Margarette (Violet) (7 page)

Her eyes close as he fumbles below her skirt
trying to please her. Her legs muscles tighten and her abs clench. He has a
great sense of rhythm but he keeps changing the pace. She still enjoys it, and
her back arches lifting her skin off the barrel. The canvas under her feels
rough on her thighs as she shakes, and a soft squeak escapes her.

He completely stops, then after a breath he starts
faster and harder than before. She grabs his head forcing him into her skin and
crushing his skull into her. Almost instantly Margarette breathes out a real
moan, but she exaggerates the volume and intensity to please his ego. He reacts
to the sound, and his licks become quicker and pulse as if he had done this
before many times. Margarette moans with a soft cry and hisses his name as she
comes.

“
Tommy
!”

She reaches down and feels the soft fabric of his
boxers. Her index fingers tug the elastic, pulling him closer. She just had an incredible
orgasm but wants to feel him inside her. Her legs twitch as they loosen, and
she has to put a hand on her knees to stop the shaking.

Tommy stands back and fully pushes his boxers
down, then grabs his length as he looks down at her. She watches his eyes widen
as he places the tip of the condom against her wetness. Slowly he eases into
her, and she bites her lip as he fills her inch by inch.

“Margarette,” he whispers, dazed. His free hand caresses
her stomach, his thumb presses into her belly button as he eases out and back
in. She tightens her abs and breathes in a lungful of air.

Margarette begins to doubt herself, conscious of
her actions.
I’m having sex with Tommy Gallager because someone told me I
couldn’t
. She thinks about everything that led to this moment and can’t
really feel anything. It’s all revenge. What is it to him? It’s next to nothing
to her, except a simple experience intended to numb a tragedy. It wasn’t
supposed to prolong it. Maybe she made another mistake; allowed herself to become
hurt again. Eventually this would only hurt more, and she’s already too
familiar with that feeling. Realizing how little she knows about him she feels
even more vulnerable.

Unaware of her internal struggle, Tommy pushes
himself into her over and over until he begins to slide easily, and she shuts
her eyes while he moves inside her. She recoils nervously crossing her arms
behind his back. She feels nothing. No connection, no heart, no pulse, no
pleasure, nothing other than his force.

“Margarette?” She opens her eyes and sees him
staring at her, and only her. She can tell he’s captivated by her. “You really
are beautiful.”

And in that second, her doubt washes away like
dirt in the rain. She still feels the same, but her heart is cleansed. Tommy
really does like her. That is what she needed to see.

“Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself,” she
replies, and he smiles.

His eyes shine with renewed excitement. She
breathes out like a wild animal, and he looks at her with a look of intense
pleasure. His face changes quickly as she surprises him with a slap across the
face.

“What the frick was that for?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

She falls back down on her elbows and her chest
shifts into the light. Tommy watches her cheerleader top rise and fall as she
catches her breath, and doesn’t question her strange antics. He pushes himself
deep inside of her and she lifts her hips against him as he slides out. She can’t
tell who’s pushing against who, or if they are just following each other.

“Don’t stop,” she says, but the sound almost doesn’t
come out. A soft whisper slides a little lie through her lips. “You’re huge.”

His pace had started slow but he now quickens with
each breath. She winces as he presses against her with each thrust, and feels
him starting to shake. She leans forward as he grips her at the waist and
pushes into her furiously, breathing heavily.

Margarette is close to another orgasm, and her
legs and abs tighten. Tommy is also on the cusp of orgasm when a man with a
whistle steps around a blue tarp squinting in the sun, trying to see under the
bleachers. It’s the coach.

Coach Swane’s voice calls out, “What the hell are
you two idiots doing out there?”

Margarette leans up in a flash, and Tommy’s shoulders
stiffen.

A moment before the coach had been heading to his
Mustang, which he dearly loved, on the way to meet some hot lady as he would
say. He had parked further away to keep his car from getting scratched,
especially since he just got it detailed. He stopped when he saw a shadow
moving under the far end of the bleachers. But the coach shook his head
thinking it was dopers and continued to the car. That’s when he heard her
voice.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Tommy mumbles, and
he slows down but doesn’t exactly stop. The bleachers supports and the barrels
around them afford Tommy’s pants some privacy, but the coach can see above
their chests, although he is fortunately dazed by the bright light. By the
sound alone he can easily tell that they’re fooling around; he only doesn’t
know to what extent.

Tommy slowly straightens up and pushes himself
deep inside of Margarette, holding her hips tightly, afraid to move. Margarette
adjusts her position, curling herself into his chest as if they were just making
out. Her jerky motion pushes him deep inside and over the edge of control. He
gasps and with a rhythmic warmth pulse he ejaculates inside her. She grips his
ribs and feels his lungs swell and contract with each heartbeat.

