Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [115]
“Bone, don’t do this,” she said, her voice angry and impatient. I burrowed deeper into the sheets. After a little while Mama said, “That’s enough,” and took Reese away. My head pounded with heat.
Lying alone on the big bed, I thought about Daddy Glen and the way he would come up behind me and gather me up in his arms to pull me close to his body. Remembering, I locked my hands between my legs and tightened every muscle in my body. When I was as hard and rigid as I could make myself, I tried to remember how it had started. What was it I had done? Why had he always hated me? Maybe I was a bad girl, evil, nasty, willful, stupid, ugly-everything he said. Maybe I was, but it didn’t matter. I hated him, and these days I even hated Reese and Mama. I was a bowl of hatred, boiling black and thick behind my eyes.
I had been so proud of not crying that last time, so sure it was important. Why had it mattered? Whether I screamed or fought or held still, nothing changed. I curled up tighter still and thought about that, the way he beat me, the way I felt jammed against him and struggling, the smell of him and the feel of his sex against my belly. He had been pinning me against his thigh when he beat me. Had he come? Had he been beating me until he came in his trousers? The thought made me gag. I pushed my wrists harder and harder against my own sex until I was hurting myself. I could remember his smell, the sound of his breath above me, the hot sweat falling off his face onto my skin, the way he had grunted and shaken me. No, it did not matter whether I had screamed or not. It had all been the way he wanted it. It had nothing to do with me or anything I had done. It was an animal thing, just him using me. I rolled over and bit the pillow. I fell into shame like a suicide throws herself into a river.
After a while I cried myself back to sleep. I dreamed I was a baby again, five or younger, leaning against Mama’s hip, her hands on my shoulders. She was talking, her voice above me like a whisper between stars. Everything was dim and safe. Everything was warm and quiet. She held me and I felt loved. She held me and I knew who I was. When I put my hand down between my legs, it was not a sin. It was like her murmur, like music, like a prayer in the dark. It was meant to be, and it was a good thing. I woke up with my face wet from tears I did not know I had cried, my hands still holding on between my legs.
“Mama,” I whispered, but she had gone to work. I was alone in the quiet bedroom. It had been a long time since I had woken up like this, with that sweet good feeling between my legs, almost hurting me, but comforting too.
I brought my hands up and looked at them, spread the fingers and looked at the light reflected through the dingy shades. I rolled over and slowly loosened the muscles of my back and legs, keeping my hands in front of my face. The light shifted as the shades swung in the breeze. I thought about fire, purifying, raging, sweeping through Greenville and clearing the earth. I dropped my hands and closed my eyes.
“Fire,” I whispered. “Burn it all.” I rolled over, putting both my hands under me. I clamped my teeth and rocked, seeing the blaze in my head, haystacks burning and nowhere to run, people falling behind and the flames coming on, my own body pinned down and the fire roaring closer.
“Yes,” I said. Yes. I rocked and rocked, and orgasmed on my hand to the dream of fire.
When I woke up it was afternoon, and the apartment was still and warm. I got up carefully. There was cold coffee on the stove, and biscuits in a towel-wrapped dish. I drank some coffee and chewed on a biscuit with a slice of cheese. A note in Mama’s handwriting was on the table. “Don’t go anywhere,” it read. “I’ll be home