Rape Me Again

Weak light shone through the tiny, barred basement window, fanning out into light fingers in the darkness. An agglomeration of boxes and odd furniture filled the room. My wrists were resting on an old office gray computer desk with wheel to support my body weight. I could feel the layer of dust and dirt under my feet as they shuffled. The slapping sound on my butt was much louder than it felt. No matter how I angled and tensed my butt, the concave shape fit too well into Alex's groin to keep making that loud slapping sound that echoed in the bare concrete walls of the basement. Alex never minded the sound keeping his allegro rhythm.

My pussy wasn't aroused. I had no arousal. I wasn't horny. I felt sad. I could feel the movement of his penis. I could feel the widening of my pussy. It felt like touch detached from emotional sensation, kind of how I rub a piece of toilet paper up or insert a tampon. Nothing like actual sex, my body wasn't in motion with desire. I was fully aware of my legs as I was standing, kind of standing like at a bus stop, slightly bored. He was prodding me like I let a doctor prod me. It feels sensitive, yet I'm simply being handled.

"You slut deserve to be raped," Alex panted into my ear with that mouth that was way too close to my ear. I hated how he was right on top of me. "Beg me!"

"Please, let this be the last time," I begged him. "I don't want this."

"I don't give a fuck what you want," he hissed with anger into my ear. He grabbed my face to turn me around. His other hand landed a thudding slap on my cheek. "Beg me!"

"Please, rape me," I chocked out. Tears were running down my face. He grabbed me harder. He was turned on and fucked me with new fervor. He didn't care about my tears. I cried. I let the tears run down.

I had come to the altar of some kind of pseudo-religious release. He didn't care if I smiled. He didn't care if I tried. He didn't care if I struggled. He didn't care if I wasn't in the mood. He didn't care that I wasn't smart enough. He didn't care that I wasn't witty. I could scream. I could cry. I could call him an asshole. He didn't care. The times in this basement were the only times in my life where I could breathe, where I could be, and where I didn't have to pretend.

As fucked up as it is to be called shitty things, it set me free of expectations, it set me free of being judged, and it set me free of worrying. At the bottom of the world, I found freedom. Not some rejoicing freedom like yeah this is so awesome, more a quiet kind of freedom, a very personal kind of freedom. Down in the basement were moments of my life were the time stood still. I was simply waiting in captivity for him to be done. All these weird things that come up in my soul during the day that I have to choke down can come out here because he doesn't care.

When my cousin Danny died in a motorbike accident, everyone told me how well I kept up. And when the emotion in my heart welled up to the edges of my eyes, they'd say, "Hush, don't cry! Be a brave girl." I'd suck it up. I'd smile and blink away the tears. But here in the basement, I cried and sobbed and shivered and let my heart bleed all over the floor and mix with the snot that was running out of my nose and down my chin. Alex didn't care. He kept fucking me like a flesh sock. The only sign of recognition was that at the end, "You deserved that you slut." He probably thought I was crying about being raped by him. I wasn't. I felt so numb about his rapes by then.

Sometimes, I feel sad. Sometimes, I feel like I'm no good. Why doesn't god give me a nice boyfriend? Why am I alone at home when everyone else is out at date night at the movies or in a hot club? When I tell my mom about my pain, she tells me that I'm a nice girl and trying too hard. She tells me to shush and be pretty. I don't believe it. There has to be some flaw with me. Every time, a boy talks with me, I tell him nice things about me and smile like everything is awesome. But somewhere deep down, I know that I'm flawed. And when he leaves after five minutes without asking for my number, I'm certain. A thing is wrong with me. I'm no good. Just nobody will tell me what. They all tell me that I'm pretty and nice. When Alex tells me that I'm the filth only good for wiping the floor, there is something inside of me that releases. Yes, I can stop trying. Someone recognized what I felt. I can stop struggling like a drowning fly that's trying to keep at the surface. There is a peace to let myself drift into the weightlessness of the bottom of the ocean. "You're a whore. You're a slut. You're a cunt. You are worthless." Yes, I don't want to struggle anymore. I just want to let go and drift. Let me go and drift.