The coach continues to yell. “Tommy? Tommy
Gallager? Is that you? What the hell are you doing here, fornication?” The
coach loves the word
fornication
, and loves when he gets the chance to
use it, during or after work. Nobody replies to him so he continues. “I know
it’s you. Can’t you get a room at your own gosh darn house? It’s big enough….
Why the hell do you have to do this here on my watch? Now it’s my damn
problem?”

Tommy looks for Margarette’s eyes, but she tucks
her head into his arm hiding her face.

“Go on, you two… get out of there,” the coach says
without a whole lot of emotion. Clearly, he doesn’t know exactly what the two
are doing behind the crates.

Tommy slides out of Margarette pretending that he
is just stepping back. Without bending, Margarette brings her leg up close and
artfully puts back on her underwear and shorts in one subtle move, while Tommy
tugs at his boxers and pants resting above his knees, struggling to bring them
up without alerting the coach as to what he’s doing.

“Uh, coach… can you give us a sec?”

“I’ll give you more than that. ‘
Can you give us
a sec
,’ are you kidding me?” His voice is sarcastic. “I think you’ve had
enough. I’ll put you in detention so fast your head will spin and thank me for
not suspending you. I tell you what.”

“Coach, I don’t even go here anymore.”

“Then why the hell are you here? And anyhow, your
little girlfriend does. I want you out here—
now
!”

Margarette grows nervous while Tommy finally pulls
up his pants, not bothering to remove his condom. They both inspect each other
briefly, for any telling signs. Margarette’s hair is fine but Tommy runs his
hand gently over it as if straightening it out. With a little smile at
Margarette, he grabs her hand. She tucks her head into his chest as they walk
out, the coach still shouting.

“I’m waiting! March… march march march,” drums the
coach.

As they walk towards the parking lot avoiding the
coach’s eyes, she fights the thought that Tommy took her body as recompense for
his lost Sharon. Margarette now earned the reputation she had already gained.

“Can I drive you home?” Tommy asks.

“Um….” She feels the need to be alone to think
things through. “Thanks, Tommy, but I… I want to walk.”

“Are you sure? Let me drive you.”

“No, I…” she looks around for an excuse. There are
some cars left in the parking lot. “There might still be people around. Already
too much talk….”

“Oh, I see. As you wish,” he says.

He leans in to kiss her goodbye, but she gives him
her cheek instead.

“Thanks anyway, Tommy,” she says, and walks away
with as much dignity as she can muster, for a girl in a borrowed cheerleader
uniform who just had sex under the high school bleachers.

Later that evening Margarette is alone in her
house as usual. No one else is home. She has no siblings, hasn’t had a father
for years now, and her mother is never around much.

No one really took care of her full time as a
child. Her mother would say the neighbor would watch her, but it doesn’t really
count if you never make an arrangement directly with the neighbor, and she only
takes care of your child because she feels bad for the poor abandoned kid.
Margarette is also close to an aunt who isn’t technically her aunt, not by
blood anyway; however, she was only at her aunt’s house for holidays. For the
most part, she was always alone. It’s a miracle she never burned down the house.
Her parents were still together when she was little but they fought all the
time; when they did, she read books to escape reality. Unfortunately she read a
lot.

After school she normally goes to an empty house
and does whatever she feels like doing. Today she lies on her bed in a nearly
transparent slip, staring at the ceiling, a phone at her ear. Her room is
adorned with all sorts of quasi-matching white furniture, pastel flowers and a unicorn.
She’s talking on the phone with a distant cousin to fill the void. The cousin
is her only redeemable family member, but they don’t see much of each other
because her cousin’s family is very religious, and the mother, Margarette’s aunt,
doesn’t approve of Margarette’s mother’s alcoholism.

Her cousin is talking about a book Margarette had
never heard of before. It’s a book her aunt described as satanic. That probably
meant a boy and a girl kissed before marriage. Margarette takes a brief mental
note of the book but forgets the title immediately because she has other more
pressing matters in her head.

I just had sex
.

She presses down on a large button of a remote
control, flipping channels absentmindedly while she replays her intimate moment
with Tommy. She stops on a giant monster with an explosion going off in the
background. She smiles as she recognizes
Godzilla vs. Monster Zero
over
the storming scenes in front of her mind’s eye.

Someone cackles on the phone and she jerks to the
present. At some point Margarette zoned out of the conversation and now tries
to catch up without revealing she didn’t pay attention.

“Yeah of course I heard you. Why did he do that?”
She rolls onto her back.

The voice on the other end of the phone continues.
The TV yells out clashing noises in the background. A sci-fi spacesuit guy on
TV named Glenn says, “
The enemy is very strong; you’d better do something
spectacular
.”

