Fear Her (Complete)

Episode 11

Virgo looked at Girl–no, Taurus–for a long moment.

“You should hang out with me. I suck at everything, including reading Shakespeare. I’m a bad athlete. I’m shit at math. I’m probably going to fail APUSH without a tutor, so you should be my tutor.”

“And what’s in it for me?”

“You get somebody to bear witness while you don’t get your head stuffed in a U-bend.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

Virgo pointed to the droplets of bilge water adorning her sneakers “You’re getting toilet water on my shoes.”

“I will buy you more Kleenex for those shoes because I wouldn’t know where to find them and I’m broke.”

“That skirt is Banana Republic.”

“My sister didn’t want it, so I wore it. It’s a classic.”

It was a little hideous, or it would be on someone less bedraggled in the first place. Virgo wasn’t about to kick a wet kitten when it was already down on its luck. There wasn’t a circle of hell low enough for people like that.

“Yeah, okay. Bring the ones with lotion, though. Don’t waste my time with store brand.”

“I’ll splurge.”

They met no resistance getting to the gym though they passed at least one campus cop. He was too busy taking a selfie with the school mascot to make a fuss about where they were headed. Or maybe my friend the human toilet brush was too pathetic to question. The sooner dubiously named Taurus met her showerhead god the better for the already unpleasant school air quality conditions.

Virgo straddled the gym locker room bench and watched their stuff while Taurus made herself scarce in the farthest shower stall. All of them looked too grimy for Virgo and she had pretty low standards. She had no standards was what she meant and she was still planning to buy flip flops to walk around in here. Athlete’s Foot was 100% avoidable if you tried. This place looked like it’d give you Athlete’s Everything. An Athlete’s Life, Athlete’s Face, all of that, and Virgo wasn’t about that burning sensation under any circumstances. Let me buy stock in Tinactin and make a buck.

Disciples were all about the hustle. They’d sold everything from singles on the corner to bottles of water from a pack and turned a profit. You can’t serve God if you can’t put food on your own table and feed your children. God said be fruitful and multiply. He said act as if ye have faith and it shall be given to you. He did not leave a recipe for turning a loaf of Sara Lee and a single catfish into a church picnic every night. Far as Virgo was concerned, God got stingy with the details at the worst times. Or Man got stingy on his behalf. Mr. G ain’t exactly taking pen to paper on his own time. Humankind is the ultimate ghost writer. Still, mankind was greedy. Keeping secrets for their own sake, that spiritual get rich quick scheme that made apostles into prophets in their own right. Because you could lead man to the light but you couldn’t make him selfless. You could, however, give him delusions of grandeur and a messianic complex. Then again, some people were born with that and some had it bestowed upon them by society. Odds were, nine times out of ten, they were men. White men. No points for calling that twist ahead of the reveal.

Virgo was no apostle. She testified only to what her eyes could see, she spoke only for herself. She was no god’s prophet. She was nobody’s angel, either, fallen or otherwise.

Taurus emerged from the shower in a plume of fragrant steam. It smelt like something you could by from the corner store. Nice, though. Something with a fancy named like Rich Burgundy Boysenberry or Deep Dark Passionate Pomegranate. One those things regular companies named their stuff to make up for the ‘get 15% more free’ label they had to slap on it so that regular folks could justify opening their pocket book to buy something they didn’t really need. Not even broke folk liked having it thrown in their faces.

“That’s nice.”

“What?”

“Your shampoo? Or was that body wash or something?”

“Oh, yeah. Herbal Essences. Makes my hair bounce. Um, I just use regular body wash. It’s the…I guess it’s supposed to be for boys or whatever. Irish Spring. I just love the smell. It’s so pine-y. That’s a thing? It’s—it reminds me of Christmas whenever I use it.” Taurus was a rambler. Virgo didn’t hold it against her.

“Then, I guess you smell Christmas-y.”

“Yeah. Better than smelling like ass.”

“Hot buttered ass with jam.”

“No way. I didn’t smell that bad.”

“You didn’t notice me keeping downwind?”

“No, I didn’t because you didn’t.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Taurus stuck out her tongue at Virgo. She seemed her age when she did that. Virgo had a lot of questions about how a fifteen-year-old got into junior classes. It wasn’t a question of smart. Taurus had smart growing from her follicles. Something about it just didn’t sit right about her surrounded by jaded half-pint, half-baked juniors like Virgo. Some people need to be protected.