Dodging Trains (12 page)

I feel my brows bunch together. “What do you give them?”

She stands again. Turns away but not before I’ve caught moisture glazing her eyes.

Paislee is unhappy. I’ve made her unhappy. I get up and follow her to the window. It’s enormous like everything in this house, with a windowsill so wide we could fuck on it if I wanted.

“Bah, nothing much,” she replies as my arms go around her middle and pull her against me. I don’t crush her too tight. I just hold her and feel her breath move in and out.

“Tell me,” I whisper. I kiss her neck. Feel her skin with my lips. “Tell me everything.” The faint scent of her beneath the perfume makes me remember summers. “I’m glad you’re here.”

PAISLEE

T
hey’re a dream,
these warm lips trailing along my nape, kissing and breathing against me. My chest is so full. For a moment, I allow sunshine to vibrate in there.

He urges me to tell him more. His voice harbors no criticism, not yet, because he doesn’t know how I live.

“Don’t ever buy into other people’s judgment of you.”
But what if the judgment is right on?

“What do you do for these men who’ve been treated wrongly?”

I shouldn’t divulge my dirt. Would his eyes retain even a glimmer of respect once I was done?

It took me years to share what occurred at the train station. I don’t flaunt it nowadays either, but it’s not a much-guarded secret anymore. Being the town slut certainly isn’t. If Keyon started asking questions, he’d learn all there was about me out there.

“Paislee. Trust me.”

I want to—I really do. It’s
Keyon
holding me in his arms. Perhaps his judgment won’t be as harsh if I tell him about the train station first.

“You want to know something?” I whisper.

“Mm-hmm, unless you’re changing the subject on me?” His voice against my neck raises goose bumps on my skin.

“No, it’s related.”

“Is it a secret?”

“It’s whatever you want,” I reply.

When I’ve told him, we’ll move on to the next part. Then he’ll know everything, and I’ll learn if I disgust him, if he still wants sex despite his disgust, if he can even consider us distant friends.

My stomach lurches. “Do you remember that I used to take the train to my grandparents?”

“Yeah, your brother and you, when things weren’t good at your house.”

“Well, one time, I went alone.” Some things are better said fast, like the earth never shattered: “And I lost my virginity in a bathroom stall at the Sherrelwood Railway Station.”

Keyon stills. He’s a warm salt statue, body frozen behind me, absorbing the implications of my words. I press my lips together, waiting.

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“Some sick bastard assaulted a little girl and—? No.” He can’t spell it out, and it causes an irrational urge in me to laugh.

“Yes, but I’m over it, Keyon. It’s fine.”

“Yeah, right. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have beaten the crap out of him. Did your parents get the sicko arrested?”

I titter, and Keyon swings me so he can study my expression. I can’t help laughing more, which upsets him. “Sorry,” I say. It makes as little sense to apologize as it does to laugh. “It’s just weird to talk about this.”

His stare roams my face. “I’m making you nervous again. You’re not scared of me, right? Please don’t be. Christ, now I understand why you reacted the way you did the other night.” Keyon scrunches his eyes closed, beating himself up.

“Shhh, I’m okay,” I soothe him. “And no, I didn’t tell anyone for years, because he threatened to hurt my family. I felt like an open book, like people could see what had happened to me, but no one noticed. My mother blamed puberty and my period for everything—the blood, the pain, and my mood. It’s true what they say, that shame sets in instantly when you’re raped.”

I know I’ve shared too much when Keyon huffs. He skims the back of a finger down my cheek. “You know you have nothing to be ashamed of, right? None of what happened was your fault. It was the fault of the pervert who forced himself on you and your idiot parents for being too self-absorbed to drive you to your grandparents.”

My throat constricts at Keyon being angry. I guess most people would experience a sense of injustice over sexual violence, but the vehemence playing on Keyon’s face is special. His vehemence is for me.

“It’s not so easy,” I whisper. “Remember the forest run-in with Aaron and Tyler?” I see anguish in his eyes before he cups my head and pulls me into his chest. I let him though I realize it’s his way of hiding.

“Imagine if they didn’t just want to stare at your naked behind? And what if they’d done to you what they planned. What if they…” My heart doesn’t let me complete the sentence out loud; it would be about Keyon, not simply me. “It’s a power thing, you know, not even sexual.”

“I’m aware,” Keyon mumbles. “I’m in awe of you. If I’d been through what you went through, I wouldn’t have remained sane. You’re amazing.”

I pull air into my lungs, tasting the dirty truth. I let the bitter taste of my life after Keyon roll over my tongue. It’s only a matter of time before this town reveals me anyway, and I’ve got this chance to tell him in my own words.

“I’m not very amazing. I can handle the train station, but I’m not proud of
how
I handle it. You asked me what I do for these men who haven’t been treated right.”

He doesn’t comment, just waits for me to continue, so I do.

“I give them myself, and I do it because it helps me.”

“Yourself?” He lowers his brows, not yet grasping what I’m implying.

“Yes, myself. My first time was with a monster, so to choose whom I sleep with and experience them treating my body with gentleness and respect heals me a little bit at a time. I do it often, Keyon.”

His mouth closes as he lets my truth sink in. Keyon is disillusioned. He thought I was some awesome person. Bitterness stabs me at how fast he turned, and suddenly I want to tear myself open and show him all the gore that I am. Oh hell, he has no idea. I’ll make it so much worse—he
wanted
to know.

