“A Pleasing Woman” by malene bell

Kettle Korn stuck between her teeth, glistening and slippery like a roach scuttling between the crack of a door. Before she could ask for sweet caramel, he’d pushed two pieces between her large front teeth, which hung low and bucked like a horse’s.

It wasn’t kindness or Love, like Liz thought,  that led him to anticipate her wants; it was that he hated the sight of her mouth and the sound of her voice. He’d learned to lasso it, rein it and her in, a reflex like blinking. Why he hadn’t thought of this sooner was beyond him. The whole scene a year ago could have been avoided. Besides her tongue was a nice one when he wanted it to be; and he had never trained a woman to satisfy him the way Liz could.

A few women hadn’t needed to be trained at all. But after a few days, Ramsey sent them packing. To him, a woman taking what she wanted from a man was unnatural. Writhing like some kind of snake, ruining a perfect coif over something less complicated than tying a shoe, seemed ridiculous. With Liz, it was the satisfaction of tying your shoe or taking a shit without the pretentiousness of a newspaper.

The Padonia State Fair was her request; one telepathic transaction he’d let slip by. Riding past Green Mile Track, a hideous poster of a Ferris wheel and a kid biting into a candied apple signaled Liz that this was the place to be. No matter that Ramsey had plans, he’d have to cancel. She was tired of sitting round the house, waiting. Before she could finish her sentence, he cut in. Friday night, we’ll go. The shock shut her up.

“We’ll ride the Ferris wheel and that whatcha-ma-callit” he said snapping his fingers in the air trying to remember.

They’d gotten married by default. He’d knocked her up.  Her father was an army vet, her mother a school teacher.  His father a widowed oil man and Catholic, which meant no baby killing. Baby killing and the way it fell out of Ramsey Sr.’s mouth when they’d stood side by side in his living room shaped Liz’s ‘no’ into a how could I?, which then transformed into yes, I’ll marry you and keep the baby. Ramsey Junior was little better than Liz in this regard. He’d done it because his father had promised him the house, and made good on his promise.

That was five years ago and the baby that was supposed to be born ended up  a bloody ball of tissue that Liz  pushed into a toilet at Roy Rogers restaurant, a pit stop she and Ramsey had made after riding 60 miles for  a deck of playing cards; a special edition of the Girls of James Bond. Ramsey banged on the door, while a little girl, about eight, tapped his other arm and told him that was the woman’s room. “I know that,” he’d barked.  He’d said it so sharply that the girl looked forward the rest of the time– a good twenty minutes– until her mother rounded her up, fussing at her for taking so long for Christ’s sake, and why didn’t she just use the men’s room?

When Liz came out of the bathroom she could barely walk; she held her stomach and bent at the waist. Reaching for Ramsey was out of the question; she knew how to take pain, especially the female kind, the way a horse or a cow does after giving birth. After all of that pushing and opening and goo, the animal stumbles up, hay stuck to its hind parts, blood running down its backside, and heads back to the field or racetrack or slaughterhouse. Like a horse, Liz walked past her two-month old husband, who took one look at her and resisted the urge to bite through her forehead.

“I ought to bite through that thick head of yours,” he’d said after the first time they’d had sex. “You don’t know what to do with a man. When I say fast, I don’t mean peacock slow. I mean fast like a piston. You know what a piston is?”

She couldn’t say a thing because her jaws were sore.

“Go wash up. We gonna try again in 5 minutes.” And he slapped her backside like football players do.

At the fair, Liz walked in front of her husband,  jeans stuck to her like skin.  She’d won an overstuffed panda bear by shooting hoops and tried to pawn it off to a couple who’d been waiting for her to exhaust the ten tickets. I can get my own sweetheart, is what the man said, his nose turned up slightly at the offense. Liz acquiesced only to see him lose each free-throw due to an awkward angle and the small rim. Ramsey thought it was funny that he lost, and he stepped in to ask the guy if he wanted the panda. His girlfriend stepped forward and said yes. This upset Liz, because she was that kind of woman.  If she offered to cook you dinner, you’d better come when the invite was thrown out. Don’t hang up the phone and call back in three minutes; she will have changed her mind. Needless to say, when it came time to hand over the panda, Liz did it reluctantly, though her smile did not reveal her resistance.

