Drabble: All Shadows Dance

This was a concept story I was toying with for awhile.  I'm not quite sure I like it.

His mother always said to him, “You have an overactive imagination. There’s nothing there in the dark. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. It’s an optical illusion. Just lie down, close your eyes and go to sleep.” They could never see the shifting shadows at night as they skimmered along the space between the wall and the ceiling and the small glowing eyes in the dark that catch and reflect and blink at the car headlights as they passed by the window. They didn’t see the subtle shifting of the reality around the room while he lay in the bed at night and stared at everything in the room until it either stopped shifting or got up and lumbered away through an invisible doorway he could never find and made it a point to avoid, always simply glad they were gone by the time he fell asleep an hour or more after going to bed. He didn’t want to go through the invisible doorway to the place where the shadow things lived. He knew he wouldn’t like it there.

From the time he was small, people always said it was a mental issue relating to his fear of drugs, but he knew the invisible people were there.He was diagnosed with sleeping disorders and depression and anxiety.The medications would make him too tired to keep his eyes open, but he was always chronically aware of what was creeping between him and sleep while he struggled to keep his eyes open.He consoled himself with the thought that he couldn’t see anything creeping along the ceilings anymore.After a few years of having nothing but pills thrown at him and talk about his feelings and his depression and anxiety instead of actually listening to him.They always pointed a finger and placed blame and called him crazy.He knew what he saw.He wasn’t the one who was crazy.

His mother always used to tell him that nothing in the dark could hurt him and he should just relax and try and sleep. The last words she spoke to him were delivered tiredly and with an air of irritation. “You’re just using this as an excuse. You’re thirteen years old. This isn’t going to work anymore. It’s dark when you close your eyes, too, just close them and go to sleep.”

She wasn’t there when he woke up the next morning.His father came home that next afternoon from work and she was nowhere to be found.He knew what had happened, but he’d stopped talking about it.She’d walked through the doorway and ended up where the shadow things were.He’d warned her but she wouldn’t listen.

No one listened.

They blamed him for his mother’s disappearance and he stuck with the story, even taking lie detector tests and being grilled for hours and hours by the police about where she had gone.He told them the truth.She had come in and tucked him in, left him with a night light and had walked through the doorway behind his book case.She wasn’t there when he woke up the next morning.

Eventually it was ruled she had abandoned the family and was a missing person.Eli knew, but no one would listen.

No one ever listened.

He awoke in a cold sweat, the nightmare still seeming real in his partially conscious state.  Running a hand over his face, he stumbled over the blankets he'd tossed on the floor at some point in the night on his way to the bathroom for some water.  He filled the chipped short glass and downed it in a few fevered gulps, trying to chase away the dream that seemed more like memory than fanciful fiction from the pizza he ate before bed.

Bleary eyes turned to the clock and he shambled downstairs to pick up a drink of something a little stronger than the water so he could get back to sleep.  If he woke up now, it would be a long day at work, not that he hadn't done it before.

He poured himself some of the first bottle he could wrap his hand around and tossed it back with a faint grimace at the warm burn. Leaning on the minibar, he splayed his fingers over the rough wood and made a mental note he would later forget to sand it down.

He downed another shot for good measure and headed back upstairs for another few hours sleep.

(c) Carrie Fulk Vaughn 2008

Drabble: Baby Boy

Something I've found helpful as an author is to allow a character to write things out when they want to tell me something.  I allow them to write in first person narrative and explain to me their actions or feelings on a particular situation.  In this case I am sharing the first person narrative of my character Baby DeLaCroix, a sixteen year old prostitute. 

I don’t trust anyone.I wouldn’t know how.

It’s a thing that everyone takes for granted, trusting.They believe their doctor is a good man who only wants to help people and take care of them and their children, even if he gets high every night.They think the person walking beside them on the street is just another passerby who will continue on their way just like every other person they pass even if he’s on his way home to shoot his wife and children.They put their faith in the fact that each person who lives on the street is there because they just won’t get a job.All the whores are just wanton sluts who could earn a good honest living but they want to take every man on the street to bed so they can support their crack habit.Whores and homeless people and gang members and drug pushers are all bad people who weren’t raised with a strong work ethic and who were children of bad people, so they don’t know any better because they haven’t been shown the right way to live.It isn’t that they’re desperate people who have had to do the best they can with the life they’ve been given or die.I guess lies like that make it easier for them to sleep at night instead of actually helping someone.

Those people are the same people who would never suspect someone of lifting their wallet while they were busily walking down a busy metropolitan street and talking on their cell phone or when they were checking directions on a map because that kind of thing only happens in ‘bad neighborhoods’.They don’t expect the sweet faced boy who smiles and chatters chipperly, standing close to them and giving them directions to whatever landmark they seek to be taking things out of their pockets while he talks and gestures to their destination.They believe everyone is inherently good and no one wants to fail.They believe I’ve just never been shown the right way to live my life.They believe I just need to be shown someone kind and loving and I’ll be cured of the way I live my life.I’ve just been dealt a bad hand, they say.I don’t want to be like this.I just don’t know any better.When I ask them if they can give me money so I can pay my bills or buy clothes or food, I might as well have asked for their kidney or a firstborn child.

