Dad was eternally grateful that we had returned early, for if we hadn't, he would have missed an imperative phone call. It wasn't a rare occurrence when he was called out to London on business because he owned a law firm in that particular city. As a child, I had grown up being beamingly proud of my dad. London-born and raised, and now a successful and wealthy lawyer: the Western idea of the ultimate goal. What was a rare event was when my mother and brother departed with him on his trips. Of course, I was invited as well, but what normal teenager wants to spend five days with their family by choice? As a result, I was alone for a relatively large amount of time. Excited for the new liberty of the next day, I couldn't sleep well Saturday night.
Sunday held a dismal, dreary, bleak, English kind of morning. Church was neglected by everyone because they had to leave bright and early, and I wanted to sleep in for once this summer. When I rose, I found that I'd been left explicit instructions in the form of a letter not to leave the house and not to associate with George in any way, shape or manner. The last part wasn't said exactly like that, but from the way the note was phrased, it quite clear that he was off-limits. I should have known; it was in my mother's pen, so obviously she'd keep me away from him. It also said things along the lines of 'keep the house spotless,' 'there is food in the pantry enough for a week'... yadda yadda yadda... 'the numbers at which they could be reached in an emergency' and the last paragraph had clearly been added by my dad.
Forget what your mother says, you may have one friend over for a night or two as long as there are no traces of her left behind. I stress the fact that no males should be in my house while I'm away. If I ever find out that your boyfriend has been sleeping over, don't plan on having a social life until you're ninety. Think of this as your pre-college preparation. You'll need to handle the responsibility. Love, Dad
Now I was faced with the age-old quandary, should I follow parents' orders or comply with my own agenda? In the blink of an eye, I was dialing George's number. I knew that only the worst girls had boys come over, but I sure as hell wasn't going to pass up an opportunity like this. Unfortunately, George wasn't home. The good news was that he was at Paul's house. Back to the bad news: I didn't know Paul's number. No phone book either, but a resourceful and quick-witted girl like me doesn't get discouraged that easily. Anya was my only hope for a decent vacation from parental guidance.
"Hello?"
Success! "Hi, Anya, it's me Natalie. I know this is going to sound really, um, strange, but could you give me Paul's phone number?"
I could almost feel the weird look she was giving the mouthpiece.
"Uh, yeah, hang on," Anya replied slowly as if she was talking to a disturbingly English-fluent turtle. When she returned with the information I needed, I explained why I wanted her boyfriend's number and she loosened up, apparently happy that I wasn't hitting on her Paulie. The last phone call I had to make got through on the fourth ring. Mike McCartney answered.
"Hello?"
"Hi," I said in what must have been a feminine voice judging by the reaction it got from the one on the other line.
"Oh, you're a girl. I might as well hand the phone over to Paul."
"No! Hang on a second, is George Harrison there?"
"Um, yeah, but normally when girls call our house, they're calling for Paul."
"So I've heard," I said, getting a bit frustrated. "But this isn't a normal phone call..."
For maybe the millionth time, (okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but just a little) Mike cut me off. "Whoa! Are you, like, a spy or something? How else would you know that George was over here?"
I almost had a laugh at that; this guy was worse than my brother! Paul must have heard the racket Mike was making because I heard him come into the room and ask who it was. Mike said loudly, "It's a spy lady calling for George!" With my free hand, I smacked my forehead. Aye, this was going to be hard to explain. To make matters even worse, I heard George join the crowd gathered around the phone as well. He was probably pretty worried that there were 'spy ladies' calling him at Paul's house. Finally, a semi-sane person picked up.
"Hello?"
"Oh, God, Paul! This is Ella. I don't feel like explaining this whole mess, so could you please put George on?"
"Of course, m'dear."
The next voice I heard belonged to the person I had been trying to reach for the past ten minutes. After three phone calls and a large amount of chaos, I was on the line with George.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY BLOODY IDEA HOW LONG IT HAS TAKEN ME TO GET ON THE PHONE WITH YOU?" I screamed hoarsely.
