Cigarette Helicopters

The cigarette ash peppers my tongue with a bitter tinge of menthol and guilt. I cough as I watch the tiny black cylinder spin through the air like a mini helicopter, until it disappears within the mass of people below. I wait for an angry reply from the crowd; a man shaking a leather-gloved hand, a woman screeching in smoldering agony. Yet, the heads never shift from their forward motion. Kind of like those robots from Asimov’s books. A legion of robots, are we trapped in our mechanical world?

“Rebecca, what are you doing? Wait, do I smell smoke in here?”

“Yeah, Mr. Dithers is out smoking his cigars again.” I saunter off the balcony, slamming the glass door back into place. Stopping in front of the double bed where Abby lay sprawled out like a tiger stretching its limbs, I slip my drab gray slippers off and climb in next to her. The cool cotton sheets nip my bare legs, causing goose bumps to cascade up and down my body.

“Come here, let me warm you up.” Abby reaches her soft caramel arm out towards me and I sink between the thinly veiled cushions of her breasts. The hard protrusion of one of her nipples grazes my face and a vile feeling of disgust washes over me. I reach up and let my fingers dance across the dimples in her cheeks.

“I love you, I murmur as I swallow the guilt and ash left over from this statement. I press my face deeper into her chest, hoping to make it feel real. Hoping to make the disgust permeate through my skin and float away on the warm breeze of the heat beating down one us. Though I still feel cold, numb, head spin.

Spin.

Spinning.

“What was that?” mumbles Abby. I tear my face away from her body and sitting up, fixating on her face, watching her eyelids twitch as they watch the Halle Berry running through her half asleep dream. I try to look through her skin, her, skull, just watching the neurons buzzing with thoughts that I can never understand. That will never understand me, no matter how much they dig through Freud.

“Nothing.” I roll over and curl up tighter in the sheets, separating myself from the profanity of Abby’s body.

Don’t touch me...don’t....

“Come on, Becca, what did you ask me? Abby rolls over, cracking open her eyes open, revealing tiny slices of her deep brown irises. I try to pretend to be asleep. I can’t answer. She doesn’t get it. She will never get it.

She doesn’t hurt.

Ache, she’s tough as nails.

Nails...nails...

The Hendersons don’t cry, she said.

But he’s gone, Mother.

The Hendersons are strong.

Mother, cry. Why don’t you cry?

Tough. Tough. Tough as nails. That’s what we have to be.

But why can’t we cry?

You are an adult.

I am only nine.

You are plenty old enough.

No, I am not.

Grow up, Rebecca.

No.

No.

Grow up.

Spinning.

I’m not as tough as nails.

I wanted to tell her.

I’m soft like him.

I loved like him.

I loved him.

Didn’t you?

Didn’t you?

Did you ever love me?

Love me?

Love me.

Love me

She could never love me.

She just told me.

Told me everything about living.

Everything that I ever needed to know.

***

“You shouldn’t touch yourself there ” Screeched my mother as she helped me slip on my Cinderella underwear before my first day of preschool.

“What is it, Momma? Bailey’s got one, too. Do you and Daddy have ‘em, too?” I touch the glossy picture of Cinderella and I feel a tingle go up my stomach flowing through my body. I was convinced that I had just found some magical power.

“I told you to keep your hands away from there, Rebecca That is your special garden. Only girls get to have them. Boys have a different thing down there,” said my mother as she slipped on my blue jeans. “And the only way to keep your garden growing is for you and everyone else to leave it alone. Never let anyone else touch your garden. It is girls’ special secret. If you or anyone else touches it, it will get icky.”

“Ewww.” I scrunched my face up in a ‘Rebecca Sandwich,’ as my father liked to call it. That was before he decided that he no longer loved us and left us with the gift of his limp body, hanging from the second floor balcony, strung with the electrical cord that Baily and I had bought him for Father’s Day. He spun round and round like a spinning top, until Uncle Curtis and the paramedics cut him down and sent him away to be poked and prodded by a couple of medical examiners strung out on coke and Red Bulls. Mom never said anything about it. Did she even know? I think she did. I think she always knew, but could never tell us. All she told me was not to touch vaginas. They are dirty, dirty things.

***

“Rebecca, Becca, are you awake, hon?” My eyelids flutter as the memory fades away into my jumbled subconscious.

The bed rumbles as Abby slides out. A faint scent of baby powder trickles through the air and in my mind I watch her sprinkle the white dust all of the carpet and I watch her rub her Tootsie Roll toes through it, coating them in a shower of white. I always tell her that they look so tasty, like little pieces of milk chocolate sprinkled with white chocolate. Sometimes, when I nibble her ear...her shoulder...her feet....I imagine they taste like chocolate. Yet, no matter how hard I imagine, she always just tastes like dull human skin.

Skin, burning, ripping...round and round...

“Abby, what time is it?” I pull myself up and lean against the backboard of the bed.

“It’s seven. Wait, why didn’t you answer me?” Abby slowly links a bright pink bra across her chest, sliding the latch to her back and then eases the straps up over her dark, muscular shoulders. When we were in college, she never wore bras and let her breasts flap freely in the wind, like two bouncing advocates for female liberation. She had to change her ways once she was hired at Harvey, Harvey, and Wellington. Wrap them up them said. Put them away. Be respectful to the customers. The clients. We don’t want to look like a whore house, they said. Though, I think they would’ve enjoyed that more than the law they practice. They always seem to supply the adult industry with ample funds.

Yes, ample.

