Chapter 7: Nothing Is Ever Easy

Amanda’s diary:

Dear diary,

Mum and Dad sat with me for breakfast. They usually were so busy they didn’t have the time, and they couldn’t stay for long. For that matter, I had to catch the bus, too. Still, we managed to exchange a few words and they said they wanted to have a serious talk with me in the evening.

“Nothing bad”, said Dad. “Your mother reminded me you really are growing up, and it’s time we revise the way we do things. Also, she told me yesterday night that you’re in love with Fiona. Is that right?”

“Well, I’m not sure I’m in love ... I just ... I like her a lot, but I don’t know how serious it is yet. After all I don’t have much experience”, I said.

“I see”, he replied. “Well, I just want to reassure you that it’s perfectly fine with us. I want to tell you to be careful, but really, what I should tell you is to have fun, ok? I hope we never gave you the impression we would object.”

“Ok, Dad. thanks for that!” I said.

Talking about this seemed to be as awkward for them as it was for me. I tried to work out why, and suddenly I got a bit of insight; maybe Fiona was rubbing off on me. They hadn’t even thought about it, because they saw me as a sexless child, and now it came to them I was actually a grown girl, or a young woman.

Before I had to run for the bus, they gave me a hug. They weren’t very demonstrative, so that came as a bit of a surprise to me, but a pleasant one. We weren’t formal, or stiff, just shy people, the lot of us, so it was hard for someone to initiate contact. It looked like my parents had been talking about me and felt the extra effort was worth it.

I got on the bus and couldn’t help daydreaming about Fiona. It was easy to decide, in the heat of the moment, while I touched myself in private, that I wanted to be hers. It was a lot harder to accept the consequences, though. What would it mean? Would she treat me that way in public, too? I knew I couldn’t bear the embarrassment. Yet here I was, sitting on the bus remembering her making me smell her dirty socks under a transparent pretext, or kneeling on the floor as I painted her toenails, carefully following her every command. I so much hoped she hadn’t noticed how excited I got. Then I thought of doing it in front of people. Just a few: perhaps just Kira. I had to restrain myself before I started moaning right then, and I felt a little shudder run through my body. I was a complete mess. How could I get off on being humiliated like that in the first place, much less in front of others? My cousins were right: I was absolutely worthless. It seemed I had found my place after all, and it was to be used and owned by someone else. I wanted to cry.

I took a few breaths and tried to calm myself down. Fiona had been forceful with me, but she hadn’t been nasty. Sure, she liked getting her way, but she didn’t seem to see me as worthless. If she did, she wouldn’t have bothered helping me so much. Maybe she thought I was beneath her in some ways, but then maybe I was. She still cared about me. I just had to remember that: she liked me. As I recalled her cuddling me, humming that lullaby to me, cooking with me, or giving me the laptop, I found it easier to believe it, and felt better about myself. If Fiona liked me I couldn’t be totally useless. I found it hard to make sense of my feelings and her treatment, but I knew I trusted her. She knew a lot more about all this stuff, so if I managed to asked her about it she might help me understand.

The bus arrived at school, and I sighed, got out, and did my best to stop fantasizing like a ninny. It was full of boys and girls milling around with their backpacks, and I kept an eye out for Fiona.

I saw her walk, upright and confident, parting the crowd as if they didn’t exist, walking straight towards the entrance. I smiled at her, so happy to see her again, like a puppy about to meet its master, and then noticed she was ignoring me, about to pass me by as if I weren’t there. What had I done wrong? Why didn’t she greet me? Was she embarrassed to talk to me in public?

I felt a void inside me and realised I was just as low as dirt. Of course Fiona wouldn’t acknowledge me. She had let me sit that day at her table out of charity, but it was too much to expect that she would treat me like a real friend. Then, as she was just about to pass me, she stopped, looked at me, and smiled. I was so conflicted. She was talking to me again, and it seemed I had done nothing wrong, so I was relieved and happy. I also felt she had been toying with me, though. She looked so alert, in spite of what she said, that she must have seen me and chosen to ignore me until the very last moment.

