Sunday, January 16, 2011
short story collection
the trilogy of short stories that follows was written around 2005, right around the time when i moved from the east coast. let me just warn you: these babies are on the nutty side. part of some internal explorations i was in the midst of at the time.
the protector
Work, work, work . . . It seems to be all I ever do. I suppose I shouldn't complain because it pays the bills, but there are the days when I would do anything to be as carefree as the blurred children playing at Washington Street playground. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see them smiling and laughing, but their gleeful sounds are drowned out by my screaming sirens.
I'm always moving so fast to get here or there. Make a bust. Haul them into the holding cell. Wait to bring 'em up for a hearing. Back to the holding cell. Off to the big house. Another big bust, or a stake-out, or a week-long investigation, where I don't see the wife and kids at all.
Sometimes, I wonder if it's worth it. Marjorie always asks me to just give it up and take a job at her father's hardware store, and I know maybe I should. I never do, but maybe I should.
Last night for instance, I got home around 11 PM, and as I'm driving up to my house, my teenage daughter, Gloria, is making out with some bastard in the backseat of his Camaro. She hit the curb faster than a cat pouncing on a mouse, and the lucky little shit drove away before I had a chance to teach him a lesson. Stuff like that makes me see how she needs her dad around, someone to look out for her, to teach her the guys to watch out for. She was in her room with the lights off before I had a chance to say a thing.
Although it would be nice to be home more, today is work as usual. I walk into the yellow and baby blue kitchen to my favorite kind-of morning. Bacon sizzling on the grill and filling the air with that mouth-watering scent. Marjorie is cooking eggs, while Gloria and Stephen are getting the table set for a family breakfast. Since I don't get home for dinner that often, breakfast is the special meal we get to have together, as often as we can.
"Oh, Margie, no one makes breakfast like you babe!" I say as I spin her away from the stove and into my arms for a kiss.
"Hal, I'm cooking," she says as she laughs and swats my hand away from her hip.
"Good morning, kids," I say as I grab the paper from the table.
"Good morning, Dad," I hear them say almost in perfect unison, as I start scanning the paper to see if there have been any busts on the night shift.
Stephen keeps talking about school and showing me the art project he made, but I don't have a chance to look up. "Great son, I want to hear about it in just a second . . . let me just check for one thing in the paper."
"Hey Dad, I just wanted to say . . . about last night. Ah, Jim is not a bad guy you know. You always seem to think the guys I like are such scum, but really he isn't." The pleading tone of Gloria's voice grabbed my attention from the paper.
"Well, if he is such an upstanding citizen, then why was he making out with my daughter at 11 PM on a school night," I say with my best interrogation eyes drilling through her.
"Dad! Last night was my play. Don't you pay attention to anything going on around here!" she says with a flaming tongue. "I guess not. The play went until 10 and then we had a cast meeting. We didn't even leave school until 10:30!"
"Well, he shouldn't have been parked in front of my house that late.” I turned to Marge, “Marjorie, why didn't you bring her home? Why did you let that jerk drive her home so late?"
"Hal, stop it. I was home with Stephen, and Jim is not a jerk. You don't even know the kid, so just stop it."
"Look, I've had just about enough of everyone jumping down my throat," I say as I stand up from the table. "I was really looking forward to a pleasant breakfast with my family, but I suppose that's out. Hope you all have a nice day."
I make my way out the front door, and I can hear them telling me to come back, saying things like I'm over-reacting, and that I need to have my breakfast, but what do they know. I'm just trying to watch out for my daughter, be a good father, and I'm always the one who is wrong. Marjorie and Gloria are always ganging up and telling me I have no idea what is going on, but it is really them who have no idea about the real world. If they had seen half the shit I see on a daily basis, they would know that I'm right to watch out for my girl's safety.
I open the door and am off like a flash to my breakfast plan B. Driving through at McDonald's doesn't bring on quite the warm feeling of sizzling bacon in my own kitchen, but it has a familiarity that feels good nonetheless.
* * *
After a busy day, I'm pulling up Hillside Drive again just around 11, and that same damn Camaro is in front of the house. As I get closer and ready to raise hell, I see no one is in it. I grab the license plate number and run in to see if the weasel worked his way into the house.
Everything is dark, so I flip on the lights. I start wandering around, peeking from room to room to see where everyone is. After seeing that both Stephen and Gloria's rooms are empty, I start shouting to see who is there.
I panic and run to the kitchen to see if there is a note, and of course, there is:
Hal, we're at Gloria's play. It's the last night, so we'll probably be home late. Sorry you had to miss it. Jim's with us, and he'll pick up his car when we get home.
Love, Marjorie
Just as I read the end of it, I hear the car pull up. I hear some laughing in the garage, and then Gloria opens the door into the kitchen. As we make eye contact, I'm overwhelmed by how grown-up and beautiful she looks.
"How was the play honey? I'm so sorry I missed it."
The smile on her face falls, and she responds, "it was ok. I did pretty well, I guess. They videotaped it, so you can see it if you want." At the end, she gave me one of those shy smiles that melts a dad's heart.
"Oh, I do want to see it. Definitely, let's get the video."
Now, everyone is in the house, including Jim.
"Hi Mr. Silver, it's good to finally meet you," he says while extending his hand.
"Hi. . . You know, you better watch where you park that nice car of yours so late at night."
"Oh, I will, don't you worry," he said holding a cocky gaze right into my eyes.
Ooo, I knew this guy was no good. Who responds to their girlfriend's father so smug and full of himself?
"Well, it's pretty late there Jim," I say while slapping him on the back and escorting him to the door.
"Bye Gloria, Marjorie, Stephen. See you later," he says as I slam the door behind him.
"Dad you are so RUDE! I HATE YOU!" Gloria screams as she runs up the stairs. Stephen follows close behind her, and Marjorie whacks me with her purse.
"What!? That kid is no good, I'm telling you. Calling you Marjorie, and talking to me with that tone. I know he is no good, and I'll prove it to you Marge."
"Save it ok, I am so sick of this shit. You are never around to actually be a parent, and then you jump on this high horse like you know exactly what is going on for the five minutes that you are here. You don't have a clue about Jim, ABOUT YOUR OWN KIDS, about ANYTHING that happens in this house!"
I just stare at her, completely dumbfounded. She never talks to me like this. Sometimes she gives me a hard time, but this was more than a little jab. What has gotten into her? Did this disrespectful little bastard turn my whole family against me?
I can't sleep at all through the night and am so relieved to see the sunrise. Finally, I can just get the hell out of bed and get to the station. I'm going to find out the truth about this kid and show them all that I'm right.
After another pull through breakfast, I get to the station and plug in the little dirtbag's plate number. After so many years with the force, it is second nature to memorize the plates of suspicious people. This was the key to beginning my investigation, and my gut told me it wouldn't be hard to get the word on this kid.
Finally, the computer flashes a report. As I scan the contents, I see that a Jim is not the registered owner of the vehicle. A man by the name of Carl Blakely is the actual owner; Carl must be his father. I quickly change programs to check on rap sheets for the Blakely family.
Carl's record is clean, but once I put James Blakely in my system, I find what I'm looking for. There is a James Blakely with the right age, and surprise, surprise, he has tons of juvenile charges, one after another, after another. Looks like he isn't even supposed to be out of juvey right now. He must have been one of that wave that just got let out because of overcrowding. His last charge was a simple assault, a fight at school.
Hmmm, they must have let him out just based on the severity of that one charge.
As I scroll through, all of a sudden I see it. The anger rises from my belly and fills my head with steam as I read that two years ago he was charged with sexual assault. The charges were dropped, but I'm sure that isn't all there is to it. Oh, I knew this guy was trouble.
"Captain, get out here, your late for the meeting. We have to get done early today."
"Alright, alright. I'll be right there, I'm just finishing up some important research," I shout back as I close down the program and rush to join the meeting.
* * *
All day I can't stop thinking about this bastard and his plans for my daughter. I want so badly to get more info, pull some records, make some calls, but there just isn't time in my day. As the sun goes down on this Friday evening, I just can't sit at my desk and fester about what might be happening. It is time to do something about it.
For the first time in ages, I actually pack up my stuff and leave the office at 5:00 when all the new recruits on the day shift head for home. I speed the whole way determined to catch Gloria at dinner and forbid her to see Jim again. I will not take no for an answer.
Still on my way through the door, I say, "Marjorie, where's Gloria?"
"She went home from school with Jim, and they are going to Susie's house, and then to the movies with some friends later tonight. What are you doing here so early? I didn't even make enough dinner for you."
"What do you mean she's out with him. Marge! Why don't you listen to me? I told you the kid was no good, and you keep defending him and keep letting her be alone with him. I am right you know! I checked up on him at the station, and I found out he has quite a few charges, even one for sexual assault! And here you are sending your daughter off with the damn predator."
Stephen walks in. "Hi dad! What are you doing home?"
"Not now Stephen. Your mother and I are talking about something very important."
"Hal, are you sure about all this? I just can't believe that could possibly be true. He is really a nice kid. I met his mother at the play, and I can just tell. She is a good woman."
"Marge, trust me. I know what I'm talking about, and I'm getting to my daughter before it is too late." Before Marjorie has a chance to say another word, I am out the door.
Luckily Susie only lives a few blocks away, so I can speed down to her house before there is too much time for that creep to hurt Gloria. I swear I'll ring his little neck when I get a hold of it.
As I am pulling up to the front of Susie's house, I immediately notice that none of the front windows are lit. It looks as though no one is home, but Jim's swanky ride is outside. He better not be alone in there with her. I better get the hell in there.
I'm not going to ring the bell and give him a chance to make it look like everything is fine and dandy. No, I need to catch the little shit red-handed. Pull him in by the back of his neck, and let both Gloria and Marjorie apologize and thank me for knowing about Jim the whole time. Yeah, that is the way this one is supposed to play out.
I pull the car up in front of the neighbor's house and dart down the driveway into the backyard. The pool out back is still closed for the season, and there is no sign of the kids out there, but there is a glass sliding door into the house. It is dark in the room adjoining the door, but I can tell there is a light on down the hallway. I slowly sneak over and check to see if the slider is open.
It is.
As I slowly creep in the door, I can hear some voices in the other room. I stand in the darkness listening for a second, but I can't completely recognize the voices. Maybe one is Gloria, but I can't be sure. I start down the hallway towards the light.
A girl screams, "Watch out! Someone broke in!!!!"
Then, SMASH! Glittering shards of glass fly through my field of vision, and for a moment I feel like a figure in one of those shaken globes with fake snow whirling around. Then, I literally begin to feel myself whirling around, but I straighten up and remember my mission to save Gloria. I continue down the hallway towards the lit room, ready to figure out what the hell is going on here.
Then, I feel this intense pain at the back of my neck. This sharp and acute sensation, digging into the back of my neck . . . then the pain subsides. It is as though the pain surpasses my threshold of tolerance, and it sneaks beyond my ability to sense it. First, I feel my knees hit the ground, and then the rest of me falls in a heap.
The lights flash on, and I hear the shrieks of a bunch of teenage girls surrounding me.
"Gloria, it's your dad! Oh my God!! It's your Dad."
"What are you talking about? Oh, my God. Oh Daddy, I am so sorry. Oh my God. Call an ambulance! Somebody call an ambulance!" I hear Gloria shout through her tears.
As she begins to sob on my chest, her tears soaking through the front of my shirt begin to moisten my skin. I want so badly to hold her, but I can hardly move my body. Let me try my lips.
"Gloria sweetheart. What happened? What happened to me?"
"Oh Daddy, I am so sorry. I thought you were a burglar. As you were headed down the hallway, you looked so vicious and were moving like you were ready to hurt someone. I was trying to protect everyone. I had no idea it was you. I am so sorry. I can't believe this happened. Why are you here Daddy? Why?"
I can't respond for a few minutes as the realization that it was Gloria that had done this to me soaked in. Just listening to her cry on my chest and knowing her pain. Why the hell am I here?
"Oh Gloria baby, it's ok. It's ok. This is my fault. All my fault. I'm always trying to be such a hero. It's my fault." Now I'm sobbing, not from the physical pain, only the pain I can see in her. As I feel the wet pool of blood stretch across the back region of my body, I know I'm losing a lot of blood. I know these kinds of injuries. I know the outcome of extensive bleeding like this. I know that I'm not in the kind-of good health you need to be in to bounce back from something like this.
"Daddy, what are you doing here?" Gloria gasps as she is trying to pull in some air between her heaving sobs.
"Oh. . . I was trying to come here and rescue you from Jim. . . I found out some information about him, and I wanted to come and get you away from him. . . Baby, he isn't safe."
"What?! He isn't safe. Dad, you don't know what you're talking about. He is perfectly safe. You didn't have to do this."
"No, Glory, just promise me that you'll never see him . . . Uhgh . . . I ran his plates . . . and I learned a lot about his rap sheet, his priors . . . He is not a good kid Glory. . . Stay away from him, please . . . promise me," I plead.
"Daddy, oh my God, this huge mistake and now look at where we are. Oh my God, why the hell did this happen. Oh my God. Daddy, it isn't even HIS CAR!! He borrowed the car from his friend, Carl. He is just driving it around while Carl is out of town!"
Gloria stops crying and just starts starring.
