The girl from the mire: part 2
Were we ever alive? Were we ever here? Were we ever?
Judith exists in a graveyard. Her tombstone is so old that it looks like a smooth glacial stone. Protrudes into her dusty, dormant grass world. Inhabitants are terri...
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Warning: this is a difficult chapter as there is dialogue regarding sexual assault.
They slept the day away, inseparably attached. Arms and legs coiled around warm torsos. When consciousness greeted them, they spooned and stretched into each other. Michael's pelvis cupped Judith's ass. Saw a small dollar sign tattoo on the back of her neck. Touched it with his raven hand and rubbed it. Judith clasped his hand and moved it away from the tattoo like she didn't mean for him to notice it.
"I hate that."
"I'm sorry."
"The tattoo. I hate that. I hate what it signifies and I hate what I had to witness and be culpable in. I wasn't being a comedian when I said I've witnessed horrors. They've been committed upon me and I've done...terrible things."
"Is that why you're the toughest person I've ever met?"
"Oh, Michael, I don't know. They aren't events that I ever try to remember. I go out of my way to keep them out of my thinker."
"I'm sorry. I won't ask."
"No, now I'm on it. Now I'm thinking. We're intended after all, it seems. I'll tell about my extinguished past but only this solitary time. Never again. I'll not make a whisper of this in my lifetime past this bed."
"Ok, Judith. My Judith. My tasty treat. Let me in. I'll never bring it up and rest assured, it won't change how I feel about you."
"It might. We'll see."
Judith rolled over to gaze Michael in the eyes. Thought it was best to let him see her in all her vulnerability. She was going to be a mess after this story. Felt this was a side of her that he deserved to witness. He should have the ugly with the beauty.
"I'm a creature of the poor district by birth. My parents were horrible monsters. To me. Not really to Terra. Not in the same way. She was too young for my dad's liking. I was eight when he started assaulting me sexually. It wasn't all the time but it was enough to place his own personal eschatology upon an already non existent childhood. For two years my mother turned her fucking cheek as my father raped me. I can't have kids because of it. He broke my little body of that. Don't worry, I've come to terms with that fact. I did a long time ago."
Judith stopped talking for a moment and began to slowly weep because how could she ever truly come to terms with that. Michael hugged her. Kissed the top of her head as she buried her face in his embrace. Had a tear in his eye as well. The Factory girl lifted her head back up to meet his eyes. Continued in a choked, raspy voice.
"One night my father led me and Terra into the basement. I was ten at that time and Terra was eight."
Judith swallowed her saliva. Coughed a bit. Lip quivered. Again on the verge of tears. The factory girl took another moment to close her eyes and cry before continuing. Sniffed.
"My father was looking at her like he would look at me. I knew what was coming. I knew long ago. I had a plan. He always liked taking me into the basement. That fucking basement."
Judith shook her head at herself. Closed her eyes as hard as she could, like she was trying to be invisible in the panopticon of her memories. She could only bare them for short intervals.
"So I hid something down there in that cold cavernous cave of a room. If I ever got the opportunity to use my secret, I would. A contingency. And so, a few weeks before, I had found a fireman's axe in an alley."
Judith began smile crying into the watching of Michael's eyes. She didn't twitch or look away from him this time. His gaze was completely fixed upon her countenance. He didn't look away.
"It was heavy but I decided to start practice swinging on fences and trees. Everyday I would hide my big, crimson weapon after practicing. Come back the next day to practice again. I got really strong at swinging that beautiful axe. I truly enjoyed the way my arms and shoulders and back felt hurling that beautifully sharp, curvy battle bringer. And when my father grabbed Terra..."
Judith closed her eyes and made like she was going to scream with grief and rage, but didn't. She held on. Gripped Michael's shoulders. Hard as she could. Michael felt the pain of her hands upon him but he didn't show it. He let her hold onto him for dear life.
"...and he undressed her and went to rape my little sister...well...I swung that axe into his motherfucking head. One swing is all it took. But I took a lot more chops than just one. By the end, he was nothing but a severed half head. Bloody gushing morsels. Terra watched the whole thing and understood perfectly well what I had just done. Then I went upstairs and did the same thing to my piece of shit mother. Maybe I shouldn't have killed her, but my rage infected me. She had just let it all happen to me, like it didn't happen at all."
Judith stopped again and began wailing. Michael held her close and rubbed her back. Ran his fingers through her hair. Minutes passed. A half hour distanced itself before Judith could calm her raspy, tired voice enough to continue.
"I cooked their hearts and brains and ate them. It was a funeral custom that some in our district performed. Something to do with gaining their visions and the visions of who came before. I didn't mind the taste but I hated that it was them who I fed on. We had nothing, so I cooked and ate. I told Terra it was beef. She believed me. Eventually, the ice box was going bare and we couldn't find help of any kind. No one liked my parents so they didn't like us either. I decided that before the power was turned off, we were going to survive no matter what. I sold my body to strangers for the next three years. I let every manner of man and woman have me for the pittance I received. Terra knew what I had to do and I forbid her from following me into the nightmare of it. Then, everything changed."
Judith let Michael go. Became slightly distant from him. Folded her arms and let her eyes drop away. The crying was coming again, but she held off to finish the horror story of her youth.
"It was the worst night for me but I ended up full of hope in the aftermath. It was a Leonard party when I was thirteen. I was taken and tattooed and laughed at and fucked well beyond being unconscious. I screamed and pleaded for them to stop. They didn't. That was the only real time I genuinely feared for my life while in the sex trade industry. I thought they were going to fuck me until I died. Then, low and behold, they dumped me back in the poor district, clothes torn to ribbons but with a purse full of coin. A lot of coin. Enough coin to buy mine and my sister's way out of that living hell. And so I did just that. We travelled to the Factory. Payed for our application, which I noticed was coming down in price. Still cost an arm and two legs. But both of us were accepted into the institution. Someone from that Leonard party took pity and saved our lives. I will never thank them because they knew I wanted out while those men continued to rape me through my screams. So, yeah, Michael. That's it. I'm never going of speak of this again."
Judith got out of bed, went into the bathroom and closed the door. Ran a faucet. Michael could still hear her uncontrollable sobs. She cried for a long time behind that door. Michael listened to every bit of it. Took it in to remember that this brave woman was brave enough to tell him the worst events of her life. The worst of her. Michael whispered to himself.
