The Last Jeskey - Chapter 5

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 5

 

Freaky

 

I was in jail.  Just like all the guys had been a bunch of times.  The fact that I was in jail didn’t worry me.  The guys were always gone a day, sometimes a bit more, then they always came home.  It was just a matter of time until I could get back where I belonged.  But…the wash was still hung on the line, and what about fixing dinner?  I really hoped that Dave and Gary would understand that I had been in jail and I couldn’t get there to fix them something to eat.

But worrying about being in jail, or the wash still hung on the line, or even fixing dinner wasn’t my main worry now.  It had been a long day already.  A day filled with new things that boggled my mind and that I couldn’t begin to understand.  But now I was starting to need something, and I knew that I was going to need it very bad before long.

The door finally opened, and that man cop walked in.  He barely came into the room though.  He really just stood  in the doorway.  I stood up.  I was going to have to talk to him to tell him my problem, and it couldn’t wait.

“I hear they call you Freak…or Freaky,” he said.

That was my name.  I wondered who had told him.  But I had a bigger problem now.  “I’ve got a problem,” I told him quickly.

He seemed concerned.  “Oh?  What?”

“I need to pee.  It’s been a real long day, and I’ve got to go real bad.”

He seemed surprised.  “Sorry,” he said quickly as he moved out of the doorway.  “I should have thought of that.  You’ve got no bathroom in here.  You could’ve just knocked on the door though.  Come on,” he said.

I hurried out the door and turned.  “Where’s your pee hole?” I asked quickly as I turned to head toward where they had brought me into this weird building.

“Ladies’ room is this direction,” he said, pointing the other way.

I stopped, not understanding.  “Ladies’ room?”

“Right back there,” he said.  “Come on.”

“You mean, it’s inside?”

“Yeah.  Of course.  What, you’ve got an outhouse at home?”

“No.  Of course not.  We’ve got a nice bathroom in the house.”

“Oh.  Well, the ladies’ bathroom is right back here.”

“But it’s inside,” I asked again, not believing it.  “You dug a hole right through the floor?”

He seemed surprised.  “What are you talking about?”

I was really having to pee now.  “Look,” I said.  “I’ve got to get outside where I can pee.  Which direction is your girl’s pee hole?”

He really seemed confused.  “We ain’t got no hole outside anywhere, for anything.  The ladies’ bathroom is right here.  If you’ve got to pee, use it.”

Now I was confused.  “It’s…okay?  You won’t…punish me?”

“Of course not.  That’s what it’s for.”  He cocked his head in the other direction.  “Come on.  I’ll show you where it is.”

I followed, but hesitantly.  A bathroom.  Inside.  That girls could use?  It just didn’t sound right.

He pushed on a door and it opened.  “Right here,” he said.

I wasn’t sure about anything, but I walked inside.  The door closed behind me all by itself, and he stayed out there.  I took a step in and looked around.  It was…a bathroom.  Sort of.  It had three sinks all next to each other along one of the walls.  Across from him were all these…places.  I saw toilets in each of them.  I needed to pee like crazy though, so punished or not, I pulled my dress up, stood over top of one of them, and let loose.  Ah!  Relief!

I dropped my skirt and walked away.  I stood there for a moment and stared at the toilet I had just peed in.  It was so shiny I couldn’t believe it.  In fact, as I looked around the room, everything in it was shiny.  How did they get it all that clean?  I scrubbed the bathroom in the house every single day, sometimes twice, and I couldn’t get it to look like that.

I remembered that the guys always seemed to get angry with each other when one of them used the bathroom and didn’t flush the toilet when they were done, so I went back to it and pushed down on the little silver lever, hoping that it would work.  The toilet seemed to explode with water inside, but it was over with really fast, and everything looked like it was okay.  I hoped I hadn’t broken anything.

I looked around one more time, then headed for the door.  I pushed on it, but it wouldn’t open.  Locked!  I pushed again, and the door scared me when it suddenly opened inwards towards me.  I moved out of the way and saw the cop pushing it open.  I guessed I was pushing it the wrong way.  Weird door.  Just like everything else in this place.

“Any problems?” the cop asked me as we walked back towards my jail cell.

“Problems?” I said, and shook my head.  “I just can’t believe it.  It isn’t right!”

“What’s not right?”