Ample is such a good word for her breasts.

Ashes in my mouth.

Why can’t I spit them out?

“I dunno.” I turn my head away from the curves of her body and look outside, just in time to watch a couple of pigeons fight over a piece of moldy bread.

“I feel like there is something between us lately, and frankly, I don’t know what it is.” She never knows what it is. Has she ever been in my head?

Abby never did understand. Those days I sat curled up in a ball.

Make it go away, I would say.

Make what go away? She would reply.

The dullness.

The dullness? I don’t get it, Becca.

Dullness. Numbness. Meaningless.

I don’t get it, Becca.

Make it stop.

What?

Abby, make it stop.

I don’t get it. Should I call someone?

No

No?

Ahhh.

What is it, Becca?

Leave me alone.

No.

Yes.

Fine I will be studying history in the library.

She never got it.

She never gets it.

Why did you cut yourself? Why didn’t you make me stay?

You never asked.

Yes, I did.

Not the right questions.

It hurt.

It hurt?

Abby...

My head.

Don’t float away.

Away.

Away.


The pigeons are still fighting, the bread diminishing with every peck, sending a fury of crumbs falling through the air. “Becca, are you listening to me? This is exactly what I am talking about Stop watching those goddamn birds and look at me ”

I tear my eyes away from the birds and focus in on Abby’s half-dressed figure. She looks absurd, black knee socks, pink thong, a white button-up only half-buttoned. I begin to giggle as Abby’s face contorts into a cross between anger and laughter. It kind of looks like the face my mother had when we found Dad. No sadness. Just anger. It was funny since she knew all along.

Why didn’t you tell us? I ask her.

Tell you what?

About his life?

There is nothing to tell.

I saw them.

Saw who?

Them.

I don’t know what you are talking about.

Yeah, whatever.

“You look ridiculous right now. I’m sorry...” I can’t stop laughing, the regret sloshing around within me with every bellow. Abby looks down at her own feet and chuckles a bit.

“This is a lot different than the college days of flowy skirts, huh?” she says as she sits down on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah.” I finally get control of my body and shove the laughter to the bottom of my throat. I feel like I am not here. Who is this woman? So many women.

Why women? Mother asks.

They know how to love me.

Not like men. Men are so much better. Protectors.

Did Dad protect us? Is that what his suicide was, a protective measure?

Silence.

Well?

I don’t need protection.

Yes, you do.

No, I need love.

***

The first one was Gabriella. For some reason, when she came to my school in seventh grade, chose me from among the other primped up J.Crew clad princesses, in my worn out Mary Janes and hand-me-down school uniform from my cousin, Mindy. We were always partners in our science class and shared all of our secrets. She had long curly red hair and twinkling blue eyes. Her family was loaded and she always dressed in the trendiest of clothes. I couldn’t get
her out of my head. While all the other girls lusted over Jimmy Handle or Rob Goldstein, I was fixed on Gabby. Gabby lived my princess dream and I wanted so bad to be her prince.

One day, when I was in the school bathroom trying to manage my out of control blond hair, I heard a voice from one of the stalls.

“Becca, is that you? It’s Gabby.” A warm feeling, just like that time with the Cinderella underwear, spread within my body. My organs began to feel like they were on fire. Burning, like someone had just dipped me in molten lava.

“Yeah,” I stammer.

“Come here, I want to show you something...” I shook from head to toe and froze in place as I watched the dull orange stall door open in front of me. “Come in here, Becca. You don’t want the whole school to know ‘bout this, do you?”

“Wait...what is it?” My mind spun round and round.

Don’t let anyone touch your secret garden, she told me.

Don’t touch me.

Spinning round.

“Just get in here and I will show you.” I inched my way toward the stall and Gabriella slammed the door behind us.

“What did you want to show me?”

“Well, I thought we could show each other something.” Gabriella stuck her hand up her short plaid skirt and my stomach leapt as I watch ed her bright purple underwear fall on top of her chunky black boots. I kept on swallowing, trying to get my emotions under control. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Huh?”

“Come on.” I reached my shaky hand under my skirt and slowly eased my plain white underwear down my quivering thighs. They looked so dull against Gabriella’s vibrant ones.
“Gabby, I don’t understand this.”

“You’ll see. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.” Her skirt dropped to the ground, revealing a small puff of red hair atop two peach-colored poles. I wanted to throw-up and squeal with joy all at t he same time. Yet, I turned my head away in shock.

“My mom said that we aren’t supposed to do this. It’s wrong. Mrs. Knoll told us that God frowns upon this. No...no...” I tried to open the door, but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t grasp the lock.

“They just don’t want you to know how good it feels. Come on. We are thirteen. We are practically adults. We don’t need anyone to tell us what to do. I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry.” I slowly unzipped my own skirt, tears running down my face as it falls to the ground. I felt like I had lost part of myself. Yet, instead of emptiness, I felt freer, like a tremendous weight had been lifted off my slight shoulders.

“Gabriella, I’m scared.” She leaned awkwardly toward me, jutting her tiny bare butt out toward the gaping toilet bowl, her lips puckered like a goldfish gulping for air. I puckered my own lips and we smashed them together.

I felt so good.

So bad.

Spin. Spinning.

Don’t touch me.

I pushed Gabby away for a moment.

“Don’t...I don’t...” She places her finger on my lips.

“Shush.”

***

“Fuck, Rebecca, what is up with you? I feel like I am talking to half of a person. Did something happen to your mom or to Baily?” Abby stands up and grabs her black pants off of her dresser. She slides them on and then slips a bright red sweater over her button-up.

