hundred times prettier; my movements were now graceless, my eyes without Nina to enliven them could only stare stupidly like a sow’s. Peter’s letters, rather than boost my self-esteem, sometimes damaged it, though of course that wasn’t his intention. He’d always tell me: “I’m not your father; I’m not the kids in school who tease you. I accept you just the way you are.” Which was what, exactly? Those words always hurt, no matter how he meant them.
“Peter, you know what I feel like now? Lying on my stomach so you can come on me.” I knew Peter wouldn’t want to do it with the burn because of being nervous about breaking the bubble. But the fact that he would be reluctant was now the exact reason I wanted him to. Besides, I needed him to feel guilty for coming on me so he’d then cuddle and hug and thank me afterward. I knew our barter system wasn’t fair, but it got me some of the affection I needed from Peter, especially when Nina was gone.
Peter said, “With that burn, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
But after a bit more convincing, he put down the bed and got on top of me. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through the sheet as if I were digging into the ground. When he got up the bubble was broken, leaking clear fluid onto the sheet.
T
een
and
Seventeen
advertised the return of the sixties, and mannequins on Bergenline Avenue sported shirts splashed with patterns of large bright flowers and ankle-length hippie skirts tied in the front with long beaded strings. Also in style were stirrup pants, shirts with shoulder pads, and wide headbands. Crimped hair was out, curls were in; thin bangs were in, and hairspray was way in, especially for Jersey girls. For the first day of school, I picked out a black V-neck shirt and flowered spandex pants and gazed at myself in the full-length mirror in the master bedroom, where I still slept after all these years. I wore my fairy amulet for good luck and walked to school practicing fake conversations in my head. What did kids my own age talk about? If they’d seen me with Peter, who would I say he was? My father? He was so old he could have been my grandfather.
I took off my headband and let my superlong bangs fall into my face. I was afraid if I walked into the schoolyard with my face visible, they would point and shout, “It’s her! The girl who spends all her time with that old man!”
St. Augustine’s Church was right across from Washington School. I sat on the steps, hyperventilating. I took off the fairy amulet. They would think it antiquated: an old man’s taste. I rubbed off my lipstick with a tissue. It was the wrong shade: too red. They would know I gave blow jobs. They would look at me and instantly understand that I was a whore.
I thought of myself facedown on the bed, just a body to come on, a rubber doll with a wide-open clown-sized mouth like one I’d once seen in Richard’s porn catalog. My face must be ugly—no matter how beautiful Peter said it was—otherwise, he would want to look at it as he came. I knew that only he could love someone like me. I could say the dirtiest things when I was Nina. Even Peter was shocked by what I could come out with. Recently, I had even created a fantasy for him where a group of tiny fairies landed on the head of his penis and their wings buzzed all over it. A thousand pixies the size of hummingbirds. No, the size of hummingbird
hearts
.