Arangements

I wish that I had blanked out how the rest of that school day went. I haven’t. The two of us got the headset all fixed up, made a compelling back story with character development, three act structure, and tragedy. Then we didn’t use any of it because people looked at my tail, saw the safety pin, and figured it out.

Everyone asked if they could touch it, and by everyone I mean two people. I explained why they could not and they didn’t. Crisis (nominally) averted.

I went to AP English and sat in my place in the circle, letting my tail flip out of the little hole in the seat. That actually felt kind of nice. Kind of right.

We talked about the end of the Odyssey, because we were at that point. If you don’t know about how the Odyssey ends, let me fill you in real quick.

Odysseus comes home, where suitors have been thirsting for his wife for 20 years. Athena disguises him to get him into his palace, and when it’s time to reveal himself he and his son lock all their maids away, and kill every last one of the suitors. Then they unlock the maids, show them the bloody hall and say, “clean up all this mess.” The maids do that and then Odysseus has them hanged. He kills all the maids.

I had some things to say about this.

“So the suitors have been hanging around, and it’s strongly indicated that they’ve been having sex with all of the maids, right? For twenty years the maids have been getting raped, by people we’re supposed to hate.”

“Who says they were raped? Homer says they were ‘unfaithful.’” That Guy said.

“Homer doesn’t say that they were raped,” I speak directly to him, “Because there was no word in Attic Greek for rape.” He opened his mouth and I continued, “The closest thing they had translates to ‘molestation’ and was a crime between two men. Man on man rape was a crime, but the idea that women could not consent to sex, wasn’t even in the language.”

“Bu—”

“Let me put it in words you can understand,” I told him. “There are twenty women living in your house right now, and they all want to sleep with you—” That guy quickly hid a smirk that said “yeah, probably.” “—and they all look and act like Lena Dunham.” His face fell visibly, and then I saw the calculating look I knew was coming. I knew it was coming because I knew how he thought. How I would have thought. “You’re thinking that you can wear a blindfold? Well they all have vagina dentata. Any time they want sex with you, which is all the time, it hurts like razors on your dick. That’s what being a woman is like. All the time.”

Mr. Markle asked me not to use swears in class for maybe the eighth time, and I told him I wouldn’t as I tried to cross my tail behind my back. Then he said, “Today we actually have a word for rape, and legal language, and it seems like most people understand it’s wrong. Have we come very far?”

“‘I moved on her like a bitch.’” Is all I had to say.

I dodged That Guy on the way out of class again. Man he really wanted to talk to me. Oh well fuck him (Please punctuate that sentence in in any way you feel like.)

Autumn and I listened to Kesha on the way home. I know. Hear me out.

“It’s her first album since she started suing her producer.” I told Autumn.

“I heard about something to do with her manager?”

“Her producer,” I corrected and moved my tail out of space so I could sit comfortably. That was getting easier. “She sued him to get out of her contract on account of he’s a complete piece of shit.”

“And this is Ke$ha without him?”

“How did you pronounce a dollar sign in her name? And no, this is actually Kesha, no dollar sign. She couldn’t get out of the contract so she still owes them six albums.” I was queuing the song as we left the parking lot but not ready to hit play. “But that cocksucker wasn’t involved with any of it, and has actually left the label.” Now that I was a cocksucker I could put a lot more derision into the word. Weird how that worked. “Anyway, okay? Listen to this. This is Kesha without doctor Luke.”

I hit play on Woman, which is very much a pop song. It’s a really good pop song, but it’s undeniably pop. And it has a special place in my heart because the refrain ends with “I’m a mother fucker.”

Autumn nodded her head along with it, because it’s a head nodding song. When it ended she said, “You know I hate Pop, right?”

“Did you hate that?”

“I didn’t, only it was Pop, so I did.” There was some kind of traffic on 225 and Bruce pulled to a stop.

“Okay, definitely a Pop song,” I agreed. “Almost more Ke$ha than Ke$ha was. But you can see what she can do without that cocksucker holding her back. Okay? Now this is from the same album.” And I played Godzilla. I’m not going to ruin your first listen to Godzilla for you. It’s great, and if you haven’t heard it before you should listen to it. Right now.

Autumn listened to the whole thing, stunned. When it was over, “That was nerdcore.”

“Yeah.”

“That was a nerdcore song.”

“I know.”

“That was a nerdcore song, by Kesha?”

“It was and is.” We crept past a black SUV that had plowed into a little red hatchback and ripped their car in two.

