"You Know I Love You, Baby"

    "Don't go home today, okay?"

    The young girl turned to stare at her best friend, mild surprise showing on her features.  She wasn't surprised at his words, only the fact that he had voiced them.  He so rarely took sides these days.  She figured that he had simply given up on her.  Her eyes searched his face, trying to find an emotion besides the pity that he normally showed her, but today she couldn't seem to find even that.  She knew what his words meant, and her heart began to pound in her chest.  For an instant she allowed herself to hope that she was wrong, that she had misunderstood his plea, but his carefully blank face, his lack of expression, confirmed her fears.  Weakly she mumbled, "I didn't do anything.. You know I didn't do anything." 

    "Does it matter?"  He asked her angrily.  "Does it ever matter if you did anything or not?  All he's got to do is think you did something and it's enough.  Why'd you even bother running away?  To get hit by a different man?  Hell, at least your daddy put a real roof over your head.  Might as well go home if you just wanna get your ass kicked every night."  He broke off in frustrated disgust and looked away from his friend.  He'd said the words so many times over the past few months, and it had never made a difference.  They didn't change things then, and he knew by her defeated posture that they wouldn't change things now.  He turned back towards her and tipped her face up with his finger under her chin.  She was just so young, still small enough that her feet swung beneath the bus stop bench that they sat on.  "Go somewhere, stay somewhere else tonight, okay?  Just a day or two, 'till he calms down, okay?"  His voice was softer now, begging even though he knew that his words were futile.

    She shook her head from side-to-side.  Why hide?  It would only be worse tomorrow.  She stood, and stretched her tired, aching frame. She told her friend that she would see him at the soup kitchen for lunch the next day, hoping that she was telling the truth.  Her feet dragged the sidewalk as she trudged slowly home; she felt a blister burst in her ill-fitting sandals.  A glance over her shoulder showed small bloody dots on the white concrete behind her.  Strangely, there was no pain, only the warm sensual feeling of blood, almost as though her entire being was folding into the liquid bubble between the arch of her foot and the sole of her shoe.  If there was any pain she couldn't feel it; it was too small and invisible next to her other hurts.

    She knew that the remaining blocks would vanish fast, and hoped that their home would be empty.  Her stomach fluttered, her smile threatened from the itch of bad nerves.  Without noticing the gesture, she rubbed her stomach as she walked, thankful that her womb was still hollow and empty.  He had been so angry the last time that she had told him that she was pregnant.  She touched an ugly, curling scar at the corner of her mouth, a reminder of the night that she lost it.

    When she came to their yard she paused and glanced both ways watching for cops.  She streaked across the dry, crunchy grass of the lot and slipped through an open window.  This wasn't really their house; who knew who had lived there once upon a time?  It was empty of all life but their own now, cited for demolition.  Thankfully the city was slow to progress this summer, and with no close neighbors there was no one to call the ambulances when she couldn't bite back the screams any longer.  It was always worse when someone tried to help, because the police would take him to jail.  Who would take care of her then?  Life on the streets was dangerous to a teenage girl alone.

    The house was dark and empty, a brief respite against what she knew may be coming.  She found her way through the black rooms from habit, and lit a candle in the front room where stolen packing blankets covered the windows.  She uncapped the forty she had went out to panhandle for, and drank long and deep, sighing as the cold liquid flowed down her throat.  A trickle of beer escaped her mouth and dripped off her chin.  Ignoring it she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, willing the alcohol to calm her shaky stomach.  Her breathing slowly quieted as the early evening noises from outside enveloped her.  She tried to vanish into them, loosely imagining that she was in one of those cars that she heard, rushing to a safe home where someone who loved her was waiting. The traffic from the harbor bridge was heavy tonight.  Festive jangles of Latin music escaped from car windows, blending with the raucous laughter of club goers walking the sidewalk nearby.  She heard a ship in the harbor blare its mournful song and felt that it was echoing her feelings tonight.

    She drank deeply again, trying to take the edge off of her sickness.  He had cut her off that morning as punishment for not making enough money the day before to take care of both their needs.  So he got high, and she tried harder.  She didn't mind too badly  though, at least it helped her control her habit, if only for a little while.  She hadn't used long enough for her sickness to be unbearable.  If he had to go without he would have been unable to even leave their squat today.  It was better for her to be sick then for him to be.

    He had promised her that things would get better.  He promised, and she struggled to keep believing, because if she didn't then what would that leave her?

    Gradually, two voices became distinct over the cacophony of downtown life, getting closer by the second.  Deep and rich, one voice was a beautiful razor of heavily accented words that betrayed his South Boston childhood.  No matter what happened between them, she knew that she would always love the melody of that harsh accent.  He laughed from somewhere close by, and she shivered.  He was often laughing when he was the angriest.  Who was with him though?  It was a familiar voice, but not instantly recognizable.  Boots stamped through the window, steps followed on the filthy linoleum floor.  The blanket on the doorway flipped back, and her lover was home.

