The James Sisters

Fourth Chapter: Leah's Journal

Thursday 16 June

Jasmine dumped me today. I think.

It was weird. She took me to go see Fire, which was playing at
the Twenty-one, because, as she said, "Indians, lesbians, what's
not to like?" It was an okay movie. The two women were
sisters-in-law, which was a little weird, and the thing with the
husband who wanted his wife to climb into bed with him and tempt
him with her body so he could be strong by not having sex with
her - that was a little too close to, well, stuff, for me. I got
a little weirded out when I figured out that was what was
happening, and I grabbed Jasmine's arm and squeezed her hand
tight. And there was only one sexy scene - they were kissing on
the bed, slowly, real slow, and Jasmine squeezed my hand and
leaned over and said, "Nipple!" in this goofy little voice -
because that was about all you could see, through all the gauzy
mosquito netting - but her breath was warm in my ear, and on my
neck, and I turned my head and kissed her. We were both wearing
sundresses, only with sweaters, since it was so cool despite the
fact that it was June and anyway, the Twenty-one always has its
air-conditioning on too high. But I wasn't wearing any underwear,
because Jasmine had already pulled it off.

Before we went in to watch the movie, we went up to the girl's
bathroom on the second floor by the entrance to the balcony like
we always do, and once this grossly fat woman had left and was
wheezing back down the steps we both ducked inside at once and
Jasmine twisted the deadbolt.

"You're a pervert," I said.

"Yeah, but I'm your pervert," she said. "Look at this." She
wasn't wearing any stockings at all, and her long brown legs went
all the way up from her sandals to the hem of her short little
sundress - which she was lifting, slowly, teasingly. Her grin
widened. I expected some racy pair of underwear to be revealed -
something sheer, lacy; some outrageously tiny thong. Instead,
there was nothing - the hem went up, and kept going up, and my
mouth opened as I saw her pubic hair, trimmed neatly into a thin
strip above the small, pursed lips of her cunt.

"Jasmine!" I hissed.

"Look," she said. She kept raising her dress. There, on the taut
brown skin of her belly, off to one side of the gentle curve
between her navel and her black curls, a pair of lips painted, in
lipstick or in henna, a red kiss, a pouting pair of lips pressed
there.

"Your kiss," she said.

I don't know how she does it. Every time I think she's crossed a
line, done something so outlandish, so crazed, I'll die of
embarrassment, she turns it around, puts some spin on it, leaves
my knees weak, makes me wet. Loosens my limbs. And I don't think
about it anymore, I don't think about anything; my head spins and
things happen. Like then, when she stood there, the hem of her
dress lifted up above her waist, her grin nearly splitting her
face, beaming, and she says "Your kiss," and before I know it I'm
walking across to her and I'm kneeling before her and I'm kissing
the lips that have been painted there. And I could feel the heat
coming off her, and I could smell her musk. And the movie was
about to begin any minute, and I hate walking into a movie once
it's started, even the previews, and lots of times the Twenty-one
doesn't even show previews, but her belly was trembling, and she
said, "Oh, Leah," and I just about melted. I kissed the henna
lips one more time and then I stood, and her hem fell as she
grabbed me, her hands sliding around to grab my ass ("Oh, Leah,"
she says again, and she squeezes, and her fingers slide between
the cotton and my skin) and we kiss and kiss until I just can't
stand it anymore, the movie's about to begin, so I pull back (her
hands slide out of my underwear, though she digs in a little with
her fingernails as I pull free, and I feel the sting on my butt,
"Oh, Leah," she says, completely different from how she said it
before, and I've flopped over into present tense again, dammit, I
hate it when I lose track like that) and that's when she grabs -
grabbed - my dress and pulled me back, lifting it to slide her
fingers around the waistband of my panties. "Jasmine," I said,
"we don't have time - "

"Shh," she said, and she yanked, pulling my panties down my
thighs, kneeling to jerk them down the rest of the way, so hard
and fast she pulled one of my stockings down over my knee so that
it half-fell down my calf. There's no arguing with her in one of
these moods. Still, as I lifted one foot, then the other, I said,
"The movie..."

"Don't worry about it," she said, as she pulled my little white
panties free and held them up, grinning. "Bare as me," she said.
"Easy access."

"Jasmine!" I gasped, as she unlocked the door with one hand,
stuffing my underwear into her little tin purse with the other.
But I couldn't help grinning.

"Come on," she said. She knows how I get when I walk into a movie
that's already started. But she's still Jasmine - she grabbed me
for one last kiss, and I couldn't help but kiss right back, so
the first preview was rolling by the time we got settled in the
back seats up on the balcony where the usher never goes. But this
time I didn't care.

