© Sauce*Box, Fall 1997. All rights revert to author. 

Electra Woman & Dyna Girl
by Tiffany Lee Brown
 

 Christina finished cutting the peanut butter sandwiches into strips and arranged them in a circle on a plate painted with lacy green vines. "i am going to have Sweet 10 in my ice tea," she announced. "it tastes great but only has ten calories per serving. do you want Sweet 10 or sugar?" puzzled, i asked why having ten calories was a good thing. "because i'm on a Diet," she explained. Christina was much bigger than me, she was tall and two years older and much stronger too. but she didn't look like she needed a Diet, and besides my Mom would say why should a healthy nine year old Diet? "i don't want any sugar," i said. the tea tasted sweet to me already. Christina's Mom kept it in a nubbly green glass pitcher in the fridge instead of a jar.

 i followed Christina down the stairs, where she carefully put the peanut butter strips on the pool table and set the iced tea on the bar. the bar was very high up where i could barely reach, and was made out of a slab of wood from their land. her Dad, Mister Stafford, had polished it so it was very shiny. at my house we had a low coffee table made out of a huge walnut tree we'd had to cut down out of the orchard down in California; it was kind of like that. holding the bar up were pipes and cables painted a rusty gold-brown, and i think they used to be logging equipment.

 i squeezed behind the bar and unlatched a little door in the pine panelled wall. Christina was getting too big to climb inside, which made me glad because we used to play a lot in the little room inside. i didn't like small spaces, they made me feel weird and sometimes i would panic and start screaming and kicking like when my brother would stuff me in a sleeping bag and zip it up all the way, and i would squirm and cry and howl. i would try to pretend it was okay and be calm but i felt as though i was dying. but now i crawled into the little room long enough to find the big gold boxes and hand them out to Christina.

 when i crawled back into the rec room, the gold lid of one box was lying on the pool table, covering half the peanut butter sandwiches. then Christina threw out the tissue paper and pulled out her dress. i started unwrapping mine slowly. i didn't really like mine; it was a pale salmony colour that reminded me of my Mom's kitchen tile. but i took off my clothes and Christina zipped me into the frothy strapless taffeta with the piles of tulle on the skirt part. i twirled around but had to keep holding it up from falling down. the dresses were from Christina's Mom and her sister; they had worn them to the Prom many years ago, so we had to be extra careful with them. the blue one, that looked like icing, stayed up on Christina now, and she swung her hips in front of the mirror for a while. she wore her dress shoes, which had little white heels on the bottom of them.

 "i don't feel like playing dress-up," i told her after a while. i munched on a peanut butter strip. "let's go outside and play Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. you got the walkie-talkies?" i always had to be Dyna Girl because Christina wanted to be the one who orders everyone around, but i thought Dyna Girl was prettier than Electra Woman anyway, and besides even if she said less, she always figured out the really obscure parts of the mystery while Electra Woman was just running around in her red high heels. like in the episode where they go in the pharoah's tomb, even though the tomb was done really badly and didn't look anything like a real pharoah's tomb, and Dyna Girl deduced from the heiroglyphs that the sarcophagus was behind a magic door. Dyna Girl also had brown hair, like me and Christina both, but Electra Woman had bleachy-blonde hair like a Barbie doll. and Dyna Girl was smaller so she could go more places faster.

 "we're gonna play Wild West," Christina informed me. "what's your name?" i thought about going out to the woods to look at the miniature castles by myself or something, but decided Wild West would be okay. "um, i'm ... i'm Miranda," i said. Christina raised her eyebrows, and i could tell she was mad i had thought of such a dramatic name, a new one we'd never used in a game before. "i'm Beth," she pronounced proudly, pointing her chin at me. i didn't say anything. we both knew Beth was a boring name, from Little Women. she climbed up on the piano bench and pressed eject on the eight-track. i ran over to look at the tapes before she put the Carpenters on again. "i can't listen to the Carpenters anymore," i told her. "my Mom's been playing them all the time." "but i want to hear the Carpenters," she whined. "no, let's listen to that other stuff. look, your sister left her Beatles! put on that!" Christina glared at me and i could tell she wanted to fight about it. "this is my house," she said sure enough,"and i can put on whatever i want." "i know," i answered. "just put on the Beatles or anything but the Carpenters." i made sure my voice didn't sound like fighting. she hesitated a moment, then stuck in the Donna Summer cartridge. towering down at me from atop the bench, she squirreled her eyebrows and let out a big huge sigh.

