Margarette (Violet) (3 page)

Margarette thinks she’s alone when she wakes up in
the cramped back seat of a sports car. Her head bobs of its own accord. Her
eyes widen as she realizes she’s in the back seat of a car she doesn’t recognize.
Clearly, she’s still drugged, but she’s coming around. She pushes herself
against the door to keep herself upright. The car is not moving and almost
silent other than the faint sound of the radio playing. After another minute of
consciousness she realizes that the car is parked.

She looks down and notices she’s not wearing shoes.
Her eyes drift to the front of the car and panic grips her face. Someone is sitting
low in the front seat, presumably unaware that she’s awake. Her hands move to
her breasts and she further panics as she realizes that her bra has been
removed. She continues to inspect herself, making sure she can feel each limb,
and she feels okay. Her body is sore, but not in pain; only a dull numbness
from the narcotics remains floating in her system.

Her hand lifts unsteadily to the door and finds
the door handle. She pulls down with her fingertips and a red light near the
floorboard kicks on.

The traitor car discloses her actions with a
ding
ding ding
….

She shuts it with a hushed breath that slips past
her gaping jaw.

“Violet…” she hears a man’s voice up front.

Terrified, she pushes open the door faster than
the door can ring and rushes out. Still hazy from the drugs, she only manages
to slide halfway out of the car and onto the grass.

“Hold on, hold on!” the man calls, and feels his
hand groping her, trying to get a hold of her clothes.

Her jaw clenches and she squirms further out until
she’s free. She falls out and feels the fresh blades of grass in her palms,
when she was expecting a road. She scrambles to her bare feet, crouched low,
touching the ground. The grass is not wet like after a rain, but moist like in
the middle of the cool night after a long hot day. The man shouts again and she
snaps out of the daze. She’s leaning forward in a running stance, like a cat
ready to sprint, but she finally recognizes the voice that keeps calling out to
her.

She looks back through the open car door and sees
Tommy fighting with his seatbelt. The adrenaline keeps her awake and still, but
her body is weak, and she realizes she can’t possibly run. She drops one knee
to the ground just to hold herself up in the grass, but the world splits as her
balance fails and she rolls on her side to see stars faintly twinkling in the
black night.

Tommy towers over her next to the car. His hand
reaches under her side near the waist, and he pulls the sleeve of her dress
back up to her shoulder. She hadn’t realized that her sleeve had fallen down
her arm. Margarette smiles with an absent expression, then her head tips back
to the ground. She feels the cool grass on her neck.

Without a word, Tommy grabs her and lifts her up,
trying to stand her in front of him. Her legs press against his as she tries to
find her footing. Her whole body feels heavy and warm in his arms, like she’s
running a fever, and she can’t stand up. Tommy bends and picks her up easily.
Her chin presses against his neck.

“You’re trembling,” he says near to her ear. The
side of her face is on his skin; his voice sounds deep as if echoing in a drum.
When his jaw moves she feels his unshaven cheek against her. Her body quivers
as if to validate his words.

She gasps. “What happened?”

“You passed out. I saved you,” Tommy replies.

“Saved me?”

“Yeah.”

Margarette lifts her head a few inches and looks
around. “You took me to the middle of nowhere.”

“Yes….”

He doesn’t explain anything else. She can
literally hear crickets chirping. She falls silent again, eyes closing, almost
asleep.

“Violet,” she hears him say again. She doesn’t
understand why he’s calling her that. Or is he calling her that?

She opens her eyes. “Do you have a tag name?”

She feels Tommy’s soft chuckle reverberate through
her. “A what?”

“A name when people play tag? My cousin and I
always played it and her name was Pricilla. It was her fancy name,” she
mumbles.

“I don’t play tag, or name people while playing
games.”

It’s her turn to laugh. “Everyone plays tag.”

“Everyone? What about people in wheelchairs?”

“They play tag.”

“With no arms?”

“They play tag,” she repeats.

“Of course. What about people with problems
balancing?” He wobbles her slightly in his arms.

She lifts a limp arm with effort, and touches his
chest. “You’re it.”

Tommy smiles and taps her shoulder, making her
wobble again since he’s holding her up. “You’re it.”

“Now that you’ve played, what’s your nickname?” she
asks him.