Anyway. I wasn't wearing any underwear, is my point, so that when
the two sisters-in-law had finally figured out that their
husbands were complete losers and that really they found each
other a hell of a lot sexier (and the younger one was really
sexy), and when Jasmine leaned over to whisper "Nipple!" in my
ear when they had finally climbed naked into bed together with
the mosquito nets all gauzy around them so it was all arty and
quote erotic unquote instead of clear and, well, honest, but we
saw her nipple anyway, and I turned to kiss Jasmine, and her
tongue was hot and wet, like she'd been waiting through the whole
movie for an excuse to do this (which she had), anyway, when all
that happened, we both assumed the position, which is what she
calls it when we lean back in the seats and rest out feet up
between the backs of the seats ahead of us, my right foot and her
left foot (and we'd both already kicked off our shoes, so her
bare dark foot could stroke my white stockinged one) wrapped
around each other in the same notch, up there, and she reaches
over between my thighs as I reach over between hers, and then we
lean over again (which is awkward, because of the armrest - the
Regal over at the mall has these armrests that can flip up, which
is, like, heaven, but they only show crappy movies there - still,
we went to go see that crappy crime movie with the dyke crook in
it, like, three times last weekend, until the usher found us
between shows cause we hadn't noticed the movie had ended and we
were still making out. Because, I mean, not cause. I'm getting
sloppier. And I'm digressing) and so - where was I? - leaning
over the armrest, so we can kiss each other, little nipping
kisses, as her finger slips inside me, and mine slips inside her.
No underwear. Easy access.

She was hot and she was wet and so was I, and maybe I moaned, a
little, and I know she did, because I heard it, though we tried
to keep it quiet (because of the ushers and all), and anyway
there was an older couple ahead of us, maybe three rows, but I'm
pretty sure they were dykes and they would have thought it was
cute. Not that I would've wanted them to watch or anything. But I
was still kind of weirded out, I mean, it felt nice, it felt
really good, but I guess even though I moaned (I bit my lip,
maybe it was more of a whimper) I wasn't exactly ready for it, I
was horny, I'd been horny since she jumped me in the bathroom
like that, but my horniness had turned on me, and her heart
wasn't really in it, anyway, she was almost totally lost in what
my finger was doing inside her. Which was making her come. Twice.
So I stopped watching the movie and I was just watching her, in
the dark, the flickering movie light washing over her, bouncing
off her glasses, as she threw back her head and her lips opened
and her eyes squeezed shut, "Mm," she said, biting back, "mm,"
and she came, and she came again, I could feel her fluttering
against my finger, my fingers, because after the first come I
slipped a second finger in her as she scooted forward a little in
the seat so I could, because it always drives her crazy when I do
that. And it did. But the whole time her finger was there, inside
me, and I held her hand with my other hand, there on my cunt, in
me, and it was a pleasant, warm feeling, it helped against the
weirdness. But that's all.

Somewhere in there we both came back to the movie. The older
sister-in-law was cooking something for her ungrateful father -
husband, I mean, the weird guy who wanted to prove his celibacy
all the time like Gandhi or something for some stupid religious
reason, and if that was really the case, what did he care if she
was off fucking his brother's wife? Anyway. She was cooking, and
of course her sari caught fire, and Jasmine squeezed my arm,
because they do that a lot in India, you know, burn ungrateful
wives to death and strange girls like us, and nobody ever does
anything, and I felt cold, and her finger slipped out of me, and
she flipped her skirt down. But she still held my hand, and we
sat there, chilly, and watched her burn.

I'm going to spoil the movie for you, because it would have been
really stupid if she'd died, but she doesn't, she runs off in the
rain with her sister-in-law, and that's the end. And we sat there
for a bit, both of us feeling weird except for different reasons,
and then I kissed her, and we got up and walked out, a little
unsteady, hand in sticky hand.

Anyway. When Night is Falling is better. And Ice, that stupid
crime movie, has much hotter sex.

But that isn't what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write
about what she did after that, after all that stuff. I mean, she
painted my lips on her belly, and she still - 

Anyway. In good time.

We'd gone to go see an afternoon matinee, so it was still light
out, and warmer than it had been inside, though the clouds looked
like they wanted to rain again. It was all greyly green. We
walked down the street, still hand in hand, and because we always
do, we stopped in HŠagen Dazs and bought some ice cream. They had
the big front windows open, so we sat at a table there. I curled
up my legs so my skirt hiked up a little, and from where she was
sitting Jasmine could see all along my legs from the tops of my
stockings, rolled up over my knees, along my thighs to my bare
ass, and maybe even a little slice of my cunt. I was feeling
frisky again. I wanted her to look. I wanted her to get horny
again. I wanted our eyes to meet and burn until we had to get up
and run to her car and drive somewhere, anywhere, away. I wanted
us to catch fire. I watched her lick her ice cream, but she
looked away.

There was this girl walking past, our age, or maybe nineteen or
twenty, with long brown hair and wearing a tight white
spaghetti-strapped top over a black bra and what I thought at
first was a tiny little miniskirt in floral print denim. Cheap,
yes, but I was looking at her legs going all the way down to her
kind of battered Teva sandals and feeling my lust suddenly being
tickled, my itch teased, that shiver of loose-limbed Aphrodite,
when Jasmine said, "Yeesh, a skort."

I looked, and there was the tell-tale flap across the front of
the skirt. Skort. Damn. "Hello," I said. "I shop at Target."

Jasmine giggled. Still, I couldn't quite tear my eyes away from
the girl's ass as she walked past, loose limbs indeed, and I felt
a little guilty.

"Let's go," said Jasmine.

I looked over at her, but there was no spark. Still, I grinned a
little, and shifted a little in my seat. "Where?" I asked. "The
park?"

But she was shaking her head. "No," she said. "Let's just go
home."

