American Goth (19 page)

“Wotcher, Graham!” floated out the door as did a pair of hands, their wrists bearing perhaps fifty or sixty assorted beaded and bangle bracelets combined.

Graham was almost suffocated between two of the largest breasts I’d ever seen with genuine affection that he obviously returned.

“’lo Aunt Sheila,” he said finally and gave her a hearty peck. “Uncle Billie still about?”

“All right, china! How’s it going, then?” came a low voice from behind her and Sheila released Graham, so he and who I supposed was Uncle Billie himself could enfold one another in great big slapping hugs, accompanied by a rush of talk that I think was supposed to be English but made no sense to me at all.

“Ignore them and give me your coat, dear,” Aunt Sheila said, her hand already outstretched for my things. “They like to pretend they’re still in Liverpool. I humor my boys as much as possible.” She gave me a wink as I unshouldered my bass, then handed her the same fleece and wool jacket I’d worn a few days ago.

In seconds I was in a seat, given a cup of hot tea, then asked to stand again and turn while Uncle Billie inspected me with chin in hand and a critical eye.

“You’ll do,” he said finally. “You’re not too big on top, you don’t have any bad walking habits, and you’re a little stringy, but you’ve a nice bit o’ muscle to your thread.”

I dropped my arms with relief, knowing his opinion carried weight with Graham and that it should with me as well.

“Well, I suppose the most important part is your tackle, then,” Uncle Billie said as he played with his mug, “and you’ll need a bunch of these.” He reached into his back pocket and tossed a handful of multicolored square envelopes onto the table before he took a chair.

“Now, you needn’t waste your money on going out and buying something just yet—though it’s not like the old days,” Uncle Billie said with a grin and a twinkle in his eye. “Will ya hand me a bog roll, Sheil?” he asked, turning to his wife.

“What, no stealing the tops off of crutches for you now?” Sheila teased with a smile as she left the room.

“That required some imagination, a little derring-do,” Uncle Billie said to me, his smile even wider as she returned and handed him a roll of toilet paper. “Quite serviceable too,” he said to Sheila, with a sly grin and a raised eyebrow as he looked at her. “Always an encore.”

I threw Graham a questioning glance. Did he mean what I thought he meant? Graham nodded and winked at me.

“Stop showing off,” Sheila chided and slapped his shoulder lightly, “and show the boy what he needs to know. What are we going to call you?” she asked, directing her attention to me. Her eyes shone a friendly green.

I thought about it for all of two seconds. “Sam,” I said finally. “Call me Sam.”

Graham nodded in approval. “Suits you.”

That at least I knew, and I grinned at him.

Uncle Billie wore a plain butter yellow work shirt, a black patch over the left chest pocket that read
B. Dwyer
in matching yellow letters. He wore the sleeves neatly rolled to the elbows, and it was fascinating to watch the strings and cords of muscle work in his arms as he made a quick assemblage of the condoms and paper before him.

“Now this,” he said and he pushed the new construction across the table toward me, “is something you can walk about in. It’ll hold its shape, sit nicely in your shorts, and look pretty much the way you want it to—but it’s just for show, nothing you can get down to business with. For that,” he said as he cleared the space before him and set himself up, “you’ll want something like this.”

I watched, fascinated, as he carefully measured then tightly rolled some longer segments into tight cylinders, then slowly, patiently, wound over them, layer by layer, paying painstaking attention to the tension in the wind until he had achieved the diameter he wanted.

The diligent care he took reminded me of Uncle Cort when he worked, his focus completely on the task before him, as Billie rounded off an end with a satisfied breath and tucked the loose end under another wind.

“These are your bog-standard choices,” he said as his fingers neatly tore open the condom envelopes. He slipped one, then the others, over the cylinders he’d built, and they looked for all the world exactly like some of the toys Fran and I had seen in the store.