In this emotionless tone, Gloria says, "what have I done." She just continues staring past me, holding this blank look.
"Gloria, I'm sorry! This is all my fault. . ."
There is no response from her.
I muster as much strength as I possibly can, and I scream as loudly as I can, "I'M SORRY! . . . I don't want you to suffer. . . I don't want you to suffer . . ." My voice begins to trail off.
I feel myself getting weaker, but I just want her to know she doesn't need to feel all this pain. It is my fault, not hers . . . all my fault.
I'm always moving so fast to get here or there. Make a bust. Haul them into the holding cell. Wait to bring 'em up for a hearing. Back to the holding cell. Off to the big house. Another big bust, or a stake-out, or a week-long investigation, where I don't see the wife and kids at all.
Sometimes, I wonder if it's worth it. Marjorie always asks me to just give it up and take a job at her father's hardware store, and I know maybe I should. I never do, but maybe I should.
Last night for instance, I got home around 11 PM, and as I'm driving up to my house, my teenage daughter, Gloria, is making out with some bastard in the backseat of his Camaro. She hit the curb faster than a cat pouncing on a mouse, and the lucky little shit drove away before I had a chance to teach him a lesson. Stuff like that makes me see how she needs her dad around, someone to look out for her, to teach her the guys to watch out for. She was in her room with the lights off before I had a chance to say a thing.
Although it would be nice to be home more, today is work as usual. I walk into the yellow and baby blue kitchen to my favorite kind-of morning. Bacon sizzling on the grill and filling the air with that mouth-watering scent. Marjorie is cooking eggs, while Gloria and Stephen are getting the table set for a family breakfast. Since I don't get home for dinner that often, breakfast is the special meal we get to have together, as often as we can.
"Oh, Margie, no one makes breakfast like you babe!" I say as I spin her away from the stove and into my arms for a kiss.
"Hal, I'm cooking," she says as she laughs and swats my hand away from her hip.
"Good morning, kids," I say as I grab the paper from the table.
"Good morning, Dad," I hear them say almost in perfect unison, as I start scanning the paper to see if there have been any busts on the night shift.
Stephen keeps talking about school and showing me the art project he made, but I don't have a chance to look up. "Great son, I want to hear about it in just a second . . . let me just check for one thing in the paper."
"Hey Dad, I just wanted to say . . . about last night. Ah, Jim is not a bad guy you know. You always seem to think the guys I like are such scum, but really he isn't." The pleading tone of Gloria's voice grabbed my attention from the paper.
"Well, if he is such an upstanding citizen, then why was he making out with my daughter at 11 PM on a school night," I say with my best interrogation eyes drilling through her.
"Dad! Last night was my play. Don't you pay attention to anything going on around here!" she says with a flaming tongue. "I guess not. The play went until 10 and then we had a cast meeting. We didn't even leave school until 10:30!"
"Well, he shouldn't have been parked in front of my house that late.” I turned to Marge, “Marjorie, why didn't you bring her home? Why did you let that jerk drive her home so late?"
"Hal, stop it. I was home with Stephen, and Jim is not a jerk. You don't even know the kid, so just stop it."
"Look, I've had just about enough of everyone jumping down my throat," I say as I stand up from the table. "I was really looking forward to a pleasant breakfast with my family, but I suppose that's out. Hope you all have a nice day."
I make my way out the front door, and I can hear them telling me to come back, saying things like I'm over-reacting, and that I need to have my breakfast, but what do they know. I'm just trying to watch out for my daughter, be a good father, and I'm always the one who is wrong. Marjorie and Gloria are always ganging up and telling me I have no idea what is going on, but it is really them who have no idea about the real world. If they had seen half the shit I see on a daily basis, they would know that I'm right to watch out for my girl's safety.
I open the door and am off like a flash to my breakfast plan B. Driving through at McDonald's doesn't bring on quite the warm feeling of sizzling bacon in my own kitchen, but it has a familiarity that feels good nonetheless.
* * *
After a busy day, I'm pulling up Hillside Drive again just around 11, and that same damn Camaro is in front of the house. As I get closer and ready to raise hell, I see no one is in it. I grab the license plate number and run in to see if the weasel worked his way into the house.
Everything is dark, so I flip on the lights. I start wandering around, peeking from room to room to see where everyone is. After seeing that both Stephen and Gloria's rooms are empty, I start shouting to see who is there.
I panic and run to the kitchen to see if there is a note, and of course, there is:
Hal, we're at Gloria's play. It's the last night, so we'll probably be home late. Sorry you had to miss it. Jim's with us, and he'll pick up his car when we get home.
Love, Marjorie
Just as I read the end of it, I hear the car pull up. I hear some laughing in the garage, and then Gloria opens the door into the kitchen. As we make eye contact, I'm overwhelmed by how grown-up and beautiful she looks.
"How was the play honey? I'm so sorry I missed it."
The smile on her face falls, and she responds, "it was ok. I did pretty well, I guess. They videotaped it, so you can see it if you want." At the end, she gave me one of those shy smiles that melts a dad's heart.
"Oh, I do want to see it. Definitely, let's get the video."
Now, everyone is in the house, including Jim.
"Hi Mr. Silver, it's good to finally meet you," he says while extending his hand.
"Hi. . . You know, you better watch where you park that nice car of yours so late at night."
"Oh, I will, don't you worry," he said holding a cocky gaze right into my eyes.
Ooo, I knew this guy was no good. Who responds to their girlfriend's father so smug and full of himself?
"Well, it's pretty late there Jim," I say while slapping him on the back and escorting him to the door.
"Bye Gloria, Marjorie, Stephen. See you later," he says as I slam the door behind him.
"Dad you are so RUDE! I HATE YOU!" Gloria screams as she runs up the stairs. Stephen follows close behind her, and Marjorie whacks me with her purse.
"What!? That kid is no good, I'm telling you. Calling you Marjorie, and talking to me with that tone. I know he is no good, and I'll prove it to you Marge."
"Save it ok, I am so sick of this shit. You are never around to actually be a parent, and then you jump on this high horse like you know exactly what is going on for the five minutes that you are here. You don't have a clue about Jim, ABOUT YOUR OWN KIDS, about ANYTHING that happens in this house!"
I just stare at her, completely dumbfounded. She never talks to me like this. Sometimes she gives me a hard time, but this was more than a little jab. What has gotten into her? Did this disrespectful little bastard turn my whole family against me?
I can't sleep at all through the night and am so relieved to see the sunrise. Finally, I can just get the hell out of bed and get to the station. I'm going to find out the truth about this kid and show them all that I'm right.
After another pull through breakfast, I get to the station and plug in the little dirtbag's plate number. After so many years with the force, it is second nature to memorize the plates of suspicious people. This was the key to beginning my investigation, and my gut told me it wouldn't be hard to get the word on this kid.
Finally, the computer flashes a report. As I scan the contents, I see that a Jim is not the registered owner of the vehicle. A man by the name of Carl Blakely is the actual owner; Carl must be his father. I quickly change programs to check on rap sheets for the Blakely family.
Carl's record is clean, but once I put James Blakely in my system, I find what I'm looking for. There is a James Blakely with the right age, and surprise, surprise, he has tons of juvenile charges, one after another, after another. Looks like he isn't even supposed to be out of juvey right now. He must have been one of that wave that just got let out because of overcrowding. His last charge was a simple assault, a fight at school.
Hmmm, they must have let him out just based on the severity of that one charge.
As I scroll through, all of a sudden I see it. The anger rises from my belly and fills my head with steam as I read that two years ago he was charged with sexual assault. The charges were dropped, but I'm sure that isn't all there is to it. Oh, I knew this guy was trouble.
"Captain, get out here, your late for the meeting. We have to get done early today."
"Alright, alright. I'll be right there, I'm just finishing up some important research," I shout back as I close down the program and rush to join the meeting.
* * *
All day I can't stop thinking about this bastard and his plans for my daughter. I want so badly to get more info, pull some records, make some calls, but there just isn't time in my day. As the sun goes down on this Friday evening, I just can't sit at my desk and fester about what might be happening. It is time to do something about it.
For the first time in ages, I actually pack up my stuff and leave the office at 5:00 when all the new recruits on the day shift head for home. I speed the whole way determined to catch Gloria at dinner and forbid her to see Jim again. I will not take no for an answer.
Still on my way through the door, I say, "Marjorie, where's Gloria?"
"She went home from school with Jim, and they are going to Susie's house, and then to the movies with some friends later tonight. What are you doing here so early? I didn't even make enough dinner for you."
"What do you mean she's out with him. Marge! Why don't you listen to me? I told you the kid was no good, and you keep defending him and keep letting her be alone with him. I am right you know! I checked up on him at the station, and I found out he has quite a few charges, even one for sexual assault! And here you are sending your daughter off with the damn predator."
Stephen walks in. "Hi dad! What are you doing home?"
"Not now Stephen. Your mother and I are talking about something very important."
"Hal, are you sure about all this? I just can't believe that could possibly be true. He is really a nice kid. I met his mother at the play, and I can just tell. She is a good woman."
"Marge, trust me. I know what I'm talking about, and I'm getting to my daughter before it is too late." Before Marjorie has a chance to say another word, I am out the door.
Luckily Susie only lives a few blocks away, so I can speed down to her house before there is too much time for that creep to hurt Gloria. I swear I'll ring his little neck when I get a hold of it.
As I am pulling up to the front of Susie's house, I immediately notice that none of the front windows are lit. It looks as though no one is home, but Jim's swanky ride is outside. He better not be alone in there with her. I better get the hell in there.
I'm not going to ring the bell and give him a chance to make it look like everything is fine and dandy. No, I need to catch the little shit red-handed. Pull him in by the back of his neck, and let both Gloria and Marjorie apologize and thank me for knowing about Jim the whole time. Yeah, that is the way this one is supposed to play out.
I pull the car up in front of the neighbor's house and dart down the driveway into the backyard. The pool out back is still closed for the season, and there is no sign of the kids out there, but there is a glass sliding door into the house. It is dark in the room adjoining the door, but I can tell there is a light on down the hallway. I slowly sneak over and check to see if the slider is open.
It is.
As I slowly creep in the door, I can hear some voices in the other room. I stand in the darkness listening for a second, but I can't completely recognize the voices. Maybe one is Gloria, but I can't be sure. I start down the hallway towards the light.
A girl screams, "Watch out! Someone broke in!!!!"
Then, SMASH! Glittering shards of glass fly through my field of vision, and for a moment I feel like a figure in one of those shaken globes with fake snow whirling around. Then, I literally begin to feel myself whirling around, but I straighten up and remember my mission to save Gloria. I continue down the hallway towards the lit room, ready to figure out what the hell is going on here.
Then, I feel this intense pain at the back of my neck. This sharp and acute sensation, digging into the back of my neck . . . then the pain subsides. It is as though the pain surpasses my threshold of tolerance, and it sneaks beyond my ability to sense it. First, I feel my knees hit the ground, and then the rest of me falls in a heap.
The lights flash on, and I hear the shrieks of a bunch of teenage girls surrounding me.
"Gloria, it's your dad! Oh my God!! It's your Dad."
"What are you talking about? Oh, my God. Oh Daddy, I am so sorry. Oh my God. Call an ambulance! Somebody call an ambulance!" I hear Gloria shout through her tears.
As she begins to sob on my chest, her tears soaking through the front of my shirt begin to moisten my skin. I want so badly to hold her, but I can hardly move my body. Let me try my lips.
"Gloria sweetheart. What happened? What happened to me?"
"Oh Daddy, I am so sorry. I thought you were a burglar. As you were headed down the hallway, you looked so vicious and were moving like you were ready to hurt someone. I was trying to protect everyone. I had no idea it was you. I am so sorry. I can't believe this happened. Why are you here Daddy? Why?"
I can't respond for a few minutes as the realization that it was Gloria that had done this to me soaked in. Just listening to her cry on my chest and knowing her pain. Why the hell am I here?
"Oh Gloria baby, it's ok. It's ok. This is my fault. All my fault. I'm always trying to be such a hero. It's my fault." Now I'm sobbing, not from the physical pain, only the pain I can see in her. As I feel the wet pool of blood stretch across the back region of my body, I know I'm losing a lot of blood. I know these kinds of injuries. I know the outcome of extensive bleeding like this. I know that I'm not in the kind-of good health you need to be in to bounce back from something like this.
"Daddy, what are you doing here?" Gloria gasps as she is trying to pull in some air between her heaving sobs.
"Oh. . . I was trying to come here and rescue you from Jim. . . I found out some information about him, and I wanted to come and get you away from him. . . Baby, he isn't safe."
"What?! He isn't safe. Dad, you don't know what you're talking about. He is perfectly safe. You didn't have to do this."
"No, Glory, just promise me that you'll never see him . . . Uhgh . . . I ran his plates . . . and I learned a lot about his rap sheet, his priors . . . He is not a good kid Glory. . . Stay away from him, please . . . promise me," I plead.
"Daddy, oh my God, this huge mistake and now look at where we are. Oh my God, why the hell did this happen. Oh my God. Daddy, it isn't even HIS CAR!! He borrowed the car from his friend, Carl. He is just driving it around while Carl is out of town!"
Gloria stops crying and just starts starring.