Somewhere I realize that something in me is complicit in allowing Alex to rape me. He isn't. He is simple minded. He really believes that girls who dress like me deserve to be raped. He never talks with me. He never talks with anyone to find out about their life. He is very Christian and conservative. Also, he is very horny and in power. I could quit. I have a faint thought that I could quit. Yet, psychologically, I can't. I feel too weak to deal with what comes with walking away. Just drift, drifting is my only desire. I want the world to leave me alone. I want to be bothered as little as possible.

Alex is short for a guy. He is chubby. His body is leaning on top of mine as I lean forward on the old computer desk. The muscles in my arms are working hard to support both of us. He has short, curly, oil black hair. His lips are full and deeply red. His ears are small, round like those of little piglets. He has a belly with hair that's rubbing the lower part of my back. His khakis with the belt were only lowered below his balls at first but worked their way down to his ankles with the vigorous action.

I was wearing a black, neat skirt with smooth fabric. My body didn't have a belly. Yet, there was fat padding everywhere that made my breasts more inviting with a full shape. I was holding my black panties in my hand to avoid them being on the dirty floor. My bare feet were on the dirty ground. My high heels would have made me too tall for him to reach my pussy. He was inside of me without a condom. I protested. He didn't care.

He shoved me hard. The pulsing of his penis followed. The wetness inside my belly spread from his tip. He held me in his clutch with stopped breath. Then he let me go. He pushed me away. I felt a sting of contempt in the way that he pushed me. It hit me. It hit me where my tear duct was. And then came that wonderful release of being recognized for what I had felt all the time yet people had been too nice to let me know to my face: I'm just no good. I suck. I found a kind of love in feeling that pain. I'm a broken thing. Poor broken thing. I love you broken thing.

He walked out of the basement with this pants pulled up and belt strapped in. I collected my panty loops between my feet. Shit, I didn't have any tissue. His cum would just run out of me and make me wet and nasty down there. I'd smell like boy the rest of the day. My face probably looked effused from my crying and sweating.

I walked out of the basement room. There was a metal staircase leading back to the Best Buy store floor. The giant cavernous warehouse was brightly lit and full of noises of a hundred customers talking and demo TVs and game stations going off. I walked to the restroom. I passed a co-worker. What was his name? Brian? There were so many that came and went. He didn't recognize me. He was too busy doing inventory with his red laser scanner. I always think that people can see through me and detect what has been going on. There I walked with a tear caked face and cum running down my thighs. Yet, there was nothing, no recognition, just an invisible ghost that the world doesn't care about.

The restroom was disgusting. The cleaning room didn't bother fully cleaning it. The first customer would let a piece of toilet paper drop and was too disgusted to pick it up. The next customer would avoid stepping on the toilet paper and as a result hover and pee all over the seat. Now the floor was wet and started collecting black shoe marks. From there, the downhill momentum only increased. How is it possible that people can miss the toilet bowl entirely when shitting? I went into the mess to wipe down my pussy and dry of my cum soaked panties to the best I could. Over time, only more cum would leak out and soil them again.

I looked in the mirror. I was an everyday Latina, a little short, thick black hair in a ponytail, cute makeup, my uniform of a blue polo shirt and a black skirt. They let us cashiers have a little variety from the khaki uniform. My breasts were round and the size of grapefruits. I had felt embarrassed when they started growing before all the other girls' breasts did. Then, I had gotten praises for my assets. Then, the rich girls in class had gotten breast surgery. I had been left in the dust with my natural assets. I didn't have professionally made fingernails. I had black nail polish from CVS. I didn't have a Barre and Pilates toned body. I had a plump body from sitting at the cash register 8 hours a day. When the young man with the amazing hair found out that I wasn't working to support my college education, they'd stare at their shiny iPhones uncomfortably for a moment and then pay me a fake compliment like "It's so awesome that you are down to earth." They'd move on with their piles of electronics.

I walked back to the cash register. There were twenty registers in a big row. The single line that fed the register went all the way along the registers and then switched directions to go back. We nicknamed the snaking line after the pet snake of Sarah. She had a boa in her apartment named Nellie. When it was bring your pet to work day, she wanted to bring Nellie to work to meet everyone. But Alex forbid her. The customers might get scared.