“This isn’t necessarily something you’d want to pack, unless you’re careful about the sort of shorts and pants you wear,” he said as he hefted the first one, then held it out to me, “but you can slide it into your harness and it will do the job admirably.”

The pale blue rubber was cool under my fingertips, and I could feel the slight slip of the membrane against the paper that filled it out to its slightly flared end. I was surprised at how solid it felt, then thought I shouldn’t be, considering how it had been created. I felt as bizarrely self-conscious as I had when I’d dropped my pants in front of the guys all those years ago.

“If you’re a bit of a ‘tweener’—no shame in that, you like what you like,” Billie added hastily as I put the first one down, “then this will be what you’re looking for.” And he passed me the other one, done in pink on one end and yellow on the other. “You can always test it out, see what you like, see what the girl you’ve copped off with likes, and then either adjust it, or when you’ve found what works, save your scratch and buy whatever matches.”

I didn’t know what to say as I held it in my hands, my palms measuring the length, spanning the firm girth, trying to appear nonchalant as my brain attempted to grasp the import of what he was telling me through the shorthand words I didn’t fully understand, to make sense of the confused excitement and fear that surged through me. I found myself doing my best not to think about
exactly
how either of these was supposed to be used, even as the very clear image of— I mentally shook my head to erase the thought. I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Cort and Elizabeth had wanted to take me some place they thought would be safer until the “big day,” and I’d wanted to stay. I didn’t want to run from anything, not anymore.

But…if I had to take precautions, I thought hiding in plain sight would work—especially since what people were looking for was a girl. I’d learned in the last few days how to walk invisibly, leaving barely a trace in the Aethyr. The only way I could be found was directly, either through a link, or physically—but whoever was searching would have to know what I looked like, and I was about to change that, all of that.

“You can pull your hair back like so many of the boys are doing now, that straight and pasted-to-the-skull thing, or do you want to cut it?” Sheila asked.

I glanced at her, grateful for the interruption, and handed the dick over to Graham, who inspected it as critically as Uncle Billie had inspected me. I could see his nod of approval from the corner of my eye as I answered Sheila. “If I pull it back, I’ll still look like me now, only with a ponytail.”

“Nah, not at all,” Graham corrected with a smile. “Show ’im the trick, Unc.”

He flashed warm brown eyes on me before turning to Sheila, who was already leaving the room. “Would you…?”

“On my way already—I know just what shade!” she answered and returned seconds later with a small pink tube, scissors, a comb, and hair clippers in her hand.

Graham rubbed his hands together and leaned forward. “Look, I know, it’s girls’ makeup and all, but the trick, see, is that it’s waterproof, which means it won’t come off, and it’ll look and feel right—nice and scrubby—I’ll show you.”

Uncle Billie explained as Graham pulled out the little wand from the tube and Sheila started to fuss with my hair. “You’ve just as much hair on your face as anyone else—it’s called vellus or some such. This will make it stand out, nice and visible like, and it’ll look like you’ve trimmed it neatly as well.”

As I watched the scrub shadow grow on Graham’s cheeks, Sheila patted my shoulder. “So you want to cut it, then, right? Do you want what all the kids are doing now, a bit more of an Elvis sort of thing, or altogether gone?”

I thought about it, about the current looks that were so popular, about the classic ones only a few wore. I remembered Mr. Moretti and his thick black hair, the glossy wave over his forehead, my Da’s salt-and-copper he’d kept neatly trimmed unless we were on vacation; even brushed back, it was soft as it feathered across his head. Finally, I thought about the boys I’d hung out with, of Mario and his thick, thick hair that would curl unless he kept it short, of Dave’s flat-tops, and Bruce’s regular cut with the severe side part his mom would plaster in place with a very wet comb. And then…I thought about the one guy even I found good looking. “James Dean,” I answered finally. “Can you cut it like that?”