"I'm sorry, luv," he squeaked.
Explaining everything from the beginning took only a matter of seconds, a fraction of the time it took to go through it all. "So anyways, my parents are in London with my brother for about a week. Do you want to come over for a day or two?"
"Are you sure we won't get in trouble or anything?"
"Positive."
"Um, I don't know how well it would go over with my mum if I told her I was spending the night at my girlfriend's house. She would take that the wrong way."
"You're not a very good liar, are ya?"
"Never had much practice."
"George, I can't believe this, just tell her you're someplace else. She isn't going to check up on you, is she?"
"Well, um, probably not. Are you sure you're okay with this?"
"It's not like I'm asking you to go to bed with me. Just a boyfriend/girlfriend slumber party."
"Isn't that the same thing?" he asked with equal slyness.
"Are you coming or not?"
"I suppose so. I'll be over in a bit."
"Bye, George."
Out of all the times this boy had ever made me anxious, this had to be the closest to a mental breakdown. I was afraid that he had gotten himself into some deep trouble with his parents because at two o'clock, he still hadn't shown up. When the phone shocked me up out of my nail-biting frenzy, I literally dashed to the kitchen shattering some Olympic speed records in the process. Yanking the whole thing off the counter, I answered, voice cracking and unnaturally high. John laughed on the other end.
"Ella, George just left my house. He's on his way over. He told me to ring you so you wouldn't worry."
"It's a bit late for that," I mumbled. "Why was he over there?"
"Picking up the shit he left at my house a fortnight ago."
"Right, um, ta, John."
"Oh, 'ang on, what is he spending the night with you for, Ella? Coming over to have a shag, is he?"
"He's coming to keep me company for a few days and nothing more, and if he tries anything else, I swear, he won't eat solid food for a month."
"First off, why would he do a thing like that? Me, maybe, but not widdle baby Georgie."
I found it very hard to believe that George hadn't wanted to lay me before. A while after my conversation with John ended, I saw my guest come up the driveway with guitar case in one hand and bag in the other. Too impatient to wait for him to at least get to the door, I walked outside to meet him. Not wanting to make him put down any of his things, I restrained the urge to fling my arms around him.
"Ella!?" he cried out in what seemed most like shock.
"What?" Uh oh, something was wrong.
"You look... different. Not bad, it's fab and all, but I... I didn't, I mean, um, I've never seen a girl dress like that," he stammered, throwing the bag over one shoulder.
I hadn't really meant to look like this in the presence of anyone. I had in my possession this one pair of pink shorts... and I stress short, which my mother hadn't made me dispose of when I grew too tall for them. In other words, they showed much more leg than was decent by any standards, maybe even my own. The skin-clinging white shirt flashed most of my midriff when I did so much as raise an arm. His eyes surreptitiously followed every front and back curve of my body. Oh, Christ, I hadn't planned to look like this, and now I didn't even want to know what George was thinking of me now. He'd already seen it, and what was done was done.
I did my cute little nervous hair-twirling thing with the fingers of my left hand and bit my lip, looking ashamed and embarrassed at letting such a thing happen. "Sorry, I didn't think to change before now. I hope it doesn't bother you too terribly."
Bother me? Bloody hell, girl, I wish you'd dress like this all the time, he thought to himself.
"Of course it doesn't bother me!" He paused. "I don't mean to be rude, but can I set my things down?"
"Go for it," I said, going inside. With a sigh, his case and bag hit the floor with a thump.
"There, so, how have you been?" he said, coming up from behind me and twining his arms around my waist. When he did that, part of his hand touched the bare skin on my stomach. Mentally, I shivered and seized up.
"Scared stiff, until John called me. I thought your parents had found out or something."
"I'm here, aren't I?" he asked, changing my position to him. I was coming closer and closer to being pinned to the wall. Once I was rather trapped with my wrists in his hands and back against the solid plaster, his lips pressed upon mine quickly, and I gave into it for a moment. He had just hardly walked in the door, and already he was kissing me. This seemed just a tiny bit forward, don't you think? Trying to retain some sense of self-respect, I pulled away.
