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I.- Vanilla
Viktoria Reveck turns out to be a tall, thin young girl. Her eyes are golden honey, thick eyelashes that remind Jayce of a sad deer, an effect enhanced by her high cheekbones and long curly hair that falls like a chocolate curtain over coconut ice cream.
Jayce thinks she’s pretty. Very pretty. Doll – like, and he says so with red cheeks as he shakes her fragile hand when Ximena introduces them.
“My, thank you, Jayce,” Viktoria replies, her accent thick on every word, his name said all s and no y; it’s cute, even when Jayce’d usually hate anyone who said his name wrong. All about Viktoria is cute, from her delicate hands of pink-lilac nails to her long green skirt to the gloss of her pouting mouth.
She looks nothing like the cruel, old and graying nannies Jayce has seen at the park. Although Viktoria has a cane in her left hand, holding it tightly.
“You’re very handsome too,” Viktoria hums, perhaps a bit patronizing, but her eyes are kind and honest. Jayce goes red all the same, and hides behind Ximena’s skirt, ashamed.
(Even when Viktoria leaves, already hired as Jayce’s babysitter and promising to come tomorrow at two pm sharp, her vanilla perfume clings to the air. Jayce wishes he could trap it with his hands, turn it into a marshmallow, and eat it).
II.- Lemon
Jayce is thrilled to discover Viktoria is not much older than him, in fact, she’s barely old enough and tall enough to be considered fitted to take care of Jayce, even if Jayce argued he was a grown-up boy and needed no babysitter.
Which would probably be easier to argue if last time he went alone to the park, he had not ended up in a fight, now forever reminded to him by the scar of his eyebrow. In his defense, it had been the other kid who started it, making fun of – well, of everything that Jayce was.
Jayce wishes he looked more like Viktoria, in a way. She’s kind of tall for a girl, an inch taller than Jayce’s mom, yet of a slim figure that makes Jayce think of a swam, or an spaghetti. Viktoria had laughed tenderly when he said so during lunch, sharing two sandwiches and lemonade in the small garden of the house.
Since dad went to Heaven, mamá has had to work all day, from monday to saturday, free on sunday only because people considered church a sacred duty. Viktoria stays with Jayce now, already at home when Jayce gets off the bus, waiting for him with snacks and ready to sit next to Jayce until he finishes his homework.
Vikki - ‘May I call you Vikki?’ he had asked on their first day, drinking apple juice and watching her do the dishes. She had smiled, angelic, ‘Why, of course, Jayce.’ - was pretty. Is pretty. She’s all Jayce isn’t; tall, slim, pale.
To this day, Ximena hasn’t been able to answer Jayce why kids dislike his skin. Jayce didn’t use to think of it, giggling anytime he played with papá and saw their hands together; he hoped to be just like him, tall and strong, always a smile ready for his family. Yet, kids – and sometimes adults of cold, scary eyes, – look at Jayce like he’s an ugly bug they need to get rid of. Ximena has never been able to answer him why, so Jayce asks Vikki, because Vikki is very smart.
“I’m afraid cruelty is part of humankind, Jayce,” Vikki explains as she draws next to Jayce, his math homework, as usual, finished in just minutes; “People do not like what’s different. You and I are different to them.”
“... How are you different?” Jayce inquires, confused as he adds stars to the sky he is drawing, “You’re pretty.”
“You’re sweet,” Viktoria hums, her hand leaving the color down and petting Jayce’s hair; he loves the feeling, his tummy tickling different than it does when mom or some old lady caress him; “I come from very far away, which they don’t like. And, eh,” here she uses her left hand, raising her cane, “The obvious, I suppose.”
“But why do they dislike that?” Jayce asks, even more confused than before, “Are they scared of canes?”
“Scared!” Viktoria laughs, loud and genuine, ruffling his hair, smile on her lips, “No, Jayce. I’m disabled, and some people – They think that makes me less than them.”
“That’s stupid,” Jayce spits, and then shakes his head, “Sorry. That’s a bad word.”
“A strong word, yes,” Viktoria picks up her color again, her eyes carrying certain sadness Jayce does not think he understands, “But very true. They are very stupid, and you should not listen to them.”
