Jun. 03/09
I'm just about done the drywall stage in the basement. It wasn't too bad, all in all, but not as easy, and surprisingly quick, as insulating the foundation walls.
Gina joined me again today. I can't say what a relief it is to have her out of bed and back in the land of the living again. I mean, sure, it's only been five days, but I was getting pretty worried about her and what those two bitches may have done to her state of mind.
She sat around some, helped out here and there and even smiled at my jokes. Her face is starting to heal up, as is all those bruises on her body. My legs and ribs are still bothering me a bit and my nose is still a little touchy, but I'm getting better every day.
"I keep trying to imagine you there," she said out of the blue, sitting on a bucket of drywall mud with her knees together, feet apart, playing idly in the dirt with a long shard of drywall in a pair of loose jeans and one of Daddy's shirts. "I couldn't believe it when I saw what you looked like that night, when Dad turned the lights on and you told me. I mean, that you would actually go down there and stick up for me,
fight
for me,..."
"Well, I love you," I explained, grunting a little at the pain in my side as I fitted a piece of drywall, not really wanting to talk about it.
"But,... I just never would have imagined anyone doing anything like that for me. But, even weirder, it's almost as if you were there when they beat me up and we won. It's hard to explain, but it really helped a lot. Don't ever doubt how devoted to you I am,... superkitten."
I smiled at both her joke and her sentiment, saying, "I just wish I really was there when they started on you."
"Me too, but,... you still kept your promise."
I finished screwing the medium size panel to the wall with the gun and asked, "What promise is that?"
"You once told me, when you were relating your little fantasy about me, that if anybody ever hurt me, you'd break their head. You kept your promise and, even though I wish so much you didn't have to, that none of it ever happened, that means a whole lot."
"Smutty, I only have two people in the world and I love them so much, you can't imagine. You really can't. I
don't
like people messing around with that."
She smiled at me again and said, "Just like Dad. There's something I don't get, though." Gina said.
"What's that?" I asked, running the sharp utility knife across a fresh sheet of drywall.
"Whenever we wrestle, I always win. Always. Yet, you were able to beat up Tanya and Tisha while I couldn't."
"Oh. Well,... it wasn't really like that."
"What do you mean?"
I really didn't want to get into it. As I've written, the whole thing kind of bothers me on some level, that I'd be capable of doing something like that to another person.
"Well, you know. We respect one another and you're better in that kind of contest than I am, but I don't respect them. I hate them and I didn't go there with it in my mind that it would be any kind of contest at all. I went there to make them pay and that's what I did, plain and simple."
"I guess. Still can't imagine it, though. I still can't believe you haven't been arrested for assault."
"They can't let that happen. They'd be ratting themselves out if they pressed charges and they'd come out looking a lot worse than me. That's the last kind of trouble they need right now. No, they'll keep their mouths shut and so will the others."
" ... You have this,... totally unexpected, almost incredible side to you sometimes."
I gently kneed the drywall that I'd stood up on edge, cleanly breaking it down my mark and paused to smile and wink at her, saying, "That's my superkitten persona. See, by day, I'm a mild mannered, hard working DIY queen, but if there's trouble, or if there's an orgasm to be had in a new and slutty way, I become,...
her."
She chuckled at this, wincing a little as her smile pulled at her healing lower lip before, "Hey, baby?"
"Uh huh?" I asked, hoping my humour would change the subject as I lifted the piece I'd cut out to the wall in preparation of cutting out a hole for a switchbox.
" ... I'm not sure I can go back there. To work at the club, I mean. I'm just not,..."
I glanced over my shoulder at her, saw her expression and put the panel down. Taking a seat on an upturned milk crate across from her, giving her my undivided attention, she went on.
"I- I guess I have trouble thinking I can go back with any dignity after they all saw what happened to me. I always tried to be,... professional and respectable and to have them do that to me,..."
"You have nothing to be ashamed of," I told her.
"I know that. In my head, I know that, but whenever I think of going back there,... Shit, I get nervous just thinking of a trip to the mall, now."
"Really?" I asked, concerned at this.
