Tell Me I'm Worthless(14)

“Um. Could I wash my hands?” she asks.

Instead of moving out of the way, Joyce steps forwards, backing her into the stall she had just been in. The woman was faster than she seemed capable of. Two steps, and there she was, her body pressed against Ila’s, and Ila clumsily went backwards, banging the insides of her knees into the rim of the toilet and crashing down so she was sitting on it again. Joyce stands over her, and gently but firmly, spreads Ila’s legs apart. Ila can’t look at her face.

“Please stop that,” she mumbles.

“I’m so happy that we met,” says the woman, her strong perfume mixing with the smell of shit from the stall next to this one.

Ila wants to screw her eyes shut as tight as she possibly can, so tight that it hurts, she wants to do that and find that when she opens them again the woman isn’t there at all, that she has never been there. But she shuts her eyes, and she can still feel Joyce’s hand moving up one of her thighs, unbuttoning her jeans. Ila’s body goes limp.

“I think,” she’s forcing out the words, using all of her strength, “that you should leave, now.” There’s no affect in Ila’s voice. It was almost too much to even speak.

“Why?” asks Joyce, sounding genuinely hurt.

Ila opens her eyes. She can see the woman now, silhouetted in the light. No. This isn’t going to happen. The woman steps back, out of the stall, looking at Ila with confusion.

“You can’t tell anyone,” says Joyce.

Ila pushes her palms against the walls of the toilet stall and heaves herself up. Her jeans are still undone, and hang, loosely, around her thighs. “Why not?” Ila asks. Strength is easing its way back into her.

“I’m too important to this movement.”

“I don’t care.” Ila is burning with rage.

“You know what it would do, if someone came out and said a prominent… one of us...”

“I don’t care.”

“Think, for a second, Ila. I’m trying to be reasonable here!” She must be worried about someone else walking in here. It could happen at any moment. “Think about it. Think about what happened to you. If you were to say anything, it could tank everything, put so many girls in the same position. Use your brain!”

And Ila does think. She thinks about what would happen if she tweeted about this, or posted about it on a blog. Either all the others would gang up on her, accuse her of lying, being a secret transactivist, or… if people did believe her. What then? Joyce nodded. She could see what had gone through Ila’s head. She turns and leaves. Joyce’s footsteps on the wet floor walk away, back to the warm friendly lights of the pub. For fuck’s sake, Ila says to herself, standing there with her jeans falling down her legs. For fuck’s sake.





House


The House has been waiting for so long. A square blotch of darkness against the landscape, like a townhouse but sitting alone, lonely with its back to the trees. The House was once a pale limestone, but over the years it has blackened. The House sits a little way back from the main road, but choking fumes from the exhaust pipes of passing trucks settle on the House’s skin. The House doesn’t like this. Filth, it thinks. Disgusting filth all over my body no one to wash me but the rains no one to wash me but the rains yet a storm will come and cleanse me surely. The House’s front faces that busy road and, over the other side, a tower block, jutting upwards, tall enough that its shadow is cast over the House’s face. All the House can look at is this; the modern world, and it despises what it sees. Its back is to the forest, the trees encircle it and then stretch out up the hill behind it, growing thick and deep and dangerous. Thirty years ago, a man, not from here, snatched a young girl who was walking home from school. He locked her into his van, and kept her there for a week, before dragging her out beneath the trees. He butchered her there. Then, after doing what he did, he buried her beneath the largest tree, like an offering. The man will die in prison. He will rot.

There had been a train station, once, where the tower block now stands. Thatcher’s government gutted the trains, and many of the stations faded away, the land they were built on sold off to men in dark suits waiting in the wings for the right time to build, and profit. Some nights, some of the people who live in that tower block walk, without knowing why, to their windows and look down, across the black expanse of the night, across the busy street, towards the House. They stand at their windows, their breath fogging up the glass. If you asked them what they were looking for, or why, none of them would have a clue.

The House looks back up at them. I’m still here. I’m still here. You can see me.

A man named Jeremy was trying to recover from addiction. He lived, alone, in social housing, in a depressing flat in that exact block. But, despite the sometimes-grim environment, he was doing well. Narcotic’s Anonymous had helped him work through everything immensely. In fact, he hadn’t touched the drugs in half a year, and now, with the help of a local housing charity, he had been able to secure this flat. A place to live, safely. He found work at a little cafe that sold vegan food. Jeremy wasn’t vegan when he started there but, after being there a month, he felt like he would never touch meat again. A routine grew organically around him. He went to work, he came home, he watched TV, ate simple meals, slept. This was the cycle of his life. He hoped to take up a hobby soon. Perhaps, he thought, I might start birdwatching. Birds had always made him happy.