Jayce supposes that if Vikki, pretty and smart, disregards mean comments, then he can do it too.
III.- Peonies
Jayce has never been interested in flowers. He prefers rocks, harsh and shiny minerals that could be older than the oldest man at church and that would see many years to come.
Flowers are, in the other hand, boring. Jayce respects their role in pollination, understanding that for bees, flowers must be like, a big deal. But girls his age at school are always picking up flowers, giggling, and Jayce has seen the older boys gift shiny red roses to older girls of short skirts and equally red nails and lips.
“Why do girls like flowers?” Jayce asks to Dmitri, his only friend, as they play cards. Like him, Dmitri is a bit of an outcast; he comes from another place, and like Viktoria, carries an accent that sometimes makes Jayce pretend he understood what his friend said and simply go along. Unlike him, however, Dmitri is of very pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes that sometimes scare him. Girls used to follow Dmitri around, until they saw him talking to the bugs and then adopt a spider; that day the girls ran away, and Jayce sat next to Dmitri and showed him a shiny rock he found.
Dmitri, with his scarred lips in a purse – because like Jayce, Dmitri had to endure bigger kids who were mean –, shrugs.
“Girls are weird. But my mom likes flowers.”
“You think they eat them?”
“Girls are not – hm, no. But my babička made tea with them.”
“But tea comes in bags.”
“In my home. No tea bags there.”
Jayce takes his turn with the cards; far away, he can see teacher Caitlyn shyly accepting flowers from another teacher, Violet. Maybe flowers are some sort of universal gift? Dad never got mom flowers, he got her chocolates, bracelets, shiny metallic earrings. But Jayce cannot exactly buy much, or rather, he cannot buy anything at all without asking mom for money.
“For me?” Vikki asks as she takes off her eyes from the newspaper, looking at Jayce through her thick eyeglasses she uses for reading.
Jayce, who really wants to shower and clean his nose, nods. In his hand, in divine offering to Vikki, he holds five yellow peonies he stole from Mrs. Young’s garden.
“Is this why you arrived almost an hour late?” Vikki teases him, no malice in her words or smirk as she takes the flowers, taking them with the same flattered gesture as teacher Caitlyn or the older girls at school; she takes the flowers to her nose, and her eyes shine as if she had never smelled a flower before. “Thank you, Jayce. They’re very pretty.”
Uncaring of the sweat and dirt on his face, Viktoria leans down and kisses his nose.
Suddenly, Jayce understands why people gift flowers.
IV.- Datum hraní
Dmitri had been to Jayce’s house before dad went to Heaven, their moms always sitting in the living room while Jayce showed his favorite rocks to Dmitri. This is the very first time in months that Dmitri visits, and this time there’s no parent around, just Vikki, who called Dmitri’s house to talk to his mom once the two boys had made it to the Talis’ home after getting off the school bus.
Jayce thought this would be funnier, given that Viktoria actually plays and laughs with him, and had promised to bake very special cookies for his playdate. But ever since they walked in, Dmitri has been shaking, looking at his shoes, cheeks pink as if in burning fever.
“Is everything alright, Dmitri?” Viktoria asks softly, putting a big plate filled with cookies in the middle of the table, “You’re quite red.”
Dmitri looks at Jayce for a moment, like a pup begging for mercy, and then looks at Viktoria, redder, shaking.
“Jsi krásná, paní,” he says, trembling, and he looks like he’s about to throw up. Ew.
Viktoria blinks, and then, right in front of Jayce’s eyes, she kisses Dmitri’s cheek.
“Děkuji, drahá,” Viktoria replies, and her voice sounds like a kitten speaking through silk, her cheeks blushed, her hand caressing Dmitri’s face as if he were some stray she found on the street; “Now eat, both of you.”
Jayce carries an ugly feeling on his stomach for the rest of the day. He does not invite Dmitri to his house again, and for a whole week, he ignores his friend no matter the torturing silence, the burning emotion of anger or curses in a foreign language that his friend says.
Rocks would never steal Vikki’s kisses; those are supposed to be Jayce’s and Jayce’s alone.
V.- Milk
Jayce has discovered, after five months of having lunch, dinner, and being kissed goodnight by Vikki's warm lips after reading a fairytale, that she likes sweet milk.
