Just open your eyes, Kelly. Just open your eyes and maybe it won’t be true, maybe it will be a dream, just a dream of you spread out on the bed, a dream of cocks in your mouth, a dream of your body splitting open. Maybe they won’t thrust into you, this long line of boys you know, boys who speak to you in the hall at school. Maybe you can undo the steady stream of wine in your mouth, maybe you can go back to yesterday morning. Maybe you can start the day over, just standing in the bathroom, just fixing your hair, a French braid of girl full of possibility.
Open your eyes, Kelly. Get up from the bed, a thousand loads of come streaming down your leg, your own smell mixing with the taste of wine and cock and the memory of lying down on the bed with your date, the boy with the brown-green eyes, the boy who held the door open for you while you climbed into his car, careful to show him your best smile, careful to cross your ankles just so inside the new car smell, leather and wood grain. There’s this party at the house, that’s what he said. There’s this party down on Oak and Vine, this party full of wine and boys. Maybe if you go back and listen to your mother, Kelly. Listen to your father. Never get so drunk, never black out, never lose count, holding it between the lines, all through the night keeping it straight between the yellow lines.
You are a deer, caught, hitting the hood of the car. First your date, who comes inside, no thought of condoms, no thought of your right mind, no thought of consequences, of the truth, of Billy Thornton coming in next, unzipping himself in your face. You are a deer, trussed and trusting. You swallow and do not gag because you are a slut of a girl, rutting, lifting your hips, your body betraying you when you come and come again, the wine sloshing, the rhythm of boys against your middle, splitting you open, so wide. And now see here how she can take it, all the way to her core. She can take whatever they give her, she can dish it out, she can shake and rattle when they pin her down, she can sashay when they press her flat and even now she knows the truth. Oh, Kelly, it’s always been your fault, from the moment you were born, every decision leading you to last night, how you were that girl, kissing them on the mouth, a girl full of Blue Nun, full of merlot and finally, a homemade vintage, someone brought it from home, his mother’s wine sliding down your throat.
See how he led you to the bed, a wash of purple sheets, Downy against your face, the one you love unbuttoning your favorite blouse, pure white, something Grace Kelly would wear, your namesake, twisting up your yellow hair. I’m sorry, Kelly, but your braid has come undone, you have fucked a thousand boys, they’re imprinted against your cheeks, and bless their hearts you were always well-lubed, K-Y flowing like velvet in the too bright bedroom. Here in the strange bathroom, in this strange apartment, there’s a full-length mirror for you, see how beautiful you are. See how you aren’t even sore, now, sitting on the toilet, the world still spinning around your ears, tilting so you can remember, tilting Rich’s eyes against your face, the brown-green eyes you love. Oh, Rich, why did you leave her there? Why did you leave her spread-eagled and alone? But no, it’s worse than that. He invited them in. He told them about you, that willing slut, that girl with the Brazilian wax, that girl with the goods.
Now stand up, Kelly. Stand up and walk to the kitchen. You need a glass of water, you need to clear your head because surely it’s a dream you had, a twisted porno, something he made you watch, Rich with his fast car and blue button-down, freshly pressed khakis and a mother who loves him. For weeks now you’ve wanted him to want you, for weeks you’ve watched him, unfolding in front of him. You are a bright silver coin, you were minted for him and when he carries you to the bedroom you know, you know that everything was for this, everything was for his fingers inside you and you are so wet, so full of possibility before your brain winks off, before you lose track and Billy’s face looms above you. His penis is a mile long and thicker than a tree, his penis is snaking down your throat, opening the foul-smelling drain of you. Not for nothing did you learn to open, the whole liquid self of you on fire, awake now that there’s another one. You can’t remember his face but he’s inside you, moving fast and hard, a blur of thrusts and then he’s done, a lightweight. His turn is over and here come the rest of them, coming on your chest, on your face, on that girl’s face because now you’re that girl.
He led you by the hand up the long stairs, he held your hand and gave you a brimming-full cup, white and cool as the day you were born, a January day just eighteen years ago, just eighteen and off to school. You have calculus on Mondays and German on Tuesdays. You have an eight o’clock class and Rich sits to your right. You wait for him to see you, you wait for him to follow you down the hill. What’s up? He talks to you and you shiver, a crocus in the snow, petals stretching toward the sun, purple flesh blooming. See me, see how pretty I am, the refrain in your head because he’s buying your lunch in the UC, he’s eating waffle fries while you eat vegetable sushi. The two of you are laughing about something you can’t remember, that Thursday afternoon, just yesterday, just yesterday when he took your tray and cleaned it for you, every last scrap in the trash, every last bit of you staring up at his six feet four, tin can middle and rippling arms, what you remember now, the touch of his fingers on your elbow, leading you back to Holt Hall, the ease of them, lightly touching, all the time in the world. We have all the time in the world.
Swallow, Kelly. First this glass, then another, and maybe you can wash it all away, how they served you up and then left you there, road kill, how they spread you so thin there’s nothing left. Slosh it down because you know the truth, that you are full of babies, your pregnant throat, baby polyps sprouting from your womb, boy babies full of teeth, full of fingers and penises and tongues against your neck, full of sperm, whole rivers of sperm coursing through you now. Do not drop the glass. Do not let them see you. You’re trembling, your hands are shaking, you’re a made-up girl in a TV drama, all angst and teenage trouble. Listen to the sound of your name on the lips of the fat kid, the one who said he loved you. I love you, Kelly. I love you. He sits in the back row. He pledged because of his family legacy, because nobody wants him, nobody but the loosest girl at the party, the yellow-haired angel with a mouth full of Burgundy. Come put your seed inside her, come cozy up and make her your own. She’s easy and she’ll never tell, not herself or anybody else how soft Rich’s lips were, just there, at the nape of her neck, like silk, like something holy, every man she’d ever dreamed of. She dove deep down in a frosty creek, pulled herself up to the surface of his mouth, let herself swim inside him, only him, what she’d always wanted and Kelly, this is the most important thing, what you have to remember, that this morning will end, and this afternoon will come and this long Saturday will unwind itself while you watch, while you sit down at the table and hold your head in your hands, while you stumble to the shower, the hottest you can stand, blotting it out, blotting it all out, working the soap so far inside, so far inside it will never come out because, Kelly, it lasts forever.
Photo by Zsolt Fila
