Chapter 2
And Mrs. Williamson had said it was for Katherine.
The young girl stood aghast in the doorway! She wasn't blushing. She was too upset to blush.
All she could think of was "no!"
And all Elizabeth could think of was "yes!"
The older girl was holding the rubber bag up in front of her face, studying it. She pinched the long, trailing hose between her fingers and ran them down the length of the disgusting thing.
Elizabeth was obviously fascinated with her new. toy, for that's what it was. Delight was written all over her face.
Katherine was finally able to take a step forward. Her eyes were wide with repulsion and disgust!
Elizabeth looked up from her preliminary investigation of the nasty rubber thing.
"Well, what are you looking at so glumly!" she said. It was more of a sneering comment than a question.
"I ... I...." was all poor, distressed Katherine could manage to say. Her mind was racing at top speed! She didn't dare ask the logical questions. She didn't dare introduce the conversation that she knew would soon dominate the room.
"Here, look at it!" Elizabeth commanded, walking toward her distressed younger sister. "It's really ingenious. I mean, the design of the thing. But I suppose that doesn't interest you much. No, I can see it doesn't. You have to have more the engineer's mentality to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the design. Look! No, look! It's a perfect blending of function and design!"
Elizabeth held the enema bag up in front of her younger sister's nose.
"See this here?" she asked, stupidly.
Of course Katherine could see it! How could she not?! Her sister was making her see it, even though she didn't want to!
Elizabeth, was unscrewing the top out of the rubber bag. It was about an inch and a half wide and made of black plastic. There was a little handle across the top of the stopper, and the thick grooves were eight in number, each one looking oily and wet although it was dry.
The top unscrewed smoothly, and Katherine watched it emerging from the threads in the bag with a sickening fascination. It was like watching maggots crawling on the inside of a garbage can!
But Elizabeth had an entirely different attitude toward the enema bag. She thought it was just great, really terriffic! The older sister was really thrilled with it.
"You can't believe how long I've wanted one of these things! I can't imagine why I didn't just go out and get one before! Well, better late than never."
Such talk from a sixteen year old, Katherine complained to herself! Why, her sister was perverted, obviously perverted! Imagine being delighted by such a ghastly thing!
"And look at this!" Elizabeth exclaimed. Her enthusiasm was unbounded and there was no stopping her. "See how wide the opening is at the top? That's for ease of filling! Right? Talk about design!"
The older girl took the bag in both hands, squeezing the side slightly, making it buldge out, as if it were already full of liquid.
"This one is the family size!" Elizabeth enthused. "I forgot to ask Mrs. Will ... Marsha how much it holds, but judging by the size of it, I'd say its volume capacity is four quarts!"
She squeezed the sides of the bag even more gingerly, as if it were already filled and she were trying to guess its weight.
"No," she corrected herself, her face serious with consideration, "it's probably more like five quarts. Four and a half, at least!"
Katherine was still silent.
She was horrified.
The more her older sister explained, the more repulsed she was. The more Elizabeth talked about the enema bag, the more disgusting she found it. Why didn't she shut up?!
But Elizabeth was so excited and pleased she didn't even notice her sister's reaction. No, she just went talking on.
"And look at this! Look at the way the hose attaches to the bottom of the bag. See? It's fused in! Great! This one is obviously a very expensive model. Molded rubber, great!"
Katherine was wishing she were somewhere else. It didn't matter where, just so long as it were somewhere, anywhere else!
"You know what principle it works on?" Elizabeth asked. It's was purely a rhetorical question.
But not quite.
She did want an answer from her little, younger sister.
Elizabeth looked up at her, saw the expression in her sister's face, and hers changed immediately, too. In a flash it went from pleased pleasure to a building anger.
"Well? Do you? Do you know what principle it works on?" Elizabeth demanded. She stamped her foot!
"No," was the very most Katherine could manage in way of an answer.
"Well, it works on the principle of water seeking it's lowest level! One of the oldest and practical principles of mechanics known to man! It's older than the ancient Greeks and the Egyptians. It goes way back to Babylon, even before that!"
