Aimee Bender - The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

The imp sat behind her in the one class they shared: English. He had a perpetual monologue of jokes going on under his breath. Did you hear the one about the square egg? he’d say to himself, laughing at the punch line before it even happened. Often, it never happened anyway. One day he reached forward and dipped a strand of her long mossy hair into his beer. He snuck beer into class, no problem. He was a clever imp. He’d poured it into a Coke can.

What he didn’t know was that her hair had nerves; it was different than human hair; it was not dead skin; it was alive. The mermaid felt the change instantly and woozed with contentment: liquid. Lifting. Home.

Had the imp lifted the can, he would’ve been stunned: it was so light! Where did the beer go? Had he looked closer, he might’ve seen it riding up the strands of her hair, brown droplets on a lime escalator, sucked up by that straw of a lock, foam vanishing into the mane in front of him, the mane he pictured at night floating over his small shoulders when he was in his bed, naked, eyes closed.

Snob queen. Hair green. Mine.

The mermaid got drunk off the beer. She had very low tolerance. There was no alcohol allowed underwater.

That day, she exited English class swaying. The imp picked it up right away; he thought: man, she’s a party girl, too! She’s perfect! Drunken Mimi!

He worried about taking off his clothes. He worried about her hand, grazing to his knee — what are these wooden poles doing where your shins should be? she’d ask. She’d have a puzzled look in those purpled eyes. Snob, he’d think. He worried, but still, he tracked her through the halls; the way she leaned, hard on this drunken day, was sexy. The way she trusted the crutch. He tracked her one huge boot.

It was lunchtime. The mermaid wandered off to lie down under the orange-red bleachers. Her head felt bleary. Her hair felt alive. When she let it stray out into the dirt, her hair coughed. She put her backpack under her head and that was better.

The imp found her there. He wasn’t sure what to say.

Did you hear the one about the man with one leg? he began. Then he felt stupid right away. Bad choice.

The mermaid looked up.

Excuse me? she said.

The imp sat down next to her, arranging his stilts.

So, he said. A guy walks into a bar.

She turned her head slightly toward him, but said nothing.

He lay down next to her. The dirt was flat and fine, and he picked up a discarded cigarette butt and began digging a hole to put it in.

The imp was nervous; he hoped no one was sitting above them, on the bleachers, eavesdropping. That tall guy? they’d say. He’s not nearly as smooth as he says he is.

I like your hair, he said then.

Thank you, said the mermaid. She paused. She looked at him for a long second. Then she said: You can touch it if you want to.

Really? The imp wanted nothing more.

Really, said the mermaid. She gave him a lip smile. Just be gentle.

The imp left the half-buried cigarette butt and reached his hand forward to stroke down the fine green strands.

Soft, he said.

The mermaid shivered. Each hair delivered a tiny note of murmurings all the way down through her.

The imp started at the root and let his hand ride the sheen all the way to the ends.

So did you hear the one about the dead cat? he said, giggling a little.

The mermaid didn’t answer; her eyes were closing.

See there’s this cat, the imp began, and it gets hit by a car. And when it goes up to heaven, St. Peter asks it why he should let it into heaven.

I know you’re an imp, said the mermaid.

His hand paused.

Don’t stop, she said. Please.

How did you know, he wailed, no one knows! He pictured the police. He pictured the PA announcement. He clutched her hair for a second, inadvertently.

Ouch, said the mermaid. Gentle please.

Will you bust me? asked the imp.

Of course not, said the mermaid. I like imps, she said.

You do?

Definitely, she said. Imps are sweet.

Sweet? Sweet? He touched her arm.

No, she said. Just the hair.

He twitched and coughed. Stroked her hair again, slower now. Her face was starting to flush, a slow reddening.

It’s my secret, he said. She said, I understand.

He said, I’m not so sweet.

Her hair was growing staticky; it clung to his fingers.

Okay, he said, and he giggled again. Okay, he said, so the cat, the dead cat, it tells St. Peter it’s been a good cat, it brought mice to its owner for many years, said the imp.

His legs turned in and out, the stilts brittle bones beneath his blue jeans. He kept stroking her hair. Root to end. Root to end.

St. Peter, continued the imp, so St. Peter sends the cat to hell because it’s a killer.

He paused, hand in the middle of her head.

Don’t stop, she said again.

Root to end. Hair curved around his fingers in soft coils.

Your hair is pretty, he said.

She was quiet. Her hair lifted off the backpack onto his hand, a cloth of pale pale green, a curtain rising.

The imp’s hand was steady but his fingers were trembling now. Okay, he continued. So. In hell, the devil said: Catch me some mice, killer cat! I want to cook them in my stew!

But the cat said No. It said I won’t do that for you, devil. I only kill mice for a good master; I won’t kill any mice for you.

And poof! The cat went straight up to heaven.

The imp giggled. He looked down at the mermaid.

That’s it, he said. That’s the joke.

Root to end.

I made it up, he said.

Her eyes were closed; her breath was faster.

Mimi, said the imp, are you okay?

Don’t stop, she said again, barely breathing, please, she said, keep going. He kept stroking down, watching close, what was going on? and when her back finally curled up, breath out in puffs, he didn’t stop even then, he was steady and quiet and watching, he was root to end, until finally she reached up her hand, breathless, and grabbed his, holding on so tightly, thanking him over and over, not snobby at all, not snobby at all, thank you, thank you, until he laughed out loud in surprise. Her purple eyes were purpler and he thought he smelled flowers.

On my way to work I see this woman wearing a short shirt that shows her belly button. She has a rounded stomach, and the skin curving in makes her belly button look like a very deep hole. I’m walking with my Walkman on down Steiner, music loud in my ears for a Friday morning, and I feel a wave of desire to stick my dick in that deep dark belly button hole, to fuck the woman with the short shirt, to lay her down on the sidewalk and take her. She walks by and I walk by and I continue on my way to work.

Of course nothing happens. But I can imagine so clearly what it’s like to enter a woman, I feel like I’ve done it. My body is on hers, drunk off the conquest, sliding in slow: my hips, push, the glaze. I think about that belly button girl and I think I would shock her and I like that. I want to see girls melt because girls are so goddamn elusive, you can’t tell what the fuck they’re thinking, except I am a girl, and I know just what a lot of girls are thinking, I know what I’m thinking, and right now it’s exactly this.

I go to a party and sit around with people I don’t know very well or like and we talk about movies we all hated. I am wearing a short skirt that flows, and a shirt with a scoop neck and I am luscious. I meet a man at this party who walks me back to my car. He has shaggy red hair, and calluses on his fingers from construction, or guitar, or golf; viva la mystery — I do not ask.

By the car I take his hand and I lay it on my breast. I’m feeling very bold since I had three beers and all I really want right now is this warm callused mysterious hand on me. He seems taken aback, but then his face lightens and his other arm reaches out to hold my waist, and I melt, I melt, I open up like a dream and I’m his for the night until the warmth goes cold.