Текст книги "Bang"
Автор книги: E. K. Blair
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
TOMORROW’S MY BIRTHDAY. You’d think I’d be excited about turning ten years old, but it’s just another reminder that life isn’t going to get any better. I used to go to bed at night thinking that tomorrow would be a new day, a hopeful wish on stars. But stars don’t grant wishes. I’ve lived in this house with Pike for almost two years, and I now know that tomorrow is nothing but a repeat of the day before and stars are nothing but burning rocks.
I wonder if I’ll even be let out of this closet for my birthday. Unlikely. This is where I have spent nearly every weekend since the day Carl first tied me up a year and a half ago. When I told Bobbi what had happened, her response was, “Well, what did you do to provoke him?” Yeah, turns out, she doesn’t give a shit about me or Pike. We’re nothing more than her paycheck. A means to get by, to pay her bills and put food on the table, food I rarely get to eat since I’m always locked up with my hands bound.
I feel like I live in the dark more than I do the light. Pike sneaks down every night to talk to me. There’s not been a single night that he hasn’t spent with me outside of this door. I quickly learned to train myself to sleep during the days so that I could be awake when Pike would visit me. I didn’t ever want to be alone and without him.
Carl likes to slap me around before tying me to the garment rod, and there is now a padlock on the outside of the door. I’d tell my caseworker, but I’m terrified of losing Pike. And there’s no guarantee that the next home would be any better; at least here, I have my brother. So when my crappy-ass caseworker does decide to show up, which is about once every few months, I keep my mouth shut.
Shifting up to my feet, I allow the blood to drain back down my arms. I pee as I wait on Pike. The filth of spending days peeing on myself doesn’t even faze me anymore. It used to embarrass me, but now, it’s second nature.
“Elizabeth,” I hear Pike whisper, and I’m relieved that I finally have him here with me—my distraction.
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t even know why you still ask me that question,” I reply.
“Sorry,” he says. “Happy birthday. It’s after midnight, so it’s officially your birthday.”
“Wish me a happy birthday when I turn fourteen,” I tell him.
“Just four more years.”
“It feels more like four hundred,” I say in defeat. I’m starting to feel like I’m never going to escape this hell and see my dad. I don’t believe life can be that good.
“Well, it’s not four hundred, it’s only four,” Pike tells me.
I situate myself back onto the floor with my hands bound above my head, and ask, “Since it’s my birthday, can I pick the game tonight?”
“Go for it.”
“Umm . . . how about food, but it has to be junk food,” I say. Pike and I play alphabet games with each other. One of us will pick a theme and whatever letter our words ends with has to be the beginning letter to the word the other person has to come up with. If you can’t think of a word, you lose. It was Pike’s idea to start playing these games. I used to just sit and cry when he would come to me at night, so this was his way of keeping my mind occupied.
“Okay, junk food,” he starts. “AirHeads.”
“Swedish Fish.”
“Happy Meal.”
“That’s not a food, Pike. It’s a meal,” I laugh.
He tries defending his play, saying, “Yeah, and what is a meal made of? Food.”
“But it’s not an actual food because you can choose what you want in it.”
“Yeah, but no matter what you choose, it’s still junk.”
Pike is nothing but serious in his argument, which makes me laugh. Our connection with one another is strong. He’s everything a brother should be: protective, caring, annoying, and everything else I could have imagined a sibling would be.
“Uh uh. You can’t use that as a game play,” I tell him.
I can hear the irritation in his sigh before he says, “Fine. Ho Hos.”
“Those are so good.”
With a chuckle, he agrees, “I know.”
We continue with the game, and eventually, I win, making sure I rub it in since he’s beaten me the last two times we’ve played.
After a while, Pike has to go back to his room and I’m alone once more. Resting my head back against the wall, I shut my eyes and try to relax enough to at least drift a little, if not actually fall asleep.
I startle awake when light hits me. Opening my eyes, I quickly clamp them back shut from the pain of being in the dark for the past three days. Who knew light could be so painful? But it is. It always takes a couple hours for my eyes to adjust.
