Page 7 of Starving Butterfly
Every white step upwards, a memory flashed before me.
He always preferred whips, the tails spiked and razored as they tore bits of my flesh. I cried the first time he whipped me. It was two months after that night. The one where everything began. The party was raging while he walked me between the mansion halls. I felt entirely underdressed, only in a small, flimsy white nightgown, still limping on the broken ankle. As soon as the cast came off, Daddy’s tenderness faded.
I thought I would be safe with Daddy; I was so wrong. The front steps were adorned with red streamers and party supplies; I thought it looked beautiful. Like a wonderland of colors. Red was so pretty.
“Come here sweetheart,” he motioned to the large column next to the steps. My naïve self thought to trust him. Thatmaybe this would be a family photo like years before with Mommy.
“Yes Daddy,” I whispered as the cold chill bit into my backside. I was already shivering from the cold. He held his hand out in the way he always did when he wanted special time. I kneeled beneath him, my lips trembling. It was easier to go along with what Daddy wanted. At least I was given food and care afterwards. It was normal. There was nothing else for me to compare it to. He grabbed my wrist, wrapping a thick rope around it. I tried to pull away. A scream caught on the air as my heart beat faster. No. No. No. I shook my head, already trying to ward off the trauma that would be coming.
“Daddy please,” tears streamed from my eyes as he tied the coarse rope around my other wrist. “Please, I’ll be good.”
He said nothing as the rope was then passed around the large column. Jeff stood looking down at me in awe. I looked away; I hated Jeff’s attention. Crying more forcefully, I watched as my tears splashed against the concrete, the darkness spreading the longer I looked down. My eyes caught the shoes in my field of vision. Blue ones with red stripes, and I looked up.
“Cole,” I tried to say, but it didn’t come out as his name, just a broken sob as I stared at the one good thing I held dear in my life.
“Son,” Jeff snapped, and that’s when I connected it: the boy who’d been my friend those months before was also the son of the man who’d forever damaged me. Cole frowned, touching my hand on the pillar before he walked to his father. A small firefly crawled on the back of my hand as the air broke. A moment later the whip lashed against my backside and the scream gurgled out of my throat. I sucked in a lungful of the night’s cold air as the wind bit across my back, the whips ripped out of my flesh as warm blood trickled from my backside.
Tears streaming down my face, I looked up to see the blinking light of the firefly, and right behind it were the silent sobs from the boy I loved.
Someone jerked my arm, ripping me away from the memory. The gas splashed against their face as I rounded, punching them. I didn’t have the patience for idiots. I turned away when his voice caught my attention again, “Ms. Williams, stop.”
I stopped long enough for the gas to thunk on the step. Long enough for the barrel of my handgun to spark to life as the firing pin slammed home. The bullet whizzed into the man’s gut; he fell backwards on the decorative landscape.
Grabbing the gas can, I resumed walking. Another step upwards, and a new memory flashed behind my eyes: I was older.
“Why did he whip you?” Cole asked from the doorway. He was tall now, more muscular; his face was purple and bruised. His knuckles bloodied, and the faint smell of gunpowder wafted from him. I stared at him; tears slipped down my face. He was fighting his own battles while I struggled to breathe without the pain. He waited in the dim light of the doorway for an answer. I didn’t tell him the truth. Truth was I had tried to fight. They’d both taken and taken, and I wasn’t satisfying enough. Jeff didn’t like the way my body grew, and Daddy didn’t like Jeff unhappy. When I started bleeding the last day, they didn’t stop. I swallowed a broken sob. I wasn’t sure who ended it, just that the next night I was punished. Five lashes because I didn’t kneel fast enough, six lashes because my mouth wasn’t wide enough and my teeth scraped against him. Seven lashes because I didn’t enjoy myself. Eight lashes because I was growing. I’d lost count after that, wavering between conscious and unconscious thought. Every time I saw Cole, I knew Jeff wasn’t far behind. It was a pattern: every few months Daddy threw a party. Every few months he raped me with Jeff, his business partner.At first, I cried, begged, pleaded with Daddy not to, but it was no use. They had an arrangement, and that arrangement was me. It was my twelfth birthday. It wasn’t my fault for growing. I wanted them to stop. Something feral snapped in me; I managed to slap Jeff’s hands away. It was a mistake. What followed was the worst torture I had ever experienced. Three days of hell all because I was an ungrateful, stupid girl. I blinked at Cole, unable to speak. The tears splashed against my forearms as I lay on my stomach, my body shaking from exhaustion.
“I got my period. They didn’t like that.” I whispered, a shaky breath escaping me as the pain surged across my back. He came closer, a sadness on his face, his rage barely contained, but he kept clenching and unclenching his hands. Only when he walked closer did I realize what had been in his hand. A small flower crown made from dandelions with a few missing petals. Happy birthday. The words were unspoken; he was late. Too late to fix what was already broken. I smiled weakly around the pain as I reached out towards him.
“I’m not strong enough to fight them little firefly,” he placed the crown on my head, his gaze fixed on the open wounds. “I should have been here, maybe then they wouldn’t—” he couldn’t even finish the sentence, but we both knew why. They wanted him to be like them. To grow up into the cold world of power, deceit, and lies. Molded into a life he never asked for, directed by the cruel hands of fate. He’d be leaving soon again. I’d overheard the joy in Jeff’s voice, something about the election. Cole’s body moved away from me again.
He walked across the room on silent steps towards the bathroom. I heard the water running, then shut it off. Cole returned with a bucket and cloth, his eyes cloudy as he offered his hand.
I took it, clutching it to my chest.
“Deep breaths.”
Thunder boomed in the distance, clearing the memory away. Hatred formed like a lead weight in my stomach as I took the final steps in quick succession.
My hands lingered on the large stone column. I clutched my stomach as the final memory flashed in my mind.
“This is the last time,” Daddy’s voice firm as he grasped hold of Jeff’s hand. I sat frozen as they chatted in the doorway.
“She’s too old, those looks don’t last. Too much of her mother in her.” Jeff’s sickening voice wove into my mind. They were in agreement, but I hadn’t understood why. It was the first time I’d ever heard them talk about Mommy, and my heart ached.
“Be a good girl sweetheart, show Jeffery what I taught you.” Daddy placed his hand on my shoulder. Panic reared in me; the last thing I wanted was to be touched. To touch, but there was no other way. I nodded, keeping my eyes down. My body dropped to the ground, and my mouth opened. I pinched my eyes shut to stop looking, to stop watching myself.
“That’s it little girl,”Jeffery groaned as he leaned down to kiss my hairline. There was a puddle of tears against my other cheek. My body ached from the position. White stickiness seeped from between my legs as Jeff withdrew himself.
“What do we say to Jeff darling?” Daddy’s voice was that fascinating, distant sound. I knew as soon as Jeff left there would be more. I bit the inside of my cheek, holding back the cry.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I’d closed my eyes, trying to forget the pain. To disassociate myself from the moment. They continued to talk about something, but I couldn’t hear all of it.
Jeff chuckled, “You don’t think she’s old enough for any of that right?”
“Nah, she’s only fourteen, besides if anything did happen I’ve got connections.” Daddy replied with a smile.
I didn’t know what “it”was; I’d been educated about things, sure. I learned mathematics, accounting, reading, writing, but Daddy never gave me a sexual education class. There were no books in the shed about the subject either.
