Page 17 of Nasty
We had to get the fuck out of Lavelle. We had to get out of Pennsylvania.
We had to leave.
Now.
SEVEN
SERA
BEFORE
“Did you brush your teeth?”
I pinched the inside of my arm with as much force as I could muster, refusing to let my eyes fall shut. If I closed them, tried to block out my fear, Sixsmith would beat the living shit out of me. It wouldn’t matter if he took his belt to me. It was the end of July, and we were still three weeks away from going back to school. I’d be all healed up by the time anyone of any importance would see me. “Yes, I brushed them,” I answered quietly.
“And your hair?” Sixsmith’s face twisted into an angry sneer. “You ain’t brushed that.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll do it now.” Meek. Docile. Eyes on the floor. Shoulders slouched. At first, I’d fought back against my father, but the more I’d refused to comply with his demands, the more I’d kicked and screamed, scratched and bitten at him, the more Amy had paid for my insolence. Sixsmith had finally figured me out. Last week, he’d given my sister a black eye because I hadn’t washed out his favorite coffee mug. And only days before that, I had jumped, startled by the sound of a door slamming, and I’d dropped one of his whiskey glasses. He hadn’t allowed me to sweep up the shards before he’d made Amy walk barefoot in laps around the kitchen table. He finally had me on a very tight leash. Sixsmith knew I wouldn’t be submissive for my own sake, but for Amy, to save her pain and suffering, I would be the very picture of obedience.
My father rubbed his palms against the thighs of his filthy jeans, then scratched at his nose. “And between your legs. Go upstairs and wash yourself,” he commanded.
I was stupid. For a moment, I forgot myself. “What? Why?”
Sixsmith snarled, lashing out at me with a steel-toe-capped boot. I made myself stand still to receive the blow—it would be ten times worse if I tried to avoid it—but Sixsmith was already drunk. He missed me entirely. “You’re fifteen years old,” he hissed. “Couple’a hundred years ago, you’d have been married off and probably have two kids by now. And guess what? I would have chosen who you fucking married. You wouldn’t have had a single word to say on the matter. Now get upstairs and wash your fucking cunt before I knock every single one of your teeth out of your damn head.”
I wanted to move. I knew I had to get the hell out of the kitchen and up the stairs, but my feet were like blocks of iron. I couldn’t even muster the strength to lift them, let alone move them one in front of the other. Sixsmith rubbed a dirty finger at his stubble, his head slowly falling back until it was resting against the back of the chair. “If you don’t get out of my sight, I’ll drag you up there and I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “I’ll take the wash cloth, and I’ll rip down your clothes, and I will clean your pussy myself.”
My disgust was a living, breathing thing inside me. His threat made me rally; I spun on my heel, hurrying out of the kitchen, and I raced up the stairs, mindful not to slam the bathroom door behind me once I’d run inside.
He didn’t need an excuse. He would have done it. My father had been crossing more lines of late, and I could see the change in him. There was a shadow over him that hadn’t been there before. Since that night in the kitchen when I’d kicked him in the balls and he’d torn my shirt, his hands cautiously cupping at my breasts, his fingers pressing down on my nipple, that shadow had been showing up regularly. I’d be completing my chores, humming quietly, thinking myself alone in an empty house, but when I turned around, there would be Sixsmith, watching me, pupils darker than midnight, sweat beading on his brow, his long, thin hair plastered to his skull and down his neck in the afternoon heat. Often, his hands would be in his pockets, but that did nothing to hide the fact that he was hard between his legs.
I unbuttoned my jeans and kicked my way out of them, and then I removed my shirt, every part of me shaking. I’d been waiting for this day to arrive for weeks. Sixsmith had threatened and warned, and threatened some more, made out as if it wouldn’t happen if I behaved myself, but this morning he’d burst into my bedroom, almost ripping the door off its hinges, and he’d told me what was going to happen today in no uncertain terms.
“Sam Halloran’s coming over here at midday. You’re to be clean and dressed and waiting for him on the front porch. You’re gonna go with him, and you’re gonna do whatever he tells you to do. And if he comes back here and tells me you gave him any sass, I will strip your goddamn hide. Do you hear me?”
I’d just laid there, staring up at him, my heart thundering like a herd of wild horses. My mouth moved entirely of its own accord. “Yes, Sixsmith.”
“Good. And don’t you fucking cry, Sera. You fucking cry, and you won’t even recognize the world of shit you find yourself in.”
I reached for my wash cloth, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the sink. I looked older than I had just a couple of weeks ago, even I could see that. When school was in, things were a little more bearable. Amy and I were out of the house before Sixsmith dragged his lazy, hungover carcass out of bed, and he was still at work for three hours once we got home, so there were moments of peace. There were stolen moments when I could relax and read a book or watch Friends reruns on the static-filled TV in the living room, or just sit on the porch and do my homework with Amy in the waning sunlight, listening to the cicadas roaring in the fields.
I hated summer break. With school out, and with Sixsmith not getting much work recently, Amy and I had been at his mercy day and night. He hadn’t had the money to go drinking at the bar like he usually did, and so he’d been buying the cheapest beer he could, sprawling out on the couch and drinking it at the house instead. If we made a noise, if we were under foot, if we were an inconvenience in any way, then Sixsmith was tearing his belt from his pants and wailing on us with every last ounce of his strength.
I barely recognized the face that stared back at me now, as I wriggled out of my panties and cleaned myself as I had been instructed.
I didn’t allow my mind to wander. No good would come of it, and I needed to remain strong. Sam Halloran was a loan shark Sixsmith owed money to. Sam had come to call in his debts last week, and my father had cried poor. This was obviously the arrangement they had come to in lieu of the money Sixsmith owed, and I was being sold off like a slab of meat. I was collateral, and it didn’t matter that I hated Sam Halloran almost as much as I hated Sixsmith. I was my father’s property, and I wasn’t entitled to a say in the matter.
Suffice it to say, I was terrified.
Once I was finished washing, I got dressed, but then I couldn’t bring myself to leave the bathroom. Instead, I continued to stare at myself in the mirror, trying to talk myself through what was about to happen.
I was going to lose my virginity.
I was going to have a strange old man’s hands all over my body.
I was going to have his tongue in my mouth.
I was going to have to remove my clothes for him, and I was going to have to keep quiet while he fucked me.