“Girls aren’t supposed to use the bathroom inside.  That’s what pee holes outside are for.”

I could tell he was looking at me funny, but he didn’t say anything more about it.  We got back to the room and I went inside, knowing that I was about to be locked up again.

“Freaky,” he said.

I turned to look at him, wondering again who had talked and told him who I was.

“Do you know Roxie?”

Know her?  I shrugged.  Shrugging wasn’t talking, was it?

“If I bring her in here, will you talk to her?  Just you and her?”

I considered that.  I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone…period.  Not even the women that the guys brought home with them.  But Roxie wasn’t a cop, and I was so confused I didn’t know what to do.  I nodded my head.  Nodding wasn’t talking to cops either, was it?

“Sit tight,” he told me.  “I’ll have her brought up.”

The door closed and I was alone again.  I didn’t bother trying to open the door, I was sure it was locked.  Talk to Roxie?  Why?  But the truth was, I wanted to talk to her.  I wanted to talk to anyone who wasn’t a cop.  And more than that, I really wanted to talk to another woman.  I couldn’t remember ever talking to another girl, or woman, ever!  And I mean…ever!  And the funny thing was, I had no clue what I even would want to talk about.  But still.  I almost yearned to talk to someone else like me.

The door opened and Roxie came in.  I got a brief glimpse of the cop, but he didn’t come in.  He did close the door though.

“Hey Freaky,” Roxie said as she moved into the room.  She was holding her hands in front of her, and I noticed there was something metal holding her wrists together.  She sat down at the table across from me and set her hands on the table.

I stared at that metal contraption on her wrists.  “Is that what the guys call…handcuffs?”

“Yeah,” she replied.  “Of course.”

“How can you do anything with them on you like that?”

She seemed surprised by my question.  “I think that’s the point,” she said.  “I can’t.  I’m…stuck.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Mostly,” I guess, “so I can’t get away.”

“But you can still walk,” I noted.

“Yeah, but…”  She held her bound hands up a bit.  “I can’t do anything else.  Not easily anyway.”

“Can I…touch it?”

“Sure.  Go ahead.”

I reached out across the table with one finger and lightly touched it.  It was hard.  Steel.  What else should I have expected?  “It looks tight,” I noticed.

“Yeah.  It is.  It hurts a bit too.”

“It hurts?”

“Some.  Not too bad,” she told me.

I nodded, then looked up into her face.  “Roxie,” I said.  “I am so confused…about everything.  I’ve never been away from the farm before.  I’ve never been allowed to talk to anyone that comes to the house before.  And there are so many people who keep asking me things, especially the cops, but…tell Dave and Gary, I’m not talking!  I promise.  I’m not talking to any of them.  But…”  I shut up.  What was it that I was doing?  I was talking to someone, when I knew perfectly well that I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone at all.  Period!

“But what?” she asked.

Was it worth taking the chance to talk to another girl?  “Please don’t be mad,” I told her.  “And maybe, don’t tell Dave and Gary either, but…but…”

“But what?”

“But, I…I really just wanted to talk to another girl.”

She seemed shocked.  “Don’t you see other women once in a while?”

I shook my head.  “Never.  I’ve never talked to another girl in my life, just the guys.  When people come to the house, most of the time they make me hide.  It’s just a few that when they come they let me be seen.  As long as it’s not too much.”

“Geezus!” she muttered.

“Can I ask something?” I said.

“Of course.”

“Why do most of the women I’ve seen today wear pants?  Girls don’t wear pants.  Good girls only wear dresses and skirts.  If I even thought about wearing pants the guys would all kill me.  They’d really hurt me bad.”

“Freaky, what are you talking about?  It’s normal for women to wear pants.  I wear them all the time.  What kind of…uh, freaky fantasy have those guys been telling you?”

“Girls don’t wear pants!” I insisted.  Then added, “Besides, aren’t those pants…uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable?  Are you kidding?  No!  I’d much rather wear them than…dresses and skirts.  Geez!”

“But what about when you have to pee?  With a skirt, you can just stand over the pee hole and let go.  But with pants, what do you do?”

She shook her head.  “Freaky, you’ve lost me.  What are you talking about?  What’s a pee hole?”

“The hole outside for girls to pee, of course.”

“What the hell?” she exclaimed.  “I’d never do anything like that.  That’s just stupid!”

