Menu Load Error

- Text Size +

The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended. This story is copyright (c) 2010 Amy Komori. All rights reserved.


 
Chapter One:
I Love You, Pumpkin                           
 
No more skating, no more stealing, no more smoking.  That was the deal Mrs. Komori and I struck on the way home from the police station.  Giving up skating hurt the most, but Mrs. Komori was adamant about keeping an eye on me and we agreed I needed a tight leash and “just being” mostly where she could supervise me was the way for me to go.  She would see I got out and did some healthy activities, and if Emily had time—which she seldom did—she could take me places, too.  The main thing was to slow me down and ease back into it at a pace where maybe my brain would function in a way less scary for me and those around me. 
 
“It” being life.
 
“I’m still concerned because I really think being home stewing in your own juices was so much was part of your problem,” Mrs. Komori said.  “But I’m also worried about how fragile you seem to be when you take social knocks, so hanging out with those kids?  I just don’t know about that.  For now, anyways.”
 
“Yeah.  I just really like skating, though.  I-I don’t wanna give that up.”
 
“It’s just until you settle down, build up your emotional strength.  Get into a routine at school, we’ll see how your grades are and you’ll be knocking your brains out on the—the rampy thing before you know it.  And maybe, just maybe, to sort of sweeten the deal or bribe you a little, I’ll help you out with a better pair of skates.”
 
“Really?  Because that would be so sweet!”
 
“Sure.”
 
“Lemme have a look at Honey Bunny,” Emily said when we came walked in the door.  “Hey, could you get Pumpkin to give me back my wallet?”
 
“Which one is it?” I asked, knowing exactly where this was heading, hoping Emily would take it all the way despite her mother’s presence in the room.
 
“It’s the one that says ‘Bad Motherfu—‘“
 
“Emily!” Mrs. Komori snapped, shutting Emily up but not wiping the sardonic grin off her face.  Mrs. Komori liked that movie, too.
 
“Fuckin’ Honey Bunny,” Emily said with a snicker after we were alone.  “I’m gonna call you that from now on.”
 
“And I’m gonna call you Butch, but I’ll say it like, ‘Bootch.’  What ees your name?  Bootch.  What does eet mean?”
 
“I’m American, honey.  Our names don’t mean shit,” Emily said.  Then she started singing the second verse from Jane’s A’s “Been Caught Stealing:”  “My girl, she’s one too.  She’ll go and get her a shirt, stick it under her skirt,” and doing a little shoulder-shaking dance, her hand clenched near her mouth as if she were holding a mic.
 
I squinted at her, my head tilted as I waited for her to finish entertaining herself.
 
Emily stopped singing and beeped my nose like a button.  “You're a little hardcore JD, dude.  You’re like the only person I know who’s been arrested.  What was it like?”
 
While I could scarcely believe that little tidbit of info, I told her all about my arrest and booking while she poured us both some Dr. Pepper in a couple of jelly glasses.  I made it out like it was some kind of comedic adventure for her benefit, but inside I was deeply ashamed.  Partially for what it said about me, a little bit simply because I got caught and the rest for having put Mrs. Komori through all that public humiliation.
 
When I finished, Emily shook her head.  “I feel like it’s kinda my fault.”
 
“Why’s that?  You didn’t do anything.  I’m the dumbass who thought it was a great idea to steal a porn magazine.”

“I-I slapped you.  I am really sorry about that, Honey Bunny.  Seriously.  I mean, I know I just called you Honey Bunny, and I swear I’m going to keep doing it, but I know I suck for slapping you that time.”  

“Well, you do suck, but it’s casual.”  

“It sent you off the deep end, didn’t it?”  

“I was already coming apart.”  

“Well, I really regret it more than I can even say.  No one should lay a hand on anyone else.  At least unless the other person does it first.”

“Oh yeah, then it’s total retaliatory effort.”
 
“To the maximum, yeah.  Dude, that’s our family motto.  If you’re going to be a true Komori, you need to learn it.  Know it.  Live it.”
 
“She’s the full hot orator. Oh yeah…”
 
“What?”
 
“If you’re so set on calling me Honey Bunny, could you at least change it to Yolanda and call me that instead?”
 
Emily smiled, pretended to think it over and said, “No.”
 
Mrs. Komori had changed into sweats, and about the time Emily and I were finished making up, she came into the kitchen, told me to get my ass in gear and marched me back to my bedroom.  She followed me with a big, dark green garbage bag and made me turn everything out until I uncovered all my contraband, consisting mostly of a big-ass pile of Playboys, Penthouses and whatnot, plus my cigarettes.

"Good lord, Amy," Mrs. Komori said when she saw the extent of my special magazine collection.

"I know," I replied. Taken individually, each magazine wasn’t such a horror.  But now that I realized just how many I had, they made me kind of sick.  Fake lips, fake boobs, fake people.  The disenchantment became complete.

