I had been patient, man. That's a fact to remember. To help you sympathize with me. I had endured. Don't think I'm being dramatic when I say that I had invested more time and energy than any other man would have been willing to, perhaps even more than any other man could, and I did it all because I was sure in my heart that the girl was worth it. Just to look at her, just to gaze her way was intoxicating. With that dark hair hanging in mad curls across her face and flowing down passed her shoulders, with that hypnotic smile and those soothing eyes, she fucking inspired me, she moved something deep within me. She changed me.
Oh, how she changed me.
She was endlessly fascinating. Though she had what seemed to be a beautiful figure, she always wore these baggy cloths; her face was a masterpiece, absolutely breathtaking, and yet she hid herself beneath that curtain of hair. I didn't understand why she would want to hide herself when she was so damned beautiful and I wanted to bust her out of her cell, her pointless prison. I wanted to set her free. Sure, I didn't understand her; hell, she was a total mystery to me, but I wanted to know everything about her. Everything. And that's the point.
So you've got to understand, man, you've got to understand that it wasn't just physical.
When she came through my check-out line again and again at work I was sure she must have some interest in me, and I know what you're thinking, trust me, I know, but really, I'm not stupid. I know my place, I know my role, I know my position on the goddamn food chain. I'm not the type of guy that ordinarily assumes such a thing, believe me. I'm not a looker and I fucking know it well is what I'm saying. In fact I'm a short, fat, fucking thirty-eight-ear-old balding bastard with a hairy back and thick glasses that magnify my puke-green-colored eyeballs times two, okay? It's a challenge to see the tip of my dick over my monstrous, pale-white jelly-belly when I'm in the goddamn fetal position and it's been that way since I was about seventeen, when I blimped out instead of sprouting up. I always sleep naked and I tend to curl up in a ball when I'm out, too, so I'm not exaggerating here. I speak from cold, hard experience. Really, it's a stretch to see the goddamn mushroom tip, man, and this is with morning wood I'm talking here. I remember my brother barged in once when we were kids because we were late for school, and the skinny little bastard, he saw me all curled up and hairy lying naked there on my bed. He told me I looked like an over-sized and incredibly scared porcupine. He was always a little shithead.
Anyway, the girl. It was difficult at first to even really talk to her, and honestly if it hadn't been for the standard clerk-chatting-with-the-customer thing I sure as hell wouldn't have ever even broken the ice with her. She had a nice, smooth, easy way about her, though, and the conversation flowed on effortlessly once it started, and this was far beyond the usual kind of pleasantries to which I've become rather accustomed. She was hesitant at first when I asked her out on a date, of course, but I was dizzy, literally fucking lightheaded over the fact that I had somehow coughed up the balls to even ask her, so her hesitant response hardly effected me at all, which probably helped. I didn't expect her to say yes anyway, obviously. She could have shot me down and it probably wouldn't have phased me, because ever since the bullshit in junior high, when I had actually tried talking to girls and asking them out on dates and stuff like that, I had never had the spine to take that step again. And so I don't even know how it happened, really.
I do remember that she seemed shy, can you believe that? She actually seemed shy when I asked her out to the local diner for a cup of coffee, but I gently persisted and won her over, I hoped, through some stupid kind of charm and not out of pity. And before I knew it it had been a month and a half of going out to see movies, dining at restaurants, taking walks in the park. An amazing month and a half. The best period of my life.
After the third week I had begun carrying along that small sack with me in my car. I wanted to be prepared when the time was right, you know?
All I kept thinking throughout my time with her was that if I could somehow do this right, if I could by some streak of luck make this girl my own, I could never ask for anything more out of life. I'd have it made. I'd be happy. There was no doubt in that; not a single shred of uncertainty in my hairless, bulbous cranium. And so after those few dozen weeks, during which our little outings had never led us into either of our apartments, she made the move. It fucking blew my mind. She actually invited me to come up with her into her apartment for some coffee. And it was weird, and I know this sounds stupid; that it sounds like a steaming, fly-ridden pile of mushy romantic nonsense, but it felt as if the little seed that had been planted in me when I had first met her and had begun growing as we had gone out and spent more time with each other suddenly began to flower. Something in my heart felt as it it had begun to blossom, really.