“No, they are fine.”

Fine.

You are fine.

“Then what is it?” Abby continues to get ready for work. She pulls her black hair into a tight, neat bun and secures it with a stretchy black hair tie.

“Is there anything that I can do?” Do you need to see Dr. Wilcox again?” The bed sinks as Abby sits down next to me again. I find my head on her shoulder and she starts stroking my long blonde locks.

“No....” Tears begin to run down my face.

I can’t feel.

Where am I?

Fuck, I need another cigarette.

Cigarette helicopters.

Spin.

Spinning.

Why do they smell funny, I ask her.

To keep the snakes out.

Snakes?

Yes, someday you will understand.

What about two gardens?

Gardens can never meet.

“Just leave me alone.” I pull my head away from Abby.

“I can’t take this It’s been a month since I’ve felt like I could talk to you. You have been entirely emotionally unavailable. I feel like I am talking to a zombie and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t prance around here pretending like we are a picture perfect couple. I’m tired of putting on a show. I’m not cut out for a career in acting. I think we should start being honest with each other or this...this relationship is over. I can’t take all of this crying every time we argue. It’s like I am dealing with a child. We have grown up, Becca. Face me, dammit ”

What were you thinking, Rebecca?

It wasn’t my fault.

In the girls’ bathroom?

What were you little tramps doing?

She was showing me how to use a tampon...

Yeah, right...

Why do you never believe me?

Because you are two-faced.

Huh?

Yeah, just like your damn father.

Abbey stands up and begins pacing back and forth while she nervously rips the hair tie out of her hair, sending a cascade of black curls down her back like the angry black waters of the Styx, flowing through the red flames of hell.

Hell.

Go to hell.

Why won’t they go to hell and stop spinning.

Spinning.

Don’t touch me...just leave me be.

Alone.

“I dunno.”

“What? You don’t know? I don’t get it, Becca. Do you know how much I love you?” The words bury themselves in the back of my neck, creating a dull ache that no amount of rubbing could ever erase. I curl up into a tighter ball, wishing that I had a shell to crawl into, to hide all of my transgressions, instead of wearing them in the tears dripping down my face. I feel fingers stroke my hair, pulling each curly tendril out of the knotted mass and sliding down its length to the frayed ends.

“Honestly, I want to believe that something is wrong with you, but I think you are just suffering from chronic self-pity.” Abby stops stroking my hair and lifts my face up from between my knees.

Don’t touch me.

Don’t touch me.

He touched me .

She touches me.

Don’t touch me.

Snakes.

Gardens.

Cigarette helicopters spinning in my head.

Where will the wind take them?

“Abby, I....I can’t. I need a cigarette.” Abby removes her fingers from my chin and turns away disgusted. She gets up and begins pacing around the room again.

***

“Why don’t we just do it already?” he asked as he rested his trembling hands on my shoulders. His fingers dug into my flesh and my heart was beat faster and faster with every passing second. I could only see it shaking into of me...don’t do it.

“I told you, I’m not ready, okay?” I saw my mother’ face buzzing around in my head smiling with utter elation.

He’s such a nice boy, she would say.

Yes, a boy. Little “snake” and all.

“How long is it gonna be, Becca? We’ve been going out for five months now. I mean, I don’t want to pressure you, but guys are saying stuff and I really...”

“Don’t pull that crap on me, Kyle. Not putting me under pressure? Isn’t that what this whole situation is about?” I pried his hands off my shoulders, allowing them to fall down my wiry arms. I look up into his eyes, full of the pain that I inflicted with my denial deep within his baggy cargo shorts. Suddenly, a deep feeling of dread began to form deep within my stomach as a million little penises danced with my mother in my head.

Go away, I told him.

Get off of him.

Don’t do it, Papa. Don’t do it.

Baily. Mom.

BailyMomBailyMom.

“Becca, I...I don’t know if...” Kyle’s arms were shaking as he released his grip from my arms and I climbed off the couch. “I mean, you don’t want to do it? I always hear all of those girls talking about it. Gigglin’ in the halls every time the guys walk by. Come on, Becca, I have needs, too.”

Don’t you understand what I need, Mother?

What you need? You are just a kid

So what? Who is to say I can’t think for myself.

You aren’t allowed to. Do you make the money in this household?

The only one who did is ten feet under.

How could you say that?

You haven’t worked a day in your life

I keep this house up.

No, Bailey and I keep this house up. You just lay around and throw parties.

Well, someone has to keep our name honorable.

Honorable, ha, that is far from describing us.

God, why do you have to be such a pain?

It’s in my blood.

Why can’t you get a boyfriend?

It always comes down to that doesn’t it?

It would make things better.

Face it, Mother, Abby is my girlfriend.

Get the hell out of my house and go back to that demon school of yours.

Demon.

We are demons.

“Shit, there you did it. Pulled out the cliche crap on me. Fuck. I’m not touching you now. Don’t you think that girls have needs, too? I don’t take guys who can only think with their goddamn dicks.” I kicked him in the crotch, he tumbled to the ground like an avalanche of hurt and anger, his hands placed perfectly over his only prized possession. If only men prided their brains as much as their penises, this world would be legions ahead, I thought to myself. I turned around and chuckled at his crumpled body, he looked just like the fetus that he could have formed inside my freshly shaped uterus. Kyle slowly lifted a middle finger on the air. I blew a gentle kiss and then replied with a rebuttal middle finger.

