and you say no and they say sit near me and you say no and
they say sit near me and you say no and it’s like a boy and a girl
and some courtly dance except he is saying you can leave, -a
death threat, you can leave, with his cold eyes gleaming a
devil’s yellow from the meanness o f it, a dirty yellow , as i f his
eyeballs changed from brown to some supernatural ochre and
he puts his hands on m y shoulders and his hands are strong and
he lifts me up from the single wood chair and there’s this kind
o f long waltz the length o f the great ballroom where his arms
are around me and I am going one, two, three, four, against
him, in the opposite direction from him trying to get past him
and he is using m y own motion to push me back to where he
wants and he sits me down on the single bed and w e just sit there
like chaste kids, teenagers, side by side, we each look straight
ahead except he’s got his hand on m y neck, w e’re Norm an
Rockw ell except his fingers are spread the width o f m y neck,
his fingers are around m y neck, circling m y neck and I turn my
head to face him, m y b ody’s staring outwards but I turn m y
face toward him and I say to him I don’t want to do this, I get
him to face me and I look him in the eye and I say I don’t want
to do this and his hand tightens on m y neck and I feel his
fingers down under m y skin and into the muscle o f m y neck
and he says quiet, totally level, totally calm: it doesn’t matter,
darling, it doesn’t matter at all. I’m thinking he means it
doesn’t matter to him to fuck and I smile in a kind o f gratitude
but it’s not what he means and he takes his other hand and he
puts it up at the neck o f m y T-shirt and he pulls, one hand’s
holding m y neck from behind and the other’s pulling o ff my
T-shirt, pulling it half off, ripping it, it burns against m y skin
like whiplash, and he pushes me down on the bed and I see m y
breast, it’s beautiful and perfect and kind o f cascading, there’s
no drawing can show how it’s a living part o f me, human, and
when he puts his mouth on it I cry, not so he can tell, inside I’m
turned to tears, I see his face now up against m y breast, he’s
suckling and I hate him, I feel the inside o f his mouth, clam my
and toothy and gum m y, the cavity o f his mouth and the sharp
porcelain o f his teeth, there’s the edge o f his teeth on my
nipple, and he’s got my underpants torn o ff me and m y legs
pushed up and spread and he’s in me and I think I will count to
a hundred and it will be over but it isn’t, he’s different, I try to
push him o ff and he raises him self above me and he smiles at
me and he pushes me back, he holds me down, and I give up, I
do, I stay still, m y body dies as much as it can, hate distilled, a
perfect hate expressed in a perfect physical passivity, a perfect
attentiveness to dying, he’s going to say I’m a bad lay because I
w on ’t move but I hate him and I w on’t move. I just wait now
for him to come but he’s different, he w on’t come, he pushes
m y neck to hurt it and he kisses me, I feel his mouth on me,
he’s in me, sudden, brutal, unpleasant; vomitous; then he’s out
o f me, he’s kissing me, he kisses me everywhere, he rams into
me then he’s out, he’s kissing, he’s kissing my stomach, he’s
kissing m y legs, then he’s in me and m y thighs are pushed back
past m y shoulders, then he’s kissing me, he’s kissing m y anus
and licking it and he’s kissing my legs and he’s talking to me,
your skin reminds me o f Bridget’s, he says, Bridget has
beautiful skin, some whispering bullshit like I’m his lover or
his friend or something, conspiring with him, and then he’s
ramming him self in me and then he’s kissing me and I am
confused and afraid and I am paralyzed, I don’t move, I don’t
want to move, I w on’t move but also I can’t move, hate pins
me there flat, still, a perfect passivity, I think I am physically
real but my body’s incoherent to my own mind because I can’t
follow what he’s doing to me or what he wants, he’s doing it
to me but I don’t know what it is, there’s no organizing
principle, there’s no momentum or logic, I’m desperate for an
end but there’s no end, he’s brutal and cold and chaotic and I
say this will end but it doesn’t end, he rams, he kisses, I say this
is real, I am real, surely I am real, the physical reality is
overw helm ingly brutal and nasty, he tempers it, he thinks,
with these kisses, each one must be washed off, gotten off,
later, the skin must be gotten o ff later, gotten rid of, the cells
must be scraped off, I will need new skin, clean skin, because
he is expectorating all over me, I will need to rub and scrape, I
can use a knife or a stone, I’ll scrape it off, he’s in me, then he
withdraws, then he kisses, he kisses m y stomach, he kisses m y
feet— m y feet; he kisses m y legs, I feel a searing pain in m y leg,
I feel a terrible bad pain, I feel sharp shots o f pain, then he
rams, he kisses, he pushes, he pushes m y legs apart, he pushes
them back, he rams, he kisses, he must o f read a book, girls
like this, girls like that, you kiss girls, you kiss them; you kiss
them; he’s kissing me and saying things as if we are friends or I
know him or something and then he rams in, brutal bastard,
and then he’s a lover, kissing; and this is m y body but it ain’t, I
say it ain’t, I say it ain’t, I say I ain’t here and it ain’t me; but
time’s real — time is real— time’s real; there’s a long time until
dawn, there’s a couple o f hours until six and then there’s
m aybe an hour after that until there’s real light, you know,
sun, sun coming down from the sky, sun filtering down
through the cold, sun traveling down; heating up, even a little,
the streets, stone cold, steel-like daggers, the slab they lay you
out on; m y slab, a stone cold street; and a girl who wants to
live, such a girl, a girl who fucking wants to live doesn’t go out
until dawn, can’t go out until dawn; girls don’t go out at night;
girls who want to live don’t go out at night; you need light to
go out; you need sun; you need daylight; you need it to be a
little warmer, you need the edge o ff the cold, you need the
wind warmed up a little, you need it pale out, not dark, you
need it yellow or yellowish or even a flat silver or gray, a dull
gray, you need it gray or grayish or a dirty white at least, you
need it ash or a pale, pale blue as if it’s got a wash over it, a
watercolor wash, a greenish hue, or you need it to be pink, a
pinkish color, you need it pink, a little pink and a little warm ,