I can smell Carl along with the stench of my urine, and I’m shocked when he starts to unlatch the leather belt he uses to bind me. He has holes poked all the way down so that he can fasten me tightly and not have to worry about me working my hands free. My arms are like noodles as they fall to my sides. Warmth slowly flows back into my hands, and the tingling begins to run through the length of my lifeless limbs.
“God, you smell like shit, kid,” he grumbles, and I crawl to my knees, squinting to find the bottle of bleach he keeps stored in the corner of the closet. It’s now routine, that as soon as I’m untied, I’m to clean the floor with bleach.
When I get upstairs, I head into the shower to wash myself. I didn’t think I’d be getting out until tomorrow, so I’m determined to stay quiet and invisible so that Carl doesn’t change his mind and toss me back into that black hole again.
After I’m cleaned up, I return to my bedroom to see Pike lying in my bed. He’s always here to comfort me when I get out of the closet. Walking over to him, I crawl into his arms and let him hold me.
“I have something for you,” he whispers, and when I lift my head from his chest, I ask, “What is it?”
“A birthday present.”
I let my head fall back down on him and sigh, “You shouldn’t have bothered.”
“Well, I did, so be polite and pretend you’re happy.”
Sitting up, I cross my legs as Pike quickly runs into his room and then returns with a plastic grocery sack. He hands it to me and sits back down on my bed. Inside is a doll with bright red hair made out of yarn. A smile finds its way to my lips, and he says, “Her hair reminded me of you.”
No doubt, Pike stole this from some store, but I don’t care. This will be the only gift I get this birthday, and I love him for giving it to me since there are very few things I can call my own.
“I love you, Pike,” I say, looking at him as he sits there with an almost worried expression when he asks, “You don’t think it’s stupid?”
“No. It’s perfect, and I love it.”
He reaches out to hug me, and I cuddle into his embrace with the doll pressed between us as he says, “I just didn’t want you to be sad today.”
“I’m sad every day, but it would be worse if I didn’t have you.”
“Pike!” we hear Carl yell from downstairs. “Get down here.”
My stomach twists when I see Pike’s face go to stone. He hates the man as much as I do.
“One sec.”
When Pike sits up, I ask, “Did you do something?” wondering why Carl sounds so pissed.
“Does he need a reason?” is all he says when he sulks out of my room, and I feel sick when I follow him out and stand at the top of the stairs as he walks down.
Carl grips the back of Pike’s neck and tugs him in close, saying, “Basement, you little shit.”
His head drops, and when Carl opens the door that leads to the basement, Pike descends down the stairs. I hate that he’s always down there. He told me that Carl takes him there to knock him around, and I hate that I can’t do anything to protect him. Every time he goes to the basement, I just sit and wait for him to return, and when he does, he won’t even look at me. It’s like he’s mad at me. I asked him once if he was, but he swore that he could never be upset with me. It’s so different with us, because when I’m let out of the closet, Pike is always there to hold me. But when Pike comes up from the basement, he wants nothing to do with me. He avoids me and hides in his room. It’s awful when all I want to do is hug him to make him feel better like he does for me, but he won’t let me.
I lie on my bed, slip on my headphones, and hold my new doll while I listen to music, trying to drown out the pain that fills my chest. Closing my eyes, I eventually grow tired and start to nod off when, suddenly, my doll is snatched out of my arms. Opening my eyes, I see Carl hovering over me. As I slip off my headphones, he snarls, “Get your ass in the basement.”
Too scared to even question him, I trail behind him as fear chills my body. When he opens the door to the basement, my legs shake beneath me as I step down the stairs. I’ve never been down here before, and the panic has never been so fierce when I see Pike standing in nothing but a pair of boxers, his clothes crumpled on the floor next to him.
The look on Pike’s face scares me. He’s never looked at me like this, like he’s scared too. But Pike is never scared. I stand a few feet away from him and nervously turn my head back and see a dirty mattress lying on the cement floor. Turning back to Pike, my eyes wide, my heart pounding, my tears pricking, I hear Carl ask, “How old are you today?”
I face him as he sits in a metal folding chair that sits in the corner.
In a weak voice that trembles, I answer, “Umm . . . t-ten.”
He doesn’t respond, only slowly nods his head and takes a long moment before adding, “You scared?”
