by Winnie M. Li
Then, he is on her in a flash.
Fucking bitch, shut up don’t even fucking think about it. If one of them from the halting site find us… don’t you fucking ruin it now, you filthy bitch. Get over here.
He grabs her forearm with surprising strength, shoving her toward the cover of the trees.
“Help!”
Struggle away, get free, but he grabs again. She tries to wrench his hand from her forearm.
“Help!”
“Shut up, you say another word I’ll slice your throat open.”
Clamp your hand over her mouth before she says anything again – drag her over to the bushes before they see us.
Get away, just get away from this kid. Get his hand off my mouth.
She skids on the loose pebbles, pulling herself away from him, then is pulled back towards the trees, the pebbles rattle underfoot.
Then she slips
Hits the ground
Is down.
Get on top of her, get your hands round her throat. Hold that fucking bitch down – hold her down and make her listen.
“Don’t you fucking scream or I’ll kill you!”
Shit. I’m down. I’m right on the edge, before it drops into the ravine.
The backpack is stuck, digging into me. One water bottle tumbles out, falls down the slope. But he’s grabbing for me…
Put out a hand to stop him. He grabs the two fingers of my left hand, bends them back – the pain, what is this kid? Blue eyes burning into mine.
Punch her in the head, good and hard so she listens. All Da’s punches, the famous Mick Sweeney. Like he did to Mam, like he does to you. Now do it to her. Teach her that lesson. Get her to fucking listen.
“Don’t you scream again!”
He just fucking punched me… fuck that hurts, never been punched before.
Yeah, that’s it, see her flinch. So close, so close to that nice soft pussy. Punch her, punch her again. Get your hands round her throat. Squeeze squeeze squeeze the fucking bitch.
“I’ll stab you!”
He’s on top of me… Choking me… Can’t fucking breathe… Eyes darting around… Where is his knife?
Still can’t breathe… Just want air.
Squeeze squeeze her tight. Can’t shout now, can you, bitch?
Now get that fucking rock…
“I’ll bash your head in!”
His fingers digging into my throat… No air.
Raise a rock and smash it in her face if you have to.
Gasping but no air… All closed off… Need to breathe…
Make her listen, the fucking bitch.
Not the rock… Not my head…
Iron rod now, can’t wait to ram it in.
Can’t breathe… This kid is going to kill me…
Never been this hard before.
I need to breathe…
Girl’s never fought back like this one. “Just let me lick your fucking pussy.”
Just… Whatever you do, don’t kill me… Give up… Not worth it… Need air.
“Just let me lick your fucking pussy.”
Do whatever you want.
“Just let me—”
Just let me… Ow, fucking pain. Mud. Bruises. How do I get out of this alive? Just let me breathe.
*
Oxygen rushing back into your lungs… but what happens now and what do you do to get out of this alive… you have no idea what this kid is or what he can do – oh, bitch, now you’re mine… now’s the best part, blood racing and dick pumping, getting ready for the plunge – if he gets my underwear down… no… bargain with him, offer something else think… think… “Let me give you a blow job”… start with that see if you can get him off – happy days, bitch is getting the idea now, get your lips round that, start sucking – this is disgusting… wish I could get him off with just a few licks but I’m not that good – get your tongue, lick my cock… nice… that’s it, yeah, now – but don’t stop there – “I wanna lick your pussy. I wanna lick your pussy” – if he gets my underwear down you know what’ll happen… just no, don’t – “BITCH!” – fuck, he fucking punched me again… get him away, get him away from that, get him to think you’re cool with this… oh gross, he’s actually licking me, what the fuck is going on, we’re in the middle of the woods – yeah yeah, so this is what Chinky box tastes like, get her wet so she wants it, she wants you to slam it into her… you can’t wait any longer… “Yeah, I’m gonna fuck you now, I’m gonna fuck you now” – I can’t believe this is happening… this is disgusting… underwear down, all the way down, pinned down onto the mud, he’s actually inside of me, that disgusting, kid’s prick is inside of me but I can hardly feel it, just do whatever the fuck he wants and you can get this over with – yeah, now that’s the business, slide into this bitch, “Nice tight Asian pussy” – did he just fucking say that… this isn’t actually happening – pump, pump away and get your fill of that nice, tight Asian pussy, yeah now that’s it – lying on the ground, pebbles in my back and looking up at the trees… he’s not paying attention anymore, maybe you can grab a rock and smash his head in… but what would that do, he’s already inside you, it’s too late and he’ll just get violent again… just let him finish, just get it over with – now another position, bitch, “I want you to go on top” – okay I’m on top, look him in the eye, you’re not scared, you’re not scared, you’re not going to fight him again, you just want him to fucking finish – see, see she’s a horny bitch and she wants me, knew it, knew, and I’m fucking her so hard and fucking grab her titties – did he just rip my bra… fuck you my favorite bra… but just get him to come and it’ll be done… talk dirty to him, talk dirty and he’ll think you want this and then it’ll be over… “I bet you can go all night”… did I just fucking say that… I can’t believe I did that – oh yeah, see, told you she wants it, bitch was dirty all along… “I want to fuck you doggy-style. I want to fuck you doggy-style” – what kind of a twisted fuck is he… on my hands and knees now, pebbles cutting into my skin – and slam hard… harder into her from behind… shite you fell out, get it back in… “I want you to get on your back”… shite position, can’t get inside her proper… what is wrong with this bitch… what else what else what else do you see in the pornos… cock getting hard just thinking about it… “I want to fuck you up the ass! I want to fuck you up the ass!” – no no no no not anal, I’ve never done anal and this is going to fucking hurt – yeah yeah, now where’s the fucking hole, where is it, just ram it in – kid keeps falling out, can’t even get it inside me – there it is and slam! slam! slam it home… no, it fell out again – when is this ever going to be over – back on top and yeah this is kind of boring now, isn’t it… why aren’t I coming… why aren’t I coming – is this kid almost finished… he’s looking bored, not even dangerous anymore… just be done, just be done, just – “Do you want to go home now?”
