CHAPTER 22

“Has Chatha come out of her room yet?” Kim was standing in the doorway to Jessie’s apartment, hiding behind her streak of blue hair. They had just gotten back to London a few hours ago, sick of traveling, sick of touring, and many of them sick of each other. Chatha hadn’t said much since the last night of the tour, and she had locked herself in her apartment the second they got back to their building.

            Jessie, who was plucking away at her bass then jotting down whatever combination caught her attention, looked up at Kim. “Come in. We have to talk.”

            Kim stepped in carefully, not trusting the sound to Jessie’s voice. She’d never heard it before. Was it anger? She shut the door behind her, then forced herself to calmly walk across the room. “What did you have in mind?”

            “Your hypocritical attitude as of late. Let’s debase and call down everything with a prick, but then fuck any of them that want it, huh? Let’s surround ourselves with the enemy and watch as one of our own gets hurt because of it!” Jessie put her bass down and got to her feet. As Kim was opening her mouth to protest, Jessie put her hand up. “No, I don’t want to hear anything out of you.”

            She came right up to Kim and took her by the shoulder, staring into her eyes. “Listen to me, Kimberly. Chatha’s a baby. A sweet, innocent little girl. It’s our job to look out for her, and I guess that would be okay, but she looks up to you! And she wants to impress you. Why the hell else would she have been alone in a room with a strange boy? Why the hell else would she have initiated it?”

            “You don’t know--”

            “I do, Kim. She told me on the bus, when the rest of your were sleeping off your hangovers. Because you and Geneveve and Ebony and Elke all knew what you were doing around boys. You’d all had your fair share, and you, most of all, bragged about going through them! You’re her example, Kim. Don’t you know how much she loves you and looks up to you? She wanted to impress you, but she didn’t know her own limits before it was too late.”

            Kim ducked her head, unable to keep her eyes steady with Jessie’s anymore. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

            “Sorry doesn’t do anything, Kim. That girl is barely even 17. She’s only dated once or twice before. She is an innocent, and you left her alone in your world. When there were countless things with pricks--” she spit out those words, reminding Kim that she shouldn’t have been associating with them in the first place “--wandering around backstage, all desperately wanting to know what it’s like to be inside of Kim Kissably or one of her grrls.”

            Kim opened her mouth, but no words came to her mind.

            Jessie shook her head. “Don’t say anything to me, Ms. Kissably. Just listen. Listen, and nothing else. You’re destroying yourself with this hatred and hypocrisy, and maybe I could have let you continue, no matter how much it hurt to watch. The self-destruction of giving in to the wants of your enemy. You hate anything with a prick, and yet it was a new one in your bed every night. What were you trying to do, kill yourself off slowly with an emotional meltdown? It makes no sense, Kim. And I know how fucking stubborn you are, so I wouldn’t have thought to make you stop--”

            “You sure protested enough.”

            “And you continued! But now it has to end. So you’re used to going through men like they’re nothing; so Gwen was just a fresh of breath air. Fuck, take a reality check. She changed you. Showed you there’s something to sex other than hatred and escape. You shouldn’t have gone back to what you were before. And it’s not just hurting you, Kim. We have proof of that now. Poor little Chatha, locked up in her room. Do you even care?”

            Her face flushed, Kim took a step back. “Jessie--”

            “You’re allowed to hurt yourself, Kim. Go ahead and destroy yourself, then find out who’ll mourn you. But don’t take any of us with you.” Her voice had started to shake, and she turned away. Kim was sure she was hiding tears.

            “I never meant for it to come to this, Jess.”

            “But it has.”

            “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

            Jessie replied only with silence.

            “Jess, what if I break off the band? Will that be right?”

            “I’m not asking you to break off the band, I’m asking you to grow up. You’re acting like a spoiled child, Kim, doing whatever you want to do and quickly looking the other way whenever a consequence pops up.”

            “A consequence, huh?”

            “Kim, Chatha almost got raped! I told you something like that would happen, and you swore it never would! You swore vehemently!”

            “Jess--”

            “Get out of my sight, you’re making me sick! Chatha worships you, and because of that, her innocence was taken away. Go talk to her, explain things to her, make it up to her somehow.”

            “How can you make up for the loss of innocence?”

            “I’m not the one who has to figure that out! Go talk to her, Kim, you owe her that much. She wanted to come to you on the tour bus, but she talked to me instead because she doesn’t know how to approach you. So you approach her.”

            “Jess--”

            “Unless you want your precious band to be short one bassist, go!”

            Kim backed away until she hit the wall. Then she went for the door and stalked out, slamming it behind her. She stood in the hall, breathing hard, for a long time before moving again. “Not my bloody fault,” she muttered, but she headed for Chatha’s apartment anyway.

            She had to wait a few minutes after knocking on the door to even get a weak “who is it?” called out to her.

            “It’s Kim, darlin’. Wanna’ let me in? It’s gettin’ dark out and I need t’see some pink to cheer up my day.”

            A few more minutes, and the door was opened. Kim slipped in just in time to catch Chatha walking back into her room. “Darlin’?” She followed, stopping in the doorway.

            Chatha was sitting in the middle of her bed, wearing long pink flannel pajamas. Her short hair had been put up in about fifty ponytails, which Kim knew was a long and painful process that consisted of much tearing out of hair and cramped fingers.

            “What inspired the ‘do?”

            Chatha shrugged. Kim stepped into the room and saw that she had a tan piece of paper in front of her crossed legs, with some sort of black charcoal sketch on it. “What’cha working on?”

