Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant (15 page)

PRETTY GIRL

Deb Eskie

Everyone wants to be the pretty girl.

We are conditioned to strive for beauty from our earliest years. Our parents, with the best intentions, tell us just how pretty we are when we are two years old, and they accentuate that innocent doll-like adorability with bows, lace, and light pink lipstick so we can make ourselves up like Mommy.

But what we didn’t realize, at that oh so tender age, was that Mommy used makeup to hide her true face, her sad face, a face that struggled to maintain the very same smoothness of youth it possessed when she first met her husband, and they were in love, and he paid her the least bit of attention. My mother saw the opposite of beauty as death, and she wanted me to know love and experience joy, and love and joy, of course are the benefits of being attractive. Without attractiveness there could be no fulfillment, no reason for existence.

Thankfully, I was pretty; a dimpled-face cutie-pie with long blond hair that my mother enjoyed styling into different dos. I was primped and curled and danced onstage in baby beauty pageants. It didn’t matter how much I cried or stamped my foot, Mommy never listened. Those pageants were important to her and my success was hers as well.

So I did what was expected of me. I dressed how beauty queens are supposed to dress and I surrounded myself with only pretty people or people that were jealous of me and therefore easily taken advantage of.

Like Lizzy Kay, head of the school newspaper and the events committee at school. She worshipped me and constantly complimented what I wore, as if being nice to me would somehow make us alike. I knew what she said behind my back, though, words I was all too familiar with: bitch, slut, whore. Girls use the same terminologies boys do when they want something they can’t have.

In spite of my social reputation, I learned early in life that not everyone was on my side. I had plenty of friends, but trusted no one. Plenty of boyfriends, but was backstabbed by them all. I was a cheerleader and model, dated only jocks and upper status high school boys, and still sought out this happiness my mother claimed was in store, but had yet to find for herself.

Of course, she didn’t know about my little secret. Nobody did. How could I tell my pretty, perfect mother that her pretty, perfect little girl was somehow imperfect, different, abnormal?

At puberty, it kicked in. I would masturbate constantly, trying to eliminate the hunger, the empty feeling in my stomach I would get, even if I had already eaten a big meal. For some reason, only orgasm would help, but then I’d be hungry again, just an hour or two later.

I started having sex with my first boyfriend at thirteen. He was a senior and it did not take long for him to convince me we needed to share our love under the sheets. I was scared at first, but sex felt good and I quickly adapted to it. However, James didn’t like me on top because he said I took too much control and had too much passion for a recent virgin. He said I looked at him funny when we did it, like I was someone else, like I was insane.

He ended up breaking up with me, and I encountered this dilemma again with other boys. Many claimed I wanted sex too much. I was too into it, too much for them to handle. Something in me would emerge when I was aroused and it scared my boyfriends; the hunger, the desire, the need to fill the emptiness in my gut. I liked to taste them with my tongue, their every part. I delighted in the flavor of sex, the salt of sweat, the hot, sticky sensation of mouth upon flesh.

It didn’t stop with just sex either. I loved food and loved to eat. Like my father, I was an avid carnivore. After shows, Daddy would take me to Burger King and we’d have ourselves giant Whoppers with everything on them, and Mommy would get angry and tell me I’d be too fat to ever win the Little Miss Darling award. But I always won. The food I gorged upon never affected my body. I remained as skinny as ever, no matter what I inhaled and digested. My dates would watch in amazement as I’d indulge in large quantities of red meat as rare as the restaurants would be willing to make it. My friends hated me as they’d nibble upon their bland salads and raw tofu.

And so I suppressed whatever it was that lingered inside me, whatever sick, depraved urges I felt. The idea of my mother, or anybody, discovering my secret was a terrifying one. I imagined Mommy would never look at me again, and my friends, as two-faced as they were, would abandon me for good. I researched fetishes on the internet, but could not find my own identity among even the most bizarre categories. I believed I was alone, a hyper-sexual freak of nature with a ferocious and dangerous appetite.

