Not Here

As with most things, it started with sex. Yes, the three-letter ‘four-letter’ word. It may not mean what you think it means, but then, most things are easily misperceived. Sex is by far the most powerful of all the powers, the most abused, the most easily accessed, the most damaging, the most purifying, the most redemptive, the most sinfully blissful and misunderstood of all the powers, and easily evidence by the frequency that advertiser use it, subliminal or not.

Suppression rarely works. Best case, it makes you socially awkward to the point even family gossip about you behind your back, which you sometimes sense in suddenly halted conversations or occasional queer looks, or a surprised burst of laughter when you enter the scene. Worst case scenario, it turns you into a hoarder with piles of magazine, porn or just regular old coffee table magazine stolen from doctor offices or free catalogue subscriptions, the poor man’s access to ‘playboy.’ Or worse ‘worse case’ scenario, a predator.

Surrendering to the compulsion, outside of the socially sanctioned channels, rarely results in compassion, from anyone outside looking in, even if it’s life affirming and about kindness. (Human touch use to mean kindness. In Japan there is a company selling cuddles and hugs. Then again, you can also buy used, female panties from vending machines. (And I always wonder if the woman in the pic is actually the one that wore them.)) In Texas, acting out on a compulsion could earn you a spot on a billboard. Yes, they will place an unflattering but obvious picture of you with a description of your crime: solicited a prostitute, shun shun shun. I suppose, as deterrents go, it works, as I have not attempted to solicit said prostitutes, mostly out of fear, but I have imagined, should I ever be brave enough to indulge, but too stupid to distinguish a crack whore from a cop, (though I admit sex can make a man that stupid,) that I request my phone number be placed on the billboard making it easier for me to find my next hook up. (If you didn’t laugh at my dark sense of humor, you’re not alone, but you also don’t have to read further.) But like all deterrents, it tends to only promote the crime, because the greater the punishment the greater the compensation for offering the services, which entrenches it into a population.

Like ‘fight club’ no one talks about ‘sex club,’ which is more a metaphor for how my family avoided the subject of procreation. The Baptist side was the strictest, no sex talk, no dancing, no alcohol, no games with dice, and no hugs; just handshakes. Hell, even the grandparents slept in twin, “I love Lucy” type beds, which begged the question how did dad and his sister come to be. The Church of Christ side, well, they indulged in just about every forbidden indiscretions, from affairs to incest, and medicated with just about every elicit substance procurable by modern man. (One of my uncles, a prominent business man, made the cover of Texas Monthly for having the largest underground cannabis growing operation in the state of Texas, and was only discovered because another family member, disgruntled by his success, ratted him out.) It was years after childhood that I stumbled upon evidence that the alcohol abuse was a mask for generational sexual abuse. Not only did it happen, key player knew it was happening and chose to do nothing.

Before puberty, the dogma of both B and C had me staring into the sun because “if thee eye offend thee pluck it out,’ as if lust would cease with blindness. (To this date I am still cursed with perfect vision.) Trying to blind myself came from a fear of what I perceived was coming, because as any child of Church of Christ will tell you, if you hold these thought, you will go to hell. The girl that triggered the first response was in fourth grade. I was in first. We rode the same bus together. She had a visible and tangible aura about her that compelled me to try and sit by her and follow her around like the puppy I was, but her peers were vying for that spot, too, and first graders tended to get stomped. I longed for the merest gaze, a smile, but would settle for even a frown of contempt. On the rare occasions that she passed me, met my eyes, touched my hand in passing, I would be overwhelmed to the point of tears, flushed from head to toe in bath of ineffable warmth and I would want to melt and lose my identity in her, because I had no concept of expressing what I wanted because I hadn’t yet figured it out: I just knew I needed to share space/time with her. She was my version of the Carpenter song: “Close to you.”

Death would have been preferable to being ignored. The thought of death occurred way too often in my youth, spurred by years of perceived abuse, actual abuse, and isolation from family and peers. The end of high school was actually the end… Not of life, but of ever being around a group of mostly age related folks by default. Pre-high school grad was an artificial reality, and not everyone crosses that border with soul intact, or with earned butterfly wings. Some of stay worms. And this brings me to where? Where am I?

Oh, yeah. Sex.

Spock told Stonn, in ‘Amok Time,’ “After a time, you will find having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting.” I don’t know why I am telling you that. It’s a secret most married people acknowledge, and only sometimes with lament. But, it’s relevant somehow. Maybe it will come to me, or you. Readers are often far luckier than the person writing, subtexts and vicariousness notwithstanding. All those old stories people wrote and you were forced to read because some old professor told you there were metaphors and meaningful crap, well, yeah, there is that, but we authors, we usually just write stuff to get it out of our head, we don’t really plan the other stuff. All of that falls into place in hindsight, and some of us may live long enough to hear other people expound on what we’ve written, and I hope I live long enough just to pretend that I had a clue what I was saying.

The invitation came in an innocuous envelope. At certain angles, it seemed like real writing, but at other angles, regardless of light, it looked fake- just another concealed attempt by advertisers to make you feel wanted so they can sneak into your life and get your money. Still, it was nice to have something that wasn’t obviously a bill:

“Dear Jon,” yeah; it is what it is. “You’ve been accepted and are encouraged to sign on and attend an Orientation at your earliest convenience. Yours truly, Penny.”