“Jayce, you should not have bothered,” Viktoria says when he offers her a milk of warm, sweetened milk. He has learned that she puts many spoons of sugar, two of honey, sometimes a bit of cinnamon. He is not particularly fond of it, but she seems to find enjoyment in making it, and even more in drinking it, hence, Jayce went to the kitchen, got into a chair, and made one.
She had been crying silently, biting her own knuckles, right leg stiff in a position that could not be comfortable. Mamá had explained it once, mentioning things like not running away from Viktoria, because she could not follow, and asking Jayce to be nice in the days that her pain was too much. He’s not sure what Viktoria has, but he knows that sometimes, when he goes to the restroom, there’s blood on the sink.
“I thought it’d help,” he replies, honest, warm satisfaction on his tummy when she smiles for the first time today, taking the glass carefully. “I wanted to help.”
“Of course you did, you’re a good boy,” Viktoria takes her pink plumpy mouth to the glass, and slowly, drinks a good half of the glass. “Thank you, Jayce.”
He loves how she says his name; it makes him – dizzy. He already told his mom that he likes Vikki, but Ximena seemed to not have registered what Jayce meant. Butterflies on his stomach, feeling feverish, and lately, thinking weird things.
Like wondering how those lips, now stained with white milk, would feel on his neck. And then wondering how her skin tastes.
“It’s nothing,” he goes to sit on the living room, taking out his homework, and like many times lately, the numbers and letters dance in the white paper of his notebook, black ink turning into a familiar shape of big doe eyes and long brown curls. Perhaps this is how hunters feel after seeing a deer, now wishing to taste their flesh in something that seems heavenly, but must be unholy.
VI.- Confiteor Deo omnipotenti
Vikki takes him to church on a saturday. Mamá promised they would visit the museum on sunday, so she asked Viktoria to take Jayce to mass the day before. Vikki had nodded, mentioning there was no issue, but Jayce realizes she’s quite awkward, and although she seems old enough for communion, does not get up for it. Her eyes are sleepy through the sermon, fingers unusually agitated, and as soon as the father lets them go, she takes Jayce’s hand and takes him outside.
“The paintings scare me,” Jayce tells her, partly because it is true, partly because he thinks that she, like him, could be nervous when looking at the giant painting of Virgin Mary holding her bleeding, dead son in her arms and screaming for pity.
“Certainly not my favorite brand of art,” Viktoria sighs, “Nor my best memories.”
“Mom says I have to be good, or I will go to hell,” Viktoria, maneuvering between her cane and handbag, leans down to put on his winter hat and scarf; it’s not particularly cold yet, but Jayce has realized Vikki gets cold easier than most people. “Then, why are so many kids bad?”
Viktoria blinks, and then, with a tilt of her head, replies, “Not everyone is thinking about hell or heaven when they act, Jayce. Most people only think about themselves.”
“Oh,” Jayce says, because he feels like he has to say something. They finally leave church, Viktoria not engaging with the elders or the nuns as Ximena does, and it’s not until they’re streets away, walking under the cloudy morning and no longer dizzy on the smell of incense and Latin chorus, that Viktoria breathes.
Jayce does not tell her that he thinks, quite blasphemous, that she looks a bit like Virgin Mary. Ethereal, young, indescribable sadness in her eyes. An even more inappropriate thought follows as they arrive home, Viktoria walking to the kitchen to prepare lunch, Jayce going to the living room and returning to his half-finished puzzle; when he’s older, he’d like to marry Vikki in that church and see her dressed in immaculate white.
That, or somehow, be reborn as her child.
VII.- Apple pie
One day, when Jayce comes back home, excited to show Vikki a shiny pink quartz he found forgotten on the sidewalk, he walks into a rather ugly meeting.
Viktoria, pushed against the entrance’s wall, cane in the floor, her eyes taken over by fear. It’s snowing softly, a kiss of white snow falling over the garden, and the scissors and watering can tells Jayce Viktoria had been pampering the recently adopted flowers – yes, Jayce had thought it was weird to plant flowers in winter, but Ximena had told Vikki she could do as she wished with the garden –. In front of her, growling, there’s a man.