In this emotionless tone, Gloria says, "what have I done." She just continues staring past me, holding this blank look.
"Gloria, I'm sorry! This is all my fault. . ."
There is no response from her.
I muster as much strength as I possibly can, and I scream as loudly as I can, "I'M SORRY! . . . I don't want you to suffer. . . I don't want you to suffer . . ." My voice begins to trail off.
I feel myself getting weaker, but I just want her to know she doesn't need to feel all this pain. It is my fault, not hers . . . all my fault.
secret room
I always felt my mother was the only one who really understood me. Like me, she was special: beautiful, and powerful. As a child, I remember the looks I would see men give her when we walked through town. They were ready to fall at her feet, if she threw them even the slightest glance.
Mother channeled her power into spells and concoctions to attain anything and everything her heart desired. She taught me her ways, and we would laugh together locked in her secret room. No one knew the secret magic we practiced.
When I turned 13, my first love stirred the greatest desire I had ever known. There was a boy who shined with this wild exuberance that enticed me. He was rarely at school because he was always falling ill in one way or another, and this distance kept me from being able to dazzle him with my beauty, or slip him a secret potion. Making this boy love me became my absolute infatuation, and I craved to use my powers to draw him into my web.
One afternoon, I came home and tugged my mother’s arm as I lead her down the dark hallway into the secret room that she hardly visited anymore. I told her about this boy. I told her I wanted to heal him and needed her help. She looked at me with this oddly puzzled look on her face and slowly began to shake her head back and forth.
"MOTHER!" I yelled. "For the first time in my whole life I need you. I need you to be there for me, to help me, to use all the tools you have shown me to make MY dreams come true! So many times, I have followed along and assisted YOU in YOUR magic spells, and now it is my turn!"
As I threw my tantrum, I could see her soften and just about ready to give in. Just then, I snuggled in close to her and cried a few small tears.
"Oh Anastasia," she said softly looking deeply into my eyes. "I have seen a great darkness in the magic. I just know I have to stop."
She paused looking down at the ground before she continued. "I had a dream. An women, in a long white gown, I don't know, maybe an angel. Anastasia, she told me that I am abusing my powers. She told me there will be consequences."
I looked at her face after sensing the shakiness in her voice. Mother looked more fearful and frail than I had ever seen her.
I shuddered but quickly refocused onto my task. "Mother, I will never again ask you to do this. Please. Just this one time."
After a long pause, Mother finally said, "alright Anastasia."
"Oh thank you Mother, thank you so much," I said as I planted a string of kisses on her cheeks.
Her face had changed to a lighter smile. "Do you have anything I can use to connect to him?"
"Ah . . . I have a some paper with his writing on it." I ran to get my school bag and found a note he passed me.
I gave her the paper, and she breathed long and hard. She closed her eyes as she held the paper. As she sat there concentrating, she began to shake. I started to get a little worried, until finally she opened her eyes.
"No doctor will ever be able to cure him. Anastasia, he is destined to die very young."
Her forlorn expression made me crazy. I was too young to be helpless, and too full of my own power to feel hopeless.
"There has to be something that we can do. Help me find a way to heal him," I demanded.
"There is no way." She wouldn’t look at me, so I knew she was lying.
"What must I do, Mother? I’ll do anything."
"Oh Anastasia Dear, please let this go. Please."
"No Mother, we have to do this. For him. For me. For us. We have to do this. What do you need me to do?" I spoke as sternly as if I was a parent scolding my child.
"Oh Anastasia, fine. Damn it! Fine, bring him to the house, but let me be absolutely clear that this is the very last time that I will ever use magic. . . the very last time."
About a month later, the opportunity came to get Ranee to our house. It was a spring day, and while we were outside for a break, I slowly walked up to him and flashed the most provocative smile I could muster. I caught his attention and inched closer and closer. I allowed myself to come just close enough to rub my breasts lightly against him, and then I slowly moved away, as though I didn’t notice I had touched him. I turned away and waited for him to respond.
Of course, he did.
"We should sneak into the woods behind the school," he whispered in my ear.
I looked around to realize that no one was looking at us. "My house is much better and just up the road," I replied.
He looked incredibly stunned at my forward invitation, but too foolhardy to decline. We quickly ran down the road before anyone noticed.
We came into the empty kitchen to find a kettle whistling. I turned it off, poured my mother’s tea, and headed back for her bedroom. Ranee looked so uncomfortable. I lifted my index finger to my lips and then pointed to a kitchen chair, as I headed down the dark hallway.
Mother was sound asleep when I entered her room. I shook her violently, and in a loud whisper said, "he’s here. Momma, he’s here. Wake up.”
She could barely open her eyes, but finally she knew she had no choice. "Oh Anastasia, please let me rest. I feel so tired and weak. I can’t do this now. I can’t. You’ll have to leave, and we can do this another time."
"No Mother! You don’t even realize how difficult it was to get him here, and now he is here. We have to do it now. I’ll do it, you just tell me what to do. Now, Mother. Now!"
She looked so angry at me, but at the same time, I knew she didn’t have the energy for her anger. She reluctantly lifted her thin frame from the bed and stood weakly in front of me.
"Why aren’t you at school? What are you doing here?"
"You said he needed to be here, and I got him here. That is all there is to it. Meet us in the secret room."
I abruptly left and knew that she would be there. I went back in the kitchen and took Ranee’s hand. I raised him from his seat, and in the kitchen, we shared our first kiss. I held his face in my hands, and I could feel his heart beating so fast against my chest. His strong right hand rested on the small of my back and pulled me in closer. With his left hand, he gently touched my shoulder, and I felt such strong passionate feelings for him in that moment. I knew this was love, and I would do whatever I must to have it.
The heat started to rise, and then I told him that my mother wanted to see him. I wanted her to meet him and approve, before we could be together. I told him how badly I wanted us to be together, and I gave him that sly and seductive look that most 13 year olds wouldn’t have pulled off.
He was completely helpless to my wishes at this point, and like an obedient puppy, he followed me to the secret room. Mother had lit a number of candles. She looked tired, angry, and even ugly. I felt a slight shame come over me as she commanded Ranee to get on her table. He looked at me, completely confused, and I nodded my head and asked him to do it.
I whispered to him to close his eyes, and I said that everything would be just fine. I told him not to worry; he could trust us.
Mother told me to stand down by his feet, and she stood by his head. She began to move her hands over top of his body. For several minutes, Mother moved all around floating her hands above his body, scanning the surface. Then, she pulled me into the corner and told me that she was going to perform the healing with my help. I was to stand behind her, put my hands on her waist and feed her energy. She was going to channel both our energies through her hands and into his body to heal him.
"Whatever you do, Anastasia, you cannot let go."
She approached the table, and I nervously grabbed her waist. She put her hands on him, and he began to speak. He started asking what she was doing, and he said he wanted her to stop. I told him it was ok, and it would make him better.
"Just lie down, Ranee."
"Stop! I am fine. I don’t want you to do this to me."
He began to try and get up, but Mother pushed him firmly back onto the table. She kept going, and finally, he stopped fighting.
After fifteen minutes or so, I began to feel too weak to even keep standing up. I needed to sit down, or get a drink, or lay down. I whispered to Mother that I needed to rest, but she didn’t hear me. She was so entranced in what she was doing, so I kept holding on.
Until that piercing scream roughed me from my unconsciousness. The sound of Ranee’s scream startled me into action, and I stood to find Mother laying on top of him. I used all my might to lift her off him, and he jumped off the table and ran out the door. I heard the door slam, and his distant curses as he ran from our house.
Mother fell limply back onto the table, and I couldn’t get her to wake up. I was able to swing her legs up onto the table so she could lie down, and when I had her flat on her back, I kept whispering in her ear and gently shaking her, "Momma, wake-up, please Momma, wake-up."
She was still warm, but there was something so eerie and lifeless about her body. I started to panic and wonder what I was going to do, when she finally opened her eyes.
She looked at me with a cold glance and said, "Anastasia, I shouldn’t have done this. . . I gave him all the good energy I had left. I love you so much that I would do anything for you, but now . . ." Her eyelids fell heavily shut.
Panic. . . Tears . . . Fear. . .Hysteria . . . and finally sleep.
***
"Anastasia. Anastasia, what is going on here?!" I was being shaken, but I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to return to my nightmare and have to explain or accept. The shaking became more violent, and finally, I knew that it was Auntie.
I opened my eyes only partially, and I looked at her tear stained face. I was on the floor of the secret room, and through the small parted space of my eyelids, I could see that my mother was no longer on the table. I pulled Auntie close to me and just cried. I just cried and cried and cried. I was too afraid to speak, so tears filled the space I could not fill with words.
I never explained or answered a single question. I just got very upset whenever anyone asked me what had happened. They assumed I had suffered such a trauma that even I did not remember what had happened, but I did know. I also knew the only other person in the world who knew what had happened that day.
It was about a month before I returned to school, and the first day back, there he was. He looked healthier than ever. Full of his own strength and bravado, he had a confidence that bordered arrogance, and he looked at me in a way that made me wince. The dynamics of power had clearly shifted between us. It was still morning when he pulled me into a shadow of the school to talk with me, privately.
"I don’t know what you two witches did to me, but it worked. Huh? Can’t you tell? I feel fantastic, better than I’ve ever felt in my life. Now, I’m not thanking you because you had no right to do what you did. It was sick; it was weird; and no one has ever scared the crap out of me like you did that day. I’m not thanking you, but I will tell you that I did not tell anyone.
"I heard that your mother died, and I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want you to get locked away like a crazy witch, now that you’re an orphan, so I won’t tell. . . Unless you give me reason to tell."
In the dark, I could see glints of light shining off his teeth grinning an evil smirk. I was utterly speechless, but I must admit my discomfort mixed with relief that I could appease him to keep my secret. To me, no one ever knowing what happened was of the utmost importance.
As Ranee became a bigger and bigger part of my life, Auntie started asking questions. I just kept putting them off until she started teasing me about my little boyfriend. It felt somewhat less dirty, less shameful to think of him as my boyfriend. Maybe I could just happily go along with this, and everything would be fine.
Our relationship began to evolve into a truce. There was a good deal of laughing when we were together, and when he pressured me to do things to him that I did not feel completely comfortable with, but I did them and did not complain. I wouldn’t say that it was something I liked doing, but I could handle it. I felt more like I was working off a debt, than like a victim.
One afternoon, we were lying on some grass near his house, when a few of his friends showed up, saying all sorts of rude things to me.
"Hey guys, get the hell out of here. This is my girlfriend, and you are not going to talk to her that way. Get the hell out of here before I kick someone’s ass!" Ranee had a look of rage on his face as he shouted at them that I never expected. In that moment, he transformed before my eyes from my warden to my protector.
As the boys ran off, I looked into his eyes and said, "thank you for standing up for me." Then I stammered, "Do you really think of me as your girlfriend?"
"I didn’t. But lately, I can’t stop thinking about you, Ana. Even the way you helped heal me. I owe you so much. I love being with you. I love the way you look, the way you feel. Ana, I love you. I don’t know how this happened, but I am just glad we are together."
He hugged me tightly, and I was glad he couldn’t see my face. Although I felt like his words should have made me happy, they made me scared. I felt a creeping panic in my chest realizing that the ransom stakes had now shifted from my body to my heart.
I just held him tightly unsure about what else to do. Tears started to well up in my eyes, and he pulled back.
"Oh Ana, you don’t have to say a word. I know," he said as he pulled me closer again.
***
Ranee and I dated very seriously all through high school. I suppose we had a fairly normal relationship to the outside, but I always had this strange feeling of having no way out. This secret did not make me love him, but his love for me made me feel safe and secure. It eased the guilt I felt inside and made me feel lovable despite what I had done. It made me feel that my secret was guarded by the walls of his strong love for me.
After our high school graduation, Ranee and I went to a friend’s party, and he introduced me to his childhood best friend: "Ana, this is my good buddy, Glenn," Ranee said as he slapped Glenn on the back and gave him a huge smile.
I reached out my hand and shyly said, "it’s nice to meet you."
When I made eye contact with Glenn, my heart began to beat faster. I could barely hold eye contact, and I could feel the perspiration begin to build in my palms.
"It’s my pleasure to meet you Ana," he said with the kindest smile, looking so intent and interested in me.
Quickly, Ranee escorted Glenn outside to talk with some other friends. As they reached the door to go outside, Glenn looked back and caught my gaze again. I lost my breath and ran upstairs to the bathroom.
I splashed cold water on my face and looked in the mirror. In a single moment, a solitary glance, my whole world felt different. My arrangement with Ranee which seemed so safe and tolerable, now seemed suffocating. I had never felt interested or attracted to someone else, so I didn’t feel like being with Ranee was a sacrifice, but then I wondered if this intense feeling running through me was love at first sight, maybe it wasn’t, but either way, there was nothing I could ever do about it.
I pulled myself together, and ran down the stairs to tell Ranee I had to go home because I felt sick. I ran into Glenn before I had a chance to talk to Ranee.
"Where are you off to in such a rush?," he asked with an intense stare.
"Oh, I have to get going. I don’t feel very well," I muttered while darting my eyes all around the room trying so desperately to avoid looking into the warm wells of his eyes.
