From Chapter Five of Girl Walking Backwards
By Bett Williams
Hardly awake, I stumbled into the kitchen the next morning to find Mom
sobbing into her hands. Her hair was matted at the base of her skull.
She wore an oversize T-shirt with paint splatters, and satin underwear.
Her eyes were swollen. When she saw me, she motioned for me to come closer.
When I got within reach, she pulled me to her and held me tight, her body
convulsing into mine. The smell of her tears stirred my sleeping stomach
and turned it to acid.
"Sit down," she said
and she started hard into my face at something that was making her eyes
fill with deep despair.
"I got a call last
night from Leslie. She was a friend of mine back when your father and
I were together." She gathered herself and took a deep breath. "She said
Robert was being arraigned for child molestation. Monster -- that goddamn
monster! I could tear his throat out with my bare hands! He's got a little
boy and a little girl. Monster! Do you remember Robert, honey?" She spat
out her words, possessed by a demon.
"Dad's friend?"
"Yes. You remember
him. Tell me, do you remember anything, did he do anything to you?"
"No."
"We were so blind.
Drunk and sick. Our babies just ran around those party houses naked."
An image flashed
into my mind of me and a naked little boy, running through a house screaming
and laughing, then ending up in the living room where the adults lay on
pillows and rugs listening to Abbey Road, smoke hovering
in the air. Someone told us to stop and stand still. I saw my father's
eyes, so stoned that they were not his anymore, looking at me. People
started to say stuff about how beautiful my body was, how me and the little
boy were like the Garden of Eden or something. Mom looked proud of me
and told me to turn around and show everybody what a cute butt I had.
Then I was allowed to go.
It was an environment
ripe for sordid interludes of all kinds. Anything could happen at one
of those parties. Sex floated in the air heavy as smoke, but like all
children, I instinctively avoided hot stove tops and vicious dogs in the
same way I avoided adults exuding the sickly heat of sex.
"He did something
to you, didn't he?"
"No. I didn't spend
any time with Robert."
"You were drugged."
"Yeah, but I still
remember stuff."
"Oh God, oh God.
I'm so sorry. I've been blaming it on you all this time. I'm so sorry.
Oh, God forgive me."
"It's okay, nothing
happened. People don't turn queer from that kind of stuff anyway. It's
a different issue."
"Don't say 'queer,'
honey. That bastard! That monster! I'm going to tear his eyes out for
what he did to my baby."
"He didn't do anything."
"Oh God. We were
so blind."
"Mom. Nothing happened."
Mom wailed and heaved.
I was numb again. She stole all the emotion from the room. I couldn't
let her go on thinking that anything happened to me. It would give her
permission to take control over my whole life. Robert. Tall. Wore plaid
shirts. Jeans. I didn't like him.
I walked to the school
with an uneasy feeling deep in my gut. My body felt like damp cardboard.
I didn't want to identify the feeling as shame. I was ashamed to be ashamed.
Mr. Tenasky wanted
our outlines which I didn't have. I didn't remember him asking us to do
them. At lunch hour, I explained to Mrs. Stanley, the Special Ed teacher,
that I was quitting my community service with Planned Parenthood and I
wanted to do normal Study Hall like everybody else.
"It isn't going to
be that easy," she said, making a strange sound with her tongue and teeth:
I was going to have to get things signed. "Is anything going on at home?"
she asked with creepy concern.
"Yes, we have cable
now."
"I don't want any
cheese," I said to Riley as I zoned in front of the TV.
"Are you on a diet
or something? You don't need to lose weight."
"No. I'm just tired
of routine. Our life together is becoming so habitual. After school we
just sit around and space."
This pissed him off.
He put the cheese and tortillas back in the refrigerator with exaggerated
fury.
"What!" he snapped.
"What do you want? Just tell me what you want and I'll do it."
"That's not it."
"No. Just tell me.
Make something up." He was almost begging. Something inside him was deeply,
devastatingly tired. I had an idea.
"Go in the bedroom."
Riley got instantly
perky, visions of blowjobs dancing in his head. Wishful thinking. I followed
him in.
"I want to show you
this breathing thing I did once."
"A breathing thing?"
"It's something I
did in a workshop. It's no big deal, it's just breathing."
