Victimized by Richard Thomas Page B

okay Uncle Jon, I can do it by myself.”
    “I know you can, Anna. Just humor me. If anything happened to you, if you slipped in the tub, if you hit your head and drowned to death, well, your parents would never forgive me.”
    “But...”
    “Baby, I’ve seen it all before. Ain’t no big thing. Here, I’ll help you wash that long brown hair. It must be a pain in the ass to take care of.”
    “Sometimes.”
    “Look, the bubbles are all in there, how fun is that?”
    “Uncle Jon, I’m too big for a bubble bath.”
    “Nonsense, honey. Your mama takes bubble baths. Go ahead and get undressed.”
    I toss and turn. His hands on me. Were they supporting me, holding me up, helping me? Or were they trapping me, pushing me down, hurting me? The bad dreams. For so many years. Being chased in the dark, these horrible beasts, trees with long arms, pointy branches, scratching my skin, poking me in the back, poking me in places that were foreign in every way. I dreamt so hard that some mornings I swear there were cuts on my skin, band-aids I don’t remember. Drops of blood in my panties. I didn’t understand.
    Tonight I lay in my bed, alone. Again. The fight is a distant blur of rust and bone. Years ago it seems. I have blood on my hands again, but it’s not my own. No details remain, only his hands on me. Supporting me, holding me up, helping me to undress. His breath rich with bourbon and beer. The walk to my apartment is short, only a step or two, straight to my bed, my clothes falling off me like leaves in an autumn breeze. This dance I am doing now, it is recreating the act, over and over again. Muscle memory. Laughter and hair tossing, a batting of my eyes, and his skinny wrists slip into the handcuffs, a leer creeping over his mouth. Salivating, eager, ready for me, it is this point in the dead of the night, the gap before dawn, that I slip the gag into his mouth, and start cutting. The blade is quiet, a gasp in the night, slicing at arteries, blood spurting as his back arches, screaming into the cloth. I grab hold of whatever I can, cutting it off, slashing deep, gouging the flesh, bathed in sticky syrup, my eyes wide, a stranger to myself.
    The crisp white sheets are clean and I’m alone. Again. At peace with the darkness, my eyes closed.

    #

    The gravel in the parking lot crunches under my bootheels. The shadow at the door stands with arms crossed, dimly lit by the opening behind him. The muffled sounds of a thousand stomping feet beat behind the thick metal door, a bass drum thudding in sync with my heart.
    “Hey Belle, what’s up,” he says.
    He is a mountain of pale, white flesh, bald head littered with scripture, manicured goatee pointing to his chest. I stay with his eyes, watching the pupils jump, as my lips part into a grin.
    “Hey Cane. Keeping you busy?”
    “You know it. Good crowd tonight. The usual.”
    “Nothing strange going on?”
    “Not yet,” he says, eyes drifting down to my skintight jeans, the black half-shirt clinging to my curves.
    “The night is young,” I say.
    “True. You ready for tomorrow?”
    “Sure.”
    “I don’t have to worry about you do I? I’ll close up the front and come hang if you want...”
    “Naw, it’s okay...”
    “...really I don’t mind. Fuck the rules.”
    I push up against him. It’s like trying to hug a redwood. I’m a moth fluttering against an Aztec sun.
    “I’m good,” I say, the hush barely carrying to him, as he leans over to soak up every syllable.
    “Alright. I don’t wanna see you get hurt, baby.”
    We stand still for a moment, him the extended overhang of a dilapidated old building, me the silent furry beast skittering about under the pillars. The door pushes open, letting out a hot rush of sweaty noise. A skinny kid in torn denim and piercings stumbles out, his pockets inside out, knuckles bloody, his gait askew.
    “Go. Go on in. Prepare yourself Annabelle.”
    I ease towards the door frame, leaving his eyes to wander my backside. I