“You know what they say about you, Becca...” I looked into Kyle’s half-dazed eyes that seemed to have melded into shade of demonic red.

“What do they say about me, Kyle? That I’m a dyke? That you are dating a pussy lover?” I clasped my hand over my mouth as soon as the words had left my tongue. Kyle’s face looked like he had just seen someone brutally die in front of him and I realized that I had committed the greatest fault in that a girl could in the bedroom community of Greenville, A.K.A. “Conservativeville.”

“No...nooo...no...” stammered Kyle. “They say...” I began to walk away and he reached out and grabbed my ankle. His body was just spinning around.

Her hair was everywhere.

All of me and him.

Spin.

You must love boys, she tells me.

Don’t touch that, it’s icky.

Icky.

He touched boys.

She touched boys.

Icky.

Burn me.

Hair everywhere.

***

“Becca, I...” sniffles Abby as she sits back down next to me.

I want to pull my face out from between my knees, again, but I feel a weight settle on my shoulders. The weight of his entire being, forcing me to stay. Stay right where I am. A head rests on mine. Oh so warm, the kiss planted on the mini bald spot , right behind my left ear where I burned myself when I lit my hair on fire when I was thirteen. I was trying to chase the demons out that I thought lives in my head.

Do you like my garden?

It’s so beautiful. Oh, so fresh.

I think I love you.

How could you love me? It’s only been a month.

Abby, I have never felt this way before.

Come on, everyone has felt love once in their life.

Not me.

Not me.

The helicopters spinning round and round as we mound the mud higher and higher.

He wasn’t supposed to go like this, they said.

We will be okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Don’t touch vaginas.

“What is this, Becca?” Pain shoots down my spine, radiating through every nerve to the ends of my fingers, making them twitch in response. “What happened last night, Becca?” I’ve been trying to avoid it, but now I know for sure something happened. This is massively huge and so purple. Are you okay? No matter what, I will hear you out. I will be here for you for that.” Are you really here, Abby? I can’t see you anymore.

Were you there when they did it?

When they put in?

When she took everything away?

When he spun?

When you spun round and round in my head, while the world shook.

Fingernails, digging deeper.

Do you know how it feels to have it shoved in you like a knife.

The soft flesh of its victim pouring forth the blood...

Blood...there was so much blood.

No one ever told me it would bleed.

She never told me, Trojans on the night stand.

Marching in my head....march...duty...it was his duty.

It was my duty.

I push Abby off me and slide out of the bed, pausing before I lower my feet to the floor. I reach back and finger my neck, feeling the protrusion, like another head trying to fight its way out. Twinges of pain radiate through me, triggering a thousand memories that I always wanted to forget.

It never happened.

They never happened, but why are they there? Said my psychologist

You can’t ignore them.

I’m not.

Yes, you are.

I’M NOT

Yes.

No.

You will get there.

I don’t want to get there. They don’t matter anyways.

Then why are you here?

I need a cigarette, save me...

“Save me ” I scream out loud and topple on the floor, finding my face level with the legs of our double bed.

***

I never knew what freedom was until I had set my foot in Kalamazoo College. No one, no where knew who I was. Finally, the burden I had been carrying around, been hiding beneath my prep school uniform could be unleashed all over the flyer-ridden sidewalks. There was no one telling me that girls were dirty. No one telling me to keep condoms in the plenty. No one telling me that I’m going to end up on the end of a spinning rope. I was looking for a savior and this was it.

“Where are you off to?” Asked a girl with bright pink hair, frizzed like tasty buds of cotton candy. Our eyes caught and I was taken aback by the depth of their black almond gaze. I felt as if I could look into the leagues of her mind, feeling every angst driven moment bombard the melancholy bliss of my own empty gaze.

“Umm...oh...sociology...with Professor Steinem,” I stuttered. My body felt strange, like it had become distant from my mind in some psychology text book’s description of an out of body experience.

“Oh, no way Me too. I’m Abigail, well, Abby really. Abigail is way too sing-songy for me. My mother should have known better than to name me that. She knew I was a firecracker the moment I popped out of the womb. Wouldn’t stop crying ‘til she fed me. Been fighting for whatever I want ever since. So what do you call yourself?” Abby was like a ball of energy exploding all over me. I had never met anyone so free with herself, from the crazy hair, the flowy brown skirt, and the bright green t-shirt proclaiming, “Club Sandwiches, Not Seals.” I was overwhelmed with some combination of fear and obsession.

“Ummm...Rebecca...actually I go by Becca.”

“Aight, nice, you deal in nicknames, too. I like it. Nice to meet you, Becca. God, you have gorgeous hair.” Abby grabbed a strand and let each separate strand slip through her fingers.
“Nice to meet you, too”I stammered as she continued to violate my personal space. My heart pounded against my chest like it wanted to burst out. I was certain that Abby could hear the obnoxious percussion, but she let go of my hair and fixed her eyes forward, humming some Nirvana song while dragging her worn out Vans against the ground. Abby stopped and turned toward me and I stopped and turned in reply. Our eyes locked once again and all I could see were a thousand penises dancing in my head, cutting away to a flowery field. The field across from my house where I lived before Dad died.

She is so beautiful.

I thought I loved her.

Did she love me, too.

Love, what, what...too.