Fiona was so confusing, bringing me to the edge of tears and laughter all at once. I felt brittle, and didn’t dare raise any objections. I had agreed in my heart that I was hers, and perhaps this was a part of it. I smiled and followed her meekly, fearing the more I submitted to treatment like this now, the harder it would be to object to it later.

I spent my classes doodling and daydreaming about her like a naive, silly schoolgirl, which I suppose I was. The few times teachers called my name I had to scramble in my memory to work out what they had been talking about while I kept imagining us in ever more embarrassing scenes: cooking an elaborate meal for her, waiting for her to come home, removing her shoes and feeling her press her dirty socked feet on my face as she giggled and playfully demanded a foot rub while she ate, promising me that if I were a good girl she’d let me eat her leftovers ... I was even told off by Miss Swanson for humming, without realising, the lullaby she sang for me while I sat on her lap, and while she held me in bed. I had to stop thinking about her before it drove me crazy.

She’d told me to look for her during the break, and I did. She was with Kira, and another girl whom I’d seen at her table but whose name I couldn’t remember. I joined them and said hi, and she just went on talking with her friends. I felt somehow sorry for interrupting and bothering them with my presence, but a while later she smiled at me and introduced me, lifting my spirits a little. The other girl was Megan.

Kira I already knew, and while she didn’t seem that interested in getting to know me, she was warmer than Megan, who acted like I didn’t exist. When she said something about me, she addressed the other two, like I wasn’t a part of the conversation. I looked at Fiona, silently begging her to intervene on my behalf, but she completely ignored me.

As if things weren’t bad enough, I noticed Eve walking towards us. I didn’t know what to do. What she had done to me had made me so upset, I wanted to either run away or slap her face. I looked at Fiona, hoping she would tell me what she wanted, and knowing she would at least protect me, but she just treated Eve like nothing had happened. I guessed she expected me to do the same, and I managed to talk to her like to any other stranger, but I hated it. Fiona had punished her for what she had done, but I didn’t feel we were at peace. Fortunately she didn’t stay long, and Fiona let me hold her hand. It made me feel warmer and safer.

As she left, another girl approached us. I was surprised when she came directly for me, and Fiona intercepted her. It turned out she was her ex, and seemed to be obsessed about telling me how bad she was. She walked away with me and told me all about it.

“Look, I know how it is”, she said. “I was like you, too.”

“Like me how?” I asked.

“You know what I mean: nerdy, shy, quiet.” She cleared her throat. “Submissive.”

“Uh, I’m not sure I--”

“Of course you are. Even that response proves it”, she said.

“Ok, maybe I am a little quiet, but so what?”

“So Fiona takes advantage of that. You probably are insecure, too, I bet. I’m not accusing you. I was like that. When someone like Fiona approaches you, she makes you feel special, you know?”

Goodness, did I ever.

“So far I don’t see how that’s a problem. So she makes me feel special. Don’t I ... You know, maybe I could get something nice now and then, too?” I asked.

Sylvia sighed and looked at me, looking for words.

“The thing is, it comes at a cost. If you think you’re going to be her girlfriend and you’ll compromise about things, it’s not how it goes with her. She wants everything her own way. Every last little detail. And there’s worse”, she said.

“Still doesn’t sound terrible. If we’re being that open with each other, I don’t have a lot of experience. In fact this is the first time that ... you know ... someone gets interested in me. It only makes sense that she takes the lead. I wouldn’t know what to do with us, myself.”

“Wow, that innocent?” she asked. “Think about this, though, what happens when Fiona doesn’t get her way?”

“You tell me”, I said.

“I bet it’s happened at least once”, she said. Her voice trembled and she look down. “She punishes you. Doesn’t she?”

I blushed and stayed quiet, not wanting to admit it.

“Yeah, she does. That’s what it always comes down to, in the end. Do what she tells you, or she will make you regret it”, she said.

“That’s ... Maybe she does that--”

“No maybes about it.”

“I think she’s kinder than you make her sound, though. She stood up for me, and, well, perhaps she’s a little strict, but it somehow works out for the best in the end”, I said.

“God, you’re impossible”, she said. “Fiona’s not worth it. She’ll take over your life. First she starts by being all sweet and kind, and next thing you know you can’t live without her and you’re following her every little whim. It only gets worse from here on. Did she make you feel like shit yet? Like you didn’t deserve to breathe the same air? Did she make you do something you didn’t want to? Well, multiply it times ten and that’s how you’ll end up.”

