"Between Two Points"
By Emily Mills, 1/05
for you.
Disclaimers: I'm anti-rating systems, but I will say that this one's pretty graphic (sexuality/violence). So, um, be forewarned.
"A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points."
-A Wrinkle In Time
She felt the air moving near her face, the precursor to the blow, before she saw his hand cutting through space on its way to her head. She's thinking, tomorrow I will run away, tomorrow I won’Äôt ever have to see him again. Someone in the next room is making primal, guttural howling sounds over the thump thump thump of a bed against a thin wall. And now he has hit her, a backhanded slap that will leave a bright red, yellow and blue welt across her forehead tomorrow (but she'll be gone by then, she knows). Now he's screaming at her, his left eye all twitchy like it gets when he's pissed off, he wants her to get on her knees and beg him for forgiveness, he says. Forgiveness, she thinks. Yes, that might be nice.
***
Where do they come from, she wondered almost aloud, staring up and out into the forever of the night sky.
The lights from the north were dancing in the cold, black sky above her head, their slow undulations of reflected light captivating, as always, just on the horizon above the stand of fir trees behind her house.
That night she was wearing her best dress, a dark blue velvet thing with tiny ruffles around the neck and arms. Her mother bought it for her last year for school picture day. The growth spurt she'd hit in the time since then made the outfit much more form fitting, but she liked that, thought it made her look older and more mature. As it was, she would stand every night staring into her bedroom mirror, the old one from her grandmother's house, willing her very small breasts to grow.
That night she was wearing her best dress because of the church youth choir concert. She had looked forward to it for a whole month, it would be her first time as the soloist, and she had practiced every day since getting the part. She'd hummed it under her breath at the dinner table until her father, overtired from his day at the office, snapped and told her to shut up. Her mother had smiled secretly into her napkin and winked at her now red-faced daughter.
The concert was over now and she stood, gazing up at the sky, wondering what the land was like where the northern lights came from. What if she could simply lift up into the cold breezy night sky and float off over the treetops? Where would the currents of air carry her? She wanted to go, travel; visit somewhere else besides her town and her county. She had only been outside the county once, three years ago when her parents took her to the Minnesota State Fair. She'd eaten a bright pink cloud of cotton candy and won a goldfish that she named Finny but who died two weeks later. Then they drove back to their home in their town, gone back to work and for her, back to school, same as always.
She read voraciously. Especially adventure stories where she could immerse herself in the tale, befriend the protagonists and help them along the way. She traveled the wide world in this way, always near tears when the final word of the book was read and she had to come hurtling back into her own world. Sometimes she wouldn't read the last page of a book, but simply left the story hanging, unfinished and forever unfolding in her mind. She had read A Wrinkle In Time eighteen times but still didn't know how the story ended.
She stood, finding her balance as she navigated the shingled roof of the house towards the window to her bedroom. She left the slowly fluttering sky lights behind and crawled into the warm room, catching the hem of her dress as she entered. There was a quiet tearing sound and she whirled around, grabbed the fabric and tugged, trying to free it of the snag. A second passed and then she fell back onto the wood floor, bruising her tailbone, holding a shred of dark blue fabric in her chilly hand.
***
"Missy, get up," he growls, not turning to face her as he gazes into the big mirror that overlooks the bed where she is laying, motionless. The girl blinks and stares up at the ceiling where one of its tiles is hanging loosely, revealing the worn wirework that runs behind it.
"God dammit Missy, I said get up!" This time he does turn to her, grabs her ankle with one arm and pulls her tiny body toward the edge of the bed. The soiled sheets bunch up around her and then fall to the floor along with her body.
"I'm up, OK?" she whispers and wraps the sheets around herself in a tight sheath before getting to her feet and facing him. Or rather, facing his sternum. He is a good two feet taller than she is and when looking straight ahead, she can only see the curls of his dark chest hair that peek up over his soiled gray tank top.
"Good girl," he says, looping one finger through a strand of her sandy brown hair. "Now, go next door and check on Lara. I haven’Äôt heard any noise comin' outta her room for a while, an' I don't want to find out that the john is getting any more time than he paid for."