“I don’t have one. What’s yours?”

“I thought you knew…” she says, trailing off. “You
called me Violet.”

“Violet? I said Margarette,” he clarifies.

He starts to lose his grip on her, and his palm
presses against her back. If she was sober she would worry about his fingers
poking her back, but instead she just falls limp in the cradle of his arms. She
tucks her head into his shoulder and he steps with her back up to the car,
placing her on top of the trunk. She feels the cool metal beneath her and
sniffs the cut grass in the cool night air. She is alone with him and barely
able to stay awake.

Margarette falls back across the trunk and slumps
into the rear windshield.

“Don’t touch me…” she warns, showing her teeth and
crinkling her nose like a cat. “Oh, it’s you.”

“You okay?”

“Everything.”

“What?”

“Asimov is the end of everything.”

Tommy has no clue what she means. “You probably
don’t remember me. I was a few lockers down from you when we were kids. I was
in your class last year. It was a make-up class, but it….” Her head rolls back.
“Hey. Hey, are you okay?” He leans over her to hold her behind the neck.

“Tom… Tommy, are you pressing against me?” she
asks, and it comes off sultry.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to.”

“Trying to what?” She bites her lower lip.

“I just don’t know many girls like you. I think…
no one does. You’re not like anyone else.”

“Everyone’s just like me,” she argues, still hazy.

He dismisses her comment with a laugh. “Who are
you like?”

“Every girl on earth….” She mumbles each word,
barely opening her mouth to speak. “Every girl is just like me. They all want
to be where I am right now.”

“I don’t think so….” Tommy says.

“Every girl… wants to be held.”

Tommy smiles, a warm smile that she doesn’t see.
He says, almost to himself, “I didn’t know what to do when I found you.”

“Take me….” She starts to say, and tries to sit
upright.

“Take you where?”

She struggles to clear her voice. “Take me home….”

“But I don’t know where you live,” Tommy says.

She slips forward and off the car, kneels on the
grass in front of him, as if she were going to be sick. He holds her as she
leans forward, gripping her shoulders. Her head presses against him and he
freezes, afraid to move away. She grows still and his hands touch the back of
her head.

A soft wind blows past and it sounds like a girl
singing softly to herself.

She doesn’t throw up, and doesn’t sound sick after
that, but she won’t move either. Tommy has to pick her up to get her into the
car. He lowers the passenger seat and lays her out flat, then carefully closes
the door making sure she’s tucked in. He goes around and gets in the driver’s
seat, and looks at her.

Her dress is hiked up enough for him to see her
underwear. He smiles like a child eyeing a toy. They are completely alone, but
he still looks around. His hand slides down to her leg and he pulls down on the
hem of her dress, but only an inch or two. He leans in close and looks at her
rosy cheeks. He’s so close he can smell the drop of sweet fragrance she’s
wearing.

She turns her head and smiles at him, but she isn’t
awake. Her eyes are shut… Tommy figures she’s acting out a dream. He wants to
kiss her. Why is he holding back? No one is there to stop him, except his
conscience. He worries about her being on drugs, or that people would find out
that he was with her like this. It’s not like she was known as a slut, but she’s
a lot younger than him; almost a whole year. After Sharon, he decided he would
only date older girls; these high school girls only brought him pain.

But looking at Margarette now he considers
breaking his rule. He might not have had anything to do with her in grade
school, but she has grown up a lot since he knew her as a girl. He thinks about
it. She’s still a girl, beautiful and innocent. He can’t touch that.

Tommy didn’t recognize her when he first saw her
at pumps, but she had an appeal that was difficult to forget. She was different
than most, sexy, attractive, and had a kind of dirty quality that was offset by
a beautiful body. Tonight he looks at her from afar and she looks like a
goddess in the purple moonlight. He doesn’t touch her, but for a while he
thinks about nothing else other than temptation.

He pulls the seat belt across her chest and starts
the car. For a while he fights it, but inevitably he finds himself staring at
her. An 80’s track starts on his tape player. She moans softly as if entering a
dream that somehow corresponds with the song. His conscience leaves him and his
hand drops to her side and bumps against her hand. Margarette doesn’t react to
the touch. His heart beating fast, he moves his hand to her leg. Her face
twitches so he retreats quickly. She presses her dress down with her palm and
slides it further down, just past her hips. His hand switches to the dash and
turns down the mixed tape as it reaches the pinnacle of the crescendo.

