Swan Upon Leda // Jake Kiszka

Chapter One

They called you Swan because you weren't pretty enough until High School. Something which never sat right with you, because men were always trying to touch you even before that.

With their stolen glances in the grocery store and back handed comments to your Mother, who would always appear flattered that they had noticed your beauty.

Even her succession of boyfriends who hung around the house would eye you speculatively, drinking beer on your couch until she'd had enough of them and they were replaced with the next set of roving eyes.

Until it wasn't their eyes you had to worry about. It was their wandering hands. And the promises of temporary wealth if you just didn't tell anyone. You didn't care. As long as they didn't turn their attention to Meryn. Your little sister.

"I fucking hate it here!" She stormed, slamming the bedroom door like a hurricane barrelling down the hall way.

You looked over at your Mother who was smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table. Looking completely unremorseful for causing the tirade.

"So, you're allowed a million boyfriends but Meryn can't have one?" You asked, standing in the middle, as always. "Nice."

Your Mom rolled her eyes at you and stubbed out her cigarette with yellow stained fingers with the nails painted hussy red.

"That's right, Swanny. Take her side as you always do. She's seventeen. No dating until eighteen, that's the rule."

As if that magic number held some sort of power. That at eighteen it would suddenly become appropriate for you to become visible to men and be able to date them as you chose. As if they hadn't already been trying to consume you since puberty.

"He's a nice boy, Mama." You reasoned, "If you just gave him a chance. He's one of the Kiszka boys from the other side of town."

You didn't run in the kind of circles where nice boys found you. The fact that you were defending him to the one woman who should have always defended you was bittersweet. You didn't like the way it tasted in your mouth. To admit that he was a nice boy. To back his cause for dating the one precious thing you held dear.

"You're twenty years old, Swan. What the fuck do you know about it? That last guy you dated was an asshole."

She could berate you all she wanted. The fact remained that her choices in men had been no better. You could feel the vitriol rising in your blood stream. Your heart beat a little quicker as the anger took hold.

You looked around the place. At the shabby carpets and the cheap furniture. The glass ash tray in the middle of the kitchen table, her extinguished cigarette nestled in a pile of lipstick stained butts that was still smoking.

"That's real nice, Mama. How the fuck am I meant to date a decent guy when all I've got to inspire me is you?" You spat, nodding at her as if she were the devil incarnate. "At least Meryn has a fucking chance with Sam."

You didn't wait for her to shoot back. Probably with something about how you'd been a late bloomer. How you should be grateful for the attention you received. Sometimes it felt as if nothing else mattered to your Mother save for looking pretty for a new man.

You stepped out onto the porch, taking deep breaths to try and steady your nerves. Looking around at the overgrown front yard, dotted with rusting car parts and the bones of a Chevrolet CK that had been long abandoned by one of the boyfriends of yesteryear.

You scoffed at the metaphor. Every single scrap of metal was like a headstone and your yard had become a graveyard for the men who had come and gone. You winced as you scanned the debris.