“These outfits don’t look good on you,” the woman said, without moving to help her.
“I realize that. Could you make them look good?”
“I can’t do it for you, but I can give you instructions.”
“Okay,” Jessica said, thinking this woman must have some sort of phobia about touching people.
“Go home, eat a box of cookies, a pint of ice cream, and six slices of pizza. Repeat every day. Come back in three months.”
“Oh.” Jessica looked around her and finally understood. To save face, and also because it was true, she said, “That’s pretty much what I eat every day anyway. So I guess I should just give up hope that these clothes will ever fit.”
The saleswoman nodded, and said, “Some things in life are unfair. It’s best just to accept defeat. Move on.”
Jessica chose to take those words as military advice regarding her inner war. She nodded to the woman knowingly. “Thank you for your help.”
They walked down the street without talking for a while, Alan carrying the rabbit head under his arm like a motorcycle helmet. Finally, he said, “I understand if you’re uncomfortable with this weekend idea. I just want to know your thoughts on it.”
She was trying to persuade herself that maybe she’d have enough willpower not to engage in the mock-bordello scenario she always fantasized about. In the fantasy, she was in a bedroom, and there was a line of twenty men outside, taking their turns with her.
“The foods that saleswoman mentioned made me hungry,” she said, and headed for an ice-cream store across the street.
The ice-cream store only served those perverted European cones where the two scoops of ice cream were positioned side by side, like testicles. She always avoided getting those cones because they aggravated her problem. Sick, those Europeans, to make an innocent ice cream look like a penis.
She considered not getting an ice cream at all, but she was afraid Alan would suspect her problem.
Or maybe he wouldn’t suspect anything — she could never tell how obvious sex imageries were, to other people. Nevertheless, not wanting to risk arousing his suspicion, she took the cone and gave the testicles a tentative lick, just to look natural. She tried to be relaxed, but her tongue came out pointy and tense. It jabbed at the balls in a manner that might not have pleased them had they been alive.
“So, what do you think about this weekend idea? Is it okay with you?” Alan asked.
She looked at the ground, holding the edible penis guiltily. “Yes, it’s okay with me.” She was disappointed that she didn’t have enough willpower to tell him not to leave her to her orgiastic fun.
Alan laughed. “Don’t seem so sad! You trust me, don’t you?”
She sighed and nodded. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, kissing her temple and squashing her creamy testicles between his furry pink chest and her breast.
“Oops.” He grinned. They wiped themselves.
A few blocks later, they passed a bookstore, and Alan wanted to stop in.
“Why?” asked Jessica. It had already been four hours since their last sexual intercourse, and today, on her day off, she expected more sex. Plus, the ice cream got her hot.
“I want to check out a short story called ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish,’ that Roland told me to read,” Alan said. “Have you heard of it?”
She didn’t answer. Alan looked at her and saw a curious expression on her face. He had no idea how to interpret it, so he repeated, “Do you know it?”
“Yes. There’s no reason you should read it. Roland is a fool and an asshole. Let’s go.”
“Aren’t you curious to know why he wanted me to read it?”
“No”
“Because you already know?”
“Yes.”
“So why?”
“You obviously told him that story about when you were little and the woman said it’s a perfect day for mangofish and she helped you pet one. I don’t know why you open up to that bastard. You shouldn’t tell him personal stuff.”
“It’s not very personal.”
“Yes it is, as a matter of fact. It’s very personal.”
“Well, I don’t agree,” Alan said, swinging open the door to the bookstore and heading toward the literature section.
“Alan,” Jessica said, in a small voice behind him.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound harsh.” She stroked his neck affectionately and gave him a kiss. She looked sad.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded, smiled reassuringly.
He found the book. He skimmed the story and suddenly dropped his rabbit head, which went rolling down the isle. He sank to the floor. Jessica ran to his side, hugging him, kissing his cheek.
“Say something,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you can’t change the past. There was no need for you to know.”
“No need to know I was sexually molested as a child?”
“What’s done is done.”
Later that evening, Alan said, “I wish I had known years ago. My life could have been different.”
He didn’t say anything more about it.
But he thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it.
His abuser was his mother’s neighbor, Miss Tuttle, and she had given him to pet what she claimed was a mangofish, but what he now learned was her vagina. He had been floating on her yellow raft. She had brought his hand under the water, his view blocked by the raft. She said the mangofish was shy and didn’t like to be seen. He remembered what it had felt like. It was mushy and it had folds. And yet, in all the years since, it had not occurred to him that he had touched the woman’s genitals.
Maybe he would pay her a visit one day and confront her about what she had done.
Over the years, Alan had frequently asked his mother how Miss Tuttle was doing. His mother had always told him Miss Tuttle was the same as ever, that she hadn’t moved and still earned her living mostly as a hairdresser, and occasionally entertaining children at birthday parties. He never understood why he inquired about Miss Tuttle. He didn’t care one way or the other about her. Now he recognized this neutrality was his repressed shame, his disgust, his hatred of her.
In awe, he thought, I am actually a normal person, who happened to have been abused. Deep down, I am normal. I was not born defective — I was damaged a little later.
Alan had always felt inferior to the other stalkaholics in SA meetings, who seemed more sane than he, because they talked about their childhood abusers, on which they blamed their stalking addiction. Alan had a happy, sound childhood, which made him feel like an outsider, a freak, a truer criminal than the stalkers with excuses.
Now that Alan had discovered he had not had a wholesome childhood, things were different. His sexual abuse was like religion. It explained his deficiencies, his problems, even his lack of artistic talent. All of it was the fault of that abuser. He almost felt grateful to her. Grateful that he could dump it all on her. His stalking habit — her fault. His poor sense of direction, of style, of observation — her fault. His facial expressions that were formerly too drastic and too frequent — her fault. His poor singing, poor dancing, weight problem, hair loss, poor muscle tone — her fault. Life made sense. Finally.
He pondered his problems with swimming. He wondered if there were swimming lessons made for survivors of aquatic sexual abuse. He thought of himself as a completely different person now: a victim. It was liberating and empowering. It raised his self-esteem. He marveled at how his life just kept getting better and better: First he had conquered his stalking addiction, then he had embarked on self-improvement and improved himself, then he had found a great girlfriend, and now he had just learned he was a victim of childhood sexual molestation!