My mouth had been shut during the dispute. Lizzie is my pet sea wasp box jellyfish. She stores chironex fleckeri, the most deadly animal poison, in her tentacles. She's pretty tiny in her aquarium. She could kill about 60 humans with the poison in her tentacles. Her venom causes cells to leak potassium. In two to four minutes, people tend to have a heart attack. That's often too fast for people to reach the shore or boat to get help. I feel a kinship with her. I love watching her and listening to music. She doesn't want anything from the world. She just wants to be. She loves chasing little bait fish through the water at feeding time. She's still small. But one day, she'll turn into an ocean queen. I love to day dream of us as being sisters separated in the mythical times of the planet. So we both hang out quietly together, knowing of our inner power and glorious future. My mom wants to throw her out. Lizzie scared her. So, I whisper to Lizzie: "I'll keep you save. Take a rest, my friend."

I'll let two bait fish drop into her tank. Lizzie's body twitches right away. She can smell the bait in the water. Her tentacles bend through the water. The sleeping ocean princess's nervous system is aroused. I watch her translucent body move and shape. With elegance, she reaches the tentacles through the water to propel herself forward. With ease, she grabs the two little black fish and munches down on them. "One by one, we eat all the fuckers in the world," I cheer her on with unguarded devilish glee.

A purple light on the cash register jars me out of my day dream. My arms, hands, and mouth had been on auto-pilot to mutter out "How are you?"s and "Is that debit or credit?" The purple light randomly turned on and meant that I had to give the customer a genuine compliment. This was the newest idea of the drones in the headquarter to increase customer retention. I had to read through a whole page to learn about what makes a genuine compliment vs a commodity compliment. It had had to be anchored in something that makes the customer unique.

An old man was standing in front of me with gray hair, a fishing hat on that had a few fishing regulation related buttons. He was wearing a checkered shirt that probably was as old as I was. His frail, age-spotted hand was shaking as he tried to shove his card into the card reader. His mouth was opening and clothing like a fish on land from his utter focus on getting the damn card into the card reader. Alex was watching me from the supervisor perch near the exit. The damn purple light also meant that my cash register number 18 had popped up on Alex's supervisor tablet. They knew that the cashier crew hated having to come up with a damn compliment. We just want to make it through the day and get it over with. He was buying a CD of Elvis hit songs. Fuck! Give me something to work with at least. I leaned forward to look at his shoes. He was wearing grandpa sandals with white socks.

"I bet you know how to dance to Elvis. You have a dancer's body!" I lied to the man. I mean it sounded good.

"Huh," the man looked at me confused.

"I was giving you a compliment," I explained.

"I just want to pay," said the man solemn, leaving whatever he had heard completely open.

I looked over at Sarah and gave her a fuck-my-life-glance. Sarah didn't notice. She was dealing with a Swedish blond bimbo tourist customer, who refused the bag and insisted on finding a way to balance six oddly shaped boxes in his arms.

At the end of the shift, my mamma was waiting for me at the exit door. She stood there holding the black leather purse with the gold chain in both hands. Her body was a puffed up shape in a conservative prim and proper dress with skinny bare legs. She was wearing a little church hat sideways. Her face was puffy big with creases and a deeply red, smeared lip stick. There is nothing more that screamed church time than her getup and impatience in her eyes. She'd honor the company rules and hours like a sacrilege. Yet, the moment the clock stroke 8:00 PM, her piercing eyes lashed me with fiery whips to punch out without delay or a warm good bye to Sarah. Those eyes followed me all the way across to Alex's supervisor perch to clock out. Her toe tips were right at the metal guard of the self-opening door. She wouldn't step in the store, not even by an inch. Yet, she had no sense of the deranged appearance she gave customers squeezing past her.

"You've got your own place. You've got to get your own car. I can't always drive you to church," momma grabbed my hand the very moment I stepped across the guard of the sliding door. She pulled me across the parking lot to the giant black Ram pickup truck. I didn't want to go to church at all. I'd be happy to be left alone at the bus stop to go home and hang out with Lizzie.

