Short Stories Galore

Another Statistic (Drama)

Saturday nights are for drinking, Sunday mornings are for vomiting last night's mistakes.

Mondays are for applying eyeliner with a practiced hand to hide the dark circles beneath your eyes whilst drowning yourself in perfume because nobody can know what you did on the weekend.

Tuesdays are for going to your shitty part time job where you are forced to wear a uniform that leaves nothing to the imagination. You can't shake the feeling that you're standing beneath a blinding spotlight on the edge of a precipice, unable to walk away. Your boss likes to grope you whenever he gets the chance and the male customers won't leave you alone, but all you can do is grimace your way through it with polite, 'yes sir's' and 'right away sir's,' because you need the money, right?

After work, you head to the grocery store, still in your uniform because you didn't have time to change. Grabbing a trolley, you walk down the fruit aisle, wondering what you are going to get for dinner. You accidentally bump into another man while you are lost in thought and you feel your cheeks heat up with embarrassment. Apologies come stumbling out of your mouth, but the man just scowls at you.

"You might want to be careful walking around in that," he sneers and just as he goes to leave, a hand comes up and grabs your ass. You jump in surprise and anger but before you can even say anything, he's gone, and you're left stewing in disgust.

On Wednesday you learn that you can never really know a person. You meet up with your best friend who you've known your entire life, but he catches you off guard by confessing his feelings for you. He's all smiles and confidence, sure that you would never say no. After all, you could always do worse, couldn't you? For a second you actually hesitate, feeling uneasy at the glint in his eyes, but with a heavy heart you let him down as gently as you can. It merely takes a second for the corners of his lips to curl and for his face to become cold and hard. You can almost see the incredulousness and the anger in the lines in his cheeks. The insults are being hurled before you can even flinch, and the words ricochet loudly around your head.

Slut. Filthy dyke. Cock-tease.

The shock settles with a sickening thud in your gut as your childhood best friend throws abuse at you. How could you have been such a poor judge of character?

The next day is Thursday and you're feeling defeated, a little dimmer than you were this time last week. You're anxious because you're supposed to be going to a family dinner and you know that your uncle will be there. The same man who, when you were nine, touched you in places you knew were forbidden. The same man who gave you sweets in exchange for your silence. The same man that took something from you that you've never been able to get back. You remember a too wide smile and a hungry gaze as rough fingers grip your thighs; laborious breathing and a voice growling in your ear, "you're such a dirty slut, walking around here without a bra on."

You were nine.

But what are you supposed to do? You promised your mother.

It's Friday night and your friends have invited you to a party. Cue waxing, straightening your hair, putting on your new face, and shoving harmful soaps into your vagina in an attempt to make it smell nice, because everybody knows that guys like bald, strawberry smelling pussies.

When you arrive at the house party, a drink is immediately thrust into your hand. You didn't see where it came from, but who cares? You're here to get drunk and have fun after all. A collective laugh rises when you walk by a guy puking his guts up which quickly turns into gossiping whispers when you see a girl you know hooking up with a stranger. You even see the exchanging of hands in a drug deal and momentarily wonder if being here is a good idea, but you push the thought away, determined to have a good time. The host of the party has set up a makeshift dance floor and that's where you and your group are walking towards, resolute in your goals to turn the most heads and to get the most attention. The music is loud and pounds through your body as you dance with your girlfriends. For a while, things are great. The alcohol is giving you a pleasant buzz and there is a strange euphoria in feeling the sweaty bodies around you, jumping up and down and losing themselves to the moment.

Until the first pair of hands grab you roughly around the waist without consent. You protest and try to pry them off of you, but something is wrong. A dense fog is descending over your mind and your limbs are feeling heavier and heavier. Panicking, you try to get the attention of one of your friends, but they merely giggle to themselves. They must think that you're just getting off with some random guy. Doesn't that sound like something you'd do? You're aware of strong hands and cruel, icy blue eyes leading you away and that is the last thing you remember.

When you gain consciousness, your hands are chained above you to a bedpost and he's already inside you, grunting and groaning, his sweat landing on your breasts. You cry in pain, desperately bucking your hips in an attempt to shake him off.

"Shut the fuck up!" he growls. You're stunned into silence when he pulls a hand back and whips it across your face. The metallic taste of blood pools in your mouth. You have never felt more hopeless and powerless in your life. The smell of him and the overpowering feeling of shame and revulsion makes your stomach turn and you can't stop the vomit that comes out of your mouth. It mixes with your own blood and slides stickily down your chest. Your abuser grunts in disgust but doesn't stop. Eyes closing, you will for it to end. For everything to end.

You want to die, die, die.

When he finishes, it's on your stomach. And he leaves you there, to be found in your vomit and your tears and your self-hatred.

Saturday nights are for drinking, but not this week. This week you're wearing a jumper to drown yourself in and heavy slacks to hide the dark and angry bruises on your legs. Instead of makeup, you've got an endless waterfall of tears streaking down your cheeks, burning your swollen mouth. A dull ache resonates between your legs and deep in your uterus. The thought of eating anything makes your stomach violently turn over. Not a single text had come through from your friends and you close your eyes, picturing the horrified expressions on their faces when they found you and the things that came blurting out of their mouths.

"What did you do?"

"It looked like you were flirting with him."

"Maybe you encouraged him."

"You shouldn't have drunk so much."

The TV is switched to a show you normally love but the devastation that hits you when you realise the episode is about sexual assault makes you want to hurl. One of the men on the screen gleefully gloats, "no means yes and yes means anal," and you lose it. A strangled scream escapes your raw throat. You can't even bare to look at yourself because you're filthy, filthy, filthy and then your nails are digging into your own flesh, the stinging a welcome sensation. Blood is leaking from the small puncture wounds and staining your fingertips.

You don't want to be in this body anymore. You don't want to live in a society where women are taught to walk through the streets with their keys in-between their fingers and their phones ready to dial the police. Where no means yes and yes means anal and boys will be boys and you scream again, unable to handle the hypocrisy and unfairness of it all.

How dare another human being feel entitled to your body just because of the thing that resides between your legs?

There have been too many times when you have cried yourself to sleep, wishing, wishing, wishing, that you hadn't been born with a vagina, because despite the fact that you've had to bleed out of it every month, it's still not yours. It's never been yours. It belongs to the politicians in charge of your rights, your boss who gropes you every chance he gets, your friend that won't take no for an answer, your father, your uncle; every man that believes that you are worth less than he is.

With your mind made up, you turn off your phone and lock the front door. You feed your dog and leave plenty of water out for her, just in case. You can still feel him on top of you as you clumsily pull out blister packs of medication and a large bottle of vodka. You can still smell and hear him growling shut the fuck up and it's all too much.

The last thing you do before you swallow too many pills is write a note.

How do you be a woman in this society without becoming another statistic?

You don't.