Bud

Boo hoo, I was molested. Another one of THOSE stories. Full of meaninglessfullness. My sense of irony developed the day mama hit me for it.

Maikel and Natalia lived next door. She was a taller 4-year-old than I. Maikel was in the sixth grade. Mama always said to be careful of them and above all warned me never to go into their house or property. The mother was a hooker. The grandfather, a pot head, is what mama said.

Everything which my mind at the time understood to be evil lived in that house. Of course I went in—many times—and enjoyed a stint as a model, posing with Natalia: kissing, topless and holding, lots of biting and occasionally inviting the camera to lean in for a peck on the lips. We bathed in the hot lamps the grandfather shined on us and our eyes throbbed from the shock of the camera flash. The mother sometimes coached from the closed doorway: "Squeeze her--yeah, like that. Like that. You don't like it when she bites you? Bite her back!"

Somewhere in Pee Wee Herman’s living room my body surely once lay spread.

One day I climbed over our fence into Natalia’s yard to play tag. We chased each other around her house and paused for air under a large blue portable pool--the shallow plastic kind painted with green seahorses and pink shells--which leaned against the house’s back wall under the shadow of an endless oak.

Old plastic, broken twigs and limestone chunks made the air under the pool-roof smell like wet pinecones. We only rested for a second and were about to start out again when maikel’s body appeared; he blocked my exit from the pool shed and pushed me so that I almost lost my balance. Natalia held me steady from behind. I tried to get past Maikel’s chunky body but he wouldn’t move. When he started to undo his zipper, I was sure he’d piss on me.

His offer was that if I rubbed my penis against his, he’d let me pass. It was wrong for men to touch men, of this I was already aware. But there it was, a fleshy brown wormy thing, almost as dark as his face, growing. As he reached out to undo my zipper I stepped back into Natalia. Her arms wrapped around my torso and wringed my breathout. No escape from Maikel’s hands. He pressed against me, his mouth stunk like cherry candy balls. A sugary kiss. I grew in Maikel’s hand and struggled. When he ordered me not to fidget Natalia bit my neck so I would hold still, but when her jaw opened for air Maikel's hands were too busy to stop me, so I flew home.

Mama was looking for me. I didn’t lie about where I’d been, but only confessed the part I hated: that they trapped me under the pool and didn’t let me go under threat of pain. Came the beating, came the screams, mama flailing, kicking, crying, slaps. Fire on my skin. Knees unsteady. I left my body there—useless petal off a dead flower. Me, I floated in a kiss.