Same story, different eyes. I remember the days of my past with such clarity that it seemed like there was no such thing as forgetfulness. Such wonderful, happy memories cascading around me, letting me know how far I, and many of us, have fallen since we emerged from the wombs of our mothers.
“What’s your name?”
A little girl, around five, stood in front of me. She carries a block with the letter ‘I’ imprinted on the surface. At her feet were two more blocks, one with the letter ‘K’ and another with the number three on the front.
I was little at this point as well. My hands were so tiny that the blocks that would fit in the palm of my hand now were too large for me to completely wrap my hand around. The way how people grow in such a short time is rather fascinating. In only twenty years, people grow mentally and physically, then halt to a standstill where they gradually decrease over the coming fifty or so years.
As I look back on the moments in life that I cherish, while also despising, I can’t help but wonder about something. Why did it all have to come to this?
“What’s your name?” The little girl asks more assertively.
I look at the little girl and smile.
“My name is Tiffany Brooks.”
The little girl looked at me, then looked at her block, then back to me. She turned the block in her hand and smiled. She tapped my shoulder, then held the block to me for me to take. I grabbed it, and in my palm, was a block with the letter ‘T’.
I looked at her and saw she had a new block in her hand. It’s the block that was by her feet with the letter ‘K’. She smiled, unknowingly showing off the fact she was missing a tooth.
“My name’s Karina Illia.” She held the ‘K’ in front of my face as if showing off the fact she knows the first letter of her name. “Want to be friends?”
At the time, I thought my ears were tricking me. I knew the definition of friends, and I wanted to make one badly, but I thought it would take much longer than that. I thought that I’d go through most of my school life never even talking to anyone cause I was too nervous to approach anyone. But here’s this girl, handing me a block and asking right out the gate for us to be friends.
I smiled back and nodded my head. “Yeah.”
That was the moment we met. Later that day, we learned that we’d have to stay in school for most of our lives. I didn’t react much because my parents already told me about this. I was sad that I wouldn’t see them, but if I was going to be someone they could look at and be proud of, I had to suck it up.
Not Karina, however. She cried her heart out as soon as she learned what was going on. Instead of her parents sending her off, a ginger haired man waved goodbye as a school attendant was busy holding her back. I wondered why her parents never showed up, so I asked her myself later when she stopped crying.
“They’re superheros.” She yelled with pride. “At least that’s what Harvey tells me.”
“Is Harvey also a superhero?” I ask, eyes shining with the excitement that I met someone with superpowers.
“No, he’s just my idiot butler.” Karina said, picking up a crayon. “He told me he went to a smarty pants school, but he’s the dumbest idiot.” She opened her mouth and took a sizable bite of the crayon. “He says these aren’t food, but if they’re not food, why can I eat them?”
A school attendant appeared out of nowhere and snatched the crayon from her hands. Karina cried, asking for it back, but in the end it just led to her getting spanked. Right away, I knew we were going to stick together for a long. Something about Karina drew me to her, and even if she didn’t approach me, I believe I would have gone to her.
Years passed, and we grew up together. We knew so much about each other it was almost like we were sisters. Ever since we figured out we were going to be roommates, we would go everywhere together. Sometimes we’d even go to the bathroom together because we were so comfortable near one another.
Karina was a lot more outspoken than me and it was hell trying to get her to change her mind about anything. I remember when we were paired together to do a book report debate, and we tried to come up with a topic to discuss. The book we read was the classic, Moby Dick. I wanted to discuss the themes of madness, but Karina constantly went off on why she wanted to talk about the dangers of killing whales.
However, despite the annoyance I felt during times like that, I still loved her like a sister. Even during our pointless fights, we would always make up in the end and get back on topic. I thought those times would never change.
One day, I woke up and heard someone moaning. It was coming from Karina’s bed, and it sounded like she was hurt. Her gasps and moans grabbed my heart and squeezed so hard it hurt. I turned around to see what was happening, but when the scene came into full view, I froze.
