Forty-Five

I'm driving down the road. It's dark, and a little foggy. Foggy enough to give the night an air of mystery and intrigue, but not enough to disturb my driving. Despite the poor weather, for reasons of science unfathomable to me, the yellow road signs still stand out. I see one, two, three, four separate signs with the same arrow pointing to the left. I suppose there is a curve coming up, and I guess I should be paying more attention to the road. Although at this point, paying attention to the road is not high on my list of priorities.

I'm twelve. He's forcing himself inside me. That pockmarked face is whispering in my ear, telling me all kinds of things I have no business knowing. At first I am squirming; my discomfort is visible and intermittent. He seems to really get a kick out of this. Even though I am in a pretty grueling amount of physical pain, I start to act as though I like what is happening to me. He notices, and it infuriates him. He whips himself out of me, with as much violence as he can muster, and smacks me across the face. There is a welt, and it remains raised and red for over a week, and I make no attempt to hide it. When he sees me in class the following day, I can tell he's suppressing even more rage. I laugh to myself.

I'm fourteen. There's a boy in my science class, his name is Danny and we both like constellations. He has curly red hair, and freckles dance across his cheeks and nose. But it had to be science class. I'm scared to sit next to him, much less talk to him, for fear of the irrational consequences he might suffer. For instance, I don't want him to fail the class because I have shown even the slightest interest in him. He is the first of many boys that I will attempt to avoid throughout high school.

I'm thirteen. This is our second year together. Every night, I think about all the different ways I might die. Sometimes I hope that he will be too forceful, too hard, that he will rip me right in half, that he will kill me himself, whether by accident or by desire is irrelevant, because for me, the pain would finally be over. I wish for leukemia, or a fatal car accident. I don't even think about killing myself. I just think about dying.

I'm twenty now, and driving down the road. This is it. That was the last time. He is 53, and I am twenty. When I was twelve, he was 45. Forty-five. I want to tell you that I loved him, but it's simply not true. When I was fifteen, I convinced myself that I did. At that point, he had gotten past his need to see me in distress and instead wanted me to express what a woman his own age should have expressed during the act of sex. And I did. I stopped complaining, and my moaning took on an entirely different form. I started to like what he was doing to me, and once I even sought him out myself. He was particularly affectionate that evening, and I think maybe for a few moments then I did love him.

(no, no, no) I silently whispered, my mouth forming the syllables but not daring to speak them aloud. "Don't hurt Danny. I'll only pretend to like him in public, since I have you to love in private. He's just a part of our game. Let him play his role," I pleaded. He smirked at me, but did not respond verbally. Instead, he pushed himself in deeper. I winced, and he rubbed my head. When he wanted to be, he was very gentle with his hands. In complete opposition to what we were engaged in, the kindness in his hands struck me as a fatherly gesture, and thoughts like that one only served to increase my mounting feelings of disorientation and bewilderment.

I'm thirteen. We're at his house. This is the first time he has brought me home. Our original meeting place was an unused classroom decaying in the basement of the school. I have the worst memories from that period. He then started taking me to cheap motels, which were dirty too, but at least they were comfortable. But that's in the past. Now I am finally at his house. Despite, or perhaps because of, my intense and complicated feelings towards him, I've been dying to see where he eats and sleeps. His is the last house on the right of a poorly lit, tree-lined country road. It's a beautiful place, and once, it must've been alive with care and love. But by the time I came around, the house was a hollow shell of its former glory, a waste of architecture, pretty on the outside but dead on the inside. He holds my right hand as he leads me down the entrance hall. Nothing catches my eye until I spot a picture hanging on the wall, what I will shortly realize is the only truly personal decoration in the entire house. I am immediately drawn to it. It is a picture of him, much younger, with a small girl. They are at the beach, both grinning like fools. She looks about my age.
"Who is that girl?" I ask.
"That, my dear, is none of your business," he calmly responds, but I notice that his grip on my hand has tightened and his gait has sped up.

Years later, I discovered that the girl in the picture was his daughter. His 12-year-old daughter. What I remember most clearly is her face, and how mine was almost an exact replica of hers. We could have been twins. She is dead now. She died four months after that picture was taken, 3 weeks before her 13th birthday.

I always wondered if he fucked her like he fucked me, or if it was her death that led him to seek refuge in our sex. Some days, I hoped for the latter because I didn't want to think she had suffered at the hands of her own father. Other days, I also hoped for the latter, but these times because if I was the only one, that made me special, albeit in a perverted and fucked up way. Very rarely did I hope for the former, but when I did, it was because I didn't want to be the only one, or special. I wanted to be normal, a 12-year-old that was fantasizing about the cute boy two seats over, not a 12-year-old fucking her science teacher. But that is how it turned out, and I suppose if you believe in fate or destiny, it couldn't have turned out any other way. Me? I don't believe in fate or destiny. I believe in choices. I believe that I could have gotten myself out of the situation before it was too late, but for some reason or another (potential reasons I don't even want to think about anymore), I chose to stay and I chose to put up with it. So ultimately, it is my fault. He is, of course, to blame. But he is not entirely to blame. No one is ever entirely to blame for anything.