My parents had a new friend over for dinner one night, a man named Thomas Berlin whom they knew through business. It was obvious to me that he and my mother were sleeping together, although, my father was most oblivious. Surely, my mother was hoping he’d notice, but that was asking a lot of Daddy. He didn’t even notice Mr. Berlin’s gaze upon me.

But I did. It was a familiar gaze, one that said “I would shove my dick in you so hard the gods above would hear you scream.” I received that gaze all the time, wherever I went. I received it even as a child in pageants from the judges, hosts, and regulars. I knew that gaze from teachers, doctors, and strangers who’d pass by me and turn their heads twice to get a better look.

Although Mr. Berlin was sleeping with a married woman, he had daughters of his own and did not condone pedophilia. Nor was he used to being attracted to someone as young as I was. He was polite to me and listened attentively when I spoke, or when my father bragged about my school accomplishments, mentioning of course that I wanted to be a biologist. To this, my mother always scoffed and rolled her eyes. Science was a silly and unnecessary interest for a pretty girl to have.

I rinsed the dishes after dinner and put them in the dishwasher. Mr. Berlin handed me his used plate and when our fingers accidentally met, he jerked his hand away and dropped the plate, cracking the side. Mommy apologized and blamed my clumsiness, but Mr. Berlin defended me and accepted the blame instead, to which Daddy made some wise crack about having too much wine. My parents’ friend nervously helped me gather up the pieces. When we caught eyes, I smiled at him and he smiled back. He was nice, and charming, and sweet. It didn’t faze me much when men acted weird around me, but I was rather fond of Mr. Berlin’s humility.

The next time Mr. Berlin was over I found a gift wrapped box sitting on my bed. Inside it were a pearl necklace and a tiny note that read “To Margery: A string of beauty for a beautiful girl. Thomas.” I placed it around my neck and wore it shamelessly in front of my mother, who asked me where I’d gotten it.

“A boy from school,” I lied, without skipping a beat.

“I have one just like it,” she told me, and she paused. “From your dad.” My mother was also a good liar, but not as good as me.

The gifts became more frequent. Usually, I’d come home late from a party and hear my mother moaning in her bedroom. That is how I knew Daddy was still at work. Then I’d find earrings, roses, and scented letters written in fine cursive on my bed. Mr. Berlin soon confessed that he was in love with me, but was hurt and upset that I had a boyfriend and didn’t think I’d want anything to do with someone three times my age. In one letter he faulted me for giving him such awful, sinful thoughts that he couldn’t bear to sleep.

My new boyfriend, Sasha, told me that by accepting the gifts I was leading the old man on, and that made me a tease. I didn’t like when he called me names. He wasn’t very nice to me, not like Mr. Berlin was, but he was good looking and let me ride on top.

Still, the hunger pains were unreal, sometimes to the point of nausea and dizziness, and I spent quite a bit of time in the nurse’s office. I had numerous hospital visits as well, and was checked for anemia, but the results were negative. My friends decided I must be bulimic, what with my meat affinity and thin physique. Perhaps they weren’t that far off the mark. Perhaps I did have some sort of eating disorder, if not bulimia, than one that had me contemplating horrific sexual scenarios. The more these images plagued me, the less I let Sasha touch me.

After a particularly dramatic fight with Sasha about my apparent sexual dysfunction, I came home to find my mother rummaging through my desk drawers and jewelry boxes. Inside my special princess music box that my father gave me were all of Mr. Berlin’s love letters.

Mommy read them and smacked me hard across the face. “You slut!”

I didn’t know what to say. I suppose part of me wanted her to find them. She sat at my vanity table and examined her face and bleached salon styled hair. Then she lit a cigarette and glared at me through the mirror.

“You have no idea what it’s like to be hungry,” she said through the smoky air, “to wanna devour every last bit you can get because you are so starved. You won’t know what that’s like until you are my age.” She stood and got close in my face. “What the fuck are you?” she demanded, and I could smell the booze on her breath.