The real protest began at the fun house. “‘C’mon” she whined, grabbing Ramsey’s wrist. “It will be fun.”

The last thing he wanted to do was go into a funhouse. “Were not children Liz,” he said.

“Yes, but…”

“Shush.” He whistled this so hard that a piece of spit flew from his mouth and landed on his cheek. “And your hands are sticky,” Ramsey removed his wrist from her hand and marched onto the clown’s tongue. Liz followed.

Inside, a mirror turned their features inside out. Liz, who was top heavy and bottom small admired her new curves. Her husband, who was slender, brushed past her, stumbling up the metal stairs that pumped up and down. For the second time in her life, Liz didn’t follow; instead she turned around in the mirror and groomed her new butt, voluptuous, even if it was crooked.

The first time Liz didn’t follow her husband, who was her would-be boyfriend at the time, was the afternoon she almost killed Jimmy Campbell, a freshman from Duvall High School, and the new kid in town. She’d caught glimpse of him walking home by himself, a group of four tall boys tailing him. One of the boys was her brother, Lionel, the other was Ramsey. Neither was keen on new kids, visitors, or people in general. And her brother had been born special, which was Liz’s mom’s denial about his meanness.

The kid carried a skateboard, which marked him an outsider and idiot who had no idea where he was. Liz cut across the street, sliding her body between Mr. Huckabee’s 1965 Ford Mustang and his 1972 Cadillac Deville, which her brother took for joy rides on occasion. Liz, short of breath, stood between Jimmy and Lionel. “Mom wants you home now.” She tried to keep a straight face. Lionel wasn’t the kind of kid easily embarrassed, but he was embarrassed by his mother—the fact that he had one pissed him off. He was a teacher’s child, something Liz didn’t mind, but for a boy to endure adolescence under the tutelage and before the eyes of his mother at Roger’s Ford Academy, it was torture. Not so much his mother, but the things the other boys said they’d done to her, how many times, and how much she liked it.

After sixth grade as Mrs. Levine’s son, Lionel decided to roll heads in seventh. At heart, though, Lionel was a punk—but a strategic one. He didn’t confront the bullies who bullied him during 6th grade; instead he found the smallest, most frightened mice in school and made their lives uncomfortable. Period Jane, who made the mistake of sitting on a ketchup packet, became Lionel’s first victim. He refused to call her by her first name after the incident, and in doing so, recruited the whole school to tag along. It wasn’t that the kids were cruel, it was more that the name stuck—gum to a chair. The bullying, as the kids were taught, was discussed in faculty meetings, in advisory sessions, and it was incorporated into the curriculum. Across the loud speaker, the principal would remind students that bullying, which included name calling was grounds for suspension, the in-school kind. They even dedicated November to Bullying Awareness, and the school’s drama club put on skits about the effects of bullying, which was

more humorous than transformative. By December, the staff hoped that  Christmas break would soften the students’ tenor and appetite; that the ushering in of the New Year would change the school’s climate, which a select few were in charge of creating—Lionel among them. But it was in February that Mrs. Fregel came up with the idea to pair Lionel and Period Jane together for a science project about combustible energy. The English teacher, of course, thought it was a grand idea, and connected combustion to some obscure poem by an even more obscure poet, whom she quoted over and over, until the kids began to sigh at the sight of her.

The experiment involved Strawberry Pop Tarts, cellophane, a toaster, and plenty ceiling space. Every permission slip was returned, though some were forged. Lionel’s first attempts to bait Period Jane were unsuccessful:

So why don’t I come over to your house? No.

My mom said we could plan it in her classroom. No.

He tried a new strategy: If you come over to my house, I’ll stop teasing you.  Period Jane looked into Lionel’s face. His eyes darted left and right like a rat, but she chose to play roulette. What did she have to lose?