"George, not now, please." But I was cut off again with an even more persuasive kiss. Before I had the chance to push him away, his tongue slipped out and he kissed my cheek. Probably the strangest behavior he'd ever displayed. Almost as if he sensed I didn't like this one bit. Okay, maybe it didn't take ESP to see that, but normally he would continue in an effort to get me to follow through.
"I'm finished. No point in it if you're not gonna kiss back. I would'a thought you'd be more excited to see me."
"I am! It's just... I wasn't exactly expecting that already."
"Well, you'd best be expecting it later, then."
"You're impossible!"
"Get on! Am I really?"
"No, not most of the time. I wouldn't be your girlfriend if you were."
The first thing I asked was whether or not he wanted to sleep in my room. To make sure he didn't get any funny ideas, I established that I would sleep on the floor if we did that. Since George didn't like that plan, the other option was to kip out in the den. Despite its lack of inhabitance for the time being, it was still cluttered and in a state of disarray. The latch hook rug that I talked about earlier was set on the coffee table with all my yarn and Dad's newspaper. Hanging perfectly straight on the wall above the fireplace was a drawing that Alex and I had co-produced when he was three and I was eleven. Even then, my forte was painting and sketching. In the foreground was a picture of our family that had been scribbled in a typical three-year-old way. The background was a depiction of Heaven complete with the clouds, rays of light and misty rainbow. I bet you can tell which part I contributed. It was my last resort of a Christmas present for my parents. They were so thrilled by our simple picture that they took it upon themselves to frame it. Probably the most interesting thing in the room was the television. We'd only bought it a year ago, but our older set worked better. This one didn't have black and white; it had green and light green. The colors were so ridiculously off, it wasn't worth turning on.
---***---
For (what I would hardly call) supper that night, we ate whatever we could find that didn't require so much as a brain to prepare. Fine delicacies from every major food group: like the Breakfast Cereal Division, (corn flakes) the "God Knows How Old That Is" Group, (what looked like vanilla ice cream, at least I think) and the Stuff That Children Never Touch Because It is So Healthy (a can of cold green beans.) Yuck! I wasn't serious when I dared him to eat it, I swear! With all the fatal things that we ate that night, I prayed that we wouldn't die from congestive heart failure in our sleep.
The fact that we had so much carte blanche started to go to my head. Reality was that we were alone with absolutely nobody around to stop us from doing what we wanted. Our sleeping arrangements didn't work as well as I had planned them. At nine o'clock, we both cuddled together on the sofa under a blanket watching whatever was on in living color. (Well, more like in living greens.) I'm not sure that we were exactly watching it either; the volume was that of a drinking fountain, so it became inaudible noise while George planted cute little kisses all over my neck, ears and collar making me giggle. After a half hour of our rather teenage display of affection, the sedating effects of junk food began to take their toll. I kept awake enough to reposition myself so I would be facing the cushions with my feet at the back of George's neck. He'd be sleeping facing the opposite direction. Maybe it wasn't comfortable, but I refused to stay pressed under his body like I was.
"You'd better pray that I don't kick you during the night," I warned, settling into the warmth of the couch.
"Oh don't worry, if you do, I'll just kick back," he yawned, pulling the fleece over his shoulders. "G'night, Ella."
"Night, George."
By midnight, I had successfully hogged all of the blanket. Not that it mattered, it was too hot in the room anyways. Fidgety little bugger that he was, George kept waking me. At one point in time, he seemed to find a comfortable position for him that simply wasn't going to work for me. One of his legs wormed its way between mine and stayed there. I'm not sure if that was a conscious gesture or if he didn't realize how uneasy I was about it. For the next fifteen minutes, I lay unstirring, attempting to figure out a way to fix this. Before I could act though, George must have become aware of the situation and pulled his leg away and whispered an apology. So it had only been an innocent and oblivious action. Oh well, I knew that in truth, I had wanted him to be flirting, which was all the result of being a naïve little girl with newfound desires for the boy I loved.