She was sitting next to me in my piss-yellow Volkswagen just outside her apartment steps when she asked me, and I calmly said sure, said it with a warm smile, and I grabbed that sack out of the back seat. She asked me what it was, of course, but I told her it was a surprise and not to worry about it.
I found her apartment simple and comforting. She wasn't an extravagant girl and I admired that about her. There hung a few abstract paintings on the walls and some vintage poster of a circus. I studied them all, pacing around her apartment with my hands in my pockets and she readied the coffee in the small kitchen nearby. As it percolated, we both sat down on the couch beside each other which is where we began our dull talk about work; we laughed about the customers at the grocery store and at the diner where she slaved away as a waitress. Somehow that led into me talking about my childhood, which I had never done before and the thought of which had always made me ill, but she kept asking questions. She actually seemed to be interested as I rambled on and on about how my father was a drunk who abused my mother and how my brother was a skinny geeky shithead and I was a fat ass that got picked on by all the other kids. She got us the coffee and I went on and on and on like an idiot. It sounded so typical, every last bit of it, and I hated the words as they came out of my mouth.
Finally I began gently probing about her past, and at first she was hesitant, hiding as she always did, but she eventually let a bit out, like how she had grown up in an orphanage, how she had a sister named Dora, how her single pleasant experience with the many adoptive parents she had had involved one day where a woman, who would only be her mother for a very short time, had taken her to the circus and she had watched the freaks trot about with confidence and she admired their ability to exploit themselves, to take their shortcomings and run with them, and all without a shred of apparent shame. The way she said it, the sincerity in her voice, it warmed the heart, and that's when I grabbed the sack I'd brought with me, which I'd placed just behind the couch when we had come in.
Out I pulled the bottle of wine. She seemed appreciative at the sight of the bottle but immediately said that she shouldn't. But I persisted, gently of course, as always. Just a glass, I told her. Just a glass. So she had a glass, and I had a glass, and then we both had a second glass and a third. We were talking now, I was glowing warmly with the alcohol and she just looked so beautiful and so I leaned in and kissed her. Just took a chance, just like that. I hadn't kissed a girl since I was fourteen. She seemed happy and yet somehow terrified at the same time, but she kissed me back, I felt the full force of her lips, and then we fell into a deep embrace.
Suddenly she pushed me back, though; and she pushed away gently, yes, but she pushed away nonetheless, and then said she couldn't. Not shouldn't, I noticed, as she had said regarding the wine, but couldn't. Couldn't. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I laughed. Sure you can, I told her. No, she said solemnly, I can't. So naturally I asked her why, and she said quite simply that she didn't want to get involved that deeply. I was sad, and to confess it a bit angry, but I choked it all back well, swallowed the emotions down, and said okay, we can just give it more time. I said it in the most understanding tone I could muster, but to my ears, something about the way I said it betrayed the fact that it was a plea.
And then I looked into her eyes and for a moment I thought it was all okay, but no, it wasn't all okay. She looked deep into my eyes, and then down at her hands, and I'll never forget it -- "No," she said softly, turning to look back up and into me, "No," she said, "I can't let myself get that close. I can't be in that kind of relationship. Not with you, not with anyone. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let it carry on this far."
And that was it. There it went. I felt something inside me die. Maybe that flower. I felt something inside me sink, sink, sink like a stone, sink into my stomach, sink in deep and begin to burn like a hot fucking coal. I turned away from her, my hands were curling into fists, nails digging into my palms, my knuckles white as they shuddered on my knees. For a moment I didn't know if I was sad or angry. I just felt like I was dying inside. It was all a blur.
"Duane," I heard her say, "I'm sorry," and she put her hand on my back. And it's like she pressed some button, flipped some switch with that touch. I just started talking out of my ass, but it wasn't bullshit, it was the shit the world had pounded into me since I was a kid and it all came out in words and all beyond my bloody control.
"Why is it that I never get a chance?" I barked at her. "All throughout high school, shot down by every girl I'd been attracted to. But they were all hollow. They were empty shells. You're everything, and now you, even you, you fucking shoot me down."