"Before you go, I wanted to share something with you. Ranee told me that you love art, and I have some paintings with me. Please come, and I’ll show them to you," he said so innocently that in that moment I completely believed everything would be ok.
"Well, for a moment, I guess," and as I said this I couldn’t help but lock into his gaze.
I followed him outside to his car, and he showed me his paintings. They could easily have been images plucked from the landscape of my own inner world. There were paintings of the sunset, old buildings and bridges, the night sky.
Then, there was an image of a girl . . . that truly took my breath away. The likeness to me was uncanny; her hair color was slightly different, and the shape of her face a touch more round, but this painting could be one that was intended to be my portrait. I turned to him in awe and confusion.
"I know," he said. "I painted this one several years ago, and when I saw you I couldn’t believe how much you look like her. I’ve painted lots of people, but this is the only portrait of someone that I created out of my mind, someone that I didn’t really know."
“I just wanted to show it to you because of how weird it is, you know. Just a strange coincidence.”
“Did you show this to Ranee?”
“No, no I don’t know what he’d say. He isn’t really that interested in coincidences, or art. No, I just wanted to show you because I had the paintings in my car. I’m going to be here for the summer, and I brought them to show my grandmother.”
"Oh,” I wasn’t sure what else to say. I also knew that anything I wanted to say wouldn’t be ok.
“You know I really have to go. Please tell Ranee I had to go." I ran more quickly away from that house than I would have if it had been on fire. I just ran and ran.
When I was out of an earshot, I cried: for the life I had lost, the mother I had killed, the choices I had demolished, and the feelings of love I’d never explore.
All the grief, pain, violation, guilt, and suffering that I had stuffed away in the years since my mother’s death flooded back. I was the small selfish little brat who pushed her mother into her coffin, the dirty whore who sold my body to have her deepest and darkest secret kept hidden. The worst tragedy of all would be for Glenn to ever know. I couldn’t bear to tarnish the pure looks he gave me.
I hid out in my house for the first few weeks of that summer under the guise of having an illness. I didn’t see Ranee until finally he would wait no more. Late one night, he snuck into my bedroom window and woke me with a kiss.
"Ranee, you shouldn’t be here. You could catch what I have. Stop."
"Oh, Ana, I’m sick without you. I just needed to see you. Just for a minute. How are you doing?"
"I’m doing ok," I said through a small coughing fit.
"Oh, baby, I’m sorry. And, the weather is great outside. I was really hoping you would be able to go on the canoeing trip this weekend."
"No, I won’t be able to make it," I said trying to fight off the desperation I felt to have him leave. Looking at him now, I just couldn’t take his feelings. I could see his love, his attachment to me.
He felt my coldness and said "Ana, what is wrong. You’re acting really weird."
"Nothing Ranee, I just don’t feel well. You better go."
"Look, don’t think you can brush me off. You know how it is, right? I love you so much, and I won’t let you go so easily.” He looked through me. “Come on girl, get better,” he said with a slight smile. “I’ll see you real soon, ok?"
"Yeah Ranee, whatever you want."
***
A few days later, I finally emerge from my room. My Auntie convinces me that I need to get out, and she draggs me along to the annual church picnic at the park. Ranee is on the canoeing trip, so I feel safe being out.
The summer sunshine feels so good. A cool breeze melds with the warmth creating the perfect temperature. The peaceful sound of the wind moving the branches calms me, and it feels good to finally turn my mind to something besides the tortuous thoughts I had been spinning.
Taking care of the young kids had become my ritual at the picnic, so I quickly move into my role. I start a little game of hide-and-go-seek among some of the kids. I completely lose myself in this child’s game; it feels wonderful. I giggle and carry on with them, as though I was just another nine year old.
Then, I feel a light tap that sends a tingling sensation through my body. It jolts me from my giddy good time, and I nervously swing my head around to see who is there. Glenn smiles down at me.
"Hey there, Anastasia," he says. "Ranee told me that you’ve been sick. I’m glad to see that you are feeling so much better."
"Oh, thanks, yeah I guess I am feeling better . . . But, uh, not entirely better you know. I still have to get my rest." I fake a horrible cough as I turn back to the kids to rest from his stare.
"Well, watching you run around with these kids, you look so healthy," he says. "You are glowing you know."
I nervously laugh and can’t control the rush of heat to my cheeks. "Oh, well, I um better get back to the game. It was nice to see you," I say as I turn away from him ready for a full sprint into the best hiding spot I could find.
"Anastasia, you don’t have to run from me. I am not trying to make you uncomfortable. I know you are with Ranee, and I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I am only here for the summer, and I just hoped that maybe we could all be friends," he says.
I don’t want to turn around and look at him because his words are breaking down my walls. With each sincere gesture and loving look, I feel weaker and weaker in my resolve to hold up this charade that I am in love with Ranee. I feel less and less able to pretend. Slowly, I bring myself to look into his eyes.
"Glenn, there is so much you don’t understand. I can’t explain. I’m sorry." As I look at him, I feel that there is more honesty in that moment than ever in my life.
I lean over and give him a kiss on the cheek before I run away.
Quickly, I find Auntie and convince her it is time to go home. I tell her I desperately need my rest, and she quickly gathers her things.
We aren’t home for more than five minutes when there is a loud knock at the door. I run upstairs to my room saying I need to get to bed right away, and as I make my way up the stairs, I hear Auntie talking with Ranee. I hear his loud footsteps pounding down the hallway toward the stairs.
"Ana, I want to talk to you."
"I was just going to get some rest. The church picnic really wiped me out. Let’s talk later," I say without turning around. I just continue up the stairs.
"No. We are going to talk right now," he says with fire in his voice.
I stop and turn my head back to see this expression of rage on his face. I feel terrified, but I spring into action. I quickly turn around and head down the stairs. "Let’s go sit out back."
He follows close behind me as I head for the back door of Auntie’s cottage. When we are sitting in the chairs behind her house, he finally says, "what the hell is going on with you and Glenn?"
"Nothing. He’s your friend," I say trying to look in his eyes, but unable to force myself to do it.
"Well, so do you make it a habit of kissing all my friends?"
"No, of course I don’t. What are you talking about?"
"You know what I am talking about you lying bitch. You crazy little witch. After all that we’ve been through, you would lie to me and go behind my back, huh."
"No Ranee, you don’t understand at all. I was telling him that I didn’t want to see him. It was just an innocent kiss on the cheek. I wasn’t doing anything. I want to be with you."
"Tell me you love me. Look straight into my eyes and tell me how much you love me. Right now!"
Tears are flooding my eyes by this point, and I want with everything in me to shut them down and do as he asks. I look into his eyes and say "I . . . do. I . . .love," but before I can get the words out, I drop my gaze to my shoes. I just start crying hysterically, knowing what all this is going to mean.
Before, I have a chance to say anything, Ranee is gone. I run after him screaming his name, but he just keeps going.
I run to my room past Auntie. She tries to stop me and find out what was the matter, but I can’t speak. I just run into my room and start moving my dresser to block my door. I lock the window, close the curtains, and then heap myself on the floor.
So many questions spin through my mind: what would happen as Ranee told everyone my secret, how would Auntie feel about me, or Glenn, or everyone else? Would I go to jail? Overwhelmed by all I have been hiding from for so many years, I reach for this old knife with a handle made of pearl that had belonged to my mother. It is one of the only things I kept of hers. It is so unique and beautiful: this dainty little weapon.
Today, I realize why I hung onto it all these years. I pull the blade from the leather sheath, and quickly, before I have a chance to think of the pain, I slice it across my wrist. At first, it only makes the smallest scratch, so I push down with more pressure.
Then, I just lay there watching the blood quickly spill out of my body. With each gush I feel closer and closer to ending this nightmare that suffocates me. I start to feel very sleepy as the pool grows bigger, and I let myself drift off. Making everything slowly slip away.
***
"Anastasia Dear, it is all going to be ok," says a calming voice that seems so far away. Everything is dark and the sounded is muffled, like in a dream. I try to open my eyes, and finally I see light, then blurry objects. Unclear images of faces I don’t recognize, a man and a woman. Their lips are moving, but there's no sound. I lay there wondering who they are . . . who I am, and what is going on.
I just keep staring until my vision clears, and then I see a woman I recognize push the man at my bedside away. She grabs my hand and repeats, "Anastasia Dear, it is all going to be ok." The woman smiles sweetly.
As I focus in on her face, it all starts coming back to me. My aunt, my mother, Ranee . . . the pearl knife, the blood.
I shut my eyes as tightly as I can, just hoping and praying that Auntie is wrong. I don’t want to be ok. I don’t want to still be here. I don’t want to know what happens next.
"Anastasia, it is ok. It’s me Auntie, and everything is alright. Don’t worry dear."
I think, "she doesn’t know yet."
Then, I open my eyes one more time and notice that someone else is in the room. It's Glenn, and he begins walking toward my bed with flowers.
"Hi Anastasia. I’m so glad you’re awake," he says.
Then, this man in white ushers them all out of the room. He turns around and returns to my bed, and he says, "Anastasia, are you a bit confused?"
I nod.
"You just need to rest, let-go," he says.
"No, wait. First, I have to know something."
"What do you need to know?"
"Uh, my boyfriend, Ranee, why isn’t he here?"
"He helped us understand why you did what you did. I think you know why he isn't here."
"Oh." Did they all know? Could they have forgiven me? Could it really be ok?
"Alright, now," the man says. "I think you know enough to take a rest, to let go."
Mother channeled her power into spells and concoctions to attain anything and everything her heart desired. She taught me her ways, and we would laugh together locked in her secret room. No one knew the secret magic we practiced.
When I turned 13, my first love stirred the greatest desire I had ever known. There was a boy who shined with this wild exuberance that enticed me. He was rarely at school because he was always falling ill in one way or another, and this distance kept me from being able to dazzle him with my beauty, or slip him a secret potion. Making this boy love me became my absolute infatuation, and I craved to use my powers to draw him into my web.
One afternoon, I came home and tugged my mother’s arm as I lead her down the dark hallway into the secret room that she hardly visited anymore. I told her about this boy. I told her I wanted to heal him and needed her help. She looked at me with this oddly puzzled look on her face and slowly began to shake her head back and forth.
"MOTHER!" I yelled. "For the first time in my whole life I need you. I need you to be there for me, to help me, to use all the tools you have shown me to make MY dreams come true! So many times, I have followed along and assisted YOU in YOUR magic spells, and now it is my turn!"
As I threw my tantrum, I could see her soften and just about ready to give in. Just then, I snuggled in close to her and cried a few small tears.
"Oh Anastasia," she said softly looking deeply into my eyes. "I have seen a great darkness in the magic. I just know I have to stop."
She paused looking down at the ground before she continued. "I had a dream. An women, in a long white gown, I don't know, maybe an angel. Anastasia, she told me that I am abusing my powers. She told me there will be consequences."
I looked at her face after sensing the shakiness in her voice. Mother looked more fearful and frail than I had ever seen her.
I shuddered but quickly refocused onto my task. "Mother, I will never again ask you to do this. Please. Just this one time."
After a long pause, Mother finally said, "alright Anastasia."
"Oh thank you Mother, thank you so much," I said as I planted a string of kisses on her cheeks.
Her face had changed to a lighter smile. "Do you have anything I can use to connect to him?"
"Ah . . . I have a some paper with his writing on it." I ran to get my school bag and found a note he passed me.
I gave her the paper, and she breathed long and hard. She closed her eyes as she held the paper. As she sat there concentrating, she began to shake. I started to get a little worried, until finally she opened her eyes.
"No doctor will ever be able to cure him. Anastasia, he is destined to die very young."
Her forlorn expression made me crazy. I was too young to be helpless, and too full of my own power to feel hopeless.
"There has to be something that we can do. Help me find a way to heal him," I demanded.
"There is no way." She wouldn’t look at me, so I knew she was lying.
"What must I do, Mother? I’ll do anything."
"Oh Anastasia Dear, please let this go. Please."
"No Mother, we have to do this. For him. For me. For us. We have to do this. What do you need me to do?" I spoke as sternly as if I was a parent scolding my child.
"Oh Anastasia, fine. Damn it! Fine, bring him to the house, but let me be absolutely clear that this is the very last time that I will ever use magic. . . the very last time."
About a month later, the opportunity came to get Ranee to our house. It was a spring day, and while we were outside for a break, I slowly walked up to him and flashed the most provocative smile I could muster. I caught his attention and inched closer and closer. I allowed myself to come just close enough to rub my breasts lightly against him, and then I slowly moved away, as though I didn’t notice I had touched him. I turned away and waited for him to respond.
Of course, he did.
"We should sneak into the woods behind the school," he whispered in my ear.
I looked around to realize that no one was looking at us. "My house is much better and just up the road," I replied.
He looked incredibly stunned at my forward invitation, but too foolhardy to decline. We quickly ran down the road before anyone noticed.
We came into the empty kitchen to find a kettle whistling. I turned it off, poured my mother’s tea, and headed back for her bedroom. Ranee looked so uncomfortable. I lifted my index finger to my lips and then pointed to a kitchen chair, as I headed down the dark hallway.
Mother was sound asleep when I entered her room. I shook her violently, and in a loud whisper said, "he’s here. Momma, he’s here. Wake up.”
