The Last Jeskey - Chapter 7

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 7

 

Freaky

 

I was wondering if I should lay down on the floor and go to sleep when the door opened and that cop came in again.  I stood up.  Right behind him though was a woman.  A woman who wasn’t wearing those same weird clothes.  Not a cop!  Or was she?  I heard the guys say many times that you had to watch out for cop tricks.  And then that female cop walked in behind them.  Did that mean that the other woman wasn’t a cop for sure?  Cop tricks!  I had to be careful.

“Freak,” the man cop said.  “I’d like you to meet my wife, Natalie.”

Wife?  Bo had explained to me once what a wife was.  Bo had a wife once, but she died.  This new woman was staring at me like she thought I was a ghost or something.  I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone, but Roxie had said I should.  Still…this seemed important.  “Wife?” I asked.  “You belong…to him?”

My question seemed to snap her out of something.  “Belong to him?” she said.  “I guess in a way.  I’m just not sure it’s the same way you’re thinking.”

She slowly moved closer to me until she was standing right in front of me.  She seemed to look me over, then shake her head.  “My dear child, what have you been through?”

“I’ve been through a day of things I can’t figure out,” I told her.  “And I just want to go home!  I’ve got wash on the line that needs to get in before it rains and I’ve got to get dinner on the table.  And they’ll kill me if I don’t do it soon.  If you’re a wife, then you know how important that is.”

I saw her turn to look at the man cop, then back to me.  “Huh!” she breathed.  “Maybe better than you think.”

“So please?” I begged.  “Take me home.  I don’t understand anything around here.  I don’t want to be in this jail cell.”

She snorted a laugh.  “Honey, this isn’t a jail cell.  This is just another room in this damn place, and not a very nice one at that.  But compared to a jail cell, this room is a luxury hotel.”

A what?  “What’s lux…”

“Luxury,” she said.  “You know…nice, fancy…”  Was she reading my face?  “You don’t understand that at all, do you.”

“Not really,” I told her.  “Please.  They’ll kill me if I don’t get home and make dinner.”

“Honey,” she said.  “I’m taking you home personally!”

I started to breathe a sigh of relief when she added, “Just not to your home.”  She turned towards the man cop.  “Will, we’re taking her home with us, and she’s gonna get a decent bath, and a real good meal, and then we’re gonna do something with all that hair!  And we’re not getting pizza tonight, no matter how much you’d rather have it.”

Her home?  And why was she telling the man what she was going to do?  She was going to get in so much trouble!

“Natalie,” the woman cop said.  “If you want, I’ll be glad to help.”

“Thanks Amanda,” the woman said.  She looked me over again.  “Something tells me I’m going to need all the help I can get.  And girl,” she said to me.  “Don’t worry about your laundry, or the stomachs of those no-good men out where you live.  Tonight, it’s all about you!”

My stomach went into knots.  What did she mean?

I got taken out of that room and all the way out the door.  It was just starting to get dark outside.  I prayed it wasn’t going to rain tonight or all my wash was going to get wet.  The woman cop, Amanda I guess, said she was going home first to change, then she’d be over.  Over what?

I got put into the cop car with the man cop who Natalie had called Will, and Natalie got into another car.  I was shocked.  She was going to drive herself?  Driving was men’s business!  And this cop, Will, her husband, didn’t mind?  What was wrong with him?  And then we were going, and I was riding in a car again, where I had no business being.  And I wasn’t going home.  At least, not to my home.  Don’t kill me Dave and Gary.  Please don’t kill me.

“It didn’t take very long to get where we were going.  The cop, Will, stopped the car and I could see Natalie getting out of her car.  But get this, her car looked like it was inside the house!  Was that a tiny barn for the car?  It had to be!

The cop, I guess Will, opened the door for me and I got out and looked around.  Another strange building.  I had seen nothing but weird buildings all day, but the only building I wanted to see was my own house…where I belonged.  The cop led me up a few steps where he opened a door in front of the house.  I went inside with him and Natalie followed me.

“Welcome, um…Freak,” she told me.  “This is our home.”

I was looking all around.  Was my mouth stuck wide open?  “You’ve got to be rich!” I breathed.

