As I Die Lying by Scott Nicholson Page B

sight and sound. The one looking through my eyes
was hard and cold, the one who moved my arms toward her was not
me.
    I had felt this way before, on that long ago
night that I did not want to remember. I could only watch,
horrified yet fascinated, as this new thing, this part of me, this
hidden self tried on my flesh as it were a thrift shop suit. It
liked the fit and gray was always in style.
    "I hear voices in my head, Richard."
Virginia's words echoed from across a dead universe, bits of broken
sound. The thing that was me and not me nodded at her in the dark.
"I hear them all the time. I can't make them shut up."
    "We all hear voices, Virginia.” His voice was
a shadow of mine, his tone soothing yet flat, almost mechanical.
“Some people just don't listen. Those are the crazy ones, don't you
think?"
    Whose words did he say? Mine, or his own?
You’d think after all this time I’d have figured it out, but I’m
still reluctant to choose sides until I know who wins.
    Virginia was startled into silence.
    "What do your voices say?" we asked.
    Chirping crickets. Stupid, four-on-the-floor
FM classic rock turned low. Her breathing, fast and shallow. A
rustling breeze among cornstalks. The hooting of an unseen owl. The
ticking of the cooling motor.
    "You believe me?" she asked.
    "Why would you lie?"
    "To get what I want."
    "What do you want?"
    "Everything and nothing. Attention. To be
loved. Isn't that what we all want?"
    "Aren't you loved? You have a family."
    "Sure. Daddy loved me, all right. So hard it
hurt. Since I was seven."
    What was she telling me?
    Not that. Not her? Inside my Bone House, I
was horrified, repulsed at the depravities that humans could
inflict on their own flesh and blood. Incestuous perversion, the
kind of thing that makes you clamp your hands over your eyes but
spread your fingers for just the tiniest peek.
    But this Loverboy-thing, the fresh me, he was
juiced. He smelled pain the way a predator senses weakness in the
prey. He savored the aroma. "You mean..."
    "Yeah." Her voice fell, the air made fragile.
"I didn't know what he was doing, not until later. But by then, I
couldn't stop him. But even the first time, I knew it was wrong
somehow. Maybe it was the way he kept calling it 'our little
secret.'"
    Secrets. You’d think we’d all learn. Instead,
we keep trusting. We keep on crossing our hearts and hoping to
die.
    Loverboy's comforting hands searched, found
her, held her in the dark.
    "I thought it was the way all daddies loved
their little girls. The bastard."
    "Did you ever tell anyone?" I hoped she
hadn’t.
    "My mom, once. I told her Daddy was touching
me in ways that made me feel strange. She said Daddy was just
showing his love. She didn't want to know. She had garden clubs and
church bazaars, appointments at the hairdresser, hospital
fundraisers, local politics and stuff. She didn't want to be
bothered with family problems.
    "At first, it was just once in a while, so
far apart that I almost forgot about it. I guess it probably
happened more than I remember, because sometimes I would come back
to myself, as if I had been away. I'd be hurting down there and
sticky, and I felt dizzy, like I'd been spinning too fast on a
merry-go-round. And I'd see Daddy later, and he wouldn't look me in
the eye. That's when I knew that we were doing a bad thing."
    " He was doing a bad thing. You weren't
to blame." I couldn’t tell if that was me saying it, or if Loverboy
was trying a sensitive route into her flesh. Maybe there was no
difference.
    "He gave me ice cream, after."
    Ice cream. The moon had risen higher, a sick
white smile among the leering stars. Virginia was a black
silhouette against the weak blanket of light outside the car. I
could see the quiescent angles of her profile now, her lips parted,
words waiting in her mouth.
    "It's the little girl's voice that talks to
me the most. She's always afraid. She doesn't want me to talk to
people. She wants to play dolls."
    "Is she talking to you now?"