 i didn't say anything and ate another peanut butter strip. the bottom of my dress dragged along the short carpeting, like always, but i started swaying to the disco song. Christina jumped down and rushed to the centre of the room, flailing her arms in flowy motions and tapping her little white heels. "ten cents a daaaance," she called out as usual. "ten cents a daaance!" we made believe that the cowboys had come in and we were dancing with them. i would keep dancing but not say anything, my arm resting gently on my imaginary cowboy's chest, while i listened to her conversation with her imaginary cowboy. "why, how dare you!" she exclaimed suddenly, slapping at the air. she marched off to the bar and took up her glass of iced tea. i kept dancing with my guy, asking him about where they had ridden in from. "i'm going to play your guy," Christina said in her normal voice, putting down the glass and bustling over to me."my name's Nate."

 she put her arms around my waist and i kept dancing. my voice was in a southern drawl, like Mom and i would always talk in for fun, like in Gone with the Wind, and it was really high up. Christina always tried to make a southern accent too, but she couldn't do it right and sounded funny. now she talked real slow and made her voice low like a man's. "tell me, little lady," she intoned, "how did you end up in a Wild West tavern like this?" i wasn't really into the game and couldn't come up with anything good off the top of my head, so i pulled away from her and shielded my eyes. "ah'm feeling a bit weak," i fluttered in a breathy voice. "could you-all get me a drink please, Nate?"

 i suddenly felt the weight of poor Miranda's plight, and leaned helplessly against the pool table. "bartender!" Nate barked. "bring me a beer for this little lady!" he brought it over to me, slightly concerned. "here you are, sweetie," he said, leering at me somewhat. i drank gratefully, my cheeks flushing as i caught my breath again. "what did you say your name was?" "ah'm Miranda, kind sir," i told him. just then i felt faint with the weight of my poor plight, the crops dying, Mama falling ill, the long train trip out West, the long nights at the tavern. water slipped down my hands as the glass fell toward the floor, but before it crashed to pieces Nate grabbed it. my head spun, and the orange dress was falling down. i was falling down. my eyelids were closed, the ground swam up to me and i fell into it.

 the bigfaced woman with the smelling salts scolded down at me. "you're supposed to dance with the gentleman, not faint on him." she stood up, replaced in an instant by Nate, who leered over me like a big snake with beady eyes. "you're comin' with me, little lady!" he hissed gleefully, pushing the yellow beanbag chair across the carpet with me still on it. straddling the chair so i couldn't move, he reached over and locked the door, then peered down at me again, smiling so his lips made a flat line. Nate hiked up her blue tulle skirt and lowered himself onto my stomach. "you want it, don't you little Miranda" he said.

 i craned my neck toward the doorknob, wondering if i could reach it fast enough. Nate dropped the pile of frothing blue and his arms darted out like tongues, wrapping around my wrists and pressing them into the soft gelatine of the chair. "don't even think of it," he drawled, "i am here to have some fun." i let out a squeal, or maybe a whimper, and Nate jerked my arms above my head, grabbing both wrists with one fat hand. the other closed over my mouth. i could feel Christina's gold ring, the one with her birthstone in it, the real sapphire stone she said, digging into my cheek. "that's better," Nate said with an evil chuckle, and started grinding his pelvis into mine. this went on for a few minutes with nothing happening, so i started screaming underneath his hand. he pressed it tighter into my face and said, "shut up Miranda you little whore."

 then she made a sound like "shlllorrp" and began pumping harder at me. this was the sound that meant the penis was supposed to be going into the vagina, which Christina said was how babies are made. "shut up Miranda you little whore!" Nate said again, louder this time, so i pretended to struggle and yell. Nate kept going faster and faster, and my arms and hips started hurting. then he sighed, a grunt kind of sigh, and let go of me. we lay still for a Moment, listening to Christina's Mom walking up the steps from the front door.

 "whore," Christina said one more time, crossing the room to put on a Carpenters tape.

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