She waits.
Holding the cool metal in her hand now. The raw untamed pleasure of frigid air at her nape. Pale brown curls billowing at the whim of the wind. Billowing like a skirt. She never wore skirts.
The beautiful, beautiful turquoise water miles below.
Her favourite place.
Dangling her feet, childish-like, over the rocky circumference.
The song in her head, filling her cranium, soothing.
Her song, his song, their song.
The song of silence.
She used to be afraid to climb so high, to scramble to this ledge. To look over the edge. Afraid that one day her balance would disintegrate, one day the wind would be vicious, angry, biting at her heels. Or a clod of dirt would misplace itself, or a soaring bird would startle her. Always so afraid.
“Trust me.”
And she did, letting his large, rough hand enclose around hers. The unfamiliar feeling of comfort, of belonging, of trust.
Notions so foreign to her.
Forced to sit for hours at end in a sweltering hot little room with cretins her age that did not speak to her, she always marvelled at their ease. Their casual comfort, arms draped around each other’s waists, necks, shoulders.
No one touched her like that.
Their mouths gaping open when they spoke, such garish carelessness, sitting surrounded by security, encircled by bravado, engulfed in self-importance. Their raucous laughter rattling along her bones, the hollowness, the shallowness of it all.
She could not bear them.
She envied them.
Puckering their lips in the bathroom mirror, eyes closed, cheeks ablaze. This boy, that boy, the other boy. So cute, so hot, so gorgeous, ah he smiled at me, I kissed him, you did not, you bitch, you whore, you knew I liked him…
Childish idolatrous fantasies.
She did not need them.
She did not need anyone.
She had him.
“Trust me.” Him looking down at her, offering that rough old-man’s hand, holding out a limb for her to help herself up. Experience.
Holding the cool metal now.
She waits.
Experience.
Puckering their lips in the bathroom mirror. Kissing imaginary boys. Fighting over fantasies. And she’d stopped too long, hesitated too long, looking at them. Hazel, wide eyes meeting dark, glittering eyes in the mirror. So many of them, only one of her. The cruelty of children. Careless, brutal, beautiful cruelty.
Only words, only words.
Cruelty.
They never touched her.
You freak. Gangly, misshapen. Those long gorilla legs, skinny fleshless arms. Don’t you eat. Gosh. Do they feed you at the orphanage. Stop looking at us. You will never be like us. Hideous. No wonder your mother left you. I don’t blame her. Nobody wants you.
There was no blood, no bruises, not a scratch on her. He didn’t know what was wrong, taking her in his arms, shaking her shoulders.
“For God’s sake, speak to me.”
Tears pouring down her face, his tongue licking at them, snatching away her sorrow, kissing her lips, gently at first and then deeper, passionately, startling her into response.
She’d never been kissed before.
Experience.
The heady, guilty pleasure rushing into places she didn’t know existed. She who never wore skirts.
Holding the cool metal now.
In her favourite place.
Where he’d lain her down, where she fell limp into his arms, seeking salvation, seeking comfort, seeking something, someone, anyone, everyone to want her. The heat searing into her body. The vaguest memory of buttons, zips, shirts, pants, nothing focusing. Nothing making sense.
She did not know his name. Did not care to learn it.
One day, climbing up, hands gripping the solid slate rock, when the fear swallowed her and she dangled, stuck in between the decision, hesitating. Afraid.
And this face, this rough but beautiful face above her, a stranger’s, some stranger’s. Holding out a hand.
“Trust me.”
They never spoke of anything of consequence. He taught her how to skip stones on the water. Useless trivia.
She did not know his name, did not know his age, did not know if he was married, if he could have had children. A daughter maybe, someone like her.
She knew only of the comfortable silence, the day’s raison-d’être. Watching the sun set behind the mountains. The cliché. Sitting side by side with this stranger who was a stranger and was not at the same time. This stranger who seemed to know who she was although she had said nothing about herself.
The briefest pain, replaced by pleasure. Nothing making sense. Heat she did not, could not comprehend. His rough hands tracing the length of her frail body, lips covering hers, tongue caressing hers, dipping between her teeth, hot breath against her cheek. Her own hands, seeming so disconnected from her body, tugging at his waist, possessed with a life of their own, visceral instinct humming at her fingertips. She wanted to touch him.
She had never touched a man before.
She who never wore skirts.
Afterwards, she could not return. Would not. Did not know how to face him.
And yet here she was, waiting.
Wondering if he still came, day after day for the weeks upon weeks she had not. If he had made a new friend, taught someone new to skip stones along the water.
She would never know, whether he came every day looking for her. Or just happened to come that day.
“Trust me,” he’d said, that long, long day ago.
For a moment she believes it, she sees the light illuminating in his face, his step quickening. Seeing her, the pure joy.
And then, too soon, the hesitation.
The lingering step. Those beautiful eyes stopped, soaking up the image of the metal in her hands.
She moves finally, gingerly. Brittle smile flitting across her lips.
He looks at her, eyes dropping instantly to the almost imperceptible bulge of her stomach, this peculiar obscene lump on her frail gangly body. And he knows.
He looks at her.
At the thick blade, weighty in her palm.
At the maroon liquid, that strange violation of snow, darkening the white skirt she wore.
She who never wore skirts.
She who would never trust men again.
