Sophia I

I have come to realize that emotion is an evolutionary disadvantage. When I consider where my life has gone—wait. No. Let me try that again. When I consider what decisions I’ve made in my life and where they’ve led me—as I will not victimize myself into believing that my life is a separate entity from myself—I can’t help but notice that the largest, most obstructive stumbling block I have encountered is emotion. As maturity would have it, though, that loathsome providence in the back of one’s mind that causes one to pretend he or she understands more so that one can viably pretend that he or she also accept more—I also realize that emotion is essential. I am imperfect; my imperfection only occurs to me because I feel it. Why, without emotion, what will check us, humanity, this lovely accumulation of arms, legs, hatred, and love, what will hold us back from our most basic pursuits? Desire, survival, selfishness, these are characteristics of our collective mentalities as human beings. Without the counterbalance of emotion, these propellants would run amok; drive us to naturally commit atrocious crimes that only those of us with the least connection with their emotions are capable of at this point.
Lions. The leader of any given pride will literally eat cubs, his own, those born of another lion, whomever, only to sustain his designation as the leader. We, us perfectly imperfect humans, normally cringe at the thought of doing such a thing, or even hearing about another doing it. But the leader of a pride, he only has one thing in mind—to be the leader. That’s his purpose. He doesn’t love anyone, not the cubs, not the lionesses that bore them, not even his pride in general. He only does what he’s supposed to because that’s what he’s been genetically programmed to do. He’s the largest, the strongest. While any one of these cubs may grow up to be even bigger and stronger, he can’t sleep well at night. He tosses and turns, kicking up dirt and grass and dry leaves until he can ascertain that no one is going to strip from him his purpose for living. To be the leader of the pride.
Some people call themselves “pragmatic”, while others simply admit that they’re cynical, even bitter. Me, I’m none of the above. I refuse to define myself by my emotions. I am logical—the embodiment of logic. The bible is the word of God manifest, right? Well, supposedly. Anyway, the point is that Sophia is the word of logic. Manifest.
So me, I can understand where the lion is coming from. The only problem is that when I try to consider a better way to go about things, I can’t come up with anything. Don’t eat the cubs? Well, they might very well steal his title! What’s he supposed to do, go be nothing? No one, not even a human, gifted as they are with their sensibilities and rationality, could accept that. No, you fight, to your dying breath. So, what do you do? What the fuck do you do?
I was thirteen when I first considered this. I remember the situation exactly as it happened, as most pivotal experiences never do leave you, but are perfectly preserved within the annals of your mind for later retrospection.

“So… now what?” Vera chewed the inside of her cheek, staring at the ground, rolling her feet back and forth on the sides of her soles as children do, nervously sustaining perpetual movement.
“I dunno… Frizzy?” Jacob turned to Friztroy, expecting the leader of our pride to give us our purposes.
“Shit… what, I dunno. Sophie, your parents aren’t home after school, are they?” He turned to me expectantly. Children scurried and fluttered around us, forcing large quantities of themselves into the school busses parked along the curb of the driveway in front of the school. I play with a lost pen cap with my foot.
“No… but I’m not allowed to have company without them there,” I replied.
“My father’s home,” Anicia announced.
“My mother’s a stay-at-home-mom,” Vera added.
“Your father’s a loser. Doesn’t he have a job?” Jacob jabbed at Anicia.
“Fuck you, Jacob! At least I know him!” Anicia screamed back.
“But it wouldn’t matter if I did if he was useless,” Jacob indignantly replied, our mini-drama unfolding as it always does while we’re together, exclusive and hidden in plain view amidst the masses. A discarded homework assignment with “REDO” testily written in a confrontationally thick red marker made a cameo appearance, resting between us before it gently glided away in the breeze with a little resistance.
“So, what’ll it be, Sophie?” Fritzroy inquired. A “turtle”, one of those students with the horrendously large backpacks stuffed with god-knows-what, bumps into Anicia and stumbles past.
“What about your place, Frizzy?” I asked, looking up at him through my eyelashes, finally distracted from my pen cap.
“My place… you don’t want to go to my place. It isn’t a place for kids,” Fritzroy replies. He’s the only one in our group that’s already crossed over to high school. He was fifteen at the time and to our young minds, the bodily development of Anicia and I already surpassing the peach fuzz on his upper lip notwithstanding, he was damn-near grown up, so he would know what is and isn’t for kids. We didn’t even want to know what he meant. So, alright, fine. My fucking place.
“Fine,” I say.

“Anyone else here know how to roll a joint?” Fritzroy asks as he took out his little sack of weed from his jeans pocket. Anicia, Vera, and I were thirteen, and Jacob, who introduced us to Fritzroy, was already fourteen. Fritzroy would meet him after school to hang out, and one day, Jacob invited us. And we just kept on coming. They introduced us to French-kissing. To marijuana. Later, to raves. We were all sitting on the ground in my room on the rug between my bed and my little TV. I felt a little uncomfortable because I had just furiously masturbated myself on that rug the night before after my shower before bed. When I came, hard as fuck, hard as you do when you’re only a couple of months in after discovering self-manipulation, I think I peed a little or something. There was a slightly damp spot where I first rested my hand when we sat down. I turned red, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Secrets, this world is so full of secrets. It overwhelmed me later in life. As many secrets as you have, everyone else has just as many. Or, depending on what kind of person you are, more. If only they knew. If only I knew. “I have too many demons” is a statement that will haunt me forever. When I was thirteen, I was still more than ten years from hearing it, but apparently I already had my own demons.
Jacob passed me the joint. I inhaled gently, exposing my lungs to the most minimal amount of smoke while still convincingly smoking. I coughed anyway, hacked and sputtered saliva all over myself and the others, dying, my lungs collapsing, the room spinning. I immediately passed the joint to Vera.
I hear footsteps. They’re approaching my room quickly from the end of the hallway that cuts off at the banister to the adjacent stairs. I wanted to react, but I didn’t know what to do. We’re all here. The weed is here, and even if we got rid of it, you could still smell it. So I just sat there. No one else noticed, so when my sister Tanya exploded into the room, everyone jumped but me.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!” Then she burst with laughter.
“What… what do you want, Tanya?” I said. I wanted it to come out as a demand, but my voice was even smaller and more uncertain that I imagined it would be when I decided to say it, barely escaping my mouth to die halfway to her ears.
“Huh? What was that, you little shit? Did you say something, or are you to high to speak?” Tanya taunted.
“God… Tanya, what do you want?” I asked more confidently, albeit more slowly than usual. I furrowed my brow and touched my fingertips to my right temple. I couldn’t even see straight.
“You are a mess, girl, a mess!” Tanya laughed. I just stared at her.
Then she stopped.
She looked down at me. Her expression was curious at first, then she was noticeably amused again. She raised an eyebrow and folded her arms.
“You’re developing rather quickly, aren’t you Sophie?” she said appraisingly.
“What… do you mean?” I asked. God, I was terrified. What did she know? Where was she going? Anicia coughed. Vera sniffed. Jacob cleared his throat. The silence endured, torturing me, beating into every fiber of my being with the ache of terror.
Finally, “well, this morning, you woke up flat-chested, I leave for school before you do, and here we are, and you’re all busty! Why, you must’ve eaten a fucking bottle of protein pills and a whole pack of birth control for lunch!”
I thought I was going to swallow my tongue. I thought my heart was going to stop. I was almost certain that my eyes were about to fall out of my head. But my only real reaction was to sigh. Then my eyes followed by welling up. And I said: “Tanya, my tits are the same size.”
“My ass,” she spit back.
“Alright, then your ass is the same size too,” I replied.
“Oh, so you’re trying to show off to your little friends, is that it?” she demanded.
“What? I didn’t ask for you to come in here in the first place!” I shrieked.
“That’s not the point!” Then she jumped on me, hitting my flailing arms away while she pulled a wadded piece of toilet paper from my bra. The fucking bitch.
“What the fuck, Tanya, what the fuck!” I began to sob.
“Oh, stop being so melodramatic. You shouldn’t be trying to get these little twerp’s dicks hard anyway.” She flashed cold eyes at both Jacob and Fritzroy. Jacob looked away, but Frizzy just stared at her. He looked like he hated her more than I did.

