Not Me: Post Time Skip, Part Twelve
“Dee, wake up,” Mark whispered into Mandy’s ear. She instantly woke up and sat up straight in her bed. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be in Connecticut at that stupid boarding school. How had he even gotten into her bedroom anyway?
“Mark?” Mandy asked, now completely confused and still a little bit disoriented.
“Of course it’s Mark,” he teased, “You’re not letting anyone else call you Dee, are you? That’d really hurt my feelings.” He looked at her for a moment then added, “I like what you’ve done with your hair.”
“My hair?” She was not sure what he meant by that, since she did not remember doing anything different with her hair, so she picked up a strand with her fingers and held it up to her eyes. Well, that was odd. The hair was blonde and straight.
“Uh, thanks,” she mumbled, starting to figure out that this was not reality. She would never actually do that. Ever. Not even for Mark, who she may have fallen in love with.
Mark pulled back the blankets, revealing Mandy’s naked body. Another sign that this was a dream. Mandy never slept naked. What if something happened to Samantha and she needed to leave her room? She would not want to waste time getting dressed. Or what if the house caught on fire or she was randomly kidnapped? All of those tragic events went over slightly better when the victim was clothed.
Mark let out a low whistle. “I really like what you’ve done with your body. How much weight did you lose?”
“Thirty pounds,” The answer came out of Mandy’s mouth without her really knowing it. This was definitely a dream. “I’m technically underweight now” she said proudly.
Mark grinned. “That’s so sexy, Dee,” he assured her. “And is that a tattoo?”
Mandy looked down to her ankle, where sure enough, there was a tattoo. She nodded. Mark’s grin grew wider. “Is that Latin? What does it mean?”
Mandy read the letters permanently inked into her skin. Carpe diem et noctem. Yes, that would be Latin. “Yeah,” she agreed, “Latin. It means seize the day and night. Better than just seizing the day. You don’t want to waste the night, right?”
“Oh, I definitely don’t want to waste the night,” Mark said with a smirk. He pulled off all of his clothes except for his boxers and climbed onto the bed next to Mandy “I want to take full advantage of the night.”
Mandy smiled at him. This was a pleasant dream, over all. She could look over her dying her hair and Mark saying that he liked her being an unhealthy weight.
“Mark…” she said, staring into his green eyes.
“Yeah, Dee?” he asked, staring right back into her brown ones.
Mandy swallowed, suddenly nervous. “Are you going to kiss me?”
“I’m gonna do more than kiss you, baby,” he said in a sexily gravelly voice before leaning closer to her and kissing her passionately. Mandy let out a pleased moan at the pleasant sensation of the pressure of his lips against hers. Within seconds, they both had their mouths open and their tongues exploring each other’s mouth. Mark managed to move his body closer to Mandy’s without separating their mouths. It was rather impressive, and yet another sign of the lack of reality in the situation. Finally, they broke apart, both breathing heavily.
“That was…” Mandy began, unable to fully express what she wanted to say.
“A fucking amazing kiss?” Mark asked, “Yes, Dee. I agree.” He paused, then added, “Did I ever tell you about that time I had sex with Mary?”
Mandy frowned. Why was he bringing this up now? Why was she letting him bring this up now, since this was her dream, after all?
“Um, no,” she answered. “Baby, let’s-“
But he interrupted her. “I haven’t? Oh my god, then I have to. She is so good. Seriously, she does this thing with her tongue when she’s giving me a blowjob.” He moaned, apparently just at the thought of Mary’s tongue on his penis. “She should teach you how, Dee. You’d be so much hotter if you could do that.”
She felt herself crying, something she liked to think that she would never let happen in reality. “Sure, Mark.” She said through tears, “I’ll have her teach me that.”
“You just need to be a little more slutty, Dee,” Mark said, gently brushing a piece of her hair out of her eyes. She noticed that it was brown and curly again and that she was suddenly clothed in her normal night wear. “That’s what the problem is. No need to cry over it. Just be more of a slut. It’ll be really hot and then we can have sex and I’ll love you back.”
Mandy frowned. “You’ll love me if I have sex with you?”
“No,” Mark corrected, “That’d be cruel. I’ll love you if you’re more of a slut. You don’t need to have sex with me to earn my love.”
“But, I do have to earn it?” Mandy was so confused. She knew that she was dreaming, and she knew that Mark would never say things like that to her, but she was still desperate to do whatever it took to make him love her.
