She called for help. There was no use running. Deanna stood between her and her car and the other two sisters were closing in. Her best bet was to hope that someone came to her aide. Slowly, she began to backup towards the mall entrance.
In high school, Megan had to read Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 for an English class. Towards the end of the book, the protagonist Yossarian was hounded relentlessly by the girlfriend of one of his fellow troops. Everywhere he went, the girl would appear armed and ready to kill. There was no solace for him anywhere. Though Heller never gave the girl’s name, Megan would not be surprised if she was called Deanna.
“Get away from me!,” she shrieked as she reentered the mall. There were plenty people inside. While getting lost in the crowd might have been too much to hope for, the mere presence of civilization might at least thwart an attack. Then again, with Deanna there were no guarantees.
Just as the first few faces came into sight, Megan felt a hand grip her ankle. She tried to pull herself free, but in the process tumbled and fell.
“No!” she yelped as she was being dragged away. “Somebody help!”
She began to wonder why no one was coming to save her. This was happening in broad daylight. It was happening in a mall, for chrissakes! And yet, everyone seemed to hold their peace.
“You girls cut that out,” someone shouted.
Lot of good that did, Megan thought.
She was back outside. Deanna, Lena and a third sister stood over her, each with a confident grin upon her face.
“You’re all nuts,” Megan chastised. “Am I really worth going to jail over?”
Deanna’s grin widened as she drew her knife.
“I don’t know about jail,” she answered. “But this is gonna feel good. And if you’re nice and quiet, we won’t hurt your sister too.”
“Leave her out of it!” Megan snapped. As she twisted to get away, a foot came down upon her arm, pinning her to the pavement. She grunted in pain. The knife was out.
“What are you girls doing out there?” the phantom voice shouted.
Megan’s eyes began to water. Her arm hurt. This wasn’t fair. What did she ever do to deserve this? All she wanted to do was go swimming….
There was another pained cry, but Megan was surprised to discover that it came not from her but from Deanna. The knife fell to the ground and the foot stepped off her. Megan grabbed her wounded arm and glanced up to see a melee in progress. There stood Jed, his hand firmly wrapped around Deanna’s arm and tugging it back as the other two girls punched and kicked at him.
“I’m calling security!” the phantom voice hollered.
Despite the pain in her arm (or perhaps because of it), Megan lunged at one of the girls and pulled her off of Jed. She briefly had Lena in a headlock but she quickly broke free. Megan was clearly not made for fighting. A moment later, all three girls were gone and she and Jed were left to tend to their injuries.
As much as her arm hurt, he had borne the brunt of the attack and had to be feeling worse. If that was the case, he did little to show it.
“Friends of yours?” he asked sardonically.
“It’s just…” Megan began. “Forget it. It’s a long story. Something happened and they won’t leave me alone.”
“That sounds like cause enough to me for a restraining order.”
“I don’t want to make a huge thing out of it.”
Jed reached down and picked up the knife Deanna had dropped.
“Seems like it is a huge thing to me. The least you could do is go to the police.”
“I can’t,” Megan argued. “There was…a…well, we sort of got some revenge on her already and I don’t want it to come out.”
“I see,” Jed answered. He began to rub the scratches that the girls had left on his cheeks. “Shit…I thought I was done with combat when I was discharged.”
Megan failed to find this amusing. In fact, she wasn’t able to find much of anything amusing.
“Thanks for your help,” she said.
“Let’s have a look at your arm.”
Megan protested but he ignored her and held her arm out. There was a large bruise where she had been stepped on.
“That’s nothing,” Jed declared.
“What do you mean its nothing?” she complained. “It hurts.”
“Don’t be such a baby,” he admonished. “The knife would have hurt a lot more.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
Jed chuckled.
“What could possibly be funny?” she asked him.
“You’re having a hell of a day,” he replied. “I’m just wondering what else could go wrong for you.”
“Oh, thanks a lot!”
He gave her a light smack on the butt. Megan reacted with shock. Where did he get the nerve? And yet, she found herself envying his confidence. Loss had made him fearless.
“That’s a thick diaper you have on there,” he commented.
“You’re crazy,” she admonished.
“Maybe. But I’m one of the good guys.”
Megan walked away shaking her head. It had been a long, strange day.
On her way home, Megan thought wishfully towards taking another nap. A long one. She wanted to hide under the covers and make Deanna and everything else simply go away. And when she woke up, she would be her usual mature, responsible self…. and she would be confident, too.
As Megan turned onto her street, a gathering premonition told her that the day’s turmoil was far from done. That premonition was reinforced when she saw Ron’s car parked in front of her house.
“What the hell?” she remarked. She supposed that she should be happy that he came to see her, but all she could feel was annoyance. That annoyance increased tenfold when she walked inside and saw him talking to her parents.
Megan remembered the day that she introduced her parents to Ted. He had been uncharacteristically nervous then and she had admonished him for it.
“What if they don’t like me?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t they like you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Besides, it’s not like we’re getting married.”
“Yes, but that thing with your sister…”
“Oh, please! They are so over that.”
Megan now laughed in spite of herself. She was just a highschooler then: confident, yes, but also considerably more unburdened. How foolish and wrong she had been. She hadn’t been wrong about Ted, of course, but she knew that Jess and Ricard still loomed large in her parents’ minds. She also knew there were half a dozen things that could be found objectionable about Ron. If she could find them, so could they.
“Where have you been hiding this one?” Drew asked as she walked in. He seemed at ease. Nancy’s eyes, however, told a tale of caution and concern. Their decision was split.
“Hi,” Megan said awkwardly. She felt like she was a comedienne going on stage in just her underwear (or, in her case, just her diaper).
