Chasing Taboo

When Olivia woke up naked next to a nameless tattooed Asian guy on the cluttered floor of a Sequoia Grove bedroom—with a black eye—she began to question her ability to make sound decisions. After poking the bruised flesh above her left cheekbone and discovering the result of the damage she had taken during last night’s adventure, she decided to blame her upbringing. Groggy, but strangely enjoying the stinging hum of her hangover, she pushed her sore body onto her feet to get herself together. Eventually she would seek out her Gucci mini dress, but for now she’d be happy to find her panties.

Her sense of sight was catching up with her consciousness, but it was still pretty much hiding behind a post-drunken fog. She lifted the frayed blue skirt of the bed she apparently didn’t sleep in, trying to remember the name of the guy on the floor who had kicked her ass last night. King? Jack? Something to do with cards.

Once she found her black thong next to the corner of the bed frame, she amusedly rediscovered its string-like thinness and wondered, with undies that tiny, why bother wearing undies at all? She slid them on. Her house was too expensive to enter without panties on.

So how did we get here? A specific chain of events led to Olivia’s peculiar morning in Sequoia Grove, and as she dressed herself next to the sleeping stranger with the sword tattoo on his back, she remembered how her mother flicked the first domino two days prior.

Olivia, with a rumbling tummy, was walking down the curved staircase of her family’s 1.5 million dollar ivy-covered Westcliff home when she had the audacity to ask her mother, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

Her mother, a fifty-year-old massage therapist named Margaret Cunnington, was sitting on their glossy, tufted leather sofa after an exhausting day at Mystical Spirit, a big shiny beacon of stress relief for Westcliff locals. Ironically, Margaret was the most stressed person that Olivia had ever known in her entire life.

Margaret scoffed. “Fine. I’ll make dinner.” She jolted to her feet.

Olivia froze on the landing. “I was just asking, you don’t have to—”

“Yes I do,” snapped Margaret, already in the kitchen and frantically pulling pots and pans out from the cabinets under the granite counter. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve been working my ass off all day long and wanted to spend two seconds sitting—no one else is going to make dinner.”

Olivia was too shell-shocked to take a step forward. “Mom, seriously, it’s fine. I’ll make dinner.”

“You can’t cook.”

This was very true. Even the microwave cowered in the face of her culinary incompetence. One time she put a bag of popcorn in it for five minutes. The house smelled awesome for days.

“Then let’s order a pizza,” Olivia suggested, unconsciously tightening her grip on the red oak handrail.

“Jesus Christ,” said Margaret. “This pot has been in the sink for three days.” She squirted Dawn into the stockpot and began to scrub away, almost violently. “Word to the wise, Olivia. Marry a man who actually helps you around the house.”

Olivia wouldn’t touch that statement with a ten foot pole. Her father’s construction company paid for the house, not to mention paved the earth it was sitting on. In her eyes, he would have to be a world renowned guru of mess-making to deserve a peep of complaint.

Eventually, Olivia stood in the kitchen as her mother poured ravioli into three bowls. Three beautiful, intricate, and overpriced handcrafted Italian bowls.

“Dan, food!” Margaret’s shout flew out into the general direction of Olivia’s father’s office. “Olivia, will you get forks?”

Olivia pulled open the silverware drawer, acquired their silver plated forks, and placed them in front of the three upholstered armchairs of the round pedestal table. The handles of the cutlery, textured with a brilliant floral pattern inspired by English antiques, shone brilliantly under the crystal chandelier.

“And paper towels, please?”

Olivia took a roll of paper towels, which was placed firmly in a stylish and modern silver dispenser purchased from the kitchen department of Barrington’s, and placed it on the center of the table. She looked back to her mother for her next command.

“Wine glasses?”

Olivia went to the cupboard, opened it, pulled out three lovely clear crystal wine glasses, and places them on the table. Then, once again, stood at attention like a soldier.

Margaret stared at her daughter. “Do you need a check list or something? It’s the same thing every day. Paper towels, wine glasses, water, place mats – you didn’t set out the place mats. You can’t be this helpless.” She grabbed the stack of metallic-lacquered place mats from the top of the fridge and nearly shoved Olivia out of the way to cover the table’s antiqued bronze finish with them.

Olivia looked down. “Sorry. I’ll go get the water.”

Margaret put down the last place mat. “And uncork the wine. Please.”

Eight minutes into the meal, Olivia was already fantasizing about fashioning a noose out of the curtain cords.

“I still think working at Barrington’s may not be the best idea,” said Margaret, referring to Olivia’s new job downtown. “Tyler just got his CAPM certification, didn’t he? No reason Olivia can’t do the same thing.”