"You want to go rent a movie or something? Bound is out. Or we
could rent Two Girls in Love again..." She was shaking her head
and saying "No," but I kept going. "Or maybe Cynara. Those hands,
squishing all that wet clay..." We'd giggled a lot at that scene,
it was so - transparent. But the sex at the end is pretty hot.
"If the Hottie's working, we could flirt with her, shamelessly -
"

But "No," she said, "I think I should just take you home."

And she did.

Maybe I wasn't following her mood quickly enough for her. When we
got to her car, I turned on the CD player and cranked it. I was
restless, and she'd had Kenickie in, and I queued it up to my
favorite song, "Classy," and as she pulled out into traffic I was
singing along: "Watch your back, hide the knives! I'm the fastest
man alive! We make things out of sin, of blood and human skin, we
never see the sights, we're out too late at night," and that was
when she said, "You know," and she reached over and turned the
music down. "I was thinking."

"About?"

"About nature and nurture. I was thinking," she said, "that maybe
there are nature and nurture dykes."

"You mean like JayCee?" JayCee is this girl who's a year ahead of
us who's taken to wearing hemp fiber and long flouncy patchwork
skirts and too much patchouli and she shaves her head but not her
legs or her pits. And she listens to Phish and Sky Cries Mary. So
maybe calling her a "nature dyke" is a dumb joke - actually, it
was a stupid joke, because JayCee was Jasmine's first girlfriend.
Before she shaved her head. But Jasmine said, "Stop it," without
looking over at me, "I'm serious," she said.

"What's up?" I said, and that was when I finally started to feel
cold in my stomach.

"I think," she said, "that there are nature dykes, and nurture
dykes, okay? Girls who are born to it, right? By nature. Like
you."

"Like me," I said. That cold feeling just got colder.

"And nurture dykes. Girls who don't necessarily like girls. Until
they discover they can. You know what I mean? I mean, I'm your
first, right?"

"And only," I said, my guts a knot of ice.

"But you've been dreaming about it since you were six, right?"

"Five. I've known what I was ever since I was five."

"Right," she said. "And I didn't even know it was possible, until
that party at John John's."

Which was my cue to collapse into immediate self-loathing.
"You're saying you don't like me," I said.

"No!" she said, and there was some pain in her voice. But.

"You're saying I make you do this," I said.

"No," she said, "Leah, please - " But it was too late; the
self-loathing had turned in my hands, and I lashed out, I'm
afraid.

"I'm not the one," I said, "who's fucked four different girls.
I'm not the one who practically raped Cindy Barnes in the girls'
locker room just before a pep rally."

"I didn't rape her," she started to say, but I wouldn't stop.

"I'm not the one," I said, "who was the first girl to ever kiss
me and tell me how beautiful I was and how there was nothing in
the world I'd rather do than kiss me again." It was true. She'd
said those things, at another of John John's parties, on the
couch in his basement while Sleeping Beauty was playing on a TV
somewhere behind us. And she'd kissed me, again and again, and
that was the first time I'd ever kissed anyone like that.

She sighed. She drove for maybe a full minute before she said,
"I've also fucked guys."

The knot of ice in my gut exploded. My skin pricked hot and cold
all along my legs, my arms, my neck. My fingers, I swear, went
numb. Words have never had such an immediate, such a profound
physical effect on me. Which I might consider ironic. Someday.

"Oh," I said. It was all I could say, really.

"Leah," she said. "Wait. Stop. It's not like that."

"I," I said, "just want to know what you mean, Jasmine."

"I just," she said, "I don't know. I mean, you are. You are what
you are. You don't like boys. You'll never like boys."

"And you do?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. Then, "I don't," she said. "I don't know."

She pulled up in my driveway.

"I'll call you," she said, as I got out. I didn't look back. She
pulled the door shut behind me and drove away.

But she painted that kiss, on her belly, for me.

Oh, fuck.

I tried doing a reading for us, with Grandma's cards, to see what
was going to happen, but it was to creepy. No matter how I
shuffled, I kept getting the King of Beetles, staring up at me
with all those eyes. I was so rattled I couldn't make heads or
tails of the other cards in the fall; every time I'd turn him
over the whole structure I was laying out would collapse in my
head.

God.

Of course, I've been crying.

She loves me. I know she does.

I should - 

I just - 

I'm going to try and get some sleep.



Sunday 19 June

It's been three days and I haven't heard from Jasmine yet. But I
had a dream last night.

It was so weird. Jasmine.

And Jessie.

I'm so weird.

I don't know why I write these things down. Yes I do. I swore. I
swore I'd never hide anything, not from these pages.

Anyway.

It was all bright and plasticky, all brilliant artificial colors,
like a Japanese cartoon. And we all had big eyes and sharp pointy
chins and really, the whole thing was just like a Japanese
cartoon. And I was there, only I had long pink hair, and I was
wearing this weird uniform like a band uniform, or something from
some comic opera made-up European country at the turn of the
century, all buttons and epaulets and lanyards, and I had a
sword. And Jasmine was there, in this long red dress. And Jessie
was there, too, and she was wearing a uniform, too, like mine,
only yellow. And she had long black boots that came halfway up
her thighs. And she had a sword, too.

I don't know why, but I was supposed to fight Jessie, for
Jasmine. I don't remember how it went, but it went fast, with
lots of crashing of metal and grimaces and in the end I stuck my
sword through her, ha! right between her breasts, and she
blinked, and sank to her knees. There wasn't any blood, just a
lot of light, and rose petals swirling through the air, as she
looked up at me, tears in her big blue eyes, her long blond hair
swirling in the wind. The hilt of the sword bobbing there in her
chest. And I turned and took Jasmine's hand and pulled her to me,
and we kissed, and I felt so wonderful and happy.

