Ratchet: Part 6

On the one morning that the sun didn’t completely obliterate the side of Lovelie’s house, Monica slept like a log. It was just cool enough in the house and with the new addition of a noisy office fan constantly blowing slightly than room temperature air on her, she found it much easier to rest. Several times she’d opened her eyes to the grey-blue light of the early morning bedroom, made ever better by the bedsheet that she’d had Owen hang up over the window to block out the light, though her groggy moments of consciousness hadn’t lasted long. Monica was very loosely aware of Owen getting up and getting dressed but hadn’t the energy to really do more than just kind of remember that it happened.

Normally, Monica was always up bright and early. Even when Owen would come over to her apartment she was usually the first one up and moving around. Sometimes she would try to sneak out of the bedroom and make her new man breakfast or pretty herself up in the mirror before the day began. Other times she would just lay in bed and watch him sleep, happily dreaming about what a life with such a catch would be like and what their future together held for them before wiggling her way back under his arm and nodding off against the warmth of his body…..Before he got too hot and rolled over anyways. Still, it was a happy feeling and she enjoyed those little, perfect moments in the crisp morning light.

She rolled out of bed and lazily looked at the clock. Squinting at the old 90’s red digital numbers, she groaned at the notion that it was already 12:30PM. Before she’d come to Los Angeles she was very rarely in bed past nine in the morning but as the weekend turned into a week she found herself sleeping in later and later. She knew that this was probably some sort of test. Some kind of battle with the sin of sloth or something like that but try as she might she just couldn’t muster the willpower to get out of bed before noon.

“How was she supposed to fight being lazy if I’m not even awake to do it?” She wondered silently, her vision starting to clear as she laid in bed and stared at the ceiling.

She dozed off several times while trying to return to the dream she was having, and then having failed that, tossed and turned until she could no longer justify staying in bed any longer. Eventually Monica forced herself to sit up and rub the sleep from her eyes only to look at the clock and see it’s unpleasantly red numbers reading 1:30.

“Ugh…I need to start setting an alarm or something.” She grumbled as she tried to stand up only to find that she had been sitting on her own hair, jerking her head backward painfully during the attempt.

“What the….fuck..?” She whispered, feeling around her back at how unnaturally long her hair had become since arriving.

Her heart had nearly stopped when she looked in the mirror and saw her reflection. Her face had morphed into a doll-like amalgamation of African features and her own hereditary Scandinavian ones while her formerly pale skin darkened to a creamy caramel tone. Her hips had widened slightly and to her great displeasure, Monica could no longer make out the slight outline of her ribs beneath a squishy layer of pudge that bunched up over the sweatpants she’d borrowed from Keisha. Adrenaline welled up in the former white girl’s chest as she realized that were it not for her unreasonably long blonde hair, she would look to anyone else who saw her like a light skinned black woman. She gave herself the consideration that she would probably be seen as mixed, but that didn’t stop the panic from surging forth and causing her to rush out into the living room, shaking in fear.

While she’d intended to rush out and find someone to validate that everything was going to be okay or to give her some sly insight on how to fight back, Monica walked into the living room to find it…completely empty. There were no sounds of clattering of dishes or running water coming from the kitchen, nor was anything on the tv. The air was free of the scent of a hearty, spicy meal, replaced with an eerie emptiness that permeated every room and left her with a sinking pit in her stomach. She knocked on Keisha’s door, but received no answer. She called for Owen and Lovelie but received no reply. Only after returning from the front yard and back alley did she see a note on the table addressed to her.

“Dear Monica,

I’ve taken the kids out for some errands so you have the house to yourself for a while. Feel free to help yourself to anything you want from the kitchen but stay in the house. I’d rather you not walk around this part of town without a guide.

Be good, we’ll be home before dark.

~L”

The only thought that Monica had run through her mind after reading the letter was “They’re gone.” Without bothering to change her clothes, Monica grabbed her wallet and phone and immediately began walking down the street as quickly as she could. There were fleeting thoughts of what Owen would say or whether or not their relationship would survive, but they lasted only moments. Monica hoped that getting far enough away from Lovelie would cause whatever spell she was weaving to be undone or at very least find someone else back home that could do it. With the number of people living in New York there was bound to be someone versed in voodoo magic.