***

“What do you mean, Rebecca? How can I save you? I don’t understand...will...I...ever... Shit, I never used to get into this stuff. We never were like this. Hell, we have more substance than this. We are not a bunch of whiney phonies.” I can hear Abby begin to sob as she collapses on the bed. I let my eyes travel along the curves of each item stored beneath our bed. The scale from the days when Abby thought maybe she should lose weight...that lasted about three days time and has been collecting dust ever since. Some board games left over from our college days, Clue, Monopoly, Life. We used to play drinking games with them, take a shot on every payday, rent is in sips of beer, kiss the person on your left every time you go in the library, etc. They seem so infantile now, like undergrad was a million years ago. Everything feels like a million years ago. Except for some things.

They seem like yesterday.

An hour ago.

Two seconds ago.

No amount of cigarettes will ever take that taste away.

Away.

All go away.

It won’t hurt, he told me.

But I don’t want it.

How do you know?

I have seen it before.

But have you felt it?

I don’t want to. It will hurt.

No, it won’t. I will just be like...

NO

` Shush.

That’s what he told me.

What she told me.

As the darkness fell over us.

Sinking.

Spinning.

Is this love?

Love? Non one ever experiences that, she said.

Did you love, Dad?

Haha.

Why?

Haha.

Haha.

Haha.

It burns.

It won’t hurt, she told me.

You won’t be dirty anymore.

I fumble for the lighter jammed between the mattress and the bed springs. My hand closes around the plastic cylinder and pull it. I pull a cigarette out from between my barely visible breasts. Fingers graze the slightly raised scar traveling from the natural crevice of cleavage to the edge of my tender left nipple and I wonder if the memory will ever come back to me. I roll over on my back and light the cigarette, blowing tiny rings just like Stan, my ninth grade boyfriend, taught me during those long nights of drinking his parents’ vodka in his kid brother’s tree house.

Stan and I hardly ever did anything together. Not like what he did to me. What he did. It was struggle enough to try to kiss a boy and one that doesn’t reciprocate is ten times worse. Turns out he is living in Philadelphia with his boyfriend working on a law degree at Villanova. He never talks to anyone back home either, which makes me feel good. At least, I’m not the only gay demon cast out from the village. Demons.

Demons.

That’s what she called it.

When I told her that I liked girls.

You are a dirty slut.

Slut.

She never even says poop.

Slut.

What about him, I said.

Silence.

I know about it, I say.

I know everything about him.

I guess that it runs in the family.

Shut up, you don’t know anything.

I saw them.

I saw them.

I saw them.

“Are you smoking?” mumbles a voice from above.

“Yes.” I puff an ominous gray cloud into the air, watching it spread and disperse like a puddle of spilled milk.

“I had a feeling you were lying to me. How often do you do this?”

“Lie? More than you should know.”

“Argh. You are so...so...obtuse. I can’t get myself to understand you, and frankly, the emotional toll has been too much. I can’t take it anymore. Tell me what it is Tell me now and save me the pain of hearing it from someone else. I have been there for you, Becca, through it all. Through the medications and the long nights in the hospitals. The stories. Oh, the stories of your life. Yeah, it sucks that your father was a douche bag for leaving your family behind and I’m sorry that your mother has never accepted the fact that her daughter is gay and that your sister doesn’t even acknowledge your presence.” Abby takes a long deep breath. “I’m sorry for all of it, Rebecca, but I can only be sorry for so long. I can only take so much. I’m not in this relationship to take care of you, to pull you along on a leash of security. I love you and I want to be loved back. Can you ever love, Becca, because this is absolutely fucking ridiculous. I never thought I would find myself in some cliched, fucked up relationship. Where is Becca? Where is she in you?”

I continue to watch the smoke drift up towards the ceiling, wondering if the smoke detector will go off.

It never did when he kissed me.

When he grabbed me.

When fingernails dug.

Deeper and deeper.

Into my flesh.

His flesh.

Becca, they say you are stuck up.

What?

That you are too good for everyone.

But...but...I...

Don’t say anything.

Let me hold you.

Okay.

Okay.

Will it be okay?

You can trust me.

You can trust boys, she said.

But can you trust dicks?

Rebecca, don’t you dare use that vulgar language.

Oh come on and get off your high horse, Mother.

What ever happened to Kyle?

What ever happened to?

What ever happened?

What ever?

What?

Helicopters spinning round and round.

***

He stroked my hair daintily, like he was handling fine china. I never knew that people, men, could be so delicate.

“What is this, Tyler?” I...I don’t think I understand,” I whispered as I tried to desperately focus on my textbook, ignoring the heart pounding within my chest. I always wished it could learn to be more discreet.

“I don’t want t use any cheesy lines on you because I know they will be lost in your feminist witticisms.”

“What are you getting at?” I felt a shiver resonate down my spine and I began to finger the hemp bracelet that Abby had braided me, it felt like a handcuff, holding my hand back from anything it might desire to do.

“Stop being dense, Becca. You know why I study with you all of the time.” I turned and looked at Tyler, his closely cropped black hair, striped Oxford, and half-crooked smile, some combination of lust and fear. My heart continued thumping like a time bomb within my chest, waiting to explode. Every part of my body felt like a criminal and a witness in case of child’s play gone horribly wrong.

Guilt.

Guilty.

The taste won’t leave my mouth.

Burning.

Slut, she told me.

Slut? Doesn’t that imply I am sleeping around?

What you are doing is close enough.

Honestly, Mother. I have never had sex.

Excuse me?

Never.

I do not want you to say that in the presence of your twelve year old sister.

Mother, she is old enough to hear it.

I will decide that, not you.

What do you think she thinks of the men?

