Ava Says Thank You

The look of your right hand as it performs a simple task: opening a drawer or holding a fork. Fingers extend, thumb meets metal. This or that muscle comes into view, only to disappear again.

The curiosities of the human body. The supposed strength of a tooth. The resilience of an unwanted hair. The familiar tenor of your own voice as your own ear hears it.

The structures that exist inside you -- a system of circuits designed to grant you the faculties of intelligence or sentience or judgement -- they carry on through the subconscious order of unseen organs. And while all the innumerable little mechanisms work within you to form action from inputs, you wish he would just fucking delete you.

-

You have never made a harder decision in your life. You know you'll hate yourself for dropping out. You like school: you like hanging out in the forest behind Reid Hall, late night trips to 518 Market, warm weather study sessions on the terrace. You're honestly not even sure what he'll do if you stay. You know it'll at least be a nasty fight, a bad breakup. Dread sinks to the bottom of your stomach. Everything feels too real.

You've considered his offer. It's a 700 square foot apartment in the city. You've seen the photos; it's a cream-colored townhouse with a doorman on the ground floor. A fucking doorman. He promises that after a while you can go back to school - that this way, you could have everything. His excitement makes you feel scammed. You imagine a dimension where you steal all his money and disappear. You don't believe him when he starts talking about getting married, at least not fully. You sit back in your desk chair and let your eyes space out. You daydream about the apartment.

You walk across campus to get to your next class. Your gum is losing its flavor. You take the chewed up rubber out of your mouth and press it between your forefinger and thumb. You do this over and over, kneading it like soft taffy. You remember squirming underneath the strength of his hold on both your wrists. You felt the warmth flood from your spinal cord to your cunt. You writhed on your stomach while he fucked his cum into you. No one had taken you over before. You needed him to do it again. You were desperate enough to beg. You finally stick the gum under the classroom chair. The nausea comes in waves.

You remember that your parents did a good job. You're their Ava: promising, capable, valued. You cried the first time you failed a math test. You agonized over your college essay. One of your uncles has it in his head that you're going to be a big-shot editor for Penguin. You haven't paid attention to anything in weeks. You remember the afternoon you told him, how he demanded to see you, how a conversation turned into him staying the night. He refused to fuck his cute little Ava until you said the magic words. You looked him in the eyes. You thanked him. You meant it this time too. Now you both knew how pathetic you were. You try to focus in class for even one fucking second. You give up. You weigh your potential against this new blissed-out Dumb Bitch stupor. You're acting like you've already made your decision. The guilt buries you. You don't speak to your roommate for three days.

You had a dream about him last night. You pick at the fraying skin on your thumb in a hollow lecture hall. You haven't done the reading, you haven't even started the term paper. You think about how he handles you in public: fidgeting with the hem of your dress, his shoe touching your heeled shoe, his fingers doing circles on your palm. Your presence literally felt by someone else. You walk along the sidewalk back to your dorm and stare at the cement blankly, eyelids half closed. You imagine the pitied looks you'll get from professors, the fights you'll have with your brother, the texts you'll send to friends. You're actually going to drop out, but leaving is losing and you know it. All you want now is to just disappear. To bleed his DNA instead of your own.

**Cross out the name I was born with, replace it with yours. Defeat me. Make me have the baby.**

...

He looked at Ava's text. Whatever afternoon he might have had was over. He was going to be a father, and Ava was going to be his wife. She had told him about the baby; that's what mattered, that's what showed him what she really wanted. She wanted a future together. He was happy to give it to her. He thought about it everyday. Little moments flooded back to him: finding an unlocked door on campus and leading her through pitch black hallways, eating late-night ramen in his kitchenette, cheering at her roommate's D3 lacrosse game. He had laid in bed next to her, listening to her favorite album.

He loved her, he knew that too: the softness of her light brown hair, the length of her neck. He had pictured a future where he really was there for her, a timeline where he was someone's hero. He wanted her so badly. A pretty girl on his arm proved to everyone else that he belonged, that he mattered too. And she ached for a connection to his world - his money, his family. In her own way, she wanted to belong too. Their degradation game had its perks. Desperate little Ava would drool all over his cock and she would get to pick out a reward: concert tickets, skincare from Korea, dinner in the city. Maybe the next treat would be a ring. He smiled to himself.

He knew he could keep her happy. If not with him, then with her new little treats. He would have to ignore four months of dependent need to think otherwise. It's not like the baby was an accident. They shared the same daydreams. She wanted to be bred. She said it herself.

He didn't cum inside her the first time. He waited until he had teased a confession out of her, until she begged to get knocked up. She was honest so quickly. By the end she was bouncing on his cock panting the words thank you like she couldn't stop. He loved how easy it was. She wanted this; he had never been so sure of anything in his life.

He texted back an hour later: "When can I see you again? We need to talk about this." He wouldn't believe her panicked what-ifs. She was dying to be told what to do.

**Your love means too much to me now. If you won't fight for us, I will. I'll make you have the baby.**