Her shoes clicked softly against the broken sidewalk as she walked, constantly reassuring herself that she wasn’t going to get caught and that no relationship was worth losing her identity and appearance for. The same neighborhood folk that watched her with suspicion her first day now watched with either casual aloofness or gawking interest. She put her head down and kept walking, brushing the question of whether or not they knew from her mind. In all likelihood they were just ogling her body and completely unaware that she was ever anything more than a light skinned black girl with blonde hair and big boobs. She pushed that thought from her mind too.

(1)

She’d hardly been paying attention to her surroundings given that she didn’t have any idea where she was, instead opting to turn down whatever street looked like it would get her as far away from Lovelie’s house as she could get. It was only after she looked up at the street sign at the end of the third street that the realization that she was back where started dawned on her.

Somehow she’d gone in a full circle without realizing. Monica looked around timidly before pulling out her phone and attempting to navigate to Union Station in hopes of getting to the airport sooner than later. Once again she started walking, the GPS telling her to turn down the same street as she did the first time. It was then that she heard her phone reroute her, claiming that she had gone off course and recalibrated the fastest route…from the beginning of Martin Luther King Street. With frantic eyes, Monica’s head darted from house to house in an attempt to confirm what was already beginning to sink in. Down the street, directly in her line of sight was Owen’s mother’s house. She turned around and walked back around the corner only to find an identical street looming ahead of her. Suddenly, Keisha’s earlier warning returned to her: she wasn’t able to leave.

Time was marching on while she made no progress towards her escape, and it had become clear to the panicked blonde that every street she turned down was going to be Martin Luther King Street no matter how far or fast she ran. She felt the eyes on her from the residents of the neighborhood and dejectedly decided to rush back to the house to avoid any unwanted interactions with the group of young black men who had been leering at her the entire time.

Sweaty and defeated, Monica flopped onto the couch and immediately began crying. Hot tears burned her eyes and soaked her arms as she bawled a wet spot into the sofa for the better part of half an hour. Monica had never been much for tears so the release was actually surprisingly therapeutic and allowed her to refocus her thoughts on beating the spell. Be it through winning challenges set before her by voodoo gods or by avoiding acting too ghetto and furthering the transformation prematurely, her vigor and enthusiasm to regain her old body before she lost her old life was renewed.

Having had her revelation, Monica suddenly felt….bored. And empty. The longer she waited, the more she realized that she hadn’t really eaten anything, but didn’t want to risk eating anything before she could have Owen take her somewhere where the food wasn’t magically enhanced by his mother. Instead she browsed the internet on her phone but was unable get any reception no matter how hard she tried, nor could she bring herself to care about any of the games she had. With nothing else to do and anxiety beginning to return the longer she sat still in the quiet, empty house, Monica turned on the tv and looked for something to watch.

She’s scrolled through netflix and found a murder mystery that caught her attention, but what came on the screen was a grainy montage of LA landmarks set to an upbeat bluesy tune with a single female vocalist singing about family gun and togetherness. The cityscapes soon turned into scenes of black kids playing basketball or thin, dark skinned women hanging laundry up to dry with old-timey wooden clothes pins. Monica scowled at the television, hitting the “back” button on the remote probably twenty times before sighing and slouching down into the couch, too exhausted from her walk to want to fight and too bored to not allow herself something to do for the next several hours. Eventually the opening ended, settling on the porch of an extravagant but only moderately large home as the title “Life is Lovelie” faded into, and then off the screen.

Monica watched intently, her face blanketed in helpless surprise as she sipped cold coffee from her straw, allowing herself to get comfortable while her brain vainly attempted to make sense of what she was looking at, ignoring the riding of her tanktop up under her boobs.

(2)

The episode played like a 90’s sitcom and began with a middle aged woman with dreadlocks in a magenta dress walking into the living room to find an adorable and vaguely pudgy  and notedly young looking teenager kneeling down on the ground.

(3)

“Well hey there Ne-ne, what are you doing playing all by yourself inside when it’s such a beautiful day out?” The woman asked.

“Well mama, I came inside because I don’t wanna go outside anymore. I’m not pretty enough to hang out with the other girls…” The little girl with the pink, ruffly t-shirt pouted as she drew circles in the carpet with her finger.

(4)

“What? That’s crazy! Why EVER would you think something so horrible?” The woman asked dotingly, clearly very invested in her daughter’s plight.