“Sometimes I go home with them, lay with them in their bed, and get them undressed. When they can’t take it anymore and beg for release, I get up and I leave. Sometimes I come before I desert them, just because I feel like it.” I tip my chin up and meet his eyes with mine, steeled for rejection.

“To show yourself that you’re in charge,” he murmurs, and I swallow, because that’s exactly it. Maybe that wasn’t disappointment in his eyes. If it was sadness, I understand better than most.

“You sleep with men who have bad home lives?” he asks, voice kinder than I deserve.

I laugh. “It started that way. I won’t lie and say it’s all I do anymore. Sometimes I don’t consider their lives or their wives or their girlfriends—sometimes I hook a guy because his girlfriend has been a backstabbing bitch—sometimes, I just feel too damn awful, and someone is there, wide-eyed and wanting me, right when I need them.”

Keyon sighs. I don’t know how to interpret that sigh.

“I’m not proud of myself. Depending on the day and how crappy I feel, I’ll pretty much sleep with anyone.” Even Rigita’s backstabbers are less harsh about me than I am right now, I realize, so I shut my mouth and suppress the tears.

Keyon is quiet. “Anyone, huh?” he finally asks, setting me off again.

“My first one was my friend’s father. It was random and not supposed to happen. I wasn’t a virgin anymore obviously, after the train station, and it happened a few weeks after I lost you.” Keyon’s pupils dilate with intensity at my words, and I remember that look. His face was expressive too before. It isn’t anymore. “That’s how I discovered the freedom of letting a man have what I wanted to give him, as opposed to what he robbed.”

I have a new friend.
Isabel. We’ve stayed up late, watching movies and eating popcorn, and when the night is over and we fall asleep on the couch in our jammies, her father comes home and tucks his daughter to bed. He shows me their guest bedroom, and his eyes burn on me when I hop into bed.

I haven’t seen burning eyes before, but they make me think of the man at the train station.

I’m scared. I want to leave, but I only just made this friend and with Isabel, my loneliness is smaller. The door remains partly open, and I get up and close it. I look for a key, but there is none, so shivering, I climb back to bed. The night is slow to claim me, but in the end my body stops trembling and I lose consciousness to dreams.

The gentle strokes of a hand wake me up. I suck in air, afraid, so afraid, and I’m in a train station until Isabel’s father whispers, “Shhh, you are a beautiful girl.”

The man in the train station didn’t say that. He said ugly words, scary words, about killing my family and about me being a whore.

“You’re the most exquisite creature I have ever seen. Can I touch you a little bit? Make you feel good?” Kind hands slink beneath my covers. Move over my shoulders and graze bare spots on my skin. My breathing is harsh puffs of air, coming, going, but he
shushes
me gently.

While he waits for my answer, he bends down and lets his mouth brush over my cheek. He drizzles soft kisses against my throat, telling me I smell like candy, telling me he’s happy I’m there.

“Are you okay?” he whispers when he presses a bearded kiss to my mouth. It’s bolder than Keyon’s kiss was and raspier.

I nod, because after all, I am okay. I’m not hurting, and he’s only being nice. “Can I move your cover to the side? I won’t if you don’t want me to,” he murmurs. I like that he asks.

I must have nodded again, because now he lowers my cover, asks if he can unbutton my shirt so he can appreciate my beauty.

He leaves the light off, but there’s enough in the room for me to see his eyes still burning as they travel over me. His hands know how to cup my small boobs. He knows what’s happening to them when the nipples contract under his touch. It feels wrong that they do, like they’re not loyal to me, but his caresses feel good, and I did give him permission. I let him remove more of my sheets. More of my clothes. His praise for me is big and fills me while he lowers my jammies and finds all of me.

“The most beautiful girl… so sweet… so obedient.” I don’t know why he says any of it, because I am none of those things. My heart scampers while he touches me. While he slides a finger through my cleft the way I used to do to myself. “Can I?” he asks again when a finger stops over my entrance. And I say yes because it is freedom to say yes.

In the end, I let him move over me. With his weight on his elbows, he enters me slowly, and he thanks me. Tells me I’m beautiful, beautiful, until he can’t speak anymore and my body tingles.

He wants to give me money, and that’s when I start to cry. I tell him I am not a whore—I tell him I can’t be paid. He apologizes. He’s so sorry. He will never talk about money again.

I return to his house on my own after that, sometimes when Isabel is at choir practice. Isabel’s father is the first man to put a Band-Aid on my fear. He doesn’t know, but he showed me how to take the bull by the horns.

I wanted to leave
the Coral Mansion last night, but Keyon didn’t let me. No judgment lingered in his gaze when he took me to his bed. I wanted to repair brokenness with love, but Keyon didn’t allow it. I was hurt. I threw out accusations.

“You’re just like everyone else in this town. I knew I shouldn’t have told you. Why weren’t you satisfied with Rubina? Rubina was
me
enough for you.”

Mad, he grabbed my shoulders and shook me in place. “Haven’t you been used enough, or are you so fucking hooked you can’t take a break to be with a friend?”

Hot with my own anger, I tried to slap him. He intercepted me and locked my hand against his chest. “Paislee. Come. Let’s sit. Let’s talk. Let’s… just fucking
reconnect.
”