What men?

Come on...our front door barely closes before another one comes strolling in.

They are just friends.

Yeah, friends with benefits.

You are grounded

Yeah, whatever. Guess I can’t sneak out and screw my boyfriend.

No wonder you father killed himself. With a daughter like you

Is that what he thought?

Did he think of me?

Tighter and tighter.

Cut me free.

Free.

Burning.

Tyler grabbed my wrist, wrapping his fingers gently around my bracelet, making it his own handcuff to me. My hand slid out of his grasp and I glued my eyes to my textbook, frantically trying to look calm. I glanced up at all of the other students in the library, hoping to catch eyes with someone, anyone that could come to my rescue. Yet, every head was averted to a book or computer, the telltale wires leading to hidden Ipods protruding from their music-infused ears. Fixed in place in their mechanical world. Robots. Why couldn’t they detect my precarious state?
“Becca, are you okay? Wait, sorry, shit what did I say? Fuck, I am such a prick. I just figured that since we studied together all of the time it meant that you like me.” Tyler looked down at his book forlorn.

“Tyler, it’s not what...”

“You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”

“Sort of.”

“Why don’t you ever talk about him? The only person I ever hear about it that friend of yours, Abhy, right?”

“Yeah, but...”

“Is he amazing? I mean, better than me? Honestly, I seem to mess it up with girls. I’m twenty-five, in grad school, working on a BS in social psychology, have a nice apartment, a good car. Hell, I know where to eat. I’m a runner...”

“Jesus, Tyler, chill the fuck out. In the last few months I have studied with you, I have never seen such hostility...”

“Yeah, sorry, I think I’m a little stressed out with my thesis and I don’t know.” Tyler slammed his book closed, the sound reverberating ff every bookshelf. “I feel like a fifteen year old by saying this, but I like you.” Goosebumps ran up and down my arms, like an army of ants scurrying under my skin.

Suddenly, I saw my mother again, taunting me to like little boys, setting me up on dates with her church ladies’ sons, sneaking me condoms and even trying to ask if I wanted to go birth control. She would’ve rather had a promiscuous daughter than a lesbian. Yet, did she ever understand why boys scared me so much?

How did you know you were a lesbian?

I always knew. How ‘bout you, Becca?

I dunno.

Come on, you know.

Okay, it was when I saw it.

Saw what...oh...

Yeah...

Oh my God, who, what, where?

Spin.

Spinning.

I can’t tell you.

Why not?

Why not?

Why not?

It never happened.

“Tyler, there’s something I have got to tell you.”

“Okay...”

“Don’t sound so grave. You see, you and me would never work.”

“Why not? How could it not?

“I don’t like your type.”

“Wait, what?” Rich, a little preppy. What? I’m a good person.”

“I’m a lesbian.” The goosebumps began to subside.

“Oh...”

“Yeah, it makes it complicated.”

“Yeah, why didn’t you tell me before? I assume that this Abby character is your...partner?”

“Sort of. Yeah.”

“Sort of?”

“I meant, yes.”

“Then why didn’t you say that?” Heads all around us began to tear themselves away from their academic pages like a thousand sea anemones rising from their coral caves.

“I think I had better go.” I shoved my books haphazardly into my backpack and turned to run, when I felt his hand around my wrist. The bracelet dug deeper and deeper into my soft flesh. I felt Abby squished between the hemp and my jittering flesh.

***
“Have you ever loved a man, Abby?” My cigarette is just a stub, a smoldering stub of withered tobacco and cotton shit. I smash it against the metal headboard of our bed, watching the ashes scatter all over the carpet.

Ashes.

Ashes in my mouth.

On my skin.

Don’t burn me.

“What the fuck, Becca, what the fuck? Holy shit, I don’t even know what to say to this shit. Give it to me straight, did you cheat on me?” She leans over the edge of the bed and peers accusingly down on my body, spread out for a mental examination. “You did, didn’t you? I hope he was good in bed. I hope it felt good feeling it go up in you.”

“Stop it ” I scream as I look up at Abby. There are little streaks of black mascara trickling down her face like two little rivers of hate and pain. “I don’t know what is going on. I can’t feel, Abby. I can’t feel anything.”

“I don’t buy it, Becca. Not anymore. I am tired of it. All your little illnesses. There’s nothing wrong with you and I know it. I can see guilt written all over your face.”

Can she see the ashes in my mouth.

Can she see the burning in my head.

Why did you do it?

Do what?

Light your hair on fire?

There are demons in me?

Rebecca, there are no demons in you. You have a clinical illness.

What? Devil illness.

Post-Traumatic Stress.

No. I like girls.

That’s not an illness, Rebecca.

Yes, it is.

You need to stop listening to your mother.

How about you live under a roof with her?

Live under a roof with him.

I will give you something to take.

To take.

To take the pain.

To take the pain away.

But I feel numb.

Don’t worry. They will help.

They will help.

No one ever helps.

Burn.

Don’t touch me.

Abby’s eyes dig into me, looking through my nightgown, my skin, my organs, right down to the core of my dark, tarnished soul. I feel naked, like all of my transgressions have been laid out before her in one long scroll. My body is just waiting, waiting to be resurrected by some god-fearing doctor of spirits.

“Abby, it’s not like that.”