Mrs. Komori held the bag, and I loaded it up, razor-edged magazines cutting right through the plastic; we had to double-bag everything and it became almost too heavy for either of us to carry. You’d be surprised how heavy magazines can be.  They seem so flimsy and light, but the ounces become pounds pretty quickly, and the pounds add up.  Add in the floppy factor and the danger of paper cuts and I started thinking how maybe instead of gun control we needed periodical control. 
 
I was doing my part, though.  So long, airbrushed goddesses, would-be actresses and future MTV veejays or talking heads, introducing Spice Girls videos and shilling for Clearasil. Oh yeah, and those informative articles that taught little Amy Komori the best sunglasses to wear in the Caribbean, how to sneak back into her ex-girlfriend's life, win bar bets and make her girl happy in the sack.

Together, Mrs. Komori and I dragged it all out to the garbage can.  Now I was running clean and light again.  Mrs. Komori put her arm around me, and we went back towards the house. I didn't look back, but I guess it was for the best. Those magazines really had lots of information useful to men.  Except how to grow your dick and nads back when life suddenly demands you become a Japanese girl-child.
 
“Did you check under her bed, Mom?” Emily asked, on her way to her Bronco II with her keys in one hand, a North Face backpack in the other.
 
“Pretty much, yeah.”
 
“No, I mean, like thoroughly.”  She had the Bronco II's door open, and started to slide into the driver's seat.
 
“Why?”
 
“’Cause Honey Bunny here probably has like half a dozen unregistered firearms hidden under there.  She and her boyfriend have been knocking over liquor stores all summer.  Isn’t that right—“
 
“I don’t really…”
 
“—Honey Bunny?”  And then Emily slammed her door and drove away laughing before I could say anything in return.
 
Anyways, that was how I racked up my third nickname that summer and my old name fell out of use in favor of my newly-legalized girl handle.  I was starting to be a magnet for nicknames.  Maki, Ayumi and Honey Bunny.  Mrs. Komori called me Amy all the time, and Emily, good as her word, called me Honey Bunny almost exclusively, made me redden with anger—when we were alone-- or embarrassment—around other people.  But not as often as I might have liked, because she was still running around doing older girl stuff, hanging with Darla, Beth the shrinking violet, Hanna the rich bi-chick hippie with herpes and the rest.  If they were the cast of a sitcom, it might have been a little like everyone’s favorite Thursday night laugh-fest “Friends,” but I had no way of knowing because I made it a point never to watch “Friends” because it sucked shit through a straw from a donkey’s ass as far as I was concerned, and because Emily’s life was blacked out in my viewing area.
 
The person she spent the most time with, though, was Toby.  Toby.  Before-Martin Toby.  Still-has-his-dick Toby.
 
I hated, hated, hated Toby.  I was dealing fine with not being Emily’s boyfriend anymore, but I couldn’t stand that she’d gone back with that fucking asshole instead of finding someone new at least.  And I knew he was an asshole, because she was always calling him “That Fucking Asshole” right up until the moment his name became Toby again.
 
God, and I had to meet him face to face, too!  The first time Emily brought him by the house, she introduced me as Honey Bunny and Toby gave me a wan smile and promptly lost interest.  As for me, I gave him his own secret nickname:  Hair Boy.  Now that I’d finally seen him up close, I couldn’t help but notice how he was covered with dark black hair, all up and down his arms.  His apparent dedication to a life of Sasquatch impersonation made me sick for some reason; I couldn’t remember things like that having bothered me before.

Hair Boy even ate supper with us almost every night. I don't know if he knew I used to be a guy or not.  I don't know if it mattered; it’s not as if he spent any of his time on me or trying to win me over as a favor to his girlfriend. I just know what little enjoyment I got out of remembering the time Emily and I left him standing by the curb with a stupid look on his face didn't balance out the fact I knew he, of all people, was doing to her all the things I used to do.
 
It was obvious.  They didn’t try all that hard to hide it, even from me.  I can't tell you how many times I'd come bouncing into the den and catch Toby pushing his tongue down Emily's throat. Way too often.  I pictured his tongue as hairy, too.  Like a gross, fat, pink leech furred with some kind of ice age mutation.  I watched with expectation when Emily and I were together alone while Hair Boy was in the kitchen fixing us all Dr. Peppers, but she never coughed up a hairball or anything, so maybe I was wrong about that. 
 
Some nights, Emily called and told her mom she was sleeping over at a friend's house and would be home in the morning. Yeah, right, a friend.
 
Yeah, right, sleeping.
 
And then, just a day or two before school started, something unexpected happened. Emily came home early.
 
I was sitting on the couch in some old sweats and a t-shirt, looking as butch as possible, for a preteen with silly, bobbed girly-bangs haircut and 5 earrings.  I glanced at Emily, looked away, because I expected her to pretty much walk on through and ignore me. But by the set of her lips, I could tell at once it was over with Hair Boy.
  