She left me in my shock and humiliation, and I wanted so badly to answer her, but I didn’t know what I was. I did know hunger though. I did know the need to devour. I also knew something was terribly wrong with me, and now Sasha knew it too.

After weeks of no sex, we had tried again, but I bit his chin and drew blood, and he responded in absolute dread and fury, throwing me out of his house. I was most worried about what would happen the next day when everybody’d know that the prom queen was a sadistic psychopath.

Now my own mother despised me. I had tried so hard to be the better, more improved version of her. I thought that that’s what she wanted, that she would be proud of me, but this whole being beautiful thing felt more like a curse than a blessing. Mr. Berlin told me I had been put on Earth to torture him and make him do bad things. If that were the case, if I indeed was a villain, then I wasn’t being true to myself, or to my nature.

In biology class, I was fascinated by the cruelty and brutality of nature. The food chain was a violent, murderous bloodbath among beasts and humans. Instinct was ruthlessly unforgiving. It didn’t matter how domesticated a tiger was, she was still capable of mauling the shit out of people if need be.

This made me think of my girlfriends who desperately tried to fix and idealize themselves by shaving or waxing every last bit of hair below the neck. I too was guilty of this, but recognized the absurdity. It didn’t matter how much work went into being pretty, hair would always grow back. I had to stop suppressing.

I emailed Thomas Berlin and begged him to see me. He refused at first, and ranted in an email about how much he cared about my family and respected my father, and didn’t want anyone to get hurt including his wife and kids. But I knew he’d show up. It was the same kind of bullshit rant Mr. Whitman, the school janitor, gave me when I seduced him.

Mr. Berlin and I met up in a parking lot overlooking South Beach. I’d called my father to let him know I’d be sleeping at Callie’s house, the most responsible and smartest of my friends, so there’d be no concerns. Mr. Berlin had flowers for me, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

I spoke softly to him and giggled and put my hand on his knee and he rubbed my wrist as if he couldn’t believe I was truly sitting beside him. We kissed heatedly, knocking his glasses right off his face. I undid the buttons of my shirt and Mr. Berlin kissed my breasts, like he’d never seen anything quite as full and succulent before.  His hands rubbed up and down my body, and I fell back against the car door as Mr. Berlin licked me and put his fingers inside me.

My stomach began to growl and saliva dripped from the corners of my mouth. He was the hardest I’d ever felt a man be, as he fucked me with all the energy and fervor he could muster at fifty years old. He started to breathe heavier and my hunger increased as my vaginal muscles flexed. We both began to reach orgasm. Then his gasps became woeful howls of immense pleasure and tears filled his eyes as he let out a great sound of release.

Slowly my mouth stretched open and enlarged to the size of Mr. Berlin’s head. As I enveloped his head inside my mouth, Mr. Berlin’s eyes popped open to darkness. He screamed, and thrashed, and struggled, but it was too late. I bit down. I chomped through the bones, vessels, and arteries in his neck, munched and swallowed.

A morning jogger found Mr. Berlin’s headless body once I was gone. My mother sobbed for weeks after she learned of the news and though she never said anything, I know she somehow suspected my involvement.

Daddy still didn’t seem to realize that Mr. Berlin meant more to his wife than just a friend, but he did express interest in the peculiar circumstances of Mr. Berlin’s death. The police, he said, could not understand how a man’s head had been bitten right off. The papers had yet to report it, but I was certain the findings of human bite marks were unfamiliar territory for the pathologist who performed the autopsy.

I felt amazingly at peace for the first time ever and relished in a satisfaction I had never had with any other man. Or any other meal, for that matter. I knew what I wanted now, and what I was. In biology my fetish was revealed to me, as I began to study up on a strange little insect called the praying mantis. This remarkable creature cannibalized its submissive mate once fertilization took place.

I was pleased to learn I wasn’t alone in the world. There was something in nature just as beautiful as me, just as powerful, sexual, and vicious. It felt good to know I was so much more than what people thought of me, more than what my mother wanted me to be, more than eye candy, more than just a pretty girl.