Elizabeth looked her sister squarely in the eye, looking for some hint of interest or enthusiasm. But she saw none.
And it started to make her really angry!
"Oh, you have no appreciation for anything that isn't dripping with sickeningly sweet sentimentality! If it isn't honey and roses, you don't give a damn for it! Well, it makes no difference, anyhow! Who cares what you think or don't think!"
Katherine wanted to say something, but her sister was right: She wasn't thinking! She couldn't think! The only idea that kept running around and around and around in her pretty, little head was that Mrs. Williamson had said that the nasty thing was for HER!
"Well, I'm gonna show it to you even if you don't like it!" Elizabeth announced with finality. "It will do you good. It will broaden your educational scope, to use one of your very own favorite phrases. It will introduce you to new vistas of knowledge and understanding!"
Katherine took a step backward. Elizabeth could be really frightening. At sixteen, her older sister was a real terror. It didn't pay to cross her. The couple times she had done that, Elizabeth had actually, literally attacked her!
Katherine couldn't count the time her sister had jumped on her in a rage and beat her with her fists! Oh, yes, Elizabeth could be vicious. Elizabeth was perfectly capable of the cruelest behavior!
The older sister reached out, grabbed the younger sister by the arm and pulled her toward the enema bag!
Her eyes were wild with anger and pleasure.
Her face was a mask, a grimace of passion. At this time, under these conditions, it wouldn't do for Katherine to cross her! She didn't dare!
She was alone in the house with her, and there was no one around to defent the younger, frailer girl if the older one should suddenly go berserk and suddenly attack her!
Now Elizabeth was talking in a normal voice. No, she was shouting, shouting every word, every phrase, every sentence. Her face was red with the effort of it.
Without realizing the appropiateness of it, Katherine was suddenly reminded of a quote attributed to Ghengis Khan: "There is no greater pleasure than to dance on the faces of my enemies!"
That's what Elizabeth reminded Katherine of: Unmitigated, uncontrolled, all-out, kill-crazy passion!
"Look! Look at this!" Elizabeth was shouting, screaming in Katherine's face. "This clamp here. You know what this is for? Well, it's for attaching the bag so you don't have to hold it up in the air! Isn't that clever? Isn't it? Well?!"
Elizabeth stepped toward her younger sister, her fist clenched, her arm tensed to strike. "Yes," Katherine whispered. "What?" Elizabeth demanded.
"Yes," Katherine said again, backing slightly away from her infuriated sister.
Elizabeth tightened the grip she had on her sister's arm. It hurt! It hurt and Katherine said so.
"Then speak up when I talk to you! Girl, you are going to get a bad report when daddy gets back!"
"Daddy!" The word sounded so strange coming from Elizabeth's mouth. It didn't fit in with the rest of her vocabulary or attitude. It was the one girlish word she ever used.
"Alright, then!! Yes!" Katherine shouted. "Just let go of my arm! You're hurting me!"
Katherine smiled at her. Her smile was actually more of a leer. A moment passed, then two. Finally, Elizabeth slowly released Katherine's arm. It was all red where she had gripped the younger girl.
Katherine rubbed herself. The . hurt was beginning to go away.
"Then, listen, and you won't get hurt!" Elizabeth gloated. She seemed to be enjoying her sister's pain and discomfort.
Elizabeth was getting meaner and more demanding by the day, no: By the hour! The young girl was obviously degenerating into a first-rate bully right in front of her sister's eyes.
And for the first time in a long time, Katherine found herself wishing her father would get home early for a change. She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was only eight thirty. God, he was due back till after eleven.
That's if all went well at the site of the survey.
It usually didn't.
"Now," Elizabeth was saying, her voice calmer but still charged with excitement and passion, "see this little tip?"
"Yes, I see it," Katherine said, making sure her voice was loud enough to be heard. She was really, truly afraid of her sister.
"Well, you know what it's for?" her sister demanded, holding it up crudely in the air for her sister to look at.
"I think so," Katherine reluctantly admitted. She had no choice but to go along with her older sister's little game. She didn't want to, of course., but what else could she do?
Katherine had to co-operate ... or else!
