Cycler (12 page)

“Huh?” I run my finger over the scar while staring in the mirror, but my gaze keeps wandering to the maple tree. If I snuck out the window, I could walk across the porch roof and climb right down. I could make a clean escape. Why do I want to make a clean escape?

Ramie pulls my shirt open and looks right in my eyes. “Do you think it was a one-night stand?”

The smell of coconut shampoo envelops me, and the room starts spinning.

“Whoa.” Ramie grabs my arms. “Jill, are you okay?”

I drop onto the bed. Ramie sits next to me, and the smell of her hair makes me sick. “Ramie,” I say. “I think something’s happening. I think . . .” I look into her face.

She looks scared, her big brown eyes wide open and her mouth hanging slack. “What is it?” she says. “Are you getting your period or something?”

I watch her mouth, the way it opens and closes around the words. Her lips so full and soft.

“Ramie,” I say. “When was he here last?”

“Who?”

“Mr. No-name.”

“Um.” She looks up at the ceiling. “Two weeks ago? It was the day before you came back to school. The day before your little heart-to-heart with Tommy at the soccer field. Well, the night before.”

“And you’d never seen him before that?”

“I told you. He left a note on my window before that and then the next night—”

“So three days?”

“Yeah,” she says. “No, four. There was one night when—”

“Oh mal,” I say. “Oh mal of all mals.” I stand up.

“What?” she says. “What’s wrong?”

I rip the tulle out of my underwear and shove my feet into my jeans.

“Jill?” she says. “What’s going on? Should I call your mother?”

I don’t even bother to button my shirt. I throw on my coat, then grab my bag and run downstairs.

Sprinting out her front door, I almost trip as I hurl myself into my car and start it up. Ramie comes running out the front door, bewildered. Behind her, the maple tree rustles softly in the wind.

Throwing the car in reverse, I bolt down her gravel driveway. When I get home, the house is silent and empty. I head up the stairs to my room. “Mom!” I shout. “Mom!”

But she’s not home yet. It’s only 3:40. She won’t be back for another two hours. I close the bedroom door and stand in the middle of the room. Scanning slowly, I look for a clue. But I don’t know what kind of clue to look for.

Dad knocks on the door. “Honey, you okay?”

“I’m fine, Dad.”

He opens the door anyway and hangs in the doorway. “You sure? Did something happen at school?”

“Nope,” I say.

This is definitely a Mom issue.

He hovers in the doorway as if it were a neutral zone, as if he didn’t need my permission to be there.

“Dad, I’m fine.”

“All right,” he says. “But just shout if you need anything.”

Yeah, Dad. ’Cause you’re deeply helpful.

After hovering pointlessly for a few more seconds, he wanders back down to his yoga hole.

Now what? How do I figure out if Jack has been doing what I suspect he’s been doing? He’s not going to leave me any clues. He’s not going to leave me a note about it.

That’s when I realize what I have to do.

I lie down on the bed and try to meditate. When the black dot enlarges around my head, instead of projecting my own face, I try to project Jack’s. But I don’t even know what Jack looks like anymore. I try to remember what he looked like in the beginning, before Plan B erased my memories of him, but the image is foggy.

I try a new mantra: “I am Jack McTeague.” I repeat it in time with my breathing; then I take the pieces of Ramie’s story about Mr. No-name sneaking in through her window and try to project it like a movie onto the blackness. I try to picture Jack and Ramie lying on the bed kissing.

1. Yuck.

2. Imagining and remembering are not the same thing.

I dive into the engulfing blackness of the meditative state, but nothing—not a single concrete memory of Jacktime—surfaces.

I persist. Somewhere in the hidden memory stores of my own brain is the true story. Somewhere in these blind alleys, Jack lurks. Deeper and deeper I dive, but the only thing the black dot manifests is a black hole of non-data.

At some point, a knock on the door pulls me out. I sit up, squinting against the sudden explosion of light.

Mom stands in the doorway. “Dad says you wanted me,” she says. “Is everything okay?”

“Huh?”

“Sweetheart?” She comes over and sits on the bed. “Have you been meditating?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Promise you won’t freak out.”