And what does that mean? Where is home? Go our separate ways or back to my hotel room? What does it matter? He’s suggesting we stop… we stop… we stop.
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
And finally, finally he’s out of me and we’re just sitting there. In the mud.
What did that bitch to do to me? Why can’t I come? Done with it now. Done with it. It’s over. What just happened? Did it really happen? Why didn’t I come? Why didn’t I come? Why didn’t… Oh, who fucking cares, you got inside her and that’s what counts.
*
She’s sitting by the side of the trail and has pulled her clothes back on. The ripped black bra covered again now by the blue hiking shirt. Her hiking pants are scuffed with mud, hiding the bruises and scratches. She’s drawn into herself, like a snail pulled into its shell, tight, vigilant, protected.
He’s still there.
He has his clothes on, too, and he’s blabbering on about something, anything. None of it seems to make any sense.
“I come back and forth between here and Armagh…”
She doesn’t care. Wh
y is he saying this? She grits her teeth and wishes he’ll go away soon.
“Where’d you say you were from again?”
“New Jersey.” Her voice is monotone. All emotion drained.
“Oh right. And what was your name?”
She hesitates. She should give him a false name. Can’t remember if he asked her before, in the park, only an hour or so ago, even though it now seems a lifetime ago.
She’ll just have to guess.
“Jenny.”
He nods. Either that was the same name, or he couldn’t remember himself.
Part of her wants to laugh and cry at the same time. This whole situation is a woeful parody of a one-night stand. Oh, that was really good. What was your name again?
“And what was yours?” she asks him.
“Frankie,” he answers.
She doesn’t believe him. But then again, she doesn’t care. Just wants him to leave.
And then he stops being so conversational and chatty. He takes on that menacing air – the tone he had before, when he confronted her in the field.
He leans in close, ice-blue eyes alight and fierce, and points back down the trail, where she came from.
“I want you to go down the road that way there.”
But she’s not scared of him anymore. What’s he going to do to her? Rape her?
Sorry, kid, you already played that card.
She shrugs. If she’s walking away, it’s not back down the way she came. Hikers don’t backtrack. And there’s no way she’s turning her back on him. Who knows what he’d do? Push her down the slope? Slam her head in with a rock? She’s not taking any more chances.
“I don’t really feel like it,” she says.
He seems a bit surprised by her disobedience, unsure what to do.
He tries it again. Menacing blue eyes glaring at her, finger pointing down the trail.
“You need to go back that way.”
She wants to laugh in his face, but knows that wouldn’t be wise. She looks at him, not giving anything away. “I will in a bit. I just want to rest for now.”
She senses the danger has passed. He’s now just a confused kid playing at being an adult, and it’s all rather pathetic.
She wants him to leave first. To stall for time, she fishes the remaining water bottle from her backpack – the other one she distinctly remembers falling out of her pack’s side pocket during the scuffle. It fell down the steep slope and she imagines it nestled somewhere among the ferns and undergrowth: a gleam of clear plastic among the tangled vegetation, never to be found again.
She takes a few sips, offers the bottle to him.
“Do you want some water?”
But he waves her away.
She’ll stall for longer. She takes out an apple from her pack and starts eating it.
He continues to stand around. Why is he still here? She’ll wait as long as it takes for him to go away. Her heart is still beating hard. Beneath it all, a concentrated knot of fury is forming, hard and compact, like a stone at the bottom of a lake. Yet above the lake, a mist of apparent calm hangs over her.
“How old did you say you were?” she asks. Forcing her voice to sound casual and conversational.
“Eighteen.”
She distinctly remembers that was different from what he said in the park.
“No, you’re not,” she jokes and affords a laugh, half-sarcastic, half-I-don’t-give-a-fuck.
“How old do you think I am?” he asks.
“Seventeen,” she says. She has no idea, but at least flatter him.
“I’m sixteen.”
She wants to vomit. She just had sex with a sixteen-year-old. Uncomfortable, mud-covered sex that she didn’t ask for.
“Listen,” he says. “Sorry. I do this all the time.”
Does what? Attacks random strangers in the park? Has sex with older women? Did he just say sorry?
