J. Bradley
Daniel sits at the lunch table, the red and black varsity jacket clinging to his 12-gauge chest. The de Leon county manufactured burrito is closer to his mouth, his teeth, than I am.
Sarah, are you thinking about fucking that boy? The voice rumbles behind my ears. I grit my teeth, gently. Haven’t you had enough, Sarah? Don’t you understand I’m never going away? You are my meat puppet, little girl. The sooner you understand that, the better off you’ll be. I open my palms and slam them against the tabletop three times. The lunchroom chatter trickles, falls to my feet. Daniel stares, mid bite.
“What the fuck are all of you looking at?” Two men widening in red Polos with black borders at the end of their short sleeves walk over to me, walkie-talkies vomiting static and sentences of Clayton Hall and a boy in the bathroom passed out on the floor. One of them wears fake gold Unibomber frames. He glares at me over them.
“You better come with us.”
***
“Sarah, why do you keep doing this to me?” My dad grips the steering wheel like I know he wants to grip my throat. “This is the third time this week. When will this end?”
Yes, Sarah, when will this end. Don’t you see the consequences of your disobedience. Such a disappointment you are to your father. Honor thy father and mother, that’s what your god tells you, doesn’t he.
I elbow the passenger seat window hard.
“What the…” before he can say anything else, my right hand touches his right temple and forehead. I can feel his voice claw its way out of my mouth.
“All you’ll remember is what a bad girl Sarah is, how she made a scene at school again. You will not remember the elbow to the window. You will forget to suggest therapy. You will drive us home without another word.” My dad keeps driving, his eyes slightly rolling back. I feel my body jerk back into the passenger seat, the word “sleep” grumbling through my eyelids.
The kiwi flavored Boone’s Farm stings my mouth, the bottleneck sliding down my throat. I pull out after what feels like a glass smacks my stomach, just enough to slow him down, just enough to keep my hand steady. I walk into the bathroom and take my clothes off until I’m in my Wal-Mart bra and panty set. The mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door reminds me of all the failure on my forearms, stomach, and neck.
“Thissss endsss tauhnight, Hefustus.” I’m slurring. Shit.
I turn on the faucet and swallow three handfuls of tap water. I look into the vanity, take a deep breath. I walk over to the tub to grab the razor I shave my legs with. I yank the shower curtain to the side. Tenements of shampoo and conditioner and body soap stand on the back left corner of the tub. Isn’t that where I normally put my razor?
Sssaaarrraaahhh…thisisnot…thefirst…time…youtriedthis.
I’ve…survived…thousandsofyears…luttlegurl. My body boils. The cheap alcohol condensates into the bath rug, leaving the fist part bashing my brain. That’s…much…better. Now go to bed. You have school in the morning.
Jack White’s howl about going to Wichita rattles the vases on the mantle in Andrea Freedman’s stepmother’s house. Everyone leans into each other to talk over the music, careful not to spill the PBR or Milwaukee’s Best or whatever Andrea managed to coax her college junior boyfriend to buy for the party in exchange for a blowjob or two.
“You’re Sarah, right, that girl from the cafeteria the other day?” The hot beer breath batters the back of my neck. I look over my shoulder and see Daniel, his chestnut brown hair and hazel eyes disheveled, his pink and gray polo shirt clinging to his heaving chest. I turn and take a sip. I nod. “I’ve heard about you.”
“What have you heard, that I like to fuck?” I feed his ear. He moves closer, his hand resting on the small of my back.
“Um…no. I mean…” His loud stuttering and stunned, drunken look is so adorable.
“Daniel, it’s ok. I know what I like. I know what you want. The question is where.”
“I got a truck outside. Give me a few minutes to get the shit out of it…”
“I’m not fucking you on the back of a truck. I’ve got a better idea.” I take his hand and lead him upstairs.