On the dining room table at 431 Nutcork Lane, two packs of Strawberry Pop Tarts sat next to an old toaster, and a gallon of bottled water. On his best behavior, Lionel took Period Jane’s coat. Addressing her as Rosetta, her first name, he asked if she’d like a cool drink. Lionel’s mom chatted with Mrs. Lucas, Rosetta’s mother. She made polite conversation about her memories of Jane in her class. To which Rosetta’s mother replied, who’s Jane? Mrs. Levine corrected herself, chewing her bottom lip with embarrassment.

“I left the cellophane in my room. C’mon” Lionel said eyeing his mother for approval. He’d waited for Period Jane’s mom to be out of earshot,  while Lionel’s mom, distracted by the adieu shooed him away and nodded “yes” when she should have gritted, absolutely not.

Mrs. Levine knew her son to be trouble, but she had hoped that keeping the leash long and loose, Lionel would develop a sense of independence, which would then lead to a sense of self-respect. But, the strategy flopped. Yet, in Mrs. Levine’s eyes punishing a child was an admission of loss of control as a mother; and, she couldn’t admit this truth to herself.

Lionel turned his back and nearly danced to his room before signaling to Period Jane, who decided that this was part of the bargain: to follow Lionel’s lead, at least until he crossed a line. And she relied on Mrs. Levine as a failsafe.

“Take your shirt off,” Lionel said turning to eye her once she entered the room. Two tampons and one super maxi pad lay open on his desk. “My sister thought you might need one.” Smirking, he pushed his cheek out with his tongue, so that it looked like a gumball rested there. Period Jane stood close to the door mulling over the two orders he’d given her. If she slunk back to the living room flustered she’d be a coward who’d have to rat on Lionel, which would increase her

burdens. Plus, her mother had warned her, listing the expected parameters within the Levine household.  “Stay close to Mrs. Levine. Any funny business, come home,” she’d said. The message was firm and direct, not because Mrs. Lucas knew how to handle conflict but precisely the opposite. There’d been incidents in the past, where Period Jane’s honor as a girl had been compromised, but her mother brushed them off as inconsequential and avoidable.

Jane peeled the wrapper off of the maxi pad, threw it on the wall where it stuck.“I’m not taking off my shirt.” Her breath was short.

“C’mon, show me your tits,” Lionel said. “I’ll try not to throw up.”

“You’re a real ass” she said striding back into the living room where the voices of Mrs. Levine and Period Jane’s mother spilled into the house from the front walkway.

She’d left her pocketbook hanging on the dining room chair and wanted to grab it before flipping him the bird and calling the project quits.  But Lionel raced past her into the living room and stood guard over her bag. He waited for her mouth to open.

“Hand me my bag,” she said trying to sound authoritative. She’d heard on a talk show that to act like a victim is to make yourself one. And from watching her mother scramble with the men standing outside of the local mart, who’d watch her mother’s backside like a ball game was being played on it, she learned the effects of unassertiveness. Her mother always stumbled over her words, in such instances, and she’d point to the fact that it wouldn’t be respectable to have that kind of a conversation in front of her daughter—which, to certain men implied that should they meet again under different circumstances, things could be different.

Jane—no, Rosetta—wouldn’t be what her mother was. She wasn’t going to be the kind of girl to be kicked around. Yes, Lionel said awful things about her, but she hadn’t taken it lying down.

She spoke up, and she didn’t run home crying to her mother about what was happening at her school, and she wouldn’t start doing that now.

“What bag?” Lionel said.

“That one,” Jane said pointing to the chair.

“This?” he said pointing to his crotch. “I knew you wanted to touch em.” Jane walked over to get her bag, but Lionel blocked her reach.

“Move it,” she said. They stood in front of each other for a while, eyes locked, until Jane snatched the bag from the chair. Lionel forced her hand to his crotch, jerking it in circles. She

yanked her hand from his grip, and that’s when the fight started. Lionel bit her neck and gripped her hands, pulling both behind her back.  She used her chin to hammer into his shoulder blade, and then snap at his neck with her teeth. She kept her knees sharp and pointed toward his groin, but Lionel was tall so her jabs hit the air, and scratched a small piece of his thigh.