“Play it again.”

I played it again and then one more time before we went to the last track on the album. As Autumn pulled up at my house I grabbed my pack, “I don’t know what we’ll see from her in the future, but I have a lot of hope. Listen to the whole album.”

“I will,” Autumn kissed me goodbye and took off.

I unfurled my tail back into space and tried to see if I could wag it while I came up the steps. I couldn’t, not really. It was too flexible, more like a cat’s tail than a dog’s. Wagging it from the base just make it swish. I didn’t really want a tail that wagged, so I was okay with that. Come to that, I didn’t really want a tail, but a tail had been foisted on me. I guess it was a good thing I couldn’t wag it.

I unlocked the door and hunted the house for an alien. Mr. Glome had a weird habit of showing up when this kind of shit went wrong. A minute of peaking in doors and around corners yielded nothing, so I sat at my desk and wrote it a note.

“Dear Mr. Glome,” I wrote. “My guess is that all humans have a 4th dimensional tail. You probably see them waving about all the time?”

I waved my tail a little bit. Then I took off my dress and my panties and put my back to the mirror. It was furry. Sort fine fur that was exactly the color of my hair. Ginger red. Let’s see. This is…left. And this is…disappeared and reappeared on the right. So if I put my hand out like this…okay, and then…nope it’s gone. I had been trying to wrap it around my wrist. I was pretty sure it was prehensile, if I could just make my 3d mind work in 4 dimensions.

“You are right of course, Ms. McKinnon. Oh dear, has something happened?”

I picked up my pen and practiced not writing swear words. “Yes something happened. The dick was bad enough, but I really need this gone.”

I waited for his reply and practice curling the damn thing. Wait, that was surprisingly easy. Don’t need lessons to curl your tail. You just think of it curling. Kind of.

“I’m afraid I’m not a surgeon. Even if I was, I wouldn’t be certified to perform on human anatomy. No alien is.”

“You just did a big ‘ol surgery on my gender lobe!”

“That was trauma surgery. An emergency. The performing has already received a medal for their work. I think an elective is beyond their skills.”

I forgot about my tail and put my head in my hands. “What are you telling me?”

“I cannot remove any part of your body in a way that you would find satisfactory.”

“Okay. Fine. Will you please look at it any way?”

“Of course, Ms. McKinnon. I can meet with you on Friday at 6:37 PM. Where would you like to meet?”

What better place to go to think, indeed. “I’ll meet you at the Aurora Public Library then. Science fiction section.”

“How very appropriate. I will see you then.”

I put my pen down and got some clothes back on, which was great because my father called then and I didn’t want to see his name on my phone while not wearing underwear. That’s a completely normal reaction to having your father call. You’re weird.

I looked at the phone and saw it was him and before I could decide whether or not to answer it I had already answered it. And before I could decide to hang up I had put it to my ear. And before I could decide how I was going to answer I had said in a cheerful voice, “Hi, dad!” The fuck is wrong with me?

“Hey Ash,” he was just as cheerful. Maybe more. “How’s it going?”

I felt the muscles around my jaw tighten hard enough to crack my teeth, “Everything’s just great. Started a whole new life.” Without you.

“I’m gonna be in Denver on Friday for work, do you want to tell me all about it? I’ve got some of the books you left here, I was gonna drop them by.”

Ooh. Books. Wait, then I have to see him. “I have some things to do on Friday.” My father made an upset noise. Or maybe a disappointed noise. It annoyed me an made me want to change my mind at the same time. “But we can meet up afterward, maybe?”

“You sound busy…”

“I’m not. I’m really not. We can meet. Do you want to go play video games? Or a comic book shop?” Dammit, what did my dad like to do? “Or get coffee or something?”

“No, we can play video games. If you think you can make it.”

“There’s Nickle ‘a Play near here. It’s like Chuck E Cheese except you don’t have to eat any of the pizza. And they have arcade games for a nickle.”

“Okay, let’s do that. Friday at seven? I have meetings at the DTC but we should be done by six thirty.”

“Let’s say seven thirty.” I should be able to get my tail examined in that time.

“Sure Ash. I’ll see you then,” and he closed the line.

I put the phone down with a feeling like I didn’t know what I was feeling or what I should feel. I opened up my laptop and got on to Discord. One thing was for sure. I wasn’t going to see him alone. “Who wants to meet an alien, and then back me up with my piece-of-shit father and play some video games on Friday?” I wrote.