“Jill.” She’s already freaking out, Mom-style, which consists of banishing all inflection from her voice to become a machine of absolute calm.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m not sure or anything, and anyway, you promised you wouldn’t freak out, so—”

“Jill.”

“I think Jack has been sneaking out.”

Mom’s nostrils flare.

“I was trying to meditate my way into Jackspace to find out for sure, but I couldn’t get in. I think I’ve built an impenetrable wall with Plan B.”

“What makes you think Jack has been sneaking out?” Monosyllabic.

“You’re freaking out.”

“I am not freaking out. Now, tell me why you think Jack has been sneaking out.”

“Well, Ramie—”

“Ramie?”

“Mom!”

“Ramie Boulieaux?”

“Of course, Ramie Boulieaux. What other Ramie do I know? And stop freaking out.”

Her head makes tiny shaking motions as she tries to calm herself. “What
about
Ramie?”

“Ramie told me that someone snuck into her window.”

“He snuck into
her window
?”

Now
I’m
freaking out.

May 27

Jack

On very rare occasions,
the strict border between Jack and Jill blurs. We’re doing the best we can here, but we are sharing a body. And biology, being an unpredictable affair prone to bizarre mutations and creative timing and all that, occasionally forces us into creepily close proximity with each other.

Take May 27.

Middle of the night. My eyes pop open to the pitch black. The red lights on my digital clock read 3:22 a.m. I want to turn over onto my left side but I can’t move because I’m trapped in Dozyland—you know, that spooky state where you think you’re awake but your body hasn’t gotten the memo yet? I’m stiff as a corpse, trying to will my hand over my crotch for the monthly dick check. When I finally manage to flop it into position, what do I find?

A pathetic nubbin barely an inch long!

I am trapped not only in the surreal border town between sleep and wakefulness but also in the surreal border town between Jill and Jackfulness!

Fortunately, I’m not quite conscious enough to panic. Believe me, panic is called for. The last time I woke up midtransformation, the pain almost obliterated me.

This time, however, there is no pain. This time, it’s all euphoria and weightlessness. Thank goodness for small mercies. As long as the little Viking reinflates to his normal state of towering menace, I can cope.

I unclench my fist to give him some room. Then I try to relax. I don’t mind Dozyville. I get to observe myself dreaming, which is kind of cool.

When I’ve surrendered to this state, all these split-second images of people’s faces start flickering in and out of existence. Mrs. Wendt, the cafeteria monitor. Jed Barnsworthy. Tommy Knutson.

Tommy Knutson?

Crap. I’m having Jill’s dream. Tommy Knutson is tongue kissing me in the high school cafeteria.

Time to wrest control of the proceedings. That’s the sweet bargain of Dozyville. You can control your dreams. Well, I can. I don’t know how these things work for you.

So, while Tommy Knutsack jams his tongue down my throat, I exercise my directorial prerogative to demand a rewrite.

First order? Replace the love interest. Tommy Knutson is out and Ramie Boulieaux is in. In Jill’s dream, Ramie has been watching us kiss from the table where she sits next to Daria, so I instruct her to stand up, walk over and shove Tommy Knutson out of the way. Then I have her grab me by the wrist and plant one, good and hard, on my open mouth. As we grind our lips against each other, the entire student body erupts in thunderous applause. Confetti and streamers rain down while the marching band, assembled now in the courtyard, strikes up “Hunk of Burning Love.”

Ramie, oblivious to all the hoopla, slides her tongue deep—
no, deeper, Rames, that’s it
—into my mouth.

This
is dreaming, Jack-style.

I begin to slide my hand down Ramie’s back in pursuit of her profoundly sweet ass when the ground begins to tremble.

An eerie hush descends over the cafeteria. A fissure opens in the floor between Ramie and me. Spreading slowly, it forces us to separate with a wet smack. Outside, the marching band comes to a stunned halt as the plate glass windows overlooking the courtyard explode. The entire student body of Winter-head High runs screaming from the cafeteria.

(When I said I could control the action in Dozyland, I didn’t mean one hundred percent. Things have a tendency to veer off track.)

Not to worry, though. I am still the director of this movie. I grab Ramie’s hand and jump into the fissure.

Ah, the sweet release of weightlessness.