We’d collectively decided that the scrub look didn’t work for me. I had areas on my face that had no hair at all, and what made Graham look good made me look like a fifteen-year-old trying to stretch the peach fuzz out, although I could do sort of a mutton-chop thing if I wanted. But that wasn’t me, and I cold-creamed the rest of it off as Sheila put the finishing touches on my hair by applying some stuff, then played with it a bit. “Run your fingers through a few times,” she told me, “that’ll make it a damn sight sexy.”

Billie shifted in his seat and pointed a stern finger at Graham.

“Now I know how you young boys are—you like to go tommin’ about, so I hope you’re wearing a jimmy hat and all that,” he said.

“Every time,” Graham nodded and said reassuringly, “no worries there.”

“And you, even though you might be foolin’ with one of these,” he said, nailing me directly with his gaze as his hand indicated the constructions on the table, “best to use more,” he ordered, pointing to the remaining packets on the table. “You don’t want to be getting something you don’t want to give,” he said and snatched one up, “and there’s a lot of things out there now that a shot in the ass won’t cure.”

He tossed it at me, then gave a low whistle as he checked my new look. “Nice job, Sheila,” he said and smiled. “Go take a look, Sam—loo’s to your left down the corridor.”

I thanked Sheila as I stood and went through the apartment, a jagged electricity filling my head as I felt the firm round edge of the little square I held between my thumb and fingers. I was nervous when I jammed it into my front pocket, and took a breath before flipping the light on in the bathroom, not certain what, or who, I’d see. I stared at myself in the mirror, amazed at who gazed back at me, then I thought the same thing that would be the first words my uncle would say to me when I got home, after the color returned to his face.

“Christ!” he swore quietly. “You look just like your father.”

*

Elizabeth smiled when I came upstairs. “It suits your face,” she said, “and now you
really
look like you’re in a band.”

I gave her a grateful smile of my own, pleased that she liked it. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t purely James Dean, though it may have been James Dean inspired. It was a touch longer and stood up a bit more as well, only to fall with a short, soft edge. Sheila thought it shouldn’t be too old-fashioned, and while I didn’t look truly punk (which was fine, because I didn’t think I could pull it off), it looked, like Graham had said, like a wolf’s ruff or even a lion’s mane.

When Fran came in and joined us at the table, I could tell she was torn between staring and trying too hard not to, and other than a quick hello before dinner, she’d glance over at me, and seem like she was about to speak, but then wouldn’t.

Fran’s bemusement had me grinning to myself as I followed Cort into the study after dinner.

“So…back to Sam, is it?” he asked as we set up.

I shrugged. “Maybe, sometimes, I guess.”

He nodded before he looked at me again. “How far do you plan on going with this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how far does this go for you? Hair can be cut and grown again, you can always change how you stand, your dress, but other things…they’re more permanent. Are you thinking in that direction?”

That was news to me—I hadn’t known there could be anything done permanently, and that gave me something new to think about. But still, he’d thought farther ahead than I had, in directions I hadn’t gone. I answered as honestly as I could. “I’m just…just trying some stuff,” I told him. “Hiding in plain sight. I figure if I’m not recognized as the girl everyone’s looking for, then so much the better, right? As for the rest…” I shrugged again.

He clapped my shoulder. “Just…just talk to me before you make any decisions, will you?” he asked. “I don’t mean to jump on you, but your physical, corporeal makeup is as important to this work as your mental and emotional states.”

I nodded. I knew that—it had been stressed to me to the point where I occasionally felt like my skin was chafed raw by all the restrictions.

“You do know your gift”—and I knew he meant both the skills I was developing as well as the sword that was my family legacy—“is blood bound. Genetic,” he said into the silence.

“I thought…I thought that these were things anyone with the right training, temperament, and patience could learn.”

Cort nodded. “Some of them, yes. But not even the forger, the original blacksmith and arms master of that sword, could touch it barehanded once it was done—in fact, it couldn’t be handled barehanded during its creation.”

“Yeah, but…you handle it all the time—”