in there. Not at this hour."
"Why not?"
The driver ignored me, kept his eyes on the falling flakes. He wore the uniform, blue polyester slacks, a blue wool cardigan with the bus logo embroidered onto a pocket. A middle-aged man thick all over, down to his fingers, one of which he aimed at the windscreen. "Was scheduled to leave an hour ago, but the snow put a stop to that. Some snow this is, though, beautiful."
A blizzard. The air was warm; the flakes were wet and puffed and sticking; they cut in smooth, relentless, gentle diagonals to the ground. My brothers will lose themselves tonight; they'll search for me in the whiteness; they'll drown.
"Is the building closed?"
"Sent everybody waiting for New York on home. You want to go to New York, you come back in the morning. I'll take you there myself."
"No, sir."
"You got to pee so bad you come on up here."
The door sealed behind me, and I stopped on the top step, daring a look into the driver's eyes. He was done pretending. My heart raced; I looked all around for the door's release, but I could not figure it out.
"The bathroom's back there?"
The driver stood up from his seat. I held there for him, still. I wanted this.
Cold thick fingers wormed past my waistband; I held still. "You want me to make you," the driver said. "I'll make you. I'll make you."
And I was made.
I trudged back in the predawn. The winter sky was clouded over, all pink gloom. I wanted to look at myself as he had; I wanted to see my black curls peeking out from under my ski cap. What did he make of my thin chest? What did he make of my too-wide smile? He had blasted the heat, but the cold clung and hovered at the back of the bus. The cold gathered in the tips of those fingers, so everywhere he touched me was a dull stab of surprise. I wanted to stand before a mirror and look and look at myself. I opened my mouth and stretched my voice over the buzz of passing cars.
"He made me!" I screamed.
"I'm made!"
DEEP NIGHT
T HEY WERE GATHERED in the front room, and the air reeked of grief. The force of their eight eyes pushed me backward toward the door; never had I been looked at with such ferocity. Everything easy between me and my brothers and my mother and my father was lost.
My brothers were still in their jackets, their hair slick with wet, Paps was dressed and shaven, and Ma looked up at me with mascara tiger-striped down her face, raw eyes, hands in her hair—how many times had I seen her like this? She spoke, but I didn't catch what she was saying because on her lap sat, impossibly, my journal.
In bold and explicit language I had written fantasies about the men I met at the bus station, about what I wanted done to me. I had written a catalog of imagined perversions, a violent pornography with myself at the center, with myself obliterated. And now there it was on my mother's lap.
For a moment my thoughts and fears dimmed to black, my vision blurred—an avalanche began, my gut dropped, my sex dropped, my knees gave way, and I fell onto them, hard.
I knelt, just inside the door, and when I spoke to Ma my voice was calm and assured.
"I'll kill you," I said.
Paps lunged, and my brothers, for the first time in their lives, restrained him. But that restraint shifted before my eyes into an embrace; somehow, at the same time that they were keeping him back, they were supporting him, holding Paps upright, preventing him from sliding to the floor himself, and in that moment I realized that not just Ma, but each and every one of them had read the fantasies and delusions, the truth I had written in my little private book.
Two hours later, I am packed into the car and taken to the psych ward of the general hospital, where I will be turned over to the state and institutionalized. Even later, I will come to doubt whether I ever really believed such a book would not be found—maybe my words were all for them, that they might discover themselves, and discover me.
But before all that, before being
"Why not?"
The driver ignored me, kept his eyes on the falling flakes. He wore the uniform, blue polyester slacks, a blue wool cardigan with the bus logo embroidered onto a pocket. A middle-aged man thick all over, down to his fingers, one of which he aimed at the windscreen. "Was scheduled to leave an hour ago, but the snow put a stop to that. Some snow this is, though, beautiful."
A blizzard. The air was warm; the flakes were wet and puffed and sticking; they cut in smooth, relentless, gentle diagonals to the ground. My brothers will lose themselves tonight; they'll search for me in the whiteness; they'll drown.
"Is the building closed?"
"Sent everybody waiting for New York on home. You want to go to New York, you come back in the morning. I'll take you there myself."
"No, sir."
"You got to pee so bad you come on up here."
The door sealed behind me, and I stopped on the top step, daring a look into the driver's eyes. He was done pretending. My heart raced; I looked all around for the door's release, but I could not figure it out.
"The bathroom's back there?"
The driver stood up from his seat. I held there for him, still. I wanted this.
Cold thick fingers wormed past my waistband; I held still. "You want me to make you," the driver said. "I'll make you. I'll make you."
And I was made.
I trudged back in the predawn. The winter sky was clouded over, all pink gloom. I wanted to look at myself as he had; I wanted to see my black curls peeking out from under my ski cap. What did he make of my thin chest? What did he make of my too-wide smile? He had blasted the heat, but the cold clung and hovered at the back of the bus. The cold gathered in the tips of those fingers, so everywhere he touched me was a dull stab of surprise. I wanted to stand before a mirror and look and look at myself. I opened my mouth and stretched my voice over the buzz of passing cars.
"He made me!" I screamed.
"I'm made!"
DEEP NIGHT
T HEY WERE GATHERED in the front room, and the air reeked of grief. The force of their eight eyes pushed me backward toward the door; never had I been looked at with such ferocity. Everything easy between me and my brothers and my mother and my father was lost.
My brothers were still in their jackets, their hair slick with wet, Paps was dressed and shaven, and Ma looked up at me with mascara tiger-striped down her face, raw eyes, hands in her hair—how many times had I seen her like this? She spoke, but I didn't catch what she was saying because on her lap sat, impossibly, my journal.
In bold and explicit language I had written fantasies about the men I met at the bus station, about what I wanted done to me. I had written a catalog of imagined perversions, a violent pornography with myself at the center, with myself obliterated. And now there it was on my mother's lap.
For a moment my thoughts and fears dimmed to black, my vision blurred—an avalanche began, my gut dropped, my sex dropped, my knees gave way, and I fell onto them, hard.
I knelt, just inside the door, and when I spoke to Ma my voice was calm and assured.
"I'll kill you," I said.
Paps lunged, and my brothers, for the first time in their lives, restrained him. But that restraint shifted before my eyes into an embrace; somehow, at the same time that they were keeping him back, they were supporting him, holding Paps upright, preventing him from sliding to the floor himself, and in that moment I realized that not just Ma, but each and every one of them had read the fantasies and delusions, the truth I had written in my little private book.
Two hours later, I am packed into the car and taken to the psych ward of the general hospital, where I will be turned over to the state and institutionalized. Even later, I will come to doubt whether I ever really believed such a book would not be found—maybe my words were all for them, that they might discover themselves, and discover me.
But before all that, before being
Similar Books
![Bind Me [Pact of Seduction 1]](/res/aob/book1.jpg)