Elizabeth smiled at her. Her lips slowly twisted across her face and formed themselves into a grotesque parody of a smile. It was genuinely distressing to watch.
"Oh, little Miss Goody-Two shoes does know what this tip is for, does she? Well, she thinks she does, in any case. Well, well! Okay, then, dear little Katherine, suppose you tell me what it's for. I've been doing all the work so far. It's more than time for you to take your turn. Why should you have all the fun?"
Elizabeth laughed in her face!
The older sister laughed so hard at her own joke, the tears started up and, once flowing, she couldn't stop laughing. She was crying real tears of pleasure, but behind them there was something that seemed to suggest the desperate.
Maybe even ... the insane!
Katherine was appalled! She thought briefly of making a break for it, of running out of the house and across the lawn to Mrs. Williamson's place.
But, no, that was stupid! Besides, what could she say anyhow? It was all so ridiculous! No, Katherine couldn't do even that.
It would have been too embarrassing!
She couldn't reveal herself that way. Katherine was too private a person to go crying all over the neighborhood.
And Elizabeth knew that about her, too. Of course she did! And she used it! Yes, she used her own sister's shyness as a weapon against her. She held it up to her head as if it were a gun.
And it might well have been a gun, it was just as effective!
Finally, Elizabeth managed to get control of herself. The laughing/crying jag was over. She wiped her hose on the sleeve of her blouse and gathered herself in moments.
"Now, where were we?" Elizabeth asked, blinking her eyes to free them of excess tears.
Katherine said nothing.
"Oh, yes, now I remember!" Elizabeth announced victoriously. "You were about to tell me what this little tip is for! Yes, that's it. Well, don't let me interrupt you. Go on, tell me."
"Well, I ... "Katherine hesitated.
"Tell me!" her older sister shouted. She was beginning to get angry again.
"I ... well, it's ... it's inserted ... "Katherine tried to talk in a normal pace, but the words would not come out of her mouth. She was stuttering and stammering and behaving like a frightened child.
"Well?!" Elizabeth demanded. She held the tip up in the air by the rubber hose. The tip waved back and forth in front of Katherine's face, like some sort of vulgar pendelum! ... "it's inserted into the ... into the...."
"Yes?" Elizabeth prompted. "It's inserted into what? What is the enema tip here inserted in? Go on, tell me!"
"Into the anus!" Katherine blurted out. There! She had been forced to say it and she had said it! She hoped against hope that that would satisfy her older sister and the thing would be done with.
Of course it wasn't done with.
It was only beginning.
It was only just beginning!
""Anus!"' Elizabeth quoted Katherine's own word back to her, pronouncing it in an affected, high-tone manner. "Why don't you just say it!"
"Wha ... what?" Katherine asked, her eyes opening wide with the discovery of the depths of her sister's vulgarity.
"Asshole! That's what! Asshole! An anus is an asshole! Well? Isn't that so, Katherine, my sweet mouthed little baby sister? Isn't an anus an asshole? Answer me!"
"Yes," Katherine admitted, turning her head away. She didn't want to see the expression on her older sister's face. It was full of the ugliest of emotions.
She hesitated.
"Yes, what?" Elizabeth roared. "Will you please speak in full, sensible sentences? What am I, a mind-reader?"
"Yes, an anus is an asshole!" Katherine told her.
"Ohhh!" Elizabeth gasped, holding the back of her hand against her mouth in mock shock. "Listen to my prissy, little, poetryreading, poetry-writing little sister saying dirty words!
Yes, yes, you did, Katherine! I heard you! You said 'asshole!' And you said it loud and clear! Now what about 'insert'?"
Katherine stood looking at Elizabeth, not understanding.
What was she getting at? What did she want?
"Don't you understand that?" Elizabeth asked, pretending to be coy.
"No," Katherine admitted.
"Well, you said the tip of the enema bag was 'inserted' into the asshole! And, well, you're the poet. You should understand that's it's not good form to mix the vulgar with the proper. So if you say asshole you shouldn't say insert!"
Katherine knew she was supposed to ask again what Elizabeth was talking about, and she was afraid to deny her her pleasure.