“She isn’t well suited for that kind of work,” Dan said. “It’s not her personality type. It’s not like certification is a magic wand, project management isn’t for everyone.”

Margaret took a sip of her wine and glanced at her daughter with a tight-lipped smile. Ever since Olivia came home from college without a company contract or an engagement ring on her finger, sitting around the dinner table throwing around her future options like confetti was a nightly ritual.

Margaret grabbed Olivia’s wine glass and moved it away from the edge of the table. “Careful, sweetheart, you’re gonna knock it over.”

Olivia couldn’t figure out why they expected her to come home with a man or a job—they sent her to private performing arts conservatory for ballet. Half the men she met in college were gay, and by the time she got to graduation, every company in the state was looking for younger dancers. At 21, she was a relic in the business—people like to adopt kittens, not cats. Besides, despite the years upon years of training, ballet only to lead to a short, underpaid career. But Olivia didn’t know how to do anything else. She knew it was her own fault, but she couldn’t help but feel that her parents deserved a hefty percentage of the blame as well.

Margaret hid the lower half of her face behind her glass. “I still wish she weren’t working in such a shitty part of town.”

Dan wiped some sauce from the edge of his mouth. “It’s not a shitty part of town, it’s downtown Monarch Hills. It’s less than a block away from the train station.”

Her parents never agreed on anything, but they never fought either. It was like their marriage was a twenty year joke that never reached the punch line.

“Well, yeah, but as soon as you get to the other side of the interstate, it’s pretty dangerous. Just, what was it, two days ago on the news, those Asian gang members set a guy on fire.”

“Well yeah, but that’s Sequoia Grove, that’s a whole different thing.”

Olivia fiddled with her last piece of ravioli.

“It really wasn’t that far from Barrington’s, it was like three blocks south of the interstate.” Margaret pressed on, the energy of her protest building in her tone. “They’re animals down there. They dumped a bunch of kerosene on someone and threw a match. The guy burned to death.”

Olivia popped the last of her meal into her mouth, chewed it, and swallowed. “Wow. He must have really screwed up then.”

Her parents stared at her blankly. Cue the chirping crickets.

“What?” Olivia sat up straighter. “I’m just saying, you don’t set someone on fire for no reason.”

Margaret sipped her wine. “They’re thugs, they don’t need a reason.”

Olivia loved riding the train. It was fascinating; the journey from the Westcliff station all the way downtown spanned the entire American socioeconomic spectrum.

Westcliff Park Station, from which Olivia was to make her departure every workday morning, was smack dab in the middle of the third wealthiest city in the United States. In Westcliff, tidiness was a citywide compulsion and every other house accommodated at least one purebred dog that color coordinated with the furniture. Not a bad place to grow up.

The next station, North Plaza, was the epicenter of all things middle class and ordinary. Olivia could see every nationwide fast food franchise represented, every road full of Camrys and CR-Vs. Street signs, parking lots, shopping centers, traffic lights. Suburbia. Boring. Moving on.

After North Plaza, you were officially in Monarch Hills, but saying you’re in Monarch Hills doesn’t say much. Monarch Hills was everywhere, everywhere was Monarch Hills, and every type of human being you could imagine lived in Monarch Hills. The northern half looks like your average, bourgeois town in the urbanized first world—a place where people go to work in the morning, come home at night, and repeat the process the next day. However, by the time you get about three quarters through, let’s say Spring Road Station, you find yourself in limbo well on your way into the seven circles of hell. This is where the train ride got interesting for Olivia.

Downtown Monarch Hills was an ironic place, a place where you can find internationally renowned museums, absurdly overpriced boutiques, red carpet gala events, 30-dollar-a-day parking lots, movie billboards the same size as the skyscrapers they were slapped on, and grubby crack-addicted prostitutes. Just depended on which side of the block you were on, but somehow, as if there was some sort of mystical, invisible, impenetrable force field between the rich and the riff raff, everyone stayed in their assigned quadrants.

Except Olivia on her first day of work at Barrington’s, the luxury department store. The luxury department store that was, unfortunately for Margaret and Dan, very close to Sequoia Grove.

Olivia’s first shift as a Barrington’s cashier ended early. Her shifts were scheduled to end at six PM, but since today was her training day and the customer service department wasn’t dependent on her presence, she was free to leave at two. That meant that her parents didn’t expect her to waltz through the door for about five hours. Five whole hours.