Everyone left after they realized that I wasn’t going to stop crying, that they being there was only making things worse. Only Fritzroy remained, calmly and patiently allowing me to let it all out. He risked so much, my parents on their way home at that point, my father terribly irrational and liable to do anything from call to cops to break his legs. Noises that would have otherwise gone unnoticed jarred me so that I stopped crying and instead began to listening to every possible sound, paranoid. Was that the driveway? The garage door? Were those keys jingling together? I stopped crying and hugged my knees in the same spot on the rug that I was in when Tanya walked into my room and destroyed my life. I shivered. Fritzroy sat on the edge of my bed.
“You should go.”
“It’s okay. Just let it out.”
“No. Really, you should go. My parents will be home any minute.”
“Then let’s go outside.”
“I’m not supposed to be outside.”
“You’re not supposed to smoke weed, either.”
I was silent. There was a thump somewhere down the street, someone moving something maybe, and I jumped. Then I got up and told him lets go.

We were walking up McAllister by the supermarket where my mother always shopped. It was already dark, around five-twenty, but there were still people strolling about, making stops at the store or the park or their friend’s house. I was already crashing from the little bit of marijuana I smoked, so I mostly listened to what Fritzroy said without replying. Finally, he forced me to:
“So, why do your parents come home so late? And, what, at the same time?”
“Yeah, kinda. My mother might come home fifteen or twenty minutes later, depending on traffic. My father… he works at some plant doing something. I don’t know. He doesn’t make much, but he works all day. My mom is a pastry chef, but she doesn’t make much either. Somehow, they end up getting off work around the same time, so they get home around the same time.”
“Wow. Well, it makes planning to do things easier, huh?” He was so cheerful with everything he said. It made my sounding depressed seem maudlin, so I was gradually forcing myself to perk up.
“I guess.”
“Hm. I turn here.” We turned right at the corner. “Anyway, don’t sweat what your sister did. I can understand.”
I didn’t know how to react. I wanted, at that very moment, to punch him in the fucking face. After a long pause: “Huh?!”
“I mean, she thinks you did it to impress me or Jacob. She didn’t understand. I mean, she probably doesn’t really want to hurt you.” First of all, that was exactly why I did it. Secondly, I’m sure she did want to hurt me. She always does.
“Look, you really don’t understand.” I stared forward, willing his house to appear more quickly, considering just turning around and leaving him to make it to his place on his own.
“Hey. Don’t get angry at me, I’m just being honest with you. The truth, it sucks. It will always suck. The truth is just a shitty thing.” He still sounded so gentle, so calm and comforting.
“Whatever. Just leave me alone before I make you walk by yourself.”
He remained quiet for a little while, maybe three minutes. Then: “Look, you can’t get angry at a lion for protecting his throne, right? Even if he kills his cubs to do it?”
I must have looked at him with the most horrified expression, because he cleared his throat, and then continued, “Well, it doesn’t matter if you get angry or not, because he’s still going to kill whatever cubs are in the pride if he thinks they run the chance of taking his place.”
“But lions don’t really do that,” I said.
“Yes they do. Look it up,” he replied. He stopped walking and stepped in front of me, facing me. He looked at me appraisingly and said, “You know, you didn’t need to do that anyway to get noticed.” Then he turned and jogged away, knowing that I wouldn’t follow him.
That night I couldn’t sleep, not because of what my sister did, or even Fritzroy, but because of the lion. Lions do that, huh? How could they? He made it sound general, like all lions do it. Why would they naturally do something so horrendous? Is the natural order of things for them to behave that way? Wouldn’t that mean that they have no other choice? No other choice but to murder cubs, even their own, to keep their place in the pride? To keep their self-definition, their self-worth?

I couldn’t look my friends, or anyone for that matter, in the face for the rest of the school year. I only spoke to Fritzroy every so often, never bringing up anything that happened, until a year and a half later when I began hanging out with all of them again. Luckily, I graduated from middle school that summer and was met with the opportunity to start anew in high school, but that span of five months while I didn’t have friends I filled up reading. I read every book I could get my hands on, and it was a habit that never left me. Perhaps it could be better described as a passion. Entries here and there from the family medical encyclopedia kept under the coffee table, various self-help books my mother bought and never read, my sister’s smutty $5.99 paperbacks, my father’s crime dramas, mysteries, and comedies, anything. I filled my head up with concepts I didn’t understand and ideas that molded the progress of my maturity.
In one such book, my mother’s “How to Understand Yourself and Take Control of Your Life” by Michael J. Swanson detailed that people’s habits are some of the most revealing windows into their psyche. It explained that what these habits are, why they are, their frequency, and how they’re performed expose a person little by little until you can piece together their mentality, predict moods, and even detail their biorhythm—of course assuming that people, and women especially, have a hard time understanding what they do and who they are. While that assumption may not be true for everyone, I did suspect that the application of these methods would actually work in methodically deconstructing a person.
My sister Tanya is a smoker. Her drags are typical, but her exhalations are forceful blasts that could easily read as impatience or frustration. She ashes by flicking her cigarettes with the edge of her thumbnail in a short scratching motion, sometimes leaving a raw ring along the tip exposing the filter. Usually, she only smoked the cigarette a little more than halfway, then carefully extinguishes it (unless she’s outside, in which case she simply discards it) anywhere available—in the absence of an ashtray, it could end up on a nearby dirty plate, bowl, or cup; and old lid; a piece of aluminum. In places where she spends a lot of time, she has designated areas in which she smokes, such as on her living room couch or next to her bedroom window, and while the rest of her home usually remains spotless, these two areas tend to be littered with butts and ash and polluted with the smoky stink of burnt tobacco.
From this I can tell you that Tanya’s addictions are not even limited to cigarettes, but that she is at the mercy of her habits in general, allowing them to contradict one another as they overlap and appear, at first glance, to be inconsistent or neurotic. I can also extract from this that at her core lays a rather lazy person, uninterested in upholding any specific standards, but instead driven by pandering to a series of aggressive inclinations.
The application of such knowledge is as follows: once I realized this about Tanya, I had to come up with some roundabout means of influence as opposed to trying to sway her desires, the easiest and most common means of manipulation. You see, this sort of personality is very difficult to control as her driving forces act on their own and are unable to be changed. Most people rationalize their behavior by being prudent, for example, which would be abiding by a set of rules that you placed upon yourself. Indeed, some abide by institutionalized morals, like religious dogmas and the like. We all know that there are also those out there who allow their rules to be defined by someone else—following trends, in other words. Socrates, Mill, Jung, they would say that people are normally driven by their logos or ethos. Still, they assert that some people are driven by their pathos. Tanya is one such person. She enslaved by a series of attachments and addictions that even she can’t control.
Tanya, therefore, was my first and most important project in effectively applying what I was learning from these books. Being my older sister, she was a step higher in the familial hierarchy. This was made clear less by her designation as an indentured baby-sitter and more by the devious (and infuriating) ways she applied this power. Through incident after incident, whether it was feeding my pet hamster to the neighbor’s cat or giving me a cup of used oil and convincing me that it was apple juice (oil will coat your mouth for a week and stunt your taste for what it was supposed to be for years, believe me), she terrorized my early years clear into adolescence, when I began to take it less personally and more combatively.
At the crest of my freshman year, my sister was a seasoned junior, complete with a steady entourage of friends and a grocery list of courtiers. One such prospective, a Mr. Charles Folsom, had conveniently invited Tanya out for food and sex on a night that our parents were at some real-estate seminar serving dinner and ideas that they were going to do nothing with. Charles was the debate team captain, a position indicative of the silver tongue that was encased in a jaw that was chiseled sharply as if from marble. Needless to say, Tanya was really looking forward to this night.
I began by stealing her cigarettes. Flustered after having already been nervous, she first ransacked her room before flitting about the house in a childish panic. I watched television in the living room (back when I could still stomach it), accentuating my calm by laughing audibly at what would otherwise be mundane.
“You bitch.” She was glaring at me from the doorway, one hand rested on the frame while she leaned forward exhaustedly and glared at me, her incomplete outfit missing a blouse and the matching shoes she intended to wear.
“What are you talking about?” My tone was easily innocent, but I fought a supercilious smirk with everything I had.
“Right, now I know it was you!” She lunged for me. “Where are they?!”
“Whoa, whoa there! I don’t know what you’re talking about, really!” I exclaimed as I fought her clumsy frisking.
“Really? Really, you don’t? C’mon, you little bitch, give me my cigarettes!” She grabbed for my left pocket, then my right. Then my hair.
“Dammit, what’s wrong with you?!” I shrieked.
“No-no-no, don’t you turn this around on me, what’s wrong with you?! You know I have a date tonight, why would you pull this shit, why?!” She looked toward the ceiling as she said this, more melodramatic than usual.
“Ugh, fucking Tanya, get off, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I struggled to get up.
“NO! Not until you give them back!”
“Tanya, let go!” I squirmed from under her and ran up the stairs. Using my only-slightly-worn lungs as an advantage, I bounded up far more quickly than she, sharply turned the corner, turned the light on in the bathroom, locked the door, and slammed it shut. Then I slipped into her slightly ajar bedroom door that was directly across from the bathroom just in time to miss her rounding the corner. I shoved my hand down the front of my sweater (I hear the bathroom door knob being rattled) and retrieved the cigarettes that I tucked into my bra between my breasts (for poetic justice), and placed them under her blue dresser with the handles shaped like roses so that the corner of the box just barely peeked from under the edge. As I was rising, she began to viciously beat the bathroom door with her fist.
“Sophie, get your ass out here right fucking now!” She sounded as if she was near tears. I almost felt sorry, as if I had over-planned this, as if my ensuing intentions were overkill, but I had come too far. Hell, this motherfucker didn’t give her indiscretions a second thought. She always walked away clean from everything she fucking did. My parents didn’t pay attention; they didn’t know what to do with her, of even what she was up to for the most part. They were too busy doing their own thing. That’s probably why they paid even less attention to me. The stupid bitch, not only did she get away with everything she ever fucking did, but she also got more attention because of it. Dammit, she was rewarded for her behavior. Me? Oh, not Sophie. Sophie has to take what she wants.
More bathroom door abuse. I considered possible outcomes, a resignation into her room sobbing, breaking the bathroom door down, stabbing me to death when she found out what I did. Just as my heart rate began to climb, the doorbell rang. She froze. I took this opportunity to slither right beside her as she stared at the floor in consternation, wondering what she should do, completely oblivious to the fact that I was but two or three feet away from her. I moved silently through the ever-present shadow at the end of the hallway where a light was supposed to be, and slipped into the guest room next to her room and across from mine. Another thirty seconds pass while I situated myself noiselessly in the dark, empty, modestly furnished room before she finally decided to run to her window and call out to Charles that she was coming.
“Huh? When? Why can’t you answer the door?”
“I’m sorry! It’s this thing—I’ll tell you later! Just hang tight, I’ll be right down!”
“Hey—Hey! It’s cold out here!”
“I’ll make sure I fix that, okay!”
Tanya stumbled and ran from her room back to the bathroom door and screamed, “You fucking cunt, open the goddamned door!” After a quick few bangs with her heel of her fist, she neurotically turned on her heel and galloped down the stairs, assumedly to the bathroom in our parent’s room.
There was a good few times that someone, including myself, had locked the bathroom door with no one in it by mistake, and it was usually I, attempting to exemplify my cleverness, who unlocked the door with a wire hanger with its hook extended. After so much practice, I had mastered jimmying the lock with a burglar’s efficacy. Grabbing a pre-prepared hanger from my closet floor, I lithely sprung before the bathroom and got to work. I felt the spring inside of the knob compress, and the lock turned with ease as I twisted the hanger. Again in the knick of time, I glided into the bathroom as I heard aggravated stomps ascending the stairs, keeping the knob turned until the door touched the frame, and slowly releasing it as the stomps reached the landing. I hear her approach the bathroom.
“Sophie, just give me back my cigarettes, and I’ll leave you alone. We can forget all about this.” She sounded stifled, but I’m sure she was trying to sound calm.
“I already told you that I don’t have your fucking cigarettes,” I replied with my brattiest, you’re-making-me-cry voice.
“Then where are they, you fucking bitch?!” She shrieked.
“How the fuck should I know?!” I shrieked back.
“Dammit, Sophie… oh my god… I can’t believe you’re being such a fucking cunt. Charles is already here! He’s right outside! I need to go!” She began to sound as if she were pleading.
“Call me one more name…” I warned in a slow, low voice.
“What? What was that?!” She demanded.
“I said, don’t you dare call me one more name,” I replied with the same warning cadence, only a little louder, a little faster.
“Or what? Huh, bitch?” she challenged. That was it. I swung the door open, plunger in hand, and swung it at her temple like a Russian mobster would swing a bat. It connected just below her left eye and she stumbled back through her room door and onto the floor. I pounced on her and easily wrestled her to her stomach (I assume she was still stunned), making sure that her face was pointed toward her dresser. I grabbed the back of her hair and began slamming her forehead into the hardwood floor. The fourth time I raised her head, she noticed her pack.
“Stop! I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry, just stop, okay?” She began to cry, torrents of bulbous, embarrassing tears streaming down her cheeks and collecting in puddles of guilt and misery on the floor.
“Don’t call me anything but ‘Sophie’ ever again, understand that, bitch?” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Oh my god. What the fuck. Oh my god.” She sobbed as I released her hair and walked out of the room, leaving a mess of her saliva, tears, mucous, broken spirit, and she on the floor. As I shut my bedroom door, I gave her my favorite quote from To Wong Foo: “Poor little Latin boy in drag, why are you crying?”
At some point later, she peered out her window to find no one at the front door. We didn’t speak again until she graduated from college.

