shouts of the crowd, the sounds of their voices shot right through my head: She is so fucking sexy! Let’s take her home! My body got furnace-hot. Burning wood. I knew that I had enough heat for everyone. Take me! Take me! I was touching my breasts and my hips as I danced. My eyes were closed but it was like I could see myself moving. It was like I could see the whole room through the back of my head! I saw all the people looking. I knew that any man would take me right then, my flesh all so loose, my hands in the air. They’d take me from the back, from the front and from the side. They’d swarm me to take me. They’d wait their turn to do it. And when they all got around me, I’d spread open wide, it would all go so fast like a train running through me: my temples, my head and my cunt steaming life.
I felt so heavy. I was down on the floor. I reached for my bed. My tongue hung out. I put my finger on my tongue to calm myself. I climbed into bed, sucking my finger, sucking inconsolably tight.
I knew right then that I’d sucked cocks so much because men gave me themselves when I did it. I mean that I got on my tongue what came out of their body that was white and light and unlike them. When I took in a cock, I knew what a man had hidden inside him. I liked men better when I sucked on their cocks.
Then my lips went soft and my finger slid out. I was coughing, twisting around on the bed. I knew right then that I could not suck that one guy’s cock like I loved him because I was sucking a hook, not a cock!
I had the urge to touch myself more, but when I started again it wasn’t feeling as good. This time when I pressed my fingers over my clit, it was too raw, impossible. I heard these crows cawing inside my mind. I tried to say my name but it came out all garbled. I heard it coming, I knew it was coming, the crows cawed, Fool! Fool! Fool! Fool! Gagging, I stopped, but it started again: Fool! Fool! Fool! Fool! Yelling deep in my head all shot through with caws: You are wrong! Fool! Everything you have done with that man has been wrong! Fool! Since that man mashed your breasts. Since your hand went down your pants! Fool! Fool! Fool! Fool!
It came out of me. FOOL! I lay there, ears open, my throat going numb. I pounded the bed with my fists. Revolted curls in my gut. FOOL! You’re a fool! God, it wouldn’t stop! I hunched over, heaving. I threw up on the floor.
I don’t know how long I stayed in that position.
When I finally raised myself up, I staggered off the bed to get over to the window for air, one foot in front of the other. My heart was pounding too loudly. But my feet didn’t lead me to the window. I walked into the closet instead, and I started ripping my clothes from the hangers. Then I grabbed for the shoes and the boots that were there at the back and I started throwing them out of the closet. I was shrieking like a hyena each time one cracked against a wall. I wanted to erase all my fucks with the smacks. The sound of those shoes whipped like dead against the wall. Every time I heard a smack I knew there was a reason that man had hit me.
He’d hit me for a reason, yes, a reason so big that it built up inside me. A reason so big that it was shining all over my face!
I went out of my bedroom and into the bathroom. I turned on the shower but I didn’t get in. I felt the floor, the blue light, and I stared at myself in the mirror. Under my eyes was so dark. My lips were parted and dirty. I closed my eyes and opened them. I knew right then, I mean, I saw it so clear – I got hit because my need equalled the man’s need. Do you see what I am saying? All that time I spent on my knees was this balancing act. I was trying to make something even. I know that might not sound so good, but that is what it was. I got hit to come down to his level. I worshipped the man to bring him to mine. I touched him and stroked him no matter what he did because I was trying to bring up the middle between us.
See, I knew
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