Mom never fucked quiet. Every few nights I’d wake up the same way, with the framed velvet art poster bouncing over my bed. Men’s moans varied, but Mom’s stayed the same—short and panty, then long and yowling. I would have rearranged my room if it weren’t so cramped and the window drafts cold year-round.
She was drunk, not always, but usually. She often tripped on the pile of shoes by the door and giggled with whichever man. Our apartment was car-small, so the stench of post-coital cigarettes penetrated my room. She’d flush the toilet throughout the night, constantly popping antibiotics for urinary tract infections. Her mood improved when the man stayed over, but that was rare. Sometimes she’d see the same guy for a couple weeks until a first fight happened, the relationships too weak to withstand any tension.
I could never fall back asleep until I heard the front door shut. If one did stay over, I’d drift in and out. My dreams were usually the same: me, incapacitated, crawling on the ground, struggling to wake up. Eventually I would, and there it was, a strange man’s snore. The worst was when their sounds infiltrated my dreams. There I’d be, in line in the cafeteria speaking with the lunch lady, and there it was, my mother’s belabored moan. I guess that’s how it started.
…
I stood waiting with bees in my chest for the discounted lunch that was always phallic—hot dogs, corn on the cob, breadsticks. I wasn’t interested. Nancy was stallion strong with yellowed grey braids confined by a hairnet. Her skin was thick, like buckskin, like she could peel it off in chunks then slap it back on. Her arms shone burn wounds dewed with sweat. She wielded her mayo spreader like a falchion, and I imagined brass armor fit snug over sagging breasts—cold, hardening nipples. I wanted to yank off the hairnet, tear her hairbands out with my teeth, and watch the braids unspool into waves cresting cleavage. I imagined Ophelia was her name, that we were alone in the turret of a castle, and she’d roasted a whole hog, an apple in its mouth. A loaf of fresh, steaming pumpernickel nestled in a wicker basket, accompanied by a softened stick of butter, for her.
“Butter?” Nancy said.
“Huh?”
“Want butter on with your roll? You usually don’t.” My crotch flinched. She raised her brows as she smeared the margarine into a ramekin. It looked like she winked, but I became less and less sure as I replayed the moment on my way to the marching band table, where I was welcome to sit but nobody talked to me.
Between the other girl who played clarinet and Curt, the saxophonist, I pulled my phone out of my bag.
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I just ordered a Yoshi Fujieda body pillow. I want to be Lalamon, lol.
My only friend and confidant was Brianna, 25/f/Texas. We met on Neopets. I pretended to be 24/f/California, though I was 16/f/Oklahoma. Brianna’s husband, stationed in Iraq, hadn't a clue she was gay.
Lol! So funny, I replied, You’ll find ur Yoshi 1day! R U still chatting w/ Candace?
My crotch was still warm-wet from my interaction with Nancy, and I wondered if it would seep through my jeans.
No, she deleted her account. I really hope she’s okay!
“Larissa,” Curt said.
“Wha-what?”
“I said are you coming to the inaugural D&D meeting tomorrow?” I looked across the cafeteria at Nancy’s daughter, Amber. Her eyes were painted vantablack, little voids from a distance. She was like me in that no one talked to her, but unlike me in that she didn’t seem to want anyone to, seemed mostly like a floating brooding ghoul. I wanted to ask if Nancy was married, if she was gay, if she liked little girls, but Amber was as unapproachable as a Hot Topic manager.
“Larissa?”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, you?”
“Nice! Yeah, dude. We all are. I pioneered it.”
I switched my cell phone to vibrate before returning it to my bag.
…
I sat in the back of the bus, on which everyone was younger than me. I was sixteen with no money for a car. I put my hood up, leaned against the window, and listened to My Chemical Romance on the iPod mini Mom had gifted me for Christmas from the Hooters lost-and-found. My town was strewn with dilapidated barn houses and smoking brush piles. Cattle crowded behind barbed wire. Big oaks and gray grass overgrown in the hollers. I couldn’t wait for winter to end. I looked forward to the beginning of the school year as well as late spring, when it was warm enough for Nancy to wear shorts. She sported the bold unshaved legs of a postal service carrier. My breath fogged the window, and with my pointer finger I wrote “L + N.”
