years she spent in this institution, happy, lighthearted years. And although she acknowledges the enormous debt of gratitude she owes to Doctor for her release, there is a side of her that wishes she were still locked up inside.
Tears well in her eyes as she recalls her life here, how she was permitted to wear her hair long, to roam freely about the grounds, to meet, talk, perform, and make friends without having always to ask permission in advance. Now in the city every moment of her life existence is regulated, bounded by Doctor's demands to perform missions and bring back trophies of her kills. Am I free now? she asks herself. She doesn't know the answer. But peering through the locked gates of Carlisle, she fondly remembers carefree days within.
There is but an hour of light left after a warm October day, an Indian summer day in Manhattan. Two young women, one short and dark, the other tall and blond, stand on a bluff in Riverside Park overlooking the Hudson River. Although both wear workout clothes, tank tops and running shorts, the taller woman's garments are brightly colored, while the shorter one's are totally black.
The short dark-haired girl is holding a bow. She has notched an arrow in its string and is demonstrating the pull to her taller friend.
Very slowly she pulls the arrow back. At full extension she holds it poised for flight. She stands this way for what seems an eternity, both hands steady, the bow not moving, and then, very slowly, she raises the bow upward in an arc so that the arrow is pointed directly at the sun. Again she holds her position. Then, suddenly, she lets the arrow fly. For a moment it shows black against the dark orange solar disk. Then it disappears from sight.
The taller woman nods. She is impressed. The shorter one offers her the bow and aluminum quiver filled with arrows. The tall girl, accepting, promises to practice diligently. The short one assures her taller friend that she need not return the equipment until she has mastered the technique.
Remember the MacDonald brothers, Mama, Jimmy and Stu, those tall, strapping, handsome all-around fellas at Caxton Academy when I was at Ashley-Bumett? So many of the girls had crushes on them. In those days they were the type you were supposed to swoon over and adore.
Stu played foothall, Jimmy baskethall, and they both were great dancers.
Broad shoulders and even broader smiles. Hunks of what the girls called U.S. Prime Grade A Beef.
There was something marvelously shallow about them, too. Oddly, that may have been their most attractive feature. they weren't tormented intellectuals or overly mature and thus awkward among their peers. they weren't emotionally skewered by a bizarre home life, or artistically gifted, or unpredictable in any way. The MacDonald boys acted their age. they were interested in sports and cars and girls and not terribly much else. Easygoing, fun-loving playboy types, who, like all redblooded guys back then, were always looking to get laid. But if a girl turned them down, they didn't get too upset about it. Men and women, boys and girls-to them relations between the sexes was a game of flirt, conquest, and submit. Sometimes you won, other times you didn't; but win or lose, you knew there'd always be another round. What I'm getting at, Mama, is that with the MacDonalds what you saw was what you got: two normal white bread all-American boys, the kind who, when they grew up, would run businesses or sell stocks and help keep our nation strong.
Except what I saw was not what I finally got. Because there was a dark side to the MacDonalds, a side they hid so you wouldn't see it, except maybe sometimes when they were drinking or smoking grass, and then there was a little bit of blackness showing, enough so that if you were an astute observer, you'd catch a glimpse of the smallness, the meanness, the part that would always take advantage, the cheap crooks crouching behind the cardboard pasteups we used to call (ha!) gentlemen.
Remember, Mama: I was fifteen years old. There was a dance that winter over Christmas. I didn't want to go, but you said I must because the parents of the kids giving it had put my name on the list as a favor.
I hated dances, first, because I was such a maladroit dancer and, second, because I was so rarely asked onto the floor. I was too plain for the Cleveland boys. Something about me, withdrawn and worried, put them off. I wasn't sexy. I didn't have your looks or charm or poise. I was clumsy and mousy and too smart for my own good. I hadn't yet learned the craft of pretense… of which I am a master now.
And so I went. You gave me little choice. You bought me a dress, not particularly flattering or attractive, and you arranged a ride for me with someone else's father. Studying me while I waited, amused at my anguish, you asked why I was looking so damn tragic since it was just p a dance. I really wasn't going to be burned at the stake, you said. I might even enjoy it if I tried a little bit. 'Come on, Bev-let's see you smile,' you said. 'And try not to be a wallflower, okay?'
