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.