She nods and heads for the door, already calculating her mode of escape once she's outside in the courtyard. She moves slowly and stiffly, her thighs bruised and her insides roiling. She wants, more than anything, to have a bath. Outside the air is balmy, still, and she can see no stars above the glare of not-so distant city lights. She notes her backpack behind the small, fat palm plant at the end of the footpath, waiting for her where she left it earlier that day. She pauses in front of the door to the next room, stares at her bare feet’Äîbare feet outside in February. So Strange. She knocks twice, loudly, waits a moment and then opens the door.
Lara is sitting at the side of the chaotic bed, sheets spilling onto the ground and over one of her shoulders, the other left bare and trembling slightly. Lara’Äôs eyes are glazed, red-rimmed, she’Äôs been smoking again, Missy sees the pipe on the bedside table, acrid smoke still gently rising from the small slit in its end. She takes one tentative step forward into the room, feels the chill of the fan on her back, and tries to speak. Before she can utter a word, Lara starts to giggle, a sound that quickly dissolves into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Missy covers the remaining distance between them and takes one of Lara's hands into her own.
"What's going on?" she asks. Lara only falls onto her side and curls into a tight ball, still laughing. This is when Missy sees. The bed, most of the sheets gone from it, cradles the body of a very fat man, his body covered in cooling sweat that makes his coat of silvery-black hair glisten in the artificial lighting of the room. The flaccid penis, shriveled and wormy looking, is barely visible at the apex of his thighs and belly. His big face is red and white, jaw slack, eyes glassy and staring, unblinking, at the ceiling. He is not moving.
"Lara, what...what's going on?" she repeats. The laughing girl finally quiets, runs a hand over her face and looks at Missy for the first time.
"He...well, he couldn't breathe." At this, another giggle escapes her lips. "He said I should ride him like a cowgirl! Ride 'em, yeehaw! Fuck, I could barely find his damn cock, but I did it, y'know, I did it!" She is laughing again, gasping for breath between sentences. Missy simply listens, uncomprehending. "Oh that fucker, then he said he wanted to choke me while I was ridin' him. Wanted to strangle me as part of the game! Sure, I said, sure you can do whatever you want so long as you pay for it, right? And oh boy did he pay for it!"
"What happened?" Missy asks, understanding beginning to dawn on her as her glance alternates between her hysterical companion and the dead man on the bed. Most of the red is gone from his face. Now there is only something in between white and sky blue.
"Well he reached up to strangle me, sick motherfucker, and before I knew what I was doin', I grabbed a pillow and put it over his big ol' bloated head! Only, he thought it was all part of the game, too, so he didn't fight back!" Lara collects herself, the laughter subsiding, and sits upright again. "Oh man, he didn't even put up a fight 'til the last second, and then I just kneed him real hard in the dick and that did it. Then he just stopped moving."
A silence drifts between them. They hear the muffled sounds of Jerry, in the room next door, talking to his reflection in the mirror.
"We should get out of here," Missy says. "I have a plan."
"What kinda plan? You gonna run back to Minnesota?" Lara asks teasingly. "Shit. You even know how far that is from here? Besides, who wants to go there in the middle of winter? Stay where it's warm. We'll go to my cousin's house in the Valley."
Missy helps Lara to her feet. They quickly pack up what little Lara has with her in the room and then rummage through the john's wallet. Eighty bucks, a condom, and a credit card. Lara holds the plastic card over her head and waves it back and forth in triumph.
"We can go anywhere we want! Just put it all on this little sucker," she says and staggers, catching her balance on the edge of the nightstand. Missy puts Lara's small suitcase on the bed and comes to her friend's side, holding her by the arm for support.
"We gotta hurry or Jerry'll hear us and come over," she says in a whisper.