Our apartment complex was the only one in town. Six kids debussed with me then branched their separate ways. I opened the door to our unit, reacquainted with the stale fetor of Mom’s Class B cigarettes. I stood on tiptoes and batted at a container of Top Ramen until it dislodged and fell to the cracked linoleum floor. A drop of boiled water burnt my finger as I poured it in.
Mom worked until 6:00 now, since her promotion to shift manager. She’d been at Hooters since she was 21 and despite her “alimonily-funded” fake tits, they wanted her off the floor. She was high on the promotion, probably didn’t even think of it. She said they recognized hard work. Besides, she added, wriggling her fingers, she could get acrylics again because she wouldn’t be carrying plates.
I had two hours of unsupervised internet before she got home. We still had two weeks left on our AT&T DSL trial. I looked up lunch lady porn and IMed Brianna, the only person who knew about my attraction to Nancy. As far as Brianna knew, she worked in the cafeteria at my downtown San Francisco office, where I was a paralegal and also a professional tennis player.
2day she remembered I hate butter.
Wow, Larissa. She seems really into you!
For whatever reason, “lunch lady” resulted in a lot of stepmom porn, which urged me to scroll past, trying not to look, until I found my favorite porn star, Miss Polska. I typed her name into the search bar to filter out the MILFs. Miss Polska towered like Nancy. She plopped potato salad onto a beige tray for a male gym teacher, then led him into the walk-in where he unbuttoned her khakis and fucked her against a Sunkist box. There wasn’t gay lunch lady porn, just generic teachers and schoolgirls. I closed my eyes and imagined getting fucked by Miss Polska—her calloused, scar-thick hands strangling my throat as she spread my legs up onto the storage shelves and railed her unshaved pussy against mine until I gushed. Then my eyes popped open. The next video was autoplaying, “Stepmom makes lunch and forces stepson to masturbate.” I scrambled to exit the browser before reading a missed message from Brianna.
This sounds really fucked up for me to admit, but I kind of hope Corey steps on an IED.
…
Seven students attended the D&D meeting. Mrs. Millgate, the Speech & Drama teacher, agreed to act as Dungeon Master after Curt had pleaded for extracurricular sponsorship. A foldout table stood topped with Capri-Suns, fun-sized bags of Rold Golds, and a photocopied stack of turquoise handouts.
“Okay, so I did a bit of research,” Mrs. Millgate began, “and the first step is to build your characters. If each of you wouldn’t mind grabbing a form, I will project character classes onto the whiteboard. We’ll start there.”
I first heard about D&D through Brianna. She played online campaigns and also with librarian coworkers at an arcade bar in Houston. She’d always rave about how fun it was, how liberating. I picked a bard, because, while capable of combat, they mostly play music to employ their magic. They’re known for their charisma. I named my bard Eros because it meant “god of love,” which I found beautiful.
As I prioritized points for wisdom over dexterity on my character sheet, the classroom door creaked open and Amber slouched in. “Sorry,” she said, taking the corner chair farthest from everyone. I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at her. She was fully immersed, looking up at the board and scribbling. She wore a green plaid kilt with black knee-high socks and combat boots, the soft roundedness of her face Gerberesque, only the deviated septum reminding me of her mom. I knew Amber was my best shot at getting close to Nancy.
My heart rate climbed slowly until it pulsed in my temples. I rose from my desk, walked over to Amber, and opened my mouth. “What character class are you?”
“Tiefling wizard. Demon-blooded, studious, and brimming with magic.” She grinned. “How about you?”
“Elven bard, because I play clarinet, and, honestly? I think elves are pretty hot.” My temples continued to pulse. “What’s your alignment?”
