Three for three
Christina's life took a sudden turn around eighteen. Hers was a turn entirely different from most others', though not visibly so different at the time.
She left the comfortably dull surroundings of her parents' home, just like any other normally developed middle class girl about that age. Back home, she had known everyone, and everyone knew her back, exactly equal in kind and degree. They all knew their respective roles, made simple in their intricate complexity by unrelenting social practice. She was to be the nubile daughter of one of the few local notables, they were to be gas station attendants and classmates, sons of truck repair shop workers and mine technicians. She wasn't exactly to save herself for marriage, but neither was she to ritually prostitute herself to their self-perceived needs, and so, chiefly through a sort of feeling of glaring inadequacy readily masquerading as disinterest she came to the big city sexually unexperienced enough that, upon meeting a boy -- tall, dark and hansome, irritatingly mysterious and yet threateningly at ease, evidently well informed, well rooted within the new, dizzying urban atmosphere -- she yielded readily, and then with the same readiness earnestly confessed her surprise. "That was actually... it felt good." she said, bemused. He laughed at her. "Of course it felt good. What did you expect ?"
She didn't know what she expected, if anything ; but it very much wasn't that. Yes she expected a boy would ask her out. After all... what was she there for ? "Studying psychology", what the hell is that even supposed to be ? But she didn't expect it'd come in his direct manner, bordering on brusque almost. Nor did she expect he'd take her out to a posh restaurant for her first date, the evident equivalent of that place her father'd take the family a few times a year, on special occasions, but scaled up for the city. Nor did she expect he'd have her blouse on the way back, just ask for it as if it were his all along -- and receive it, too, as if she wasn't there for aught else besides satisfying his demands ad idem, on the spot. She didn't expect, as she handed it over, that he'd have her walk, topless, over the lawns, the endless lawns meandering through views of the entire valley, thick with roads and buildings and all else, towards the parking lot.
She knew she'd ask him over, try and cook for him, secretly try and bring their encounters on that second, unavoidable installment somewhat more in line with her own private history and personal life to date, more aligned to what she saw and took to heart from her mother's house. She didn't expect he'd push her on the sofa afterwards, and have his way with her just as he had his way with her whole morning's work, looking her in the eye from atop the whole time. In easy continuation, as if off a platter, directly, adroitly he undressed her, and then he used her. Then, afterwards, she entirely didn't expect he'd have used a condom. She didn't expect most of it, most none of all they did together, not really, not as such. Least of all she expected her personal, ready, more than willing identification with function -- such function as he identified, whatever it might've been or may in the future be.
Yet it happened, exactly, and upon happening it also became a part of her life, as quick and as unyielding as anything else. It thrilled her, she yielded to it eagerly within herself, whatever it may be. Like pregnancy, she thought to herself, like it must've been to them before there was the pill. Just there, one day, suddenly yet as if since forever. Not asking anything -- not for permission, not even out of curiosity, nothing at all. Existence, plain and simple, entirely disinterested in anyone's subjective reception. Whatever feelings it may elicit, they are to be upon the feeler in whom they're elicited to resolve, as best he can, or carry unresolved as far he will. "She will", rather, per usual.
She did expect her wardrobe'd change with the move, yet didn't expect it'd change in the way it did. She wore nothing besides close dresses, with plenty of access, with nothing underneath. He touched her, randomly, oftenly. He disrobed her, exposed her. She never expected she'd have sex outside of a bedroom. Back home it was the degenerate thing to do, out in the bushes, the close appanage of the lowest of the low ; but here in the big city, here and now, in her own life as it unfurled, in her own sexual experience as she lived it, most copulation occurred outdoors, not for lack of alternative but for patent, manifest disdain of social norm. He ordered her to moan, and louder, louder, loudest in the darkened cinema hall, and thereby she discovered how she loved her own voice. She loved hearing herself vocalize every stretch, every yield deep inside, have her own feelings reflected back to her through her own ears, by her own voice. She'd never done it before, and therefore never knew before ; but perhaps she had always loved it ?
She discovered also no-one else is permitted discovery. She thought they'd be interrupted, kicked out, she expected on some level deep within subconscious mind the whole theater turned into an angry mob bearing torches and pitchforks, ready to throw stones, cracking her skull, her sternum, tear her apart with bare nails turned to talons. None such occurred ; never did any such occur. Soon enough she knew her nudity, even plain, but especially during copulation is not something anyone may look upon, take notice of, observe. Stray dogs more like than people to make the most modest overtures in that context, so complete, so untouchable was the tabboo of her young body used in the old manner. It was as if he had in his hands a cloak of invisibility, all it took was taking her clothes off and bam, she was gone. Disappeared. Vacated from the social space, from that invisible but imaginary fabric that supposedly, that she had supposed, stretches over all, through parks and walkways, over bridges and in dark alleys, everywhere throughout.
That was the first shock, the first early sign of the sudden turn. He had walked her home ; she lived in a rented room inside an old Habsburg construction, a sett-stone courtyard surrounded by small, uncomfortable windows connecting the still air inside-on-the-outside with the stilled moans and mutters of the outside-that's-inside. Habsburg constructions get complicated quickly, hence Freud. In the gangway, he had her almost naked, playing with her, using her body almost musically. Her breath syncopated, her experiencing of her own instant life intense, as per his intent, not explicit yet manifest. There was a voice, suddenly, unexpectedly.
"Hey! What are you two doing there!" Shrill and yet demanding, almost comedic in the contrast between capacity implicit and status presumed, the syllables leaving her mind time for little besides flashing the firm conclusion : "this won't end well." Presently it continued, even shriller, ever more impudent, "What are you doing to her! Hooligan! I'm going to tell your mother! I will report you to your school!"
She perceived the stiffening. She had felt it before, slightly. Worrisome, always worrisome, whenever her unruly nature or natural impetuus took her outside the invisible lines in his mind. She always yielded, humbly, most apologetic, and he always accepted her submission, quietly. She couldn't imagine what he'd accept here. There wasn't anything.
"I don't go to school, my mother's dead, and so are you." his voice came presently. Cold. Grim. There was a sound, triune, tripartite, like a loud sewing machine up in Heaven above : bang. bang-bang. The fat avatar of indignation collapsed in the flash of light, then lay on his back hurling towards the patch of night sky a most horrible sound, full of aiches and consonants indistinct. He walked over, there was another bang, then, finally, silence. He walked back to her, grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, and walked off.
She struggled to keep pace. Eventually, getting the hang of her feet again, and breathing heavily, she let the inquiry fly. "You're a gangster, aren't you."
"I own this place." he looked at her. "Yes, that's right. I'm one of those your mom told you to steer clear of."
Christina shook her head. "She wasn't very specific."
Indeed, her mother had warned her ; but hadn't been very specific. Not usefully specific, anyway. How's a mother to be specific ? What's a warning to do ? Her grandmother had warned her mother also, as best she could ; it worked out no better that time, either. The voice of untold bloodlines gurgled and spun inside her head, taking the horizon with them, twirling savagely. She felt ill, and certain. She opened her mouth three or four times, unsure what'd come out, what substance, or what form. Eventually she squeaked, like a wounded animal, a squirrel or a rabbit maybe, "When it's time for me to go, please shoot me too." She looked at him, horror in her eyes seeking his. He looked back at her, but didn't say anything.