"Jerry can go fuck himself, just like this fat fuck!" Lara screams, wrenching herself out of Missy's grip and flying at the still body of the man on the bed. Before Missy knows what's happening, her friend is thrashing wildly, kicking and punching the corpse in a crazed fury. The sound of flesh striking flesh is sickening. She watches in horror as the loose skin on the man's belly and arms and legs wobbles with each blow.
"Lara! Be quiet! We have to get out of here!"
A hand clasps her shoulder and jerks her backwards onto the floor. Her head strikes the hard ground and for a moment she is too dazed to see what has happened. Jerry stands over her, a bright blue vein pulsing in his forehead. He's not looking at her, but rather at the suddenly quiet form of Lara on the bed.
***
She knew the shouting was coming, could see the anger building in him’Äîthe vein in his forehead pulsing, his face scrunching up, his fists tightening. Her mother was shielding her in her arms, holding the piece of torn fabric from her dress in one hand and her daughter's shoulder with the other.
Later her mother, always in the end more afraid of her husband than protective of her daughter, would betray her, rip the dress off her terrified body and throw it into the trash can in the kitchen. Later, when her mother's lip was swollen, cut and bleeding and they are both crying. Later, when her father was sitting in the next room in front of the television, lazily flipping channels looking for the Home & Gardens network, a few drops of wet red glistening on his wedding band.
That night she decided on a plan. She would travel and get away all at once. An aunt, she had heard, who lived in a city called Madison in the next state over would take her in. She'd have to when she showed up on her doorstep, luggage in hand. How to get there? She could walk downtown to the bus station. She'd been saving money from babysitting and would buy a bus ticket to Madison with it. She was scared of traveling alone, out of state where she’Äôd never been before. But she wanted to see the world at last, visit her aunt, stay until things got better at home. Her parents would call and tell her when things had calmed down, when they wanted her back, when they'd forgiven her for ruining the good dress.
She pulled her suitcase out of the closet and laid it on her bed. A few changes of clothes and underwear, a Walkman and a few tapes, her purple toothbrush, and the battered copy of A Wrinkle In Time. These all went into the suitcase along with an apple, two sandwiches and a juice box, which she got quietly from the kitchen before slipping out the door at eleven o'clock.
She left a note on the table near the front door, next to her father's keys. It read, ’ÄúGone to see the world. Please call me at Aunt Ruth's when it's OK for me to come back. I love you and I'm sorry."
Five blocks west and she was downtown standing across the street from the Greyhound station. A silver and gray bus was idling in front of the building, the driver standing next to it smoking a cigarette and talking to a small elderly man carrying a large knapsack over one shoulder. She took a deep breath and crossed the street. The bus driver opened the compartments at the underside of the bus and helped the old man stow his bag there. When he looked up, a very young girl with sandy brown hair and magnificently green eyes was staring up at him. He started a little at her sudden presence, then smiled down at her.
"Can I help you, missy?" he asked. The girl swallowed hard and briefly looked behind him at the stairs that lead up into the bus.
"I need to go to Madison. Will this bus take me there?"
"Eventually, yes," the driver answered, scratching his short beard. "Couple of stops along the way, and we end up in Milwaukee, but yeah, should hit Madison tomorrow night. You lookin' to go?"
"Yes, please," she said nervously and pulled a hastily bundled up wad of cash from her jean pocket. "I can pay, of course."
"I see that."
He was unsure about her age. She looked like she could be anywhere between eleven and sixteen years old. Damn if you can really tell these days, he mused. His own daughter, just fifteen, was already wearing makeup and running around with senior boys. This girl wore no makeup, only a very serious expression and a band of freckles across her nose. He decided on the safe route, a method that would save his ass in the event of any repercussions but also keep him from having to argue with the girl. He was too tired for that. "Do your mom and dad know you’Äôre going?"
"Yes," she said without hesitation and mustered up what she thought was her prettiest smile. "I'm going to visit my aunt. They gave me the money for the ticket."
"Why you leaving so late, then?" he asked, the final question before he would relent.
"Um," she muttered, stopped cold for a moment, then recovered. "I had a church choir concert tonight that I couldn't miss. I was the soloist. But tomorrow night my aunt wants to take me to see a play, so now's really the only time I could go."