“She told me she will stop if I make it clear I don’t want something. Didn’t she do that for you? Why didn’t you stop it?” I asked.

“Well, the thing is ... In the heat of the moment it is so hard to say no. A part of you ... I mean, I can’t deny that I liked some of the things she did, ok? But that still doesn’t mean I wanted her to just ... She said it was all or nothing.”

“Honestly, you really think she’s that bad?”

“Ok, want specifics?” she asked. “She slapped me, a lot. At first it was just when I did something she didn’t like, or when I disobeyed her, but it got worse and worse. She started doing it when I couldn’t work out what she wanted fast enough, like I was supposed to read her mind, or something. In the end it felt like she was just doing it to amuse herself. She’d get bored and start slapping me. At that point she drove me to tears every time we met. It was awful.”

“Didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

“I ... kind of did, but she just said I was being a big baby, and ... other names.” She blushed. “She also did other things. Somehow she knew what buttons to push to get me completely flustered and ashamed, and, well ... When I complained, she just said that it made me wet ... Uh, I ... Maybe it did a little? But that doesn’t mean I wanted it, you know what I mean?”

I knew what she meant. I knew it so well. My cousins had been absolutely horrible to me for years, and when they toyed with me a part of me still got excited. What didn’t seem to fit, though, was how she behaved around Fiona. They couldn’t pay me enough money to get close to my cousins, if I got any choice about it, but Sylvia seemed to be constantly on the lookout for her.

“I don’t know, Sylvia”, I said. “It sounds to me like you’re not entirely over her.”

“That’s ... fair”, she said. “It was a very intense relationship and, well, Fiona’s really something. You don’t forget her easily, you know.”

“So you’re warning me off her, but tell me the truth”, I said. “Do you regret having been with her altogether?”

She stuttered, but she couldn’t give me an answer. That, itself, was answer enough.

I tried to talk about other things, but Sylvia was all about Fiona. How bad, manipulative, bossy, domineering, demanding, condescending she was. Every little detail she added gave me a little jolt of curiosity and longing. Would she do that to me too? If Sylvia hoped to discourage me, she had used the wrong approach.

We rejoined the trio, and Fiona started teasing Sylvia. She called her silly Syl, and she made Sylvia use it herself. I found it a little upsetting, because of how much it reminded me of my cousins. I always had to call myself Mandy in front of them, sometimes even Little Mandy, using the third person. I hated it so much. It had poisoned the word for me. The first few times Fiona used it, it was really awful, but later on, it started feeling a little different. Still demeaning, but without the hateful venom my cousins brought to it. It felt ... sort of good, in a strange way.

I hadn’t imagined Fiona doing something like that though, and finding out she was happy to bully Sylvia that way worried me. I still didn’t think she was a bad person, but the people she hang out with and the situations she ended up in pushed her into being unkind. I didn’t like that side of her, and I thought if she had the chance to reflect on it, she wouldn’t, either. Perhaps I could bring it up in private, very, very carefully. I certainly didn’t want to displease or annoy her. I was surprised to hear Fiona invite me and Sylvia both on Wednesday, but I would hopefully have time to talk to her about this before then.

It was so strange. Fiona was just a girl. What gave her the power to get everyone to bend to her will? Sure, she was popular in school, but that didn’t work with adults, and she handled my parents like trained pets. She had such poise, standing there like the world turned around her, speaking as if her words were the limits of absolute truth. How did she do it? I wondered about it outloud, and Kira came up with a pretty interesting explanation, even if it was based on Game of Thrones. Fiona was not just acting: she simply thought of herself as the person in charge, of everything. Hearing Kira talk about it, she wasn’t all bad, either. Megan wasn’t quite so pleased to hear it, though.

When Fiona did her impression of Daenerys, it was amazing. I just wanted to fall into her eyes and kneel at her feet then and there. If it hadn’t been for her smile, who knows what I would have done, but it allowed me to snap out of it and realise how ridiculous it all was. Here we were, four schoolgirls in a yard, and one of us was acting like an empress. Worse, silly me, I was acting like her handmaiden, and liking it.