Only it wasn't Jasmine. Jasmine wasn't there any more. It was
Jessie, Jessie my sister in the red dress, and there was no sword
anymore, and we were kissing, and the light grew brighter and
brighter as we kissed, and kissed, our arms around each other,
and I heard a heat beating somewhere louder and louder and faster
and faster until I woke up with a start.

I think - 

I think I came.

Jessie. My sister. Eew.

Weird.

Like I said, I have no idea why I'm writing this stuff down.

But as I write it down, I remember something else about the
dream. There was someone or something watching it all, from afar.
I don't know. Maybe it was me. Me asleep, I mean, me doing the
dreaming, not me in the dream. Ouch.

Eew again. This is creepy.

I'm a creep.



So I went and rented some movies, right? And I got When Night is
Falling, and I got Heavenly Creatures, because, well, I was
feeling all obsessed and stalker crazy (I rode by Jasmine's house
and sat outside for, like, an hour last night, but I couldn't see
her room from the street, and I never saw her at all, though I
saw her Dad taking out the garbage, and I ducked down and hid so
he wouldn't see me - and she still has my underwear, dammit).

And anyway, the Hottie was working the counter. She was wearing a
pair of baggy overalls and a tight grey tank top and her hair was
down, a chaotic tangle of blond curls, and as I put my tapes on
the counter I could see through the gap in the side of her
overalls the thin strip of her underwear, also grey, crossing her
bare hip, but since all I wanted to do was tell Jasmine about it,
to giggle with her over it, to turn and kiss Jasmine, to have her
tell me she wanted me to wear exactly that same outfit - I didn't
feel giddy inside, the shaking, loose-limbed feeling. I just felt
like some giant swollen bubble of blue was filling me up,
squeezing my lungs, my throat, my eyes. Except not a bubble,
because it was sharp, too. I could feel it cutting me, inside.

"Hi," said the Hottie, as she dropped my tapes on the counter.

I just nodded and signed the slip and got out as quickly as was
dignified.

Jasmine...



Oh my God, Jessie is such a creep! I can't believe her!

I was in my room. In my room! Mine! And she just walks in.

Fuck her.

Okay. Okay. I was watching Heavenly Creatures, because of the
aforementioned reasons and I was filling up again with that big
blue swell. They love each other so much, those two girls, but
it's such a desperate love, so edgy, so - so impossible, but so
pure. So blue.

So. There's that scene towards the end where they finally, you
know, consummate things. When Kate Winslet and whatshername
Melanie are kissing on the bed, finally, and, well.

You know, I bet she was watching for a while. She walked in - 

Anyway. So I rewound the scene and watched it over again, from
the beginning. I was sitting on my bed in an old T-shirt and
shorts, and, well, okay. So I started to feel myself. Right? I
almost didn't even realize I was doing it, but I was. Christ.
Feel myself. This is so coy. Okay. I'm sitting there watching
these two girls kiss on a bed and I'm frigging myself. Jilling
off. Double-clicking my mouse. Masturbating. Okay? I was so -
sad, so full of this blue feeling, this color that pressed
against everything in me and felt like it was going to squeeze
tears out of my eyes but it's also squeezing something else, and
I suddenly wanted somebody to touch me, to kiss me, to make me
come, make me forget about all of this just for a moment, so I
did it myself. I rolled over on my stomach with my hand in my
shorts and I spread myself open and they were kissing (I rewound,
again, with my other hand) and I ran a finger along my sex, my
cunt, my pussy, and I kept my eyes open even though I wanted to
close them and think of Jasmine, kneeling behind me, her hand on
me, her finger in me, her breath on my ear. "Hey," I'd say. "I
was at the video store today, and you know what the Hottie was
almost wearing?" And that's when Jessie, the little creep, says
"Hey."

I flipped over fast, tugging my shirt down, sitting up, flushed.
I think I shrieked at her. My legs were all tense and shaky from
the come that had just been about to start settling in, and it
wanted to keep on coming. But Jessie was standing there in the
open doorway (and I'd closed and locked the damn thing!),
smirking, in what passes for pyjamas for her: cami and panties.

"I just wanted to know if I could borrow a dress or something."
And she struts over to my closet before I can say anything.

"Why don't you come back in the morning?" I said. "I want to get
to sleep." I scrambled on the bedspread to find the remote and
stop the movie.

"I'll bet," she says, pulling out a sundress, my favorite
blue-green one. "But that won't work, cause I won't be here in
the morning."

"Oh, really," says Virginia from the door to my room. "Hello,
Leah." I managed to pull a blanket up over my knees. Not that I
think it made any difference.

"Hi, Virginia," says Jessie. She held up the sundress and
smoothed it over herself as if she were modeling it. "What do you
think?"

Which is when I felt something shift in me. Like the bubble had
loosened something, like there were emotions chelated up inside
me, frozen in place like scales of rust from disuse, and the big
blue swell had pushed up so hard and so relentlessly that it had
shaken them loose. I could feel it, a physical sensation, a swoop
in my belly, a lurch in my heart, which suddenly started to
pound. I was remembering my dream. I was remembering kissing her,
kissing Jessie, and my hands were trembling, and my legs were
shaking. My God.

