Yes. It was a dumb move.

   Unprofessional, unthinking, with all the tact of a horse walking over an icy surface. But she was high, quite drunk, and, she had to admit, even though Kevin yawned, stretched, and then proceeded to reach around her shoulders and flop one of his bear-claw hands on her right breast, it was one of the most original things he ever did.

   Meaning, out of their two dates (this being the third), he finally made the first move.

***

   The next two weeks were pretty boring when compared with the first week’s activities.

   Good ole sock-it-to-me Kevin was out past his midnight curfew with Joanie and, as a result, a stiff penalty was imposed by his dad.

   Along with the penalty came -- as ever -- a word of advice.

   "Now, son. You know what you do is your own business. As long as you keep a good head on your shoulders. You know that."

   A nod

   "Yeah. Well, it’s not me who’s doing the worrying, son. It’s your mother. She worries easy, son. You know that."

   Another nod

   His dad nodded back and looked to the ground. "The other day she asked me what I thought you were up to with this Joanie. I laughed and told her probably the same thing she and I used to do when we were your age." A clearing of the throat. "She didn’t like hearing that, son. Not at all. She told me to talk to you about it. This is that talk. So be careful, okay?"

   Kevin nodded.

   Even though his dad wasn’t bald, his mother’s thumb print could be seen on his head clearly enough.

***

   The two-week grounding flowed like molasses for Kevin and Joanie.

   But at the beginning of the third week, when the punishment was lifted, Kevin took Joanie to Landover’s Hide-Away motel and celebrated the squeaks out of the bed.

   Kevin was home before curfew.

   His mother was a happy woman.

   Best of all, there were no more speeches from dad.

***

   The fourth week, Kevin was in the locker room, after football practice, doing what every young self-proclaimed stud did best: Bragging.

   "She fuck’s, huh?" asked Steve Bendal, who went out with Joanie before. All he got on the first date was a smile. The second date he got the cold shoulder. There never was a third date.

   "Like a rabbit," Kevin answered.

   "Oh, wow."

   "She blows, too. Real good."

   "God," Timmy Belton gasped. The closest he ever got to a blow job was a blow drier.

   "Skin to skin?" asked Ron Marble.

   "What do you mean?"

   "Do you use a rubber?"

   "No."

   "She on the pill?"

   "No."

   "Marriage turn you on?"

   "No."

   "Watch yourself, man. And from now on, if I were you, I’d put a sock on it." He smiled at Kevin’s perplexed look. "A rubber, man. A rubber."

***

   Kevin took Ron’s advice and put a sock on it.

   But it just wasn’t the same. It was like trying to get a sun tan with a rain coat on.

   "Can’t you get on the pill?" he asked Joanie one night after a sweat filled evening in the back seat.

   "Mom won’t co-sign. Besides. If you fuck me with that thing one more time, my pussy’ll have tread marks in it."

   So it was back to the rhythm method.

***

   Their third month together, Joanie brought Kevin the news.

   "You’re . . . Kidding," was all he could manage to say.

   She shook her head. "Tests were positive."

   Ron marble’s voice rang through his head: "Marriage turn you on?"

  "No," Kevin said aloud.

   She looked at him. "No what?"

   "I.... Won’t."

   "Won’t what?"

   "Get married."

   That was when the reality of the situation hit her. Because, if you were to get right down to it, Joanie didn’t want to get married either. She had plans, you see. Plans which mostly had to do with college. And a husband and a kid didn’t fit all too well into those nice senior plans for the future.

   So what was she to do?

   She couldn’t go up to her parents and say, Hey, mom. Dad. Guess what? I’m pregnant. Kevin won’t marry me but that’s okay. I don’t want marriage either. So is it okay if I, like, have the kid, and you guys, like, keep it until I get out of college?

   No.

   She couldn’t do that.

   They would take turns killing her.

   So Kevin suggested adoption.

   She didn’t much care for that idea.

   Abortion?

   She didn’t like that idea, either.

   But the more Kevin smiled and talked, the more it began to make sense. Until he told her he wasn’t going to help pay for it.

   "And why not?"

   "I don’t have the money."

   "Get it from your parents."

   "Oh. Yeah. Right. Like I’m going to just go up to pa and tell him I knocked up this bitching babe and now we want to abort the thing. You know what he’d do?"

   "Hit you?"

   "No. he’d ask me if I wore a rubber. And I’d say no. He’d ask why not. And you know what I’d tell him?"

   She grew quiet. She knew exactly what.

   "That’s right. I’d tell him my girl was so damned horny she wouldn’t fuck me anymore if I wore the fucking thing."

   "So what do we do now?"

   "Not we, dear heart. You."

***

   Joanie went to the only option left to her: her older brother, Tom.

   "You’re what and you want to do what?"

   "You heard me the first time."

   He nodded. He did. But it was hard to believe. His little sister.

   "So you going to help me or not?"

   "He isn’t going to pay for anything?"