She nodded.
"Well, I can understand how you'd feel that way about the club, but,..." I trailed off, trying to think of the right words to help her back to the strong, independent, confident mindset that I love so much about her. "Hey, remember that DS9 episode earlier this morning when we got up?"
"Umm, yeah."
"Remember when Worf said that a siege mentality is ultimately self defeating?"
" ... Yeah," she sighed. "But,..."
"But it would be easier if you had a nice little hole to crawl into, right?"
"Pretty much."
"Hm. You know, that's how I used to feel all the time at school and stuff and, to a degree, I did kinda crawl into a hole. But it wasn't healthy. The way I've gotten over some of that in myself since I met you proves it. You'll be okay, you just have to give it some time and remember that me and Daddy are here for you. You'll be okay. As far as the club goes,... what, are you just going to do private gigs from now on?"
"I think so, yeah. But maybe you're right about just giving it some time."
"You always told me that you never run from anything."
"Maybe that was a lie, more for me than you. I mean, I've never gone back to my parent's house since they threw me out, have I? I never will, either. Dottie,... She made plans. I let her assume I'd move in with her when it was possible, but I ran away from that, and then the whole town."
"That's different, you have no place there, or with Dottie and you know it, as well as you knew it then. You don't
want
to be there, but I guarantee you, if you decide to go back to your day shift, nobody will be looking at you and laughing, not even to themselves."
"Hmm," she agreed thoughtfully, watching the end of her drywall spear as she drew out random designs in the dirt with its tip.
"Well, know that me and Daddy will support you, whatever you decide about your shift, but we won't let you become a recluse."
She smiled and said, "Thanks. ... Kat?"
"Yes?"
" ... Well,... There's something,... I hate to ask."
"Gina, we share my father's cock, you can ask me anything."
She smiled wider at this and chuckled softly, taking her time, but finally speaking her thoughts.
"Well, I've been wondering for a few days now if it would be alright with you and Dad if,... if I wanted to, um, move in here. For good. I want to be here with you two."
I guess I should have expected this, but I was surprised nonetheless. In a way, much like her car, I'd always thought of her apartment as a part of her, a sort of physical monument to who and what she was, the independent, fiercely proud and confident woman I'd fallen in love with. I told her as much, asking if she was sure she wanted to leave that, to make that decision at a time like this.
She nodded, saying, "I know, but that independence,... it was just what had to be. I had nobody until you came along. I could never count on the girlfriends I had before you, I knew that. My independence and all those other things that came from it were a necessary element in my life that I had to maintain because there was nothing else, no
body
else. It's different with you and Dad, I know I can trust and count on you two."
"Gina,... Look, I'd love it if you moved in here and I know he would too, but,... I think you should just wait until you get back to yourself before you decide this."
"What if I don't get completely back to myself?"
I didn't know what to say to this. It's not as if she's the same person she was before her parents threw her out, after all. She can't be.
"I don't know," I said after a pause. "But we'll talk to Daddy about it when he gets home and see what he says. Okay?"
She nodded, another little smile appearing.
"I think it's a great fuckin' idea," Daddy said later on at the supper table, looking surprised and pleased, this expression passing from one to the other of us as we sat, eating with him.
"But, Daddy," I cautioned, "what about the other stuff? About how she doesn't want to go out and how she maybe shouldn't be making any big decisions right now?"
He remained silent for a moment, setting his eyes on Gina as she gingerly chewed on the chicken cutlets I'd prepared.
"You say you don't want to go to work because it would be awkward for you with the other girls."
"Yes," she answered.
"That's natural, to feel that way. I wouldn't want to go back either because it would make it too hard to get over it and move on, always being where it happened, where I was made to feel,... Always being reminded. It wouldn't help me to move on.
We both nodded at his words as he continued.
"Moving on requires facing up to yourself, being resolute enough to pick yourself up and get over it, get on with your life. That doesn't mean you have to subject yourself to something you don't want to and don't have to. As for moving in here,... Well, obviously, you don't want to go home, do you?"
"No."
"Why, do you suppose?"