Ramie, wild hair flowing, falls directly on top of me. But just as our bodies meet, a dull ache blossoms deep within my abdomen.

That’s not me. That’s biology.

Squeezing my nanodick, I prepare for the onslaught. My pelvic muscles contract and flutter as Ramie fades to translucence and is gone.

Alone now, I fall deeper into the abyss as my body completes its painful transition from Jillness to Jackness. My leg muscles elongate. My knees pop and crackle. I can feel my mouth opening and closing, but my pained screams are silent.

I try to summon Ramie. For a second, she ghost-pops into view against the retreating light from the precipice above. Then she disappears again.

The pain deepens, sharpens.

I can neither scream nor escape. To forestall full-blown panic, I try counting my breaths, but in this hellish back alley of Dozyland, I’m not even breathing.

I don’t know how long this lasts, but I do know that in the midst of it, Ramie returns, black hair afrenzy. Falling downward, she wraps her long arms around me and as our wet mouths meet, the jagged knife wound of pain melts. The clenched muscles of my pelvis release, and a liquid warmth oozes through my torso and out to my limbs.

What ecstasy!

I swear I can feel it in the tips of my hair. But it’s not the deep, hungry wave I’m used to. It’s hesitant, fragile, as if one wrong move, one twitch, would obliterate it.

My Jackbrain, just sensible enough to comprehend things, quickly intellectualizes the sensation. I’m not yet fully transformed. Jill’s girl hormones must be having their last hurrah before melting away. No sooner do I complete this thought than the ecstasy fades, taking Ramie along with it. Wordlessly, I plead for her return, plead for Jill’s hormones to ripple through me one last time. But there is only the abyss and my weightless Jackbody falling.

Defeated, I relax into the falling curtain of full sleep. The fading light from the precipice closes down and I am only a moment from unconsciousness when something happens.

A tiny ripple from my core. Then an empty pause. Finally, miraculously, a hot liquid wave of pure ecstasy builds up suddenly, growing taller and taller until I’m sure I can’t take it anymore. And still it grows, towering over me until . . .

CRASH!

White void!

Mind wipe.

Stunned and spent, I stare at the red numbers on the clock as they jump from 3:37 to 3:38. When I can summon the strength to move, I reach for my cock. It’s back. All six inches.

Ladies and gentlemen: I, Jack McTeague, have girlgasmed into a boy body.

“Holy crap,” I hear myself say. “The lucky bitches.”

As 3:38 jumps to 3:39, the curtain of sleep falls.

So that was my night. One for the record books, right? Don’t celebrate, though. Here’s my morning:

Reaching up out of the thick white comforter, I stretch the full length of my body while savoring the luscious memory of my dream encounter with Ramie in the warm ocean of girlsex.

As my eyes focus on the window, I notice something strange. Instead of the usual horizontal slashes of sunlight streaming through the venetian blinds, there is a grid pattern. Throwing the comforter off, I head to the window and pull the blinds open.

Bars!

I shove my fingers into the grooves at the bottom of the window frame, and try to jerk it open. It sticks. At the top of the frame, I see the reason. Locks. I pry at them, but they won’t budge.

Flinging open Jill’s closet, I rip my jeans from a hanger, shove my legs through them and stumble to the door.

“Hey!” I say.

I grab the doorknob and yank.

It won’t budge. It won’t even turn.

Not only that, it’s a different doorknob. The old one was silver. This one is gold. Taking a few steps back, I realize it’s a new door and frame too.

I launch into it with my fists. “What the hell is this!”

I keep banging until my fists ache. “Mom! Dad!” I stare at the door as if it could answer me, then punch it one more time. “What the hell is going on?”

I slump on the edge of my bed. A few seconds later, dull voices murmur in the hallway; then a white sheet of paper slips through the threshold and bunches up against the thick white carpet. I pounce on it.

It’s printed on Mom’s personal letterhead. The robot sat down at her laptop, opened her Helen McTeague letterhead and composed a memo to me.

I crumple it in my fist and throw it at the door. It connects with a pitiful slap and drifts to the floor.

How did this happen?
Why
did this happen? How did they find out about . . .

It all comes stampeding back.

The scar.