“Hardly!  Trust me,” Natalie replied.  “Come on,” she said after she dropped a leather bag she was carrying on a little table by the door.

“Do you mind if we give you a bath first?” Natalie asked me.  “Besides, I haven’t had a chance to make dinner yet.  Will is just going to have to wait a bit to eat tonight.”

I didn’t answer.  I was too busy looking all around.  Yes, this was a house.  A home.  There was a living room, a kitchen, and I was betting there was a nice bedroom too.

“This way,” Natalie said as she led the way through the house toward the back.  I passed a bathroom along the way.  It was huge, and also fancy and shiny.  More so than that ladies’ room I had been in back where I had been with all the cops.

“We’ll use our bathroom,” Natalie said as she walked into a bedroom.

I followed her and stopped.  What a room!  The bed was…humongous!  That’s the only way I could describe it.  “How do you make a bed that big?” I asked.

“It’s not hard,” she replied.

I looked around.  “Why does he need a bed that big?”

“It’s more comfortable with two of us,” she told me as she headed for another door inside the room.

“Two of you?  In the bed?  You sleep there too?  All the time?  Not just for sex?”

She turned back to me.  Of course.  Where did you think?”

“But you’re a woman.  Girls sleep on the floor, unless they’re having sex,” I said as I stared in awe at the huge bed.

“They what?” Natalie exclaimed.  She looked at her husband.  “Don’t get any dumb ideas.”  I heard the cop laugh.  “Come on,” Natalie said to me, then she looked me over again.  “Maybe we better start with a shower, then we’ll move on to a bath.”  She looked me over again.  “Yeah, definitely both!  And as for your hair.”  She shook her head.  “I’m not sure what we’re going to do.”  She looked at her husband, the cop.  “Will, there’s chicken thawed in the fridge.  Can you get it started?  Maybe on the grill tonight.”

“Sure,” Will told her.  “Glad to.  Sounds good.”

I wasn’t sure what was going on here.  “Is he…going to cook?  But he’s a man.”

“Hell yes!” Natalie replied.  “Now come into the bathroom.  Let’s get you undressed and into the shower.”

“But it’s not raining,” I told her.  “How do you shower with no rain?”

“Rain?  Who needs rain?”  She grabbed my arm and pulled me into another room.  Another bathroom.  And it was a whole lot bigger than the bathroom the guys used at home.  And fancy wouldn’t begin to describe it.

Do you know they have a little room…inside the bathroom…where they can make it rain – hot water!  Inside the house!  I took my dress and my boots off, and she took them and threw them out of the bathroom.  Then she started getting undressed herself.

“Something tells me you’re going to need a little help,” she said.

While she was getting undressed, I saw her looking me over again.  Why?  I also saw her do another of those head shakes like she wasn’t happy about something.  How could you not be happy about everything if you had a room where it rained hot water inside your house, and you were allowed to use it?

When she was as naked as me, she reached her hand into the little rain room, and let the water hit her hand.  “Perfect,” she muttered.  I wasn’t sure what that meant.  She had told me it would be hot water, but how hot?  Could I get burned?

She was looking at me again.  “Honey,” she said.  “Maybe it would be a good idea if we cut some of that hair of yours.  Shorten it so it’s easier to take care of.  Would you like that?”

I immediately panicked and grabbed as much of my hair as I could, holding it as close as I could.  “No!” I wailed.  “Don’t cut it.  I need it!”

“For what?  It’s too much!”

“No!  It’s mine!  Mine!  I need my hair.”

She shook her head again.  “Okay, no haircuts.  We’ll just wash it…somehow.”  She pointed toward the rain room.  “Okay kid, in you go.”

I was a bit scared, but also curious.  I looked at her, but she was just waiting for me to go in there.  Slowly, I stepped in and the water started to hit me.  Aaahh!  The water wasn’t too hot at all, something I had been a bit worried about.  In fact, it felt…delicious.  She got in with me, but she stood in the corner where she wouldn’t get as wet as me.  “This feels…unbelievable,” I told her.  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt.”

