Hard
by Katrina Gray
ROCCO SIFFREDI. This was name on Amy's note, and she wasn't sure she'd spelled it right. She hiked Clarissa onto her hip and walked in the store.
The clerk at the front doodled on a piece of register tape and talked on her cell phone. She looked up when Amy came in. “Need help?” Amy shook her head. The wall of movies was straight ahead, and she didn't want to cause a fuss.
“Mama?” said Clarissa. She pointed at the magazines covered in plastic and grew louder and more insistent. “Mama! Mama!”
Amy walked on. “No, not Mama.” Clarissa arched her back and squirmed. She wanted down; she wanted to walk. She grunted and reached out for the gummy penises, but no sooner than Amy swatted her hand away, Clarissa saw something else she wanted to touch. A few more seconds in her arms, restrained, and the kid would howl. “Fine,” said Amy. She could clean up any damage after she found her movie.
In her pink overalls, Clarissa toddled over to a row of toys, bright and colorful things shaped like big popsicles. Curved popsicles and straight ones. Blues, greens, pinks, browns. Clarissa grabbed a package with a silver one inside, and she stuck out her tongue at her upside-down reflection. She squealed and grinned, jumped with her chubby legs, looked to her mother, who feigned excitement and nodded without looking away from the rows of DVDs.
The clerk put down her phone and giggled. “Starting out early?” Her phone lit up and played “Rock the Casbah.” She rolled her eyes. “God,” she muttered. “Not again.”
Clarissa saw another shiny one behind the package she had grabbed, and she wanted that one too, wanted them all. She yanked them from the shelves, four or five in one armful, ripping the cardboard at the tops of the packages with each final tug. When Amy yelled to stop, Clarissa scuttled away, a trail of dildos behind her, and two clutched to her chest. Amy ran after her, but Clarissa picked up speed.
Rounding a corner, Clarissa wiped out and hit the floor chin-first. She wailed and the dildos skittered away under a display. Amy picked her up and saw that her daughter's only two teeth had bitten her bottom lip. There was blood, lots of it. The clerk hurried over and stared. Amy clutched Clarissa, rocked her, but that was not working.
“I have to go Neil!” the clerk yelled into her phone. “There's like a baby hurt or something.”
Clarissa clawed at Amy's blouse, wanting boob, wanting comfort. Amy wiped Clarissa's forehead and unbuttoned instinctively.
The clerk scowled. “You can't do that here, ma'am. Not unless you cover up.”
Amy felt humiliated. Her face flushed red, and she folded her shoulders toward her chest, trying to get Clarissa to suck on her finger, but the kid only wanted one thing. A man with a mustache, the only other customer, stared.
“Boo boo!” Clarissa cried. “Boob!”
Amy hurried out, still unbuttoned. She opened the driver side of her Corolla, sat down, and let Clarissa suck. The crying stopped, and Amy was able to assess Clarissa's damage. No stitches, she decided. Just home. Let's just go home.
She was tired of doing this alone. There were long dry spells. She was in one. She told this to a friend the night before. “Get a Rocco Siffredi movie,” said the friend. “You'll never need a man again.”
“Hang on,” said Amy. “I can't find a pen.”
This is really unusual, startlingly so. The message is complex and beguiling. I love the prudishness under the surface, under the plastic, a boob is peaking out and nobody can handle it. The woman and child are shunned if they are not in there to buy the sterile sex toys or movies. This is just awesome. So well written, I honestly forgot i was reading.
I'm scared of your comment, Meg. Scared that I might have written something with all those components. Yikes. Did that just come out of me? Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thanks for prompting me with your Barbaric yAWP Naughty Night.
Hey Katrina -- the layers in here are cool. I giggled, grimaced, cringed, and then dropped my jaw when they wouldn't let her comfort her kid. Did not see that coming -- and that right there made the whole thing more than just a romp in a sex shop with a minor, a good idea for a story in itself. The need for comfort -- that's central here, and so real. I wonder if more can happen at the end, starting at the para "Amy felt humilated" -- I wanted more there. I might be wrong (you don't want to overstate it), but I wanted that to be even more contrasted with the ridiculousness of the scene, the strewn dildos and condoms, blood, etc. I wanted to _feel_ her vulnerability just a bit more, not just have it hinted at. (BUT again: I could be completely wrong.)
The title, by the way, is perfect.
oh, this is wicked good, k
Yes, yes, yes. Effective use of dialogue here. Great piece. Wonderful form, Katrina.
Good writing, story, setting, characters. Involving, meaningful implications beneath the surface. Looking forward to more.
Oh man, what a lot of layers in here! The image of a mother taking her kid into a porn shop... looking for Rocco (strangely the name of the dog in one of my pieces here on fictionaut), the distinction between porn DVDs and toys and breast-feeding... That Clarissa's teeth have bitten through her bottom lip, but no stitches, no dr. needed.
Really? I think I agree with Michelle, I think a little more of the narrator's vulnerability might be helpful, because her shucking off the potential need for help for her kid renders her a bit harder than you might have intended.
A really effective story, motherhood in a whole new light.
Original, funny, painful. This chick needs a break.
"It's hard, you know."
--R.L. Burnside
Thanks, everyone.