I take a quick look at Pike, whose eyes are pinned to the floor, and then back at Carl and nod yes.
His next words changed my life forever. It was my tenth birthday, and I was old enough to know better than to believe in fairytales. I knew that Prince Charming, flying steeds, and talking caterpillars didn’t really exist, but what happened next made me realize that monsters did. And I just so happened to be living with one.
A
Real
Life
Monster.
With a low, stern voice, his demand comes. “Take your clothes off.”
My heart slams down into the pit of my stomach as my body shivers. I’m frozen. I can’t respond, so I just stand there. The air is still until Carl repeats harder, “Take your clothes off. All of them.”
I snap my head over to Pike, and he’s now looking straight at me. I know I should be terrified by the tears on his cheeks and the look of sorrow in his eyes. Without even blinking, I feel my own tears roll out effortlessly. Shaking my head in confusion, Pike gives me a nod that tells me I need to obey.
My jittery hands slowly go to the hem of my shirt, and when I grip the fabric, a pained cry rips out from my constricted throat. It echoes off the concrete walls and floor. Pinching my eyes shut, I slip my shirt off and over my head and then hold it over my chest, even though I haven’t grown breasts yet.
“Pants,” he orders.
I don’t look at him. My eyes remain closed as I unzip my jeans and push them down my legs and step out, still clinging the shirt to me.
“Drop it.”
The ice in his voice frightens me, so I open my fingers and let it drop to the ground.
“Good girl,” he says and I can hear the smile that wears his words. “Now your underwear.”
God, if you’re real, please help me.
Stepping out of my underwear, I attempt to cover myself with my arms and hands as I stand there. And when I finally open my eyes, that’s when Carl speaks.
“Have you ever seen a dick before?” he asks as he opens his fly and tugs his pants down. His is the first I have ever seen and my throat burns with the bile that creeps up.
“You ever touched one before?”
My tears are heavy, and I can’t hold back the sobs any more, pleading, “Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
My cries are loud when he makes his demand, “This is what I want. You’re gonna let Pike fuck you while I watch. You do that for me, I won’t lay a hand on you.”
I shake my head vigorously, not understanding what he means, and when I look over at Pike, he stands for a moment before taking the two steps towards me, quietly saying in a choked voice, “You don’t want him touching you.”
My head won’t stop shaking, and I can’t stop crying as I try to stammer out, “I d-don’t know what he w-wants.”
He releases a defeated sigh when he tells me, “He wants us to have sex.” When he reads my confusion, he asks, “You know what that is?”
“I th-think so. I mean . . . I d-don’t, umm . . .” I can’t get my words out through the terror that’s stabbing me from the inside. I’ve heard of sex. I know of sex. I just don’t understand what it is exactly.
“On the mattress!” Carl’s voice booms, causing me to startle.
In a hushed voice, Pike begs, “Please don’t be scared of me,” as he takes my hand and walks us over to the stained mattress on the floor.
“Lie on your back,” he says, all his words in whispers so that only I can hear. He takes off his underwear before lying on top of me and my helpless cries fill the room. He lowers his mouth to my ear and quietly talks to me, saying, “It’s gonna be okay. Don’t even look at him. You don’t have to look at me, but please promise me you won’t look at him.”
I nod my head against the side of his head so that he can feel my response.
His last words to me before I lose every last piece of hope that somehow life will be okay are, “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth.”
MY LIFE CONTINUES to be a wasteland. It’s simply pointless to even try to see the good in anything anymore. I’m now twelve years old. The only hope I’ve been clinging to is that in two years, I’ll get my dad back. But that hope turned to ash and dust when my caseworker stopped by yesterday.
“Only two more years,” I said, and with a confused look, she asked, “What happens in two years?”
“I get my dad back,” I told her. “I can go home.”
She seemed annoyed when she shook her head and sighed, “That’s not how it works.”
“What do you mean?”
“The state terminated his rights to you. When he gets out, you don’t get to go back home. He’s not allowed to have any contact with you.”
My face heated in pure white anger when she added, “This is your home—here—with Carl and Bobbi.”