The waxing crescent moon spilt platinum dappled beams through the windows and onto our finally peaceful resting figures. Fortunately, I wasn't as much of a violent sleeper as usual so all of George's vertebrae remained connected. In fact, we slept so soundly that Calie was able to lay on top of us. Wait a minute! Calie?!?
"George, wake up! There is a cat sleeping with us!" I exclaimed.
He gave a sleepy moan and stirred a little. In a heavily accented and low voice he said, "And yer problem is? It's just a bloody animal."
"I don't own a cat!"
Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, George finally sat up. He still had the thick Scouse in his drawl. "Oh, I see. And, um, 'ow do ya think 'e got in 'ere?"
"I'm not sure, oh, and nice hair," I giggled, leaning forward to finger a bit of it.
"Don't make fun of me mop when you've got just as much of a mess on ya."
"What are we supposed to do with Calie? She's my neighbor's cat. How she got in here is beyond me."
"Just put her back out where she belongs."
"That's not the problem! She couldn't have very well appeared in the room. She must have gotten in somewhere."
"Ella, doll, I think you're overreacting. All we have to do is find where she got in."
Which is what we did. Bedhead, wrinkled clothes and all, we searched every window and door with the hope of finding a way out. Calie was just as restless as George was at night, so it was a struggle carrying her. Without a single clue as to how she'd made her cunning and furtive entrance, I put an end to our hunt.
"But we haven't checked upstairs," George pointed out.
"The only room with a window she could have gotten in is mine, and it's always closed."
"Could we at least look so you'll drop this?"
Almost one-hundred percent sure that it wasn't possible, I lead the way up anyways. Oddly enough, the window was open just enough for... a cat to slip through. The curtains were rustling slightly from the breeze and the sunshine filtered in.
"Aha! I told you! Problem solved," George stated defiantly.
Shifting Calie's weight to the other arm, I padded to the window and found that there was an enormous flying cricket thing sitting there looking like one hostile move from me would cause the Wrath of the Giant Bug from Planet X. Upon seeing it, I did what any red-blooded teenage girl would do: scream. I jumped back and yelped causing Calie to make a mad dash for it and claw my arm in the process. George scooped her up before she had the chance to dart out the door despite her protests in the form of hisses and yowls.
"George! There is a huge bug on the windowsill!"
"So I gathered. Squish it," he said, still struggling with Calie, his hand already severely bitten.
"You don't tell a girl to squish a bug! Give me the cat and you do it!" I ordered, extending my arms for the demon-possessed cat. I closed the door and then dropped Calie; now there was no way out for her, so she scurried under the bed. George had done better than just smashing it; he threw it outside so we didn't have to deal with insect guts later.
"All that bloody trouble for a bug," he muttered faintly, nursing his wounded fingers.
"Aww, George, let me see that," I said, rubbing my own injury. After examining it, I cooed sympathetically.
"You poor dear, it's your right too, isn't it? That stupid git of a cat, messing up your playing hand."
Every one of his hard, calloused fingers had a small tooth scrape across it that was bleeding and probably stinging as well.
"Ella, luv, it's all right, just leave it alone," he said, drawing his hand back.
"Oh no, you don't! I am not going to let your hand get infected."
With that said, I took him by his other arm and dragged him to the bathroom.
"Natalie..." he groaned, "just leave me be..."
"You can wash your own hand, can't you?" I asked while opening the medicine cabinet for rubbing alcohol. I grabbed a cotton ball as well and dabbed at the 6 inch gash across my forearm, flinching at the bite of the cold liquid. Turning around, I saw that George still hadn't rinsed the excess blood from his fingers.
"You're not very cooperative, are you?" I inquired raising an eyebrow.
"Not when I don't wanna be. What do you expect?"
"C'mere you little rat..."