“Well, yeah,” Mark said as if she was stupid, “I’m not going to just give you my love. You’re not nearly good enough for that, Dee. Do you need a reality check or something?”
“No.” Mandy shook her head several times, until it hurt her neck, “No, I understand. I’ll do it. Just tell me what to do to be more of a slut, and I’ll do it and you can love me like I love you.”
“Okay,” Mark agreed, “First, fix your hair. It’s terrible and I can’t stand to look at it. At least make it straight, I’d love for it to be blonde and not so frizzy and gross. You also need to lose weight. I can’t even see your ribcage, Dee, that’s disgusting. And definitely get a tattoo. Those are always really sexy. And just, act normal for once. Take some chances and break some rules, get your nose out of a book and into some trouble. That’s what I really want. Not this look at me, I’m Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity shit.”
Instead of screaming at him and insisting he leave for being such an insensitive, sexist dickhead to her, Mandy laughed. “You just made a Grease reference.”
“Yeah, you like those don’t you, Dee?”
She nodded and smiled at him.
“Okay, well, maybe this will make it easier for you to understand. I don’t want you to tell me to keep my filthy paws off your silky drawers. I want you to tell me that you want a cool rider.”
Mandy stared at him, completely understanding his point.
“Grease 2 was so bad that it was good,” she informed him seriously, “I’m surprised you’ve seen it, though.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a c-o-o-l r-i-d-e-r. A c-o-o-l r-i-d-e-r.” he switched to soft singing. “I’m a cool rider, yeah a co-oo-ool rider. Since I’m cool enough, I can burn you through and through. Ooh, ooh, ooh. If it takes forever, you’ll wa-ai-ait forever. No ordinary boy, no ordinary boy will do. You need a rider that’s cool…”
“Those are the wrong lyrics,” Mandy sighed, “At least get them right if you’re going to quote it.”
“Chill out, Dee. Just take a fucking happy pill and relax.”
Mandy raised an eyebrow. “A happy pill?”
Mark nodded. “Yeah. Something like Prozac would probably work. Or Valium. Hell, I could hook you up with some Vicodin if you want, but that’s not quite the same…”
“I really wish you’d stop offering me illegal or controlled substances,” Mandy sighed.
Mark opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. Instead, a loud beeping sound was coming from his throat.
“Mark?” Mandy asked, “What are you doing? Are you okay?”
But Mark did not answer and the beeping continued to grow louder and louder and even louder, and then Mark disappeared and there was a bright light coming from somewhere, but she was not sure where and….
“Jesus Christ, Amanda, turn off your fucking alarm clock before I come in there and throw you and the clock against the wall a few times!” Sheryl screamed form her bedroom. Mandy blinked awake and rolled over with her arm stretched out. She tapped the snooze button, but apparently did so a little bit too aggressively because the alarm clock fell off of the bedside table and crashed loudly on the floor. Not even a full second later, the alarm started going off again, and beeping echoed through the house.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” Sheryl shouted, even louder this time, her voice being far louder and more painful to the ears than the alarm clock’s innocent beeping. “I was serious about throwing you both against the wall, kid!”
Mandy groaned and stretched her arm so that she could pick up and turn off the alarm clock without actually leaving her bed. It was Sunday morning. She did not know why the alarm had even gone off, but she had no plans for leaving her bed until much later than four o’clock in the morning, thank you very much. Mandy frowned. It was four o’clock in the morning and her mom had just yelled at her for her alarm clock being too loud. What was her mom even doing home this early? Usually, Sheryl did not get home until eight or nine in the morning, depending on how busy work had been that night and morning. Was she sick? Mandy may not have liked her mother a majority of the time, but she definitely loved Sheryl.
She pouted a little bit, but ultimately decided to do the right thing. Mandy threw back the covers and slowly crawled out of bed. Then, she walked down the hallway, cursing the cold air that should have been at least party warmed up by now because it was March, as she made her way to her mother’s bedroom. When she reached the door, she did not even bother knocking. She was concerned and would use that as her excuse if she got into trouble for forgetting to knock, but she doubted that she would.
Mandy quietly entered the bedroom and walked over to the bed, where her mom was lying on top of the blankets, wearing just her bra and underwear.
“Mom?” Mandy whispered, “Are you feeling okay?”
