Dead and Gone

slipped on her backpack, bowed her head slightly to me. She looked about sixteen.

“I will be back in a few hours,” is all she said.

Most people would have a hard time with all the waiting I had to do. Most people weren’t raised in places where patience was one of the few ways you could resist what they were doing to you. But, sitting there, thinking it through, I got some of the windowing again. As if, when I pushed hard enough with my mind, I cracked some membrane and the memories flowed like lava, unstoppable.

It was dark by the time Gem came back. She slipped her backpack off her shoulders, let it fall to the floor, then walked over to me, an expression on her face I couldn’t read.

She sat delicately in my lap. Unfastened the top two buttons of the white oxford-cloth shirt she had on under the blazer.

“Would you like me to leave this on?” she asked, shyly, her face buried against me—I could feel the heat.

“No.”

She shivered.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“You’re ice now.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I am sorry. What I said … it was wrong.”

I tugged on her thin shoulder so that she was facing me. “It wasn’t wrong,” I said quietly. “It was sweet. You were trying to … help me … with what’s wrong.”

“I insulted you.”

“No.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. I did not mean it as you believe.”

“How do you know what I believe?”

“The ice. It does not lie. But I am a grown woman, not a child. For today, for what I had to do, it was a disguise. But an outfit, when you know the truth, is not the same as—”

“No. You’re right. But it’s too … close.”

“Close?”

“To the line. A grown woman wants to dress up as a schoolgirl, it can be cute and sexy. But only if it’s real obvious she’s grown, understand? The way you’re made up, you look too real.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t need a window for that,” I told her.

“I understand.”

“Do you, girl? There’s … lines, okay? All kinds of things turn people on. As long as there’s two—hell, two or more—players and they’re grown, it’s nobody’s business. Some people get excited by feet. That’s fine. But there’s freaks who get excited by kids’ feet. That’s … not.”

“Why is that … not?”

“Because kids don’t agree to play. They can’t agree. It’s not in them, to make those decisions. Like the maggots who spank their kids for entertainment.”

“To spank a child is wrong?” she asked, gravely.

“A smack on the rear end if a little kid runs out into the street or something? I’m not going to say that. What do I know? I don’t have kids. Never will. But … you go on-line, dial up any newsgroup that’s into spanking. You understand what I’m saying, right? Spanking as erotic. You’ll see adults looking for other adults, fair enough. But you’ll also see people who talk about ‘disciplining’ kids. How come they go to a sex board if it’s about parenting? Think about it for a second. They’re nothing but child molesters. And they get a pass from the law—it’s not illegal to spank your own kid, even if you’re doing it only to get your rocks off.”

“You have so much hate.”

“You think so? You don’t have any idea.”

“Did someone … when you were a …?”

“Lots of people,” I said. “Lot of places. Lots of times.”

The tears running down her face ate through the heavy makeup, the girl-child vanishing, a woman taking her place.

“It will take a long time,” she said that evening, looking at me through the mirror before her to where I was lying on the bed.

“What will?”

“For me to get dressed.”

“Sure. What difference does it—?”

“Do you want to watch me?”

“Watch you get dressed?”

“Yes.”

“I—”