Damned

McTrollops and Slutty Vandersluts and Harley O'Harlots who spoke English and French in the same flat accent as the Global Positioning System of my dad's Jaguar. They walked on the outside edge of their feet, each step slightly crossing in front of the last, to prove they'd taken too many years of ballet. These three girls were always together, usually cutting themselves or helping one another vomit; within the insular sphere of the boarding school, they were infamous.

I was in my room one day, reading Jane Austen, when these three knocked on the door and asked to enter.

And no, I may display occasional antisocial tendencies brought about by years of witnessing my parents pander to the film-going public, but I'm not so rude that I would tell three classmates to beat it. No, I politely set aside Persuasion and invited these three Miss Tarty Tartnicks to enter, and bade them sit a moment on my austere-yet-comfortable single bed.

Upon entering, the first of them asked, 'Do you know the French-kissing Game?'

The second asked, 'Where's your bathrobe?'

The third said, 'Do you promise not to tell?'

Of course I feigned curiosity. In all honesty I was not intrigued, but at their request I presented said bathrobe and watched as one of the Miss Slutty O'Slutskis withdrew the white terry-cloth belt from the robe's belt loops. Another of the Whorey Vanderwhores requested I lie back until I was prone on the bed, gazing up at the distant ceiling. The third Miss Harlot MacHarlot threaded the terry-cloth belt behind my neck and tied the two ends across my tender throat.

More out of politeness and an innate courtesy than any actual interest, I asked if these preparations were part of the game. The French-kissing Game. We were, all of us present in my small room, wearing the same school uniform of dark skorts and long-sleeved cardigan sweaters, kiltie tassel loafers, and white ankle socks. We were all either eleven or twelve years of age. The particular day was, I believe, a Tuesday.

'Just wait,' said one Skanky Von Skankenberg.

'It feels... si bon,' said another Miss Vixey Vandervixen.

The third said, 'We won't hurt you; we promise.'

Mine has always been an open, vulnerable nature. Where the motives and agendas of others come into play, I am perhaps too trusting. To suspect three of my own schoolmates struck me as a tad unseemly, so I merely consigned myself to their instruction as these girls arrayed themselves around me on the bed. A girl sat at each of my shoulders. The third girl gently lifted the eyeglasses from my face, folded them shut, and held them as she seated herself on the bed near my feet. The two flanking me each took one end of the cloth belt which was knotted loosely about my neck. The third instructed them to pull.

May this episode demonstrate the hazards inherent in being the offspring of former-hippie, former-Rasta, former-punk rock parents. Even as the belt constricted more snugly, restricting my breathing, collapsing not only my air supply but also the flow of blood to my precious brain, as all of this occurred I made no vehement protest. Even as shooting stars flooded my view of the ceiling, and I felt my face flushing deeper and deeper red, and the pulse of my heartbeat throbbed beneath my collarbones, I offered no resistance. After all, what was transpiring was nothing more than a game, being taught to me by members of my peer group in an enormously exclusive girls' boarding school located deep in the safe bosom of the Swiss Alps. Despite their current status as Miss Whorey Whorebergs and Miss Trampy Vandertramps, these girls would one day graduate to take positions as the chief editor of British Vogue or, failing that, first lady of Argentina. Etiquette and protocol and decorum were drummed into us daily. Such genteel young ladies would never attempt anything untoward.

Under their assault, I imagined myself the innocent governess in Frankenstein, hung from the gallows, the noose tightening unjustly around my neck for the murder of my charge by the reanimated monster of a mad scientist. Suffocating, I imagined tightly laced whalebone corsets. A lingering death by consumption. Opium dens. I envisioned fainting and swooning and massive overdoses of laudanum. I became Scarlett O'Hara, feeling Rhett Butler's powerful hands as they tried to choke away my love for the dashing, chivalrous Ashley Wilkes, and in that moment, even as my own red, raw fingers clutched at the bedclothes, my voice hoarse with effort, I cried out as Katie Scarlett O'Hara, 'Unhand me, you vile cad!'