            “Drawin’.” Chatha looked up at her. “Ah like t’draw. Relaxin’.”

            “Hmm.”

            “Y’know the boot cover fer Stone’s Throw?”

            “Yeah, that scratchy spider thing.”

            “Tha’s mine. When ah was still on stage an’ Elke was chasin’ ‘er spiders, ah asked someone in th’audience fer a sheet o’ paper an’ a pen. Drew th’ spider, then tossed i’ ou’ into th’crowd. An’ i’ made i’s way t’the boot.”

            “That’s awesome.” Kim stepped farther in, hesitant, then she told herself to quit being such a wuss, and she came to sit beside Chatha. “So what are you drawing now?”

            “A charbroiled princess.”

            Kim blinked. “May I?” She slid the paper around so she could see it. It was, in fact, a princess, drawn in the same scratchy style as the spider. Long, poofy, medieval dress. Very tall conical hat with scarves hanging down from it. Long, flowing hair. It was the kind of princess drawing every little girl had once made their mothers stick to the refrigerator, except the lines were scratched out and harsh, and everything was black. “Why’s she charbroiled?”

            “Ah figure th’ knight in shinin’ armor didn’t get there in time, so th’ dragon cooked ‘er up fer dinner.”

            “Why would the dragon do that? She’s such a pretty princess.”

            “’Cause th’ dragon can, ah suppose.”

            “Every dragon has his own reason, darlin’.”

            “Maybe ‘cause th’ princess gave ‘im th’ idea tha’ she was a tasty treat.”

            “Or maybe because the knight in shinin’ armor was a dickhead and goaded the dragon on.”

            “Nah. I’s th’ princess’s fault.”

            “The princess was the innocent bystander.” Kim pointed to a blank spot on the page to the left of the princess. “There’s where the knight is, I’m thinkin’. Off chatting with some dragons that she’s out to slay. One of them gets bored and wanders off. Being a dragon, he looks immediately for the prettiest little princess he can find. After all, knights in shining armor tend to come with swords, and you just don’t want to play with that; not when you’re a dragon.”

            “S’ th’ dragon went for th’ prettiest princess ‘e could find?”

            “Yes. He took a look around the room and saw this strange creature with a half-shaved head and fifty million different colors attacking the remainder of her hair. He was, yes, curious, but what sort of princess would do that to her hair? Or have that many piercings?” Kim made a disgusted face, and Chatha giggled. “’Sides, how could would all that hair dye and metal taste? A dragon can’t just cook up any old chick he finds, y’know. Very delicate taste buds.”

            Chatha nodded very seriously. “Def’nitely.”

            “Yeah, so he looked elsewhere. And he saw this other princess. She was wearing vinyl and chain mail; now, the chain mail threw him for a loop for a second, because it’s mostly the knights who wear it, but no... This was definitely another princess. She seemed a good possibility, if a little chewy. Y’know, with all the vinyl and everything.”

            “Uh huh.”

            “I know if I were a dragon, I wouldn’t want to be chewing on a vinyl princess, anyway, because vinyl is not meant to be warn for more than 10 minutes or you start sweating profusely.”

            “Tha’s why only princesses ‘oo ge’ a lo’ of action wear vinyl.”

            “Exactly. So he decides he doesn’t want to chew on vinyl that’s been under stage lights for a few hours and looks around for something else. There’s a princess wearing all black lying on the couch, and this looks promising. Already passed out, easy enough to just scorch then munch, right? Although he’s a little put off by the fact that she looks more like she’s dead than sleepy. Deathly pale skin, black-edged eyes, blueish lips. And funeral clothes, to boot! This dragon likes his snacks fresh. Besides, there’s this court jester sitting on the floor beside her with his head in her lap, snoring away peacefully.”

            “Raine’s a court jester?”

            Kim, looking alarmed, put her finger over her lips. “No names! We don’t know who we’re talkin’ about, darlin’. Just a bunch of princesses and knights and dragons.”

            “And a court jester!”

            “Yeah, never forget the court jester. He’s a brilliant court jester, and he keeps the dead-lookin’ princess immensely entertained. Anyway, so the dragon is on the verge of giving up. All these princesses are so weird and unappealing. And it’s not like he’s going to go back to where the knight in shining armor is taunting all the other dragons. He’s about to give up, then he spots this beautiful, young, fresh little princess in pink. Who could pass it up?”

            “So i’ wasn’t th’ princess’s fault?”

            “Nah.”

            “An’ th’ dragon... Did ‘e get ‘is heart cu’ ou’ by th’ knight in shinin’ armor?”

            “Actually, the vinyl princess gave him a severe beating. The knight in shining armor had to rescue the beautiful princess, even if it was a little late. But she only got a little bit blackened.”

            “So ah’m a blackened princess?”

            “Yeah, I suppose you are.”

            Sitting, staring down at her hands in her lap, Chatha sighed. Then she threw her arms around Kim, taking her by surprise, and whispered fiercly: “Ah don’ blame you, Kim. Y’di’n’t know.”

            “Don’t blame yourself either, baby.” Kim slipped her arms around Chatha. “There are monsters out there, just like in the story books.”

            “Are there real-life heroes, too?”

            “I’ll try to make sure there are, darlin’. I’ll make myself into a modern day hero. My armor’s a bit rusty, but I won’t let you down again, alright?”

            Chatha sighed deeply, holding Kim tighter. “Le’s ‘ave this band f’rever, awright? Ah feel a’ ‘ome.”

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