   She shook her head.

   "I’ll give you the money if you do one thing for me."

   "What’s that?"

   "Dump the fucker."

   "Already have."

***

   Finding a place for his sister wasn’t as hard as he thought it was going to be. He went to the only person who would know where such a place would be.

   "Sure. I know of such a place."

   "You do?"

   Jim Shorter nodded. "Took Jenny there when I knocked her up."

   "Where’s this place at?"

   Jim pulled out his wallet, leafed through the trash he still carried around with him, and extracted a card. He handed it to Tom. "The directions are on the back of the card. Easy to follow."

   Tom turned the card over. Sure enough, the directions were there. He nodded and placed the card into his wallet. "How’s Jenny doing?"

   "Not so well. They’ve extended her trial date."

   "Did she ever tell you why she did such a thing?"

   Jim lowered his gaze. "Man, she doesn’t even know who I am anymore." He shook his head. "Tell you the truth, I’m not too sure I know who she is anymore, either. Do you have any idea what she does in there all day?"

   "No."

   "She talks to the air, man. She laps at the air as if it were water draining from an open faucet. Know what she did last week?"

   Tom shook his head.

   "She tried to pluck her eyes out with her fingers. She wrangled her fingers behind her right eye ball before they could tie her up. She was screaming just prior, I guess. Something about if she wasn’t allowed to see the ceiling field and floating poppies anymore, she didn’t want to see at all. They don’t know what she was talking about. Hell, I don’t know what she was talking about. She’s bad off, Tom. Real bad off."

   Tom didn’t answer. He just looked down at the tops of his converse as the silence grew between them like lust.

***

   The place was unnaturally easy to find.

   FLOWER POWER: THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR GENERATIONS was the sign’s only proclamation.

   "Ready for this?" Tom asked Joanie.

   "Not really."

   "Want me to come along?"

   She turned to him. "For what?"

   He wanted to say ‘for moral support’, but in the face of what she was doing, the phrase rang falsely.

   "Just hang by the phone, Tom. If I need you, I’ll call." Hurrying before she changed her mind, she exited the car with her small overnight bag.

   Tom took off after she entered the building.

***

   There were very little preliminaries involved. All the receptionist wanted to know was if Joanie had the money.

   "Of course."

   "All of it?"

   "Three hundred dollars."

   The receptionist disappeared from view, leaving Joanie puzzled. But the pieces fell into place when the receptionist called to her from an opened door on the other side of the cubicle.

   Joanie followed her to the operating room.

***

   The doctor himself was a spastic fellow.

   He came in, quick as a bee, dipping here and dipping there as he buzzed about the room exuberantly. He finally came over to Joanie. "Name’s Harry." He extended his hand.

   She accepted his shake. "Joanie."

   "How’re you feeling today?"

   Joanie grinned sheepishly. "Scared as hell."

   He grinned and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "That’ll all change." Harry went through his examination quickly. When through, he told her to lie back and enjoy the painting on the ceiling.

   "It’ll make you feel at home. The nurse’ll be in to outfit you in a few minutes."

***

   Joanie hated hospital uniforms.

   But she did enjoy the painting on the ceiling.

   Most offices she was acquainted with had ceilings of tile, ceilings of plaster, ceilings of drabness equaling the back of her eye lids.

   She stared at the meadow scene. Seemingly millions of flowers, dotted the greenery, filling in the gaps between the trees and the grass, butterflies slothing from flower to flower.

   "Beautiful, isn’t it?" Harry asked, walking into the room.

   Joanie nodded.

   "The artist who painted it went quite mad after painting it."

   "From painting it?"

   "No. I think he was a bit fruity before he painted it, but something about the painting brought it out of him."

   "Oh."

   "So . . . You ready?"

   She thought she was ready until she saw the needle. She hated needles.

   He lifted her arm, lifted his mouth into a limp smile, and injected tap water into her. He then stood back to wait for it to take effect.

   But for Joanie, the effect of water in her veins was monumental in proportions.

   She watched as the painting’s butterflies began moving, their wings sloshing the air in the wilderness of the meadow, the flowers they doted on swaying to an unseen, and as yet unfelt, wind. She blinked and the butterflies filtered down about her like psychedelic snow, alighting upon different areas of the room. Some sat on various instruments, some near the sink, some fluttered around her like leaves from a tree.

   She was tempted to move when the trees, the grasses, and the flowers grew down toward her. A vine fell from the ground of the meadow, barking her white gown brown.

   She whimpered a protest when she noticed Harry’s shoulders somehow replaced the grasshopper legs.

   But all Harry did was smile and kiss the insides of her thighs, telling her to lie still. It would all be over before she knew it.

   And God help her, she saw Harry as he reared back from her thighs. She saw, yes, but was she seeing what she thought she was seeing? Was Harry’s face really dissolving, flowing from his skull in a liquid grace it wasn’t created to perform?