I stare at the door while the murmuring in the hallway rises, falls, then ends abruptly. One set of footsteps retreats down the hallway. I go to the window, still naked.

Outside, Mom descends the front steps. I bring the meat of my fist to the window with a dull thud. She stops, briefcase in hand, but doesn’t turn around.

“Let me out!” I scream.

Straightening her shoulders, she casually resumes walking to her stupid beige Saab.

I punch the window, knuckles first, but the glass must be bulletproof. It’s probably soundproof too. Not that there’s anyone to hear me out here. Our house is the only one at the end of this winding road.

For a few seconds, Mom watches me from behind the wheel, then shifts to reverse and pulls out.

I run to the door and start banging. “Dad!” I scream. “Dad!”

A few seconds later, a pencil worms through the threshold. 8:59 AM 7/24/2008Uncrinkling Mom’s note, I stab out the words “Let me out!” then slide it through. About twenty seconds later, it comes back. Underneath my writing, Dad has written,

I stand up and look at Jill’s dork calendar. Sure enough, it’s May 28, our eighteenth birthday. To celebrate the festive occasion, I scribble every obscenity I can think of on Dad’s little note, but I don’t send it through. What’s the point? Maybe he’ll slide a piece of birthday cake under the doorjamb later and I can sing “Happy Birthday,” then set myself on fire. I slump to the floor and stare at Dad’s handwriting.

Dad. What a joke. He’s barely Dad anymore. He’s barely
human
anymore. For better or worse, I can tap into all of Jill’s childhood memories, so I can recall a time when Dad was actually a cool guy. Back when Jill was just a normal little girl, he’d come home from the office in his blue suit and change into sweatpants so they could shoot hoops in the driveway with her pink Barbie net. He taught her how to do a layup. He used to tell gross jokes at the dinner table and laugh with her while Mom pursed her lips in distaste.

Somewhere along the line, that guy died and Yogi Useless was born. I don’t know what killed him. His job? Mom? Me? Maybe all three. Maybe Mom and the job crippled him and I finished him off. Jill used to hear them arguing, but she was too young to know what “partnership” meant. A partner was something you had in gym class.

The thing is, if it weren’t for Mom and her God-like control of everything that transpires in this fiefdom, Dad probably
would
help me.

Dad opposed Plan B in the beginning. He only went along with it because Mom insisted. It was insidiously ingenious of Mom to incorporate Dad’s meditation into it. That made Plan B his baby too. What a sucker.

Slumped on the floor, holding this memo from Mom and this pathetic handwritten apology from Dad, I’m so full of self-pity I want to shoot myself. Too bad they haven’t left me a gun. That would teach them. The look on Mom’s face when she found my dead body. It would almost be worth it. There’s Plan B for you, Helen. Hope you’re happy now.

I stand up and pace in front of my bed for a while, then go to the bathroom and open the minifridge they’ve perched on Jill’s wrought-iron chair. Let’s see what culinary delights I have to look forward to. A half-gallon of organic milk, two pints of orange juice (with pulp), half a pound of roast beef, half a pound of American cheese, some yogurt, some peeled baby carrots and a tomato. On the bathroom counter next to Jill’s array of a zillion useless skin-care products are a loaf of whole wheat bread, a box of Grape-Nuts, two bags of potato chips and a jar of Skippy peanut butter. Chunky! The bitch knows I like smooth.

This is what I’ve become to them. A shopping list.

In the cabinet under the sink, between a box of tampons and a pink plastic bucket filled with yet more pointless hygiene products, are a bowl, a dish, a glass, a fork, a knife and a spoon. Oh, and isn’t this thoughtful: miniature salt and pepper shakers so that I can properly season my prison food.

I want to puke.

I want to kill somebody, then puke.

No. I want to kill somebody, puke, then die.

I slump onto the white wicker bench crammed under the towel rack and stare at the slow drip from the bathtub faucet. Every possible inch of horizontal surface is occupied by shampoo, conditioner, exfoliant, moisturizer or gel—all in different colors and smells. What a life this girl has. Every day, her biggest problem is choosing which type of fruit she wants to smell like. Why do girls want to smell like fruit, anyway? Are guys supposed to find that sexy?