Margarette lets go of the phone, letting it rest on
the pillow by her head, and the girl on the other end of the phone rattles on
near her neck. Her cousin’s voice is so loud through the receiver that
Margarette can hear it without pressing it to her ear.

“
Oh my Joy, you’re a fricking slut. A big
slut…. Simply loose ugly trash,
” the girl’s voice rattles.

“I’m not ugly,” Margarette says almost
absentmindedly.

“
I’m just fricking with you
.”

“I’ll call you later, bitch.” Margarette’s voice
trails.

“
You know I didn’t mean it
,” the voice presses.

Margarette rolls her eyes.

Click
.

Margarette thumbs through to the very last page of
a love story and even through the appendix as a victory lap. She likes romance
novels, everything from classic to trashy romances. The trashy ones she only
reads when she’s alone. If she went out in public she would put the dust cover
from another book over them in order to hide the true content.

Her body suddenly tenses; Margarette looks out the
window like a startled cat and focuses on a boy standing at the intersection.
He doesn’t see her where she hides behind the second story window, but he is
right outside of her house staring at it. She freezes trying not to catch his
attention, and frowns wondering why he is there. But she sighs.

Slowly she rotates and her legs drop off the bed.
Why
put off the inevitable?

Paulie stands on the corner of the tree-lined
street after a soft rain. When he got off the bus by Margarette’s house in his
socks he got a lot of strange looks from the other passengers. He approaches
her house. By the time he gets to the buzzer, Margarette is on the first floor
staring through the window next to the door. He steps up to the porch and
waits. She tiptoes to the door in her see-through slip and cut-off jean shorts
she threw on her way down. Before he hits the button she swings the door open.

“Yep.” Margarette says.

“Hi, Margarette?”

“Yep,” she repeats, proud of herself for having
anticipated his greeting.

“I think you have something of mine,” he says.

Margarette looks down at Paulie’s bare feet while
he looks at her chest and realizes she’s not wearing a bra. She monitors his
wandering eyes but doesn’t care. He is harmless to her. He leans forward, but
stays silent.

“Oh… come in.” She walks in and disappears into
the poorly-lit home leaving the door wide open. The house is large and has been
in the family for generations, so the décor is out of style. When her
grandmother died, Margarette’s mother was left with some money; however, she never
remarried or worked. She shut down and began to drink. Now the house, though
once pretty, is a gloomy place where a girl like Margarette wouldn’t be
expected to live.

The place is a mess but Margarette has a million other
things to worry about. She has had days to survive evil kids and nights with
bouts of insomnia. Her worst fear has always been the emptiness of being home
alone; she lives trapped in her worst fear. The fatigue and lack of sleep leads
her down a path of bad decisions.

Like Tommy.

Paulie is a small welcome distraction. He is
careful to lock the door and follows her up the stairs into her bedroom. She
watches him closely like a hunter and its prey. Paulie is nervous; he looks
around the room and rests his eyes on a tiny perfume vial on her desk, and
picks it up absentmindedly. He smells the fragrance while he watches the light
shine through her outfit. She isn’t self-conscious around him. For her it is
like walking around naked in front of a plant… if the plant could stare.

“How did you find me?” she asks him.

“School directory.”

“I didn’t think students could get that.”

“They can’t, but I find it’s easier to apologize
than to ask for permission.”

She knows his mother works in the school office so
she rolls her eyes.

“So, can I?” he asks.

“What, apologize for being creepy?” Margarette
asks playfully in turn.

“No…. get my shoes back. You do have them, right?”

“Your shoes….” It’s all clear to her now. The red shoes
had definitely not been in the girls’ locker room;
Paulie
had left them
out for her, after he found out somehow that she was shoeless. Otherwise, why
would he leave them there? But the big question is: how did he know that she
needed shoes? Did he hear from the girls that played the cruel prank on her?

However he found out, Margarette realizes she doesn’t
really care; doesn’t really need to know. All that matters is, he left his
shoes out for her to wear, and walked here in his socks. She smiles. She had
thought about screwing with him, telling him “
No, I don’t know what you’re
talking about
,” but despite being a little creepy, he seems like a nice
guy. She opens her closet door and reaches inside for his red shoes where she placed
them out of sight from her mother.

As she bends over, the slip rises high enough that
Paulie can see her faded jeans. His mouth opens as he watches her, while she
acts completely oblivious to his stares. He wonders if she knows he spent the
better half of his puberty staring at her in class.
Lust
isn’t a strong
enough word for this particular stalker.

“Okay, thank you for that,” she says as she hands
him his shoes.

He straightens his back when her fingertips brush
against his arm in the exchange.

“They got dirty,” she says apologetically.

Paulie ignores her comment and asks what has been
on his mind for the last few hours. “Hey, what did you do on the football
field?”