"I see. Well then, welcome aboard."
"Thanks." She readjusted her backpack over her shoulder, hefted the suitcase, and climbed the steps into the darkened interior of the bus and what she hoped would be a good trip, something she can tell her friends at school about, something worthy of an adventure book.
***
"What the hell is going on here?" he growls, kicking Missy hard in the side for emphasis. The air rushes out of her lungs, leaving them vacuum-sealed and empty. She gasps and closes her eyes, tightly, trying to focus on finding just one breath.
"Heya Jerry," she hears Lara drawl from somewhere nearby. The earth has deserted her. She's floating, looking for her breath and a way out. "Looks like this one couldn't handle me." There’Äôs a cough and then a giggle. "Sorry."
"He's dead?" Jerry mutters. The air around her body shakes as he moves to the other side of the bed. She hears rustling, the sound of something large being moved. The bedsprings wail in protest. A pulsating, dull pain starts to throb up from her side and into her brain, clouding her thoughts.
"You two are such total fuckups!" Jerry yells and suddenly she's back on the floor, the cool breeze from the fan blowing up her legs and making her shake. She lifts her head, takes a deep, tentative breath, and slowly crawls onto her feet.
There's a yelp and she lifts herself high enough to see Lara being slammed into the rickety closet door at one end of the small room. Jerry is red all over, screaming every curse word in the book at the top of his lungs, alternating between shaking and slapping the stunned girl.
Missy thinks about her suitcase outside in the courtyard. Jerry's back is turned. He's distracted. But Lara's stoned and terrified eyes are there, too, and she can't tear her own eyes away from the scene. She should do something, something heroic maybe, something worthy of a climactic scene. She tries to take a step but icy hot pain shoots through her body and renders her immobile.
Jerry is suddenly coming at her. Lara's bloodied and shocked body is lying slumped against the wall. Missy turns to run but there are two strong hands grabbing at her shirt and pulling her backwards. Jerry holds her to his chest, her back to him, until she stops struggling.
"Where didja think you were goin', huh Missy? Where? Back to fuckin' Minnesota?" He flips her around so that she is facing his sternum for the second time that night. "No, girl, you're mine, got that? Ain't no way out. No way."
***
A frozen suburban landscape drifted by outside her window. The bus smelled like old cigarettes and soiled everything. A man sat in the very back, snoring loudly, a battered briefcase clutched in his wrinkled hands. Directly to her left, across the aisle, sat a young woman wearing clothes that seemed a bit inappropriate for the season. A miniskirt and a burnt orange tank top with a down jacket over it. Her face was painted, giving her the look of the girls in middle school’Äîthe ones who weren't quite sure how to do makeup yet. But she looked much older. The darkness under each gray eye and the splotchy skin gave it away, or at least, the girl sitting across the way from her thought so.
She flipped through the pages of a book, not really reading the lines of text there, looking back and forth between the woman and the window. The bus was closing in on the Madison station. She was relieved, her bottom growing numb, her body restless as always. She'd never been one for sitting in the car for any length of time. Of course, she didn't have much experience with long trips. But already she knew they weren't much fun.
And now she had to pee, the dirty bathroom stall glaring at her from the back of the bus. She wanted to wait, hold it in until they stopped in the city. The foul smelling bathroom didn't appeal to her and she was afraid to even get up and walk down the aisle, scared of drawing any attention.
The bus hit a pothole, jostling her weary bladder, and finally she gave in and stood to make her way to the toilet. The woman eyed her briefly before turning her attentions back to the renegade nail on her right index finger, attacking it with a worn out emery board.
When she finished relieving herself, she moved back toward her seat. The bus made an abrupt turn onto an exit ramp, sending her reeling to one side and into the lap of the woman. Surprise colored her face at the sudden discovery of the girl in her lap, looking dazed and frightened.
"Hey!"
"I'm sorry, I..." she sputtered, trying to extricate herself from the foreign lap. The woman laughed and helped the girl to her feet.
