“You better be nice to me.”
“Or what?”
“Or else you’ll never find out.”
“Find out what?”
“My secret.”
“You haven’t got a secret,” Monty said.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“What could a freak know that would be worth knowing?”
“Be nice and you’ll find out.”
“This is as nice as I get. Tell me the secret. I’m gettin’ bored.”
“It’s not a secret you tell. It’s a secret thing.”
“A secret thing?”
The pleasure in her eyes was unmistakable. She had actually gotten my brother to express interest. “Yeah. I took it from my dad.”
“Let’s see it.”
“Are you gonna be nice?”
“Just get it.”
How could she refuse? I could not have. She turned stiffly on her braces and lurched toward her bedroom. From her room, we could hear drawers opening and closing. We heard the sounds of metal fasteners unsprung. “Hurry up already,” Monty yelled to her. After a while, she was back. She came through the door wearing a new pair of clingy cotton shorts. The braces were off her legs. There were white cross marks engraved in the flesh of her thighs where the metal braces had pressed against her pale skin. She walked with an alarming grace.
“See, my legs are normal. I’m not a cripple. I just have to wear the braces so my legs won’t grow in crooked. I have nice legs. See?”
Monty was having none of it. “Is that your secret? Big fuckin’ deal. You’ll always be a cripple to me.”
“I thought you were gonna be nice. And besides, that’s not the secret. This is the secret.” And she pulled her hand out from behind her back, and held out a nearly full bottle of gin. “I stole it from my dad. A little at a time in an empty bottle.”
“Oh, yeah?” Monty’s expression had changed from one of idle contempt to one of outright intrigue. His face clearly stated that this was truly a secret thing. And at that moment, how could Denise feel anything other than triumphant, just as I felt defeat. Something passed between them in that brief moment, and it sickened me.
“Let’s get drunk,” she said.
Monty arched his eyebrows in doubt. It was a mannerism he would use repeatedly as an adult in the courtroom to communicate his disdain silently and effectively. “You’ll get sick. You can’t drink liquor.”
“Sure I can,” Denise said, and turned the bottle up. She took a large gulp. A shudder ran through her body as the gin settled in her stomach. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and held the bottle out to Monty. I have no idea if he had ever drunk before or even wanted to, but he had no choice now. It was drink or look weak in the eyes of the outcast. He took a drink, tentative at first, but it quickly grew into a gulp. His swallow would be larger than hers had been, of that there would be no question should such issues be brought into discussion later. He winced at the bite of the alcohol but didn’t cough or choke. That would have been unthinkable, humiliating. He handed the bottle back to her, and she offered it to me. Monty waved her hand away.
“No. Not Adam. He’s too young.”
I protested, but only halfheartedly, partly because Monty had spoken and I could never break his resolve, but mostly because I wanted nothing to do with this. At the same time, I also hated the fact that they were sharing a secret without me. Now I was the weaker. The uninitiated. How proud she must feel, having insinuated herself between us, having gotten through to Monty, being allowed to bask in his glow, exist within his magnetic field.
Denise took another swallow and passed the bottle back to Monty. They drank in a solemn silence like cultists administering a lethal poison. At other times they would both erupt in gales of laughter without a word having been exchanged, as though a joke had passed between them by telepathy. They drank until there was only a few inches of liquid left in the bottle. When Monty reached again for the gin, she held it away from him.
“No, it’s not free anymore,” she said, and giggled.
“Whadda ya mean, not free?” Monty’s speech was slurred, and it scared me. The liquor had changed him. I believed that then, that it was the alcohol at fault. Later, I would believe that the liquor had not so much changed him as intensified him. Given us a glimpse of the Monty to come.
“I mean you have to pay for it,” Denise said.
“Pay for it? How much?”
“Not money.”
“What?”
“A dare.”
“Fine.”
“You have to touch my leg. To prove it’s normal.”
“You’re fuckin’ crazy. I’m not touchin’ your fucked-up leg.”
“Okay. I guess you don’t want a drink then.”
Monty thought it over. As he thought, his upper body weaved like a bowling pin about to topple over. Then a smile came to his lips. “Okay. I’ll touch your leg.”
They both grew quiet. Even drunk, they both knew this was a monumental thing. I did too. It seemed as though they had forgotten about my being in the room with them. But I knew Monty had not forgotten me, and even if he had, he had not forgotten himself. This was a trick. I knew it. It had to be. My brother, drunk or not, would never, never ever, give in so easily to such blatant manipulation. He had something planned. He would touch her leg and then fall to the floor in mock agony. He would hold on to his arm and say she had infected it with her disability. He would simply snatch the gin bottle from her hand and laugh at her with contempt.
Monty reached out and tentatively placed his fingertips on her shin. Roughly he cupped his hand around her smooth calf and fumbled his hand under her knee and continued his caress jerkily up the inside her thigh.
“You’re right. It’s normal.”
I waited for the trick, the insult, but I was disappointed. There was no joke. Worse still, Monty’s voice was different. It was thick, husky, and I knew that it was not from the alcohol. And that alarmed me even more. Where was the punch line to this awful, awful joke?
“I told you. It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. Now gimme.” Monty took the bottle and drank from it. When he finished, he held the bottle back out to Denise, and when she reached for it, he jerked it back.
“Hey!”
“It’s not free anymore.”
“Okay. What do you want?”
“I dare you. I dare you to take off your shirt and let me see your tits.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, I would.”
Denise needed no time to think it over. This was what she wanted, what she had planned all along, I believed. “Okay, I don’t care. I have a good body.” She pulled off her top, and then her bra without his asking. Monty reached out and grabbed one of her budding breasts. He held it with a rough awkwardness, kneading it with callous curiosity.
“You see. I have a good body. You wanna see more?” Denise asked.