And she told me she wasn't shooting me down, but she was, she most certainly was, and now she was lying about it to try to make me feel better, but it just added insult to injury, it was just an insult to my intelligence, that's all. And I wasn't stupid. This was certainly her shooting me down, that was clear, clear as fucking day. I told her that I wasn't walking away, though, not this time; that I wasn't hanging up my hat, that I wasn't throwing in my towel. But when I spoke, it was weird. Again, it was like it had all erupted out my mouth before I was even aware of the thoughts manifesting in my head, but this time, the voice didn't even sound like my own.
Something was breaking in me. Something was breaking out, and I could feel it, and it kind of scared me but I was being driven deeper under it's spell and I didn't care to fight it anymore because her cruelty had weakened me. She moved her hand from my back to my knee, saying that she didn't want me to give up on her, not as a person, not as a friend, but she just cannot have that kind of connection, blah, blah, blah. There was a moment of silence, the kind that hisses in your ear like mad static, and I didn't move, didn't look up at her, and so she went to move away from me, started taking her hand off my knee, but my hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
God, what was I doing?
It happened in a flash and I was only partially aware of doing it. My hand, it was like a claw. It was fucking relentless. "Duane," she said, "I know you're angry, I understand, but let go of me."
My voice was shaking. "I need you."
I thought I was calming, I thought I was sad instead of mad, solemn instead of angry, but then she said it: "This isn't the way to go about it." And then I saw that she saw what I was going to do before I even became aware of it myself. And she told me to let go, let go, she said it louder and louder, let go, her voice wavering in her growing fear, and I felt a surge of power, like something possessing me, and I turned around on the couch and threw all the weight of my body into her as I covered her tiny mouth with my big, plump, pasty hands, quickly dampened by her tears, my skin nearly sizzling beneath the heat of her reddened face. I told her I was sorry. Told her I needed this. Deserved this. That she deserved this for toying with me. That I was only taking what she owed me, taking what was rightfully mine, and that she would always be in my memory as a boy, a man, whatever I was, he always remembered his first time.
My hand was off her mouth now, but she was too scared to scream, unable to even whisper. I saw her, watched as her lips tried to form the word, watched and listened as she tried to say, "Stop," but her voice failed, failed miserably, but to her credit, she finally managed to push out that single, audible word, and so pleadingly: "Don't..."
But I did.
I undid her belt, unzipped her pants, and with my head beneath her shirt I worked my tongue along her breasts, kissing, biting lightly, going ever downward, sure that in the end this would please her, and in that moment before I pulled down her pants, in that moment before my life would change forever, I could be wrong, but I thought I heard her say, "I'm sorry." And that's when I saw it. Her jeans down passed her hips, her shirt up over her face, her bra to the side of me, and there, there, there it was. A face. A fucking goddamned face, right above the malformed vagina. One blind milky eye in a permanent squint, one blue bloodshot eye open wide, wide, wide, and scowling, twisting the rest of the face, something vaguely resembling a nose and a huge mouth with pointed teeth. Two tiny little malformed hands poking out the sides of the face, where the ears should be, and it growled, whined, grabbed onto me by the hair, and I was stunned. Fucked up. Scared as hell. Shocked.
To shocked to move before it bit down on my face. And it bit down hard, like a vice. And in fear, on instinct, I tried to push away, but its jaws locked on tight, so in terror I pushed harder, harder, with incredible violence, and finally managed to throw myself away from her, from it, from that creature in her fucking crotch, and I threw myself across the room with that push, slamming my back against the door. She fell off the couch and to the floor in the process. Her pants still unzipped, that creature in her crotch snarling, spitting blood. My blood.
"Dora?" I heard her say, her voice wavering. "Dora, my god, what did you do?"
And the creature spat again, coughed, and what flew out of it's fucking mouth, what I saw on the floor was the remainder of my nose and a flap of skin that I soon came to realize belonged to half of my fucking face. And I screamed. High-pitched and girly, crying like a baby, trying to touch my face but also trying not to touch my face, trying not to believe this had happened, reaching for the door handle, unable to pull myself up, screaming on and on as I ran, stumbled down the hallway of her apartment building, as I tried to run but ended up falling down the steps, and all I could think is that my whole life I have been ugly, ugly as hell, but now I was all the uglier.
