Leopoldine Core: When Watched: Stories

Ned sat waiting on the black couch. He wore a gray felt hat with a top crease. As they approached, he removed the hat and bowed his head. Then a foolish smile came across his face. Ned seemed to be mocking the prospect of his own politeness. He was no gentleman and clearly found this hilarious.

Sheila led them to a large room with one mirrored wall and a creaky king bed. The three of them got naked and it all felt very clinical. The room was a bit cold. Ned seemed giddy. It was as if his depression had receded; he glittered temporarily while aroused. He stood alongside the bed and motioned to it until the girls climbed on. “You’re an odd couple,” he said, waving his finger at them. “One big and one skinny. But that must be part of the turn on.” He grinned. “Calm down. I’m kidding.”

A pained smile transformed Lucy’s face. She was posed like a mermaid on a rock, yellow hair half covering her breasts. Kit made a concerted effort not to stare.

Lucy’s kisses were muscular with no feeling behind them. She broke into breathy counterfeit moans and Kit cringed. Their teeth clicked. Kit felt a bit the way men must feel, she supposed, when they realize that the prostitute they’ve purchased is miserable to be near them. She wasn’t sure why she had expected it to be any other way. I’m just another creep who wants to touch her, she thought. A little creep hiding behind a bigger one.

• • •

Afterward the sky outside was a gray peach. They rode the train to Lucy’s apartment with amazed expressions. Once home, Lucy lit the candles by her bed. It was as if someone had died. Kit searched her face for disgust, but there was only hurt. Lucy sat on the floor beside Curtis, mechanically stroking his muscles.

They ordered Chinese food and stood in the kitchen, eating lo mein from take-out containers. Lucy’s glazed look of pain dissipated. She hummed and Kit hated her a little bit. For pretending to be unmarked by the last few hours. And by every other terrible hour of her life.

Curtis hopped madly at their ankles. His cries were comically bad, as if a blade were being driven into his body.

“Is he okay?” Kit asked.

“He’s fine,” Lucy said. “Those are the screams of a manipulator.” She scraped brown slop from a can into a little blue bowl and set it down on the floor. Curtis trotted over with a look of slack-jaw joy. He bent down to eat.

“He appears well behaved when he’s eating,” Kit said.

“Everyone does,” Lucy said.

Kit set her lo mein by the sink. “Am I your only friend?” she asked. “I don’t mean that in a bitchy way. I don’t have any others.”

Lucy stared at her. “In a way you are. I used to have a lot of friends.”

Kit had never had a lot of friends. But she’d had a few that she didn’t have now. Becoming a whore is like getting very sick, she thought. You don’t want people and they don’t want you. Only she did want people. A little.

“Ned’s daughter is dying of cancer,” Kit blurted.

“He told you that today?”

“No. Before. I should have told you. I just didn’t want you to feel sorry for him.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“Really?”

“I don’t feel anything for these people,” Lucy said dryly.

Kit reached into her bag and felt around. She wondered what Lucy did feel. Outside an ambulance wailed by, its twirling red lights passing over the ceiling. She lit a joint and stood with it burning between her fingers. “I don’t know why I get high,” she said. “My mind is so inherently trippy.”

“Maybe you should quit.”

“Maybe.” Kit let herself stare at Lucy. It was a quiet, burning stare. Her eyes blazed, pouring with feeling. Lucy continued to eat, as if she did not notice. But she did.

Ava sat in bed with Gretchen, a woman she’d met the day before in an AA meeting. Gretchen had been sober for eight years and it was her bed, her story.

“The bigger fear was that I wouldn’t die,” she said with a glazed look, closely monitoring Ava’s responses. “It was sick, to manage and control this thing — drinking — like it was God. To prove that I was God over it.” Gretchen ran one hand over her tawny crew cut and sighed. It was a story she had told many times, a story she liked to tell. There was the version she told in AA meetings and the version she told to lovers, but both framed her as a macho street urchin, staggering through life swigging from a flask and having epiphanies. She had an aura of smugness, even as she strode across the room to open a window, she bore the expression of someone receiving a compliment and finding it to be absolutely true. Her face was broad and German, olive toned with a spattering of pale freckles. One of her eyes twitched occasionally, a consequence of abusing speed.

It had been three months since Ava’s last drink, a vulnerable time. Many warned against dating but she found herself completely pulled to Gretchen: her ease, her obscene self-confidence.

“Do you believe in God?” Ava asked.

“I do.”

“And you feel really sure?”

Gretchen paused, tipping her head to one side. “There will always be periods of unknowing. But I think you should let go at that point.”

“What do you mean let go?”

“Don’t arm yourself with belief,” Gretchen instructed. “Say I don’t know. Throw your hands up. Meet people there.”

Ava nodded. “So you go to church and everything?”

“I do,” Gretchen said. “Really I go to be alone. It’s one of the only private places left in the world right now.”

Ava nodded. This seemed entirely true. “I like to pray,” she said. “Maybe because it’s so unpleasant.” She began to fidget and looked down at her fingers. “It feels like some humiliating sex act. Like giving a gross guy a blow job.”

“Well,” Gretchen grinned, “it’s no coincidence you’re on your knees.”

Ava smiled embarrassedly. Pink hues flooded to her cheeks. Since getting sober, she felt skinned, tender as a teenager.

“My parents were atheists,” Gretchen said. “And it never made any sense to me. Why put so much effort into slaying something?” She eyed Ava, who appeared captivated. “I’ve always loved to pray. I feel like something hears my attempts. Not just to be good, but to be clear .” She assumed a serious expression. “I got to a point where I knew I was gonna die. I remember thinking, I’ve got nothing . All I could do was pray for help.” Gretchen brushed some imaginary crumbs off the bed. “I gambled too,” she admitted with a distinct note of pleasure. “Actually, I probably gambled more than I drank. It’s like drinking but it’s all blackout,” she reflected. “You’re falling right away.”

Ava looked past Gretchen and noticed a squirrel on the fire escape, peering from the other side of the glass. She pointed. “Look!”

“Oh yeah.” Gretchen smiled broadly. Her teeth were white and sharky. “He used to put walnuts under my pillow. I think I didn’t have a screen.”

“No he didn’t.”

“He did ,” Gretchen said, smiling, addicted to her own charm. “The first time I saw him, he looked into my eyes so directly. I’m sure I had a hangover. It was like I was in a cartoon with him and he was the dominant species.”

Ava laughed and Gretchen touched her leg. She looked up with a thrill that somewhat resembled terror. Gretchen was calm as a cat, her gaze steady and electric.

They pounced and the two made out athletically, wide-mouthed and groping. For dinner, they had eaten roast beef and vegetables, an oniony dish, and Ava hoped her mouth wasn’t the onionier mouth. They stopped kissing and looked at each other.