I don’t choose to be this way.It wasn’t my choice to be born to a mother who sold me for drug money.I had no say in who she sold me to or what they were going to do with me.I’ve been dealt a bad hand, they say.I need to fold my cards and wait for a new hand to be dealt to me.They’re asking me to die and don’t realize I would have no food, no home, no nothing if not for what I do.The world is full of bleeding hearts who would ‘just love to help’, but when they’re called to task, when they’re asked to help, when they’re given the opportunity to actually lend a hand and make a difference, there’s no one to be found.

How many times did I beg and plead for those men to take me home?How many people saw the bruises and the dirt and the shoddy clothes and did nothing?How many people did I ask for the food they were throwing away and they looked at me as though I were diseased and tossed it in the trashcan?How many people looked at me and said I was dealt a bad hand while they were paying me for the services I just gave them?How many of them could have helped me and never once raised a mother fucking hand in one single moment of kindness?How many?

Not one.

I believed someone would save me.I believed someone would take me away so I wouldn’t have to let people touch me with those slow, firm hands and the gentle tugs to get me to do what they wanted.I wouldn’t have to sit in another person’s lap or feel their hands on my back or their touch on my face that I knew would be corrupted later.I wanted to trust.I wanted to believe them when they said they wouldn’t hurt me.I believed when they said they didn’t want to ever hurt someone as sweet as me.The kisses were gentle, their hands soft, their bodies warm, and the touch both welcome and unwelcome at the same time.I wanted so desperately to be touched, caressed and held like I was sure every other little boy was loved and nurtured by their parents.I wanted them to touch me, to hear those sweet words and soft phrases and gentle urging to get me where they wanted me.It was after that I dreaded taking pleasure out of the touch, knowing there would be hurt and then pain and then things that felt good but shouldn’t and I dreaded the hard thrust that made me scream and cry as they took from me what they used all those soft, gentle gestures were meant to draw from me.

After awhile I came to enjoy it, despite what I knew was coming since I was left alone in my room until people paid to come and be with me.I craved that touch, that human contact, that subtle coaxing on their part and learned if I played at being shy and innocent, they were all that much nicer to me.They were gentler if I said I wanted to try but I was afraid it was going to hurt and if I got the big, fake alligator tears rolling, they were so much sweeter when they used me.I learned to like it, the way they touched me and how their thrusts got harder before they came.I came to enjoy the pain.As long as they were sweet and kind with me, as long as they were gentle and slow, I was a very happy boy to have those men paying to fuck me.

I couldn’t trust them, though, those men.I never knew which one of them would come in and demand things of me.Some of them hated the tears.They beat me if I cried.They’d order me to stop and they were rough and just wanted to use me and hurt me.I hated those men and a little bit of me died inside each time they didn’t pet me and praise me and offer me those little bits of soul balm I so desperately needed.They just did what they did and that was all there was to it.Wham, bam, pays the man and they were done.Even if they didn’t get rough, there were always the kinds who were just there to get off and get out.There was no petting with them, but at least they didn’t beat me.With either of them, there was no thought in even asking them if they would help me, if they would take me away from there.They wanted what they wanted when they wanted it and they weren’t going to pay a dime more than they had to.Sadly, they weren’t even the most reprehensible of them. No, those kinds of men were the ones I came to appreciate, even the ones who hurt me.

The worst of the lot were the ones I came to know, whom I saw frequently who always enjoyed our time together and who spent time petting me afterward and being kind to me.I asked them to take me away, to make me theirs and they could have me every night as many times as they wanted as long as they were nice to me.So many times they would say they would look into it and I believed them for awhile.Every day I would tell them of someone else who was looking into buying me so they couldn’t have me anymore.I believed one of them would steal me away, save me, but that day didn’t come before I was too old for them and they took up with the newest boy they’d brought in and I was left feeling alone and used and empty.It was through these paltry snake-tongued men I learned no one could be trusted.Once burned, twice shy is an adage I know very well.After the second man who told me I was his boy, I was his special little friend and he didn’t save me from the other men who used me, I learned it was all just a game.People told me whatever they thought would most quickly get me to do what they wanted and I always did because that spark of hope sprung eternal until the day it died.

One day it dawned on me that no one was coming for me.There was no single soul who cared I was there and alone and having things done to me I didn’t want.People came and went, but ultimately they were there because they wanted to have sex with me, not because I was a lost little soul looking for love.No one cared about me; they cared about my body and what I could do with it to make them feel good.I cried that night as I lie in my bed thinking terrible thoughts that crept in when nobody was lying there beside me until I was put out for the older market to pick over like a slab of good, tender meat.I became soulless.I knew the only reason anybody wanted me around was if I was fucking them and if I were to say no, they wouldn’t come around.I realized if their game was to say whatever would get them what they wanted from me that I could play the same game.I had been playing the game with the little role-plays they had me act out and by the time they let me out of the room to be sent out on the evening, I was their perfect little moneymaker.I said anything they wanted me to say, did anything they wanted me to do, and played the role of the sweet little smiling innocent with the pretty smile and friendly attitude, the boy next door with the bedroom eyes.