My sister still meant everything to me, being my only sibling. Despite how much we fought and as difficult as she made my waking life, I still recognized so much of myself in her. By my sixteenth year, I also became a smoker; a bitchy inverse to my sister’s style, raising my chin and leaning back with my nyloned legs crossed as I performed my exaggerated drags and exhumed nonchalant rings. My eyes usually regarded the world half-closed, cynically assessing the best way I could go about achieving my goals and pursuits and ignoring everything else. For all intents and purposes, this basically reads as the same personality with a polarized approach—you can hear the likeness in our shared cadences and notice the similarities in our tastes in things like shampoo and men, but while you would see her pandering to her pathological desires, you would see me right alongside her applying myself to more logical desires with the same pathological tenacity. So while we didn’t speak, I still maintained a sort of connection with her by keeping discreet tabs on everything she did. With this, I sharpened and honed my new skill.
I noticed an odd change in Tanya that no one else could that seemed to originate somewhere around six months after she and I stopped talking. My sister was always popular with boys, and why not, she always was and remains beautiful. But her opinions—even her responses—to men seemed quite awry. She would come home in a fury, stuttering and spitting as she yelled at my mother about this jerk or that asshole. My mother, unfortunately, could only regard her at a careful distance, not knowing the deeper nuances of my sister all-too well nor know how to react. As a lower-middle class family, my parents spent almost all of their time either trying to make money or arguing about it, and this resulted in an estranged cycle of dysfunction. My father was always exhausted and seeking reprieve while my mother was always exasperated and seeking a like escape. In essence, they mostly kept to themselves, and when they weren’t at odds or killing themselves to make ends meet, I suspect that they grew so far apart that, if I weren’t so attentive, none of us would know each other at all. Our only connection outside of my silent observation was the two story house our family inherited from my mother’s parents, who I also never knew, and the dinners we shared on the rare occasion our parents felt a tinge of guilt.
But I knew my sister well, and I was clear on the details of her troubled behavior. I’m pretty sure she was sexually active—if it wasn’t the gaudy lace and satin that adorned her underwear drawer, it was what she went through to either sneak herself out or boys in that gave me the impression. But it seemed as though in six short months, she had completely abandoned her cavalier “let’s just have fun and be naughty” attitude that she adopted since her breasts sprang from A to C, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something would have to be terribly wrong if someone were to have such a sharp climb in their sexual interests fall into a chasm of spite and prudence so suddenly.
I thought and thought, but couldn’t come up with a possible explanation as to why she changed so abruptly. Did she become religious? Pregnant? Perhaps she realized that she was gay? She still spoke to men, still tried to date them, but always fell short of anything functional due to idiosyncrasies that she never had before, such as paranoia or anxiety. In fact, she started to make me anxious, as her strange behavior only grew more intense and her quarks, more numerous as time passed. What the fuck got into her, I’d think, as people began to whisper amongst themselves in the cafeteria of our school about how Tanya punched Bill in the mouth for calling her pretty or when she kicked Larry in the groin for trying to kiss her on a date.
Finally, after enough pacing to leave a trough in the floor of my room, my answer came. My mother’s Uncle Mel called. He’s coming to visit in a few days. We haven’t seen him in two years. And my sister hasn’t left her room since she found out.
You son of a bitch, I thought as I took a drag, leaning back on my right hand and holding the cigarette close to the window behind me with my left, the duvet bunched around me on the bed. I turned around and exhaled out my window, flung the cigarette into the backyard below my room, grabbed my pillow, and hugged it on my lap. You see, I had no stuffed animals to cuddle. In fact, my room was completely devoid of feminine tendencies. It was entirely composed of muted blue and earthy brown, basic bedroom furniture (a vanity, a nightstand, a lamp), a closet, and an easel. I just wasn’t, and still am not, one for frills.
Anyway, I was upset. This motherfucker, I spited. How dare you, I mulled. I’m going to fucking get you, the gravity of the thought grinding my teeth into themselves. And hence, my second project.
He arrived on a Thursday night. He was apparently my grandmother’s kid brother, because he looked closer to my mother in age. Maybe fifty. He was a shock to see; tall, lanky, with an eternal glaze of sweat on his face and arms, yellow eyes, and thick glasses. He had stubble on his cheeks and chin, but not on his neck like my father. His hair was barely thinning, but oily and flaky. He wore all the worst: flannel, ripped jeans, aged boots. He was fucking trash. He was to sleep in the guest bedroom, the one across from mine, and I watched his every move from the moment his soles touched a step. I soaked in the idle scratching of his greasy skin, which finger he used to pick his nose when he thought no one was looking, the way he double-knotted the worn laces of his boots or the new-looking sneakers he also brought with him, how much beer he drank (one bottle, three and three-fourths cans the first night), what television shows he watched, even, how dilated his eyes were while he watched them. I was a lioness in the night with this son of a bitch, and you best believe that I was fucking starving.
I was already sure of what this dickhead did, but for what I had in mind to do to this prick, I had to be absolutely certain. Unfortunately, my sister still hadn’t come out of her room, so I couldn’t gauge how she reacted to him. My parents assumed she was out with friends all the time or something. Who knows what the fuck they thought. They weren’t thinking. I wanted to lure her out, but I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable myself; I didn’t want to exacerbate the situation if she wasn’t experimenting with some new drug or camping out with some guy, but instead hiding from this son of a bitch. My irritation was growing with every moment wasted that I didn’t have any solidifying evidence to my inkling, but once again, all I needed was patience.
The night may have simply come and gone for everyone else, but, uneventful as it was, I laid in my bed stiffly staring at the ceiling from sunset to sunrise, agonizingly waiting for the slightest illicit sound.
At five the next morning, I slinked downstairs and made myself a cup of coffee before anyone else woke, washed away the evidence, and made my way back to my room to away the inevitable we-have-a-guest-breakfast. At ten, all of us were present, including my sister and the Bastard. My sister, atypically, wore a robe over her pajamas. Dickhead’s nose flared as she sat down two seats away from him, next to my father. Yeah, motherfucker. I knew I was right. Keep the signals coming.
The rest of the day was spent indexing his sideways glances in her direction. Finally, the bomb was dropped. My parents announced that they would be out on Saturday for “a meeting”. I suspected that they were attending marriage counseling, so despite my obvious objections, I tried to understand that they were probably doing something constructive. Besides, I needed an opportunity.
I watched my father follow my mother out the door a little after one in the afternoon. My sister retired to her room indefinitely. I hadn’t slept in two days and was halfway delirious, but the coffee I made that morning was still holding. Patiently, I continued to watch his every move. It’s just you and me, motherfucker.
I was pretty sure that my attentiveness hadn’t waned, but he was ostensibly on his best behavior. He nestled in the easy-chair, reclined, turned on Sports Center, and P-and-Qed it. I sat on the adjacent couch and pretended to be reading. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and lit a cigarette without thinking.
“Do your parents know that you smoke?” He asked without looking away from the TV. I didn’t answer.
“You know, I don’t bite,” he pried. I silently smoked. Rage was building inside of me with such intensity, I was barely able to see straight. The colors in the room were too bright, the TV too loud, I was itchy, the couch was uncomfortable, this book is boring, I wanted to rip someone’s fucking face off. You go down now, motherfucker.
I got up and walked into my parent’s room, to the phone next to their bed on their nightstand, and dialed the neighbor’s number.
“Hello?”
“Hal! Hey—” I rasped.
“Sophie? You okay?”
“Yeah, sure, fine, but look, I need your help with something in like, five, ten minutes. Can you be over?”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Hal, look,” I whispered as loudly as I could, “I would just like your help in like ten minutes. Can you do that?”
“Sure, I’ll be right over,” he said and immediately hung up. Shit, I thought, I hope he doesn’t come over now. Well, whatever, I better get to work as quickly as possible, then.
Standing in front of the door next to the stairs, I called to Mel that I was going to hang out in the basement.
“The basement? What’s down there?” He called back.
“None of your business,” was my spiteful reply.
He chuckled. “Just like your sister…”
There was nothing down there. An anachronistic washer and dryer (probably another hand-me-down that came with the house), a disjointed collection of power tools that no one ever used, and various retired household odds and ends. Whatever, I wasn’t really here to hang out. I perched on an upturned laundry basket and waited, engaged in a vicious battle with sleep.
I heard the easy-chair fold. He raised, then footsteps. It sounded like they were approaching the stairs. The basement door knob turned. Here it comes. I braced myself, suddenly fully alert, and my mind began reeling. I spotted a monkey wrench. Alright. Here we go.
I poked his head through the door. “May I come down?” He sounded hopeful, the fucking ape. For a moment, I couldn’t think, didn’t know how to answer. “Hello? Anyone down there?”
Frantically, I blurted, “Y-yes, come down.” Put the wrench back down on the rack that I found it on, but on the second shelf from the bottom, level with my waist so that it was still easily accessible. He descended the stairs.
By the time he reached the landing, I was back on the laundry basket, legs crossed, looking at him with coy eyes.
“Hey. What’s up?” He sounded so casual. I could barely keep my revulsion from gushing from my guts all over the floor.
“Nothing. Just hanging out.” I knew I sounded uncertain, but I also knew that it would work in my favor.
“You’re looking more bored than anything to me,” he said, waving his eyes up and down at me. Fucking prick.
“Yeah… maybe,” I replied.
“Well, how about some company?” he offered.
“I… guess…” I said.
He approached me and crouched down so that his eyes were level with mine. As he brushed a stray bang from my face, he said, “My god, you girls are so beautiful. Just like your mother. I don’t see how your father isn’t worried sick about the three of you. You girls could be a lot of trouble if you wanted to…”
No. My mother. No. You mother fucking, cock sucking, stupid bastard son of a bitch.
“Hmm… I think you’re handsome too, Mr. Mel,” I cooed. He seemed somewhat shocked.
“That right?” He said with raised eyebrows.
“Sure,” I giggled. “You’re just so… masculine.” I bore into his eyes as I said this. They quivered and glazed with excitement.
“You’re… you’re growing into a fine young woman. Yep, a fine young woman indeed.” He ran his tongue over his upper lip, grazing his waxy-looking mustache.
“You just don’t know how woman I am,” I replied automatically, running my fingertips down his moist, disgusting right cheek. He clasped his hand over mine and brought it to his lips, kissed it. I shuddered. He read it the wrong way and kissed it again, lingering this time. I only stared.
“How about you show me how woman you are,” he exhaled, his voice shaking.
I stood up and backed myself against the shelves behind me, swaying my waist to and fro. I bit my lower lip as I gently drew my hand away and rested both my hands on the waist of my pants. Risky, so fucking risky, and it felt so fucking good. This was either going to be fabulously successful or catastrophic. I was terrified. Slowly, then more confidently, I slid my sweatpants along with my panties down until they were around my ankles. He sucked in a lungful of air in a way that someone does when they’ve been crying or when they’re excessively excited, a jumpy and stuttering breath. I saw his eyes begin to grow to the size of saucers as I turned around, grasped the shelf with both hands, and bent over slightly, beckoning him to enter me. His eyes glowed so brightly, it was as if someone had turned on another light. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lip again. Wait for it… wait for it… I hear him unzip his pants… one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, and I could just feel the heat from his dick against the back of my thighs before I swung around, wrench in hand, and hit him as hard as I could on the temple. Actually hit the mark this time. Excellent work.
To my chagrin, his tall, gangly stature could take more of a hit than I presumed. He staggered back, holding his head, face reddening to a deep auburn. He sputtered “fucking bitch,” and pawed me across the head with his free hand. It had already been two days since I slept, so I couldn’t handle it. Everything went blurry as I clawed at the shelf, dropping tools everywhere and creating a cloud of chalky brown dust. He grabbed me by the neck, saying, “You stupid little bitch, you need to learn some respect!” I thrust whatever I was holding between my legs into somewhere on his body. It stuck there. “Fuck!” he shouted, spitting everywhere, stumbling back again. As he fell back, his hand lingered on my shoulder and with my pants and panties still around my ankles, I fell hard on the back of my head and blacked out.