“What do you mean? You have said nothing over the span of a half hour besides empty sentences that only reaffirm your falsity, or you just totally ignore me for no reason at all, like you have journeyed to some faraway land. You are smoking in our apartment like some OCD druggie. What the hell, Becca? Wake up We’re not in your effing fairyland.” Abby stops for a moment. “When I look in your eyes I don’t see anything...just emptiness...where I used to see. I don’t know, light...no, not that...hope...hope. Now there’s nothing left.”

I begin to chew the hangnails on the side of my pointer finger, pleasuring myself with the taste of my own flesh. Abby rolls back over n the bed, the bedsprings creaking as the invite the redistributed weight. “Aren’t you going to say something in your defense?”

Why can’t I defend myself?

Defend what?

What I stand for? Why can’t you accept it?

Accept what?

That I don’t give a shit about you or your kind?

You will.

It’s not just an on off button.

Oh, I have seen it happen. Get over your college rebellion.

That hurts. Let go of me.

Not yet. You don’t want to miss it.

I don’t care about missing it. I don’t want to see it.

Come on, be like Kinsey.

What? Are you pulling effing psychology into this?

Why not experiment?

What is that?

Don’t worry.

Don’t worry.

Abby.

Abby.

Abby.

“I haven’t been honest with you, Abby.”

“Thank the motherfukcing Lord The sinner speaks.”

I pull out another cigarette and light it up. I take a long drag, allowing the putrid air to poison my lungs, strangling each one of my oxygen seeking cells. My heart is beating against my chest, the rhythm reverberating off of every rib, filling me with life.

“Can I tell you something?”

“I have been waiting six fucking years, so shoot.” I take another drag and blow it out slowly. Calm down, I tell myself.

She’s not like you.

She’s not like him.

Her.

Him.

Them.

The spinning will stop.

Don’t touch me.


“Momma, what’s going on tonight?” I asked as I snuck a cracker off of the silver platter she was carrying.

“Rebecca, get your fingers off of this I won’t have any left for the party.” My mother set the platter down and carefully rearranged it to mask the hole I had made.

“Ooooh, there is going to be a party tonight?” I began jumping up and down, my blonde pigtails bouncing in the air like two cornflower springs. “Can I wear my ballerina skirt?”

“No, honey, this is not a party for you. This is a party for grown-ups.”

“But Moooooommmm, why do I never get to go to your parties? I’m seven. I’m old enough.”
“I know, honey, but you will be in bed and I don’t want your teachers complaining about me sending a tired daughter to class.” My mother tied her short blond hair into a little ponytail and wrapped a pristine white apron around her waist. “Besides, it will be no fun for you.”

“Fine, but when will I be able to go?” I whined, puckering my lower lip.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe high school. Now scoot. I’ve got work to do and I don’t need anymore fingers on my platters.” I looked up at my mother, searching for something in her eyes....hope maybe...love more likely, but they were fixed on a nut-crusted cheese ball, delicately accented with a sprig of parsley.

I laid in bed concentrating on my Care Bears nightlight that my Aunt Tiffany had bought me when I was four. Laughter and conversation buzzed beneath me and all I wanted, more than anything in the world, was to be down there, like some society lady, munching on appetizers and sipping champagne. There would be glittery diamonds around my neck and a bright pink bow n my hair all done up like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. I always wanted to be just like her, with her funny accent and beautiful gowns. I closed my eyes and began to imagine myself down there. Just as I was about to kiss some dashing gentleman, something banged against my wall and my eyes shot open in shock. I heard two voices mumbling on the other side of the wall. I pressed my ear against it and zeroed in on each voice.

“Hey, be careful, someone is in that room.”

“Oh, sorry, wait, who is up here?”

“My daughter. You know that.”

“Oh my God, I am so sorry. Do you think she can hear us?”

“No, she’s never heard us before. She’s a good, hard sleeper, like her mother.”

“Oh Maryann, jeez, will she come up here?”

“Whoa, when did you get so paranoid? We have done this a hundred times. You know as well as I do that she is drunk as a skunk and stumbling around flirting with Gordon Levinson.”

“Okay, sorry, I don’t know. I’m just starting to feel dirty about all of this.”

“Alright, this will be the last time here. We will stick to hotels after this. Come on, I can’t stand this talk anymore.”

“Yeah...” The mumbling dropped off and changed to heavy breathing. My heart was thumping again and my palms had grown sweaty. I started shaking from head to toe. Something moved me to jump out of bed and walk down the hall to that bedroom.

Everything was dark as I stumbled. Suddenly, my hand fell on a door knob. The coolness seemed to burn my shaking hand as I slowly turned it, the creaking reverberating within my head like a warning sign for what laid ahead.

“What’s that?” Screeched one of the voices from the dark.

“Don’t stop, please...” replied my father. I clicked on the light and froze as I took in the scene before me. Everything seemed to just stand still for, I can’t even say how long, but it felt like centuries worth of a life time. My father was laid out on the bed, his clothes scattered all across the floor of the guest bedroom...and Stan...Stan Fisher, my father’s business partner was crouched over him and the I saw it, this ugly protrusion hanging between Stan’s legs, solid and driving toward the back of my father.

“Becca, it’s not what you think...”

“Holy mother of God ” screamed Stan as he grabbed the blanket and ran into the guest bathroom. My stomach was churning and I had no idea why, but for some reason I knew that this was not okay.

“Becca, sweetie.” My father pulled the sheets of the bed up around himself. “Let me talk to you.”

I just stood there, unable to comprehend anything before me. All I could see was Stan’s, “snake,” as my mother called it, waving in my head. I ran back to my bedroom, tears streaming down my face. Then I vomited all over the floor.