Oh, how she changed me.
She was endlessly fascinating. Though she had what seemed to be a beautiful figure, she always wore these baggy cloths; her face was a masterpiece, absolutely breathtaking, and yet she hid herself beneath that curtain of hair. I didn't understand why she would want to hide herself when she was so damned beautiful and I wanted to bust her out of her cell, her pointless prison. I wanted to set her free. Sure, I didn't understand her; hell, she was a total mystery to me, but I wanted to know everything about her. Everything. And that's the point.
So you've got to understand, man, you've got to understand that it wasn't just physical.
When she came through my check-out line again and again at work I was sure she must have some interest in me, and I know what you're thinking, trust me, I know, but really, I'm not stupid. I know my place, I know my role, I know my position on the goddamn food chain. I'm not the type of guy that ordinarily assumes such a thing, believe me. I'm not a looker and I fucking know it well is what I'm saying. In fact I'm a short, fat, fucking thirty-eight-ear-old balding bastard with a hairy back and thick glasses that magnify my puke-green-colored eyeballs times two, okay? It's a challenge to see the tip of my dick over my monstrous, pale-white jelly-belly when I'm in the goddamn fetal position and it's been that way since I was about seventeen, when I blimped out instead of sprouting up. I always sleep naked and I tend to curl up in a ball when I'm out, too, so I'm not exaggerating here. I speak from cold, hard experience. Really, it's a stretch to see the goddamn mushroom tip, man, and this is with morning wood I'm talking here. I remember my brother barged in once when we were kids because we were late for school, and the skinny little bastard, he saw me all curled up and hairy lying naked there on my bed. He told me I looked like an over-sized and incredibly scared porcupine. He was always a little shithead.
Anyway, the girl. It was difficult at first to even really talk to her, and honestly if it hadn't been for the standard clerk-chatting-with-the-customer thing I sure as hell wouldn't have ever even broken the ice with her. She had a nice, smooth, easy way about her, though, and the conversation flowed on effortlessly once it started, and this was far beyond the usual kind of pleasantries to which I've become rather accustomed. She was hesitant at first when I asked her out on a date, of course, but I was dizzy, literally fucking lightheaded over the fact that I had somehow coughed up the balls to even ask her, so her hesitant response hardly effected me at all, which probably helped. I didn't expect her to say yes anyway, obviously. She could have shot me down and it probably wouldn't have phased me, because ever since the bullshit in junior high, when I had actually tried talking to girls and asking them out on dates and stuff like that, I had never had the spine to take that step again. And so I don't even know how it happened, really.
I do remember that she seemed shy, can you believe that? She actually seemed shy when I asked her out to the local diner for a cup of coffee, but I gently persisted and won her over, I hoped, through some stupid kind of charm and not out of pity. And before I knew it it had been a month and a half of going out to see movies, dining at restaurants, taking walks in the park. An amazing month and a half. The best period of my life.
After the third week I had begun carrying along that small sack with me in my car. I wanted to be prepared when the time was right, you know?
All I kept thinking throughout my time with her was that if I could somehow do this right, if I could by some streak of luck make this girl my own, I could never ask for anything more out of life. I'd have it made. I'd be happy. There was no doubt in that; not a single shred of uncertainty in my hairless, bulbous cranium. And so after those few dozen weeks, during which our little outings had never led us into either of our apartments, she made the move. It fucking blew my mind. She actually invited me to come up with her into her apartment for some coffee. And it was weird, and I know this sounds stupid; that it sounds like a steaming, fly-ridden pile of mushy romantic nonsense, but it felt as if the little seed that had been planted in me when I had first met her and had begun growing as we had gone out and spent more time with each other suddenly began to flower. Something in my heart felt as it it had begun to blossom, really.
She was sitting next to me in my piss-yellow Volkswagen just outside her apartment steps when she asked me, and I calmly said sure, said it with a warm smile, and I grabbed that sack out of the back seat. She asked me what it was, of course, but I told her it was a surprise and not to worry about it.
