Broken Girl by Gretchen de la O
THE ROOM’S SO dark, smells like moldy cheese and dirt. It’s cold, so cold that I can see my breath. My heart’s pounding in my chest, echoing in my ears. All I can see is him. He leans me back across the bed.
“Now, dirty little girls need to learn their lesson when walkin’ around in the confines of men like me.”
My feet are dangling off the bed.
Even though it feels like it is freezing, my skin is sweaty. His eyes are dark, narrow, filled with a look my daddy gives my mommy before they make me go to bed.
His hands are hot and sticky; the tips of his fingers scratch my waist as he pulls my pink shorts and flowery panties down and off my legs.
“You’re making me do this, my little Rosalie. You give me this sickness, you see, you keep causin’ all of this in my body and well, now you’re gonna help me with it.”
I can’t talk as my voice is hiding in the back of my throat.
I am drowning.
I am scared.
More scared than any other time in my life.
I’m naked, my privates exposed.
Mom tells me that girls who let boys touch them in their privates down there are bad girls, naughty girls . . . damaged goods.
I don’t wanna be bad.
The heat of his hands are burning the inside of my knees as my mom’s voice floods me. ‘No man wants to marry a whore, Rosalie; do you hear me? Girls who let boys touch them down there are nothing but whores!’
My tummy twists at her words and knot at his touch.
What’s a whore?
I don’t wanna be a whore.
His dark eyes widen and I watch him look at my privates. His smile gets big.
The tips of his fingers are dirty, crammed with black under his nails as they touch my thighs . . . I close my eyes.
He pulls my legs apart and it seems like forever before he says something.
“You so perfect, little sunshine. We gonna take care of my sickness now.”
I open my eyes just enough, still afraid to see what he’s about to do to me; his stare finds me.
Globs of tears collect on the edges of my eyes.
Silently, I cry.
“Shhh, Rosalie, don’t cry, you gonna fix me up. Make me all better; you’s about ripe for the pickin’, girl.” He pushes his fingers against the tears racing down my cheeks.
My voice isn’t working. I can’t scream.
I wish I never came here to see if Tami could play. I wish I didn’t have any friends with stepdads who need little girls like me.
I am like my rag doll as he pulls me to the end of the bed; my arms drag up around my head.
Why is he doing this? How long till he stops being sick?
He unzips and his jeans drop to his ankles.
I didn’t mean to look.
“You see what you do to me? I need some healin’,” he growls before he touches his sickness.
I am scared.
I never saw a man’s sickness before. My daddy never shows me his.
I feel my tummy shake, my muscles turn to mush, I have no control. I feel my soul leave as he begins to break me.
He pushes against my privates, too hard, too much. He hurts me down there.
Broken little girl.
I hold my breath . . . he huffs.
He won’t stop pushing.
I am . . .
Torn . . .
Apart . . .
In Seconds . . .
ELEVEN YEARS LATER . . .
BEER BOTTLES RIDDLED the nightstand, clanking with the tapping of the mattress wedged between it and the wall. The music that blared from the stereo was loud enough to drown out my date’s exaggerated huffs and the squeaking of the bed frame. I held my breath as I counted the pushes, hoping he wasn’t gonna take much longer. Business was time and time was money. The faster they’d come, the better it made for repeat business. I threw my hips into it, tightened my cooch around his dick and huffed out how I was about to come. I didn’t want to keep the other girls waiting.
A chill of satisfaction slipped down my spine with the helpless look in his eye. One last thrust, as a long bellowing growl scorched across my skin, was proof enough for me that I had claimed another satisfied customer. I focused on the velour blood-red roses on the dark, drab wallpaper while I waited for him to pull out. Time was money. His breath was sour, beer mixed with cigarettes; he didn’t bother kissing me and I was fine with that. I never kissed on the lips anyway . . . Never.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he spat. He stretched off the rubber filled with his seed and chucked it next to me on the bed. “You’ll take care of that, right?” He zipped his pants before he tossed two twenty-dollar bills across my chest. “And here, get yourself something pretty.”
“What the hell is this? It was sixty if I f*cked you,” I snapped as I pulled down my skirt. He plopped in the high-back gaudy floral chair next to the door and sucked a short breath through his shit-eating smirk, before he smacked his lips together as if he had caught the smell of sex in his mouth. He dragged his filthy work boots over, pulled them on as he answered my demand.
“Is that what you call it? Laying there like a dead fish? You didn’t f*ck me. I f*cked you . . . as a matter of fact, you should be paying me,” he snarled before he meandered toward the door.
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I hissed.
“I can’t say you weren’t a tight lay. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you . . . I’ll tell my buddies down at the shop what you’re willing to do for sixty bones and let’s see how many run down here to bang at your door. You want sixty for a f*ck, at least make it worth it. Roll your hips against my cock or give up a little whimper every once in a while. If I wanted a dead lay, I would f*ck my wife.” He tossed me the same shit-eating smirk from earlier, like it was the only one in his arsenal, before he walked out, leaving the bedroom door wide open.