I awoke to a staccato of voices and a shattering headache.
“Oh my god, she’s awake!”
“Baby, are you okay?”
“Oh my god, oh my fucking god.”
“Sophie! Can you speak? Can you talk?”
“Did he touch you? Tell me what he did!”
Minutes later, I finally began to distinguish voices and my vision began to clear. My mother, my father, some unknown that I later realized was a cop. My father had bloodstains on his yellow polo shirt. Interesting. I was wrapped in a blanket of sorts.
“Sophie, can you speak? Are you alright?” My father, sounding forced, pissed, really, but trying his hardest to sound supportive, was using a voice an octave higher than usual.
“I’m fine,” was my stoic reply.
“No, tell me what he did. You can tell me, baby,” my mother this time, the panic in her voice painfully apparent.
“Really, I’m fine. Really.”
“Post-traumatic stress. It may be a while before she can talk about what happened.” This was the gravelly voice of the soon-to-be-acknowledged-cop.
“You don’t understand. I’m really fine. He didn’t get anywhere. As soon as the sick piece of shit tried to fuck me, I beat him upside the head.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stave off the migraine that was progressively growing in intensity. Suddenly, I realized that I was outside on the lawn. There was an ambulance and numerous cop cars, revolving blue and red lights everywhere, glazing the scene in a colorful, headache-exacerbating strobe.
“I’m going inside,” I concluded to my shocked and silent audience. “It’s fucking ridiculous out here.”
As I started for the house, my father called after me, “Wait honey, they want to take you in, get a report, get you checked out.”
“You know what happened. You saw what happened. Make a gyno appointment for me later on in the week. I’m exhausted, I’m going to bed.” I continued inside, made a quick stop in the kitchen for three Advils, and made my way to bed. It was messy, but a job well done nonetheless.

