EPILOGUE: STUTTERING SAPPHO
The same, but different.
It's weird how, in a situation like this, pinned to the floor in my own home, that's the first thought my brain readily supplies.
Or is it the first? I don't really know, at this point. It's like I'm floating. But at least I have that one thought to orient me.
Same, and different.
That's how the two girls look to me, one crouching above my chest, pinning my wrists to the ground, the other standing tall above me. I've known them for so many years, but they're different from the image I have of them in my head.
Arianna's red hair, which once descended down to the small of her back in a fiery mane, is now cropped boyishly short. Not the kind of stylish short, either... it's messy and graceless.
Even stranger, she's wearing glasses. Thick-rimmed, mousy glasses that make her look like the kind of hopeless nerd she and I used to bully in high school.
"Mmmh, Becca," she says, her lips nuzzling the side of my neck, making me shiver all over as her body adheres to mine.
She's pinning me down, now, but when my eyes meet hers, I see no life, no intellect, no emotion behind the glasses. In fact, her eyes look like they're made of glass themselves... lucid, unfocused, wandering.
I haven't spoken a single word to Ari ever since what I think of as the... incident... when she tried to Skype with me while she guzzled a woman's foot deep into her mouth. It was gross, and the last of a litany of bizarre events where Ari seemed determined to shove all her new sexuality into everyone's face...
But now, I'm less certain. She's Ari, of course, but she doesn't look like her. The way her eyes seem to be constantly rolling upwards, the pout in her lips, the way she seems to mindlessly grind her crotch against my belly as she pins me down, the nylons and frilly skirt she's wearing...
Oh, and then, of course, there's the other girl, who's also same but different.
I look up at her with a strange, lazy movement of my head. I know I'm in danger, that these two girls have made their way into my home uninvited, and assailed me, but... it all feels so distant, like it's happening to someone else.
Olivia is as spindly, flat-chested, and tomboyish as I remembered, but in subtle ways, she's clearly changed. Her form-fitting clothes speak of self-confidence she didn't have in high school.
I swear I see some real muscle tone under her tight black shirt, too... every time she crosses her arms, her biceps bulge in a way that's difficult for me to ignore.
And while Ari seems to have gained glasses, Olivia has lost hers. Her penetrating gaze fixes on me, and she leers in my direction, like she's laughing at a joke I'm not yet privy to.
She's holding something in her hands. It's a... toy, of some sorts, I'm not sure... my gaze is drawn to it, but at the same time, it's like I'm not really, really seeing it. What I see instead is Olivia's eyes, shining like distant stars, leering at me from above the toy... which seems to be moving...
Questions cross my mind at speed, fleeing it soon after. What are they doing in my home? What has Olivia done to Arianna? What's with the damn toy I can't seem to focus on?
I can't ask any of these questions. They slip through my fingers, like flowing water.
I'm all too aware of Arianna's body, so soft and warm as it presses against me, her nyloned legs entwining with mine to keep me physically subdued.
Whenever her hips buck against the crotch of my jeans, a jolt of electricity goes through me.
I find myself bucking back.
"That's so good to watch," Olivia says, her eyes narrowing in pleasure at my improper display. "When a girl begins to unravel. When she starts to hump the air. When she's open and eager, ready to get off at a single word... or a command..."
It's only after she's spoken that I realise, with a mixture of surprise and horror, that Olivia has been talking all this time. Worse, I realise that her last words are off script, like an interruption while she was reciting something to me.
A recess of my brain, a primitive part of my mind I didn't even know existed, is trying to warn me that I'm in danger, mutely beating against a glass pane that isn't supposed to be there, that is splitting my mind in two.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I'm alert.
I can see the toy.
It's a... bird. A drinking bird, or something like that. Fire engine red, on a light blue base, and it swings eternally up and down.
Up... and down...
I press my nails into my palms, to prevent the daze from returning. I have to stay awake. Olivia is holding the bird, but she scrupulously avoids looking at it.