She stood under a hotel’s skywalk next to metallic benches at the station, staring at the two sets of tracks below her as they glistened under the bright summer sun. Northbound and southbound. Choices, choices. Blue line to Westcliff. Red line to Sequoia Grove. Olivia chuckled to herself, picturing Morpheus offering her the red pill, giving her a chance to tumble further down the rabbit hole.

She took the red pill.

Olivia’s skin tingled with excitement as the southbound train began moving—she felt like a stoner in history class, giggly with glee but terrified of getting caught. Carefully trekking across the landscape of her memories, she couldn’t think of a single other time when her parents didn’t know exactly where she was. It was a rather depressing realization, and she was delighted to break the lifetime tradition.

Her heart started to flutter as the train approached the mouth of a tunnel—the rabbit hole. She tried to talk herself out of what she was doing, telling herself that a young defenseless girl was putting herself in danger in a place like Sequoia Grove, but for some reason, she couldn’t make herself afraid. Logically, she knew that she should be, but she wasn’t.

“Hey, sweetheart,” said a pudgy 50-something white-haired man sitting nearby. His eyes were lecherous and beady and his posture reminded Olivia of a clock in a Dali painting. “Where you headed tonight?”

Headed? Olivia was perturbed that she wasn’t inventive enough to come up with a good lie. “Oh, I’m just going.” She avoided his face.

The graffiti on the walls of the tunnel flew past her, showing off a beautiful rush of color. She wished they could have slowed for just a moment so she could look more carefully at the meticulous work of urban art.

The old man scooted his butt forward slightly and parted his legs. “You wanna go somewhere with me?”

Olivia chuckled. “God no.”

The man’s nose twitched. “You sure?”

The end of the tunnel came, filling the passenger car with yellow sunlight. Olivia, now wondering if she was at risk of being raped, decided to say the one thing she knew would get this guy to leave her alone. “I have a penis.”

He sat up and quickly looked away, and as if on cue, the train stopped and the door opened. With a big grin, Olivia exited, and the man didn’t say another word.

Her palms went clammy and cold. Her heart pumped at the speed of hummingbird wings. She bit her lips to hold in the power of her big, stupid smile. Ah, to suck in her first big breath of Sequoia Grove. Here it was. The crime capital of the state, waiting to be explored.

The first thing that Olivia thought once she got off the train and looked around was that her outfit wasn’t slutty enough. Her black pencil skirt covered her knees, and her white silk blouse was buttoned straight up to her neck. Apparently, that made her Amish around here. Scanning the setting in front of her, an area locals called the ‘second circle,’ Olivia Cunnington was staring at a sea of ass cheeks—many of which belonged to women who had no business displaying them.

The street venders were busy, serving food, liquor, jewelry, and other various useless goods. As Olivia weaved through the loose crowds, wishing she blended in even though she knew she didn’t, she listened to fragments of passing conversations.

She saw a skinny Asian girl with long, multicolored braids, puffing on a cigarette next a sign advertising go-go dancers. “I was about to bust him on his ass, if he didn’t…”

Next was a big, buff, black woman who may not have actually been a woman at all. “…you gotta watch them bitches, they steal your shit…” She was chatting in a huddle of what appeared to be brightly dressed hookers. Olivia didn’t think that hookers congregated in broad daylight, but this was Sequoia Grove, after all.

 “Hold up, bitch, handle my business and don’t give me no problems,” said a black guy on a cell phone in a tailored suit. “You know—bitch, you know what I’m talkin’ about, don’t…”

Eventually, Olivia found herself under a red awning in front of a theater with a poster next to the door that read “SUPER SECRET SLUTS VII.” A porno theater, it would seem. Tickled with curiosity, she moseyed on in.

Inside, she found a quaint little porn shop, not just a theater. The product assortment was disorganized at best; there were stacks of porn movies, some piles of erotic books and magazines, and some sex toys in a display. It kind of looked like a run-down gas station, only there were pictures of boobs everywhere. On the wall next to the door, there were three lit posters highlighting the currently playing titles, one of which was Super Secret Sluts 7.

The 40-something clerk behind the counter, who had been flipping mindlessly through a magazine, lifted his eyes as soon as Olivia’s entrance prompted the bell.

“Well, hell-o,” he said as if picturing her naked.

“Hell-o yourself,” said Olivia, looking into the glass case of the counter. She saw cock rings. She saw nipple shields. She saw vibrators. She saw anal beads – anal beads!? What the fuck were anal beads!? Were there people who are actually bold enough to ask a complete stranger if they would please retrieve the black anal beads from the display case!? She laughed.