I decided that I was not only extraordinarily good at this sort of thing, but that I thoroughly enjoyed it. This meant to me that I was supposed to make a career out of it. I decided that I needed to get out, to experience the world outside of my dysfunctional home. I scheduled and took my GED a week or so after my SATs, and went to college the following semester on scholarship with the intention of becoming a detective, maybe, or a criminal pathologist. Then it was law school, then it was nothing but going to whatever class I happened to be scheduled for and spending my time smoking weed, going to raves, and taking the occasional odd job here and there. After graduating with a degree in psychology, I had no idea what I wanted to do at all. So I joined the Army.
It was stupid, I know, and I quit as soon as I could, in the mandatory two years. As the time for me to get out drew closer, I found that I didn’t want to, as there was nothing waiting for me in civilian life. How was I going to support myself? What was I going to do?
As it turned out, I was taken care of. While I was enlisted, I dated a certain southern gentleman by the name of Clay. He loved me, oh, he adored me so. Being spoiled like that comes few and far between, let me tell you. He kept telling me that a girl like me, I would be alright. Not to worry about a thing, that he’d take care of me, a girl like me he could do wonders for. I thought he was giving me the old cock-and-bull nonsense that men always promise you when you give good head or impress their friends. But he was actually the nephew of Clement D. Washington, bail bondsman. And the stories he told me that his nephew told him were… well, they were outrageous. I mean, I’ve pulled some stunts, but the man made me sound like some sort of She-Ra. Of course, I didn’t contradict him, I ate it all up. I made it real by hamming it up. Yep, that was a good one. Yeah, I enjoyed doing that. Wasn’t that just fabulous? I worked it until the man was ready to trust me with his entire racket. Even he didn’t seem to believe it at first, but believe me when I say I can talk a good game.
For three years following, I followed around his grunts Francisco Buevara and Steven DeCosta, filing their paperwork, balancing worksheets, and occasionally, covering them on the field. They gave me a shotgun and told me that if I saw anyone I didn’t know, to shoot them in the face. Always in the face. “Down’t take any chances! Blast out their fucking faces awf,” Clem said with a grimace on his face, a toothpick clenched between his teeth. I never shot anyone in the face. I never even encountered anyone. The only thing I really accomplished was balancing the books, and for that, I was paid extravagantly.

I quit when I met James. James Thompson was one sly son of a bitch, brimming with strength unreported by his modest build of five feet, eight inches. He spoke like a real man, though, with certainty in his every word and an unwavering spirit, and he fucked like a real man too, filling me to my very edges and hitting me in the soul with every thrust. He pissed me off in a way that made me wet, contradicting me in ways that made me want to slit his throat and make his dinner. He was the hottest man I had ever met.
I knew him first as case number 23431127, a cocaine and opium dealer from San Francisco. The Feds got to him through an inside, and he ran. Getting to him was easy: get on a plane with Steve and Franco and land in Vegas; rent a van and drive into Mexico by way of southern California, and continue on to Belize. We rented some rooms in a hotel that night right on the shore, and as I swung in the hammock draped in front of my door, my mind began to wander to what I have a passion for. What I’m good at.
When I finally cast sight on his fiercely cavernous and chilling black eyes, he was eating steak and lobster in a snazzy open-air restaurant owned by Francis Coppola on the tip of Placentia. It was gorgeous, with a pathway leading to a straw hut bar and an immaculately round and blue pool between the bar and the eating area. Thankfully, he was eating alone, so I coolly sat across from him and made myself comfortable.
“Oh, hello. Not that you’re unwelcome at all, but who might you be?” His pompous smirk to accent his unexpected baritone slithered coldly up my spine, made my nipples hard as it passed them, and landed at the base of my neck, raising hairs. The mellow lighting and classy décor helped.
“Sophia, charmed,” I replied as I coyly raised my eyes to meet his while arranging a napkin on my lap.
“Sophia, huh. Clever. I see that you’ll be eating with me tonight,” he observed.
“Anything you’d like to recommend?” I asked. I had at first planned to use the napkin to conceal a gun. It remained snug in my purse that was slung over the back of my seat. My intentions were to use this conversation to get him to trust me and control the situation…
“Oh, I’d have to say the steak, unless you’re not so much a fan of red meat,” he said as he gracefully raised a bloody cube to his mouth. He swallowed quickly and added, “of course, I would only recommend what I myself find good enough to eat, so I would suggest the lobster otherwise.”
“Of… course,” was all I could think of to say.
He chuckled softly. “Of course.”
He beckoned the waiter, who responded with surprising attentiveness, even for a place like this. I ordered a bloody rare steak. He smiled. I smiled. We looked at each other and… smiled.

The whirlwind that followed was nothing short of exactly what I wanted out of life. He was my Clyde. I was his Cleopatra. It was sheer complimentary perfection. You can imagine how my heart shattered when he told me it was over. Long after I had quit my job, forever since I dedicated my very being and every fiber of my essence to the intonations of his illustrious voice—that was it, just like that.
“We can’t do this anymore,” was all he said.
“Do what?” I asked playfully, not realizing the crushing gravity of what he was saying.
“I can’t be with you anymore,” was his conclusion. The conclusion.
“What the fuck, J,” I said expectantly, waiting for him to stop, imploring with the uncertainty in my voice for him to realize the mistake that he was making.
“Too many demons, Angelface,” his nickname for me, “I just… can’t sew you into the tapestry anymore.”
And that was it. I stood, he walked, the heels of my boots digging into the canary yellow leaves that illuminated the pathway of Prospect Park, the reds and browns of the trees surrounding us seeming so much more intense. Their only contrast was the salient lush green peeking sporadically from under the leaves. A breeze passed and it felt like closure, cold, final, the beginning and end to a harsh statement. I grasped my lapels, trying to hide behind them, shield myself from the freeze of rejection as he walked away, leaves sashaying and crunching in his wake. The scenery was a Rembrandt dream; magnificent colors pretentiously warm in the October chill. It was going to rain that night. I could feel it in my eyes already.

Again, I was alone. Again, I had to make my own way. I did; I built my life from pieces like Legos until I had completely manufactured a new and independent way of life.