“Well….Deltrice told me that boys won’t like me because I’m chubby. I don’t want Deshawn to think I’m a fat piggy so I’m just going to stay inside for-EVER!” Ne-ne said, crossing her arms in a performative huff.

“Well, it sounds to me like we just need to work on your confidence a little! Everyone has insecurities!” The woman said.

The Ne-ne on tv looked shocked. “Wow! Even YOU, mama?” She asked incredulously.

The older woman put her hands on her hips in much the same way Monica had seen Lovelie do many times. “Of course I do! Why, I’m sure there are plenty of pretty girls who would be happy to talk to you about times that they might not have felt as pretty as they really are! In fa-“

Before she could finish, the doorbell rang, instantly causing the conversation to shift to the door.

“Goodness! I wonder who that is.” The woman said. She approached the door and opened it in a wide swing, standing to the side to easily allow a massively obese dark skinned woman in a tacky pink skirt and a hideously small pink and black top to waddle through the doorway to the sounds of roaring applause and cheers from what must have then been a live studio audience.

“HAAAAAY-Y’ALLLLLLL!” The fat girl cried out cheerily, waving her hand in the air in a wide motion as if she were giving everyone in both the house and audience the same sassy greeting she’d likely given a hundred times before. She had sparkling white teeth and an absolute mane of obscenely long, black hair that was pulled into explosively puffy pigtails by a hot pink headband shaped like cat ears. Large hoop earrings dangled above the pink sleeves of her top before it opened up into an I credible display of macromastic cleavage made decent only by two strings and a pair of overstretched black triangles over her nipples. Even as her titflesh quaked dangerously from side to side, neither the crowd nor the otherwise wholesome mother and daughter seemed to give the woman’s appearance a second thought.

(5)

“Hi Monique! How lovely to see you today! You came at just the right time!” The woman said cheerily.

“Oh yeah?” Monique asked dumbly. “Did you make too many pies again, Miss Lovelie? I sure could go for some, heh-HEH!”

“No, silly! Ne-ne is just having some issues with her confidence and I was hoping that you could give her some pointers on how to believe in herself a little better!” Lovelie explained with a sweet smile on her face.

“WHAILLL, you came to the right place! Ain’t nobody love theyself mo’ than ME! We gon’ get you so coffadint, them boys gonna be SCREAMIN yo name!” Monique bellowed. Monica grimaced at the obvious fatsploitation of the actress and wondered how much they had to pay the poor girl to get her to make such a fool of herself on television.

She felt her eyelids droop lazily as she felt the sleepy haze of exhaustion creeping back up on her after the long walk outside. She stuffed a handful of cheese puffs in her mouth and mindlessly chewed. Monica thought for a moment that she should at least save some for the rest of the family, but Lovelie *did* say in her note that she was welcome to whatever was in the house. Opting to switch things up, Monica instead tore open the wrapper of a cheap-looking fruit pie and tried to guess the flavor before looking down to check, still cradling the opened jar of cheese puffs in her lap.

Glancing down at her phone, Monica steeled herself for the upcoming battle with tiredness. Even though she’d all the time in the world, the caramel-toned blonde did NOT want to have the misfortune of being asleep when Lovelie got home lest she work some weird magic on her to make her even blacker than she already was. She turned her attention back to the show, hoping that it would be entertaining or at least irritating enough to keep her awake for Owen to come home.

When she looked back, she found Ne-ne looking into the bathroom mirror as Monique clumsily blundered through a whoreish makeup look that only succeeded on making the already young teen look like a cheap child prostitute in a rolled up tanktop that exposed her pudgy middle. Monique gasped amd widened her eyes with every failed augmentation and obnoxious bubblegum pop, at one point having a pink bubble explode all over her face to the raucous laughter of the audience.

“Ummmmm….I don’t think this is working…” Ne-ne said warily.

“Hmmm….WHAAAILLLLL….” Monique said, now obviously repeating a catchphrase with an artificial and obviously intentional pause for the laughtrack to cease. “I gotta admit somethin, I ain’t gotta CLUE how to put makeup on!”

“But your makeup ALWAYS looks so perfect!” Ne-ne pouted, this time causing the crowd to “awwwww” in response.

“Well that’s cuz I go to da salon! I get mah nails done, mah makeup done, and uh-heh-HEH…Get muh hair did.” Monique said with a quirkily ghetto flair. More laughter from the audience.