***
We fall through the bathroom door. He uses my back and shoulders to close the door. The mirror feels cool against my skin. His mouth scrapes against mine, tongue flopping around my teeth and gums. He breaks and dives into my neck. I feel his teeth dig. I push him off.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I heard you like it rough, too. Carl Sclarson told me about all the scars on your body. I know he didn’t try anything because he said he was just happy that you were fucking him.”
“That’s not because of rough sex. That’s because I’ve…I’m doing it to distract myself from what I feel.”
“Well, baby, let me distract you.” He lumbers closer to me.
“No, I think we’re done here.” His arms and the bathroom door fence me in.
“C’mon baby, I know what you need, I know what you like.” His right hand darts around my throat and squeezes. My eyes start fluttering. “How much do you like that?” I feel my left hand ball into a fist, drilling into Daniel’s stomach. His fingers relax from my throat and he falls to his hands and knees, gasping. I watch myself roll up my right sleeve, passing my left hand twisting on my right wrist, revealing the bronze bracelet I’ve had since I was six. I watch my hand pass over the bracelet and a blade growing, the edge teasing his neck.
“Hephaestus, don’t do this, please.”
If I don’t do this, you’ll keep fucking and fucking and fucking and I’m tired of feeling…so violated every time. Maybe when there’s blood on your hands because of your bad behavior, you’ll finally keep your legs shut.
My black flats kick Daniel so hard, he flips and lands on his back. I fight my right arm from burrowing the blade into his stomach.
“Sarah, what the fuck are you doing?” Andrea stands in the open bathroom door, the red Dixie cup rolling on the ground, dribbling beer on the hard wood floor. I watch myself lunge at Andrea, my left hand smothering her face.
“Andrea, you will…”
“Hephaestus, wait.”
I’m trying to fix this, Sarah. Then, we can go back to the business at hand of keeping your legs shut for good.
“Hephaestus, won’t killing him make you easier to find by Atropos?” The blade starts retracting into the bronze bracelet and disappears. My right shirt sleeve rolls down by itself.
For once, Sarah, I agree. Daniel should be punished though for what he was about to do to you. I have a feeling he’s done this to other girls.
“I have an idea, Hephaestus, but you have to let me say the words. We’ll both get what we want this way. You have to trust me.”
***
I’m leaning against the couch when Amanda runs down the stairs and into her boyfriend’s arms. She sobs into his chest and then yells the answer to his what happened expression. He gently pushes her aside and stomps over to two or three other guys in varsity jackets. They run upstairs and drag Daniel down the staircase, out to the front yard. I can see the cough of blood and teeth land on the lawn after the fifth or sixth punch to Daniel’s face.
Quite creative, Sarah. You saved that boy’s life. I guess I can live with that since I saved yours.
“You had to save me, Hephaestus. You would be abandoned if I died, discarded somewhere.”
Little girl, I could have put myself onto Daniel’s wrist and then finished you for all that you done to me, the torture you put me through.
“What torture? You hijacked my body. You’ve made my life a living Hell. You’ve made my father’s life a living Hell. If anyone is torturing anyone here, it’s you.”
You chose this, Sarah. The minute you took that bracelet out of the Mason jar and put it on, your fate and mine were sealed.
“I was nine. Nine year olds don’t know any better. It was all pretty and kinda shiny. What little girl wouldn’t resist wearing it? And why didn’t you to pass yourself off to Daniel to finish me as you said you could?”
Daniel crawls on his fours to his pick up truck and props himself up in the driver’s seat. Andrea’s boyfriend and his posse come back inside, taking turns washing the blood from their hands in the kitchen sink. I wish I could apologize to Andrea for rewriting her memory. I can still feel my arms and legs. My eyelids are still wide open. I don’t feel the brimstone and ash of his voice gurgling in my throat. I would ask again and demand an answer but right now, his silence is invaluable. I can taste the PBR in my Dixie cup clearly.
J. Bradley is a contributing writer to Specter Magazine and the Interviews Editor of PANK Magazine. He lives at iheartfailure.net.