I found her apartment simple and comforting. She wasn't an extravagant girl and I admired that about her. There hung a few abstract paintings on the walls and some vintage poster of a circus. I studied them all, pacing around her apartment with my hands in my pockets and she readied the coffee in the small kitchen nearby. As it percolated, we both sat down on the couch beside each other which is where we began our dull talk about work; we laughed about the customers at the grocery store and at the diner where she slaved away as a waitress. Somehow that led into me talking about my childhood, which I had never done before and the thought of which had always made me ill, but she kept asking questions. She actually seemed to be interested as I rambled on and on about how my father was a drunk who abused my mother and how my brother was a skinny geeky shithead and I was a fat ass that got picked on by all the other kids. She got us the coffee and I went on and on and on like an idiot. It sounded so typical, every last bit of it, and I hated the words as they came out of my mouth.
Finally I began gently probing about her past, and at first she was hesitant, hiding as she always did, but she eventually let a bit out, like how she had grown up in an orphanage, how she had a sister named Dora, how her single pleasant experience with the many adoptive parents she had had involved one day where a woman, who would only be her mother for a very short time, had taken her to the circus and she had watched the freaks trot about with confidence and she admired their ability to exploit themselves, to take their shortcomings and run with them, and all without a shred of apparent shame. The way she said it, the sincerity in her voice, it warmed the heart, and that's when I grabbed the sack I'd brought with me, which I'd placed just behind the couch when we had come in.
Out I pulled the bottle of wine. She seemed appreciative at the sight of the bottle but immediately said that she shouldn't. But I persisted, gently of course, as always. Just a glass, I told her. Just a glass. So she had a glass, and I had a glass, and then we both had a second glass and a third. We were talking now, I was glowing warmly with the alcohol and she just looked so beautiful and so I leaned in and kissed her. Just took a chance, just like that. I hadn't kissed a girl since I was fourteen. She seemed happy and yet somehow terrified at the same time, but she kissed me back, I felt the full force of her lips, and then we fell into a deep embrace.
Suddenly she pushed me back, though; and she pushed away gently, yes, but she pushed away nonetheless, and then said she couldn't. Not shouldn't, I noticed, as she had said regarding the wine, but couldn't. Couldn't. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I laughed. Sure you can, I told her. No, she said solemnly, I can't. So naturally I asked her why, and she said quite simply that she didn't want to get involved that deeply. I was sad, and to confess it a bit angry, but I choked it all back well, swallowed the emotions down, and said okay, we can just give it more time. I said it in the most understanding tone I could muster, but to my ears, something about the way I said it betrayed the fact that it was a plea.
And then I looked into her eyes and for a moment I thought it was all okay, but no, it wasn't all okay. She looked deep into my eyes, and then down at her hands, and I'll never forget it -- "No," she said softly, turning to look back up and into me, "No," she said, "I can't let myself get that close. I can't be in that kind of relationship. Not with you, not with anyone. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let it carry on this far."
And that was it. There it went. I felt something inside me die. Maybe that flower. I felt something inside me sink, sink, sink like a stone, sink into my stomach, sink in deep and begin to burn like a hot fucking coal. I turned away from her, my hands were curling into fists, nails digging into my palms, my knuckles white as they shuddered on my knees. For a moment I didn't know if I was sad or angry. I just felt like I was dying inside. It was all a blur.
"Duane," I heard her say, "I'm sorry," and she put her hand on my back. And it's like she pressed some button, flipped some switch with that touch. I just started talking out of my ass, but it wasn't bullshit, it was the shit the world had pounded into me since I was a kid and it all came out in words and all beyond my bloody control.
"Why is it that I never get a chance?" I barked at her. "All throughout high school, shot down by every girl I'd been attracted to. But they were all hollow. They were empty shells. You're everything, and now you, even you, you fucking shoot me down."
