A (fictional) response to a recent news item...
Flash (fiction) On The News
Rhea was eleven when she got tired of wearing layers of undershirts beneath her school blouse and finally told her mother she thought she needed a bra. It wasn’t so much the bulge of the breast tissue itself but the way her enlarging nipples pressed insistently against the fabric of her clothes as if announcing themselves to the world. Rhea knew something about it was her fault but she didn’t know what.
When Rhea was twelve, she heard her brother and his friends in the basement rec room through a cold air return vent in the kitchen. They were talking about knockers and sucking the cantaloupes and having to come up for air between the balloons.They were giggling and guffawing and imitating a high voice that Rhea knew was meant to be hers. The girl-voice was first pleading, then breathing hard and then gasping with either pain or pleasure, Rhea wasn’t sure. Even though she couldn’t be certain exactly what the boys were saying about her, she knew it wasn’t good and she knew it was her fault.
She began to slouch.
When Rhea was fourteen, her parents went to visit her mother’s ailing mother for the weekend and Rhea was left in the care of her brother. Almost as soon as the parents were out the door, Rhea’s brother called his friends to come over. While Rhea remained reading in her room, the house filled with voices and laughter, mostly male but some female, the noise expanding and swelling against the walls of the house as the friends became drunker and drunker. Rhea was a little bit curious but mostly she was just very hungry so she wandered down the hallway and into the living room on the way to the kitchen, keeping her eyes mostly down and her shock at the disarray contained. She would just grab a box of crackers and maybe some cheese, head back to her room.
She felt the hand on her arm without immediately seeing who it belonged to. She suspected it was a mistake so she edged away, continued toward her room but the hand closed around her wrist and she was forced to look up. Into a smile, a voice she couldn’t quite hear above the music, a gesture to follow.
He was Brent, a friend of her brother’s. He had a pleasant face, a very nice smile, a gentle way of just barely touching her skin with the tips of his fingers without feeling at all invasive. He looked carefully at her when she answered his questions as if what she had to say could actually matter to him even though she knew that was impossible and he could barely hear her voice anyway, even after they moved into the far corner of the basement rec room where her mother had shoved an old ratty couch no longer suited for the upstairs.
She drank a little of what he had in his cup. She didn’t think she’d had very much but it had become hard to remember. He claimed to know what he was doing and she believed him.
He claimed that they could really get to know each other better if they went upstairs and she believed him.
He said he would just lie down with her a little bit, they could talk until she felt better, and she believed him.
When his hands were under her clothes and his body pressing her into the mattress, he promised not to hurt her.
She believed him.
He didn’t force her. He didn’t have to. She went along, didn’t know to protest, didn’t actually know what was happening. She couldn’t tell anyone that because they wouldn’t believe her.
How could a fourteen year old girl not understand when...? But she didn’t. That was the truth. The real felt nothing like it had been described. In fact, she didn’t even think to connect what was happening to her body with the health films at school or the gauzy, breathless scenes in movies. It was nothing like either one.
Her body should have known. And it should have known, too, that she was too young to be a mother, that whatever little gears and levers are in there should close tight against the sperm of a man she doesn’t know, doesn’t love, who will go off into the world without even turning back, may never know that his body contributed to making a life that needed a place to live and grow before it could be part of the world and that place was a woman’s � no, a girl’s � body. She should have known. But she didn’t.
And so, clearly, that is her fault too.
Rhea was eleven when she got tired of wearing layers of undershirts beneath her school blouse and finally told her mother she thought she needed a bra. It wasn’t so much the bulge of the breast tissue itself but the way her enlarging nipples pressed insistently against the fabric of her clothes as if announcing themselves to the world. Rhea knew something about it was her fault but she didn’t know what.
When Rhea was twelve, she heard her brother and his friends in the basement rec room through a cold air return vent in the kitchen. They were talking about knockers and sucking the cantaloupes and having to come up for air between the balloons.They were giggling and guffawing and imitating a high voice that Rhea knew was meant to be hers. The girl-voice was first pleading, then breathing hard and then gasping with either pain or pleasure, Rhea wasn’t sure. Even though she couldn’t be certain exactly what the boys were saying about her, she knew it wasn’t good and she knew it was her fault.
She began to slouch.
When Rhea was fourteen, her parents went to visit her mother’s ailing mother for the weekend and Rhea was left in the care of her brother. Almost as soon as the parents were out the door, Rhea’s brother called his friends to come over. While Rhea remained reading in her room, the house filled with voices and laughter, mostly male but some female, the noise expanding and swelling against the walls of the house as the friends became drunker and drunker. Rhea was a little bit curious but mostly she was just very hungry so she wandered down the hallway and into the living room on the way to the kitchen, keeping her eyes mostly down and her shock at the disarray contained. She would just grab a box of crackers and maybe some cheese, head back to her room.
She felt the hand on her arm without immediately seeing who it belonged to. She suspected it was a mistake so she edged away, continued toward her room but the hand closed around her wrist and she was forced to look up. Into a smile, a voice she couldn’t quite hear above the music, a gesture to follow.
He was Brent, a friend of her brother’s. He had a pleasant face, a very nice smile, a gentle way of just barely touching her skin with the tips of his fingers without feeling at all invasive. He looked carefully at her when she answered his questions as if what she had to say could actually matter to him even though she knew that was impossible and he could barely hear her voice anyway, even after they moved into the far corner of the basement rec room where her mother had shoved an old ratty couch no longer suited for the upstairs.
She drank a little of what he had in his cup. She didn’t think she’d had very much but it had become hard to remember. He claimed to know what he was doing and she believed him.
He claimed that they could really get to know each other better if they went upstairs and she believed him.
He said he would just lie down with her a little bit, they could talk until she felt better, and she believed him.
When his hands were under her clothes and his body pressing her into the mattress, he promised not to hurt her.
She believed him.
He didn’t force her. He didn’t have to. She went along, didn’t know to protest, didn’t actually know what was happening. She couldn’t tell anyone that because they wouldn’t believe her.
How could a fourteen year old girl not understand when...? But she didn’t. That was the truth. The real felt nothing like it had been described. In fact, she didn’t even think to connect what was happening to her body with the health films at school or the gauzy, breathless scenes in movies. It was nothing like either one.
Her body should have known. And it should have known, too, that she was too young to be a mother, that whatever little gears and levers are in there should close tight against the sperm of a man she doesn’t know, doesn’t love, who will go off into the world without even turning back, may never know that his body contributed to making a life that needed a place to live and grow before it could be part of the world and that place was a woman’s � no, a girl’s � body. She should have known. But she didn’t.
And so, clearly, that is her fault too.
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by
AthleticStilletto
(new)
Oct 01, 2012 05:54AM
What a realistic description of the plight of Rhea! Oh how I wanted to mother her. She is everywhere; love isn't. Nothing is her fault.
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