“Awww….but if you can’t do it, where are we gonna find somebody who can make me pretty?” Ne-ne asked in an enthusiastically loud voice.

Then, on cue, the front door opened again, causing cacophonous whooping, outrageous cheering, and thunderous applause.

“Haaaaay~” A skinny young woman said, posing with her hand on her hip. She closed the door with long, slender hands adorned with perfectly manicured nails before turning around with a gentle whip of her long, black, and silk-straight ponytail that had obviously been puffed and hairsprayed for maximum beautifying effect.

(6)

“Keisha!!” Ne-ne called out enthusiastically, as if she’d not seen the woman in years.

“Hey Ne-ne! Hey Monique! What are my two favorite girls in the world up to?” She asked, smiling confidently as she did.

“Well….I wanted to be pretty, so I was wondering if you could help me put on makeup?” The little girl asked sweetly.

“My, it looks to me like you’ve ALREADY gotten into the makeup!” Keisha replied snappily, replacing her hand on her hip as she did. More laughter. Then, with a gently scolding smile, she turned to the slutty, tacky fat girl and asked “Moniiiiiique….Did YOU have something to do with this?”

Monique breathed out a deep sigh before snapping her fingers and declaring “DAAAANG. CAUGHT AGAIN!!” to yet another eruption of cheers from the crowd.

“Must be her catchphrase or something.” Monica said, rolling her eyes as she lifted the now half-empty 2 liter of flat Dr. Pepper to lips and drank. She looked around to find the remote, but decided quickly that she didn’t care enough about the show to try and pause it before she went to the bathroom.

When she plopped back down onto the couch, Ne-ne was standing with a skinny black boy dressed in a basketball jersey with a face full of expertly applied makeup that made her look like a miniature version of Keisha, all while the two older women attempted poorly to hide behind the same planter to watch.

“That’s silly, Ne-ne! I’ve always thought you were pretty! You never needed to wear any of that stuff to impress me. Do you…wanna come and hang out with me sometime?” The boy asked with what appeared to be forced shyness.

“WOULD I?!?!?!” Ne-ne squealed before turning around to look at the bone thin and morbidly obese women hiding nearby, Monique’s wide, fat ass visibly protruding out from behind the planter.

“I mean…” Ne-ne said, correcting herself upon seeing the two women simultaneously making hand gestures telling her to bring the enthusiasm down and play it cool. “I suppose I could swing by…If I have time…Maybe tomorrow?”

“Cool.” The boy said, smiling widely before walking off with a basketball tucked under his arm as the crowd expressed their obvious delight.

The next thing Monica heard was the lock on the door rattling, and then the door being pushed open as Lovelie and the rest of the family came home with several paper and plastic bags rustling. The blonde woman groggily looked over, realizing she’d fallen asleep on the couch only as everyone grew quiet.

“Oh my got….” Keisha mumbled quietly.

“Mama look!….She’s so-“ Ne-ne whispered before Lovelie herself butted in over her, glancing from the still running tv to the empty bottle, jar, and wrappers strewn across the coffee table and suppressing a smile.

“Monique, baby. We’re back. You hungry?” She asked cautiously.

“Huhn?” Monica slurred, sitting up. “Uhm…No? I ate some stuff I found in the kitchen.”

“No baby, those were all snacks. What *you* had was JUNK. You need real food. Go in the kitchen and make something for yourself. Owen can help you.” Lovelie said, grinning with a face every bit as vivacious and charismatic as the mother on tv who shared her name.

“Mm….Aight, I guess.” Monica said, heaving herself off of the couch and plodding over to the kitchen, lazily oblivious to her quivering muffintop jiggling with every footfall.

“You looking real good baby. I think the frumpy look suits you.” Owen said, smiling warmly in a way that made Monica blush.

“Mmm…You like what you see baby?” She asked in a sleepy tone that was slightly accented with an ebonic twang. She still couldn’t get herself to fully focus, but she was drowsily happy for the compliment. She casually stretched, lifting her arms and chest up in a barely disguised manner designed to both limber her up and show off for her man. Owen grinned as he looked her up and down, admiring the fattened swell of her hips and the newly podgy potbelly she’d acquired over the course of her lazy day home alone.

(7)

“As a matter of fact, I do.”