She doesn’t say anything. Let him ramble, let him say something they can later track him down with.
“I’ve raped girls three or four times in these woods before. I’ve raped prostitutes in Dublin.”
Is this kid for real?
“Have you?” she says. But it’s not an invitation to hear more. More of a challenge, as if to openly doubt him.
“I have, yeah,” he rambles on. “I do this all the time.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
She wonders how genuine that sounded. She just wants to put him at ease, have him think this was casual – a tumble in the proverbial hay. Anything to keep him from becoming violent again, doing something worse.
He’s still talking. “I know these woods really well…”
Just. Go. Away.
“I come here all the time. Have girls here all the time.”
Good for you. Now get the fuck out of here.
But she just repeats what she said before. “I won’t tell anyone.”
He stands around for a bit longer. She concentrates on eating her apple.
He kicks at a rock, turns it over with his white trainers, which are now scuffed with mud. Takes out his iPod and unwinds the headphone cords from around them. Winds them back.
She continues to chew her apple.
“I… I guess I’ll go now,” he says.
She looks at him, briefly, and doesn’t say anything.
And he doesn’t look at her either.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Sorry.” He tucks his head down, shoulders hunched up around his neck, and he hunkers down the path – the way he had told her to go, the way she had come from.
A skitter among the dirt and leaves, a flash of white among the green, and he’s gone.
She waits to make sure he doesn’t come back.
Checks her watch. 2:35. How much time has passed?
Waits for another minute, peers down the path, but doesn’t see him. He’s not coming back.
And then… exhale.
And let yourself cry finally. The tears come down, warm and confused and unsure of what the fuck just happened. Did she just have sex with a strange kid in the park? How the hell did that happen?
What about her hike? And why shouldn’t she just continue? She thinks about it, still crying. She still has enough time to cover the what… nine miles left in the trail? Nine miles. Think about it. Stretching all the way along this ridge, above the city, all the way to Cave Hill in North Belfast. Clean air and an unobstructed view and the springtime afternoon. Just get away from this surreal nightmare which happened here, in this place where the trail has been scuffed up and the rocks overturned and the branches snapped. She closes her eyes and envisions the trail stretching away to the horizon: the escape she’d always wanted, when she first set out on the path this morning.
But that stone at the bottom of the lake is there. The quietly growing fury, expanding like an unspoken tumor, impossible to remove.
In her rational mind, she knows she should get medical attention.
As much as she wants to, she can’t escape what’s just happened. This is the reality of her afternoon, forced upon her. Brutal and unasked-for.
Here, this is what you have to deal with now.
So she stands up.
She doesn’t move away immediately. She peers over the edge of the slope, trying to gauge how steep the fall is. Not because she wants to throw herself over it in grief, but more out of curiosity: how close had she been to the edge during their scuffle? And if she had fallen over, what would have happened? Perhaps she is half-looking for that lost water bottle, so out of place with its manufactured plastic curves among the undergrowth. But she sees nothing – only an unbroken monolithic slope of tangled weeds and vegetation. Nothing to indicate the awkward struggle which took place at the top of the slope minutes before, right where she is standing now.
The apple is finished now and the core rests in her hand. She weighs it in her right palm, a strange hulk reduced down to a skeletal pile of seeds and browning flesh.
She takes a step back, winds her right arm back like a baseball outfielder and throws the apple core as hard as she can, over the edge, down the slope, into the ravine. It lands somewhere unseen, a gentle crash in the underbrush and then no more, another intruder swallowed by the immense forest.
And then, without further hesitation, she shoulders her backpack and walks away from the scene of what just happened.
Up the path, towards the field, to where she can hear a busy road.
PART
TWO
He comes down the path, heart still knocking ba doom ba doom from them yokes and fucking that beour. Did that just happen?
Down the path he wants to grin, got his hole after all, but why ain’t he grinning? Something’s not right.
Trees and sun swirl together, the ground below trips him up. He slows down. Puts his hand on a tree to steady, looks down at the sleeve of his jumper – it’s streaked with mud. Fuck. It’s his best one, the white one he saves for wearing out at the clubs.
His trainers are scuffed, too, mud all round the edges.
Let’s get that off. Don’t want no one looking at him suspicious.
Bottom of the slope, back in the river. Water washing the mud from his trainers.
Fuck. Feet are wet now.
Fuckin eejit.
Get your head on straight.
Wet feet, head’s in a state, what do we do?
Sit down. Right on the ground, damp soaking through the jeans onto his arse, but who gives a fuck. Catch your breath. Think think think.
She wanted it, right? ’Course she wanted it. Women always do.
Then it flashes through his head again.
The woman shouting for help, the sun bright in his eyes. Grabbing, her throat so soft like he could squeeze, squeeze the living breath right from her.
Maybe she didn’t want it so much.
His cock is still kind of hard. What’d she say?
‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about it.’
But he can’t shake it – this dark clawing at the back of his mind. Like ticks burrowing inside your skin and eating their way out. He starts scratching. Suddenly, everything’s itchy. His arms, his legs, his neck, his dick. Jaysus, just get the fuck away from here.