"Ain't nothing. Don't worry," she chuckled, shaking her head. The girl scrambled back to her seat, breathing hard and trying desperately not to look at anything but her own feet. The woman noticed the deep blush spreading across her face and grinned. "Calm down, girl. I ain't gonna hurt you. Why're you so freaked out?"
A faint, incomprehensible mumble escaped from the girl's lips.
"Look," the woman continued. "You travelin' alone? Yeah, it's no fun and there's always weirdos on these buses, but don't worry, I ain't one of 'em, OK?" Still no answer, but the girl glanced briefly over at her.
"M'name's Jen, or Jazelle depending who you're talkin’Äô to." She extended her hand across the gap between seats and waited for a response.
"I'm Ale’Äîerr’ÄîMissy," the girl replied and tentatively shook the woman's hand.
"Missy, eh?" A knowing smile. "Where ya headed?"
"Madison."
’ÄúMe too. Only I'm goin' on to California from there. Meeting a friend and then we're off."
"California? Wow. That's a really long way," she said quietly, wondering at the vast distances of the country she called home. "I'm staying with my aunt in Madison."
"Your folks let you make the trip alone at your age?" Jen asked, but continued before Missy can get defensive. "That's cool of them. Very...trusting. My parents, when I was young, before I ran off that is," she gave a wink, "would have bitten off their own tongues before they let me do anything for myself. S'why I left, really."
"You ran away from home?" the girl asked, her guard beginning to go down, her interest piqued. Maybe she could get some tips without giving herself away. "What did you do then?"
"God, it was good for awhile. I did whatever I wanted, stayed with friends, slept on couches, stole food and booze. But as I moved further away from home, I ran outta friends. So I did what I had to do, made some cash, and moved out to California. Nice and warm out there. None of this goddamn northern winter crap." She laughed and pointed out the window at the snowscape. "Anyway, California's been good to me. I'm my own person, y'know? But I won't bore you with the details."
"No, it's OK, it's interesting. I don't...get to travel much. It's neat to hear about other places. But," she faltered, stared down at her dirty tennis shoes. "I mean, I don't wanna bother you."
"No bother, kid." She eyed the girl for a second, taking stock of the desperate look of her. The hastily packed bag, the deer-in-headlights look, signs she knew all too well. "Hey, things fall through with your aunt, you should give Cali a try. Here." She dug around in her purse and produced a bit of paper. She scribbled a number and a name onto it and handed it over to the girl. "If you're ever in the neighborhood, look me up, OK?"
"Sure, I mean, I doubt I'll ever go out there, but thanks," Missy said and stuffed the paper into her jean pocket. The bus pulled into the station and the passengers began to gather their belongings. Missy looked out the window and saw that they were in a downtown area, surrounded by ancient-looking, academic buildings and busy, bundled up students walking quickly through the chilled air of early evening.
"Well, good luck," Jen said with a wink and trundled off the bus and into the crowd. Missy grabbed her bag and hurried off behind her, but the woman was already gone. She stood, frozen, surrounded by people and buildings, the smell of icy water wafting up from the lakeshore nearby, and felt the super heated air of the bus pulling at her from behind. She thought about palm trees and sand and eternally warm air. She thought about all of the states, all of the land between here and there. She took a nervous, hopeful, deep breath and turned around.
***
There is a small dust mote drifting lazily across the hardwood floor beneath the short television stand. She watches it dance there, propelled by invisible miniature wind currents. She can feel the wind against her face, against her upturned cheek, coming in concentrated puffs as the man on top of her breaths. His face is tense, eyes clenched shut, mouth pursed in an expression that could easily be mistaken for pain. But she's seen it before, many times, and knows that it is simply how men look when they are working hard at fucking.
The dust mote disappears behind a leg of the stand and she turns her face in the other direction, to where her cat is lazily watching the muted television from its perch on the couch.