"Honey, I care for you. You're my sweetheart. You have to find a boyfriend. You are not getting any younger. There are so many nice boys out there. Just smile a little more. Let people see your pretty teeth. Those braces were expensive. You cause your mother so much heartache. But, it's because I love you so much. You're so lucky to have a great job. You're in the high-tech industry. They'll promote you soon. You have to watch out not to get promoted too fast for your age. That can be intimidating to a young man. If I had your blue eyes, I'd have had the pick of all the boys. But your father is very handsome, too."

My mother was blabbering on. I had to smile. I had to shake my head in astonishment. She made it very easy to figure out which emotional gestures I had to overdramatically display as if we were in a Latin soap opera. I felt uncomfortable in the giant air cushioned chair of the truck. It always seemed too big, only made for a lumbering giant. My mother was never bothered driving such a giant truck that she could barely see across the hood. She felt like god owed her to be in charge of the whole world. When it came to bible correctness, she was an all-star.

"The stupid compliment light is so annoying. I hate complimenting customers. It's so idiotic to have a manual on making an artificial compliment sound genuine. It ain't by definition," I belted out. I should have known better. The red crawled all over my skin. My belly dropped like right at the start of a roller coaster downturn to let you know that you are about to fall like mad.

"Listen to me Annabelle! You suck up to that as hard as you can. If they want you to give one compliment. You give them two compliments with a smile. If they tell you to kiss every single toe of the customer, you kiss them twice with a cherry on top. You are my daughter. You play their game harder than anyone else. You make me proud. When your father and I came to this country we put up with everything. Look at you now! You are the American Dream. Oh, I can see you in a nice suit with your own office. You'll just make the whole world see what you have in you!" yelled my mom at me, speaking without breaks for commas and periods.

"Yes, momma," I said weakly.

"Phew, it can be such a drama raising kids. But we got passed this little argument as well. You are so much smarter than your cousin," momma patted herself on the back verbally.

I hate when she talks about my cousin like that. My cousin was a free spirit. He rode a motorbike. He colored his hair purple. He played in a band. Secretly, I wish I would have been him. I would have been dead as well, which might not have been a bad thing either. He did coke, heroine, and mushrooms. Sometimes, I caught a glimpse in his eyes, so eyes stuck in a too pale face from all the drugs. That glimpse told me that things weren't all that perfect for him either. It's that glimpse that had kept me from running away and begging him to let me live with him. So, I had kept to telling Lizzie dreams about what my life would be like with my cousin. Now, my cousin is dead. I can't even run to him anymore to beg me to take me into his world. A door had closed and no other door had opened.

I watched the street lights as they arrived, passed, and reflected on the hood. I kept the attention to my momma on 30%, just enough to make the right dramatic facial expressions to her stories about her church lady friends and the state of the election.

She walked me into the Catholic church building. We walked into the attached building where the church choir gathered. She pointed at the lead singer and whispered into my ears, "You should get your hair made up like that. It's much prettier than yours." All I could feel was that she was disappointed in me.

I stepped into the group and folded my singing book open to the 63rd page as the note on the board instructed us to. The girl next to me turned to her friend and whispered, "Your nails are so amazing!" "No, your nails are so much more amazing" was the response. I got that painful saccharine feeling in the stomach when two people are sucking up to each other too hard.

The deacon taped the baton on his stand. "Ladies, we have a special announcement. Cindy has rescued twenty puppies by volunteering every weekend this month at the mall. Let's give her a big round of applause!"

I belatedly clapped. I hated the popularity contest. Everyone else was cheering. "You are so amazing," called one girl out. "Isn't she the best," said another girl. I could feel in the tone of everyone that they were trying to shard to be cheery and accepted. Congratulating surely earned them points. They so desperately wanted to earn points.

The girl next to me stabbed her elbow into my side. "Do you hate puppies," she asked with an incredulous face twist.

"Way to go, girl," I cheered pumping my fist in the air.

"Ladies," the deacon extolled with a charming smile, "we've got to do the Lord's work, too. Let's take it from the top."

The high pitched young women choir started, "Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder consider all the works thy hand hath made..."