CW: sexual predators and misogyny.
Every once in a while I am lucky enough to disgorge a story almost fully formed from the get-go. This one was born from a stew of rising fury with ambient misogyny, irritation with discourse about the declining art of music playlist design, several people talking about their experiences with sexual predators, and the desire to do something about it all.
In a padded envelope, a clear plastic box that they used to refer to as a “gem” case for an old data format called the compact disc. On opening the box, your eye is drawn first to the home-burned CD inscribed with Sharpie marker in a looping, girlish script: “Dear John: Mixtape No. 524 – But Who’s Counting?” A folded wad of cheap spiral-bound notebook paper in a wide rule is tucked opposite to it, like liner notes. As you work the paper free of the teeth keeping it in place, a small notecard with insect iconography flutters to the floor. It says on the outside, “Read me.”
Go Go Gumiho—
Was thinking about our last conversation at Femmes Fatales night and thought you might like to see how I keep track of things. When I started doing this, some called it macabre and some called it unnecessarily twee. I prefer to think of them as an accomplishment log, or a way to make sure that one meal doesn’t just blend into the next. We should not hide ourselves away for lack of humanity. We are more than our monstrosity.
Enjoy the hunt,
La Mandragora
• • • •
On the cheap notebook paper, you read: “I made this to remember him by, from the beginning to the end. Drafted it in the post-consummation wind-down, as things were ending.”
Track 1. “Head Over Feet” – Alanis Morissette
Is there anything headier than the beginning of a relationship? I know, I know, I’ve had other relationships. We wouldn’t be in this situation if they had survived, would we? I remember you said this song was a little cheesy as it played in the background during one of the chemistry labs, but I’m still allowed to like it.
Right?
Track 2. “You Belong with Me” – Taylor Swift
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure it would work out, but I wanted it to. Oh, how I wanted it to. Especially when you paid more attention to the blonde students at first.
Let me be at least a little bit proud that you finally fell for the girl next door. All it took this time was . . . rolling up the waistband of my skirt so that it was shorter and you could see more leg.
After all, I’m not like the other girls. I’m mature for my age. You said so.
Also, I really like my legs in these prep school uniforms.
Track 3. “Girlfriend” – Avril Lavigne
I knew I had a chance when I saw one of the blondes running out of your room with her tinted lip gloss smeared—the petite one, you remember? with the push-up bras, so she could try to hang out with the cool girls? Yes, I agree you shouldn’t have. No, I don’t think “she was asking for it” is appropriate here.
And while I’m thinking about it, you know how a few years (a decade?) after these songs came out, people started describing each other, mostly women, as “basic” in the derogatory sense? Well, men are basic too. Yes, yes, “not all of them” but enough of them that you’ll be attracted to someone and then shame them for being attractive and really, it seems like a weird power thing, which is what we should really be talking about—hang on a minute, I’m getting distracted.
Track 4. “Somebody That I Used to Know” – Gotye
Do you remember you told me to stay after class one Friday and asked if I wanted to know how you were feeling? This song is what you played for me.
I confess I didn’t think it was all that at first, but after we listened to it, each on one earbud plugged into your much-loved Discman, it became special to me. That’s what songs do best, right? They express your feelings when words aren’t quite enough. Especially when the words are really “it’s not you, it’s me” and you need to be breaking up with someone else.
Also, wow. I haven’t seen a Discman in years.
Track 5. “The Boy Is Mine” – Brandy & Monica
I won. It took some effort, and I have to be on guard in case the other girl (WHO IS STILL A CHILD AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF) doesn’t get the picture, but you’re mine now.
This part is always a little sad. In a contest, someone always has to lose. But, as I always remind myself, it’s for her own good. Also, I’m coming down from the high of setting my cap for a man and coming out ahead. Err. That’s a very old turn of phrase, but I’m sure you can figure out what I mean.
By the way, did you know that the feud between the two singers was fictional? Totally manufactured. And then social pressures probably turned the fake conflict into one that probably had very real repercussions for the people involved. But you probably don’t think about that as much as I do.
Track 6. “Genie in a Bottle” – Christina Aguilera
I think you know what came next. No need to be crass.
Oh? It was . . . fine. Nothing to write home about. You got what you wanted, right? I’ll get my just deserts later, I’m sure. Speaking of dessert—did you know that spiders can take down prey much larger than themselves by building a really, really good web to tie down their victims?? Then all it takes is one little bite and dinner sorts itself out.
Sorry, I can see your pride is hurt. I think you should keep resting after your exertions. Let me distract you in a different way:
Track 7. “Secret” – The Pierces
I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you.
Come closer.
I’m older than I look.
Oh, look at your dear, dear face. Am I no longer as attractive as I was before?
How else do you think I knew the songs of your youth? Would you like me to pretend that I was so enamoured of you that I recreated this part of your life? A young girl willing to remake her taste in music for a man? I’m an excellent student, as you well know.
Did it never occur to you that I might have lived it, too?
Track 8. “Goodbye, Earl” – The Dixie Chicks
Yes, you’ve said you don’t like the Dixie Chicks. But right now you’re not in a position to argue—hey, don’t struggle. You’ll feel less pain if you lay still while your internal organs finish liquifying. I may not be human, but I can be humane.
You see, it’s not at all hard to find people like you if you know what you’re looking for. The college athlete’s career derailed by accusations, the teacher and counselor jobs in middle and secondary schools, the constant moving around, the hush of scandal and the regular resignations. The trail of children in your wake who are transformed into quietly damaged people, who are still trying to move on with their lives even as they’re trying to hold themselves together.
You weren’t even trying very hard. I think you played that same song on that stupid Discman to at least three of the girls you targeted. Did you think we weren’t going to talk?
No?
Well, on one level I’m glad that you did what you did anyway. It drew me to you, after all.
Track 9. “Oops! . . . I Did It Again” – Britney Spears
It takes one to know one. Monsters, I mean.
In my own case, I do need to eat to live. But you? Life is all about choices, and you made some choices that brought you straight into my feed. Yes, pun-intentional, and don’t worry, your pain will all be over soon. And then I’ll have to hunt for something and someone new. But there’s always someone who presents themselves, even if not to me initially.
Revenge is sweet . . . even if it’s on someone else’s behalf. I disagree on the served cold part. Sometimes you really do want a warm body to satisfy certain appetites.
Track 10. “This Is Me” – Dream
You’re just a dying husk now, so you’ll have to indulge me. It’s fun seeing myself as both the person singing and the person being sung about, especially after you spent so much class time lecturing us about how pop music rots our brains. What was it that you said, that there was no cultural value in it beyond being a commercial product? Maybe don’t give that lecture to a class full of girls who’ve noticed that you give better grades to the pretty ones who wear skirts and show cleavage. We already know what it is to be a commodity. We have lived it our whole lives.
It was nice being with you while it lasted. Maybe not for the girls before me, but I like to think I’ll have made up for that now. Justice, served.
You’ll live on, after a fashion, at least for as long as this CD is playable. After that, who knows? A girl can’t hang on to all her trophies, and let’s be frank, you weren’t all that much of a prize. But I guess I’m sentimental and I like remembering why I picked you. Food for the monster belly, soup for the monster soul. Though, I guess at the end you were soup through and through.
Yes, this whole project is an affectation. Bite me.
Heh.
Track 11. “Thank U, Next” – Ariana Grande
