"Is it worse than eating?"
"Eating?"
"The same mouth we use for kissing we use for eating. For chewing up food and making it into a formless wet mass. For vomiting. Is urine worse than vomit?"
"Well, we keep our mouths clean, most of the time. We don't vomit when we're kissing."
"We don't defecate when we're having sex, either."
Colene spread her hands. "Maybe so. But that business I went through—it still ruined me. I can't just reason that away. Maybe for you it would have been fun, but it sure as hell wasn't for me."
Pussy had an idea. "Let's replay that scene, and fix them."
"What?"
"This is like a lucid dream, isn't it? We can choose what happens in it. Come on; let me handle it this time."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'll show you. We'll go in again. This time I'll be the girl and you can watch invisibly. Life is dynamic, and this is an animation; we can play out the alternatives."
"Okay," Colene agreed dubiously.
The house reappeared. Pussy stepped up to the door, wearing the dress Colene wore before. The same young man was beside her. They opened the door and went in.
It started with the same deceptive quiet. Pussy accepted the beer.
"There was my first mistake," Colene said, speaking with her mind so that only Pussy heard her. "That beer! I never should have taken that. I should have known better. I did know better! But I thought I could handle it. They got me drunk so I couldn't fight. I should have just poured it on his head."
Pussy got lithely out of the couch, lifted the bottle high, and poured it over the young man's head.
He reacted angrily. "Bitch! This's a good suit!" He swept the bottle out of her hand and took hold of her, ripping at her dress. She fought him, punching him in the eye. Immediately the three others closed in, grabbing her by the arms and legs. She tried to kick and bite, until one of them closed his fist and smashed her nose. Then, while she was distracted by the pain and blood, they ripped off her dress and underclothing, and took turns holding her by the neck and breasts while they raped her vertically. When they were done they let her slump to the floor, unconscious, her face a mass of blood.
"Maybe you're right," Colene said, wincing. "Dumping the beer on him would have just made it worse, faster, But at least I could have gotten out of there at the start."
The scene dissolved and re-formed. Pussy and her date entered the living room. She saw the three other men. "I don't trust this," she said, and turned around.
"Hey, where you going?"
"Home. This isn't my kind of party." She stepped toward the door.
"The hell it isn't!" Her date grabbed her and hauled her back into the living room. She screamed and kicked, but the others caught her legs and stripped her. This time they gave her no chance to bite or kick. They hauled her into the bedroom, threw her down on the bed, and two held her down spread-eagled while the third licked her breasts and the fourth raped her. Then they changed places, so that they could all have their turns.
"I guess not," Colene said. "I guess I was lost the moment I got to that house. Even if I'd gotten out the door, I was far from home, and didn't know how to drive. They'd have had me."
"So the way you played it was probably about as well as you could have," Pussy said. "They had lured you there for sex, and they were going to have it, gently or harshly. You were never at fault."
"Maybe not," Colene said, beginning to believe. "Still, if I'd had an effective way to fight them—"
The scene re-formed. This time when Pussy turned to depart, and the man grabbed her, she reached into a sheath on her thigh and drew a knife with a wicked blade sharpened on either side. She slashed at the man. He fell back, but the others, outraged, charged at her.
Pussy whirled, fencing with the knife, making them pause. Then she saw an opening and lunged. She scored on a throat. It opened like a mouth, and blood poured out as he fell, his face surprised. While the others stared, aghast, she turned on the next, and cut his throat too. The two remaining men plunged out the door and jumped into the car. In a moment it roared away.
"And there I am, a murderess," Colene said with appalled resignation. "And they haven't even raped me yet."
The gory scene dissolved. "I think there was no better way out," Pussy said. "You were caught in their trap, and you had no way of anticipating it. It was not your fault."
"I guess not," Colene agreed. "It was just one of those things. It could have been any girl; it just happened to be me, that time. It wasn't because of any fault in me, other than in being a naïve girl."
"And thereafter you were less naïve," Pussy agreed. "It doesn't matter whether they wanted to rape you or murder you or just embarrass you; you were stuck. You were blameless. And what they did to you did not make you blameworthy or unclean. The blame was theirs. The dirt was theirs. You should not carry it with you to spoil your life."
Colene nodded. "I guess it's like a broken leg. If you knew it was coming, you'd do whatever led to it differently, and save yourself a whole lot of pain and trouble. But if you didn't know, you could still get it reset, and wait for it to heal, and in time you'd be almost as good as new."
"Yes. And you would not have to be afraid of running or jumping. You'd just be more careful."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"And you can go with Darius, knowing you are not unclean, and do whatever pleases you both. It wasn't the sex that was wrong, it was its coercive nature. Sex without force is not evil."
"Not evil," Colene agreed.
"Now let's go back."
They turned, but Colene balked. "I can't."
"What?"
"I can't go this way. The monster's holding me back." Indeed, her feet were moving without purchase, as before.
"But we beat back your nightmare. It's gone."
"It's not gone."
"But you know that you should have no guilt for what you couldn't help. You can be free of it, now."