I'm heading to the beach. It's an abandoned beach, to be found a few towns north of where I live. The sandy ground has long been overrun with weeds and tall grass. The water is dirty, in the sense that dead birds serenely float along in the waves. Empty beer cans and flattened cigarette butts litter the area. This is the place for me. In fact, I have been here before. He brought me here once. We spent the entire day together, and I remember that it was overall a pleasant experience.

(c'mon. c'mon. i don't feel like it tonight. don't bother with sweet talk. you're telling me i'm beautiful. sometimes you get me with that sentiment. but not tonight. tonight i know it's not true. a beautiful person wouldn't be doing this. a beautiful person wouldn't occasionally like it. a beautiful person would've found a way out.)

I park my car at the beach. I turn it off, but I leave the keys in the ignition. I ease myself out, but I linger for a few seconds, because my car is one of the only things in my life that I feel any real, personal attachments to. I get over the sentimentality of it all, and make my way to the water. The fog out here is intense. I cannot see one foot ahead of me. Everything around me is murky and obscured. It's perfect, actually. For the first time in my life, I've stumbled upon an instance of good timing. This thought only strengthens my resolve.

(i like him tonight. he's sweet, and gentle. maybe it's not so bad. maybe we love each other. maybe one day we can be together in a normal way.)

I'm eighteen. I'm not going away to a university because he has convinced me to stay here. I will be attending the local community college instead, and living at home with my parents. They support this decision because it saves them a substantial amount of money. I am under the impression that university is where one goes to find oneself, so I talk myself into the idea that I don't want to find myself, that I don't want to know who I am, that the answers will be ugly, and are better left undisturbed. He convinces me to stay, but I convince myself too. I'm far better off here, where I at least know what to expect, even if what I expect is pain and confusion. He is pleased, and I have a decent, almost enjoyable, two weeks afterwards.

I'm twenty now, like I've said. I'm standing at the beach, immersed in thought and fog. It finally began to dawn on me, all these years and what they have meant, and what they represent. Even if I do eventually leave him, and find real love elsewhere, I will always live with the memories. And I don't want to. I don't intend to. I don't have to, so I won't.

I'm nineteen, and I'm standing up to him, and he doesn't like it. He slaps me, for the first time in years. And I thought we'd made progress, as far as his violence towards me went. He hits me, and I shut down immediately. My hand gravitates to the spot on my face that's now bright red. I blink at him, I retreat to an armchair in the corner of the bedroom, and I refuse to speak. He's initially angry, and I sit through a barrage of verbal abuse from an irascible old man. When he doesn't get any sort of reaction from me, he swiftly changes tunes, and is suddenly apologetic. I don't care much for his abuse, but I care even less for his apologies. I still haven't said a word; in fact, I pack up my things and get up to leave. He pleads for me to stay; in this moment, he is the child and I am the adult. I realize he is utterly dependent on me. I feel perverted joy at the thought of this. I offer him a smile before I exit the room, and he decides not to walk out after me. He doesn't contact me for over a week, and, sick to my stomach at the very idea, I realize I miss him.

I'm stepping out of my shoes. I feel the harsh and dry grass against my ankles. I slip my socks off, and roll up the cuffs of my jeans. I wade into the water; it's cold, but not cold enough to change my mind. In fact, it is just right. Soon I've relieved my body of all the clothing burdening it. The pieces of fabric stretch out behind me, a polyester path to my freedom. I'm completely naked, and the waves are rolling across my body, which has become acclimated to the cold, and I feel safe and real and free for the first time in eight years. The water is up to my neck now; I continue on my midnight stroll. It's beginning to tickle my nostrils, and my arms and legs instinctively start to move in response, trying to elevate me to the sweet air above. But here's the thing: I cannot now, and have never been able to, swim.

Two days later, my  remains are found. Not by the police; a lonely old man is walking his dog along the beach, the dog is unleashed, the dog goes splashing into the water, the dog returns with a decaying arm in his mouth. The old man thinks the dog is holding a piece of driftwood, so he reaches to grab it out of the animal's mouth. It doesn't feel much like wood... the old man is reminded of news reports of a missing girl... recoiling in disgust, he drops my arm. (Is it even my arm anymore? Do I still have claim to the physical part of me I chose to leave behind?) He cannot fully control his bodily functions anymore, and a small amount of vomit dribbles out of his mouth; the dog faithfully licks it off his face. They continue on this way until they reach a telephone with which the police can be called.

The funeral is held a week later. The coffin is empty; not all of my body has been recovered, but they have enough to know that it is me. My parents are in shock; they cannot fathom who could have done this to their little girl. (I feel sorry for them, but only for them. I feel no sympathy for anyone else, least of all myself.) They never think, despite obvious evidence to the contrary, that I may have done it to myself. He comes to my funeral, and even gives his condolences to my grieving parents. He feels a great sense of loss, deep in his heart, for me, the young girl that both willingly and unwillingly gave so much to him. Some other feeling is tugging at him, and as the funeral service begins, he is finally able to place it. He, too, feels free; for him, it is the first time in fifteen years, fifteen years since the angel he bore died. The death of his angel turned him into a devil, but now he is free again, released by my death, the death of another angel. Alongside the loss and sense of freedom, he is now filled with gratitude. Without realizing it, I committed a final act of generosity, or ultimate servitude. In liberating myself, I inadvertently liberated him. Tears build up in the corners of his eyes, and he is forced to leave the service. He sits in his car, and he weeps.