Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

I text the posse VbigD. Viagra. Marlene’s. I walk more. My head wet.

Vibrate. It’s Obsidian. Obsidian has speedies. Like I give a shit what she’s holding. My cell gets hot in my hand. My ears beat blood.

In the world of the posse, it doesn’t matter if you are male or female. Or anything in between. We share drugs. We share bodies. We make art attacks.

Oh and there is no member of the posse that hasn’t slept with every other member of the posse.

Well.

Except for me.

I am … I have …

Look. Can we discuss this for just a second? Virgin could mean lots of things. I’ve never had full blown bang. Sue me. I don’t know. I just … let’s just say when it comes to the high nasty I go numb. Deaf. Mute. Or I cough. OK I pass out.

It aint from lack of trying though.

Take wang for instance.

What’s the big deal with wang sex anyway? I’ve been around lots of wangs. I’ve seen my father’s. Ew. I’ve sucked Mr. K’s. I’ve seen Little Teena’s — which has a thick silver stud in it — I’ve seen Marlene’s — both fully erect and tucked in tight for ladies’ nights. That’s a lot of dong for a virgin. But getting that dang thing inside me? Makes me go cold. Dead.

OK. It’s not just a wang issue.

Fuck it. I don’t want to talk about it.

Virgin also means mother of jesus, doesn’t it.

Also a female insect that produces eggs without being fertilized. I googled it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

So yeah, I’m a motherfucking virgin. Which pisses me the fuck off. Being angry makes me feel better. I don’t know. I just feel better when I’m pissed.

Vibrate. The posse’s on the move.

I walk the city. Black backpack black ear buds black hoodie black skinny jeans black leather wristbands FIRE ENGINE RED SHINY DOCs. I stomp up the hill to the beat of X. Rain barely lands on my head. This pair of jeans always turns me on if I walk uphill just right. Sing it Exene. Creamy. I stick my hand in my Dora purse. I’m on “record” picking up street sounds. I’m a head and a body and technology. I’m my own walking history.

But not just that. Gimme a V to the I to the R to the G to the I to the N. I hate my twat. I hate my voice. I hate feeling anything about myself. I sprint my ass up to Nordstrom’s.

In the underwear department of Nordfucks there they all are — not standing together, but spread out in various lingerie nooks and crannies. Little Teena, a whole lot of redheaded well-coifed gay boy at 282 pounds. Ave Maria, stringy long blond hair, wrists as thin as tent poles — our bulimic poster child. Got her name because she hits a high note when she cums that makes you believe in saints. And then there is Obsidian. Obsidian with the blackest longest hair in ever falling in lines over her right eye. My desire. I vibrate, but it isn’t my cellphone.

Oh, and yours truly. Dora the Explorer. Pathetic virgin with a hot hard one for a girl with the name of a black glass stone.

Obsidian’s Native American. On the rez in Coeur d’Alene where she grew up her drunk stepdad beat the crap out of her mom and then came into her bedroom and raped her. Now she wears a knife-sharp shard of obsidian around her neck — tied with black leather. I think she could kill someone with that shard if she had to. Sometimes I wonder if she did. She doesn’t say much but her eyes have war in them. It makes me wish I had a horse. A hatchet. War paint.

That’s a lie. That’s my fantasy of us together — riding across the plains of some country in my head.

So I don’t have to think about what a fucking idiotic dys-functionoid tard twat I am. V is for virgin. My eyes sting and my throat squeezes and I pinch myself at the thin skin of my neck to snap out of it. I make my way deeper into the Nord. Suck it up, you pussy .

In the panty department, the scrawny saleswoman with the shellacked head of blond bats her stupid eyelashes and darts her eyes from one to the other of us. She’s so nervous we’re going to steal shit she’s bunching up the panties she’s supposed to be folding for the display. It just makes me feel better to hate her. “Careful of those crotches,” I murmur as I brush past her.

Turns out it’s drunk hide-and-seek. Little Teena has hidden three fifths of vodka in the store and we have to find them and consume them before some lame-ass mall cop does. If you find one, you drink, then hide it again. Trust me. After the bottles are open it gets easier and easier to find them. Plus you can sprinkle some on clothes to leave a little trail. My mother always said vodka is odorless. But that’s bullshit. Explains why she often smells like pickled Estée Lauder. Good clean healthy fun. Kids these days, huh? What? Would you rather we were checking out your internet porn? Or hacking into your email? And by the way, just who are you calling troubled teen, Mr. and Mrs. Pharm zombies?

Obsidian and I find the first bottle stuffed down the Dockers of a neutered male mannequin over in THE MENSWEAR department. We leave his fly open and crawl underneath a big round jeans donut rack and drink. It smells like denim martinis. But inside the jeans world I can also smell her skin. Something between rain and trees. I stare at the side of her face where her hair hangs down. I stare at her so hard my eye twitches. I try to breath her.

When we’ve slugged a few shots, Obsidian says “Where you wanna put the bottle next?”

Since she can’t see me through her hair, I say, “Inside you,” blushsmiling. My skin itches. I cough. I see stars. She laughs.

I wish. Though we’ve sucked face plenty, and I’ve gone down on her other mouth like a goddamn gleeful leech, we haven’t … I just …

She turns to me so she’s facing me and I can’t stand looking at her anymore. She closes her eyes and says, “Kiss me, Dora.”

I try not to head butt her with the force of my face moving toward hers. I kiss her. I kiss her and kiss her. I try not to bite her lip. She tastes like vodkahoney.

Then it’s her lunging at me inside the jeans donut, knocking me down to the Nord floor, it’s her lying on top of me and kissing me and I hope I die right that second. Her hair down on my face her skin rain and trees her hips pushing against mine her dagger of black stone hanging down and touching the hollow of my neck. Let her neckrock stab me and kill me. Please let me die like this. I shiver and pant and almost cry.

That’s when it happens. Like it always always fucking does. I go numb. My hips, my legs, my crotch. I see starbomblets, then I see gray blotches, then white.

Next it’s Obsidian saying “Dora? Dora? Come back baby. It’s OK Come on back.” Petting my cheek and lifting me up until she’s cradling me like a goddamned infant. Fuck. I should just go ahead and suck my thumb.

She rocks me for a while, then pulls back, then we just sit there, neither of us knowing what to say. About me. About my … thing. We slug more vodka. We eat speedies.

After she just sucks in a big sigh of air and turns to me like everything is cool and goes, “So. Where’d we say we’d put it next?” I stuff my shame down my throat. Then farther down. I cough. I laugh. I get pissed. I come backup.

“How about in COSMETICS?” I suggest. “We can chase a couple of those moronic perfume wenches who try to spritz you with scent and christen them with holy water from the rear.”

“Excellent plan,” she goes, and we’re off.

I wish I could punch myself in the face. I shove the me that sucks so far down it’s in my pants.

That’s about when it happens. Coming down the escalator from one Nord floor to the next we see Little Teena has commandeered the grand piano. He’s busy busting out Bach to all the bewildered shoppers. Little Teena just doesn’t look very Nord-stromy sitting there, with his red hair slicked up in a pompadour, his girth squeezing out between his black leather jacket and the lip of his jeans, gumball machine rings decorating every single one of his fingers. But it’s when he goes from Bach to Great Balls of Fire that we attract the attention of the Nordfuck’s militia.