R is for Ringin’

Nick loves playing with accents, and not only with his usual mix. I heard him impersonate The Frog and, on another occasion, The Convicts and Kangaroos Commander. Both times I laughed so hard, I almost peed myself. Of course, the ridiculous standup act was for his brother’s and my eyes only. 

Today he is a Southern train conductor on a mission, and I lie across his knees, waiting for his next rant and the following reprimand with the barber strop, folded in half. But Nick is not ready to start. 

He slithers from underneath me to pull on the string of the Tiffany lamp on his nightstand. The dark blue and green lampshade covers the light bulbs from three sides, and the cone of light is not bright enough to illuminate the room, or even read under it, but to break the total darkness.

“Can’t conduct a train in the dark, can I?” Nick rummages through his top drawer. 

Nick has his own small collection of unassuming objects. This time he picks a small brass cowbell, a souvenir from Switzerland, and a pressed handkerchief. The handkerchief, of course, Nick rolls into a strip and makes me bite over it, as a gag, tying the ends at the back of my head. Way to fight my smart-alec comments and the necessity to address them! He wraps the ribbon attached to the cowbell around my wrist and presses the cowbell into the palm of my hand.

“Ring the bell when you need to get off the train, will you?” I smile and nod at the cleverness of how he tied his train metaphors with the cowbell, as a non-verbal safeword. Nick is so in control and enjoying it!

Back at the edge of the bed with his feet propped on the bench, he summons me over, and I scoot over his knees and bury my head in the sheets, clutching the cowbell in my right hand.

“First stop is at the Lecture Hall,” announces my conductor, while adjusting my legs in between his. “It’s up the hill, but as sure as sunrise, we shall get there. Watch out, as I’m gonna cream yo’ corn, while gettin’ there.”

I just lose it, laughing my ass off. No amount of his folksy scolding can bring back the mood. And Nick keeps adding wood to the fire, line by line.

“Watch out, girl, I’m gonna cut your bony tail.”

I can feel his knees shaking as he burst into laughter too. He unties my makeshift gag, and we plunge into uncontrollable snickering, like two schoolgirls in the back of the schoolyard gawking at some dirty magazines.

“Quit your piddlin’, I mean it.” Nick pleads through the hiccups.

Nope, not quitting the piddling. Are you kidding me? I have my own comedy club here.

“Alright, alright, I’ll wait.” Nick loses his fake Southern accent at once. “You have your cowbell. Give it a sound ringing when you’re ready.”

That’s right, the cowbell, my safeword, still firmly in my hand. What Nick is asking is an inverted safeword: let me know when to start. He rubs my butt and shifts my legs again. He puts the handkerchief-slash-gag back in its place, between my teeth, and re-ties the ends. Waiting.

Willing, I’m where I want to be. Only one sound can break the growing silence: the alpine cowbell.  

The first dozen, tentative and mild, bares no kick, as to shake off the remnants of our silly interruption. Then Nick proceeds with the promised lecture, again Southern-themed but more refined.

“A proper lady can cuss in the presence of a gentleman for one reason only, and that is if Dawgs are losing to Gators.” Nick delivers the mighty whacks, with no slowing down. “Do you hear any woofs around here? I don’t think so. Do you see any fine Emory grads in the crowd?”

Nick mixes up two Georgian schools. He has an affinity to Emory, for a reason yet unknown to me, and likes to plug it in a sentence whenever he can. He also switches from twang to drawl and back, from folksy to Atlanta’s best. 

The new lashes reawaken the layers of pain from all the previous strappings of this unending night. I struggle against his grip, and Nick must catch my hand flying back more than once. I don’t want to struggle; I want to give in and settle into it. But his endless speech, interspersed with fixin’ and whuppin’, pulls me back into this mythical reality. I block out my darling Nick into a white noise behind the beats, my most welcoming beats. 

I come back to life, gagless, stretched under the blanket, with Nick’s long body pressed behind, repeating the shape of mine.

“Your butt looks like ten miles of bad road, and that just dills my pickle.” He whispers into my ear.

I yank the ribbon back and forth, the cowbell ringing echoes against the distant walls.

“Alright, alright,” Nick quips. “I say no more.” 

And I slip into a dreamless sleep.