“Yeah,” she said softly.  “I don’t doubt it.”  She grabbed something from a tray on the wall.  “Here,” she said.  “Put this to good use.  There’s a washrag hanging right behind you.”

I took the thing she gave me and looked at it.  “What is it?” I asked.

She stared me in the face for a moment before she replied.  “You don’t know what that is.  What the hell have those men out there been doing with you?”

“What do you mean?  They feed me and give me a place to live,” I told her.  “They’ve kept me alive, even though sometimes they come close to killing me.”

“I’m gonna kill them myself!” she said.  “Just as soon as I can!”

I couldn’t help myself.  I chuckled.

“Here,” she said as she took the thing from me.  She held it up in front of me.  “This is soap,” she said.  “You use it to get clean.”

I didn’t understand how it could do that, but I didn’t say anything.  She grabbed a piece of cloth that was hanging behind me and then she started rubbing that soap stuff all over the piece of cloth.  Then she did the weirdest thing of all.  She started rubbing it…hard…all over me.  She scrubbed my front, my back, my arms, my legs, my face, my feet, everything!  She even did my clit.  She was very careful about it though and said she was worried about hurting me.  She didn’t…too much.

“Nat?” A woman’s voice called into the bathroom.  “You okay in there?”

“I’ve got this Amanda,” Natalie yelled back.  “It’s gonna take a bit though.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Amanda called back.

“Check with Will,” Natalie told her.  “He should be out back with the grill.  See if he’s got time to help you find something for her to wear when she gets out.”

“Good idea,” Amanda answered.

Natalie went back to scrubbing my entire body again.  By the time she was done, my neck was beginning to get tired.  Whenever my hair got all wet, it got real heavy.  I had to pick it up and drape it over my arm so my neck wouldn’t hurt so much.  “Can we get out of here now?” I asked.  “My hair is killing me.”

She grabbed the hair where I had picked it up and lifted it.  “Oh my god!” she said.  “That is heavy.  I should have known.  No, don’t get out yet.  We’ve still got to wash all that hair.  And I hope I’ve got enough shampoo to do it.”

There was that word again.  The one that Roxie had used.  “What’s…shampoo?”

“Soap,” she said.  “For your hair.”  She looked around.  “But your hair is too heavy for you to keep standing there.  Wait!  Here,” she said.  “Try sitting on the floor over here.  See if that helps.”

She pointed toward a spot on the floor, and I sat down.  Most of my hair was now lying on the floor so it wasn’t nearly as heavy on my neck as it was.

“Do you think you can manage that way for a bit?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I told her.  “It’s still heavy, but not nearly as bad.”

“Good!”

Then I felt her doing something with all my hair right on top of my head.  She made me close my eyes tight and keep them that way.  “Otherwise,” she said, “this stuff will sting them like the dickens.”

I sat there and felt her massaging my head and doing stuff with my hair.  Pulling it and pushing it and doing all kinds of things.  Eventually I realized she was gradually moving further away from my head as she attacked the rest of my hair.  When she got far enough away, I chanced opening my eyes.  There were what looked like thick laundry suds all over my hair.  Laundry suds.  For hair!

And then she made me stand up and make sure my eyes were closed tight again, and she pulled me back under that real nice rainwater.  I felt her doing it all over again while she pulled and pushed every bit of my hair all over the place.  I realized she was rinsing all the laundry suds out of my hair.

“Okay,” Natalie said when I thought she was done.  “Cream rinse time.  And I’m sorry, but with all that hair, I’m afraid we’ve still got a long way to go.”

I sat back on the floor and let her start all over again.  I had no idea what she was putting in my hair, but it smelled nice.  I just hoped it wouldn’t take so long.  My head and my neck were starting to really ache.  Eventually, it was all over, and she turned that nice warm rainwater off.  I watched as she grabbed big lengths of my hair and started wringing it out.  And then we were done.  Finally!  Something told me I would be dreaming about that little rain room for the rest of my life.  And they would be happy, happy dreams.

“My neck and head are really tired and hurting,” I complained as I grabbed as much of my hair as I could and held it up.