But they didn't notice at all. "I think we should talk," Virginia
was saying. (And now that I'm thinking about it, now that I'm
writing it down, and I'm not staring at my sister like some
creepy pervert - I think there was something weird there. I know
there was something weird there, something unspoken that flashed
through the air between them, words passing between eyeballs that
I could hear but not understand - something, anyway.)

And Jessie, with one last smirk, sauntered back across the room,
sashaying her hips more than a little (maybe she does know, she
did realize - no, she can't, she didn't, she doesn't), my
sundress still in her hands. She stopped in the doorway, Virginia
standing behind her. "You don't mind, do you?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Thanks," she said. And she blew me a kiss! (Maybe she does?)
"For everything," she said.

Creep.

I haven't written any poetry in days.

Just scribbles in this journal.

Jasmine...


   For whom shall I rouge my lips now? For whom shall I polish my
   nails? For whom perfume my hair?

   For whom shall I rub my breasts with rouge, if they can no
   longer tempt her? For whom shall I flush my arms with milk, if
   they never again can hold her!

   How shall I be able to sleep? How shall I get to bed? Tonight
   my hand, in all the bed, has not found her own warm hand.

   I dare no longer enter my home, into the room, frightfully
   bare. I no longer dare open the door again. I never dare open
   my eyes.


How on earth, I wonder, do you flush your arms with milk?

I'm going to try to get some sleep.



Standing there, in that uniform, with my long pink hair again.
The same dream again. Only different.

Jasmine walked up, in her long red dress, her eyes cast down. I
took her in my arms. I felt strong. Confident. Assured. I knew
what I was doing, and I was doing it for her. She leaned back
against me, resting the back of her head against my shoulder. I
waited. The air was filled with blowing flower petals. The ground
was grey and silver, like open water under a lowering sky.
Someone was watching. Just like before.

Jessie appeared.

She looked like herself, of course. Except her eyes were so much
bigger, her chin sharp, like a blade. Her hair was tied back in
one long, thick braid, and it whipped and lashed, like the tail
of an anxious cat.

She drew her sword.

I drew mine.

And whoever was watching smiled. We couldn't see whoever it was,
but we all knew that somebody was there. Except I think Jasmine
was gone at this point. It was just me and Jessie. Me and my
sister.

I don't remember the fight, or anything about what happened. We
fought, though. It went fast. And at the end of it, there was my
sword hilt, bobbing between her breasts. She sank to her knees,
tears in her eyes. The air filled with rose petals, blowing. Her
hair come loose, undone, flying in the breeze. I reached out, put
my hand on the hilt of my sword. She put her hand on mine. It was
small, and hot.

I thought of millions of tiny black eyes. The King of Beetles,
watching.

Together, we pulled the sword out of her.

She gasped, and would have fallen. I caught her. It was vivid.
Very real, much more real than the fight. I could feel her weight
in my arms. Not much. Fragile. Insubstantial. The heft of a
dream.

The sword dropped from our hands and clanged to the floor.

We kissed.

Her hair blew about me and enfolded me, and mine rose up in the
wind and met and tangled with it. Something like that. It was a
long, deep, sexy kiss. My confidence was leaking away. My sense
of purpose that I'd felt. Where was Jasmine? Why did this happen
this way? I was starting to feel desperate. I didn't want to. But
I had to.

Maybe Jessie and I are supposed to get together and kill
Virginia, like Kate and Melanie do in "Heavenly Creatures." Ha.

That isn't even funny.

Besides, they weren't sisters.

We fucked, in my dream. Made love. It was, it was love. Her
clothes had melted away, and mine, and it seemed like our kisses
segued seamlessly from mouths to cunts, our arms wrapped around
our legs, her kneeling over me, my legs wrapping tightly around
her slim back, her mouth on me, mine on her, endlessly, all night
long, kissing, sucking, licking. Crawling into each other.
Whirling away in a tight Ouroboros knot of desperation that ate
itself into nothingness there on the grey floor. Me and Jessie.
Me and my sister.

I know I came last night, during the dream. I woke up, three in
the morning, soaked and trembling. Aftershocks.

Why?

Why?



Tuesday 21 June

Maybe it's just as well I haven't really seen Jessie or Virginia
for a couple of days.

Virginia's been busy with something having to do with Andi's
pornography business. Jessie's been doing I don't know what. And
I've been reading. Moonwise - Greer Gilman - and Elizabeth Hand's
Waking the Moon. And the Poet. Of course. Every day.

Jasmine still hasn't called. Five days...

I dreamed again last night.

Will I dream it again, tonight? Three nights in a row?



Wednesday 22 June

"Wanna go shopping?" she says. Just like that.

So Jessie and I went shopping this afternoon.

First, of all places, we go to the library. "I've got to check
something out," she says, and she disappears off into the fiction
stacks, her silly Badtz-Maru backpack dangling from one shoulder.
I went to computers to try and find out what I could about
dreams.

But before I can find out what Freud or Jung have to say about
what it means when you dream about screwing your sister, or
blowing rose petals, or being watched by somebody with too many
eyes (and red hair. Whoever he is - and he is a he - he has red
hair), Jessie comes up, frustrated.

"Let's go," she says.

"What?" I said.