“Come on, darling,” he says, deep and nasty, like a wolf before eating its prey, “Leave this place. Come with me.”
“Darius,” she pronounces, her voice filled with an anxiety Jayce had never heard, her eyes watching Jayce for a second before facing the man again, “Leave, please.”
“Or what?” Darius laughs, a sound of teeth and mockery, “You will call the police? You think they will care?”
“I mean it, Darius. Leave me the fuck alone.”
“But baby,” and the man, big and nasty, gets too close. His hand is already holding Viktoria’s wrists over her head, and with the other, he squeezes Viktoria’s neck, “I miss you.”
That gets Jayce to react, no longer a boy frozen and silent as he sees the scene. He runs, and with all his weight, he runs and hits Darius’ leg.
“What the - ? Fucking kid!” all Jayce processes is that he’s kicked away, a huge silhouette over him. It hurts, and he’s pretty sure that his insides are bleeding, the taste of iron on his tongue, sight blurry, a high pitch on his ears; “Really, Viktoria? You became a nanny?”
Viktoria’s free. There’s no hand holding her wrist or neck, she’s -
“Don’t you dare!” she yells, and Jayce swears he only blinks, that he only takes a deep breath and hugs his belly in pain, but in that second, Viktoria has taken the garden scissors, and holds them against the man; “I will kill you, hajzl!”
All Jayce remembers is seeing blood mixing with the white snow and the pink camelias.
“How do you feel?” Vikki asks him hours later, holding Jayce’s head against her chest, both of them laying over Jayce’s fortress made of sheets and pillows.
“The pie was good,” he murmurs sleepily, full after three slices of apple pie and two glasses of sweet milk; “Hm, eh, and you?”
Vikki smiles, pinching his nose with the socket puppet she made weeks ago with him, another long evening where Jayce needed to do something. “That’s my eh right there.”
“It’s called echopraxia,” Jayce argues, yawning, fighting to not close his eyes even when there’s nothing more comfortable than sleeping in pillows and thick blankets close to the fireplace, his tummy satisfied after a warm dinner and tired after the mess of before; “That’s what teacher Caitlyn told me.”
“And here I was thinking you liked me,” Vikki giggles, and while she’s smiling and holding him as firm as ever, he can notice that she’s pale, scared; what had that man done to her? How did they know each other? Why would he want to hurt Vikki?
“I like you,” Jayce confesses, feeling lighter as soon as the words leave his mouth, “I really like you, Vik.”
“I like you too, Jayce. Now sleep,” her lips kiss his hair, and he falls asleep on her chest, listening to her heartbeat. The room smells of apple, milk and fire.
VIII.- Strawberry
As soon as Jayce is back home, he hears Viktoria gasp in scandal. Five and a half steps later, Jayce has Vikki's cold hand over his cheek, her vanilla perfume traveling to his nose and awakening the butterflies in his stomach.
"Baby, what happened?" Vikki asks softly, honey eyes looking at him with worry and tender; her glossy pink lips pursed in sadness. Her pale fingers are now stained with his blood and dirt, and Jayce thinks of it all like a wet dog sitting next to a fluffy cat.
"Nothing," he says, like a liar. He cannot (will not) tell Vik about the words the other kid said to him.
Jayce refuses to repeat the insults to his height, his weight, his skin. Her refuses to tell Vikki, sweet angel, that the other kid bleed more than Jayce after a shiny sharp rock hit his head. It was a pity. Jayce had liked the rock, and had meant to gift it to Vikki to celebrate their second week home alone. Mom will be back from her work-trip soon, and when she is, Vikki will leave the guest room and once again only visit during the few hours Jayce's mother can't be home.
Babysitting.
"My poor boy," Vikki speaks in that language Jayce does not understand, but likes hearing her talk anyway. As many times before, she guides Jayce to the couch, sits him, and then comes back with the first aid kit. Jayce, in a way, enjoys these moments. Vikki is tall and thin besides him, pale and of sad eyes, long curls that tickle on his face as she leans down to clean his bruises with alcohol in a pad. It burns, but it gives him the chance of looking down, eyes fixated on her petite breasts without a bra that bounce lovely with every of her movements.