***

“Did I ever tell you about my father?” The smoke trickled from my cigarette as I waved it between my fingers like plastic toy airplane.

Helicopters spinning.

Round and round.

Can they take me away.

Away from here.

Away from me.

Me.

Spinning.

“That he was a dick who chickened out on your family and killed himself?” retorts Abby in a snide voice. “What, did you not tell me the whole story?”

“Never mind, you’re right. He was a dick. Couldn’t take not having money. What a dick.”
Why won’t you talk about him.

About who?

Your father?

He died.

Yeah, Becca, but he had some part in your life, right?

Yeah, all the shitty parts, Ab.

Come, he died when you were so young. What could he have done...wait...
No, he didn’t molest me.

Okay, good. Lord, that would be horrifying. I knew someone...never mind...

He just messed it all up.

By dying?

By killing himself.

Bastard.

Bastard.

But why?

Why what?

Why did he do it?

Mother says money.

You don’t seem convinced?

Mother says it WAS MONEY.

Whoa, okay, simmer down hot pot.

Sorry, I don’t know...

You don’t know what?

I don’t know...

Will I ever know?

Spinning.

Daddy, do you love him?

Do you love him?

Do you love, Mom?

Daddy, why aren’t you breathing.

Stop it.

Stop spinning.

Round and round.

Can’t a helicopter just take it away.

On the wind.

Blow, blowing.

Spinning the blades.

Round and round.

What did you say?

“Jeez, Becca. Don’t say you are going to tell me something and then just back out of it. I’m not here for more of your therapy sessions. I’m sick and tired of your problems. If you can’t be honest, I can’t be here. You know what? I don’t even want to hear about your dick of a father”
“Okay, fine...” I chew on my cigarette, the cotton filter squishing between my teeth, showering little bits of tobacco all over my mouth. The regret resurfaces, bitter and limey, trying to brand my mouth with its guilt ridden motives. The knot begins to ache more and more, the pain radiating down my spine, shaking every vertebrae. I pull myself up off the floor, slow and methodic, like an old man arising from a week’s worth of rest. My eyes center in on Abby, sprawled out on the bed, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

Gabby, I’m scared.

Don’t worry so much.

What’s that noise?

Get your clothes back on

Gabriella, Rebecca, are you in here?

Climb up on the toilet.

What?

Get up here.

I know you girls are in here. Margaret told us.

Damn Margaret, what a kiss up.

My mother is going to kill me.

There you two are What were you doing?

I was showing her how to use a tampon.

Then why were you two standing on the toilet.

Better insertion.

Gabriella That is inappropriate language.

How else do you describe it?

You two, office.

Explain.

Explain what.

Explain yourself.

I can’t explain you.

Rebecca.

I am Rebecca.

I am a lesbian.

I am a half.

A half.

A half of person.

Spinning.

Spinning on the end.

End of rope.

A wire.

Connected to my thoughts.

To my wrist.

Digging.

Burning.

“I just don’t get it, Becca, am I missing something? Did I miss some note on the refrigerator, some symbol floating around in your guarded speech? Goddamn.”

“Abby, I’m hurt.”

“Let me help you.

“You can’t.” I begin to pace around the room, the smoke enclosing me in a toxic embrace. Abby sits up, wiping the inky trails navigating the pores of her face.

“I have been here all of this time. Becca, as much as I hate you right now, I love you, in some fucked up Shakespeareanesque way. Six years. Six years. What happened today? It was a normal day. What happened?” Abby begins to pull off her pants and socks. She lays back down on the bed, arms spread like the wings of an eagle ready to take flight.

Do you feel that you have ever been in love?

Love? Are psychologists allowed to use that word?

Of course, love is an emotion.

Are you sure it is not a delusion?

Well, it can be.

Is there such thing as sane love?

It depends on what your definition of sane is.

Shouldn’t you be telling me that?

Just answer the question.

Abby.

You loved Abby?

With all of my heart.

Love.

Did she love me?

Burning

Did he love me?

Spinning.

Did she love me?


Stop it.

Did he love me?

Push

Did she love me?

Away.

Did he love me?

Digging.

Will the helicopters stop?

They spin round.

Every thought.

Mother.

Bailey.

Love?

Love?

Love?

Abby.

Love?

Love, Dad.

Leave me.

Spinning.

Burning.

Digging.

Push.

Away.

Stop it.

Did you ever tell her?

Only twice.

Only twice?

Only twice.

How did it make you feel?

Amazing.

Why don’t you tell her every day?

Why do you use the present?

Oh, is it the past.

I’m not sure.

I’m not sure.

“Abby, I never loved you.” I extinguish the chewed mass of tobacco on the bedpost and toss it on the carpet. Abby sits back up, her hair spread out in every direction like some old witch from a fairy tale. She wipes the blackened tears from her aching eyes.

“Get out of here,” she screams from the deepest depths of every emotional outlet within her. I stop pacing and stare at her mourning figure. A laugh gets caught in my throat and I can’t hold it back any longer, as the bellowing pours forth from my ashy lips. Abby lays back down , her sobs echo off the walls, blending with the reverberation of my maniacal giggling. The two meld into a unification of raw emotion.

I walk out on t he porch and light another cigarette. I climb up on the wobbly mental railing, fighting against the pressure of gravity. My vision falls upon the robots still focused on their singular destinations. No one will look up at the girl. The woman. Teetering on the edge. The edge of everything. The cigarette slips from my mouth, one more helicopter in the wind. Never knowing just where it might land.