She looked to the right and saw that the row of posters actually led to a hallway that was hidden by a red curtain. A dark, mysterious hallway of mystery.

She pointed to the curtain. “Is that, like, where the theaters are?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the clerk.

She snickered like a little boy who just heard a fart. “Do guys, like, go down there to… please themselves?”

The clerk grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

She pushed down her shy giggles. “Do you have to clean up the rooms afterwards?”

“No, we leave it there,” he joked. “I don’t do that, Terrance does that.”

“Ah,” smirked Olivia. “Guess no one ever taught Terrance how to read Craigslist.”

“Guess not.”

Olivia smiled, continuing to ride the wave of her naiveté. “Do you like working here?”

The clerk looked at her, a long and curious look, eyeing her feminine frame. She had long, thick, coffee-colored mane that trailed down to her petite waistline, just above the generous width of her hips. Her black skirt hugged her thick, ballerina thighs, and her perfectly upright posture made the perfect curve of her butt hard to miss. “You looking for a job, sweetheart?”

Olivia hoped she wasn’t going to have to tell this guy she had a penis. She didn’t want to have to use that one more than once. “Me? Oh, no. I have a job, thank you.”

“You sure? Because I know a place where a girl looking like you could make bank. Can you dance?”

Dance? He had her attention. “I could dance before I could walk.”

The clerk pulled a flyer from behind the counter and slid it to her. There was a beautiful, scantily clad Asian girl on it above a logo that read Club Lanka. “The Asians own it, but they don’t have a problem with white girls, as long as they can hustle.”

The Asians. “The Asians?”

“Yeah, the club is tied pretty closely to a certain benevolent organization, if you know what I mean.”

She didn’t have any idea what he meant.

“If you go,” said the clerk, “tell them Phil sent you.”

Olivia slipped the flyer into her purse and thought about what she was going to do. She didn’t want to become a stripper or anything, that was certain, but she definitely wanted to check this place out, but given the nature of her reformatory household, that may have been impossible. The cogs of her brain started to turn, trying to churn out some semblance of a plan.

Step one. Go back to Barrington’s and buy something slutty to wear to Club Lanka. (She ended up going with a sexy little Gucci number and a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Thank you, American Express – once you go black, you indeed, never go back.) Step two? Call her lifelong friend, Penny Wainwright, ask her how she’s doing, and pretend to care about what she says. Step three. Go to Penny Wainwright’s apartment downtown and use her shamelessly, changing into her new dress and leaving her work clothes there. Step four. Convince Penny to be her alibi.

It was perfect timing, really. After graduation, Penny got her own apartment in Monarch Hills, courtesy The Everlasting Wainwright Fortune, and was moving in her outrageously overpriced furniture that week. It seemed plausible that Olivia would stay downtown to help with this process, so it would be a convenient lie.

Perhaps Olivia should have actually helped, considering Penny had been her friend for her entire life. But trying to conjure up love for Penny was a little like trying to find that fear on the train to Sequoia Grove – she knew it should be there, but it wasn’t. There was nothing wrong with Penny, but there wasn’t anything right with her either. She was just another part of the scenery on the path that Olivia’s father’s construction company had paved for her.

Olivia, facing Penny’s bathroom mirror, lined her lips in dark red Revlon with Penny looking over her shoulder.

“Are you gonna come over for real afterwards?” Penny asked with a hint of hope.

“I don’t know,” said Olivia. She muted her guilt with some attitude.

Penny was a pretty girl with a creamy complexion, vanilla blond hair, and a generally innocuous demeanor. Olivia was a fiery, raven-haired shrew in comparison.

“What if your dad calls and asks for you?” Penny asked.

“He won’t.”

“Yeah, but what if he does.” Penny chewed the corner of her thumbnail, something she always did when she was thinking something she wasn’t saying. There was a time when Olivia would have asked what that something was, but that time had passed years ago, just as soon as Olivia wasn’t interested anymore.

“Tell him that I got so tired moving furniture upstairs that I fell asleep,” said Olivia, smacking her lips together. “Alright, I’m off.”

She made her way for the door as Penny watched from the bathroom doorframe, like a child watching mommy go to work.

“Hey, Olivia,” said Penny, pulling her finger from her mouth. “Be safe tonight, okay?”

Olivia, in her tiny Gucci dress, her eyes painted in a seductive charcoal black and her lips lacquered in juicy gloss, stood at the front door, aglow with a devil’s grin. “Penny… when have I ever not been safe?”

Tags: Dan, Margaret, Olivia's Point of View, Penny

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 12:06 pm and is filed under The Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.