I enjoyed the sex.The harder it was the better I felt and the louder I got.I found comfort in hurting people, taking their money for sex they should have been able to get anywhere else for free, but I was the one they came to when their wives wouldn’t suck cock.I was the one men came to when they couldn’t tell the world they had a fetish for boys or for men.They paid me for my company and I charged them a pretty fee to be with me.I made myself a name whispered in clubs and behind closed doors so people sought me out as the best at whatever they wanted done.I took pride in my craft, learning anything and everything I could.I took care of my body and I looked amazing.I could do anything I wanted and those boys would keep coming because they wanted me.They needed me.

People don’t look at whores the same way they look at other people.When they think you’re just an average person, they regard you casually and don’t really give you a second glance or think about you too hard.When they find out you’re a whore, however, they get this look in their eye.Each time it means a little something different, depending on how the look turns as their wheels grind over it.Sometimes they look at you like a hungry dog and very straight forwardly ask you how much.I like those types because it’s a business transaction.Then you get the wolfish look that says they’re interested because your body is for sale, but they want to get it for as little as possible.If they can wheedle something out of you, they’re going to do it.Most of the time they make little comments about you and give you little compliments and say they would really love to show you a good time.They know you’re going to fuck them, but they want to take the cost of dinner out of the price of the prize afterward.I can see it coming with the way they get this sneaky look that joins the hungry dog look as they give the pretty compliments.They aren’t quite as bad as those who look at you and sneer down their nose at you like they would do things so much differently if they were in your place.They’re the ones who buy into the Horatio Alger myth that anyone can rise above if they’re just willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work hard enough.They don’t like it when you point out you can make a hell of a lot more money flat on your back than you can at a factory.In their opinion, anyone can flip burgers and those places obviously hire anybody.They’re religious freaks, too, the ones that act big and tough in front of their friends but once night falls and they know where you work, they come slinking around looking like a first time buyer with the furtive glances and looking over their shoulders.Then you get the do-gooders who want to save you from yourself like you haven’t already thought of that.They offer to take you somewhere that they believe someone can get help.That generally ends with getting shuffled into the system and spit back out again with no results.You get the people preaching about saving your souls when it’s your body and your mind that needs saving and you get the people who call the police because they don’t want that going on in their neighborhood.They obviously don’t realize it happens everywhere every day.

I am going to be on my back for the rest of my life until either I’m not careful and I catch something or I get raped and killed.Being sent to jail doesn’t do anything for me because I’m just going to go right back to doing what I know.I can’t learn something else, I can’t be anything else and people who haven’t lived through what I’ve lived through don’t understand that we just aren’t fucking like them.We learned to play by a different set of rules.We learned that people can’t be trusted.When you trust them, they gut you like a cat and leave you for dead and sometimes that’s literal.Cops are always pretending to be people just looking for a hooker and picking the wrong one to hit on gets you landed in jail or working for free, depending on how crooked the cops are.Sometimes they come looking for you more than once, holding it over your head that you’re a whore and they have power over you because they’re respected.It’s their word against yours and even if you are right, it’s better not to speak up because you’re told you’re a liar.No police officer would do something like that, even if it happens every day.

Everybody wants something for nothing and because you sell your body, which obviously means you want to be used and abused and raped.They don’t seem to understand it’s just like any other business.You wouldn’t walk into a bakery, pick up a loaf of bread and eat it without paying for it so why would you walk up to a whore, bend him over and fuck him without paying.If you took the bread from the bakery, that’s stealing.When you fuck a whore against their will, that’s rape despite what anyone else might think.It doesn’t stop them from doing it, though.It doesn’t stop them from thinking they shouldn’t have to pay us for what we’re selling.It doesn’t stop them from taking what they want.It doesn’t stop them from saying hurtful things or praying when praying does nothing without actually being an activist and even if they were active with it, none of us would fucking trust them anyway.When I was in need, they betrayed me.When I just wanted someone to save me, no one came.If I told someone I hated what was being done to me, they left me there anyway.People always telling me how bad and wrong I was for what I was doing when I had no choice.

Is it any wonder I hate humanity?Is it a wonder I steal from them?They’re always so shocked when they realize it was me who lifted their wallet.The surprise is in their eyes when they realize their money isn’t in their purse any longer.I love the look on their face when it dawns on them I never meant any of the words I said while we were playing games together.I don’t trust anybody.If I don’t fuck them, nobody would want anything to do with me.People will fuck me over if they are given half a chance so I am going to fuck them over first so I have the advantage.Nobody means what they say.Everyone tells you something different than they really mean because they want what they want and they don’t care how they get it or who it screws.People take trust for granted.They believe no one would hurt them, no one would say something they didn’t mean and nobody would take advantage of their good nature.

I don’t trust anybody.I’ll never know how.

(c) Carrie Fulk Vaughn 2008