Lionel grabbed her hair then and nearly yanked her neck around, but Jane had her arms free so she reached up and dug her nails into the top of his forearm and charged toward him. The charge toppled Lionel over and pushed him back into the wall, but Lionel came charging back, tackling her to the floor. He pulled his weight down and pinned her to the floor, his hand mashing her face, his grunting and her swerving. Then he dug his knees into her forearms and sat on her chest, close enough to her face so that her kicking couldn’t reach him.

“Be still” he said.

“Get off of me.” she yelled. He mashed her face with his hand, so that her cheeks and lips squeezed through his hands. “Be still,” Lionel said, “or I’ll do that again.”

Jane hurled her legs up in the air, so her mid section lifted Lionel up, and her feet crashed into the floor. She tried to unpin her arms, but as she did his kneecaps dug harder into her muscle. In the tussle, Lionel managed unzip his pants, but that’s as far as he’d gone.

Mrs. Lucas and Mrs. Levine charged back into the house to find the pair in a wrestling match on the floor. Lionel readying to dangle his sausage in Period Jane’s face, and Period Jane flapping her two legs like one big fin.

“Can’t leave you alone for 30 minutes before you do something ridiculous as this,” Mrs. Levine yelled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m calling the police.” Mrs. Lucas fumbled with the suede bag Jane had bought her for her 46th birthday.

The event was lack luster. By the time the police showed up, Mrs. Levine had coerced Period Jane’s mom to calm down, slapping her son across the head. “He just got carried away,” Mrs. Levine said. “I should have known better. We both should have.”

The shift from Lionel and Rosetta to herself seemed too much for Mrs. Lucas to handle. In her mind it registered as her fault. What would the cops say if she told them that she’d left her 12 year old daughter alone in a house with a boy? How could she explain?

Lionel was made to apologize, and Jane’s mother promised not to press charges because kids do all kinds of things, and she was young once so she knew what it was to be curious. Jane told her mother that she wasn’t curious, and out poured everything else; how he tried to make her take her clothes off in his room, how he was always messing with her at school, how she never

listened to her. Her mother excused herself and her daughter’s behavior, and left through the door she and her daughter had entered no more than twenty minutes earlier.

When Liz heard about the incident later that evening, she looked long and hard across the table at her mother who spoke of how nice it was of Mrs. Lucas not to press charges. Both knew very

well of Lionel’s brutish behavior, Liz had been her brother’s captor before and her mother’s response was just as stupid as it was now. She’d bought locks for the doors, and then the windows after a second incident.

“Tell Mom I’ll be home in a minute, I just have some dirt on my shoe” and he kicked Jimmy Campbell’s shin.

“You’ll have to get her tit out of your mouth, so I can finish what I started” Jimmy Campbell said, dropping his skateboard and stepping closer to Lionel’s face. “And while you’re at it,” Jimmy’s voice grew louder “tell her her daughter almost has her beat on the blow job.”

“You son of a bitch.” Lionel said knocking his fist against Jimmy’s cheekbone. The second swing hit the boy in the chin, and the third hit the boy under the eye. Lionel friends, Ramsey included, jumped on him too, kicking him in any available space. But after two hits Jimmy Campbell grabbed a hold of Lionel and made him the target. While the other boys were kicking at his ribs, Jimmy was busy trying to punch holes through Lionel’s face, and when he wasn’t punching he was choking Lionel, and when he wasn’t choking him, he head-butted, or spit, or used Lionel’s body as a shield.

Liz, watching her brother’s face turn colors grabbed Jimmy’s skateboard and waited until his head was in the clear. Then, she swiped it like it was a golf ball. She putted once, then twice until a sprig of blood trickled from his head.

“What the hell you trying to do? Kill him?” Lionel yelled, half his breath gone.

Ramsey, who grew up in Milo Heights, had a thing for loyalty, and to him, what Liz had done was heroic. Lionel was getting his ass kicked and Ramsey was doing more damage to his friend then to Jimmy. For the first time Ramsey looked at her with an incisiveness and rudeness that communicated authority, admiration, and adolescent lust. Liz hadn’t really been looked at by many boys at least not in that way, and the couple of glances toward her neckline made her see herself in a different light. He waited for her well after Lionel and the other two boys including Jimmy Campbell, left the scene. Ramsey took her books and told her anybody who can get up after a fight is okay, and he told her to follow him, but she chose to go home, replaying their conversation and his glance a million times later that night. The next morning Ramsey showed up at the Levine’s door for Liz; he carried her books to the bus stop each morning thereafter, never saying a word.