"Let's go," she says, tugging on my arm. "I got what I want, but
they won't let me check it out."

I cocked an eyebrow at her. "What are you trying to check out?"

She looked off to one side, then the other, exasperated, then she
holds up Lolita. Nabokov's Lolita.

"The woman at the counter said I was too young to check it out. I
tried to tell her it was for school."

"And?"

"She didn't believe me."

I held out my hand. "Give me the book."

She bit her lip, looking down, then grinned a little, and slapped
it into my hand. "Thanks," she says.

So she went straight to the library to check out Lolita. I was
dying to ask why, but I could tell she was dying for me to ask
her why. So I didn't. Still. That's what she wanted.

Weird.

I gave up on figuring out what old dead white mostly straight
Austrian men would have to say about my dreams, and I checked out
her book for her, and we left the library, and "Come on," she
says. "I want to buy some stockings."

But instead of going to Nordy's she dragged me in the other
direction, up to the part of downtown the drag queens and party
boys who hang out at Roxy's like to call "the Glamour District,"
with, of course, tongues firmly in cheek. She dragged me to this
store called The Future, which I'd never heard of before. "Good
clothes for bad girls, bad clothes for good girls," said the sign
in the window. "Ask about our dancer's discount," said a smaller
sign, near the cash register. It was all black vinyl and feather
boas and shoes with thick soles and spike heels. I didn't have to
think hard about what sort of dancers got discounts here.

"Cool store, huh," says Jessie.

"Come here often?" I asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

"Hey, Jessie," said the woman behind the counter. "That your
sister?"

"Yeah," said Jessie. "Sweeney, Leah. Leah, Sweeney. Back here."
She dragged me to a rack filled with stockings in all manner of
colors and styles. Thigh-highs with ruffles; zippers; lace; bows;
with stripes and dots and fake tattoos; hip-high stockings with
lacey collars that would tickle your butt whenever you walked;
over-the-knee white school-girl stockings; fishnets (of course)
in an outrageous neon rainbow; plain black stockings, smokey
nylon and lycra, with garter belts to hold them up. Jessie
grinned at me, then plowed in, looking for her perfect pair.

It was weird. Despite the naughty atmosphere, it was suddenly
like us a year or two ago, before Dad died. Shopping for
miniskirts and lipstick and bad music at the Lloyd. (Imogen Heap
and Fiona Apple, my God.) Maybe because of the naughty
atmosphere. Yellow rubber miniskirts and black leather corsets
and these hooded mask things hanging on the wall over the
register - like pieces scattered about from some bizarre
superhero's costume. Slutwoman. Exotica. Wonderwhore. "Look at
that," I said, poking her.

"Yeah," she said. "There's ball gags and furry handcuffs in the
counter."

"Furry handcuffs?" I said.

"Pink furry handcuffs," she said.

And we giggled, and it felt good. We were hanging out together.
And I'd forgotten the weirdness of the past couple of days, and
I'd forgotten my dreams, and I'd even gotten to the point where I
wasn't thinking about Jasmine.

Jasmine...

But we were having fun. A good time. "Pick something out," said
Jessie. "Try it on." I was nervous. I mean, I didn't want to buy
anything. It was all so - explicit. Nothing subtle in this store.
But "Go on," she said. "Sweeney doesn't care. It's fun." So I
poked through the racks, and found a goofy little outfit in shiny
black vinyl, a tight little catsuit that cut off at the shoulders
and hips, with a wide belt and a shocking chrome zipper whose
pull tab was an enormous Venus symbol, her handmirror. Jessie
giggled. "Emma Peel," she said. Her hands were full of something
lacey and white, like froth or sea foam.

"No trying on the stockings," said Sweeney, in a bored voice.

"Course not," said Jessie. She winked broadly at me. Tucked in
her handful of lace were a couple of stocking packages. "Meet you
in a minute," she said, as she ducked into a fitting room.

So I tried on my silly catsuit. Kittensuit, maybe? I felt like
Heather Graham, or whatshername, Hugh Grant's girlfriend. It was
tight, and for a moment I thought I'd gotten a size too small -
the zipper, though, had to be pulled all the way down, pretty
much, and I kind of had to climb into it and pull it up and mold
it around me. It bunched my underwear up - if I were going to buy
this thing, I would have to wear it without, definitely - as if I
were going to buy it. I tugged up the zipper, slowly, careful of
my skin just below it. "I need some go-go boots," I muttered to
myself.

"So I'm seeing this guy," says Jessie, from her dressing room, as
I'm voguing in front of the mirror, pretending to draw my
whatever gun it is Bond uses.

"You have a boyfriend?" I say, tugging the zipper down between my
breasts, pursing my lips at myself.

"No," she says. "I'm just fucking him. His name's Carter. He's
living in the Poundstone's house. I went over to use the pool
and, well, things just started happening. Hey, can you come take
a look at something?"

It's hard to write down everything that was racing through my
head at that point. The Poundstones? Carter? My sister, my little
sister, fucking somebody? Some guy? I was so thrown for a loop
that I just ducked through the curtains of my fitting room and
pulled hers open and ducked inside without really thinking about
it, or saying anything. Actually, I did say something: "You're
having sex?" I said. Real smooth, Leah. Great. I should have
looked up, first; I would have been knocked speechless and saved
from saying something so stupid.