For the remainder of the day I managed to pay attention during class, though now and then my mind would wonder to Fiona again, and I started incorporating that imagery into my fantasies: me as the slave girl, and Fiona as a powerful empress. Perhaps I would be her body servant, drawing her baths, combing her hair, dressing and undressing her, placing her jewels and doing her makeup; or a confidant, raised from childhood as her whipping girl and devoted playmate. Goodness, I had to keep myself from weaving ever more elaborate scenarios, but at last the school day ended, and I went home.

Mum greeted me with a book in hand.

“This arrived today from the library. It must be for you”, she said.

I looked at it and I squeed. “The univalent foundations book! I’ve been waiting for that for months!”

I ran to my room and came back with a notebook and pen, sat down and opened it. Mum knew me well, and she took the book away.

“Remember we have to talk, Amanda. If you get on that now you’ll be impossible. Might even miss dinner”, she said, but she had a smile on her face.

“I guess you’re right, Mum”, I said, putting my things away. “Where’s Dad?”

Just then we heard the sound of the flat’s door unlocking, and turned our heads towards it.

“There he is”, she said as he came in with some bags.

“Am I late?” he asked.

“Amanda just got here and I rescued her from her book, so you’re on time”, said Mum.

“Oh, that thing?” he said. “No idea what that’s all about. I could never get into the pure stuff, just the things I needed for chemistry.”

It was good my parents had plenty of textbooks left from their studies, and access to university libraries. I had long since gone over the maths they taught us in school, and the library there didn’t go a lot further. My parents were strict and couldn’t afford a lot of things for me, but they had always gone out of their way to make knowledge available, and would allow me to use their library cards. Even then, some books took a long time to get, like that one.

We sat around the table, and looked at each other awkwardly for a bit, wondering who would start.

“Right”, said Dad. “We’ve been relying on you for ... far too much since we moved. It was just we really needed the time, and well, to be honest, you didn’t really seem to mind. It’s not like you had a ton of friends and wanted to be somewhere else, so ... Well, it just felt like the easy solution.”

“The easy solution, but not the right one”, said Mum. “Especially now you have better things to do than staying home doing chores in the weekends. So how we’re hoping this will work, is that we’ll count on you to keep your room in order, and help us a little with the rest, but we’re not going to have you stuck here for hours anymore. It’s just not fair on you.”

“Mum? But how will we manage to get everything done then?” I asked.

“We’ve been talking this over. We’ll take turns with overtime, so someone can be at home and take care of things”, she said. “If for whatever reason we can’t--”

“It should be possible most cases”, said Dad. “Still, if we can’t I just got some ready meals. Not what we’re used to, but your leisure is more important than getting home cooking every time, and whatever little expenses may come from that.”

“Wow, really?” I asked. “Thank you so much! I really didn’t expect something like this.”

“Now we want to talk about Fiona”, said Dad.

“Uh, what about her?” I asked, blushing.

Dad looked at Mum, making her sigh.

“Well, I don’t know how to say this, but, she seems very ... mature”, said Mum.

“What we mean is, she’s very pretty, very charismatic, and you look completely smitten by her. We just want to remind you that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want”, said Dad.

“Ok?” I said, slightly confused.

“We’re not telling you what to do”, said Mum. “Just, you don’t need to rush into things.”

Were they worried I was going to have sex?

“Uh, Mum, I’m not sure--”

“Damnit”, said Dad. “We’re worried that you’re, well, quiet and shy. Maybe a little naive, too. She’s one of the most confident people I met in my life. She could go too fast, or to places you don’t want to go, if you don’t stop her. For what it’s worth I think she cares a whole lot about you, but you need to speak up, yes? I know it’s hard.”

“But if you don’t tell her where to stop, or what you need, she could get carried away”, said Mum. “So make the effort, ok? Try to communicate. Yes, yes, we know we’re not the ones to talk.” She laughed.

“Ok, I’ll ... bear that in mind? Anything else?”

“Ah, yeah”, said Dad. “Your cousin Clara will arrive on Friday evening, so be here for that. She’s leaving on Sunday afternoon, is that right?”