Refuge of Descent? I hate this title...

Chapter ?- That's how it goes...

Chapter 2- That's how it goes...

When Opal was about 9, she slept over at a friend's house from school. Her name was Rebecca. Sometimes people's names don't fit their personalities or physical appearance when you reflect on it later in life, but she really did look like a girl named Rebecca. She had brown wavy hair. Her hair reminded Opal of a doll she had once asked for but it was expensive and her Grandparents couldn't afford it. She had freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks, and a tiny pudgy belly. She was adorable.

Rebecca's father was assigned babysitting/bedtime duty for the evening, as her mother was a night nurse. Her mother was gone a lot, but when she was home she looked exhausted. "I wish I could spend more time with you, Becks." she'd say to Rebecca. Her face was always full of regret.

Her father was a big fat wheezing slob, but otherwise unremarkable. He didn't speak much to Rebecca, nor to any of her friends who came to visit. Opal's most vivid memory of him was that of his walrus shape filling the tattered recliner in front of the TV.

Rebecca and Opal were playing barbies in her room when she perked up and suddenly asked "Hey, do you want to see something weird? You totally can't ever tell anyone ever about it, though." Opal's interest was instantly piqued. "What is it?" she asked breathlessly.

"People doing sex", she whispered, "totally naked!" Opal pondered this proposition for a second. Seeing other people naked wasn't necessarily new to her. Over the course of her lifetime thus far, she had already lived in many apartments, and inevitably in those apartments there was some kid who wanted to show her his junk. Sometimes she let him, sometimes she didn't. Sometimes it wasn't a him, but a her. They always wanted to see her's too, although she didn't understand why because at the time there was really nothing to see. Look down a little girl's jeans and all you're gonna see is skin and denim. It reminded her of those barbies.

Later she would be taught all the things that those private parts could be used for. Mostly by someone older than her. When she got older, she would come to realize with no small measure of shame that at her young age those parts should have been off limits to everyone else.

Rebecca and Opal snuck from the small bedroom and entered the galley kitchen so typically found in section 8 housing. The living room where fat ass was reclined in front of his TV was only feet away, allowing him to see and hear everything happening in the kitchen. It made Opal uncomfortable that from where he sat, he could also make eye contact with them both. It was dark in the living room, so much so that when Rebecca flipped on the light switch in the kitchen, the girls were temporarily blinded. They each squinted and blinked to adjust.

"What're you girls doing?" he barked from his recliner, "There's no ice cream."

Rebecca turned to Opal and smiled. She pressed her index finger to her lips, signaling they needed to be quiet. This puzzled Opal, as she had become aware that Rebecca's father was watching them intently. She climbed onto the kitchen counter and fished around on the ledge above the cabinets where people keep things to gather dust until it's time to move again. "Come up here." she offered mischievously.

Opal looked at Rebecca's father warily, "We're gonna get in huge trouble over this" she thought, "Probably especially me." To Opal's surprise the father's smile mimicked Rebecca's rebellious frivolity. "Now, you girls get down from there... you're not supposed to be looking at that kind of thing, Becca." His face didn't match his words. Not at all. "You're too young to see that..."

Rebecca beckoned Opal to come up onto the kitchen counter, and with much trepidation, she climbed up. Standing tiptoe on the counter, Rebecca dragged a sizable stack of glossy magazines from the upper ledge. There were titles like Hustler, Barely Legal, Playboy. Dozens all garishly daring a couple of curious little girls to look at them.

Again, Opal looked dubiously back toward the darkened living room. The flicker of the TV made it possible to see him pretty plainly, his leering face was shiny and stupid. "What'cha lookin' at?" he asked playfully. Becca only giggled. Opal began to have the creepy feeling this wasn't the first time Becca's father had planted porno magazines around the house for her and her friends to find.

In some of the pictures, Opal wasn't sure what she was looking at. Girls looking alarmingly uncomfortable with erect penises disappearing far into their mouths. There were girls holding something that looked like a penis only it was bubblegum pink buried in a place between their legs that Opal assumed was a butthole. It was difficult for a nine year old, even one who had seen lots of other people's private parts, to decipher what body parts went where.

So they looked and giggled and pointed at the pictures. It occurred to Opal pretty quickly that Becca seemed to be putting on a little bit of an act for her father, flirting with him from that fluorescent lit kitchen. Opal looked over at him now and then to see him with his hand down his pants, stroking what he had in there, the whole time leering and shiny. She was repulsed. She had seen men masturbate before, but for some reason that she couldn't quite place, she was furious when she saw this man doing it now. She wanted to scream at him to stop it, that he was disgusting and he looked stupid, but she didn't. She knew she'd get in huge trouble for yelling at her friend's dad.

There was the sound of a key in the door, then the lock clicking. Rebecca's father jumped out of the recliner with astonishing speed, despite that he was a big fat guy with his pants falling down to his knees. Rebecca looked terrified and attempted to shove the magazines back to the hidden shelf but it was too late. Her mother walked through the front door looking exhausted and turned on the living room lights. Of course she saw the girls immediately.

"What is that?!?" she shrieked, although she already knew exactly what Rebecca was clutching in her pudgy little hands. Her eyes flew around the living room. Rebecca's father was nowhere to be seen, their bedroom door closed.

"Gary!!!" she screamed into the air, "Where in the hell are you?!" Rebecca's father jerked open their bedroom door, looking unconvincingly half asleep.

"Wha...? What's going on?" he put on his best bewildered expression.

"These girls are out here looking at your magazines! Why aren't you watching them?"

"Oh I lied down for a minute to rest my eyes, must've fallen asleep!"

Rebecca's mother shrieked, "WHYYY is the bedroom door closed?"

"They must have closed it so I wouldn't hear them!" he offered firmly, yet also somehow sheepishly.
"I didn't know she even knew they were there!" His gaze turned deliberately toward us. "What is WRONG with you, Becca?? You two should know that is completely inappropriate! Not to mention sneaking around while I was sleeping!"

Rebecca had begun crying as soon as her mother walked through the door, but that had since escalated to desperate sobs of fear. She tore across the living room, slamming her bedroom door behind her. Opal's gut sank as she heard it lock. There was no place of refuge for her. She was utterly on her own to face this nightmare. The nightmare which only got worse as both Rebecca's mother and father turned to look at her.

"What happened Opal?" Rebecca's mother was trying her best to be gentile. Maybe she felt compassion when she saw the fear and profound confusion written on her small face. Maybe in that moment Rebecca's mother realized the potential ramifications of exposing a little girl to pornography and then abusing her verbally. She was an unwitting liability.

Opal was numb. She couldn't choke up an answer, all she could do was gulp down her own tears. Her mind visualized her grandmother's response to the phone call she would most certainly receive. She was terrified.

While Rebecca's mother was doing damage control on the phone with Opal's grandmother, she was left alone with the slug that was Rebecca's father.

He was beyond smug. His face was bemused loathing. It was victory and contempt. It was mocking and despicable. He knew, as did she, that he would win. He was the grownup. He knew that Rebecca's mother did not under any circumstances want to acknowledge what she knew to be the truth.

Later she would tell her shrink that looking back on it, that whole evening seemed to pass in slow motion. It took every ounce of willpower she had to fight the urge to dart to the kitchen, take the first knife she could find, and stab him in the dick until it was hamburger. For a few years afterward she had also fantasized about punching his face until she made a hole through his head.

She was furious still, after all these years. If she saw him again, he'd be dead. When she told her this, Dr. Yu furrowed her brow and wrote on her clipboard for an uncomfortably long moment.