*********

The mirror found them. Behind a doorway with purple streamers, Ramsey watched his reflection furl and unfurl as two kids ran in bumping circles around the room and then whiz out.

Liz came over and stood not quite next to him, as was the nature of their agreement. When he saw her, he laughed and pulled her in front of him. “Now this is a funny mirror,” he said catching his breath. “Look at that forehead, and those teeth.” He tapped her lip up a little so that made a plop sound as it settled back into place. It was true, her forehead protruded a little, her teeth had a gap in them, but nothing she’d never seen before.  “Looks fine to me” she said, feeling talkative. His laughter shifted from cruelty to admonition and whipped out lasso-quick, skimping her shins and grabbing her waist.

“Nothing’s more humiliating than being seen with you,” he said. Then he clumped down the pumping stairs and out of the funhouse without a second glance in her direction. She circled him like a gnat, asking “what did I do?” and apologizing. They kept up like that until Ramsey exited the fair gates, shrugging Liz’s hand from his shoulder, and peeling off in the dark blue pick-up taking up two parking spots instead of one.

She stood at the gate for a half hour replaying the scenario and waiting for Ramsey to return. He had the money and the keys to the house.  She searched her word bank for what she was feeling, but couldn’t find a match. And since the circumstances left her alone, without Ramsey, she

blamed all of it on the fair being a horrible place. She decided Ramsey was right, the fair was for children, and she’d been acting like one all day.

Women didn’t pine for Ferris Wheels or cotton candy; nor did they foam at the mouth for funhouses. That was what Ramsey called it, wasn’t it? Quit foaming at the mouth? Women, real women, pined for sex and husbands, whether married or single. Women begged their husbands for things like new high heels, lingerie, or tickets to romantic movies. And a real woman wouldn’t be affected in the least by some trite words her husband said in the heat of a moment. Real women didn’t look to their husbands for approval and recognitions of beauty; real women cultivated that on their own and laughed in the face of anything less than that.

An outsider would have called the entire situation differently. An outsider would have pegged it like an eight ball, corner pocket. And yet, an outsider would have missed something, and that was the thing about outsiders. Outsiders don’t know shit, Ramsey had said after Liz confessed that her mother told her to leave him. And that includes your backwards mother. An outsider wouldn’t understand how later, after Lizzie sat on the bench outside the fair that he’d come back looking pitiful and helpless as he was because he didn’t want her out too long in the dark; how

he couldn’t stop thinking about her and had kept an eye on her from the pub across the street, and how at those words her heartbeat would pace out rather than increase. And how on the ride

home, both Lizzie and Ramsey looking out of adjacent windows, the wind swishing their hair in circles, Ramsey would say “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” and confess that it was his fault, that he could never get it right, that he was worthless; how Ramsey, would hold open the front door before plunking down on the couch, and Liz would unlace his boots for him, and set

them in the corner to show him his worthiness. Then, he’d extend his hand to her, pet her on the head the way she’d come to love,  and how the ten seconds between being patted on the head and pulled onto his lap a heat surged between the two of them, something that confirmed neither would ever leave the other, no matter how bad things got. And an outsider wouldn’t understand, that afterwards, he’d peel her clothes off, and she’d please him just right. Like no other, he’d say. Like no other he’d brag to his friends or talk back to the porn stars who ain’t got nothng on his Liz, as Ramsey would say. An outsider wouldn’t understand how good it feels to please one man, just right, and rise from a bed, not conquered or had, but as a woman who fit exactly right, in the exact way.

And in her fantasies, Lizzie, speaking up to the outsiders–namely the women, because the men could care less about such affairs– would tell them that she was a Pleasing Woman, and ask them “where your men were at for show?” And then, to break the silence, she’d say, “We’ll shut up then!”