I walked away from her at that point. The hopelessness and defeat were too much for me to hide and I didn’t want her to see me upset. She’s a piece of shit, this world is a piece of shit, my life is a piece of shit. I used to pray to God to help me, but he never did, so he’s a piece of shit too, leaving me in this nightmare. Me—living in the darkness, bound up with leather belts, scars imbedding their home in the frail skin of my wrists. Me—humiliated and degraded—having sex with my brother while Carl beats off as if we’re his own personal porn show. It’s my living hell.
I used to cry all the time after being forced to have sex with my brother, the horror that started on my tenth birthday. When it was over that first time, I locked myself in my room, screaming and crying into my pillow. I’ll never forget that day; it’s burned its memory inside of me. A day that I truly felt my innocence being stripped away.
Putting my clothes back on, Carl laughs at me and I run up the stairs and into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I feel disgusting and when I fall onto the bed, I take the red-headed doll Pike gave me earlier and with all the force I have, throw it against the wall, releasing a violent sob as I do. I can’t stop the tears or the ache that fills me. I’m nothing but tears and snot and drool—ugly—and the salts from my eyes eventually start making the skin of my cheeks sting. My body wears out, after first being tied up in the closet for the past three days, and now the depth of my breakdown. With swollen eyes, I’m finally unshackled from this misery as I drift off into my dreams.
When I wake up, Pike is sitting in bed next to me. I look up at him as his back rests against the headboard. His eyes are sad and bloodshot, and I’m mortified. I can’t even look at him. I don’t want him to see me, so I close my eyes and roll over, away from him.
His voice is soft and strained when he says to my back, “I’m so sorry.”
I cry. It only takes a second for this heavy weighted pain to claim me—to own me. My body heaves in an unsteady rhythm, and he doesn’t touch me like he normally does when I cry.
Time passes as my cries weaken into shallow whimpers that hiccup out of me, and then he speaks again, “Please look at me. Tell me you don’t hate me.”
I shake my head, keeping my body turned away from him when I feel him scoot down and lie behind me. His head presses against my back, and I hear him sniff before he starts talking to me quietly, making his confessions. “You’re not alone. I haven’t been telling you the truth. Carl doesn’t just hit me when I’m down in the basement with him.” He chokes back a whimper, and when I hear it, the tightening in my throat becomes painful. “He makes me do sick things to him.” His voice cuts off; he’s crying, and I can’t stand it. I roll over and his eyes are shut, but his hands find my face as he rests them on my cheeks.
When his eyes open, he says, “Please don’t hate me. Don’t let him destroy what we have. Don’t give him that power to rip us apart from each other.” He takes in a shaky breath. “You tell me all the time that I’m all you have, but it goes both ways. I have nothing but you. You’re my only family, Elizabeth. Please don’t let him take you away from me.”
Wrapping my arms around his back, I bury my face in his neck as we both cry together. In this world, a world I’m beginning to learn is a cold and dark place, I fear being alone. I need Pike, and knowing that he needs me too, pushes me to finally speak. I never thought I’d be saying these things, but suddenly I become an open book when I start blubbering against the damp skin of his neck.
“I don’t hate you; I love you. But you hurt me. It hurt really bad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And now I’m sad and scared and embarrassed and so alone.”
“I am too,” he admits.
“I’m scared I’m gonna lose you.”
“I won’t ever leave. I swear.”
Pike never has left my side. Even though we don’t attend the same school, he has planted himself in my life as a threat to others. I still get teased, but not as much. The summer is nearing an end, and I’m going to be at the middle school this year with Pike at the high school. I wish I could be with him. The only times I feel even a remote amount of relief from the never-ending suffering is when I’m with him. Somehow, he makes it possible for me to breathe in this clandestine world the two of us live in.
If anyone knew that Pike and I were having sex, they would freak, but to us, it’s become just another facet of our lives. It used to scare me, used to make me cry, but I’ve learned to numb myself down in that basement. We have sex long enough for Carl to get off and then we escape to our rooms. Bobbi knows what goes on down there, but she chooses to ignore it as she makes her cheap-ass crafts and collects her stupid ducks.