“I was in the area,” Ron explained. “And I figured I’d surprise you. I didn’t know what time you got off of work though, but your parents were nice enough to let me wait here.”
“Yeah….” Megan answered. “They’re something all right.”
Nancy shot her an apologetic glance. Drew remained quaintly oblivious.
“I’m going to change,” Megan announced. “I’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes.”
“Cool,” Ron answered.
On that note, Megan retreated to her room. She slammed the door and felt like screaming. The one thing she wanted to happen was now happening…. at the worst possible time. She was tired. She was cranky. Her arm hurt. Her diaper was wet. Deanna was after her again, Jed was slightly off his rocker, her coworkers distrusted her and the last possible thing she could think of was sex. And then there was Ron, ready and waiting for her…with partial parental approval no less. As bad as her day had been, Megan didn’t have the heart to turn her away. Besides, being with him might help…even if they didn’t do anything.
Megan’s clothes were dirty and had slight tears as a result of her earlier tussle. She removed them and set them aside. She quickly tended to her diaper and threw on shorts and a tank top. She wasn’t trying to look sexy. In fact, she was doing just the opposite. She was sure to use plenty of powder when diapering herself. Maybe the smell of it would be enough to deter Ron from being all over her.
When she returned downstairs, her parents informed her that Ron was waiting in the car. Drew pressed some money into Megan’s hand.
“Go to a movie,” he urged. “On me. He seems like a good guy.”
“A little rough around the edges though,” Nancy remarked. “I don’t see how he and Ted can get along so well.”
“Well,” Drew retorted. “No offense to Ted, but….”
“Can we not talk about this?” Megan asked.
Drew cleared his throat. “Have fun and don’t stay out too late.”
“Definitely don’t,” Nancy muttered under her breath.
Megan tried not to be swayed by her father’s enthusiasm or her mother’s criticism. She tried to take all that was bothering her and push it out of the way. It had nothing to do with Ron. There was no reason why she couldn’t have a good time. And yet, the minute she entered his car, she knew that she wouldn’t.
Ron greeted her with a quick kiss on the cheek that Megan did not return.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything,” he explained. “It’s just one of those things. I was down around here looking into an internship and I thought of you.”
“Oh.”
“Something wrong.”
“It’s been a long day,” Megan told him. “That’s all. Don’t think I’m not glad to see you.”
Ron nodded and began to drive. Megan confessed that she was not in the mood for seeing a movie.
“Me neither,” he said.
They wound up driving off to a reasonably secluded area. Megan found herself getting very annoyed. Our first time and he wants to do it in a car, she thought. Who does he think he is? Then again, she was jumping to conclusions. He had yet to make a move.
Ron turned the side of her face towards him and kissed her again. She tried to kiss him back but found that she had disparagingly little passion. At the same time, however, she was reluctant to make it stop. Some contact, any contact, still felt good.
She allowed him to continue to kiss her and fondle her breasts. Her lack of enthusiasm did not serve as a deterrent and she didn’t say a word. He reached around her and pulled her towards him. Her arm hit the dashboard in the process and she violently shook her off.
Ron was stunned. “What did I do?”
“My arm,” she said. “I hurt it earlier.”
He looked at it and noted the bruise. “What happened?”
Megan thought of telling him but quickly dismissed it. If she even as much as mentioned Deanna, Ron would go all gung-ho and she’d be in further trouble. She wanted to calm things down, not make it worse.
“I hurt it at work,” she fibbed.
“Oh. Well…. I’ll be careful of that then.”
He reached out to touch her once more, but she shook her head. He sighed in disappointment.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just really not in the mood.”
“Then why did you let me drive you all the way out here? Why did you let me get started?”
Megan shrugged. His tone was full of accusations. She felt bad, as if her denial was torment to him.
Ron sighed once more. “You’re not gonna tell me anything? Fine. I’ll take you home and that’ll be the end of it.”
“No, wait!” she insisted. Very slowly, as not to further hurt her arm, she maneuvered her way onto his lap and sat facing him.
“What the hell, Meg? You’re driving me freakin crazy.”
“Can you just hold me?” she asked. There was desperation in her voice.
“Sure,” he replied. “I guess.”
Megan placed her head on his chest and closed her eyes. He held her like she had asked him too and she began to feel better. Neither of them said a word. Occasionally, Ron’s hands would find their way onto her diaper and his lips would meet her flesh. She couldn’t bring herself to object.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
She nodded. She was, wasn’t she?
“Good. Because my legs are falling asleep.”
Megan promptly rolled off of him.
“I’m going to stretch for a minute,” he told her.
He got out of the car and did just that. While he stretched, Megan began to cry. She was crying a lot lately; a lot more than she would have liked. She cried because she felt she had to break things off with Ron. Yes, he had given her what she wanted and yes, it felt good. But she still had to ask. He was busy trying to get her horny, she was trying to heal. They clearly weren’t in sync.
It wasn’t fair to him, either. He was right. She was driving him crazy. How could he be expected to be nurturing and baby her one minute and be very much the opposite the next? There was so much she couldn’t tell him because he probably wouldn’t understand. Deanna was only the tip of the iceberg. There was that whole other side of her that she kept hidden and could hide no longer. She was through balancing. If he wanted her, he’d have to want ALL of her and that was probably too much to ask.
On the other hand, she was smart enough to realize that she was having a miserable day. Even though she had begun to feel better, her mood was still terrible. It would be infinitely unwise for her to make any major decisions with her feeling the way she was. Things might seem different if she slept on it. Besides, maybe she was selling him short. Maybe he could understand and accept. Maybe…
Ron got back in the car.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
A.)Megan told him that they couldn’t be together. She gave her reasons and hoped to let him down as easily as she possibly could.
B.)“Nothing,” Megan replied. She was going to continue to hang on for the time being.