Tits, as older boys said. Viktoria has nice tits. Jayce has seen them – and he knows he shouldn’t have, but he had had a nightmare, and went to her room only to find her changing clothes with the door opened, so tired she didn't noticed him running away –, and he knows her skin is even paler, her nipples a dark shade of pink that had reminded him of strawberries over whipped cream.
"There you go," Viktoria hums when she's satisfied with her work. She has put childish band aids on his cuts, which is humiliating, but then she rewards his good behavior with a kiss on the nose, and Jayce closes his eyes and enjoys the feeling.
She makes him feel funny, and he knows that, if they were two adults, something else would follow this moment. "Can I have cookies?" he asks, putting all puppy eyes and pouting. Vikki smiles motherly, even when she's barely older than him, simply a taller child old enough to be considered mature. Jayce wishes he was her age, so that he could -
"I will bake some, baby," Vikki purrs, giving him another kiss. She walks to the kitchen, the tap-tap of her cane almost hypnotic.
Jayce knows, despite his age, that he's taking advantage of her sweetness. He knows it's not okay to demand kisses on his bruises, to cling to her lap as they watch a movie, to cry and pretend he's younger when her friends try to get her out. Jayce knows he's a bad little boy when, at night and silent like a ghost, he glues himself to her door, memorizing every gasp and moan Vikki lets out as the sticky sound of something going inside of her echoes in the room.
Jayce wants to fuck her pussy, as older boys say.
IX.- Cream and salt
One night, when he’s hiding on his bed, hot and funny after hearing Vikki’s noises and, through the slit of her door, watching her, Jayce’s body does something weird.
Well, not weird, because the teachers have explained them what sex is. Jayce knows it, the unwilling receptor next to his friend Dmitri of the experiences that some older boys had wanted to share. Pictures of naked women, vulgar expressions, laughing at them and saying they would be lucky if a transvestite wanted to let them hit it, whatever those words meant.
Jayce knows he has a cock, that Viktoria has a pussy and tits, that the angry man who tried to hurt her probably wanted to touch her the way older boys at school touch the older girls behind the football’s stands. He thinks that, like the girls, Viktoria would have probably cried and begged for help.
Knowing the theory (never as clear as the biology books Jayce has read, explaining reproduction in way less unclean terms), does not mean he takes lightly when he gets hard at the memory of Vikki sucking her finger covered in hot chocolate hours ago, tasting if her recipe had behaved as she expected.
He knows he’s a bad little boy, thinking of her skin under the clothing, stealing touches behind fake innocence, buying pictures of naked ladies to an older boy who did find someone who matched Vikki’s looks: Exquisitely thin, hollow cheeks, sad deer eyes and long curly hair.
The picture is, however a sad mockery of Vikki’s beauty.
If Vikki notices the dirty sheets, she says nothing of it. But she must know, because she does not let Jayce sleep on her lap anymore and begins to lock her door.
X.- Summer
"Coming!” Viktoria says when the doorbell rings for a third time, hurrying to take her cane and, after a quick look at her reflection in the hall’s mirror, opening the door. It has been a difficult summer, moving back to the old house where her father died, needing to find new doctors, change meds, find a new job...
Being back at the golden city is not exactly her dream, but at least the summer is hot and sunny, unlike the cold lands she left.
When she opens the door, the most handsome man ever stands before her, charming smile and holding a blue rock.
“Do you know how hard you’re to find?” he says, hazel eyes watching her with something akin to worship, charming smile turning into a forced smirk, “Because you are, mi amor.”
Viktoria blinks, holding both to her cane and the door, and then it hits her: Tanned skin, hazel eyes, a deep scar on the eyebrow. God, a damn rock in hand instead of flowers.
“... Jayce?” she whimpers, feeling like a lost kitten as she shivers under his eyes.
“In the flesh,” he replies, walking in, without permission, head tilted in a gesture that used to be innocent; “And I still like you, Vikki.”
It seems her puppy grew into very handsome man, but never outgrew his obsession. Then again, who is Viktoria to deny him?
“You truly never change,” she purrs, and feeling bold in a hot summer day, wearing no bra and on meds that allow her to stretch, she lets Jayce Talis in.