I’m ready to go back to school because it means I don’t have to constantly live in that God-forsaken closet. Now that I’ll be back in school, I know I’ll only have to go into the blackness on the weekends. I’d endure almost anything to keep Pike, so I’ve never mentioned a word of what goes on inside of that house for fear that I’d be taken away—away from Pike. If I didn’t have him, I’d have no one, and no guarantee that I wouldn’t be placed in another abusive home, only to find myself all alone. So I stay, and my silence eats away at the little bits of goodness that are left in me.
I’VE BEEN IN bed all day with a bad stomachache. I’ve been tossing and turning, trying to distract myself from the pain by listening to my music, but I’m miserable. I jerk up and sit when I feel something warm between my legs. Rushing to the bathroom, I cringe when I see blood on my underwear. I sit on the toilet, pee, and then clean myself, wadding a handful of toilet paper up and shoving it in the crotch of the clean pair of underwear I put on. Embarrassed, I know I need to get some money to go to the drug store, but there’s only one person to ask, and I really don’t want to. With my hand on his bathroom door handle that leads into his bedroom, I close my eyes and swallow an awkward breath as I rotate the knob and wait for the click.
Peeking in, he’s lying on his bed, reading a sports magazine.
Timidly, I quietly call out, “Umm . . . Pike?”
He looks up at me as he lowers the magazine to his chest. “What’s up?”
With my head down, I stammer, “I . . . umm, I need a few dollars.”
“I just gave you money the other day,” he complains.
“I know, but I . . .” I briefly look up at him and then move my eyes away when I let him know, against the heat of my face, mumbling, “I think . . . I think I just started my period.”
“Oh,” he responds, caught off guard with what I just told him. “Umm, yeah. I mean, sure,” he rattles as he gets off the bed and walks over to his dresser.
God, this is so embarrassing.
“How much?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
When I see his feet appear next to me, I hesitantly look up at him. He hands me a ten-dollar bill and asks, “Want me to walk with you?”
I shake my head and then duck back into the bathroom.
When I return from the store, I shove the bag of maxi pads in my dresser and then go set Pike’s change next to his sink. I really don’t think I can face him right now. My stomach still hurts, so I decide to crawl back into bed. I close my eyes and roll to the side when I hear Pike walk into the bathroom.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Mmm hmm.”
“Is that what the stomachache is all about?”
I really wish he would stop asking so many questions. He has no idea how much I just want to disappear right now, but I answer anyway, saying, “I don’t know,” because I honestly have no clue. Bobbi wouldn’t sign the permission slip for the sex ed the fifth graders went to last year, and I have nobody to talk to, so his guess is as good as mine.
The bed dips, and when I look over my shoulder, he’s lying down, reading the same magazine from earlier. I turn my head back and smile at the fact that, no matter what, he’s always here for me.
After a while, a couple of Pike’s buddies stop by. He hops in their car and takes off for a while, leaving me at the house all by myself. I go down and rummage around the kitchen. I fix myself a sandwich, and when I sit down to eat it, I hear the screen door squeak open and then slam shut. Leaning over in my chair, I see Carl. He’s so gross with his greasy shirt that’s barely covering his fat, pot-bellied stomach. I sit back and continue eating as he strolls in and grabs a beer from the fridge.
“Where’s your brother?” he asks before taking a swig.
“Don’t know. He left with a couple friends.”
Not wanting to be in the same room as him, I shove the rest of the sandwich in my mouth and rush upstairs. It’s then that I hear Pike return, and when he gets upstairs, I go to his room and watch as he pulls out a wad of money and shoves it in his dresser.
“Where’d you get that money?”
“Shh, I don’t want anyone knowing I have this, okay?”
Lowering my voice, I ask again, “How did you get it?”
“I’ve been working for a few months, trying to save money so that I’m not on the streets when I turn eighteen.”
“Working? You were gone for thirty minutes.”
He comes to stand in front of me and whispers, “If I tell you, you can’t say anything to anyone.”
“Pike, I don’t talk to anyone but you.”
“I’ve been running drugs for a guy I know.”
My eyes widen, and I ask, “What do you mean running?”
“Selling,” he states.
“Are you crazy? What if you get caught?”
“I’m not gonna get caught. Relax.”