I stared at Karina as she masturbated in the bed next to me. At the time, I didn’t realize what she was doing. Yeah, we learned about sex, but they said nothing about touching oneself. It was all new to me, and I thought she was hurting herself. The way she sounded definitely didn’t sound so pleasant, but the longer I listened, the more I heard the pleasure behind those pained moans. Her face, especially, wasn’t that of someone in agonizing pain. She looked like she was ascending to a higher plane of existence.
Her head tilted my way, and I pulled the blanket over myself and shut my eyes. I believed there was no way she didn’t see me, so I waited for her to call me. I waited and waited. Then I heard a creek from the window. I pulled the blanket from my face and stared in shock as she climbed out the window. I shot up from my bed and stuck my head out the window, but when I looked around, she had disappeared entirely.
I didn’t know what to think. The thought of telling the teachers crossed my mind frequently, but I didn’t want Karina to get into trouble. She already got into trouble for spacing out in class, so I could only imagine what they would do if I told them about something like this. Expulsion wouldn’t be far off if they ever figured it out, and if she leaves, I wouldn’t know how to reconnect with anyone else. I knew a lot of the girls here, but they had already formed their tightknit cliques that befriending anyone else would be nearly impossible.
So I hid it. My fear of being left alone kept me from doing what was right. I laid back in bed and watched her come back through the window hours later. She smelled awful, and her face looked disgusting. It was completely red and her eyes were bloodshot, but there was a look of pleasure written all over her face.
She turned my way once more, and I pretended to be asleep. When she figured I didn’t notice her, she made her way to the bathroom and turned on the shower. A curious speck of interest crossed my mind after looking at her face. What could make her look like that, yet there left no regret written on her face?
After that night, she would disappear once a week. Every time she came back, her body smelled worse and worse, but pleasure radiated from her like radiation from a green rock. When she would return, curiosity built up in my mind to greater heights. After a few months, it towered so high that it touched the sun.
“Where are you going every night?”
On one night, I decided it was time. I just had to know where she was going. I waited all night for her to leave, and when she did, I stopped her.
“What do you mean?” Karina asked.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I’ve been watching you leave this room every week and sneak to God knows where.”
Karina flinched as soon as I let her in on the fact I was spying on her. “Can you please not tell anyone?” She begged.
“Only if you tell me what’s going on.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth, debating on whether she should let me in on her little secret or not. After a few seconds passed, her puzzlement transformed into one of realization, and a mischievous little grin crossed her face.
“Well, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you.” I didn’t expect what was about to happen next, so when she grabbed her breast and took a pose that wouldn’t be lost on a street side prostitute, I didn’t even react. “I’ve been going to a certain party.”
“A party?”
“Yeah,” Karina’s voice was polluted with excitement at my interest. “You know how we learned about sex in classes. Well, I’ve been escaping through a hole in the wall, then I headed to an orgy.”
“Orgy?”
“That means a group of people get together and have sex like animals.” It was my turn to flinch as the words that exited her mouth were so foreign and shocking that it sent electricity down my spine. “I go there once a week and have a good time for a few hours, then come back here.”
“But why? Isn’t it supposed to be really painful?”
I didn’t think a woman could feel good from having a man’s privates shoved up theirs. When I wrote notes during class, I came to the realization that the only purpose of its existence would be to make the man feel good and procreate. The teacher talked all about the way a man was stimulated from sex, but they said nothing about how a woman feels, so I thought it would do nothing but hurt.
“You see, that’s what I thought too, until I touched myself. Have you ever done that before?”
I shook my head. Although I had the urge to do it every time I watched Karina at night, I shirked away at the last second in fear of hurting myself.
“Well, let’s just say it’s the best feeling someone can ever experience. Eating chocolate cakes on Fridays is nothing compared to it. Seeing God himself wouldn’t bring me as much joy as having someone stuff me full. If I could die, I would want to feel the same way that I do during those parties.”
I didn’t understand what she meant by it feeling good. Either she was somehow a one in a dozen person, or I was wrong in my assessment. The way she made it sound enticed me, trapped me into what she really wanted out of me. I bit on the hook she cast, unaware that I was being hunted.