“Chaotic evil.” She slapped the empty chair beside her. “Sit.” Mine was lawful neutral, but she didn’t ask.
Toward the end of filling out Eros’s stats, I pressed my pencil too hard against the turquoise until the lead snapped back and splintered like a bone. Before I could even complain, Amber rifled through her bag and offered a superior replacement: a fountain pen that took me a few seconds to grasp.
…
The next day at lunch, Nancy was missing. Maybe she was in the back, prepping food. I sat with Curt and the rest of marching band.
“Dude, I can’t wait for our campaign,” Curt said to the violinist. “I think Mrs. Millgate will be an epic DM. She’s got a wild imagination. You know she went to Juilliard?”
“I love how it’s all band members except that creepy goth,” said the percussionist. “Like, why even come if you’re not gonna talk to anyone?”
“Larissa and her are buddy-buddy,” Curt said.
“Oh yeah,” the other clarinetist said, “didn’t you sit by her?”
“Don’t be mean.” I glanced toward Amber’s table and, to my astonishment, she glanced back. I threw my gaze down into my applesauce with such force I thought it might splash. The pallid dunes in all their plainness stilled my heart.
A hard crackle issued from the loudspeaker.
“Attention students, this is Jenna, Treasurer of Student Council, and we have a special announcement to make. Keisha will be coming around to take orders for carnations in honor of Valentine’s Day. You can send them to anyone in school. Each flower is just $3, and all proceeds go toward breast cancer awareness.”
“October is Breast Cancer, not February. Shouldn’t the funds fight racial injustice?” Hannah said.
I took my phone from my bag and texted Brianna.
So the office is selling carnations for VDay. I wanna get one for Nancy is that weird? Lol! I don’t wanna get fired!
I wasn’t even sure ordering for faculty was allowed. I had recently Googled the age of consent here, seventeen. I’d have to make my move discretely. I wondered if I could order the flower anonymously. I’d subtly drop hints to Nancy until she understood.
Keisha went table to table with a clipboard, a carnation pinned to her cardigan. I watched awestruck as Amber shot her hand up, stood, and chased Keisha down, stuffing what must have been dollar bills into her hand.
…
That night while I was journaling, Mom swung my door open without knocking and leaned against the doorframe, cradling a teddy bear with a heart in its paws. In her other hand, a Coors Light. “Got a valentine?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Doubt it. You’re gonna die a virgin, Larissa, I swear to God.”
I blinked.
“Got this from a regular.” She squished the bear in the crook of her elbow. “He started coming by the bar forever ago. Name’s Steve. Salt-and-pepper type, land surveyor or something, real hot, always smells like dirt. He’s got money though, not construction. His daughter goes to your school I think. His wife works for the school or something. Years ago your daddy gave him lip, but I don’t think he knows about the divorce.” She dangled the bear by its ear and lifted the bottle to her lips.
“Is his wife a lunch lady?” I asked.
“How the hell should I know?”
I shrugged.
Mom said goodnight, dropped the bear, and left it lying there, staring in through my doorway.
…
On Friday, Keisha delivered the carnations. I regretted not getting one for Nancy. I’d have to make my move before May or commit to a summer of pathetically fantasizing. Keisha placed two carnations on the desk in front of me, then one on mine.
“Keisha, wrong desk.”
“No? You’re Larissa Scott.”
Hesitant, I held the carnation in my sweating palm, terrified to open the accompanying two-inch card, cinched shut with red ribbon through a hole-punched hole. It couldn’t possibly be from Nancy, but who else could it be? My cheeks flushed as I realized somebody was pulling a prank. I mustered the courage to look around the room, scared I’d find someone stifling a laugh. No one was. Girls opened their cards and smiled. Some whispered to each other, I heard “Aww!” A couple boys in the back fist-bumped. The classroom felt celebratory, save for the few flowerless girls, who seemed more indifferent than sad. I breathed in deep through my nose as I untied the card.