Jessie was wearing - barely - her handful of lace.

It was a slip-chemise kind of thing, with thin straps, that fell
maybe an inch past her crotch. It was little more than a
spattering of lace clinging to her body, thick enough in
strategic places to hide nipples, pubic hair; thin enough
elsewhere to show her golden skin, lots of it, making it quite
clear that she wore nothing under it, which I imagine Sweeney
would mind even more than the fact that she'd also pulled on a
pair of stockings, opaque white ones that pulled halfway up her
thighs and were held up by tiny red ribbons. She stood there, on
her toes, hand on her hip, her eyebrow arched at me as I stared
at her, eyes wide, mouth open. The dream rushed back to me, full
force. Roses, fluttering through the air. Our hair, tossing in
the breeze. The hilt of the sword, bobbing there, between her
small breasts. The kiss. The kisses. I -

[Ed. note: three lines scratched out heavily. Journal resumes.]

"Leah?" she was saying. "Hello?"

"Huh?" I said, or something equally witty.

"'Duh,' I said." She turned before me. The dress - the lace -
swooped down her back, leaving it open almost to the top of her
ass. The lace was thin here, too; she would not have to bend over
for anyone to get a glimpse. She held up her hair. The price tag
dangled from one armpit. I looked at it, twisting a little with
the motion of her arms. It was safe to look at. "This is for our
date. What do you think? Should I wear my hair up?"

"Your date," I said. I wanted - 

"He said I should wear something presentable. I was thinking
white, virginal..."

"You look," I said, "like you forgot to put on a dress."

"...absent-minded," she said, grinning.

"You're kidding, right?" I said. "You're pulling my leg. Fucking
with me." I winced inwardly at my choice of phrase. I think I
kept my dismay off my face, but Jessie knows me. She knows me
terribly well. Her grin widened. She reached up, patted my cheek.

"I'd never do that," she said. Her hand fell to my shoulder, her
fingertips brushing my throat, thoughtlessly, just a touch, but
it burned, it hurt. I was terrified she would press the palm of
her hand there, above my breast, feel my heart pounding like some
bird that wanted out of its cage. "But I am kidding. Sort of. I
won't wear this out. But I still think he'd like it. What do you
think?"

I swallowed. "It's nice," I said.

"What are you supposed to be?" she asked, turning away. She
pulled the dress over her head in one swift motion and stood
there, naked, except for the stockings. "Jane Bond?" Jessie trims
her pubic hair, I discovered. I - 

"I was thinking maybe Heather Graham," I said.

"Shag very well by nature, eh?" she said. She sat on the fitting
room's bench. There wasn't much room at all; I crowded back
against the opposite wall, but there was nowhere else to look as
she lifted one leg and began to roll the stocking down it. "How's
whatshername? Jamshid?"

"Jasmine," I said, and suddenly it all crashed in on me, that
blue swell suddenly ballooned up in me, like a lump in my throat
but all over, and I turned away. "She hasn't called."

"Oh," she said. Then, "Oh, Leah." She stood, one stocking on, one
stocking off. Her hand lay on my shoulder. She pressed closer.
"Leah, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

I turned back to face her. She looked up at me, her face free of
guile, her eyes clear, her mouth quirked in a small half-smile,
half-frown of sympathy. She reached up, brushed my hair away.
"That sucks," she said. And I watched her lips, her - 

We hugged.

I held my sister, naked, pressed to me.

Her heat, in my arms.

Her weight. I felt dizzy, febrile. Feverish. Her weight, pressed
against my body, insubstantial as a dream. Her skin.

My hands - 

My hands touched the small of her back. No lower. I swear.

I - 

I couldn't say. I couldn't say, "It doesn't matter, Jessie." I
couldn't say, "I don't miss her anymore." I couldn't say, "I know
what I want now, Jessie. I know what I've missed. I know." I
couldn't say any of that. My God, I - 

She pulled back from the hug a little and stretched up, on her
tiptoes. I almost shrank back in fear, in terror, but I held
firm. She pressed a kiss to my forehead. Her lips burned my skin.
I almost felt it pucker under them, searing, smoking, burning
away from shame and terror and fear. My sister. I - 

And then she was bending over, unrolling the other stocking,
standing up, pulling on her underwear, her miniskirt. Snapping on
her bra. "You want to change? You want to try on anything else?"

I shook the fog from my brain. Or tried to. I had to get out of
this place. She was stuffing the used stockings under the bench,
peering at the price tag on the chemise. Slip dress. Whatever.
"You know why they call this The Future, right? Cause that's when
you'll be able to afford the stuff."

"No," I said. I backed out of the fitting room. "No, I don't, I
don't want anything. It's all so - sordid," I said. "Sordid." My
hands fumbled with the zipper, tugging it down, as I almost fell
through the curtains into my own fitting room.

"God," Jessie was saying. "'Sordid.' Live a little, girl. Have
some fun." She yanked open the curtains to my fitting room as I
stood there, stepping into my skirt. I yelped. She ignored me.
"Sometimes," she said, "you are such a dyke." She yawned. "Hey,
you know? I was thinking." She stretched up a little, pressing
her hand to the skin between the low-slung top of her skirt and
the bottom of her midriff-baring tank top. "For my birthday,
maybe a tattoo. Right here. Or maybe a little lower, really. What
do you think?"