I met Marley Kaverse on the fifth of May during an extraordinarily warm night. I was at my best: my makeup was right, monochrome and muted; my hormones were relaxed; my hair was cooperative and regulated (Pantene Citron = hair Xanax); my underwear was sheer, comfortable, and close-fitting (and feeling good does require good panties); and I was adorned with my yellow Fendi slung over the upper half of my forearm and a plastic bag containing a pint of Cherry Garcia hanging from my right fist. God, I felt good. I articulated the composition with languidly close-fitting attire, and I didn’t even sweat.
Oh, me. Oh, the power of suggestion. Oh, the delicious combination of the two.
So, I was walking down the street, on my way back to the apartment when I had the sudden urge the smoke a cigarette. Oh, I wasn’t stressed or anything—if I haven’t made it clear, quite the contrary—but I did need to slow myself down to a pace that befit my stature. My shoulders need to be straight, my waist aligned, my ass swinging just so—of course, I needn’t constantly think about this in order to execute it, but a little pre-cherry-and-fudge excitement could potentially put a hamper on it. This is only in addition to the uneven sidewalk and the random bits of trash thereupon, and yes, it is essential that I perform, even to and from the store. I think we already discussed this, but there are eyes everywhere, and besides, you never know when you might run into someone. Like Marley.
Oh, Marley. When he fixed his fabulously deep eyes on me, all I saw was lust, temptation, and suffering; with a glance, I saw the story of life itself. Men always seem soulful when their lust peaks—time and time again, the validation of this fact has resurfaced. Actually, men are quite transparent in general. Take this character I once dealt with, Benjamin. He swore, he swore that he was playing me. He simply knew that I was wrapped around his little finger; that he could do whatever he wanted. He took every inch for a mile and every step as a ride on the Metro. It was ridiculous, really, considering the reality of the circumstances, and when I finally let him go in that way that I do, the look in his eyes, God, the look in his eyes! That was the first time I was ever truly affected by a man. Sure, there was the blissful naiveté of youth and the emotional investment and wasted time we all call love that I humored during that less sophisticated time of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure some people legitimately fall in love, but I’m just not one of those people. A pretty heavy part of growing up is understanding that your world is unique and not everything that exists in the “general world” or “other people’s world” exists in your own. That was perhaps the hardest thing for me to swallow.
I was in one of those awkward, transitive positions, standing in the middle of the sidewalk (and a few feet to the left toward the street), sifting through my purse that was still hanging lackadaisically from my left arm, looking for my pack when he approached me prematurely from behind to ask me if I had any extra.
Now, significantly, he approached me from the right. Significantly because I was, as I always am, in the Controlling Position. Allow me to explain:
The Controlling Position is such that, due to actual physical placement or some otherwise relative arrangement, you are in a position in which you have more control over an encounter or situation than any other participant. Take our current situation for example. Since I was closer to the street, he could neither have snatched my purse without the risk of running into either a parked car or myself during escape or, if he decided to confront me, back me up against the adjacent wall. He would instead need to approach me from the right, as he did, giving me the options of spraying him with pepper spray or hitting him with my free hand, or backing him up against the wall if I were so inspired. Such are the nuances of mastering the art of la femme. Eventually, I’m sure, it’ll all come together.
I looked up at him and established contact with his eyes and he, for the most fleeting splinter of a moment, looked away. I sustained my stoic countenance and continued to busy myself amidst my purse.
“Is that a no?” He dejectedly asked.
“Well, we won’t know either way until I retrieve them, now will we?” I shot back.
He stood there, tension permeating the silence. I found my cigs.
“Mm. You wanted one?” my query was muffled as I held my Nat Sherman between my lips and lit it behind cupped hands, rose-red nails gleaming in the sunlight.
“Yes,” he responded as a truck turned onto our street and muffled all other proximal noises. He sighed, his eyes rolling to the sky as if he were asking God why He insists on teasing him. Oh, it’s not God this time, but I’m flattered. I patiently let the truck pass as his eyes completed their revolution and rested at my feet. A woman walked past behind him and eyed him in a way that irritated me just a little bit. The bitch.
Women. Honestly. I love them—no, I respect them. Heartily. But otherwise, I hate them.
When I glanced back at Marley and his facial aerobics, I fought a smirk with all my might and, straining against the effort, uttered a curt “what?” I’m sure it translated more as impatience, and all the better.
“Yes—yes, I would like a cigarette,” was his frustrated reply. Oh, do we not like this game?
“Sure,” I giggled as I gracefully slid one out of the pack and extended it toward him. “Enjoy. Need a light?”
“Please.” The cigarette hung from his thin lips outlined in a coarse shadow of beard. He stuck his hands in his pockets as he watched me retrieve the matches I already thrown back into my purse.
“Trying to get a peek?” I smiled as a sifted.
He was looking at my face now, eyebrows raised defensively.
“Here.” I handed them to him. “Men are so curious. You always want to know the mystery of a woman’s purse.”
“What? No, I was just waiting for a light.”
“You’re not in the least bit curious as to what might be in here?” I looked him dead in the eyes again and watched them dilate until they were possessed of more cavernous black than curious brown.
“Not really.” He looked away, inhaling and exhaling smoke, pretending nonchalance. He was adorable!
“You lie. There could be anything in here.”
“Like what?” His eyes finally met mine again.
“Oh, I don’t know. Anything. I am a woman, after all.”
“So?”
“Oh, don’t give me that. You know that women are far more interesting than men. The best you can do is put something in your pocket, and that’s not cute, nor inconspicuous. But me? There could be anything in here.”
“Like what?”
“None of your business. That’s the beauty of it.” And with that, I swiftly turned and began to walk away.
“Hey!” he called after me.
“Yes?” I responded without stopping, turning, or any other acknowledgement.
“Hey, wait!” He jogged to catch up to me. Some feet before us, man with a woman, and another man a couple of yards ahead of them, turned around.
“Yes?” I asked again, facing forward, perfected walk in full swing.
“C’mon, what was that? At least give me your name. Maybe I could buy you some coffee.” He kept stride with me well, gesturing with his hands and facing me as I continued to walk forward as if no one were there, but at that I stopped and glared at him.
“Because I give you a cigarette, you actually believe that I’ve already considered fucking you?!” I demanded. I had.
“What?! No, I just thought that maybe—“
“Please. Please don’t give me any cock-and-bull about how we could be friends and all this. I’m not interested. You don’t ask someone you want to be friends with out for coffee. You ask friends out for coffee. You don’t even know my name.” I swung my head as to toss my hair and brushed my bangs out of my eyes, and looked at him. My eyes burned into his with as much ferocity as I could muster.
“People ask other people out for drinks all the time.”
“For no reason?”
“Well, of course, for a reason…”
“Then what reason? Surely not to be my friend. What about me besides my pussy are you interested in?”
“Your purse?”
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! If it weren’t for such a strong jaw line or such broad shoulders, that may not have been a game at all. It was premature, unplanned, not on the agenda. But for this piece of work, it most certainly was a game, and he just scored himself a nice conversation under yellow lighting and over a suggestive mix of coffee and cream.

Marley was far more charming than I thought he’d be. Not only did he laugh at every one of my quips, which is a very easy way to get on my good side, but he did all of the necessary small things to keep me interested (if I were the type to be moved by such gestures), such as the bouquet he gave me three days later, or the foot massage he treated me to one night in his apartment even after I made it distinctly clear that I wasn’t going to sleep with him. I did my share of lustful cooing and succulent flirtation, and it excited him even more than I expected. By the fifth day, he was drunk from my sultry attentions and I had him at my beck and call.