She could barely open her eyes, but finally she knew she had no choice. "Oh Anastasia, please let me rest. I feel so tired and weak. I can’t do this now. I can’t. You’ll have to leave, and we can do this another time."
"No Mother! You don’t even realize how difficult it was to get him here, and now he is here. We have to do it now. I’ll do it, you just tell me what to do. Now, Mother. Now!"
She looked so angry at me, but at the same time, I knew she didn’t have the energy for her anger. She reluctantly lifted her thin frame from the bed and stood weakly in front of me.
"Why aren’t you at school? What are you doing here?"
"You said he needed to be here, and I got him here. That is all there is to it. Meet us in the secret room."
I abruptly left and knew that she would be there. I went back in the kitchen and took Ranee’s hand. I raised him from his seat, and in the kitchen, we shared our first kiss. I held his face in my hands, and I could feel his heart beating so fast against my chest. His strong right hand rested on the small of my back and pulled me in closer. With his left hand, he gently touched my shoulder, and I felt such strong passionate feelings for him in that moment. I knew this was love, and I would do whatever I must to have it.
The heat started to rise, and then I told him that my mother wanted to see him. I wanted her to meet him and approve, before we could be together. I told him how badly I wanted us to be together, and I gave him that sly and seductive look that most 13 year olds wouldn’t have pulled off.
He was completely helpless to my wishes at this point, and like an obedient puppy, he followed me to the secret room. Mother had lit a number of candles. She looked tired, angry, and even ugly. I felt a slight shame come over me as she commanded Ranee to get on her table. He looked at me, completely confused, and I nodded my head and asked him to do it.
I whispered to him to close his eyes, and I said that everything would be just fine. I told him not to worry; he could trust us.
Mother told me to stand down by his feet, and she stood by his head. She began to move her hands over top of his body. For several minutes, Mother moved all around floating her hands above his body, scanning the surface. Then, she pulled me into the corner and told me that she was going to perform the healing with my help. I was to stand behind her, put my hands on her waist and feed her energy. She was going to channel both our energies through her hands and into his body to heal him.
"Whatever you do, Anastasia, you cannot let go."
She approached the table, and I nervously grabbed her waist. She put her hands on him, and he began to speak. He started asking what she was doing, and he said he wanted her to stop. I told him it was ok, and it would make him better.
"Just lie down, Ranee."
"Stop! I am fine. I don’t want you to do this to me."
He began to try and get up, but Mother pushed him firmly back onto the table. She kept going, and finally, he stopped fighting.
After fifteen minutes or so, I began to feel too weak to even keep standing up. I needed to sit down, or get a drink, or lay down. I whispered to Mother that I needed to rest, but she didn’t hear me. She was so entranced in what she was doing, so I kept holding on.
Until that piercing scream roughed me from my unconsciousness. The sound of Ranee’s scream startled me into action, and I stood to find Mother laying on top of him. I used all my might to lift her off him, and he jumped off the table and ran out the door. I heard the door slam, and his distant curses as he ran from our house.
Mother fell limply back onto the table, and I couldn’t get her to wake up. I was able to swing her legs up onto the table so she could lie down, and when I had her flat on her back, I kept whispering in her ear and gently shaking her, "Momma, wake-up, please Momma, wake-up."
She was still warm, but there was something so eerie and lifeless about her body. I started to panic and wonder what I was going to do, when she finally opened her eyes.
She looked at me with a cold glance and said, "Anastasia, I shouldn’t have done this. . . I gave him all the good energy I had left. I love you so much that I would do anything for you, but now . . ." Her eyelids fell heavily shut.
Panic. . . Tears . . . Fear. . .Hysteria . . . and finally sleep.
***
"Anastasia. Anastasia, what is going on here?!" I was being shaken, but I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to return to my nightmare and have to explain or accept. The shaking became more violent, and finally, I knew that it was Auntie.
I opened my eyes only partially, and I looked at her tear stained face. I was on the floor of the secret room, and through the small parted space of my eyelids, I could see that my mother was no longer on the table. I pulled Auntie close to me and just cried. I just cried and cried and cried. I was too afraid to speak, so tears filled the space I could not fill with words.
I never explained or answered a single question. I just got very upset whenever anyone asked me what had happened. They assumed I had suffered such a trauma that even I did not remember what had happened, but I did know. I also knew the only other person in the world who knew what had happened that day.
It was about a month before I returned to school, and the first day back, there he was. He looked healthier than ever. Full of his own strength and bravado, he had a confidence that bordered arrogance, and he looked at me in a way that made me wince. The dynamics of power had clearly shifted between us. It was still morning when he pulled me into a shadow of the school to talk with me, privately.
"I don’t know what you two witches did to me, but it worked. Huh? Can’t you tell? I feel fantastic, better than I’ve ever felt in my life. Now, I’m not thanking you because you had no right to do what you did. It was sick; it was weird; and no one has ever scared the crap out of me like you did that day. I’m not thanking you, but I will tell you that I did not tell anyone.
"I heard that your mother died, and I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want you to get locked away like a crazy witch, now that you’re an orphan, so I won’t tell. . . Unless you give me reason to tell."
In the dark, I could see glints of light shining off his teeth grinning an evil smirk. I was utterly speechless, but I must admit my discomfort mixed with relief that I could appease him to keep my secret. To me, no one ever knowing what happened was of the utmost importance.
As Ranee became a bigger and bigger part of my life, Auntie started asking questions. I just kept putting them off until she started teasing me about my little boyfriend. It felt somewhat less dirty, less shameful to think of him as my boyfriend. Maybe I could just happily go along with this, and everything would be fine.
Our relationship began to evolve into a truce. There was a good deal of laughing when we were together, and when he pressured me to do things to him that I did not feel completely comfortable with, but I did them and did not complain. I wouldn’t say that it was something I liked doing, but I could handle it. I felt more like I was working off a debt, than like a victim.
One afternoon, we were lying on some grass near his house, when a few of his friends showed up, saying all sorts of rude things to me.
"Hey guys, get the hell out of here. This is my girlfriend, and you are not going to talk to her that way. Get the hell out of here before I kick someone’s ass!" Ranee had a look of rage on his face as he shouted at them that I never expected. In that moment, he transformed before my eyes from my warden to my protector.
As the boys ran off, I looked into his eyes and said, "thank you for standing up for me." Then I stammered, "Do you really think of me as your girlfriend?"
"I didn’t. But lately, I can’t stop thinking about you, Ana. Even the way you helped heal me. I owe you so much. I love being with you. I love the way you look, the way you feel. Ana, I love you. I don’t know how this happened, but I am just glad we are together."
He hugged me tightly, and I was glad he couldn’t see my face. Although I felt like his words should have made me happy, they made me scared. I felt a creeping panic in my chest realizing that the ransom stakes had now shifted from my body to my heart.
I just held him tightly unsure about what else to do. Tears started to well up in my eyes, and he pulled back.
"Oh Ana, you don’t have to say a word. I know," he said as he pulled me closer again.
***
Ranee and I dated very seriously all through high school. I suppose we had a fairly normal relationship to the outside, but I always had this strange feeling of having no way out. This secret did not make me love him, but his love for me made me feel safe and secure. It eased the guilt I felt inside and made me feel lovable despite what I had done. It made me feel that my secret was guarded by the walls of his strong love for me.
After our high school graduation, Ranee and I went to a friend’s party, and he introduced me to his childhood best friend: "Ana, this is my good buddy, Glenn," Ranee said as he slapped Glenn on the back and gave him a huge smile.
I reached out my hand and shyly said, "it’s nice to meet you."
When I made eye contact with Glenn, my heart began to beat faster. I could barely hold eye contact, and I could feel the perspiration begin to build in my palms.
"It’s my pleasure to meet you Ana," he said with the kindest smile, looking so intent and interested in me.
Quickly, Ranee escorted Glenn outside to talk with some other friends. As they reached the door to go outside, Glenn looked back and caught my gaze again. I lost my breath and ran upstairs to the bathroom.
I splashed cold water on my face and looked in the mirror. In a single moment, a solitary glance, my whole world felt different. My arrangement with Ranee which seemed so safe and tolerable, now seemed suffocating. I had never felt interested or attracted to someone else, so I didn’t feel like being with Ranee was a sacrifice, but then I wondered if this intense feeling running through me was love at first sight, maybe it wasn’t, but either way, there was nothing I could ever do about it.
I pulled myself together, and ran down the stairs to tell Ranee I had to go home because I felt sick. I ran into Glenn before I had a chance to talk to Ranee.
"Where are you off to in such a rush?," he asked with an intense stare.
"Oh, I have to get going. I don’t feel very well," I muttered while darting my eyes all around the room trying so desperately to avoid looking into the warm wells of his eyes.
"Before you go, I wanted to share something with you. Ranee told me that you love art, and I have some paintings with me. Please come, and I’ll show them to you," he said so innocently that in that moment I completely believed everything would be ok.
"Well, for a moment, I guess," and as I said this I couldn’t help but lock into his gaze.
I followed him outside to his car, and he showed me his paintings. They could easily have been images plucked from the landscape of my own inner world. There were paintings of the sunset, old buildings and bridges, the night sky.
Then, there was an image of a girl . . . that truly took my breath away. The likeness to me was uncanny; her hair color was slightly different, and the shape of her face a touch more round, but this painting could be one that was intended to be my portrait. I turned to him in awe and confusion.
"I know," he said. "I painted this one several years ago, and when I saw you I couldn’t believe how much you look like her. I’ve painted lots of people, but this is the only portrait of someone that I created out of my mind, someone that I didn’t really know."
“I just wanted to show it to you because of how weird it is, you know. Just a strange coincidence.”
“Did you show this to Ranee?”
“No, no I don’t know what he’d say. He isn’t really that interested in coincidences, or art. No, I just wanted to show you because I had the paintings in my car. I’m going to be here for the summer, and I brought them to show my grandmother.”
"Oh,” I wasn’t sure what else to say. I also knew that anything I wanted to say wouldn’t be ok.
“You know I really have to go. Please tell Ranee I had to go." I ran more quickly away from that house than I would have if it had been on fire. I just ran and ran.
When I was out of an earshot, I cried: for the life I had lost, the mother I had killed, the choices I had demolished, and the feelings of love I’d never explore.
All the grief, pain, violation, guilt, and suffering that I had stuffed away in the years since my mother’s death flooded back. I was the small selfish little brat who pushed her mother into her coffin, the dirty whore who sold my body to have her deepest and darkest secret kept hidden. The worst tragedy of all would be for Glenn to ever know. I couldn’t bear to tarnish the pure looks he gave me.
I hid out in my house for the first few weeks of that summer under the guise of having an illness. I didn’t see Ranee until finally he would wait no more. Late one night, he snuck into my bedroom window and woke me with a kiss.
"Ranee, you shouldn’t be here. You could catch what I have. Stop."
"Oh, Ana, I’m sick without you. I just needed to see you. Just for a minute. How are you doing?"
"I’m doing ok," I said through a small coughing fit.
"Oh, baby, I’m sorry. And, the weather is great outside. I was really hoping you would be able to go on the canoeing trip this weekend."
"No, I won’t be able to make it," I said trying to fight off the desperation I felt to have him leave. Looking at him now, I just couldn’t take his feelings. I could see his love, his attachment to me.
He felt my coldness and said "Ana, what is wrong. You’re acting really weird."
"Nothing Ranee, I just don’t feel well. You better go."
"Look, don’t think you can brush me off. You know how it is, right? I love you so much, and I won’t let you go so easily.” He looked through me. “Come on girl, get better,” he said with a slight smile. “I’ll see you real soon, ok?"
"Yeah Ranee, whatever you want."
***
A few days later, I finally emerge from my room. My Auntie convinces me that I need to get out, and she draggs me along to the annual church picnic at the park. Ranee is on the canoeing trip, so I feel safe being out.
The summer sunshine feels so good. A cool breeze melds with the warmth creating the perfect temperature. The peaceful sound of the wind moving the branches calms me, and it feels good to finally turn my mind to something besides the tortuous thoughts I had been spinning.
Taking care of the young kids had become my ritual at the picnic, so I quickly move into my role. I start a little game of hide-and-go-seek among some of the kids. I completely lose myself in this child’s game; it feels wonderful. I giggle and carry on with them, as though I was just another nine year old.
Then, I feel a light tap that sends a tingling sensation through my body. It jolts me from my giddy good time, and I nervously swing my head around to see who is there. Glenn smiles down at me.
"Hey there, Anastasia," he says. "Ranee told me that you’ve been sick. I’m glad to see that you are feeling so much better."
"Oh, thanks, yeah I guess I am feeling better . . . But, uh, not entirely better you know. I still have to get my rest." I fake a horrible cough as I turn back to the kids to rest from his stare.
"Well, watching you run around with these kids, you look so healthy," he says. "You are glowing you know."
I nervously laugh and can’t control the rush of heat to my cheeks. "Oh, well, I um better get back to the game. It was nice to see you," I say as I turn away from him ready for a full sprint into the best hiding spot I could find.
"Anastasia, you don’t have to run from me. I am not trying to make you uncomfortable. I know you are with Ranee, and I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I am only here for the summer, and I just hoped that maybe we could all be friends," he says.