"You have shown me that my worst nightmare was not my fault, and that I should be able to have sex with Darius without guilt. I admit it, logically. But that's intellectual. Deep down inside, I still know better. Sex is dirty, and I can't do it."
Pussy considered. "We're not out of here, then. There must be another level."
"I don't need any more levels!"
"What do you think it is? What are you still afraid of? It shouldn't be sex."
"Maybe not sex itself. But it's part of a larger thing, and that's what gets me. The associated feelings."
"You're afraid to like sex?"
"Maybe."
"It's just an act, like kissing or hugging. No reason to fear it, as long as it's voluntary. You know that. There must be more. What about the pleasure of it?"
"That's closer."
"The sensuality of it?"
Colene thought for a moment before answering. "I'm not afraid of sensuality itself, but of the emotions that come with mine. I want someone to touch me, and yet I can't stand the thought of some man touching me like that. I want to kiss his lips and break his fingers. I want to touch his cheek and slash his throat. I want to stop seeing rape where I look when someone gets friendly with me, or says he's attracted to me. I don't see someone attractive when I look in a mirror. It doesn't have to mean anything, but the panic flashes to my throat, and I have to resist the urge to punch his throat. I am not ready. Where maybe there once was beauty, I see calluses and flesh and things dying, flawed. I see the human ugliness, and there is nothing I want from him. Or her, if it's a woman. Not that I'm not flattered when a woman says she'd like to get up with me, but I don't go that way."
"And you thought—when I said I loved you—"
"Yeah. Sorry about that."
It was Pussy's turn to consider. "I guess we're not through here yet. The mind monster doesn't bother you when you go deeper into it. It strikes only when you try to get away. It must be feeding on those conflicts, and wo
n't let you go till they're all gone. Then maybe it will have no further power. You have given it a good meal, I think, but we have to find what else there is."
"There's nothing else!"
Pussy knew better. "Then maybe we'll find an empty room. Let's go see."
"I hate this," Colene muttered, but she turned and went with Pussy in the other direction. Now her feet had ample purchase.
They came to a large building. "That's my school!" Colene exclaimed. "That's no site of buried horror."
"Then let's go inside."
They went inside. Classes were in session, and there were few people in the halls. "We're going toward the cafeteria," Colene said. "Nothing bad there except the food." She laughed. "Not really. Everybody hates the food; it's mandatory. But it's actually no worse than it is anywhere else."
They entered the cafeteria, and came to a table where several girls were eating. Most were finishing, but one was a little late. "Oh, shit," Colene breathed.
"What is it?"
"It's what I can't handle. I'm getting out of here." Such was her determination that she actually made progress. Right through a wall. The school dissipated as she forged through; she had destroyed the vision. They were back outside.
But now huge insects appeared. Each was the size of a house, with barbed hairy legs and enormous mandibles. They surrounded Colene and Pussy, closing in. One reached down with a long thin snout. It was a gargantuan mosquito, about to suck out all of Colene's blood in a single pull.
But Colene stood her ground. "Get out of here, freak," she said. "I know you aren't real, because of the square-cube law. If you were that big, those spindly legs would collapse and you'd die before you even got started."
Pussy watched, amazed, as the insects retreated. But then dragons appeared in their places: huge winged snake-like things with crocodile teeth. They dived, orienting on Colene.
"Same for you," the girl said. "You'd never be able to fly if you were physical. You need a wingspan ten times what you got. Go!" She waved her arm, and the dragons were swept back as if blown away by hurricane winds.
"But this is all in the realm of the mind predator," Pussy said. "How can you banish its dreams?"
"Because they're borrowed from the monster movies I've seen. I always knew they were impossible. It's entertainment. I like pretending I'm scared that way."
"But you came here to face what does scare you, to reveal it and abolish it. Colene, you have to go back to that school scene."
"Damn you, Pussy! You're supposed to be helping me."
"I am. Colene, if you fight your way out of here now, will you be able to be all things with Darius?"
The girl stopped. "Damn you," she repeated. She turned around, and the school building was there. They walked inside again, to the cafeteria. "Oh, I really, truly hate this!"
Then Colene's body sailed ghostlike and merged with the late girl. Pussy saw that she was Colene, perhaps two years younger, or three. Her hair was shorter and her features less mature. She was just on the verge of physical maturity, and rather pretty in her shy way.
Pussy watched as the girl ate her soup. Then someone passed and threw something. It landed with a splash in Colene's soup. Pussy was unfamiliar with the object, but got it from the girl's horrified mind. It was a tampon. A cylindrical wad of cotton or some absorbent substance whose purpose was to fit inside a girl's vagina and soak up her menstrual flow. That enabled her to maintain normal daily activities without soiling her clothing or otherwise embarrassing herself.
But Colene was just reaching menarche, and was not at all comfortable with such paraphernalia. She understood the necessity, but the whole business made her feel unclean. She wished it would all go away. She wanted to banish it from her body and her mind. Menses were unclean. Everyone knew that. There were endless jokes.