There was nothing further. No email address. No phone number. No forwarding address. No Sir name. Not even the apparent gimmick proclaiming a free toaster if you acted now. The whole matter left me perturbed and stuck in my brain sideways. I don’t like mysteries, practical jokes, or riddles. I cracked my head, searching for anyone I knew by the name of Penny. The only Penny I could conjure up was the youngest daughter from ‘Lost in Space’ who was only one of a thousand in a long line of television and movie crushes that I clung to over the years, the sophistication of which morphed over time as I did. I am confident I am not the only male afflicted by such a malady, but I will say, Walter Mitty had nothing on me!

I retired for the evening wondering about it. I had no more made myself comfortable than the words from a song disturbed me: “Writing to Sky’s niece Penny… Oh I wish I had a pencil thin mustache…” It occurred to me that the Parrot Head view of life was somehow more profoundly realistic than any other musician I could tolerate. “So, why don’t we get drunk and screw…”

I think my pillow shook with fear. The vibration filled my head and swept down to my toes and reverberated back, and that feeling from childhood- that very first inkling of something wonderfully awful with no labels available to qualify it due to insufficient life experience because the most alluring fourth grader sharing my bus accidentally beamed a smile my way flooding my brain with endorphins… My brain short circuited.

She thumped my forehead.

“Stop staring at my breasts and pay attention,” she scolded.

I wasn’t aware I was staring at her breast until she pointed out that I was staring at her breast and though they were fully concealed behind a blouse and padded bra that held them up and together and firm... I met her eyes. I was no less captivated than I was when I was falling through her cleavage. I became the emblematic deer in headlights, my mouth agape, clearly caught staring, fixated and unable to turn away. If I could have pegged her for anyone, it would have been the character ‘Jennifer Marlowe’ played by a young Loni Anderson, or a close enough stand in to be a clone or twin. (If you ever wondered what you would do if you ran head into breasts with Dolly Parton, well, start this paragraph over.)

“Do you want in or not?” she asked.

Don’t answer that question don’t answer that question…“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “But, can we start over from the beginning? I’m a little lost.”

Her sigh was frustratingly perfect. She pushed a strand of her hair back, wet her lips with her tongue, and shifted in her chair, and pointed to paragraphs and words on forms that I couldn’t see because she filled my vision. “You applied to learn magic. We accepted. I explained the caveats. I presented you with the one and only form that is obligatory to proceed forwards. I handed you a pen. You became mesmerized by my bosom. Now, I am asking you to focus for what, a whole of five seconds, and make a commitment. Sign here, and you’re in, and then you may proceed to Orientation. Sign here and you decline entry, and you return to your mundane life as you know it. Now,” she smiled, her glossy pinkish red lips drawing me in as if her inhale was the ISS depressurizing in reverse. She thumped my forehead again, right dead center. I was too stunned to feel pain or otherwise object. “Decide. Eh!” She put her finger to my mouth to stop any potential question. “Keep it simple, stupid. Sign here, or here. That’s it.”

Whether it was her smile, her persistence, or the way she crossed her legs, visible through the glass desk as she tapped the ‘accept line,’ that inspired my signature, I can’t say, but I can say, it had nothing to do with the promise of learning magic or whatever that even meant. She thanked me profusely, put the document in a folder, and filed it away to her left. She proceeded to get up by placing both hands on her desk and pushing upwards as if it took all her effort to stand, and in doing so, deliberate or not, exposed me to an even deeper view of cleavage, before she went erect. I couldn’t help but stand with her, as I needed to rise to continue to gaze inward, compelled by an urgency to discover just how far the rabbit hole went. She reached out a hand and my hand went to hers without conscious thought. The grip was surprisingly strong, astonishing in that it felt kind and warm, even with the intimate liberty my eyes had taken.

“What were those caveats again?” I asked.

“Caveat, really,” she responded, trying to extract her hand. “Once enrolled, you cannot be un-enrolled. You can’t quit or flunk or do anything but pass, even if it takes you all eternity. We have standards, here. You will continue your education until you have demonstrated a modicum of magic, provided an acceptable thesis, and passed a board comprised of professors and peers.”

I had another question, but somehow her magic led me away from her cubicle and out a back door, all the while informing me that any other questions was likely to be answered in Orientation, but if not, I would learn it in due course over the my Freshman year.

“Be happy, Jon Harister. Good day,” she said, patting me on the back, which seemed kindly enough, except she was really shoving me out the door and into the midst of a fairly non-descript college campus, with an assortment of folks tarrying here and there. I turned to her. She smiled pleasantly at me, her blouse so tight if she breathed in buttons might fly out, her skirt short enough that there was the same inclination to seek more information as her cleavage did, and her heels titled her ass up just enough to be an invitation to want more, only the door closed behind her and vanished, leaving an uninterrupted view of the campus, but no indication of the building I had clearly just exited.

Now that she was gone, I rediscovered how to breathe. The world turned at an odd angle and I succumbed to the weight of my own body. Before the world went dark, a squirrel foraging through the grass put a compassionate paw on my forehead, moved its mouth silently as if it was expecting me to lip read, and then blinked sympathetically, tilting its head. It turned and foraged on, showing it’s butt and a quivering tail, not the least bit disturbed by the human lying in the grass.

******

“Not Here” By Ion Light

This is a HINOVEL edition. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate on this platform.

Thank you!