I always give it a week. I figure within a weeks time, most people would have decided whether they will viably give you an orgasm (or three or five or ten…) if you let them without resigning yourself to allegiances like name-claiming or shirking on contraceptives. You can never be too sure for that. I won’t even fuck my future husband without redeeming test results, and I won’t marry him without knowing him well enough to render those results extraneous. I know, I’m a bitch. Hell, I’m only speaking hypothetically, anyway. I’m not marrying any fucking body.
It was the eighth day actually, a Wednesday, when I found myself on his couch, watching people do stupid shit on TV. I am so tired of it; television is devoid of complex thought or rhetoric, it only flirts with the extremes of either brainless slapstick humor or the subjective regurgitation of information. What disgusts me the most is the fact that every bullshit societal construct is so prevalent on television. Take men and women, for example. Every single fucking woman is the same on TV, ever notice that? Yes, it’s a man’s world, and that’s made apparent by the linear, one-dimensional bitches on it. If television truly had a woman’s influence, then it wouldn’t be so saturated with its unalienable familial standards, the exploitation of the female form, and the lusting for female children. Especially considering the idiotic shit he was watching, hell, I may have been turned off enough to leave altogether if his living room wasn’t so goddamn redeeming nice. It was a pleasant surprise when one figured that this was coming from a man who lives on his own, in his own apartment, with no supplementation, what with its entertainment center stuffed to its generous breadth’s capacity with Sony gizmos, the medium-toned and spackled hardwood floor, the modest arrangements of artwork and family motifs on the wall, the low-rise Asian-style maple coffee table, modern floor lamps, the two-toned striped rug, and the crème microsuede couch upon which we were sitting. He can’t have a girlfriend (unless, of course, she’s out of town or in the hospital, but we’re trying to be optimistic), but this fine piece of work was definitely either masterminded, or even single-handedly done by, a woman.
It was only about half past six, so although I had my intentions he definitely had his desires, Marley didn’t know that anything was going to happen quite yet. This is exactly why we were chastely sitting next to one another, he lounging with his legs widely parted on one side of the three-seated couch, and I perched on the other, one leg draped over the other, which was lying on its side and sharply bent. He turned to me:
“Oh, I’m having a friend over for a couple of minutes. He’s a nice guy, you’ll like ‘em.”
“Is that right? How naughty of you!” I mocked shock and disgust.
“He’s gay,” he laughed.
“Oh, sure. And then the porn music starts and he rips his clothes off and we all lose control,” I teased with my sultriest voice meant to sound more seductive than sardonic, my face angled slightly downward and my eyes coyly reaching up to meet his.
“You’re terrible. So, wait—does that mean we were going to..?” Marley suddenly switched from amused to excessively curious with a suddenness that almost jarred me. Nice catch, Mr. Kaverse.
“Cute, but no, I’m only trying to bring myself a step ahead of your dirty little mind. What goes on in your delusions is irrelevant to reality.” I ascertained that I continued to giggle some as I spoke so that my poker face, far more fabulously mastered, waned not even in the slightest.
“Ooh, we have a philosopher on our hands, ladies and gentlemen! So we have the reality of our consciousness weighed the reality of our experience, and she has mastered with them both!” His announcer voice is obnoxiously loud and needs work, but I’m in stitches at this point.
“What are you…?” I manage to squeeze out between relentless giggles, my face reddening.
“You heard right, ladies and gentlemen, she’s the Dali Llama! Buddha! Jesus Christ!” he declared, waving his hands to dramatically gesture in my direction.
“Come on, now. Buddha was fat. You don’t want to off and call me fat, now,” I replied, laughter apparent in my drawn out and giddy elocution.
“No, I don’t want to call you fat. You’re not fat, just clairvoyant. I don’t think you have to be fat to be clairvoyant,” Marley saved, naturally.
“Where did you get clairvoyant from?” I questioned.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was leaning more toward ‘Messiah’,” he replied.
“Oh, you have me all wrong,” I said with a broad grin.
“Well, I sure feel a whole lot better,” he smiled back.
“Then apparently I haven’t been tough enough on you!” I exclaimed, at which point I pounced on him from across the couch.
“Ah-ha, but now you only prove my point!” Marley emphatically flung his arms in the air as the room went silent during a gap between commercials and someone knocked on the door, all at the same time. Marley bounced up as the TV cued back in too loudly, leaned forward as far as he could, and barely reached the knob to open the door just enough to indicate to whoever was outside to come in. A tall man with cream skin walked into the room, marginally stocky and curly haired. His green eyes regarded me first with an amicable smile and he suddenly turned to Marley:
“Who is thiiiiisss?” He had what would have been a nice voice, but it was muddled by a hilariously extraneous gay twang.
“This, Chauncey, is Sophie,” Marley proudly stated.
“Hey, girl. You are foyyyyn, so sheit, I guess my chances with Mr. Marley-Man are done.” Chauncey was extremely flamboyant, but his fluttering about was charming to me nonetheless. You know what it is about gay men that women like so much? They’re what men aught to be: funny, sensitive, and understanding. I guess the rest just follows suit. Hell, they’re fun, whatever.
“There was never a chance, Chauncey. Why don’t you sit your gay ass down and we can talk a little bit?” Marley motioned toward the couch as he rose from it and replaced himself in the adjacent easy chair.
“Alright, alright, what’s up?” Chauncey was suddenly calm and demure.
“What’s this business with James, now?” Marley leaned forward on his elbows against his knees.
“Infrunna her?” Chauncey leaned away from and pointed toward me, a childish grimace on his face. I guess he couldn’t hide it for long.
“Chauncey, it was you who insisted that you come over. Now what happened?” Marley’s voice demanded “quick and easy.” Naïve.
“I don’t know. That stupid motherfucker doesn’t love me anymore,” Chauncey pouted as he looked down at his hands, which were clasped together between his knees as his ankles interlocked, his entire body rhythmically bouncing as he swayed each knee toward and away from each other. I couldn’t handle this sudden shift that I didn’t instigate myself, especially because that means that it spirited all of the attention from me altogether, and I therefore lit a cigarette with more spite than I, unfortunately, believe to have communicated. I crossed my legs, folded my arms, and sunk into the couch, capitulating into my own little world.
“James doesn’t love you anymore. Why do you believe that James doesn’t love you anymore?” James, huh? …Marley was being about as helpful as a real shrink. At least he wasn’t paying for it.
“He doesn’t want to have sex anymore.” The room fell silent during another impeccably placed gap in the commercials. Chauncey stopped bouncing.
“Well, ah, maybe—“ Marley began, his eyes fixed on a vent in the ceiling.
“Don’t even start. You know that girl’s a nymph. He will get it, it just depends from who.” I wanted to be pissed so badly, I wanted to make Marley uncomfortable enough to blow him off so badly, but admittedly, I was just too amused at Chauncey’s head swaying and finger gestures.
“Chauncey, that’s a pretty severe allegation.” Marley was bearing into his eyes now.
“Oh, please. You know the deal. We were only together because I interested him for the moment. Now he’s done.” Chauncey folded his arms and looked away.
“Look, he was promiscuous, but so were you. Says nothing for what’s going on with you two now.”
“Not if he stops putting out. Then you know something’s up.” Chauncey’s voice was shaky and his eyes began to well.
“Look, Chauncey, I love you, you’re my brother, but… look, I…” Marley trailed off.
Chauncey shot to his feet, tears streaming down his cheeks, yelling at the top of his lungs, “You’re damn right, you’re my brother! I don’t know how much more I can take! When are you going to get rid of this stupid bitch and talk to me like I mean something to you?!”
So that was that. I left.

From that day on, Marley began to behave strangely. There were a good few days that he didn’t call, and a few more after that during which he didn’t even answer any of mine. When I finally saw him again, it was at a café after he got off of work. He called me, said he needed to see me. Sure, whatever, I said. What the hell was his problem, anyway?
I could sense his nervousness from the get. His eyes were no longer soulful, but watchful, lingering too long at lateral things that should have had his attention for only an instant. Especially with me around. He turned to the waitress.
“I’ll have a Sashay Latte,” he ordered.
“What’s your problem?” I asked as I bore into his eyes.
“Huh? The lady’s waiting for your order,” he replied.
“Don’t you get short with me!” I ordered. “A vanilla mocha,” I ordered again, turning to the waitress. It’ll be right up, thank you, standard.
“Nothing. I’m… dealing with shit,” he hesitated.
“Shit,” I restated. What the fuck? His brother has a debacle with some other dude, and the whole family falls apart?
“Yes, shit. I… I’m having a hard time right now. I hope it’s not affecting you too much,” he said as he stared me right back in the eyes.
“No… I’m fine,” I said. I began arranging my napkin in my lap, an old habit from another life.
“You don’t look fine,” he pried.
“I’m fine,” I concluded. “Look… I’m going. Give me a call when things clear up, will you?” With that, I picked up my purse, took out my wallet, dropped a five on the table, and started to walk out.
“Hey—hey! Look, you don’t have to leave.” He was holding on to my arm. People turned. I yanked my arm away.
“It’s the only choice you give me,” I sternly forced through my pursed lips.
“Fine—look… fine.” He sighed. “Can I… can I trust you?” He was looking up at me with these puppy dog eyes that simply made me nauseous.
“I guess,” I replied, irritated.
“Can I?” he implored.
“Sure. What is it?” I demanded.
“Sit.” he motioned to my late seat with both hands upturned.
“Fine.” I resurrect my seat and sit.
“I… I owe someone money. I think he wants it back.” He suddenly sounded very tired.
“I see. And I take it that you don’t have it?” I inquired, head tilted slightly to the side.
“No. No, I don’t,” he replied with angst.
“Well. What are we going to do about this, pray tell?” I asked.
“We aren’t going to do anything, for now.”
“I see.”
Our drinks arrive. He sips and exhales a long “ahh”.
“Good?” I ask.
“Very,” he replies.
“Anyway. It sounds to me like you need to relax. How about this Saturday, you and me? I’ll come over.” I tried to sound supportive. He ate the bait eagerly.
“Yeah? Just you and I?” he said hopefully.
“Just you and I, baby. Sophie will make it alllll better. Sound like a plan?” It was time to seal the deal.
“Yeah, sure. Saturday. What time?”
“Five alright?”
“Five is alright with me,” he said, sounding a million times better.
“Good. Well, I have to run. You can keep the five.” With that, I got up and quickly exited. He didn’t dare stop me.