And here in her face, floating in her red tomato soup, was this thing that reminded her of everything she wanted to forget. The bowl seemed to be filled with blood, and the tampon was trying to eat it, in the process slowly swelling. The whole thing was obscene.
She couldn't move. She was transfixed, frozen with that horrible vision dominating her contracting world. She couldn't escape it.
There was laughter around her. The girls thought it was a funny joke, and some of the boys were noticing too. Colene received it all, in her larger awareness, as though she were looking down at the scene and seeing the whole cafeteria, herself in the middle, a vessel of utter shame. She was crystallized in place, her boundaries fixed, congealed, set. Her body was vacated while her spirit fled the overwhelming humiliation. She wanted to die. In fact, she was dying, and rigor mortis was setting in.
The others left, but Colene's husk remained, locked to the awful bowl and its appalling content She knew she should have gotten up and left, but she hadn't, and now she couldn't. She should have laughed, pretending it was nothing, but she hadn't, and now it was too late. She couldn't do anything, so she did nothing. She had freaked out, and the whole world knew it.
A teacher came. "Colene, go to your class." But she didn't react. She couldn't break the bonds that had coalesced around her, making her a statue. She would stay here forever. There was no other way.
Someone took away the bowl, but that didn't change anything. It was still there in her vision. She was petrifying, slowly changing into stone, like a buried sequoia tree.
Hours passed, and she didn't move. Finally her father came. He must have been notified and taken time off from work. He had never done that before.
He could have yelled, or registered disgust. Instead he was oddly understanding. He took off his jacket and put it over her shoulders as though she needed protection from the weather. The oddest thing was that it helped. "Come on, honey," he said. "Let's get out of here."
He helped her up, and put his arm around her. She hid her face in the jacket, and let him guide her out. He brought her to the car and set her in the front seat.
"De gustibus non carborundum," he said. "Do you know what that means?"
She shook her head.
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
That was all. But it was enough. She sealed over the incident, like an archaeological artifact covered by new foundations, and next day returned to school, and no one spoke of it. Oh, they were surely thinking of it, and she was a marked girl, but soon there were other gossipy mini-scandals, such as who got pregnant by her best friend's boyfriend and had to quit eighth grade, and Colene's freak-out receded into nonentity.
"But you remembered," Pussy said.
"How could I forget?"
"And you didn't let the bastards grind you down."
"Not externally. I concluded that the best defense was a good offense, and resolved never to allow myself to be freaked out by anything gross again. I was sharp with the cutting humor when I put my mind to it, and I discovered how easy it was to make friends by complimenting people, even when I didn't mean it. I became popular. But that hole in my core remained. I can still close my eyes and see that red-soaked tampon floating there."
"But you know what it was. Everything in that scene was ordinary, just inappropriately juxtaposed."
"Sure. I should have looked up immediately, caught the girl who tossed it, and yelled so the whole school could hear: 'Susie, take back your bloody tampon!' That would have turned the tables and made her the laughingstock. Instead, I freaked out. That's what so disgusts me. I let the bastards get me down. It was as though someone yanked off my skirt and panties and left me bare-assed before the multitude: I was stuck exposed for what I was, an innocent kid who couldn't handle it. I hate myself for ever being that naïve."
"But everyone starts naïve."
"But not everyone gets her tender little ass bared in public."
Pussy sorted carefully through this. "We nulls of course don't have monthly cycles. We never bleed. Sometimes we wish we could, because it would mean that we could bear our own babies. But we can't. We are never plugged by anything but a m
an's ardent member, by design. There is never a time when we are not completely ready for sexual expression. So I have no experience of this nature. But if I understand your concern, it was that this tampon was an object that belonged in your vagina at a time when you felt unclean. So its appearance in public suggested that your most shameful secret was exposed for all to see."
"You got it. A girl's supposed to be pristine, and never give a hint of her unclean condition. That's why they developed tampons. The other way is to have a pad covering the whole works, and she can't wear a bathing suit because the pad makes her crotch lumpy, and for sure she can't swim, because the water would soak through it. The tampon's a whole lot more private. But also more specific. It goes right in, the same place the penis does, so it's like she's having this dirty secret sex with a cotton dildo. So when one of those comes out in the open, it's as if everyone sees right into her hole, and knows her most ultimate secret."
"Is that the way other women see it?"
"No. It's the way I see it. That's what counts."
"But you know there is no evil in it. Nothing to be ashamed of."
"I know."
"Then let's leave this monster and return to current life."
But when they tried to go back, a flying saucer appeared. From it piled weird-looking alien creatures with huge bug-eyes and colorful pistols. They aimed these weapons at Colene. "Cheap sci-fi," she muttered. "More junk mined from my childish mind." She forged on, ignoring the aliens, and sure enough, their laser beams didn't hurt her.
"The predator is still trying to hold you. You have to face whatever else it has."
Colene nodded grimly. "I guess I'm not done yet." But she didn't turn around.
Pussy refrained from sighing. "I suppose the dirt is still there. You felt that the tampon and what it signified was duty, and you were ashamed."
"I did, and I was."
"Yet you now know better."