I don’t want to turn around and look at him because his words are breaking down my walls. With each sincere gesture and loving look, I feel weaker and weaker in my resolve to hold up this charade that I am in love with Ranee. I feel less and less able to pretend. Slowly, I bring myself to look into his eyes.
"Glenn, there is so much you don’t understand. I can’t explain. I’m sorry." As I look at him, I feel that there is more honesty in that moment than ever in my life.
I lean over and give him a kiss on the cheek before I run away.
Quickly, I find Auntie and convince her it is time to go home. I tell her I desperately need my rest, and she quickly gathers her things.
We aren’t home for more than five minutes when there is a loud knock at the door. I run upstairs to my room saying I need to get to bed right away, and as I make my way up the stairs, I hear Auntie talking with Ranee. I hear his loud footsteps pounding down the hallway toward the stairs.
"Ana, I want to talk to you."
"I was just going to get some rest. The church picnic really wiped me out. Let’s talk later," I say without turning around. I just continue up the stairs.
"No. We are going to talk right now," he says with fire in his voice.
I stop and turn my head back to see this expression of rage on his face. I feel terrified, but I spring into action. I quickly turn around and head down the stairs. "Let’s go sit out back."
He follows close behind me as I head for the back door of Auntie’s cottage. When we are sitting in the chairs behind her house, he finally says, "what the hell is going on with you and Glenn?"
"Nothing. He’s your friend," I say trying to look in his eyes, but unable to force myself to do it.
"Well, so do you make it a habit of kissing all my friends?"
"No, of course I don’t. What are you talking about?"
"You know what I am talking about you lying bitch. You crazy little witch. After all that we’ve been through, you would lie to me and go behind my back, huh."
"No Ranee, you don’t understand at all. I was telling him that I didn’t want to see him. It was just an innocent kiss on the cheek. I wasn’t doing anything. I want to be with you."
"Tell me you love me. Look straight into my eyes and tell me how much you love me. Right now!"
Tears are flooding my eyes by this point, and I want with everything in me to shut them down and do as he asks. I look into his eyes and say "I . . . do. I . . .love," but before I can get the words out, I drop my gaze to my shoes. I just start crying hysterically, knowing what all this is going to mean.
Before, I have a chance to say anything, Ranee is gone. I run after him screaming his name, but he just keeps going.
I run to my room past Auntie. She tries to stop me and find out what was the matter, but I can’t speak. I just run into my room and start moving my dresser to block my door. I lock the window, close the curtains, and then heap myself on the floor.
So many questions spin through my mind: what would happen as Ranee told everyone my secret, how would Auntie feel about me, or Glenn, or everyone else? Would I go to jail? Overwhelmed by all I have been hiding from for so many years, I reach for this old knife with a handle made of pearl that had belonged to my mother. It is one of the only things I kept of hers. It is so unique and beautiful: this dainty little weapon.
Today, I realize why I hung onto it all these years. I pull the blade from the leather sheath, and quickly, before I have a chance to think of the pain, I slice it across my wrist. At first, it only makes the smallest scratch, so I push down with more pressure.
Then, I just lay there watching the blood quickly spill out of my body. With each gush I feel closer and closer to ending this nightmare that suffocates me. I start to feel very sleepy as the pool grows bigger, and I let myself drift off. Making everything slowly slip away.
***
"Anastasia Dear, it is all going to be ok," says a calming voice that seems so far away. Everything is dark and the sounded is muffled, like in a dream. I try to open my eyes, and finally I see light, then blurry objects. Unclear images of faces I don’t recognize, a man and a woman. Their lips are moving, but there's no sound. I lay there wondering who they are . . . who I am, and what is going on.
I just keep staring until my vision clears, and then I see a woman I recognize push the man at my bedside away. She grabs my hand and repeats, "Anastasia Dear, it is all going to be ok." The woman smiles sweetly.
As I focus in on her face, it all starts coming back to me. My aunt, my mother, Ranee . . . the pearl knife, the blood.
I shut my eyes as tightly as I can, just hoping and praying that Auntie is wrong. I don’t want to be ok. I don’t want to still be here. I don’t want to know what happens next.
"Anastasia, it is ok. It’s me Auntie, and everything is alright. Don’t worry dear."
I think, "she doesn’t know yet."
Then, I open my eyes one more time and notice that someone else is in the room. It's Glenn, and he begins walking toward my bed with flowers.
"Hi Anastasia. I’m so glad you’re awake," he says.
Then, this man in white ushers them all out of the room. He turns around and returns to my bed, and he says, "Anastasia, are you a bit confused?"
I nod.
"You just need to rest, let-go," he says.
"No, wait. First, I have to know something."
"What do you need to know?"
"Uh, my boyfriend, Ranee, why isn’t he here?"
"He helped us understand why you did what you did. I think you know why he isn't here."
"Oh." Did they all know? Could they have forgiven me? Could it really be ok?
"Alright, now," the man says. "I think you know enough to take a rest, to let go."
shadow before me
How did I end up on this hill? Looking down at the river I can never bathe in, watching the sunset over hills I can never go visit, living in a marriage that will never give me love. I fool myself by looking out and believing I have so much. I let myself believe that I have been rescued from a life that was tragic, but then why do I daydream about those days?
Those days when he would come to visit me. He was a man of power, so really he could have me whenever he wanted. He was the first man in my life to ever ask me what I wanted. He was the first man who ever kissed me as a girl, a treasured girl. He was the only man that ever made love to me.
Back then, I lived for my time with him. Every time my door opened, I hoped and prayed that he would be the man to walk through it. I focused on his every move, his every word, every feeling, every look. I moved into an obsession that consumed my life, and day by day this new emotion enticed me to want to feel more. With each sensation of pleasure, I allowed myself to open to more feeling, more love, more pleasure.
The difficulty with our love affair came when my openness led to feeling more during my other liaisons. With other men who called me a whore and commanded me like their personal slaves, I felt pain. I felt disrespected. Physically, I felt torn. I had opened myself to see and feel all that was really going on around me, and in the process, I had found myself in a life I could not tolerate.
The great love I felt for this one man was greater than anything I had ever known, but I no longer could just move through the motions as a numb machine performing a rote task. I felt everything, and I could no longer take the extremes.
I knew there was no way I could continue on this roller coaster. Paying the price of excruciating pain was too high, even for the immeasurable pleasure I felt with him. I believed that he truly loved me, and I thought I could have it all. I felt ready to ask, can I have it all?
After making love one afternoon, I stared into his eyes and told him the pain I felt being with other men. He said he felt an emptiness being with his wife, when he felt such love for me. I told him that physically I felt pain by the way the men treated me. I told him it was too much pain for me to bear.
With this he sat up. He looked very seriously and sternly at me and asked what I was going to do. I told him I wanted to leave. I was ready to run away. I needed to leave this life and start over, and I needed him to help me.
As the words left my lips, he turned away. Quickly, he got up and walked away. Tortuous moments of silence filled the space between us, and he buried his head in the wall. Finally, he turned around and came to me.
"I want to help. Really, I do, but I just can't," he spit out and left in a rush. I sat there in a complete daze.
He visited me early the next day, a sheepish grin on his face.
"Hello, my love," he said so sweetly as he kissed me gently on the lips. He held me tightly, until I wiggled from his grasp.
I gave him a stern look as I turned my head to face the small window in the corner of the room. I walked away from him over to the window, so he wouldn't see the small tears beginning to form in the corners of my eyes.
He walked up behind me and grabbed around my waist from behind. He started planting small kisses on the back of my neck, creeping around to the front and up to my ear. He had learned over the last two years that this was my weakness.
But that day, I did not feel weak.
"Stop," I said firmly with no equivocation. "I won't do this anymore." I didn't even turn to look at him, I just stared lifelessly out the window. After a moment of hesitation I said, "go and just leave me alone . . . if you won't help me."
I stared out the window. I let myself be hypnotized by the color and movement of the people walking in herds down the busy street. I focused in on this woman selling her fruit out of a hand-made wooden stand. The bright colors of the fruit stood out to me. The rich and shiny reds, yellows, and greens spoke of paradise, a place of dreams, where unhindered love can exist. As I stared, strange noises pulled me back to the room. I just listened without turning, and finally I realized they were muffled sobs, sniffling moans.
"Please, stay. I beg you to just stay here. Things aren't that bad . . .are they? I wish I could save you, I want what you want so badly," he said in a strained a high pitched tone. "I need you. Please don't do this."
A part of me wanted to say ok and to just live in this sea of pleasure and pain. In moments, I thought I could say yes, but my lips would not let me say the word. I just listened. As his pleading continued, my tears disappeared. They evaporated into nothing. I just stood there, staring out the window, waiting for him to walk away, forever.
After he left, I tried to live the life I had lived for so long, a livelihood of sex, but I could not. I had opened to the abyss of feeling, and I could not stuff all I had experienced back inside. I had healed the part of myself that went numb, but now I had an entirely new beast to slay.
***
It was clear I needed to get out. In the middle of the night, I crawled down the fire escape to the deserted street below. As I ran along the dimly lit street, it occurred to me I had no place to go. I knew no one that would help me, that would hide me, that would give me any money or food. I didn't have family, and I never had a friend.
I just ran down the streets and alleyways that seemed so unfamiliar to me wrapped in shadows. This street was a bustling open air market during the days, but since I had been here, I never walked alone in the empty streets of the night. No people, no colors, no sounds. The night filled with heavy silence, not a bird, not a car, not a soul. Nothing animating these empty streets, and there was just an endless reminder that I was completely alone. Isolated.
Just then bright lights shined at my back, and I could see my own shadow before me. I looked back to see where the light was coming from. It was a bus. It had just stopped, and a woman was getting off.
I had enough money for a bus ride and a meal wherever I arrived, so I went for it. As I got on and handed the majority of all the money I had in the world to the bus driver, my heart was beating so fast. This was the scariest thing I had ever experienced, and at the same time, I had this overwhelming sense of freedom and adventure. It was probably the way a young bird feels that first time he leaves the nest. The magic of flying right there, and at the same time that possibility of crashing into the solid ground below. Such a prize for such a risk.
I made my way to the back of the darkened bus and kept my head down. I was sure not to make eye contact with any of these strangers, and my face was well hidden behind a large black hat. I felt securely masked from my identity on my way to a place where no one would know me. No one would hold me to the reputation I had built here. As I took my seat, my heart beat finally began to settle. I finally felt a glimmer of hope that everything would be alright.
I slid on the seat over to the window. As the bus pulled away, I watched this familiar place get smaller and smaller. As we moved down the streets, each turn brought me further and further from what I knew. Finally, the window revealed scenes I had never laid eyes on. Buildings I had never seen, street corners I had never walked. This thought was accompanied by a slowly creeping smile. I was still very scared about the next step of my life, but at least, there was a next step. Nothing could be as bad as where I had been.
I fell asleep with my head pressed against the window. It felt cool and soothing. The bumps as the bus traveled over the dirt roads lulled me. It was a peaceful sleep, deeper than any sleep I've experienced, but quickly I was snapped out. The rough terrain must have banged my head against the window just hard enough to wake me up, and I was startled by the sunlight as
I opened my eyes. I must have slept for hours.
As I gathered myself, I noticed my hat had fallen off, but I could not find it anywhere. I looked all around on my seat, but it wasn't there. I looked under the seat, but still it was not there. I began to panic, as I sat in the exposure of letting all these people see my face.
Just then, a man slid into the seat next to me, and he was holding my hat. As he turned to face me, I recognized him right away. He gave me a sleezy smile as he handed me my hat. He was a man who I had serviced once or twice before. It had been quite a while, so I couldn't remember too clearly. I didn't remember any violence, but I seemed to remember that he was one of the dirty talkers. One of those men that just seemed to get off on calling me names and saying the nastiest commands. His smile didn't lie; He was definitely one of those vile men.
He asked me where I was going, and I did not answer. He would not move from the seat, and he began taunting me. Telling me he knew that I had left without permission, and he could tell them where to find me. I gave him the best glance of death I could muster, but he just seemed amused and stimulated by my attempt to push him away. He wanted a little game of cat
and mouse, and the truth was that I did feel like a scared little mouse. I wanted to run, but the moving bus left me no where to go.
He started moving closer and closer to me. Whispering promises to protect me if I would do disgusting things to him. He was so descriptive and perverse that it was no surprise that he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I tried to change the focus by asking him about himself. He briefly bragged about his money and his line of work, but quickly returned to his advances. As he moved closer and closer to whisper in my ear, I felt smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. My world was spinning faster and faster.
The bus abruptly stopped, and as the door creaked open, the driver yelled for everyone to get off. I collected my things and stood up, but the nasty man would not get out of my way. He just stared me down, waiting for an answer to his proposition. Everyone got off the bus, everyone but us. The bus driver got very impatient and told us to get moving. The man just stared me down, until finally, I said "fine, whatever you want."
He flashed another one of those smiles, and let me pass. I felt his eyes disrobing me and violating me as I walked in front of him off the bus. He put his arm around me as we walked away, and I just wanted to shrink down into a hole in the earth. I was so small, so defeated, not free at all.
From there he lead me to a car waiting in the parking lot. A small red car that was an absolutely filthy mess inside. By the size of the pile of stuff on the passenger side seat, it seemed that no one had ever sat there before, and no wonder. I thought of running while he was there cleaning off the seat, but where would I go? I didn't even know where I was. I was stiff and
scared, so I allowed myself to be led.