When he looks back her hand is down between her
thighs. In the back of his mind he wonders if she really is awake, pretending
she’s asleep but watching him mess with her. He breathes deeply then removes
his foot from the brake making them weightless for an instant.

“Where did you come from… heaven or hell?” He
whispers so quietly that it’s barely audible.

The next track is soft and has a faint drum.
Margarette’s face relaxes again. He remains silent and still as they glide
along an empty side road near to an overpass. Her hand slides under her dress
and she touches herself, a gentle caress. The car slows to neutral as Tommy
looks down at her, absolutely shocked and in awe by her cute secret, like he’s
hearing a puppy talk. She doesn’t moan or squirm, but her hand explores herself
until her labored breathing suddenly stops, and she slips back into a deep
sleep in the reclined seat. His heart is racing again and he catches his breath
as the car rolls to a stop on the empty country road.

He reaches over her, holding his hand an inch from
her nose, and feels the breath from her lips. His hand brushes her and runs
down her neck without making actual contact. She smiles and his hand hovers
over her breast until he can feel the warmth of her body. He can see the
outline of her nipple through the light fabric, but the pattern makes it harder
to distinguish her breasts. His eyes shut and he lays his hand on her chest. He
holds his hand there until it starts to pulse up and down with each one of her
breaths.

Tommy contemplates taking advantage of her. His
hand slides under the edge of the neck of the dress and continues into her top.
Her soft breast in his hand and his palm runs over her nipple, fondling her. He
imagines the shape of her breasts by feel, and they are perfect. She doesn’t
move, doesn’t respond, and a faint naughty smile surfaces on his face. He
decides not to start back on the road for a bit. He cups her breast fully, and
with the other hand pulls her dress down below her shoulder. The soft lace
falls from her bare chest covered only by his grasping palm. He slowly moves
his hand back so her hard nipple is the only thing touching his hand. He
exhales as he moves his hand away… and looks at her breast in the moonlight.
The smile fades and he freezes looking at how perfect she is. She is so
beautiful that he finally starts to feel dirty, like when he gets a hard on in
church.

Cool air rushes from the vent between them and she
rolls to the side, making it hard for him to pull her dress back up. He
struggles to cover his tracks, pinching the shoulder of the dress and bringing it
back up as delicately as possible. After some time fiddling with the strap, she
remains still as if asleep, and he convinces himself that he’s in the clear.

The hem of the dress is still pulled up on one
side so far that he can see her soft white panties and the curve of her butt.
He smiles wickedly again and shakes his head, resisting the urge to tempt fate,
and presses the pedal until the car rolls forward again.

Tommy drives aimlessly for about an hour with
Margarette unconscious. The cassette deck clicks to the end of the tape and
flips to the B side when he pulls into Sharon’s backyard. He goes down a long
driveway by a youth sports field and a big ditch that separates the thick woods
from her two-story house.

Sharon and Tommy broke up a few weeks ago. When
she told him she was seeing someone else he smiled thinking she was kidding.
She had always been a bitch to him, and this was a way for her to have more
freedom to do whatever the frick she wanted, he assumed. Then the news broke to
everyone. At first he tried to make it sound like a good thing. That he would
get lots of girls, and his freedom had just begun. But until this night every
girl had stayed clear of him beyond the casual flirt.

He had come to see if Sharon’s light was out, and he’s
satisfied when he sees that it is. The light being off is a good thing, and he
smiles, until his imagination takes hold. His smile falters. Now he doesn’t
know if the light is out because she just had sex, or so people wouldn’t see
her having sex, or if she’s out at someone else’s house having sex. Every
possibility tightens a lump in his stomach filled with acid. He puts his hand
on Margarette’s ass like an arm rest, rapping his fingers on her bare butt, now
less concerned about waking her up. He keeps his hand there and watches the
house while a slow jam plays that sounds a lot like his relationship with
Sharon. He leaves when the song ends and feels guilty for touching Margarette.
His eyes are wet and he sniffles driving away, but no tear ever falls.