Margarette shuts her eyes. “This place really is a
circle.”

Paulie thinks it is more of a sphere, but holds
off from saying it. She only sees him stand there with a blank stare.

“So are we done here?” she asks.

He stumbles over his words and forgets what in the
world he was going to say. “Well, what were you doing?”

“I was going to go downstairs.” Without waiting
for an answer she leaves her bedroom and heads down the stairs. Paulie hurries
to put on his shoes and follows her to the living room. She nudges her chin
toward the television, but stops before fully committing to the chin point.

“I’ll leave you be,” he says apologetically.

“You don’t have to leave.” She turns as she did
before, leaving him speechless and standing there. Margarette walks into the
den and sits down on the couch. She turns on the TV and flicks the channels.

He chooses to stick around. “Where are your
parents?” he asks as he notices the empty house. It smells of cleanser and
bleach, but not food.

“Let me know if you see them,” she replies dryly,
fanning her hair over the back of the couch.

Paulie sits down at the dining table watching her.
His body is turned awkwardly, but he acts like it doesn’t hurt to twist his
neck.

“I think I know you,” she says.

“I’m Paulie?” he says, but it comes off as a
question because he’s nervous. “My mother works at the school.”

“Oh, yeah,” she pretends she doesn’t know.

“Do you get left here all alone often?” he asks
casually.

“Not that often.”

She doesn’t know right away why she lies to him. She
even has the feeling that Paulie would understand and be sympathetic if he knew
her daily predicament. She still doesn’t want to admit it, though. Maybe she
just doesn’t like hearing it, not even from herself; it would make the
abandonment more real, somehow. She counters quickly to keep him talking about
himself and not about her. “
You’re
stuck at school too, until your mom
goes home,” she points out. “Right?”

“I spend a lot of time in the library,” Paulie says.
“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Well, can I ask you another question?”

“Beyond the first two?”

“I’m not so sure I should be asking.”

“Well, if you did you should say ‘
may I
,’
to be polite.” She tries not to smile and continues to play along.

“Ms. Princess Margarette. May I… ask you…? Shoot,
I forgot what I was going to say.”

Margarette can’t help but smile, but it’s a little
smile because it’s real; she hardly smiles anymore so she’s forgotten how. “So how
do you know my name? I guess I should have known that you’d know that.”

“Was that creepy?” Paulie asks.

“Any time you feel like asking that question, the
answer is yes. Even when the answer was no, it’s still creepy. Don’t make me
lie to you.”

“Oh.”

“Okay… okay, it’s not
that
creepy. We do go
to school together, you know; the same classes and stuff.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, still shaken at her words.

“So what’s the question? You can ask me anything
you want. Stop asking permission and just ask, Paulie. Just don’t ask me
anything that would make me cry. Today has sucked enough already.”

“You’re better than him.”

“You suck,” she says, regretting her invitation
immediately. “I fricking know that. I don’t need to hear it from anyone else.
And you don’t have a lot of welcome to wear out.”

“I mean it. You’re better than them. All of them.”

She pauses for a second. Paulie, even with his
strangeness, is the only person who has truly been nice to her recently. Her
heart warms towards him. She feels comfortable with him, like she can be
herself around him. It doesn’t hurt that he’s cute in a nerdy sort of way. And
at this moment, she really wants someone to talk to.

Finally she sighs and says, “I thought being with
him to get back at them would feel different.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“That you got hurt.”

She doesn’t want to acknowledge his pity. Why
should he pity her? “My friends abandoning me hurt a lot more than empty sex,”
she says.

“Oh…?”

“My ex-friends, I should say. Whereas Tommy…” she trails
off, thinking about Tommy’s hands, warm on her legs. “He wasn’t that bad.”

“I wouldn’t think he would be,” Paulie mumbles.

“You know…” she says, almost to herself. “It was
different from what I expected. It happened like I wasn’t even there. I was
watching myself sitting there, lying there. My mouth was moving, but I don’t
really know what I was saying. I recall what happened in complete silence, not
actually hearing the words out loud. Most of it was lies about physical
feelings and attraction. Things that I thought I was supposed to say but didn’t
really matter.”

Paulie’s whole demeanor has changed. “You had sex
with him,” he says.

Margarette is more than surprised. Didn’t he
believe she already had, like everyone else at the party? “I did. I thought I
might have a crush on him for a second, but it wasn’t much sex… or sex at all. We
just fooled around. It took him longer to get his pants down than for us to
finish.”

“Margarette…. He doesn’t deserve you,” Paulie says.

“He’ll never have me again is more like it.” Her
voice unexpectedly breaks, to her embarrassment.

Paulie looks up pretending he didn’t pick up on
anything. “I like the trees outside,” he says. “The flowers are beautiful.”