    He didn't speak to her when his eyes flitted around the room; he simply dropped to the floor beside her, continuing his conversation with his guest.  The other man smiled an acknowledgement at her, and she looked away.  She remembered him from a party on the beach that they had been to several nights before.  He had seemed nice enough then, but he was making things harder for her right now by smiling at her.  Kindness always made things worse.  Her boyfriend continued to ignore her, but took the beer from her hand and tossed his arm around her shoulders.  He squeezed her tightly, deftly pinching the underside of her breast, twisting until she gasped.  He laughed louder, and hugged her to his side, his laughter a cruel mockery of humor that was just a bit off, not quite balanced.  Her stomach clenched tighter.  She could always tell when he had been smoking ice by that laugh.  It was brittle and hard, his eyes and words never stopping their race from thought to idea, floor to wall to ceiling and back again.  Meth made him more unpredictable then the heroin that they both used.  Meth made him jagged and angry, made him want to love her trembling body to pieces.  Some nights he tried to do just that, and some nights he came close to succeeding.

    Her eyes were shut tight as he pinched and twisted her skin, trying to not let the hot salty tears escape.  She usually knew when it was going to be bad, and this night promised pain. 

    The conversation went on for a few more minutes, the other man becoming more and more uncomfortable as he slowly realized that his friend was hurting the pretty girl by his side.  He eventually stood, and dusted off the back of his jeans as he prepared to leave.  "Dude, I need to head back to the house.  I'll see you-"

    A hand was raised, interrupting his escape.  "Wait up a minute."  Her boyfriend's words seemed friendly enough, his full lips curling into what seemed to be an amused grin.  He tipped his head towards the girl, who had began to shake.  "Do you like this shit?"

    The other man looked at her in confusion; he didn't seem to know how to respond.

    The smile on her boyfriend's face froze in predatory anticipation.  The other man laughed nervously, inching towards the door.  The air was thick and humid with sudden tension, with old pain.  There was a moment of suspenseful silence, but the other man didn't seem to know how to respond; he only laughed again, an empty echo as he read terrible things on his companion's face.

    "I said, DO YOU LIKE THIS SHIT?  'Cause I heard that you fucked her the other night while I was gone!"  His voice raised to a roar; she clenched the sides of her head as a terrified, unvoiced wail bubbled up like scalding lava inside her.  She tried to stand up, a reflexive flight response to the danger that was taking up the oxygen in the room, but he jerked her back down to her knees.  She slumped to the floor, silent sobs racking her body, her hand over her mouth holding back her screams.  She tucked her head to her chest, attempting to curl herself into a quaking ball.

    The other man's hands flew up, palms out as he protested.  "Whoa!  Hold up man!  You're just tweaking; I didn't-"  His voice choked off along with his air supply.  Her boyfriend had jumped to his feet too fast to be avoided, and had his hand wrapped around the other man's throat with a gun jammed into his forehead.  She felt an odd pang of jealousy; she all too intimately the power in those hands, and somehow they belonged to her alone.

      His face was inches from the other man's, burgundy with blood rage, his Irish blue eyes bulging with rage.  "Did you screw her?  Did you fuck her, you son of a bitch?"  Spit flew as he screamed into his friend's face even louder.  "Do you hear me?  Huh?  This bitch is mine!"  He leaned into his gun even harder, breaking the skin and causing blood to mingle with the dripping sweat on the terrified man's face.  He didn't wait for an answer before he continued his vicious tirade.  "I'll kill her before she does a piece of shit like you!  Answer me, you ugly sack of shit!"  A garbled noise was the only sound that the other man was capable of making; his eyes were desperate for air as he tried to answer, as his expression begged for his throat to be released, for the gun to be moved before it was fired.  "What's that?  Let you go?  You'll go when I say that you can go!  You're in my prison now!  You go when I say you go- Do you hear me?"

    He threw the man across the room with a crash, hitting and kicking the man's crawling form until he escaped.  She cried, she couldn't help it, she just couldn't help it!  She knew that crying was going to make it worse, but she couldn't make herself stop.  He felt guilty when she cried, and would hurt her even more in his guilt...

    There wasn't a word spoken now.  The only sounds were her sobs and his heavy breathing as his chest heaved in the aftermath of his explosion.  He stood in front of her, gun limp at his side, adrenaline sweat running down his flushed face plastering his long, strawberry blond hair to his cheeks.  She cried even harder as she reached for him in supplication, begging him with her sobs to believe that she had done nothing wrong.  He stood rigid and still as she tried to hug his legs, then slapped her hard across the top of her head.  "Get off me, you filthy bitch!"  She rocked back on her heels, her scalp stinging from the blow, her hands feebly trying to protect her face.  For just a moment in time, for a frozen instant, she felt a small surge of hope that this would be it.  That it would be over. 