On Thursday, he called me on my cell while I was driving. As the phone rang, I struggled to find it amidst the mess in my purse with my eyes still trained on the road, and saw in the corner of my eye the motel key slither out of my purse and off the seat.
“Hold on,” I said quickly as I struggled to find it on the floor of my car at a red light. I could hear him trying to respond to me, and it annoyed me a little bit. I wanted to just hang up on him for being irritating. I mean, didn’t I just ask him to hold on?
“Alright, I’m back,” I sighed as I pushed unruly bangs from over my eyes.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” Marley sounded quite like shit again. Wonderful.
“It’s fine. What’s up?” I tried to sound disappointed but forgiving. I was neither. We still need to have our special night. It’s the eleventh day already, for godsakes. It’s time to seal the deal.
“Nothing. I feel terrible.” He sounded it, too.
“Aww, I’m sorry, sweetie. What’s going on? Are you alright?” I asked.
“You just… you just don’t understand. I’ve been holding this in… it’s killing me.” Marley sounded close to tears. I was a little alarmed now.
“Understand… what?”
“Sophie. My god, you are so… I don’t know. Sophie. This is killing me.”
“What’s killing you?”
“James. Chauncey’s boyfriend’s name is James.”
“I gathered.” James. Ugh. What a name.
“Right. James got himself tested about three weeks ago, and it came up positive.”
“Ohhhh…” My voice began with the intention of continuing a cogent sentence, but instead trailed off into discomfort. I didn’t like the direction this was eschewing toward at all.
“I can’t tell Chauncey. He would… I don’t know. He’d be irrational. I mean, and I’ve known this long, and I didn’t know how to tell him, and…”
“And?”
“And I needed the money.”
“Needed the money?” I pulled my phone away, looked at it incredulously, and placed it back to my ear.
“Well, because Chauncey’s been so mad at James… well, I figured he deserved it…”
“Oh my fucked god, could you please stop speaking to me like a child and just spit it out!” So I lost my patience. It’s not like it really mattered, I just wanted to know how that affected my plans.
“Alright. Fine, alright. I might as well just tell you. James had a good stock of money, see, he deals. Gets his shit out of Cali. Chauncey knew where he kept it and, well, after I found out that he had already cheated on Chauncey and risked my brother’s life by getting himself infected, I figured to hell with him, fuck him, and fed all of these ideas into Chauncey’s head without telling him what happened so that Chauncey could tell me where he kept his stash.” What? Deals? Cali? …naw!
“And he did.”
“Yeah, and I scored about 24k. It was amazing.”
“That is pretty good.”
“It was amazing.”
“So, this is the money you ‘borrowed’?”
“Yeah. I’m kind of freaking out. He had a lot of fucking money, like, I didn’t even get all of it. How the fuck… I mean, he has to be pretty fucking… like, what if he found out it was me? He’d probably try to kill me, don’t you think?” He was speaking quickly, his voice quivering. Now this is interesting.
“Probably.” I glanced out the window at an old man leeringly checking me out from his blue Audi. I rolled me eyes until they were looking out the other window, where I saw a neat little family, father tensely gripping the steering wheel, wife austerely staring ahead, their hyperactive son taking a break from his constant movement to pick his nose. Please, just turn green. And Marley, for fucks sake, get to the point.
“Yeah, well, he hasn’t really been speaking to me lately. I mean, ever since he found out that he was HIV positive, he’s been needing someone to speak to, right? And he can’t really speak to Chauncey or anyone else, so he speaks to me. But lately, he’s been a little cold. I don’t know.”
“So, you think he’s going to kill you.”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
“What do you think? You think he’s going to kill me?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

That night I came over to “console” Marley. I petted his hair and clasped his head against my bosom. I listened to him cry alongside the worst music in his collection. As the night wore on, our interaction became more flirtatious. We had a couple of intimate moments, and we began to kiss. Commence the heavy necking, groping, pulling, frantic grabbing, the best and worst of us all over his living room floor. Then he began taking off my clothes. I let him and began to take off his. He exposed my breasts and unbuttoned my jeans. His pants were halfway down his legs and his boxers were all that was left. I pushed him down and reached for my bag.
“You know what we have to do.”
“Oh, sure, baby, I love to play it safe.”

Alright, before I even get into this, I need you to understand that if you are a judgmental person, you’re going to have a hard time with this. Don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t a disclaimer—I honestly don’t care what you think or what you intend to do about it. I have nothing to say for myself, and feel no remorse, so there’s really nothing you can do. You may think or feel as if your ideals make a difference, or that intimating them to me in any way could change my views, but they’ll do no more for enriching my life or yours than would my imposition of my perspectives on you. So suffice to say that if you know that you’re one of those people that can’t hear about someone who behaves in a certain way that you disapprove, then just don’t listen to what I have to say. I mean, really. After all, I’m only a product of my experiences, just like everyone else.
And this is not to say that there’s anything wrong with being that sort of way, either, all pride and prudence. It just wouldn’t behoove either one of us mature, rational individuals if we associated because, along the same vein, you may not like my reaction to your disapproval. It’s all interconnected. Because I’m going to be totally honest with you—I don’t like those sorts of people. We just won’t get along.
Right. So, since I’m sure you’re already consulting your little mental rolodex to narrow down the possibilities of which Sophie I am and what it means, I’m Sophia Natalie Greenwood. Yes, me. I’m sure you’ve heard of me—if the face isn’t enough then it has to be the controversy. People simply lust for naughty anecdotes and other shocking bits of existential travesty. Hell, I mean, so do I.
Alright, you probably haven’t. Give me a break, there are a million different little hoebags out there with their little entourages and their little transgressions and everyone’s fully exposed eyeballs with their excited, dilated pupils and curious ears, piqued to their utmost sensitivity, stalking their every move through grapevines, makeshift counseling sessions, eavesdropping, surveillance, hell, magazines, TV shows, you name it. It’s an addiction. An opiate more powerful than God; televised evangelism couldn’t hold a candle to evening MTV and while the Bible and all of its cute little spin-offs in like, a billion different languages, all with the same dubious contradictions and lack of formative cogency, continue to dominate worldwide book sales (which has nothing whatsoever to do with institutionalization, right?), tabloids continue to enjoy extraordinary profits from publishing known nonsense as often as once a week.
So who’s to say that you’re familiar with li’l ol’ me? I’m just another one of the many with her own set of opinions and philosophies, complete with a redeeming sense of empathy. Oh, sure, I don’t actually want to hurt anyone, but shit, I just so happen to be playing my game while everyone else is playing theirs. Well, bully for us, I hope it works out for the both of us, but I really can’t be blamed if it works out for me and not for you, just as you couldn’t be blamed for the reverse, because I’m just playing into the larger scheme anyway—I certainly play a functional role, just not the role I ever seem to be playing. So I’m not going to pine, worrying myself over the small shit. I sate my enduring conscience by empathizing.
…and who’s to say that you’d even be interested if I’m only one of the many? Because you like it. You love it. You adore it so fucking much that you subject yourself to it over and over at the risk of it actually coming to get you, haunting you, infecting your life. Because without you, there wouldn’t be many, only some, or a few, or none at all, because things only exist when you think they do. And you know how I know this? Because if it weren’t for that one definitive fact, then I wouldn’t even be able to be me. Everyone would be too busy considering possibilities to let me—hell, that’s almost what screwed me this time around. Instead, everyone’s too busy watching it happen to everyone else. Or doing all of those naughty little things that give me a reason for living and a validation for what I do.
So really, I guess my way of thinking is just a blessing in disguise. I bring people close to what they love so much. I make them a part of what they want. And the best part is I do it by just being me! That’s right, I’m Sophie: Selfish Philanthropist.

I pulled out my .33 pistol and destroyed the back of his head through a neat round hole in the front. That was that. The mark’s own gun was taken from his closet after my first visit. I cleaned it and lay it in beside him, carelessly. Finally. That whole situation was getting entirely too heavy for my tastes.
I immediately went back to my hotel room. Of course I didn’t rent it, but it was where I was staying. According to the rest of the world though, I was in Belize. The only people who knew I wasn’t don’t matter—they’re more likely suspects than I. The tickets were included in the pay. And why Belize? Because even if this story didn’t have a James in it, I could never have escaped him anyway. So I decided to escape with him. So to speak. We all need to dream at least a little bit, right?
I booted up my cute little pearl colored MacBook, opened up my e-mail inbox, and deleted the spam-like cryptic cipher that detailed the who, what, and when of this particular job. I won’t ever even know who hired me.
Or maybe I do.

~ P.