William Malmborg: Jimmy

Thoughts about what had happened broke through the slide show. The attack wasn’t even twenty four hours old, yet the actual events and how they had unfolded were already cloudy within her mind. The possible outcomes, however, was not.

Anger at herself for not fighting back followed these thoughts. Being surprised was no excuse. She should have done something to prevent the current situation. Fingernails to the face, a knee to the balls, or a backpack to the side of the head — all could have been avenues of escape, yet she hadn’t set a single foot down any of those possible routes. It was incredibly frustrating.

The thought of defending herself against Jimmy brought to mind some of the incidents she had witnessed in the past. There had been times during Jimmy’s school day life when he had been the victim of bigger kids. No solid memories were present, but she did remember some fuzzy details of either seeing or hearing about fights where Jimmy had gotten beaten up.

Not that it mattered now. A memory of Jimmy being beaten up didn’t help her out in any way, and thinking about it was just a pleasant waste of time.

Pain suddenly raced through her arms and all thoughts of Jimmy disappeared. She stood up fast, her toes shouting in protest, and tried lifting her arms up to a point where the ropes wouldn’t have such a tight hold. The result was a fiery tingle throughout her hands that caused her fingers to squeeze into fists.

She clamped her teeth together.

It did little to stop the agony.

The terrible pins and needles that had exploded in her hands did disappear after a few minutes, but that was only a small relief when compared to the rest of the pain her body was enduring, and would continue to endure until her hands were free.

“She asked you?” Alan said as they sat down to watch a rerun of That 70’s Show before playing Goldeneye . “Why’d you let her do that?”

“What do you mean?” Jimmy asked.

“Why didn’t you ask her?” Alan stared at his older brother while saying this and noted that he seemed to be both excited and upset. It was a strange mixture that produced a strange expression. Confused was probably the best word for it.

Jimmy shrugged. “I didn’t realize she liked me, and what if she said no when I asked?”

Alan shook his head. “Didn’t like you?” He couldn’t believe it. “You two sit at lunch with each other and walk home with each other almost every freakin’ day. She’s had more of a crush on you than a boa constrictor could ever achieve.” Alan had come up with the metaphor several days earlier, yet hadn’t been able to use it in any conversations. Now that he had, he wondered if it really had been as clever as he had initially thought it would be.

Jimmy didn’t comment on it. “What if she just liked walking home with me? What if by asking her out I ruined the friendship we already had? What if—”

Alan couldn’t take it. His older brother questioned everything too much, and at the same time didn’t see the huge signs people were leaving him. A girl could come up to him and say, “You wanna come over tonight, my parents are out of town and I’m just dying to get your opinion on some new sexy lingerie I bought,” and he wouldn’t realize she wanted sex and would spend several minutes giving her real honest opinions on the lingerie and then head home. “What if she wanted to go out with you, liked you so much that you both got serious and then eventually married, and then had a wonderful family. Better yet, what if through her family she found you a great job that paid a lot and you both became millionaires?”

Jimmy looked down at his hands.

Alan had hit a sore spot without meaning to. In addition to being shy around girls, Jimmy seemed unable to find a job or get any college acceptances. The problem wasn’t a lack of skills or grades, but a lack of confidence, which prevented him from sending in applications or making calls or taking trips to see what was out there. Hell, Jimmy probably wouldn’t even have gotten his driver’s licenses if he hadn’t done well enough in the course to take the test as school, because he never would have gotten together enough motivation to drive an hour to the DMV. It was ridiculous.

The opening music from That 70’s Show came on and calmed the room. Alan recognized the episode. Eric’s hot cousin Penny was coming to stay with them and would trick him into believing she was adopted so she could lure him into a trap in front of his parents. It was a good one.

During a commercial Alan suddenly thought of something and asked, “You did say yes, right?” One time back when Jimmy had been in seventh grade a girl had called to ask him out and he had told her no because he was too busy. He hadn’t been, but dating wasn’t something he was comfortable with, so he had rejected the girl. Alan often wondered if this refusal to date, or to really make friends, had stunted his social growth, which was one of the reasons why he had so much trouble now?

“Yeah, I told her I would go,” Jimmy said.

Thank God! Alan screamed to himself and then out loud said, “Just wanted to make sure. Prom is one of those things you would care about missing ten years from now.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“You would.”

“No, honest, I really wouldn’t and couldn’t care less about it.”

Alan didn’t feel like arguing, but knew Jimmy’s was wrong. Both their parents had missed their prom and still talked about the regret they felt at not having the memory or experience of it. “Well, whatever. I’m glad you’re going because I think you’ll have a lot of fun.”

“I hope so,” Jimmy said.

The show came back on.

Alan wondered what it would be like to be inside Jimmy’s head. Was it as calm in there as he tried to portray, or was his mind a mess? Actually, looking at Jimmy now, there wasn’t an ounce of calmness about him. Something was on his mind and it was making him extremely antsy — no doubt the call from Tina about prom. It was about time. Jimmy needed a date. He needed a social life. So far, with the exception of a few kids through grade school, his only friend had been him, and though that was fine, he needed friends outside of the family.

“Hey, now you and Tina could come play pool with me and Melissa over in Haddonfield,” Alan said.

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t think she’d like that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like something she would enjoy. Tina’s not a pool hall sort of girl.”

“Well, you can always ask and find out.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Jimmy couldn’t focus on That 70’s Show or the conversations Alan kept instigating because his mind was thinking about Samantha and wondering what it was like for her in the fallout shelter. Seeing women tied up with their hands over their head had been something he enjoyed ever since he was little, especially when it was long term, and now he couldn’t wait to see what several hours of standing like that done to her.

What was it like? What would the mind do with the time? What would it feel like?

These were questions he had been asking himself every time he came across a scene on TV or in a movie that featured a woman tied like that, ones which he usually recorded onto a VHS tape so he could watch them over and over again, his mind often wishing he could somehow venture into the actual scene and understand it. In fact, at times he even wished it was he that was in the scene — in the female form of course since he had no desire to see men in bondage — and had recreated a few from time to time. Unfortunately his scenes never got to last that long, and often weren’t accurate. Take the scene in the 1970s movie The Four Musketeers which had featured a moment where a young lady was chained to a wall by a set of iron wrist shackles. Jimmy had first stumbled upon in junior high and had finally been able to add it to his VHS tape a few years later once he found it on TV again. Every time he watched the scene he wished it were him — as the lady — who was standing there in the shackles just so he could understand what it was like. Reproducing the scene accurately by himself, however, was impossible, especially since he had no idea where to get shackles like that, nor the medieval dungeon setting, nor the dress. Worse, his inability to recreate it caused the craving to go unsatisfied. Putting himself in the mind of the person by interjecting himself into a similar scene was just part of it. He also wished he could see what would happen to her as she stood there for days at a time, her body unable to relax due to the chains, her legs unable to hold her up after a while and forcing her to just dangle from her wrists. He had no idea why he was fascinated by this, or why it produced such an intense sexual reaction in his body, but it did, and the more he saw the more his cravings went unfulfilled. It was bizarre.