I'm not saying I'd rather he did fuck me. I just wish he didn't hit me so hard.
Lying in my bed, I run my tongue gingerly across my gums. The flesh in front is swollen and tender. The bloody bits taste sweet and salty and the teeth shift a bit when I suck them in. Ice helps so I glide the tiny icy masses around the perimeter of my mouth and let the cold, cold water slide down my throat.
It's usually stuff I can hide but today I can't go to school because of my god-damned, banged up mouth. I'll miss another test. And who knows what else. But for now it's quiet in my room with a cool breeze blowing in through the windows that frame my bed. It's still and calm and I have the whole day here by myself. Alone. Quiet.
More ice into my mouth with one hand, the other feeling my hair spread over my pillow, fingers making little twirls that twist out to the ends.
The ice feels so good on my pulpy gums: cold to hot cold to hot. I move the hand in my hair to slide off my underpants and I open my legs wide and grotesque, knees up and thrust out and I run the ice up and down over my vagina, spreading myself wide open, rubbing harder and harder until the ice melts and it's just my fingers massaging the cool wetness I've created.
I just need to, want to, have to feel good and wanted and happy just for now just for right now...
Naked and breathless and furious I willed myself to sleep. Dreams stayed away and I slept still and calm like the girl I wished I was.
The ringing phone shakes me awake. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, tight and try to focus and listen hard to her side, my mother's side of the conversation but I can't discern a thing. The clock over on my dresser says 4:10. He'll be home from God-knows-where soon, too. I breathe and wait until I smell her burning something for dinner.
My body feels like it's been sleeping on bags full of stones as I pull it up and out of bed. My face looks bad and it hurts. A lot. My long, brown hair in strings and ribbons, eyes smudged and puffy like I had a much different all-nighter. I drag huge, slow gulps of air into my lungs and heave it out over and over so I don't cry and make it all look even worse.
Make-up helps to the barest degree. I put on clothes. My body in the mirror looks small, so much smaller than his; his hulking, monstrous form so big you can't see him all at once. Beads of sweat push to the surface of my upper lip and between my pale breasts. I am small. But I feel impossibly strong. Dark, soft jeans slide up my legs and then the warmest, most worn flannel shirt over my arms and buttoned up almost to the top. I rest my fingers on the charm around my neck; a long, obsidian piece of wood in the shape of a skinny cone. It's my favorite thing: Sturdy. Sleek. Huge and tiny at the same time.
I hear them talking. Grunting. Plates come out of the cabinet and silverware is shuffled and dealt out of the drawer and onto the table. I grip and turn the cheap, brass doorknob and walk into the drab hallway. Ancient, stupid photos in tacky frames hang askew. If this view is what they mean by "the light at the end of the tunnel, I would be terrified of death. The living room in front of me is aglow with the blue/white light of the muted TV and the burnt orange, shiny ceramic end lamps with their stained and crooked shades looking like thrift store hats playing dress-up to the too-white-hot bulbs they cradle.
Around the corner to the right I hear them in the kitchen and as I pass through all that garish living room light traced with the residual smoke from the cigarettes they're gorging themselves on in the other room, a wave of nausea hits and I have to grab the door frame so I don't fall or puke or both. She sees me righting myself as I negotiate the assault my senses are weathering. As I'm shaking it off, I lift my head and her eyes meet mine. She sees my face before I'm ready, before I'm not dizzy any more, before I have a chance to firmly place him in the room. He's right there. In the chair closest to the doorway, his back so near to me that I can smell his unwashed hair and I want to throw up again. I make it to the seat across the table from him and I sit.
Her face is turned now. She won't look at me and I'm grateful for that but I can see her profile, her jaw grinding together, her chest rising and falling deeply and it's clear I'm not going to be ignored entirely.
"The principal called. Again." She spat the words out.
"The fuck she do now? Christ..." His head down, fingers blindly, precisely reaching for the butt between his teeth.
"I didn't feel good this morning. I have my period" Talking about my period, anyone's period was a showstopper. He knew I knew it, too. He wouldn't get involved in the conversation if was "girl shit".
"I... I don't know what the HELL I'M SUPPOSED TO DO!" Still not looking at me, not looking at anything but the pot of ground beef in front of her; stirring it like it was her job. "I HAVE TO WORK! I CAN'T BE HERE EVERY SECOND!"
"I know." I go quiet, small, submissive. "I'll be fine. You do great for us, mom. I won't mess up. I won't."
"Go to your room. GO!" A sentence as much as a punishment for me as it was a reprieve for her. Now she really wouldn't have to look at my distorted face.
In the seconds it took me to get up from my chair I made my decision and it felt so good, so warm and luscious like the deep, soft dirt that you find only after you've dug for a long, long time. She was still turned away from the table and as I walked behind her and past him, I got close enough that my fingers could brush his arm and touch him gently on the side of his face. It felt like I'd been dipped in in boiling tar.
He stiffened; sharply and quickly. And then he sighed. He sighed deeply and forcefully like he was shoving some hateful thing from his lungs. I heard the sound he made as I turned the corner and headed down the hall back to my room. And I swear to God I heard my mother whip her head around to see what in the hell had just happened.
Back in my room, my mouth started to throb again. I couldn't go out there and get ice so I peeled off my clothes and slid under the covers to try and comfort the rest of me. My heart raced but it didn't pound. I was nervous but I wasn't sweating. My mind whirled but my body stayed still. She would be leaving in an hour or so for the night shift she did a few times a week. An hour. A lifetime.
His whistling woke me. A slow tune that he blew through his lips almost sweetly. He opened the door of my room and a thick line of light came in before him. Still whistling, he dropped his belt to the floor. Then his pants, his shirt and everything else he was wearing.
"Open your eyes." He wasn't yelling and I still wasn't scared. He stood over my bed and thankfully there wasn't enough light for me to see what his naked body really looked like. Well, it still looked big. His next move was magician-like: He grabbed hold of a corner of my blanket and whipped it off as if he was revealing his finest illusion.
"Naked. Of course you are. Whore." He had called me much worse and in far worse tones of voice. He was still so. Damn. Quiet.
For the longest time in my fantasies I was impenetrable, fierce and victorious. I had a good life in my dreams. I was older and safe and I had a beautiful German Shepherd who loved my 3 cats. I didn't have a chance to rehearse this version so I didn't know what I was going to do next, what the middle part would be or how it would end.
His bearlike frame moved to the foot of my bed and he climbed up and was kneeling up-right at my feet. He took a foot in each hand and pushed my knees up and he made a low, breathy, contented noise.
"Ah, your pussy is nice. No period, either. You're such a fucking liar." And the he plunged his greasy-head between my legs. When he'd had enough, he put his whole mouth around me and bit down, hard. It hurt so much I forgot about my face.
"Haaaa! HA! HAAA!" The laughter fell out of him as he wiped his face. " I knew you wouldn't be able to keep your fucking mouth shut forever."
The tears were rolling out of my eyes but I didn't move, I didn't wipe them. I just looked at him. The harder I looked, the rage in his face became easier to read.
He pushed down on each knee, pinning my legs to the bed and he fell on top of me, his dick like some barbed and burning thing. His eyes shut tight, little gasps squeaking out through his clenched teeth.
I've never moved more quickly in my life when I reached across my body and snatched my precious pendant from around my neck and without thinking, blinking, breathing, I plunged it into his right eye.
He was WILD. I was still; every muscle loose. He SCREAMED. I was mute, barely breathing. I felt his hands on my throat. I did feel that. And I smiled so he'd squeeze even harder and harder and harder and harder and harder...
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