What she needs is a good fucking, yeah?"
"Let's rip her panties off and fingerfuck both her holes. "
"Better, let's strip her and throw her out of the car. Make her hitch home bare-ass."
"Yeah!"
And then, almost suddenly, it was over. The sneering and abuse petered out; the dark threats and rough grabs gave way to laughter and a lighter touch. There we were again, three kids squeezed together in the back of a car, the guys smiling, telling the girl to calm herself, the girl whimpering and shaking, then gingerly accepting the offered handkerchief to wipe away her tears. Stu got back in the driver's seat, drove us back to Shaker Heights. Half an hour later I was let off in front of my house with a "Good night, Bev. See you around, kid." I heard their laughter as they drove away.
What they did to me'that night wasn't a "date rape," Mama, but I think it was worse in a way than any rape I ever heard about in my practice.
Instead of raping me, they abused me; that, I've always thought, may have been their plan from the start.
I can just imagine the dialogue: "Hey, Stu, let's have some fun.
Tonight, at this crappy dance we gotta go to, let's pick out one of the wallflowers, a real ugly-duckling type, know what I mean? Then dance her around, make her think she's got us all hot for her body. Then see if we can get her to do something really raunchy like suck us both off at once, maybe even take it up the ass."
"Sure, great. But what if she doesn't want to?"
"She will. She'll be so grateful she'll do anything."
"And if she isn't?"
"Screw it, bro. We'll dump on her. Give her something to remember us by. What do you say?"
In the end, Mama, it wasn't my body that was violated; it was my ego, my very soul. they shamed me, broke me down, made me cry and beg. they degraded me nearly as much as one human can degrade another, except, since there were two of them that night, my degradation was doubled.
You weren't there when I got home. You were still down at the lounge, having a drink with your cronies after your final set. But even if you'd been home, I don't know what I would have told you. I was just so embarrassed, so humiliated, so incredulous about what had happened. I doubt I could have talked about it to you or anyone else.
I tiptoed up the stairs. Millie was sound asleep. In our bathroom, I stripped off all my clothes and stared woefully at myself in the mirror.
It was Cinderella who stared back at me, Mama, Cinderella after her moment of triumph at the ball, transformed after midnight back into her drab and lonely self. But I was different inside, in a way that didn't show for several years. That night a killer was born. This wallflower, I promised myself, will one day have her revenge. And a few months later, on a miserable cold and rainy day, when I was sitting in the window seat on our landing and saw something in the sky, a flash of lightning and then a glimpse of black, I smiled as I grasped the process by which my vengeance would one day be wreaked.
The flashes of pain, the hurts, the shames! Wallflower, wallflower, wallflower! I'd show them what a wallflower could do! I'd leave a flower by their walls! Oh, yes, I would, Mama! Oh, yes, I would!
Bobby Wexler and Laura Gabelli, they got theirs, Mama: Bobby and his new brood out in Fort Worth; Laura, her hubby and children up in Providence.
Bobby was executed, of course, for the way he treated me that summer between junior and senior years at Ashley-Bumett, when you were singing at the Cavendish and he thought, since he was already sticking his repulsive member into you, it might be fun to take out your daughter and stick it into her as well. Naturally he didn't succeed. I swear, Mama, I never tried to compete with you. All your men were Private Property as far as I was concerned. But I know you had your doubts when Bobby went around telling everyone I'd put out. The little shit! When I rejected his advances, he went into a pout and then, out of wounded vanity, tried to stir up mother-daughter trouble.
He wanted to come between us, Mama, and he almost succeeded, too. It's for that I gave the asshole his due. I just hope he likes the way I had him glued. He won't be getting any more erections now!
Laura got hers for gabbing. After I transferred down to Tufts, the little bitch tried to put the make on me and, when she got slapped down, went around telling everyone on campus "Bev had a big love affair that went sour with her roommate up at Bennington." She told all her lesbian pals they'd do well to stay away from me as I was very bad news.
So how do you like your new glued-up pussy, Laura? Bet your husband likes it, too, heh! heh!
Probably the best parts of these executions, Mama, were the trophies Tool brought back for you. From Bobby's house a beaten-up paperback copy of some crappy self-help book (as if he could ever help himself!) and from Laura's that funny old eggbeater, evidence of her newfound "domesticity" no doubt.
Yes, the first six were all on account of sexual humiliations. Even old Bertha Parce when you think of it-her attack on me was but a disguised attack on your sexuality. And the gluing of their genitalia seemed appropriate to such offenses. As for the family members unfortunate enough to be present at the times of execution, their organs were also glued so as to terminate the bloodlines, so to speak.
But now there are other pages in the ledger. Names of people who shamed me in other ways, like arrogant Professor Gaitenburg at Western Reserve, who mocked me during my orals, or Dr. Wendell Greer, the gynecologist, who tried to feel me up on his examination table. Ruth Kendricks, Geraldine Pearson, Pat Tinder and Walter Kinsolving, Rachel Spargo, Linda Nash, Richard Duggan and Violet Kraus. Oh, Mama, I could give you a list a hundred names long. There were so many of them, so very many, and there's not nearly enough time left in this life to take care of them all.
It must have been something in my eyes that set her off, the way I looked at Jessica. Maybe she identifies Jessica with her sister whom she loved and killed. "I had to kill her to save her from Granny," she told me once, back at Carlisle. Or maybe she identifies me with Granny, the ogress who ruled her life. Whatever weird connections she's made, the damage now is done. Poor Tool is bewildered, angry, hurt. But she's just going to have to control herself. Mama was right. Once a tool starts getting a mind of its own, things can go bad very fast.
The fight takes place in a small all-white room on the third floor above the do' Jo, a room rese rved for private contests among the sensei's students. Afternoon light, pouring in through the high windows that face upper Broadway, makes the hard bleached oak floor shine.
The room is empty except for the two young female combatants, one blond and tall, the other black-haired and short. Dressed in gi jackets and pants, breathing heavily, they stand several feet apart in postures of confrontation, faces creased with rage and pain. An aura of aggression edged with danger envelops them. A faint aroma of perspiration perfumes the air.
Both women know this room well. they have fought matches here many times. It was here, too, that, giggling, they stripped to the waist several months before and amicably dueled with sabers with only a borrowed Polaroid camera to witness their carefully orchestrated contest.
Their fight today is different. A new element, a clear intent on the part of the shorter combatant to hurt and seriously vanquish the taller, has become evident only moments before. Now the two young women, chests heaving from their last contact, appraise each other. The stare of the short one, Diana, is hard and cold; the stare of the taller, Jess, is injured and perplexed. Then, like rival warriors about to engage in a final clash, their eyes meet and lock.
"I think we should stop awhile, cool down," Jess suggests. But she does not relax her fighting stance.
Diana shakes her head.
"You really want to go for it then?"