To: A player
From: A player
I texted Brianna Omg I got a carnation, but she didn’t reply. I scrolled up to see she hadn’t for a while, since even before I asked if it would be weird to buy Nancy a flower. She hadn’t been online lately either. Maybe her wish came true and Corey blew up, and she was toasting her new freedom with tens of thousands of dollars in death gratuity. Maybe she and Candace finally met, and Candace forbade Brianna from talking to other girls. Worried that Brianna was mad at me, I sent her ????? before tossing my phone back into my bag.
…
At Monday’s D&D meeting, Mrs. Millgate gave a lecture on “theater of the mind” before launching the campaign. Our characters had newly arrived on an invented Arctic isle called Breeze, where barbarians and druids were warring for centuries. Our mission was to create peace among all classes and races, so Breeze could regain hegemony and participate in international diplomacy.
I took the cap off Amber’s fountain pen which I had forgotten to return and stared at Mrs. Millgate’s undulating Adam’s apple as I agonized over who had sent the flower. Curt asked a barbarian to house him for the night; I thought about how no one had ever had a crush on me before. The attention felt good, but unfamiliar, and I struggled to thresh excitement from anxiety. Some of my classmates were cute, sure, but I wanted to be smothered by something sultry, heavy.
“Eros,” Mrs. Millgate said. “Velphi would fancy a dance.” Amber rolled the D10 and passed the Charisma check. “A chorus breaks into monastic chants beside a frozen fountain. Eros and Velphi waltz in luxurious, polar fox pelts. Velphi dips Eros, and Eros spins. The square fills with onlookers, cheering and chanting.” I imagined Amber and I vested in fur, pearls clacking against our clavicles, the scent of ambergris thick on our napes. “Clamdor approaches to take Eros’ hand. Velphi, what shall you do?”
Amber glared at Curt and said, “I’d like a duel. Allow me to brandish my quarterstaff!”
“Eros stands to the side, perplexed, as Velphi and Clamdor fight for her hand,” Mrs. Millgate said. Curt rolled higher than Amber then pumped his fist. “And Clamdor is champion! Eros is swept off her feet, dancing with the victorious gnome into the night.”
I didn’t want to dance with Curt in Breeze or anywhere. I wanted to sway with Amber in the snow-swept square. I felt flattered that she had fought for me, that she had taken a turn to ward off Curt. No one had ever made me feel like a prize. It dawned on me that I could dance with Amber in real life, somewhere warm, maybe in tunics rather than in furs. I imagined the two of us in the center of the football field: black sky and shimmering AstroTurf like in Friday Night Lights. There would be no need for extras, just Amber and me.
After a few more scenes in which I did not participate, Mrs. Millgate stowed the dice in a plum suede pouch and everyone gathered their bags. Amber rushed up behind me in the hallway and slapped my back.
“How was your Valentine’s Day?” she asked, breathless.
“Fine, I guess. A day like any other. Yours?”
“Lonely. I played Neopets while my parents were at church.”
“Oh, wow. I play too.”
“Do you want to come over next week after D&D?”
A dumbbell splashed in my stomach. Amber’s house was Nancy’s house. It could be everything or nothing at all.
“Yes. I mean, yeah, sure.”
Amber grabbed my hand and squeezed it, then I walked the forty minutes home alone.
…
That night Mom fucked until glass broke, and she and whoever she brought home cackled. I put on headphones, but the pounding still rattled my bedframe. My bikini briefs were moist. Flashes of Mom’s silicone tits entered my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push them away. The images returned harder and clearer. I tried to imagine mundane things, taking midterms. But Mom’s tits resurfaced, as if released after being held under water, buoyant as they were.