“What does it look like, kiddo?” Sheryl responded in a scratchy voice. “I’m in hell right now. I’m on fire.”
“Do you believe that to be literally true or are you trying to wittily use hyperbole?” Mandy asked, trying to lighten the situation a little bit. Her mother generally appreciated nerd jokes when she was not drunk. Sheryl was a very intelligent woman, without alcohol dulling her brain.
She laughed, and Mandy felt a tiny bit better. “I’m using hyperbole, Mandy.” she said, weakly patting the empty space on the bed next to her. “I’m not delusional yet. I wish I was. That would be a hell of a lot nicer than this torture.”
“Mom…” Mandy climbed up onto the bed and laid down next to her mother. It felt like when she was three years old and they would just sit in bed together for hours and talk or read or watch some TV. They used to be extremely close, before everything had happened. Before her father had left and her mom had become an alcoholic and she had had to become an adult at age four to raise her little sister.
“I don’t think I’ll be feeling well enough to work tonight,” Sheryl said, closing her eyes.
Mandy leaned over and felt her forehead, but quickly pulled back her hand because of the amount of heat pouring off of it. “Yeah, I don’t think so either,” she agreed, “You’re burning up, mom. You might have to go to the doctor or the emergency room if your temperature doesn’t go down soon.”
“Ha. I’d rather die,” Sheryl argued.
Mandy sighed. “I really don’t want that to be a possibility.” She felt unusually close to and compassionate for her mom this morning, and it scared her a little bit. Was this some weird premonition of some kind? Was she feeling this way because her mom was seriously sick and going to die soon? Mandy quickly shook her thoughts out of her mind with a literal shake of her head. “Please go to the doctor if you don’t feel better in a few hours.”
“We can’t afford that,” Sheryl said, “And all they’ll do is tell me it’s a virus. I know it. Send me home with instructions to drink fluids, like I usually drink solids or something, and get rest. I can do that on my own for free.”
Mandy smiled a tiny smile. “You know what? You’re funny when you’re not drunk. I miss it.” She regretted saying it the second it had left her mouth, but Sheryl did not seem to mind her daughter’s honesty. She just opened her eyes, looked at Mandy, and smiled back at her.
Then, “Do you think you could work a few hours for me?”
Mandy blinked. “Is that even legal?”
“It’s not legal for me to do my job, baby, but it’s a job. And I’m not going to be able to pay rent if I don’t earn money and I won’t earn the money if I don’t work, but I don’t think I can even sit up right now, let alone…” she left the sentence unfinished.
Mandy felt herself beginning to panic. No, no, no, this was not happening. She swallowed. “But…”
“I’m not going to make you do the stripping or force you to have sex with anyone, Mandy. I’d never make my girl do that kind of stuff. Just the massaging. And not all night, either. I only need you to work four hours. So, you’ll rub lotion into fat guys’ backs for a few hours and you don’t even need to talk to them at all. And then I’ll be able to pay rent and we can keep living here.”
Mandy felt torn. She wanted to say know. She should not have to do this. No one should have to do this, especially not a sixteen year old girl who had school the next day. But the idea of not getting rent paid on time terrified her. Samantha needed a relatively safe and comfortable house to come home to every day and Mandy did not want to be the one to put that at risk. So, she bit her lip and nodded. She could work just a few hours to help her family. It was not going to kill her. Seriously damage her psychologically, maybe, but not kill her. Unless one of the men turned out to be a murderous psychopath who had a thing for young virgins… But that was unlikely. Or, she hoped it was at least.
“I’ll go” she squeaked out, “What time do I need to be there?”
Sheryl smiled. “Eight o’clock tonight. Thank you so much, baby girl.”
“Yeah,” Mandy nodded. “Not a problem.” Lie. “Can I get you anything to help you feel better?”
“Tea would be nice.”
Mandy was both surprised and pleased by the fact that her mom had requested tea and not wine. So she quickly made and delivered the tea with a smile on her face. Mandy spent the rest of the day with her fingers crossed, hoping that her mother would magically feel better so that she would not have to actually go through with her offer. She felt terrible for hoping that, but she really had no desire to go and massage men’s backs. And despite her mom’s promise, she was still a little bit nervous about being forced to do more than she was comfortable with. Her mom would not be there to defend her and stick up for her and everything when she was actually there and she did not know any of her mom’s friends from work.