She looked me over.  “Yeah, I guess they might be,” she said.  “You’ve just got way too much hair.  Why don’t you cut it?  It would be so much easier.”

“Bo doesn’t want it cut.  He wants it as long as possible.”

“Bo is dead honey,” she reminded me.

“But he wasn’t,” I told her.  “Until today.”

“Yeah.  True.  We’ll discuss cutting it later.”

I had to think about that.  My hair was precious to me.

The bathroom door opened, and I heard the man cop say, “Nat…how you doing?”

“We’re making progress,” Natalie told him.  “Is Amanda still out there?”

“I’m right here,” Amanda said.  “Can I come in?  I’ve got something she can wear…for both of you.”

“You can come in,” Natalie told her, but I think we’re going to have to do something with her hair first.  In fact…  Will, you still there?”

“Right here Nat,” I heard him call back.

Grab my cellphone from my purse.  Give it to Amanda to bring in with her.”

Natalie grabbed two towels that were hanging nearby and handed one of them to me.  It was amazingly thick and soft…and big!  I saw her using her towel to dry herself off, so I tried to do the same.  I couldn’t believe how fast it dried my body.  Not like the one I had at home.  This towel was thick.  Mine was thin and full of holes.

Amanda opened the door.  “Hello?” she called before she came in.

“Come on in,” Natalie told her.  Amanda had a robe in her hand that she handed to Natalie.

“Thanks,” Natalie told her as she slipped it on and tied a rope of some sort that went around her waist.  “I found this one too,” Amanda said as she took another robe from her arm.  “I thought it might be good while were trying to do something with all that hair.”

“Yeah,” Natalie agreed.  “Perfect.  Since it’s wet, that hair is too heavy for her to manage with.  I think we’re going to need to find her a chair before we get started.  You got my phone?”

“Right here,” Amanda told her.  I saw her reach into a pocket on her pants and pull one out.  Pockets!  What were they like?

While Amanda helped put the robe on me, having to work it under all my hair, I heard Natalie talking to someone on the phone.  “Lila?  It’s Nat.  The sheriff’s wife.  …  Yeah.  Sorry to call you, but I’m afraid we’ve got kind of an emergency here.  I need you to come to my house and bring your stuff.  All of it!  …  No, it’s not for me.  We’ve got…the strangest case you’ve ever seen here.  I just used an entire big bottle of shampoo on her hair and an entire bottle of cream rinse, and I’m not sure even that much was enough.  …  No, I’m not joking or even exaggerating.  This girl’s got the longest head of hair you’ve ever seen.  About six feet of it!  …  No, for real.  Six feet!  And it’s a tangled mess!  We’re about to start working with the blow dryer next.  …  Don’t?  Okay, if you say so.  …  Yeah, thanks.  See you soon.”

Amanda ended the call and put the phone down.  “That was my hairdresser.  She’s on her way.”

“Great idea!” Amanda said.

Hairdresser?  How did you dress hair?  Did they have clothes for hair?

“You got a blow dryer?” Amanda asked.  “I can get started with it.”

“Lila said don’t.  She’ll do it when she gets here.”

They took me out of the bathroom and let me sit in a real nice chair in the bedroom.  With my hair in my lap where I usually kept it, the weight of it wasn’t so bad.  It smelled nice too.  Not to mention, I was really enjoying wearing that nice robe.  It was so soft and comfortable.

“You should have shaved her legs,” Amanda noted as she looked me over again.

“I was going to give her a bath next.  I was planning on doing it then, but her neck can’t take much more of that weight.”

I watched while Natalie quickly got dressed.  She wore underwear, including a bra.  I hated that bra I had tried to wear once.  She pulled some pants up her legs then a real pretty top.  She slipped her feet into a pair of shoes, and she seemed to be done.  I looked around for my dress, but I didn’t see it.  “Can I get dressed now?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Natalie told me.  “We’ll wait till after Lila helps with your hair.”

“What’s she going to do to it?” I asked.

“Not nearly what I’d like her to,” she replied.  “But maybe someday.”

I heard a bell ring somewhere in the house.  “What was that?” I asked as I saw Natalie hurry out of the room.

“Doorbell,” Amanda told me.