I agreed to go with her. It’s a decision that only in retrospect was something that should have never been considered. At the time, my curiosity and wish to be closer to the person I cared about most won over any common sense that was left in me.
We went to the party and the closer we got, the more fear beat against me. The long walk over there gave me enough time to think over what was about to happen, and my feet couldn’t have gotten colder, less I suffer from frostbite. Karina walked me along, holding my hand, comforting me enough to keep on moving. I didn’t want to disappoint the person who I’ve known since childhood. I wanted to be with her and enjoy the same things she enjoyed.
We made it, and they invited us in right away. As soon as I stepped inside the party, my senses were completely taken over by a filth so great it paralyzed me. Karina closed her eyes and took in the smell and sight with grace, but I was so repulsed by it I wanted to dash outside.
The smell of sex overpowered my nose, making my head feel light. The sound of pleasure as men and women alike moaned pounded against my ears. The sight of people in ecstasy blinded me. In some ways, I could even taste what was happening, and it shot me still. I was so overcome by these senses that I realized too late that Karina was stripping me down.
All of me was exposed to everyone in the room. I covered myself, hoping that it’ll somehow keep their perverted eyes off me. It didn’t stay that way since shortly after I covered my body, Karina pushed me onto a man’s lap. Something snaked its way between my legs, and I knew right away what it was.
Karina tried comforting me, but it didn’t work. As soon as the man worked his way inside me, the only thing I could feel was blazing pain between my legs. I felt someone pat my shoulder, then after that, my memory grew hazy. The only thing I could feel for the longest time was pain, and nothing but pain. The only relief that I was afforded was when the agony punched me in the face and knocked me cold.
The next thing I know, I woke up in a hospital bed. There was still an agonizing pain between my legs, and I heard from the doctors whispering about surgery. I was scared. So scared. My parents burst into the room and comforted me until the police arrived, where they then asked me what happened.
At first, I was confused. I didn’t remember anything for a brief moment. But all at once, the events of the night forced its way into my head. I remembered the pain of not only the scars that were left with me, but also the feeling of betrayal. Someone that I saw as a sister did something like that to me, and I couldn’t forgive it. The only emotion in me was a burning hatred that would last for centuries.
I told the police what happened, and after a few days of painkillers, drugs, and operations, I was finally told the result of their crimes.
“They’re free.”
I couldn’t believe those words that left my father’s lips. He looked at me with a scowl, but he wasn’t really looking at me. On the other side of me was a mirror, and in that mirror, my father glared at himself with a fury not even I could match.
“What do you mean, they’re free?”
There was no way I could understand what he meant by that. All my life, I was told if someone did something bad, then they should suffer the consequences of their actions. I always behaved so I wouldn’t have to deal with bad things happening to me, and I assumed Karina would get her due for causing me so much pain. What I wanted was for them to throw her in jail. However, despite what she did, I didn’t think she deserved a life sentence because I believed she may have just made a mistake. I still trusted her to some degree, even after all that.
“Well, Karina’s father is a very rich man. You would be surprised at how much the CEO of a toilet paper company makes. He paid off the courts to keep his daughter and her friends from jail, then,” My father froze, looking at himself in the mirror once more. “We settled on a price. He paid us for damages and we avoided having to go to court.”
My mind swept itself away under the weight of that news. There was no room to think. I didn’t believe this was reality. Someone managed to do something so heinous to another person, but they got away with it because they just so happen to have more green? What kind of fucking joke is that?
“What do you mean?” I raised my voice. “What do you mean?” Tears flowed out of my eyes. “What do you mean?” The betrayal I felt increased twofold, not only for my used to be friend, but also for the people that birthed me.
pain in letters, very high doses of injustice, fury, all wrapped up in the doubt of a tomorrow that can be worse
open a Twitter after a chapter like this? dude are you a secret masochist or something? with all the respect of a fan towards a great writer
At this point being cancelled is basically a right of passage for people with big followings.
Hey... I think you're right, we've reached the point if you weren't "controversial" your job isn't serious