I was lead to his house, up on the hill. This house with so many windows. So many places to look out to the rest of the world, but not one window opened. They were just places to longingly peer out, but nowhere to gain a breath of fresh air, not even a patio. From the time I first walked through the door, I felt a strangling hold around my neck. This house was a beautiful place, but it felt more suffocating than the small room where men used to visit me for sex day and night.
After allowing him to do unspeakable things in the bedroom for a few hours, he finally was finished. He left the room, and I quickly got myself dressed. I walked out into the living area, and he was sitting on the sofa smoking a cigarette. He offered me one, and I accepted. I sat in a chair and leaned over for him to light my cigarette. It was so obvious that he was enjoying this sham that I was there by choice with him. He probably never had a woman he didn't pay for.
He started some small talk, telling me about his family, about his house. I listened and started thinking that maybe he wasn't the most disgusting thing to crawl the face of the earth. He smiled very sincerely after a long story about when he bought this house and how lonely it was to live there by himself.
"Would you stay here with me," he said.
I was completely startled by the question and the soft tone of his voice. I just stared in disbelief.
He continued, ". . . and, be my companion." He flashed that same nasty smile from the bus.
This wasn't the freedom I expected, but I didn't see any choices. I had no money to make my own choices, and he looked desperate for me to say yes. I felt desperate to change his glances to respect. Maybe I could stay if he would show me the respect my lover introduced me to.
"If you marry me," I said. "Treat me with the respect of a wife, and I'll stay."
As I listened to the words coming from my mouth, I could hardly believe I was actually asking to attach myself to this man.
He looked shocked by the request and pulled in his cigarette for a long drawn out drag. As he sucked on his cigarette, he gave me an intense stare.
He took a few more drags, and we sat in very intense and uncomfortable silence. I turned away to look out the window, and then I just closed my eyes. I let myself drift off to another time, a time with my lover, wrapped in his arms and warm with his love.
"Yes. Absolutely! Let's get married baby," he said with this rowdy cackle. I was yanked from my daydream back to the smoke filled room unsure whether I should be happy or crushed. It was freedom in a sense, and a whole new breed of prison, but one that carried with it status and respect. I was ready to be a person of respect.
I smiled and stood up to go into the bathroom.
"Where are you going," he asked very suspiciously.
"I am just going to use your restroom . . . if that is alright," I replied.
"Well, I will come in with you. Shouldn't we just start doing everything together," he said.
"Please let me have my space," I asked. After a pleading look, he let me go unescorted.
***
For years, things continued along these lines. I did what he asked, and he gave me a little space to be alone and sink into my fantasies. When I would get really lost, imagining my lover when I was having sex with him, he would slap me and ask what I was thinking. His slaps were worth the pleasure I would get from just a second imagining that it was the man of my dreams inside me.
As time passed, the violence grew and the control became overwhelming. I could never leave the house without him, and I could not even leave the room he was in without his permission. He wanted to control everything, down to my thoughts, but that was the one freedom he could not touch, the one place he could not go, my only place to be happy. I lived in this far off space in my mind as much as I possibly could.
I would dream of how my lover had been searching for me ever since I left town. He had figured out that I ran away, and which bus I must have taken. I dreamed that he knew where I ended up and that he was endlessly searching for me. Every single time I was in public, I imagined a chance run in, where my lover would whisk me away from this life, and we could be happy together. I remembered his tears, our love, the way it felt when we were together. It just was not fair for us to be apart. It was not right, and at some time, I just knew it would be made right.
My existence had become these fantasies. I allowed myself to walk through the motions of my actual life, one of pain, suffering, and violence, while my mind and spirit were hidden far away from my body. I became a master at separating my internal and external worlds.
I ended the roller coaster of extreme ups and downs with my lover and prostitution because it was too much. But then, I just recreated the same situation in my marriage. The extreme highs experienced in my imagination balanced the extreme lows of my every encounter with my husband. I gazed out the eye of my mind into a life I wish I had, and the windows of my house into the world I wish I could explore.
After about ten years of keeping my dreams only in the intangible space of my head, I finally began expressing these fantasies in writing. The first day I chose to write personal thoughts in a small notebook I had bought at the pharmacy, my heart was beating ferociously out of my chest. I was so scared that he would walk up, that he would find me, that he would grab these pages from my hand and find out how I really felt. I feared a beating even more relentlessly than usual.
My fear made me very careful about securing my most precious writings in a loose floorboard under the bathroom sink. These journals were where I wrote my thoughts, fantasies, my truest dreams and desires, my love for a man that was not my husband. I wrote in explicit sexual detail I could remember of my lover, and all my dreams of the experiences I wished to have. I wrote about the way sex with my husband repulsed me, and my dream that one day my lover would rescue me, and we would leave this house on the hill. We would leave laughing and in love.
With so much of my truest heart and vulnerability exposed on those pages, I guarded them with my life. I spent hours in the bathroom late at night filling the pages of my journals with my secret thoughts. It was my place to play, my place to explore, my place to really live. In recent years, becoming slightly more comfortable in my home, when my husband was not home I snuck out into the bedroom to write on the softness of my bed.
***
Today is one such day. The door swings open and bangs against the door stop attached to the wall; I shudder. The startling noise lifts my attention to my husband standing in the doorway.
"Come on, don't you have that stupid hair appointment. Let's MOVE. Get in the car you lazy bitch!"
I slowly shut the night stand drawer as nonchalantly as possible. I wonder if I should try to stall him, so I can quickly sneak into the bathroom.
"Ah, ok . . . ok, I'm coming. Ah. Um. I'm coming." I follow him out to the car with my fingers crossed behind my back.
The long ride to the salon leads me to the longest haircut ever. Each snip of the scissors rings in my ears. I feel like a solid rock sitting in this squeaky plastic chair with my facial expression frozen and my lips sealed shut. I am afraid to even move my thoughts, for the great tidal wave of fear that would be jarred. Each time I hear the bell attached to the door ring, my eyes dart to see who is walking though. Then, finally, he enters the salon with his head down. He stares through me while the beautician finishes my style. The blow dryer muffles all sound, but his stare unmistakably communicates a message to me.
As I sit there for the last moments of pampering, I think of running, screaming for help, showing people my bruised body and asking them to protect me. . . . No, they won't help me.
He very abruptly throws more than enough to cover my haircut onto the counter as I walk toward him. His fingernails sink into my arm as he ushers me to the car. He slams the door and rushes around to the other side. We do not say a single word in the car on the way home, but still worlds of communication happen in the space between us.
I feel his anger, and I feel his threats and promises of retribution for the way he is feeling. I send pleading looks and smiles that beg for mercy and understanding. I want him to know that there is love and gratitude for what he has given me. I am grateful. Really, I am. I silently pray for him to allow me to make it up to him.
We arrive at the house, and he waits for me to get out of the car and then follows tightly behind me as I enter the house. As the door opens, I see my notebook on the table right in front of the door. Immediately he grabs it, looks deeply into my eyes, and whips its pages across my face. The sting is unbearable, and the force enough to break the skin. Blood stains the white wall to my left. As I look at the journal with my own blood splattered upon it, I feel an odd sense of peace. A sense of knowing that this is the one place where I have truly lived. This is where the blood flows through my veins. This is my truest body.
The vessel that I walk around in is a lifeless and tortured object that I constantly escape from. I don't live in this body that is constantly made to do things I do not want to do. No, this is not the place that houses my soul, but these secret pages are my true physical home. I am glad that he finally realizes that he hasn't touched the real me. I am glad there is a real me.
He is determined this one last time to reach in to get me. His rage grows with my despondency as he beats me. I allow my awareness to drift out above the scene, and from this vantage point, it is like watching a taunted and tortured child trying to capture a ghost. He begins crying and screaming, and he just lets my body fall on the floor before him.
He runs to the kitchen and grabs a long sharp silver knife. He runs in and shows it to me. He asks if this shows me how serious he really is. He asks if this is this enough to make me love him, if it is enough to make me submit to him.
I do nothing. I am beaten too badly to command anything of my body, so I just lay there limply, watching his antics. He hugs me, he cries, he asks me why I don't love him.
He grabs the knife, and as he shoves it straight through my chest, I feel a pang. Just a slight pang as it goes through, and then peace. Warm surrender that finally releases me from this cage.
Finally I am free, and he is alone with the mess.
Those days when he would come to visit me. He was a man of power, so really he could have me whenever he wanted. He was the first man in my life to ever ask me what I wanted. He was the first man who ever kissed me as a girl, a treasured girl. He was the only man that ever made love to me.
Back then, I lived for my time with him. Every time my door opened, I hoped and prayed that he would be the man to walk through it. I focused on his every move, his every word, every feeling, every look. I moved into an obsession that consumed my life, and day by day this new emotion enticed me to want to feel more. With each sensation of pleasure, I allowed myself to open to more feeling, more love, more pleasure.
The difficulty with our love affair came when my openness led to feeling more during my other liaisons. With other men who called me a whore and commanded me like their personal slaves, I felt pain. I felt disrespected. Physically, I felt torn. I had opened myself to see and feel all that was really going on around me, and in the process, I had found myself in a life I could not tolerate.
The great love I felt for this one man was greater than anything I had ever known, but I no longer could just move through the motions as a numb machine performing a rote task. I felt everything, and I could no longer take the extremes.
I knew there was no way I could continue on this roller coaster. Paying the price of excruciating pain was too high, even for the immeasurable pleasure I felt with him. I believed that he truly loved me, and I thought I could have it all. I felt ready to ask, can I have it all?
After making love one afternoon, I stared into his eyes and told him the pain I felt being with other men. He said he felt an emptiness being with his wife, when he felt such love for me. I told him that physically I felt pain by the way the men treated me. I told him it was too much pain for me to bear.
With this he sat up. He looked very seriously and sternly at me and asked what I was going to do. I told him I wanted to leave. I was ready to run away. I needed to leave this life and start over, and I needed him to help me.
As the words left my lips, he turned away. Quickly, he got up and walked away. Tortuous moments of silence filled the space between us, and he buried his head in the wall. Finally, he turned around and came to me.
"I want to help. Really, I do, but I just can't," he spit out and left in a rush. I sat there in a complete daze.
He visited me early the next day, a sheepish grin on his face.
"Hello, my love," he said so sweetly as he kissed me gently on the lips. He held me tightly, until I wiggled from his grasp.
I gave him a stern look as I turned my head to face the small window in the corner of the room. I walked away from him over to the window, so he wouldn't see the small tears beginning to form in the corners of my eyes.
He walked up behind me and grabbed around my waist from behind. He started planting small kisses on the back of my neck, creeping around to the front and up to my ear. He had learned over the last two years that this was my weakness.
But that day, I did not feel weak.
"Stop," I said firmly with no equivocation. "I won't do this anymore." I didn't even turn to look at him, I just stared lifelessly out the window. After a moment of hesitation I said, "go and just leave me alone . . . if you won't help me."
I stared out the window. I let myself be hypnotized by the color and movement of the people walking in herds down the busy street. I focused in on this woman selling her fruit out of a hand-made wooden stand. The bright colors of the fruit stood out to me. The rich and shiny reds, yellows, and greens spoke of paradise, a place of dreams, where unhindered love can exist. As I stared, strange noises pulled me back to the room. I just listened without turning, and finally I realized they were muffled sobs, sniffling moans.
"Please, stay. I beg you to just stay here. Things aren't that bad . . .are they? I wish I could save you, I want what you want so badly," he said in a strained a high pitched tone. "I need you. Please don't do this."
A part of me wanted to say ok and to just live in this sea of pleasure and pain. In moments, I thought I could say yes, but my lips would not let me say the word. I just listened. As his pleading continued, my tears disappeared. They evaporated into nothing. I just stood there, staring out the window, waiting for him to walk away, forever.
After he left, I tried to live the life I had lived for so long, a livelihood of sex, but I could not. I had opened to the abyss of feeling, and I could not stuff all I had experienced back inside. I had healed the part of myself that went numb, but now I had an entirely new beast to slay.
***
It was clear I needed to get out. In the middle of the night, I crawled down the fire escape to the deserted street below. As I ran along the dimly lit street, it occurred to me I had no place to go. I knew no one that would help me, that would hide me, that would give me any money or food. I didn't have family, and I never had a friend.
I just ran down the streets and alleyways that seemed so unfamiliar to me wrapped in shadows. This street was a bustling open air market during the days, but since I had been here, I never walked alone in the empty streets of the night. No people, no colors, no sounds. The night filled with heavy silence, not a bird, not a car, not a soul. Nothing animating these empty streets, and there was just an endless reminder that I was completely alone. Isolated.
Just then bright lights shined at my back, and I could see my own shadow before me. I looked back to see where the light was coming from. It was a bus. It had just stopped, and a woman was getting off.
I had enough money for a bus ride and a meal wherever I arrived, so I went for it. As I got on and handed the majority of all the money I had in the world to the bus driver, my heart was beating so fast. This was the scariest thing I had ever experienced, and at the same time, I had this overwhelming sense of freedom and adventure. It was probably the way a young bird feels that first time he leaves the nest. The magic of flying right there, and at the same time that possibility of crashing into the solid ground below. Such a prize for such a risk.