Even as the shooting stars filled my vision, stars and comets of every color, red and blue and gold, the ceiling of my room seemed to drift more and more near. Within moments, my heartbeat seemed to have ceased, and my nose was almost touching this, the bedroom ceiling which had only moments before soared so high above me. My awareness seemed to be hovering, floating, gazing down upon the occupants of the bed.

A girl's voice said, 'Hurry and give her the kiss.' The voice, coming from somewhere behind me. Turning, I saw myself still laid out on my bed, the cloth belt still knotted tightly around my neck. My face looked pasty and pale white, and the two girls seated beside my shoulders still pulled at the ends of the cloth belt.

The girl seated near my feet said, 'Stop pulling, and give her the kiss.'

Another girl said, 'Yuck.' Their voices sounded muffled and foggy and miles away.

The third girl, seated near my feet, she unfolded my eyeglasses and slipped them onto her own smug face. Batting her eyelashes and cocking her head from side to side coquettishly, she said, 'Look at me, everyone... I'm the fat, ugly daughter of a stupid-ass movie star... My picture was on the cover of People stupid magazine....' And all three Miss Bimbo Von Bimbos, they giggled.

If you'll permit me a moment of self-indulgent embarrassment, I did look terrible. The skin of my cheeks had swollen slightly, becoming puffy, similar to a souffle d'apricot. My eyes, open only as slits, appeared as glazed as the glassy surface of an overly caramelized creme brulee. Worse yet, my lips were gaping, and my tongue pushed forward—green as a raw oyster—as if attempting to escape. My face, from forehead to chin, varied in hue from alabaster white to light blue. The put-aside copy of Persuasion lay on the bedspread beside my blue hand.

As I hovered there, observing, as detached as my mother keyboarding to spy on the maids and adjust the lighting via her notebook computer, I felt neither pain nor anxiety. I felt nothing. Below me, the three girls untied the cloth belt from my neck. One girl slid a hand behind my head and tilted my face back slightly, and another drew a deep breath and leaned over. Her lips covered my own blue lips.

And yes, I know what constitutes a near-death experience; however, I was more concerned about my prescription eyewear. The girl seated at my feet, still wearing my reading glasses, she said, 'Blow. Hard.'

The girl leaning over me... even as she blew air into my mouth, I seemed to fall from the ceiling and land into my body. Even as the girl's lips pressed my lips, I found myself, once more, occupying the body which lay upon my bed. I coughed. My throat ached. The three girls laughed. My tiny bedroom, my tattered copies of Wuthering Heights and Northanger Abbey and Rebecca sparkled and glowed. All of my body felt so electric, as thrumming and vibrant as I'd felt naked in the snow at night. My every cell swelled so full of newfound vitality.

One of the Hussey Vanderhusseys, the one who'd blown her breath into my mouth, said, 'That's called 'the kiss of life/' Her breath tasted like the wintergreen of her chewing gum.

Another girl said, 'It's the French-kissing Game.'

The third said, 'You want to go again?'

And raising my weak hands, lifting my cold, trembling fingers to touch my throat where the terry-cloth belt still lay across the throbbing of my brand-new heartbeat, I nodded my head, faintly but repeating, whispering, 'Yes.' As if to Mr. Rochester himself, I whispered, 'Ye gods!' Whispering, 'Edward, please. Oh, yes.'

XX.

Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. People say the world is a small place... well, in Hell this must be Old Home Week. Really, everyone seems to know me and vice versa. It's like alumni week at my boarding school, when all the old mossbacks would totter around campus all misty-eyed. Everywhere that you look, it seems as if a familiar face is looking back.

My dad would tell you, 'When you're shooting on location, be ready for rain.' Meaning: You never know what fate will throw your way. One minute, I'm luring some Canadian AIDS girl to come join me in Hell, and the next