    That small well of hope was crushed when she heard his zipper.  No!  No!  No!  She screamed in her mind, her awakening arousal betraying her.  What was wrong with her?  How could she allow him to humiliate her, to rape what was supposed to be beautiful between them?  Things were supposed to be different this time!  Instantly she crushed these thoughts, ashamed of even her thoughts.  How could it be rape if he loved her?  How could it be wrong?  Obviously she had done something to deserve this, even if it wasn't exactly what he was accusing her of.

    His fist gripped her hair, twisting her face up to his crotch.  She gagged as he forced his cock into her throat.  He smelled like dope sweat and piss, like her smell from the night before, like all of the hatred that she felt for this worn down shadow of herself.  She gagged again, spewing up vomit and a mouthful of hot beer, but he didn't release her head.  He pumped in and out of her mouth getting harder as he abused her lips, not even noticing as her teeth scraped along his length.  "Suck me bitch.. Yeah, come on.. Suck me.. Oh yeah.."  She was choking on her vomit, she couldn't breath through the spit and snot plastering her upper lip and nose.  Without intending to, she shoved away from him as hard as she could, thinking only that she needed to breath.  She wrenched her hair from his clenched fingers, landing hard on her bottom.  For a long minute, neither of them spoke, both shocked that she had resisted him in even this.

      Her eyes closed as all hell broke loose.  He roared in fury as he came at her.  "You bitch!  You too tired from all that dick you been blowing all day?  You stupid cock sucking whore!"  He gripped her tangled hair and raised her to her knees; her screams were no longer silent.  They poured from her mouth,  from the shattered carcass of her soul.  He shook her hard, and screamed into her face, "Where's my money, you slut?  You giving that shit away for free?  My dick not good enough for you anymore?  Bitch!"  His fist were always so hard, so fast that she couldn't see them coming.  Her world exploded and she crashed into the weak plaster of the wall behind her, slamming her head into the supporting beam.  "Stupid whore!"  He grabbed a chair from against the wall and slung it through the the window above where she ha fallen. She screamed again and tried to protect herself from the glass, but it rained down on her in glittering razor pieces, cutting her in a dozen places as it fell.  He spit on her quaking body curled up on the dirty floor, then stormed out.

    For awhile she laid still, trying to breathe as plaster dust settled and mixed with the blood in her hair.  Her hand shook as she touched her face, feeling hot wetness.  She thought that her nose might be broken.  Again.  Her whole body was on fire; her injuries too many to count.  She slowly rolled to her side, dizzy, not even thinking of the broken glass surrounding her.  She squeezed her eyes shut, moaning as her world rolled up her throat and she vomited again, this time onto the floor, clutching her stomach as if she could stop the sickness from erupting from her.  She didn't bother to try to stand up, she merely waited for numbness to swallow her.  Her vision went dark and she passed out.

    She woke later in the night, disorientated and cold.  The candle had gutted itself out.  She lay silently, fearfully.  She heard soft crunching footsteps outside, and felt terror tighten in her chest.  She was afraid to call out, afraid to move.  Where was he?  How long had she been unconscious?  She wished that he were there, that he would come back; he wouldn't let those sneaking footsteps hurt her.  He had found her on the streets after she had runaway from her daddy's grabbing hands and heavy fists; he had kept all the dealers and pimps away from her.  She knew that he had a rotten temper, and sometimes made her do bad things, but sacrifices were just part of love.  He wouldn't let anyone else hurt her; it made her feel better when he told her that she was his.  He protected her, and right now she just wanted him to come home.

      Somebody was out there.  Terror had her frozen, she tried to will herself invisible- held her breath so that they wouldn't hear her.  Maybe it was just someone who needed a place to crash, maybe they didn't know that she was here- the blanket on the door moved.  Oh Jesus oh Jesus oh shit it's pulling back they're gonna hurt me.. Help me!  Somebody please help me I'm praying...  She released all of her breath at once when he stepped through the doorway.  She was SAFE.  He was home. He'd come back to her again.

    He squatted beside her, his voice tender.  "You okay, baby?"  She didn't answer, she didn't need to.  They both already knew the answer; he hadn't needed to ask the question.  But the game must be played until the night came that they both knew was inevitable; the night that he hit her too hard, or too many times, and she never got back up again.  They both knew the rules to this game; he had learned them from his father's hands, and he had learned them well.  If he hit her, then it just meant that he loved her.  He wouldn't get so mad if it wasn't for-real love.

    He softly stroked her blood-caked brow as he scooped her scarred, broken body from the rotting floor and carried her to their rotting bed.  "Never again," he whispered, "It won't happen again, you know I love you, baby."



                                                                                        Calypso