I made my way to the back of the darkened bus and kept my head down. I was sure not to make eye contact with any of these strangers, and my face was well hidden behind a large black hat. I felt securely masked from my identity on my way to a place where no one would know me. No one would hold me to the reputation I had built here. As I took my seat, my heart beat finally began to settle. I finally felt a glimmer of hope that everything would be alright.
I slid on the seat over to the window. As the bus pulled away, I watched this familiar place get smaller and smaller. As we moved down the streets, each turn brought me further and further from what I knew. Finally, the window revealed scenes I had never laid eyes on. Buildings I had never seen, street corners I had never walked. This thought was accompanied by a slowly creeping smile. I was still very scared about the next step of my life, but at least, there was a next step. Nothing could be as bad as where I had been.
I fell asleep with my head pressed against the window. It felt cool and soothing. The bumps as the bus traveled over the dirt roads lulled me. It was a peaceful sleep, deeper than any sleep I've experienced, but quickly I was snapped out. The rough terrain must have banged my head against the window just hard enough to wake me up, and I was startled by the sunlight as
I opened my eyes. I must have slept for hours.
As I gathered myself, I noticed my hat had fallen off, but I could not find it anywhere. I looked all around on my seat, but it wasn't there. I looked under the seat, but still it was not there. I began to panic, as I sat in the exposure of letting all these people see my face.
Just then, a man slid into the seat next to me, and he was holding my hat. As he turned to face me, I recognized him right away. He gave me a sleezy smile as he handed me my hat. He was a man who I had serviced once or twice before. It had been quite a while, so I couldn't remember too clearly. I didn't remember any violence, but I seemed to remember that he was one of the dirty talkers. One of those men that just seemed to get off on calling me names and saying the nastiest commands. His smile didn't lie; He was definitely one of those vile men.
He asked me where I was going, and I did not answer. He would not move from the seat, and he began taunting me. Telling me he knew that I had left without permission, and he could tell them where to find me. I gave him the best glance of death I could muster, but he just seemed amused and stimulated by my attempt to push him away. He wanted a little game of cat
and mouse, and the truth was that I did feel like a scared little mouse. I wanted to run, but the moving bus left me no where to go.
He started moving closer and closer to me. Whispering promises to protect me if I would do disgusting things to him. He was so descriptive and perverse that it was no surprise that he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I tried to change the focus by asking him about himself. He briefly bragged about his money and his line of work, but quickly returned to his advances. As he moved closer and closer to whisper in my ear, I felt smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. My world was spinning faster and faster.
The bus abruptly stopped, and as the door creaked open, the driver yelled for everyone to get off. I collected my things and stood up, but the nasty man would not get out of my way. He just stared me down, waiting for an answer to his proposition. Everyone got off the bus, everyone but us. The bus driver got very impatient and told us to get moving. The man just stared me down, until finally, I said "fine, whatever you want."
He flashed another one of those smiles, and let me pass. I felt his eyes disrobing me and violating me as I walked in front of him off the bus. He put his arm around me as we walked away, and I just wanted to shrink down into a hole in the earth. I was so small, so defeated, not free at all.
From there he lead me to a car waiting in the parking lot. A small red car that was an absolutely filthy mess inside. By the size of the pile of stuff on the passenger side seat, it seemed that no one had ever sat there before, and no wonder. I thought of running while he was there cleaning off the seat, but where would I go? I didn't even know where I was. I was stiff and
scared, so I allowed myself to be led.
I was lead to his house, up on the hill. This house with so many windows. So many places to look out to the rest of the world, but not one window opened. They were just places to longingly peer out, but nowhere to gain a breath of fresh air, not even a patio. From the time I first walked through the door, I felt a strangling hold around my neck. This house was a beautiful place, but it felt more suffocating than the small room where men used to visit me for sex day and night.
After allowing him to do unspeakable things in the bedroom for a few hours, he finally was finished. He left the room, and I quickly got myself dressed. I walked out into the living area, and he was sitting on the sofa smoking a cigarette. He offered me one, and I accepted. I sat in a chair and leaned over for him to light my cigarette. It was so obvious that he was enjoying this sham that I was there by choice with him. He probably never had a woman he didn't pay for.
He started some small talk, telling me about his family, about his house. I listened and started thinking that maybe he wasn't the most disgusting thing to crawl the face of the earth. He smiled very sincerely after a long story about when he bought this house and how lonely it was to live there by himself.
"Would you stay here with me," he said.
I was completely startled by the question and the soft tone of his voice. I just stared in disbelief.
He continued, ". . . and, be my companion." He flashed that same nasty smile from the bus.
This wasn't the freedom I expected, but I didn't see any choices. I had no money to make my own choices, and he looked desperate for me to say yes. I felt desperate to change his glances to respect. Maybe I could stay if he would show me the respect my lover introduced me to.
"If you marry me," I said. "Treat me with the respect of a wife, and I'll stay."
As I listened to the words coming from my mouth, I could hardly believe I was actually asking to attach myself to this man.
He looked shocked by the request and pulled in his cigarette for a long drawn out drag. As he sucked on his cigarette, he gave me an intense stare.
He took a few more drags, and we sat in very intense and uncomfortable silence. I turned away to look out the window, and then I just closed my eyes. I let myself drift off to another time, a time with my lover, wrapped in his arms and warm with his love.
"Yes. Absolutely! Let's get married baby," he said with this rowdy cackle. I was yanked from my daydream back to the smoke filled room unsure whether I should be happy or crushed. It was freedom in a sense, and a whole new breed of prison, but one that carried with it status and respect. I was ready to be a person of respect.
I smiled and stood up to go into the bathroom.
"Where are you going," he asked very suspiciously.
"I am just going to use your restroom . . . if that is alright," I replied.
"Well, I will come in with you. Shouldn't we just start doing everything together," he said.
"Please let me have my space," I asked. After a pleading look, he let me go unescorted.
***
For years, things continued along these lines. I did what he asked, and he gave me a little space to be alone and sink into my fantasies. When I would get really lost, imagining my lover when I was having sex with him, he would slap me and ask what I was thinking. His slaps were worth the pleasure I would get from just a second imagining that it was the man of my dreams inside me.
As time passed, the violence grew and the control became overwhelming. I could never leave the house without him, and I could not even leave the room he was in without his permission. He wanted to control everything, down to my thoughts, but that was the one freedom he could not touch, the one place he could not go, my only place to be happy. I lived in this far off space in my mind as much as I possibly could.
I would dream of how my lover had been searching for me ever since I left town. He had figured out that I ran away, and which bus I must have taken. I dreamed that he knew where I ended up and that he was endlessly searching for me. Every single time I was in public, I imagined a chance run in, where my lover would whisk me away from this life, and we could be happy together. I remembered his tears, our love, the way it felt when we were together. It just was not fair for us to be apart. It was not right, and at some time, I just knew it would be made right.
My existence had become these fantasies. I allowed myself to walk through the motions of my actual life, one of pain, suffering, and violence, while my mind and spirit were hidden far away from my body. I became a master at separating my internal and external worlds.
I ended the roller coaster of extreme ups and downs with my lover and prostitution because it was too much. But then, I just recreated the same situation in my marriage. The extreme highs experienced in my imagination balanced the extreme lows of my every encounter with my husband. I gazed out the eye of my mind into a life I wish I had, and the windows of my house into the world I wish I could explore.
After about ten years of keeping my dreams only in the intangible space of my head, I finally began expressing these fantasies in writing. The first day I chose to write personal thoughts in a small notebook I had bought at the pharmacy, my heart was beating ferociously out of my chest. I was so scared that he would walk up, that he would find me, that he would grab these pages from my hand and find out how I really felt. I feared a beating even more relentlessly than usual.
My fear made me very careful about securing my most precious writings in a loose floorboard under the bathroom sink. These journals were where I wrote my thoughts, fantasies, my truest dreams and desires, my love for a man that was not my husband. I wrote in explicit sexual detail I could remember of my lover, and all my dreams of the experiences I wished to have. I wrote about the way sex with my husband repulsed me, and my dream that one day my lover would rescue me, and we would leave this house on the hill. We would leave laughing and in love.
With so much of my truest heart and vulnerability exposed on those pages, I guarded them with my life. I spent hours in the bathroom late at night filling the pages of my journals with my secret thoughts. It was my place to play, my place to explore, my place to really live. In recent years, becoming slightly more comfortable in my home, when my husband was not home I snuck out into the bedroom to write on the softness of my bed.
***
Today is one such day. The door swings open and bangs against the door stop attached to the wall; I shudder. The startling noise lifts my attention to my husband standing in the doorway.
"Come on, don't you have that stupid hair appointment. Let's MOVE. Get in the car you lazy bitch!"
I slowly shut the night stand drawer as nonchalantly as possible. I wonder if I should try to stall him, so I can quickly sneak into the bathroom.
"Ah, ok . . . ok, I'm coming. Ah. Um. I'm coming." I follow him out to the car with my fingers crossed behind my back.
The long ride to the salon leads me to the longest haircut ever. Each snip of the scissors rings in my ears. I feel like a solid rock sitting in this squeaky plastic chair with my facial expression frozen and my lips sealed shut. I am afraid to even move my thoughts, for the great tidal wave of fear that would be jarred. Each time I hear the bell attached to the door ring, my eyes dart to see who is walking though. Then, finally, he enters the salon with his head down. He stares through me while the beautician finishes my style. The blow dryer muffles all sound, but his stare unmistakably communicates a message to me.
As I sit there for the last moments of pampering, I think of running, screaming for help, showing people my bruised body and asking them to protect me. . . . No, they won't help me.
He very abruptly throws more than enough to cover my haircut onto the counter as I walk toward him. His fingernails sink into my arm as he ushers me to the car. He slams the door and rushes around to the other side. We do not say a single word in the car on the way home, but still worlds of communication happen in the space between us.
I feel his anger, and I feel his threats and promises of retribution for the way he is feeling. I send pleading looks and smiles that beg for mercy and understanding. I want him to know that there is love and gratitude for what he has given me. I am grateful. Really, I am. I silently pray for him to allow me to make it up to him.
We arrive at the house, and he waits for me to get out of the car and then follows tightly behind me as I enter the house. As the door opens, I see my notebook on the table right in front of the door. Immediately he grabs it, looks deeply into my eyes, and whips its pages across my face. The sting is unbearable, and the force enough to break the skin. Blood stains the white wall to my left. As I look at the journal with my own blood splattered upon it, I feel an odd sense of peace. A sense of knowing that this is the one place where I have truly lived. This is where the blood flows through my veins. This is my truest body.
The vessel that I walk around in is a lifeless and tortured object that I constantly escape from. I don't live in this body that is constantly made to do things I do not want to do. No, this is not the place that houses my soul, but these secret pages are my true physical home. I am glad that he finally realizes that he hasn't touched the real me. I am glad there is a real me.
He is determined this one last time to reach in to get me. His rage grows with my despondency as he beats me. I allow my awareness to drift out above the scene, and from this vantage point, it is like watching a taunted and tortured child trying to capture a ghost. He begins crying and screaming, and he just lets my body fall on the floor before him.
He runs to the kitchen and grabs a long sharp silver knife. He runs in and shows it to me. He asks if this shows me how serious he really is. He asks if this is this enough to make me love him, if it is enough to make me submit to him.
I do nothing. I am beaten too badly to command anything of my body, so I just lay there limply, watching his antics. He hugs me, he cries, he asks me why I don't love him.
He grabs the knife, and as he shoves it straight through my chest, I feel a pang. Just a slight pang as it goes through, and then peace. Warm surrender that finally releases me from this cage.
Finally I am free, and he is alone with the mess.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
blessing scarves
the yarn i used is true to its name, amazing. the colors are gorgeous, and the blending is unique and gives each woven piece a personality of its own. in the spirit of the book that i recently wrote about, the gentle art of blessing, as i worked on them, i tried to put my focus on the love and blessings i most wanted to encapsulate in those stitches, ergo the name: blessing scarves.
this is an easy pattern that just uses the beginner stitches and could be a great project for someone that wants to learn to crochet. the huge number of youtube videos are a great way to learn the basics, and even some of the more advanced stitches.
the pattern
4 mm hook
2 skeins Amazing, Lion Brand Yarn - choose your favorite color scheme, and you should have some leftover
abbreviations:
sc - single crochet
dc - double crochet
1: chain 14
2: sc in 2nd stitch from hook, skip 2 stitches, do 5 dc in next stitch, skip 2, sc in next stitch, skip 2, 5 dc in next stitch, skip 2, sc in last chain (this row makes two full shells)
3: chain 3, 2 dc in the bottom of the chain to make a half shell, skip 2, sc in next stitch, skip 2, 5 dc in next stitch, skip 2, sc, skip 2, 3 dc in last stitch (this row makes a half shell, a whole shell, and another half shell)
4: chain 1, sc in first stitch, skip 2 stitches, do 5 dc in next stitch, skip 2, sc in next stitch, skip 2, 5 dc in next stitch, skip 2, sc in last chain (this row makes two full shells)
Repeat rows 3 and then 4 over and over until you reach the desired length for your scarf; I like to make it about the height of the person that will wear it
Fasten off and weave in ends
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)