The Dream of Doctor Bantam Read Online Free Page B

SUV—she had some trouble with the seat belt, her eyes were amazing. She believed in it, perfectly.
    Then she ran barefoot and naked down the dark length of the cul-de-sac, its sidewalks damp and glittering with summer rain, gathering speed, tearing the veil, breaking free, and the approaching Geo Prism turned to meet her, and she continued to run.
    Summer 1997: Tabitha Thatch came into the living room where Julie was reading her Madeleine L’Engle paperbacks.
    It’s time for you to learn about your body, Julie, she said. Come with me.
    Julie put down her book and followed Tabitha into their mother Linda’s bedroom. Their mother was at work, like every day; she wouldn’t be home until after six. A stack of Jackie Collins novels held up the TV remote on the table by the bed. Tabitha pulled the still-unmade comforter and blankets off—the sheets beneath were pink and rumpled, sour-smelling, and old ashes had been pressed into their 400-count weave.
    Take off your clothes, said Tabitha. And lie down.
    Julie felt a thrill of badness as her khaki shorts and her blue-hemmed motorcycle underwear fell to the floor. The air conditioner clunked on and she shivered and she lay back on the bed like a dab of pink cloud on a sunset sky.
    Don’t be scared, said Tabitha. Open your legs. Take a look.
    Between her chubby thighs was smooth and pale, accented by a crenellated stripe. Smaller, plainer than she would have thought. She stared, at once impressed and repelled.
    It’s your cunt, said Tabitha.
    Julie kept staring.
    That’s a dirty word, she said.
    It’s not a dirty word, said Tabitha. Say it.
    Cunt, said Julie, fast and quiet.
    Cunt, repeated Tabitha, and her clothes rustled as she shifted her weight. You can touch it, if you want.
    She did. She tingled: a slight nausea, a pain. She withdrew her hand.
    Tabitha waited, then stepped into Julie’s view, just beside the mahogany frame of the mirror, the Freon alive around her. She pulled off her rhinestone T-shirt, unsnapped her skirt, shivered it around her hips and carefully to the ground. She unhooked her lime-green bra. Her breasts were already in at fourteen; her hips were wide; the curls of blond hair that covered her own suddenly-revealed thing, her cunt, were frightening and inviting at once, a warm cornfield lined with crows somewhere just beyond the hill from home. Julie’s own body in the mirror was still smooth.
    Tabitha climbed onto the bed next her. She filled up all of the space between them when she spread her own legs. They lay together for some time, looking into the mirror. Julie looked at Tabitha. Tabitha looked at herself.
    It’s yours, said Tabitha.
    The air conditioner hummed and rumbled through the tiny cold spaces between them, and the heat rose from Tabitha’s warm, dry body.
    Then Tabitha got up, scratched her left rib, and gathered her clothes. She held them in a bundle in front of her as she walked to the door.
    Mom gets home at six, she said. So be out of here before then, okay? And come see me when you’re done.
    She blew a kiss from her red lips, outlined in black, and she closed the door, leaving Julie alone and naked in her mother’s room.
    Julie sat there for what must have been half an hour, an hour, just staring, nearly falling asleep. Then she got up from the bed, put her shorts back on, and went to find her sister.
    Tabitha was in her room, shuffling a pack of tarot cards, her eyes circled in insomniac blackness. She hadn’t slept at all the night before. Julie stood in the doorway and scratched her leg and watched her.
    Come in, Tabitha said, not looking up at her. It’s totally time for us to predict your future.
    She asked Julie to put her hand on the Significator she’d chosen: the Queen of Wands, the force that could do anything. The card was still warm from Tabitha’s palms. Tabitha closed her fingers over Julie’s, closed her eyes, began to move her lavender-painted lips. The opening notes of “Lucy in the Sky With