I remember riding downtown silent in a car filled with giggly, overexcited girls, off to some dark, stuffy club on Euclid Avenue, where there were rows of old oil paintings on dark wood-paneled walls and the air smelled of dead cigars. I followed the others up a grand staircase and into a ballroom, where an orchestra was playing the smarmy, sentimental standards of the day. There were kids buzzing around, parents smiling, a bar for soft drinks, and couples dancing on the floor.
Well, Mama, just as I'd foreseen, I stood by the wall with the dozen or so other wallflowers, unattractive girls, girls with acne on their faces, girls who were merely shy-stood with them, a stupid, turd-eating grin on my face, looking hopeful, eager, waiting, waiting for what I knew would never come.
On the other side of the room stood our counterparts, the stag line: unattractive, shy, acne-faced boys who didn't dance well and acted silly around females. We wallflowers eyed the stags and the stags eyed us and no one came over, and thus the evening wore tediously on.
But there was something afoot that night. The MacDonald brothers had cooked up a private little scheme, something no wallflower had ever experienced or even hoped for in her dreams. They'd decided between themselves that they would romance one of us clinging to the wall. And for some reason, I've never managed to fathom why, they settled upon me.
Me, Marna! they chose me to be their Cinderella. they began their courtship early in the evening. First Jimmy and then Stu came over and asked me to dance. No one watching could believe it. Dreamboat Caxton boys, the kind a girl would kill for at Ashley-Bumett, offering themselves to mousy little Beverly Archer, twirling her off to dance in strong, authoritative arms. they were good dancers, so agile and slick they made me feel like a princess at a ball. Around, around I danced with them, first Jimmy, then Stu, then Jimmy, then Stu again, around and around and around.
Those MacDonaids knew how to charm a girl, knew how to talk and to seduce. After they warmed me up, got me all sweaty and excited, they led me off to an anteroom, and there Stu produced a slim silver cigarette case filled with lovingly rolled, thickly packed joints. He lit one and took a deep drag, passed it on to Jimmy, who also inhaled and then passed the joint to me.
It was good stuff, as I recall. But I wasn't used to it, and very soon it had me flying higher than a kite. Then back to the ballroom for more whirling and twirling, each of them romancing me, working me over, and I got high on it, it was a dream come true, a dream I didn't even know I'd had: drab, little, brainy Bev Archer getting her first taste of what it felt like to be desired.
Oh, yes, Mama, those boys made no bones about their cravings. they lusted for me; they made that clear enough. they even whispered provocative little endearments as we danced.
Jimmy: 'You're really special, Bev. I've had my eyes on you since September. I just couldn't get up the nerve to do anything about it till now. There's something of your mom in you, isn't there? Stu and I've been down to the Fairmount Club Lounge and heard her sing. One very sexy lady, your mom.'
Stu: 'We both knew as soon as we saw you. Jimmy nudged me. 'She's as sexy as her mom. Probably as talented, too.' Hey, it doesn't upset you to hear me use that word, does it, Bev? 'Cause it's true.
I mean you are sexy… if you don't mind my saying so.'
Mind? Of course, I didn't mind. I loved it, adored it, was intoxicated by the thought. Sexy was what you were, Mama, and it was the one thing I was certain I was not. I had never felt sexy, wasn't sure I'd even know the feeling if I did. But then, as it turned out, I did know. Because while they were talking to me, I began to feel aroused.
Thinking back on it now, I don't think it was those particular boys that got me going so much as the general situation I found myself in: being high; being told I was sexy; being attended to as if I were sexy; being competed for and treated so openly as an object of desire.
I had no doubt they both hungered for me. they made it manifest, pressing themselves against me as we danced, making sure I was aware of their rigidity, showing me the hard bodily proof of their lust. But I'm sure now it wasn't their stiff cocks that excited me. Male organs have never done much for me one way or the other. It was the aura of their excitement, the evidence of their craving. I certainly didn't feel I wanted to be screwed by them, but most assuredly I enjoyed the fact that they pined to screw me.