“What are the two of you doing up there?” Carl hollers from downstairs.
“Nothing,” Pike shouts.
“Good, then get your fucking asses down to the basement.”
“Fuuuck,” Pike sighs and then holds my hand.
For a moment, I feel the drowning of my heart, but this is nothing new. We are down in that basement at least once a week, if not more. Pike has really helped me learn how to numb myself from what goes on down there, so I take in a deep breath and hold it for a second before slowly releasing it.
“You okay?” he asks, and when I nod, he gives my hand a soft squeeze before we make our way down.
I never know what Carl will have us do, so when I get down there, my stomach turns at the thought of me being on my period. Pulling back on Pike’s hand, he turns to me, but before I can mutter anything, Carl speaks.
“Clothes off and fuck her on the bed,” he barks at Pike.
He lets go of my hand and starts to strip while I remain standing, not wanting to do this while I’m bleeding.
“I said clothes off!”
“I-I . . .”
Pike looks at me, and I start to shake my head quickly, not wanting this to happen, and he gives me an urging eye.
“What the fuck is going on?” Carl yells as he stands in front of me.
I’m scared as hell when I open my mouth and stammer, “P-please, I . . . I started my period.”
The hungry grin that grows on his face is sickening. He takes a few steps back, and then asks, “You’re bleeding?”
I give him a nod.
“Okay then,” he says as he sits down on the chair. “Take off your clothes and lay on the bed.”
“What?” I breathe out.
“Don’t worry, Pike’s gonna fuck you in the ass.”
“What?!” Pike’s voice is that of shock, and I begin to panic.
My hands turn jittery and I start apologizing, “No. I’m s-sorry. It’s fine, we can have sex.”
“I like my idea better, now take off your fucking clothes and get on your hands and knees.”
“What the fuck? I can’t do that,” Pike says as I start removing my clothes.
It’s as if my blood is running dry because all I feel is cold ice running through me. I swallow hard, and then terror floods through when Carl lurches out of the chair and grabs Pike by the neck, seething, “The way you shits are trying to defy me right now is pissing me the fuck off.”
Pike grunts loudly when Carl’s fist hammers into his jaw, nearly knocking him over.
“Do what I fucking tell you or she’s gonna get locked in the closet for the rest of the week after I beat the shit out of both of you!”
My legs are jelly, barely able to support me on my knees as I prop myself up on my hands. Suddenly, I forget how to go numb, and my body begins to quiver as I start crying, scared of what’s about to happen.
I let my head hang down as I feel Pike behind me. Nothing happens though. All I can hear is his heavy breathing. I stay in this position for a while longer and eventually turn my head to see Pike stroking his penis with an almost pained look on his face. He then lets go of himself and puffs out a heavy breath, saying, “I can’t do this. I can’t even get hard.”
Sitting back on my heels, I feel relieved, but that feeling is immediately snatched away, and sheer horror invades when Carl growls angrily. He knocks over his chair when he stands, metal clanking against the concrete, and suddenly the flow of life stops.
Slow motion.
Carl walks straight towards me, yanking his belt out from the loops of his pants. My heart goes frigid, pounding in solid hard beats that vibrate through my whole body. Pounding so hard I can hear it. His eyes are filled with a murderous glare, and Pike’s screams penetrate me as he charges Carl and slams his fist into the side of his face.
I can’t breathe, but somehow I’m screaming when Carl turns and knocks Pike straight to the ground with one single punch, followed by ruthless kicks to his side. Pike writhes in agony as he heaves, “Don’t you fuckin’ touch her!” over and over and over until his voice is no longer audible and his eyes glaze over.
When Carl looks back at me, he unzips his pants and adrenaline kicks in. I’m on my feet fast, bolting to the stairs. After a couple steps, I’m brought to my knees as a piercing sting slices through my back.
THWACK!
A shrill wail rips out of me, and I look over my shoulder just in time to see the leather belt he’s holding come flying down at me.
THWACK!
Arching my back in pure agony, I scream out as tears spring from my eyes. The leather belt bites my flesh again and again before he forces me on all fours, pushes my face down to the cold cement, and rapes me from behind.