I thought it would
wake him up, make him more emotional. I couldn't believe I was stooping
so low as to use some New Age trick from Mastery II, but I wasn't good
at blowjobs anyway, I only tried once and Riley lost his hard-on. I was
glad he did because I really didn't want to do it. He lay down on the
bed.
"Start breathing
in and out with no separation from the in-breath and the out-breath, like
you just ran up a hill."
"What is this about?"
"Just do it."
Riley obeyed me,
his eyes resting on my cleavage. The breathing exercise often makes people
slightly dizzy. Their arms and legs tingle and the hands can become temporarily
paralyzed as they clench up into fists. After an extended amount of time,
euphoria kicks in. It's glorified hyperventilation.
"Take off your shirt,"
he said.
"Keep breathing."
"This is making me
horny."
I took off my shirt
to appease him so he could focus. His breath turned into a lecherous pant.
I lost him. So much for my plan. His brain faded into something reptilian,
and mine was soon to follow.
"I want to watch
you touch yourself, over there," he pointed to the wall covered with posters
and his artwork. He was already starting to massage his dick. So much
for my rebirth breathing plan for Riley's spiritual awakening. I did what
he asked. I was happy to please him, there was so little I did for him
sexually. I was merciless. I took off my jeans, sat against the wall and
touched myself while Riley watched him from up in his bed. I never watched
him from that angle before. His dick looked bigger. What a waste, I thought,
and smiled. He'll find someone soon enough. We both will.
I considered the
possible fantasies. Jessica was still too scared. Lorri was like my good
friend so I couldn't think about her on the kayak in a wet T-shirt. The
imaginary sweater girl would do but when I went inside my mind to think
of her she was nowhere. All I could think of was Mom talking about Robert.
I thought about being nine years old, standing naked in a roomful of adults.
The thought turned me on a little, all those eyes on me.
This was the fantasy
I had: I am in a punk club that Riley and I went to once. It's dark, smoke-filled,
and crowded. The music is loud. I wait for the bathroom and a tough Skinhead
type pushes me against the wall.
"Touch yourself for
me."
"No."
"Yes, you will."
"Not here, please
don't make me."
"Come for me or I'll
fuck you." He threatens to take out his dick.
I'm wearing a miniskirt
and my underwear is crawling up my butt. There are people around already
starting to watch. He probably has a gun or a knife or something. I do
it. I touch myself in the hallway of the sticky, smoky punk club while
he leers at me, his dick bulging in his black jeans.
Riley was grunting
on the bed with his eyes closed. He opened them to watch me and I looked
back at him but he was somewhere else, lost. We came at the same time
without planning to. We lay there, silent and heavy, like sediment sinking
to the bottom.
"What were you thinking?"
he asked.
"Nothing."
"That's wild. I always
have to think about something."
There are two kinds
of fantasies, seedy fantasies and love fantasies. Sometimes seedy fantasies
are hotter but after you come they leave you drained and feeling greasy.
"Can we order out
for pizza or something?" I said, lying against the wall with my T-shirt
on and pants off.
"Sure, you got money?
I'm out."
"I don't really want
to pay twenty bucks for pizza."
"Come here for a
minute," Riley said. I got up and crawled into his bed. "You're so beautiful.
You're going to make a great lover to some woman someday. You're too sexy.
I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you too."
"No, you won't."
"Maybe not, huh."
I said a silent prayer
that Riley would find all the love in the world. He would have denied
it, but he had a sadness that ran deeper than any I'd ever seen. I always
thought something horrible must have happened to him as a kid, there were
giant chunks of him that seemed to be missing.
"You know when I
was on acid and stuff?" I said. "As a kid?"
"Uh-huh."
"Maybe stuff happened
that I can't remember."
"Like what?"
"Maybe someone did
something. Like, sometimes I feel like maybe someone did something sexual.
Like at a party."
Riley got tight all
of a sudden. I felt the cogs in his brain move faster. "But you would
remember. If something happened like that, you would know. It would make
you feel weird."
"I do feel weird."
"I mean weirder than
you already are, like gross-weird."
"Yeah. I'm not sure
if I feel that. Maybe way deep down I might feel that but I feel a lot
of other things, too."
"Like what?"
"Mostly just wanting
things. Desire. That's mostly what I feel."
Copyright © l998, Bett Williams.
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