Emily flopped down beside me and slouched down with her knees together, her feet apart. Kind of a collapsed rockabilly pose. I chewed my lip, pretended to watch TV and didn't say anything. I could feel her near me, feel her weight pushing down on the couch cushion. She hadn't stayed in the same room alone with me for five consecutive minutes since even before I got arrested. Finally, Emily couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"I fucking hate all guys," she growled. Her dark eyes teared up—it was obvious the way the glow from the TV glinted in them, even viewed from the side and slightly below, my angle-- but she was too pissed to let it flow.

"What happened?" I asked, and turned down the TV.

What happened was, Toby flaked in a way that went beyond your normal level of boyfriend-girlfriend flakery.  Not returning a call was normal.  So was bailing on a planned date to get shitfaced with friends when the togetherness of young love turned all smothering.  Or forgetting a one-month anniversary because, honestly, you just aren’t that sentimental about such things.  But this was flakery to the extreme…
 
And it actually affected little ol’ me.
 
Emily told me the specific events of that night, and the rest I knew from casually eavesdropping on her half of many of a phone conversation leading up to it.  And the tale went a little like this:
 
They were supposed to go see the Enemies (in fact, by the time Emily told me this narrative of romantic woe, the Enemies were no doubt packing up their gear after their set, or backstage smoking pot or snorting lines or something).  There was some controversy because Darla wanted to go and Emily really wanted some boyfriend-girlfriend time rather than some kind of sick-o triad thing.  Emily pulled rank; relationship over friendship.  Darla threw some kind a childish fit about never getting any girl time with her best friend and pissed off Emily.  For his part, Toby tried to stay out of it by playing it all nonchalantly.  After a day or so, Darla had caved and everything was cool again between the three of them.
 
The night of, Emily drove herself downtown and joined the big crowd standing in line outside the Lava Lamp.  When Toby didn’t show, Emily found herself slipping from worried to pissed.  Finally, she was pissed enough to go stalk the guy; after all, she couldn’t even get into the show because he had the tickets.  She drove by Toby’s apartment, and the lights were out.  The shades were up and when she looked in, nose against the window glass and her hands as a shield against the parking lot security light, the living room was completely empty…
 
For some reason, that detail was like a cold fingertip delicately stroking my spine.  I broke out in goosebumps and didn’t even know why.
 
“You okay?”  Emily asked.  That’s how obvious it was; Emily had noticed it through the veil of her own self-concern.
 
“Yeah…” I said.
 
“Because your eyes went super-wide and you looked kinda like you wanted to hurl for a second there.”
 
“I just… I was just thinking of the last time I went to the Lava Lamp when those guys were… hitting on me.”
 
“Wow.  You’re like a total homophobe.”
 
“They thought I was a girl.  Jeez, you were there and everything.”
 
“No, I was just thinking what a homophobe you’ve always been.  It didn’t have anything to do with that time at the Lava Lamp.  Totally unrelated thought.”
 
“Finish your story!”
 
So Emily did.  Those bare walls, the dents in the carpet where furniture once stood in a pattern she had practically memorized morphed Emily’s scorned anger into girlfriendish concern, so she went to a pay phone and called Toby’s parents.  Where is he?  What’s happening?  Is he okay?  I’m so worried about him.  All his stuff is gone.  Toby’s folks didn’t really know.  He’d been acting strange for the last couple of days, looking kind of haggard and worried.  Then he suddenly told them he and some buddies were moving to Portland, Oregon, of all places.  They were just surprised it had been that same day.
 
Now Emily didn’t know what to feel.  Worried, scared, hurt, a thread of anger running through it all, like the river in that Brad Pitt movie about trout fishing.  You know, “12 Monkeys.”  Deeply confused, troubled.  Two boyfriends in one year, one turned into a tiny girl-thing and the other…  Who knew?
 
That last question was why I was now riding a queasy, uneasy feeling of impending... 
 
What?  Impending what?  I didn’t dare allow my verbal forebrain to voice what my lizard-brain was burbling about in my hypothalamus or something, where whatever atavistic, fear-sensing part of our brain acts as some kind of evolutionary third eye or sixth sense.  Emily apparently had no such secret suspicions, or really, just some mundane ones.  She was just a jilted lover, like in a song.  All hurt and confusion, raw and new like a wound.  But for me, the whole world outside our little Komori house had darkened just a bit, as if a frightened octopus jetted its ink into an deepwater ocean of a night sky, stirring the black, cooling it by degrees despite the residual heat and humidity of the day.
 
I shivered a little and in response, without knowing why I was shaking, my wounded Emily put her arms around me and pulled me close.  She squeezed me tightly, those long arms against my chest and tummy, and she gently rocked us both, her chin buried in my hair. I may as well have been a big, warm pillow, but it made me feel a little soft and secure.

“Honey Bunny?"

"Yeah?"  At the moment, I didn’t care what she called me; I just wanted to feel her warmth all around me.

"I'm still sorry for slapping you that time. I didn't-"

I stopped her. "It's casual.”

We watched TV with the lights out, big sister and little sister.

You must login (register) to review.
tgfiction.net Webutation