“But…”

“I know there’s a perfectly good bathroom in your house.  I’ve seen it.  Don’t you go in there?”

“Just to clean,” I told her.  “Girls are supposed to use the pee hole outside.”

“You don’t pee in the bathroom?” she said as if she didn’t believe it.

“Or poop,” I told her.  “That’s what the holes outside are for.”

She shook her head.  “Freaky, nobody does that.  Except I guess you.  Why don’t you use the bathroom like everyone else?”

Dumb question.  “Because I’m a girl.  Girls aren’t supposed to use bathrooms.  Just guys.  They’d kill me if I didn’t do it right.”

“And knowing them, they really would kill you.”

I nodded and leaned across the table.  “You really pee…in a bathroom?”

“Every time,” she told me.

“Wow,” I said, amazed.  “You are so brave.”

“Freaky,” she said.  “What the hell kind of crap have those guys been feeding you?”

“Crap?” I said.  “They don’t feed me crap.  I eat the same thing they do.  Usually.”

“Usually?  What’s usually?”

“Well, sometimes if they’re real hungry or if they have guests over for dinner and there’s not enough, then I don’t get to eat.  Or if they’re mad at me for some reason, then Bo likes to put dog food down in my bowl for me to eat instead.  I hate that!  Especially since he usually makes me eat it for a long time, and I’m not allowed to use my hands.”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she said.  “Freaky, nobody does that!”

“Bo does.”

“Bo is sick!”

“He’s not sick,” I said.  “He’s dead.  Besides, without him, I’d be dead too, and I should know.  He reminds me about it all the time.  Without him I’d have no place to live and no food at all.  I’d be dead.  And if I don’t be a good girl and behave like I should then he’ll have no problem killing me.  And a few times, I think he came close.  Real close.”

“He tried to kill you?”

“It seemed like it.  But I didn’t die.”

She shook her head.  She leaned forward across the table a bit.  “Freaky, you want my advice?”

“Sure,” I replied, then added.  “Yes…please?”

“Talk to the sheriff!  Tell him all of it.  Everything!”

“But I’m not supposed to talk to cops.  Isn’t he a cop?”

“Hell yes!  But this time Freaky, talk to him.  And any of his friends too.”

“Even that woman cop?”

“Hell yes!  Maybe, especially her.”

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “I’m not supposed to talk to anyone at all.  I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”

She leaned towards me again.  “Can I ask you something now?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.  I love your hair.  I have for a long time.  It’s so long.  Incredibly long.  Have you ever straightened it out to see exactly how long it is?”

“Straightened it?  How?  What for?”

“To make it neater.  To take care of it.  To make it look nice.  Having that much hair has to be a lot of work.  How do you shampoo it?”

“Shampoo?”

“What kind do you use on it?”

“Shampoo?  What’s shampoo?”

“Don’t joke,” she said.  “I’m serious.  How do you take care of it?”

I was confused.  “I usually try to grab it before I sit down so it doesn’t pull on my head.”

“But how about when you wash it?  How long does it take you to brush all that hair out?”

“Brush?”

She looked at me for a moment.  “Freaky, don’t tell me you never brush your own hair.  Especially not since you’ve got so much.”

“I have a brush for the laundry,” I told her.

“The laundry,” she said.  “Why would you need a brush for the laundry?"

“To get the clothes clean of course.  Don’t act so stupid.  How else would you do it?”

“Uh…a washing machine?  Ever hear of that?”

I didn’t understand.  “A machine…to wash clothes?”

She looked at me strangely again, then shook her head.  “Girl, something is seriously wrong with you!”

“I feel fine.  I’d feel better if I could just go home where I belong and get dinner ready before Dave and Gary kill me for being late.  And besides, I’ve still got wash on the line.  What if it rains tonight?  It’ll get wet, and I won’t be there to get myself clean.”

Her eyes seemed to grow twice their size.  “What does getting clean have to do with it raining?  Don’t tell me!” she said.  “Please don’t tell me that you shower in the rain.”

“Where else would I do it?”

She shook her head and got up.  “This is too much,” she said.  She hurried to the door, raised both her hands in front of her and pounded.  “Let me out!” she shouted.  “Let me out.  I can’t take anymore.”  The door quickly opened, and she turned back to me.  “Freaky.  Talk to someone.  Please!”  With that, she walked out.  I heard her say to the cop out there, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”