Under Things

When Ali took the bus to Los Angeles, what was conspicuously missing from her travel trunk full of books and a few clothes, were underthings appropriate for a young woman; all she had were little girl cotton panties and undershirts with frogs, stars and hearts on them.  

With the money she had stolen from her father’s drawer, she got a room in a motel where she slept better than she had in years.  In the morning she went to an independent bookstore on Sunset and asked the petite girl with the shaved head who sat behind the counter if they were hiring. 

“Actually, we are,” the girl said, extending a surprisingly large hand covered with silver rings and a spider web tattoo.  “I’m Michael.” 

 So Ali got a job at the bookstore where she was free to write reviews of her favorite books by Rilke, the Bronte sisters, Angela Carter and Mary Gaitskill for the customers.  At night after work she came home, took a bath, ate a cup of instant noodles and worked on the short stories she was writing. 

On weekends she read the stories at a coffee houses and people told her they liked her writing, bought her pastries and asked if she had published her work anywhere.  Sometimes Michael, who was an acrobat and trapeze artist, would perform while Ali read.  Ali liked to look up from her pages and see Michael flying and flipping through the air, his black sequin spangled underpants flashing light.  

One evening a man came and sat in the front row where Ali read and never took his wolfish eyes off of her. After she had read her poem about the box of her baby teeth in her father’s underwear drawer, he came over, introduced himself as Jaz, and told her that he thought she had a great gift.  Ali thanked him.  She was intrigued by his eyes and sultry voice.  He bought her coffee and cakes and he came back every weekend to hear her read. 

One night she went home with him. He drove his BMW to a castle in Bel Air with turrets and battlements and a little moat. It was filled with heavy old wooden furniture and large oil paintings and tapestries. Ali wandered through the rooms, touching warm velvets and cold marble and shiny mahogany.  She imagined living here with Jaz, eating  breakfast every morning on an inlaid abalone tray and watching TV all day while the peacocks shrieked in the courtyard and marble cherubs spouted water from between their lips and the chandeliers tinkled like stars.   

She slept with Jaz in his big canopy bed and in the morning he gave her cinnamon buns and Brazilian coffee and brought her to work where Michael eyed her sadly.  This went on for a few weeks.  Eventually Ali, exhausted from staying up all night doing whatever Jaz asked of her, slept through work three days in a row and lost her job.  Jaz let her move in with him.  He bought her a wardrobe of black lace and blush satin charmeuse underwear and let her choose the movies they would watch and the take-out they ordered every night. 

This went on for a few months until Jaz brought home a new girl.  She was a willowy blonde with perfect cupcake breasts.  

“Ali, this is Lorelei,” said Jaz. “She is your replacement.  You may leave now.” 

Ali felt the same cold seeping out from her heart into her bloodstream that her bones had felt when her father first visited her bedroom in the night. She blinked at Jaz and Lorelei, not able to see them standing there.   All she could see were her parents; her mother was weeping and her father was rubbing his chin. 

Ali packed her suitcase, leaving the black lace and blush satin charmeuse underthings Jaz had bought her behind for Lorelei and wandered out into the winding streets under the eucalyptus trees. The only place she could think to go was the bookstore.   Michael hugged Ali.  He smelled like chewing gum and his arms were thin but muscled and taut from acrobatics.  There was a bristly fuzz growing on his scalp. He told Ali she could crash on the futon in Michael’s one-bedroom Silverlake apartment full of cats while she looked for a job.   

One night, at Ali’s request, Michael put the bleach on Ali’s hair and then rinsed it out. Ali’s eyes stung but her hair was shiny and pale almost like Lorelei’s. 

Ali and Michael went to a club in Hollywood.  In an underground room, with red velvet walls and wall sconces shaped like golden arms with hands holding electric candles, a tall bald man wearing pants that looked like they were made from black  human hair was whipping a half naked woman on a small stage.  Michael performed his aerial act above them, clad only in a black G-string, his body hard and white and celestial.  While Ali was watching Michael, the whipping man came off the stage and cupped Ali’s face in his hand. 

“You are so beautiful and sad,” he said. “What is your name?”

“Ali.”

“Alice in Wonderland,” he said,  “I’ll call you Wonderland.”

The man, whose name was Eros, invited Michael and Wonderland to come home with him for a drink.  Wonderland was curious so they went.

Eros lived in a three-story house in East L.A.  It had a black-shingled, peaked roof and a red porch light.  Four heavily made up women in black underwear were reclining in front of a fireplace.  They stared at Wonderland and Michael as the two of them followed Eros upstairs into a room with mirrors covering the walls, low black couches and urns of white lilies. 

“I have a room available,” Eros said, after he had given them each two cut glass goblets of red wine.  “Free room and board. All you have to do is perform with me once in awhile.”

Wonderland looked at Michael who shrugged. It was too dark in the room for her to see Michael’s eyes so Wonderland agreed.  Maybe Michael didn’t want her to sleep on his couch indefinitely, Wonderland told herself.

Michael kissed Wonderland quickly on the cheek and left.

Wonderland’s room in Eros’ house was the size of a large closet with one bed and a child-size school desk and chair.  Wonderland kept her clothes in the suitcase.  Eros bought her a pale blue dress with a white pinafore and frilly underthings.  A few nights a week she went to the club, got down on all fours and let him whip her until tears formed in her eyes and she had to bite her lip the way she did when her father had visited her.

Sometimes at night Eros came to Wonderland’s bed.  He told her that of all the women, she was the only one he could make love to tenderly, without any games, because there was something special about her, something enchanted.    When her hands gripped in to the white flesh and sinew and muscle of his shoulders, sometimes she found herself thinking of Michael suspended above her in the air.

One night there was knock on the door and Wonderland answered it, expecting Eros. It was one of the women who lived in the house and never spoke to her.

“He wants you to leave,” the woman said, flicking her long black hair extensions off her pale bare shoulders.  Her hair reminded Wonderland of the hair out of which Eros’ pants were made.

”What?  Who does?”  Wonderland was trying to remember if Eros had ever told her any of the women’s names.

“He wants you to leave,” the woman repeated.

“I’m not going anywhere. I want to speak to him. Where is he?”

“Trust me,” the woman said. “You don’t want to stay here anymore.” She sat on Wonderland’s bed and removed her spike heeled shoe. On the bottom of her foot was a swastika scar that looked as if it had been carved with a small, sharp knife.

“I’m not fucking kidding,” the woman said.  She handed Wonderland a few crumpled bills and a small piece of paper with a phone number on it. “She’ll help you,” the woman said.

 Wonderland didn’t like the way the woman had said I’m not fucking kidding, or the swastika on her heel so she left.  But she was afraid to go back to Michael in case he was angry at her for staying with Eros, so first she went to an office in Beverly Hills to see the person the woman had recommended.

The person was a stocky, gray haired woman in a brightly colored floral dress.  Her smile was slightly unctuous but possibly genuine; it was hard to tell.  Her office had a Persian rug on the floor depicting a brightly colored bird with one cold, staring eye.   Wonderland put her foot over the bird’s eye while she told the woman about her parents, about Jaz and Eros, but she did not mention Michael. The woman listened and then invited the girl, Wonderland home for dinner.  Wonderland thought this was weird but she had nowhere else to go.