And she told me she wasn't shooting me down, but she was, she most certainly was, and now she was lying about it to try to make me feel better, but it just added insult to injury, it was just an insult to my intelligence, that's all. And I wasn't stupid. This was certainly her shooting me down, that was clear, clear as fucking day. I told her that I wasn't walking away, though, not this time; that I wasn't hanging up my hat, that I wasn't throwing in my towel. But when I spoke, it was weird. Again, it was like it had all erupted out my mouth before I was even aware of the thoughts manifesting in my head, but this time, the voice didn't even sound like my own.
Something was breaking in me. Something was breaking out, and I could feel it, and it kind of scared me but I was being driven deeper under it's spell and I didn't care to fight it anymore because her cruelty had weakened me. She moved her hand from my back to my knee, saying that she didn't want me to give up on her, not as a person, not as a friend, but she just cannot have that kind of connection, blah, blah, blah. There was a moment of silence, the kind that hisses in your ear like mad static, and I didn't move, didn't look up at her, and so she went to move away from me, started taking her hand off my knee, but my hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
God, what was I doing?
It happened in a flash and I was only partially aware of doing it. My hand, it was like a claw. It was fucking relentless. "Duane," she said, "I know you're angry, I understand, but let go of me."
My voice was shaking. "I need you."
I thought I was calming, I thought I was sad instead of mad, solemn instead of angry, but then she said it: "This isn't the way to go about it." And then I saw that she saw what I was going to do before I even became aware of it myself. And she told me to let go, let go, she said it louder and louder, let go, her voice wavering in her growing fear, and I felt a surge of power, like something possessing me, and I turned around on the couch and threw all the weight of my body into her as I covered her tiny mouth with my big, plump, pasty hands, quickly dampened by her tears, my skin nearly sizzling beneath the heat of her reddened face. I told her I was sorry. Told her I needed this. Deserved this. That she deserved this for toying with me. That I was only taking what she owed me, taking what was rightfully mine, and that she would always be in my memory as a boy, a man, whatever I was, he always remembered his first time.
My hand was off her mouth now, but she was too scared to scream, unable to even whisper. I saw her, watched as her lips tried to form the word, watched and listened as she tried to say, "Stop," but her voice failed, failed miserably, but to her credit, she finally managed to push out that single, audible word, and so pleadingly: "Don't..."
But I did.
I undid her belt, unzipped her pants, and with my head beneath her shirt I worked my tongue along her breasts, kissing, biting lightly, going ever downward, sure that in the end this would please her, and in that moment before I pulled down her pants, in that moment before my life would change forever, I could be wrong, but I thought I heard her say, "I'm sorry." And that's when I saw it. Her jeans down passed her hips, her shirt up over her face, her bra to the side of me, and there, there, there it was. A face. A fucking goddamned face, right above the malformed vagina. One blind milky eye in a permanent squint, one blue bloodshot eye open wide, wide, wide, and scowling, twisting the rest of the face, something vaguely resembling a nose and a huge mouth with pointed teeth. Two tiny little malformed hands poking out the sides of the face, where the ears should be, and it growled, whined, grabbed onto me by the hair, and I was stunned. Fucked up. Scared as hell. Shocked.
To shocked to move before it bit down on my face. And it bit down hard, like a vice. And in fear, on instinct, I tried to push away, but its jaws locked on tight, so in terror I pushed harder, harder, with incredible violence, and finally managed to throw myself away from her, from it, from that creature in her fucking crotch, and I threw myself across the room with that push, slamming my back against the door. She fell off the couch and to the floor in the process. Her pants still unzipped, that creature in her crotch snarling, spitting blood. My blood.
"Dora?" I heard her say, her voice wavering. "Dora, my god, what did you do?"
And the creature spat again, coughed, and what flew out of it's fucking mouth, what I saw on the floor was the remainder of my nose and a flap of skin that I soon came to realize belonged to half of my fucking face. And I screamed. High-pitched and girly, crying like a baby, trying to touch my face but also trying not to touch my face, trying not to believe this had happened, reaching for the door handle, unable to pull myself up, screaming on and on as I ran, stumbled down the hallway of her apartment building, as I tried to run but ended up falling down the steps, and all I could think is that my whole life I have been ugly, ugly as hell, but now I was all the uglier.
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