The man on top of her makes a grunting noise, his thrusting picks up speed, and she knows he will come soon, has learned to recognize the tiny spasms in the face and tightening of muscles in the groin that give away the approach of most men's final moment. His teeth clench and suddenly his hand is pinning her, by the neck, to the floor. She is suddenly unable to breath, her mouth forming a tiny 'o' as it desperately tries to suck in air. She is a moment away from passing out when he finally orgasms, his grip suddenly going slack, allowing beautiful mouthfuls of air back into her lungs. She feels the last shudders roll through his body and into hers, feels the hot sticky liquid stuff trickling down her crotch. This is her least favorite part. Her friend Lara had always hated the fucking, loved it when the guys finally pulled out. Most girls she had met were of a similar opinion. But she finds solace during the act. She can run away, travel in her mind, because it is the only time when the men aren't trying to talk to her, get her attention, convince her or entice her. When they come, there is the overwhelming dirty feeling that floods over her, pulls her from her travels. And when they roll over and either fall asleep or dress quickly and leave, tossing money onto the bedside table, she is left to clean up or to simply lay there feeling awful.
There is still the money; more now, even, and they have to pre-pay. And there is still the act, and I'm a great actress, she thinks.
The man pulls out and rolls onto his back next to her, still breathing heavily, his hands cradling his head.
"Ah God, that was great, seriously," he sighs. He thinks for a moment, turns to face the girl and props his head up on an elbow. "Missy, where did you go?"
This pulls her from her thoughts and she finally looks him in the eye, confused. "What?"
"Where were you?" he says hesitantly. "I mean, just now, when we were...y'know?"
She has never been asked this and takes a moment to consider her answer carefully. "Minnesota. Watching the Northern Lights."
"Oh," he grunts. This is not the dreamy, post-coital answer he had expected. Something in her tone unnerves him and he gets up to find his clothing. "Look, I had a great time. I'll call you, OK?"
She does nothing to signal that she has heard him, only just stares up at the exposed pipes running the length of the ceiling. But she is completely aware of the actual meaning behind his words. He is speaking a language she knows very well.
After he has dressed, he looks to her, still naked and lying motionless on the floor, and then slides out the door without speaking.
Time meanders through. She gets up, scratches the inattentive cat on the head, and moves to the old, worn-out bag that's been tossed into one corner of the room. There are clothes, makeup, condoms, lube, some stray dollar bills, and at the bottom’Äîyes, this is what she's looking for.
Books. Old, the spines loved into near pulp. She retrieves a pack of cigarettes from a nearby table, places one between her dry lips and ignites it with the naked lady lighter an old acquaintance had given her one Christmas. The blue-gray smoke hovers near the opening of her mouth, then rushes up her nostrils as she pulls in a breath.
She carries the books to the small sink on the wall to her left. The cigarette flees the grip of her fingers and lands in the open pages below. She watches the flames for a moment, lost in their flickering dance, and then looks into the mirror above the burning sink, watching intently as the shadows and light play across her features.
Outside, another balmy night is descending and the orange streetlights are flickering on all down the street. The weather never seems to change here, she muses. Missy glances over at the clock on her nightstand, notes that she should be getting ready for an appointment in an hour. Instead, she pads over to the front door and clicks the bolt lock into place.
The fire in the sink grows taller, more sure of itself, and the shadows it produces trip across the plain white walls of the apartment. She stands in the center of the room, the crackling fire visible out of one corner of her eye but her gaze fixed on the empty air that shifts warmly across her bare flesh. Suddenly she is wet, cool, unexpectedly cleansed of the nights' endeavors. At first she thinks she is imagining the baptism, but then realizes that the sprinkler system has been triggered, and the water cascading down onto her is soaking the contents of the room, too.
Too perfect, she thinks. Slowly, she lowers herself to her knees, then onto her back, and simply lies there, eyes closed, letting the stale water pour onto her. Fredericka will kill her for this, or at least dock her pay for whatever damages the rented room incurs. She doesn't care. It's almost funny. She starts to laugh and drops of water spill into her open mouth.
The sound of fire truck sirens come blaring out of the distance. Still, she remains motionless on the floor, laughing, and streaks of red and green and white light play across the insides of her eyelids.
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