With ease, I snatched his wrist and pushed him down to sit on the rim of the bathtub. Plopping into his lap to keep him still, he let out a short cry as I did. Instead of using the faucet, I turned on the cold tap in the bath and stuck his hand under it.
"Ow! Ella!"
"That's what you get for not doing it yourself!"
Once I had his fingers and my arm properly mended, I rushed up to my bedroom and quickly evacuated Calie. She paused on the ledge, then jumped to the nearest tree branch and made her way to the ground. After watching her display of feline agility, I tightly closed and locked the window.
---***---
"Natalie!"
I gasped, sat up and turned on the lamp. It took me a while to adjust to the sudden change in lighting.
"You are driving me mad, girl! Could you be any more squirmy?" George exclaimed, practically panting. I was just as out of breath as he from being frightened out of my sleep like that.
"Never mind, don't answer that. Get over here."
Giving me enough room to lie down, George pulled me to his side. Perhaps it wasn't quite enough room, for now I couldn't move at all.
Bringing this to his attention, he replied, "That's that point."
*lightbulb*
"Hold on, I think that I've been tricked!"
"You're just now catching on, luv?" he asked, pushing the hair away from my neck with his unwounded hand. "It's my last night over here."
The sound of his voice sent a spark between my legs, but it was too early to do what he wanted. Not only too early as in it being four in the morning, but too early as in we'd only been together for little more than a month. Not sure how else to worm out of this situation, I pretended not to pick up on the hint that he'd dropped only a moment ago. Luckily, that was enough to make him cut it out. To compensate for his failed attempt, I stayed on his side and slept there for the remainder of the wee hours of dawn.
---***---
"You are toast, Natalie." The gleeful and triumphant face of my brother came into focus in front of me.
"Alex! What are you doing back?!?" I couldn't hear my voice, but I knew that I had spoken. No longer was I in the den. Now, I was seated on the floor of my parents room tied down by impossibly strong bindings.
"Mum and Dad know, Natalie. They know everything." He was pacing around me with a menacing whip in hand. With a flick of his wrist, it snapped with a threatening and strident crack. Two dark shrouded shapes emerged from the darkness, one with a knife and the other a length of rope. As the first figure unmasked itself, I saw that it was my mother. She was cackling low and malevolently. Strangely enough, the other obscure being seemed to be sobbing. When they lowered their hood, I realized that it was my father. Not that I hadn't expected it, though, but the cord in his hands was not for me, he had already used it to hang himself. There was a bloody, jagged ring around his neck from the noose but he wasn't dead yet. He's crying for me, I realized. He knows what Mum is going to do.
"Dad!" I cried out, reaching for him, but again my call caught in my throat and couldn't ecscape.
He only turned his ashen and ghastly face away from me, tears still streaming down his palid cheeks.
While Mum raised the gleaming knife to the heavens, I heard Alex singing in a far away and juvenile voice as he skipped around me with the snake-like whip trailing behind him.
Ring around the rosies.
The rusted knife is bloody.
Kill her, kill her.
My sister is dead.
In my dream, I actually could hear the piercing scream leave my lips. Stabbing, laughing, crying, singing, blood, my blood, it all became a whirl of twisted, delirious fairground colors and lights. Through all the unwanted warmth of crimson fluid and the drain of life, I could see a pure white light; the only thing in the room not soaked in blood or possessed by iniquity. It was what I first believed to be a seraphim. I felt myself stretching up for the chaste, white brightness; anything to get away from the black, wicked nightmare down here. The angel that took my blood drenched hand wasn't what I expected.
"George..." I whispered, as he brought a finger to my lips. My savior comforted and rocked me like a child until I floated into a painless stupor and passed on. Until that moment, I didn't think it possible for the sleeper to die in their dreams. If I had to go, it was certainly the best way.
This was one of those times when you can't seem to open your eyes to awaken. When I did, it was hard to assure myself that it was all in my imagination. Smiling to no one but me, I kissed George's forehead lightly enough so that he wouldn't rise.
"My angel..." I said almost silently. The words had new meaning now.