What do I think? Lips. A kiss, painted on a brown belly. Gold.
I - 

I - 



Thursday 23 June

Dreaming.

Swords. Roses. Hair, blowing in the wind. Jasmine, now, rushing
at me in red armor, her skin dark against the white sky. Our
swords flash. Light glints from her spectacles. She's gone - 

Jessie.

Kissing her. The eyes. Thousands of eyes. The King of Beetles,
somewhere far away, watching.

I rise up, out of my body there, looking down. The floor is
patterned like an enormous Art Nouveau rose, pink and yellow and
green and black. We lie in the center, naked, entwined. My face
between her thighs. Her face between mine. Our arms wrapped about
each others' hips, hands, caressing skin, backs, asses. Backs
swaying, undulating. Breasts pressed to bellies. Legs lifting,
lowering. Rolling over, and over. Cries. Moans. A little mewling
sound, like a cat. Like a cat. And everywhere, rose petals,
blowing...

I.

Jessie.

We came and came and came...



There is something dreadfully wrong with me.

There is something dreadfully wrong with my family.

If I can even call it that.

I swore I would hide nothing from these pages.

"If you are squeamish," says the Poet, "don't prod the beach
rubble."

I. I. I woke up this morning, and walked downstairs to the
kitchen. I. I saw. I looked out, past the trees, and caught a
glimpse. The Poundstones' yard. What was his name? Carter.
Carter's yard. I saw. Virginia. Jessie. I.

They were - 

[Ed. note: two pages ripped out. Journal resumes.]

I swore I would hide nothing from these pages. Squeamish or not,
I prodded the beach rubble. I saw - I wasn't sure what I saw.
Someone moving, in Carter's yard. A flash of blond hair. I
remembered what Jessie said. I went over to use his pool, she
said, and things just started to happen. So. I didn't even get
dressed, in my sleep shirt I just snuck outside, sliding the door
open quietly, crept up to the low bushes between our yards,
peered through. I saw.

Jessie, in one of her Badtz-Maru T-shirts and a skimpy black
thong. Unfolding a deck chair. And Virginia. In her short black
kimono, the one with the creepy dragon on the back. Which she
unbelted and let fall. Revealing that she was naked. My
step-mother. I'd thought she was still out of town. She must've
flown back, last night. I - 

I'm digressing.

She stepped up behind Jessie, as Jessie pulled her T-shirt up and
over her head, and I could see her back was bare. Jessie leaned
back against Virginia, tilted her head back and up. Virginia
leaned over her. My sister. My step-mother. They.

They kissed.

It was a deep kiss. Long. I - 

They broke a moment. Then kissed again, almost frenzied. I saw
the shadows shift along Virginia's thighs, the cheeks of her ass,
she clenched, relaxed, clenched, kissed, kissed. Her hands. She
had hooked the waistband of Jessie's thong and tugged it, down
and down, Jessie stepped out of it. Naked. Both of them. They
kissed again. Virginia's hand was between Jessie's legs, her
finger dipped in, out, she held it up. Jessie licked it. Jessie
licked herself from Virginia's finger. Then Jessie turned, dove
into the pool, swam towards the back door. Virginia, naked, lay
down on a deck chair. Her hand reached over, picked up a bottle
of sunscreen, as if nothing had happened. I. I - 

Time passed. I knelt there, behind the bushes, on the grass, my
mind empty. Jessie. Virginia. I.

I stayed still. Squeamish or not, I had prodded the beach rubble,
and I stayed, fascinated, appalled, to watch what else would
wriggle out.

There is something dreadfully wrong with me. With all of us.

The door slid open. Jessie, naked, stepped out, walked around the
pool, hips swaying. "Well?" called Virginia.

"Just us," said Jessie. She stood before Virginia, staring down
at her. At her step-mother. A hand shading her eyes from the sun.

"Then what are you waiting for?" asked Virginia.

Jessie knelt before her, and.

Jessie knelt before her and began to.

My sister got down on her knees and I watched as Virginia spread
her long, bare legs and my sister's head disappeared and I heard
Virginia chuckle and then say, "Oh, that's nice. That's sweet."
Wet sounds, soft, quiet. Then, "Oh, oh. You little. Fuck. Oh."

And more.

I - 

I swore I would hide nothing from these pages. I, quietly,
turned. I went back to the house. I.

I made it to my room. My legs weak. My cunt wet. I was shaking.
Hot. Febrile. My skin, flushed. I. I must have. I. My hands. My
head spun. Things happened. Were happening. I - I fucked myself.
I plunged inside myself. My hands. Things happened... My dream
kept flashing behind my eyelids, me, Jessie, I, I felt that blue
feeling swell up until I burst, tears pouring down my face as I
came and came and came.

There is something dreadfully wrong with my family.

There is something dreadfully wrong with me.


   I dare no longer enter my home, into the room, frightfully
   bare. I no longer dare open the door again. I never dare open
   my eyes.

--n.

http://www.asstr.org/~nickurfe/
http://www.ruthiesclub.com/
nickurfe@yahoo.com

This story may be freely circulated by anyone, anytime, anywhere.
"Nature and nurture" ripped shamelessly from Ariel Schrag. Lyrics
from Alvah C. Bessie's translation of "Songs of Bilitis." Shouts
out to Willy Pogany, for the drawings; the incomparable Utena;
and that delightful old faker, Pierre.
