Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

closed, and in my mind I was sitting under a tree in the summer--I could almost feel the sun on my legs.
    He still punished me if I did something wrong, but he hadn't hit me for a long time, and sometimes I wished he would. Being hit was a physical act that made me feel defiant. But the mind shit? That really did a number on me, and as the months passed, the voices of my loved ones faded to whispers and their faces blurred. Little by little, day by day, the sky became green.

    He still continued with the rapes after I started to show, but they were different somehow, more like he was now the one acting a role. Once in a while he'd even turn gentle, loving, then catch himself and blush, as though it were the niceness that was wrong.
    A couple of times he simply stopped and rested beside me with his hand on my belly, then he'd ask me questions: What did it feel like to be pregnant? Could I feel the baby moving? If he wasn't in the mood for sex I'd still have to put on the dress, and we'd usually lie in bed with his head on my chest.
    One night the weight of his head on my breasts triggered a nurturing sensation, and I started daydreaming about the baby. Without thinking I started singing, "Hush little baby, don't you cry," out loud. I stopped as soon as I realized what I was doing. He shifted his head so it rested on my shoulder, then looked me in the eye.
    "My mother used to sing that to me. Did your mother ever sing to you, Annie?"
    "Not that I remember."
    My mind searched for ways to keep the conversation going. I wanted to know more about him, but it wasn't like I could just come out and say, "So how did you turn into such a freak?"
    "Your mom must have been an interesting person," I said, hoping I wasn't stepping onto a land mine, but he didn't say anything. "Do you want me to sing you something special? I don't know many songs, but I could try. I took lessons when I was a kid."
    "Not right now. I want to hear more about your childhood."
    Shit. Could I get him to tell me revealing stuff by talking about my crap?
    "Mom wasn't really the sing-you-to-sleep type," I said.
    "And these lessons, were they your idea?"
    "That was all Mom."
    My whole childhood was spent trying something new, singing lessons, piano lessons, and of course figure skating. Daisy was into skating from the time she was little, but I didn't last long. I spent more time with my ass on the ice than in the air. Mom tried me in ballet, too, but that ended when I spun into another little girl and just about broke her nose.
    Even the accident didn't stop my mom. If anything, her golden child's death increased her need to make me good at something. Well, what I got good at was sabotage. It's amazing how many ways you can break instruments or ruin sequined costumes.
    "What kind of lessons did you want to take?"
    "I was into art, painting and drawing, stuff like that, but Mom wasn't."
    "So if she wasn't, then you couldn't be?" His eyebrows rose. "Doesn't sound like she was very fair, or much fun."
    "When we were younger, before Daisy died, she could be fun. Like every Christmas we made huge gingerbread houses, and she'd play dress-up with us all the time. Sometimes she'd build forts in the middle of the living room with Daisy and me, then we'd stay up late watching scary movies."
    "Did you like the scary movies?"
    "I liked being with Daisy and her.... They just had a different sense of humor. Mom's really into pranks and stuff, like one Halloween she poured ketchup all over the floor by my bed so when I woke up and stepped in it I'd think it was blood. She and Daisy laughed about it for days." I still hate ketchup.
    "But you didn't think it was so funny, did you?"
    I shrugged. The Freak began to look bored and shifted his weight like he was going to get up. Shit. I had to start showing him some real feelings if I wanted him to connect with me.
    "It made me cry. Mom still likes to tell everyone how she fooled me. She gets off on stuff like that, fooling people. She