   She gazed at the process through glazed eyes and wanted to cry out, but awe took her words and filled her mouth with silence.

   His face twisted and danced and elongated until a new elegance stood before Joanie’s disbelieving eyes. It was a shape she knew from the darkness of Kevin’s back seat, but of a size only a virgin dreamed it being.

   The skin of Harry’s face was gone, the flaps sagging well below his chin, and in its place was a phallus, its tip rimmed with flashing teeth. The bushy scrotum itched her stomach, causing her to squirm and conjure up a pitifully futile whimper which seemed to delight Harry.

   A finger and a thumb found her vulva, tweaking her, and that was when she did let out a scream, a scream which intensified as he entered her, causing her body to automatically stiffen before it grew accustomed to the natural rhythm of the situation. A few strokes into her, she felt herself loosen up even as her panic mounted her easier than Harry.

   Joanie felt her consciousness slipping from her in streaks of sweat lining her forehead. She became aware of Harry stepping back from her splayed legs, and then she became aware of something wriggling itself from her, slowly, as if Harry sucked something monstrous from her, something wet, gooing her thighs as it left her.

   The funny part about it was she might not even have noticed the butterfly hovering above her at all if it wasn’t for its sad, blue eyes, the sadness reinforced by it dropping down, lovingly licking Joanie’s face, and whispering, "Good-bye, mama."

   In way of an answer, all Joanie could do was lift her hand to it and stroke its tiny body, slickened with yoke. It has Kevin’s eyes, she thought as it turned from its cocoon, its hibernation cut short, and flew off into the painting, passing numerous butterflies on its way to its new home, its new life.

   Joanie finally got out a salutation meant for the butterfly, but it was too late. It was gone, lost in all but her memory of what might have been. She blinked once, trying to clear her vision of her tears of frustration and loss when she thought she caught a glimpse of the butterfly who called her mama wavering drunkenly from flower to flower. But then how could she be sure it was him from this distance? Didn’t all children who screamed for their mothers from a distance appear to be the same, a scream answered by all disaster-expectant mothers until it was determined if the scream belonged to their child or not? And what right did Joanie have to heed the call when she wasn’t even a wanna-be mother but a casualty of lust?

   The answer to was she had no rights at all.

   Joanie blinked a second time and caught sight of Harry standing over her, a simile of a smile flashing from the tip of the phallus. What did that smile have in store for her? She didn’t have long to contemplate as Harry once again knelt between her legs and stuck back into her his tool of the trade.

   All Joanie could do was lie there, and cry (her tears never matching the number of luminous forms exiting her), and endure the calls for mama as each butterfly exited her and found refuge from this cruel world in the mad meadow hanging before her eyes.

***

Landover Local newspaper headline, dated June 15, 1988:

INFANT KILLER APPREHENDED

by Paul Hillinger

Staff Writer

Mothers of America, you can sleep soundly tonight.

After a long and fruitless six months of tracking false leads and going over dead clues, police have finally put an end to what is being called "the worst nightmare this state has ever endured." Police Commissioner Martin Keller was on hand when the police finally caught up with the felon.

Eighteen-year-old Joanie Baker was arrested today and charged with thirty-five counts of murder-one, five of which occurred within the last month.

Investigators are now looking to see if there is any connection between the murders committed by Joanie Baker and the one her best friend Jenny Kater committed. Their methods were eerily similar and since the two were friends from elementary age up to Jenny’s arrest seven months ago, it was inevitable the two be somehow compared.

You may remember Jenny was arrested for killing her sister. Jenny tied her two-year-old sister to a bedpost with her own underpants and then commenced to taking a common garden rake to her. It was the most diabolical murder of the day.

Until Joanie took up gardening, that is.

Interesting side note to Joanie Baker’s apprehension. Commissioner Keller was quoted to say, "(Miss Baker) was found sitting out in the middle of a vast meadow in Black Creek Park with what appeared to be millions of butterflies covering her and just as many hovering above her like a black cloud. And every few seconds, she would pluck one from her person and shove it into her mouth, mutter "Come to mama," and swallow it whole. It was eerie. We stood by and watched her do it for a full five minutes before we moved in. Even then, we had to brush the (expletive deleted) things off her like sand. And (the butterflies) in the air seemed to watch what was going on as if they knew what was going on. (The butterflies) followed us as we drug her to the car and followed the cars all the way to the station house. For two hours they threw themselves against the windows and the brickwork, trying to gain entrance. When through, the side of the precinct looked like the grill of a car. That was when (Miss Baker) quit saying, "Come to mama," and began asking what did we do with the ceiling field and the floating poppies. I didn’t know what she was talking about then and I still don’t know what she was getting at. I’ve been in for twenty years and have never seen anything like that before. Like I said, the whole thing was eerie."

District Attorney Greg Sellsby found Commisioner Keller’s tale of Ms. Baker’s arrest eerie as well, but feels reasonably certain it will have no bearing upon the outcome of the case.