After all, they were just talking. It was nothing more than a matter of words.
So far.
"What do you want me to say, Elizabeth?"
"I want you to say that the tip of the enema bag is shoved into the asshole! Not inserted! Shoved! Say it!"
"Shoved!" Katherine said as instructed. Oh, it was embarrassing.
"'Shoved!'" Elizabeth quoted Katherine's words back to her for the second time in minutes.
It was a good technique for intimidation, and Elizabeth had a natural talent for such activity.
Elizabeth was a natural-born sadist.
"Ah! So!" Elizabeth sighed in exaggerated relief. "You finally said it! Now put it all together in one, nice, neat little sentence. Go on, Katherine! Don't make me pump it out of you one painful word at a time! It's worse than pulling teeth!"
"The enema tip is shoved into the asshole," Katherine said.
"Louder!" Elizabeth demanded.
"The enema tip is shoved into the asshole!" Katherine said again, hoping it was loud enough.
But it wasn't!
"I said say it louder, damn-it, Katherine! And when I say louder I mean louder! Shout it out, will you?! Let's hear the god-damned sentence! Shout it like a football cheer! Yes, that's it: Like a football cheer! Three times! Once, twice, thrice! Go on! Now!"
"An enema tip is shoved into an asshole! An enema tip is shoved into an asshole! An enema tip is shoved into an asshole!" Katherine screamed as loud as she could.
She screamed it so loud she was out of breath with the effort. Her face was red, and the veins in her delicate throat were standing out prominently and proudly.
It seemed to calm Elizabeth down considerably.
The color retreated back down her lower face, down her throat and finally disappeared. She was begining to breathe normally again.
"Yes, well, so...." was what she had to say, as if trying to organize her thoughts.
Katherine stood looking at her, not knowing what to expect.
The storm of her rage had gathered and dissipated so quickly, the younger sister hadn't had time to take it all in.
Katherine finally started breathing normally, too. The veins in her throat shrunk back to normal. She was all right again.
Well, maybe there was some hope.
Maybe that was all there was to it.
Fat chance!
Katherine didn't know it, but her older sister was on the verge of a complete personality change.
Elizabeth had long suffered severe sexual repression, and Elizabeth was an extremely sexual creature! Now all the tension of self-denial and self-suffering was building to a terrible climax of expression.
Katherine stood where she was as Elizabeth paced around and around in the big kitchen like a tigress in a cage.
The older sister mindlessly turned the overhead lights on and off again and again.
She poured herself a glass of the good, cold, clear water Moosehead Lake was so famous for. She seemed to gulp it down without even tasting it. She gasped when the glass was emptied.
Then the older sister stood at the sink playing with the water faucets, first the cold, then the hot, then the cold again, and once again the hot.
She moved the spigot back and forth, slapping it from hand to hand.
She seemed to be debating something, thinking out all the details and trying to come to some sort of conclusion.
Katherine didn't dare move.
She didn't even dare to look directly at her sister. Instead, she watched her out of the corners of her eyes. She didn't know what was going on inside her older sister's head, but she didn't want to do anything to trigger it, whatever it was.
Because it was bound to be nasty.
It was bound to be disgusting. Outside, the night birds were calling to each other. Katherine could see them in her imagination, their almost invisible flight being detected only when their bodies flowed in the air between the observer and the ceiling of stars that twinkled in a vast canopy over the dark night of Moosehead Lake.
"Alright," Elizabeth suddenly said, turning slowly away from the sink.
The older sister moved as if she were exhausted, or as if the weight of the world were resting on her frail shoulders to crush her will to a miserable paste.
"Pardon me?" Katherine said, not even sure if her sister had said anything to her.
"I said 'all right," Elizabeth repeated, her voice picking up some energy.
"I don't understand," Katherine said.
"Why you stupid piece of shit!" Elizabeth suddenly screamed at her, outraged! "After all this, after all of this whole, big scene you dare to say you don't fucking understand! Well, maybe I'd better spell it out for you, you prig! You're gonna get an enema! Yes, yes you are! Like you yourself said, over and over and over again: 'An enema tip is shoved into an asshole!'"