When Mom moaned, I imagined Nancy. I pretended the headboard-slamming was a jousting match off in the distance as Nancy laid me atop a grassy knoll and raised her chiming chainmail skirt to mount me. Nancy’s breasts would be loose, subject to gravity. They’d flop like fish from above, maybe squirt milk. Losing my fingers in her bush would be like stroking a lion’s mane. I thought of her thick thighs moist and clammy and her varicose veins, marbled as a jawbreaker, a strap-on throbbing deep inside me until my mom screamed “Steve!”
I pressed my headphones harder against my ears and got right back in it, spelling the alphabet on my clit. Soon, I started spelling “Nancy” until I switched to “Amber” and it didn’t take long for me to come. I fell asleep instantly and remembered only specks from my dream.
…
Amber’s car was metallic lizard green with black, fuzzy seats, coated in something like dandruff. “Do you smoke?” she asked.
“Nah.”
“Do you mind?” From the center console she grabbed a pack of Parliaments. “My neighbor buys them for me. He’s twenty-three.” Amber started the car and opened the sunroof. It was warm for February, but way too cold for that. I figured she wanted to show off. “More air flow,” she said, pointing up.
The music she put on was abrasive and thrashing, the vocals incongruously mellow, hushed, soothing, yet somehow, it worked.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the stereo.
“A CD player.”
“No, the music.”
“Oh!” Amber laughed as she flicked Parliament ash out the window. “My Bloody Valentine. My neighbor showed them to me.”
I stared out the window as we entered Willow Creek, the part of town where all the houses were large and made of brick. The Christmas lights were still strung up at Amber’s.
“Welcome,” she said. I felt like a Trojan horse rolling through the door. The living room stank of cat piss. A Boston fern blackened in the corner. “My mom’s at AA and Dad’s probably at a bar. We’ll have the house to ourselves for a while. Wanna play Neopets? Or Sims? The computer’s in my room.”
My eyes stayed stuck on the couch heaped with blankets and a bed pillow.
“Is someone visiting?”
“That’s Dad’s bed. Want a Coke?”
I followed Amber to the kitchen, where she opened the near-empty fridge. A putrid smell rushed from wilted spinach. The bottom shelf contained a fallen bottle of mustard, four Cokes, and a Styrofoam box with a date Sharpied from two weeks back. Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul sat dog-eared and opened on the counter, among a mound of utility bills. “Is that yours?” I pointed.
“God, no. My mom’s. She reads it like she reads her Bible.”
My stomach turned. Nancy suddenly seemed pathetic. Amber shut the fridge and led me by the hand to her red-walled room. The canopy above the bed looked like a wedding veil. Votive candles lined the windowsill. Her room smelled like patchouli with hints of cat piss. “Okay, so, this is kinda really fucked up, but I like to starve my Sims.”
“I’ve never played. Sounds fun, though,” I admitted.
I hunched on a leather stool beside Amber. Her posture was queenly in her office chair.
“Okay, so this is Matilda,” Amber said. The Sim was a tall woman with short black hair, dressed like an 80’s punk. “She likes flirting with her neighbors and always forgets to water her plants.” An ochre crystal floated over Matilda’s head as she descended a spiral staircase, exited her condo, and sauntered through a front lawn laden with cacti.
“See that pool there?” Amber pressed the pad of her finger against the desktop’s monitor. “That’s where I drown them.” I imagined a still surface with only two forearms exposed, water cinched at the elbows.
Matilda made her way onto a coir doormat that read Welcome and knocked. Her neighbor, Krystal, answered, revealing a spartan living room with just a sofa and a guitar stand sans guitar. “She’s in a good mood,” Amber said, “you can tell because her plumbob is green.” Matilda pecked Krystal’s cheek, which earned her a backrub. Matilda knelt while gifting Krystal a pixelated rose bouquet.
Amber rested her free hand on my thigh then giggled. My insides swam, but I sat still as Amber played The Sims, and I listened when she took breaks to explain the world to me.
Recommended reading: Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh, The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, Essays and Fictions by Brad Phillips, Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic, and Horror Vacui by Shy Watson 😉
