The Melting

by lize Spit

  Elisa looks around the shed, scans the rafters, studies the tangled tools with narrowed eyes. Then her gaze falls on the tool rack on the wall.

  “Do you guys know how long a drill is actually used in its entire life?” I ask.

  “Ten minutes?” Laurens guesses. He’s the only one who responds.

  “Eleven,” I say.

  Annoyed, Elisa raises an eyebrow. She shifts her eyes to the corner of the room and reaches for the American shovel leaning against the wall. It’s covered in dry dirt. Half an earthworm is stuck to the back of the blade.

  “What would Twinkle do to Eva if she could avenge herself?” Elisa asks Laurens and Pim.

  “No idea, I’ve never talked to a horse,” says Pim.

  They look at me—Elisa is going to have to decide this one for herself. They don’t want anything to do with this. Elisa holds the little shovel upright between the two boys, trying to balance it.

  “Eva is still a virgin,” she says without looking at me. “You two can either fix that for her, or she can fix it herself.”

  I want to tell them I’m not a virgin anymore, that I already took care of that lie, but before I get a chance, she lets go of the shovel.

  For a second, it stands upright. Then it falls in Laurens’s direction. He doesn’t try to catch it. I know what Elisa wants, she wants me to do the dirty work. I take a step towards Laurens. Pick up the shovel and go back to where I was standing. Laurens and Pim each take a step back, so they’re practically on the other side of the barn, standing there like a penalty wall, their hands over their crotches, eyes down.

  I stand up on my tiptoes. The handle fits right between the floor and my pelvis. I hold the handle with one hand and use the other to spread my labia. I try to look as experienced as possible. The wooden handle is varnished. At least I won’t get any splinters.

  I carefully sink down through my knees. At first, it won’t go in, the tip of the handle is thicker than the glue stick and ruler combined. It doesn’t fit, it’s too dry. I spit in my hand, rub it on the handle in circular movements, just like the lady in the movie did before she got down to business. I spit again and rub it between my legs. I try again, pressing down a little harder than before. Reluctantly, the handle goes in.

  I look at Elisa. This is the only chance I’m going to get. I can’t let Laurens and Pim down either. This will determine how they’ll remember me, what part I’ll play in their stories, the woman or the klutz.

  I wet my lips with my tongue.

  It’s hard to hold a smile when I think of the holes we dug with this shovel. I can feel the notches in the wood made by Dad’s wedding ring over years of angrily planting Christmas trees.

  I gently move up and down the handle. I moan, not too loud, not too soft. I try to imitate Elisa’s posture on her horse, her graceful riding. I’ll never be as elegant as that, I know. Laurens and Pim look as far away as possible, their eyes on Elisa, hoping she’ll put a stop to it soon.

  I’m not a woman, not a girl, but I’m not one of them either. I’m the merry-go-round horse that goes up and down, always on the same pole, every year the same track, the same carnivals, the same children.

  I count the blue Maes Pils ball caps stacked on top of each other in a corner. That way I don’t have to count how many times I move up and down.

  Elisa is the only one looking on with amusement. Laurens and Pim just seem embarrassed for me.

  I don’t dare to look at their penises. It’s the most honest part of a body—the limpness would tell me what they really think of me, whether they’ll ever find me attractive, whether they’ll ever be capable of seeing me as a girl.

  Pim is keeping his penis hidden behind a sock he just picked up.

  “Are you about to come, Eva? Can we start the countdown?” Elisa asks.

  I nod, even though I don’t feel a thing. The more I move, the drier it gets. The wood absorbs the moisture and swells. The grain expands. Elisa already has her hand in the air, fingers raised.

  “Five more,” she says. She lowers a finger with every downward movement.

  When she gets to the fifth and final finger, two others shoot back up again, like trick candles.

  Elisa laughs. Pim laughs too. It’s not clear whether Laurens is closer to laughing or crying.

  I catch a glimpse of what’s hidden behind Pim’s sock—his balls, not hanging down all the way, but higher and tighter than usual. It could mean he’s not completely limp.

  Instead of two, I do five. Just to stay ahead of the humiliation. Elisa lowers her hands again.

  Only after I can’t feel anything anymore do I step off the shovel. My knees are trembling, my abdomen is burning, I feel dizzy, but I stay on my feet.

  I drop the shovel down between us. All eyes are on the tip of the handle. You can tell by the moist, dark wood exactly how deep it went in.

  I squeeze a smile onto my face, bend down to wrap my bras in my T-shirt and pick them up.

  Elisa kicks the clothes away.

  I stay standing. It can’t get any worse than this.

  “Okay. Now it’s these guys’ turn,” Elisa says. “They’re not going to get off easy either.”

  I nod.

  “What shall we make them do?” she asks.

  She looks around. Blue spots flicker on my retinas, a mix of dizziness and blue Maes Pils merchandise. I feel cold. The muscles in my calves and thighs are knotting up. I push my legs together and sit down on a chair. Maybe sitting will help the pain, stop the burning.

  Behind the ladder is a bucket of wallpaper glue. It’s been there for a while now, ever since Mom decided to re-wallpaper the bathroom but ended up being too tired to actually do it.

  “Something with this?” My voice sounds very soft. I point at the bucket. The glue is practically unusable anyway.

  Elisa takes a few steps back and stands with her back against the door.

  “Okay, Laurens and Pim. You heard what Eva said. Something with the wallpaper glue.”

  Laurens and Pim look at each other, then at the bucket.

  “But they don’t have to do anything for me,” I say. Tessie and Mom will be home any minute. “How about everybody just go home.”

  Elisa laughs.

  “You know what?” she says. “You two are going to give Eva an orgasm. She really deserves it after all that hard work. Prove that you can do it. If it works, you’ll each get a chance to fuck me.”

  Pim gets hard the moment he hears the word fuck.

  Elisa gathers a few of the tools standing in the corner by the door. She throws them down at the boys’ feet. A roll of iron wire, a rake, the hole poker. She casually brushes her hand along Pim’s cock. Then she goes and stands by the door. “Of course, you guys can just use your hands, too.”

  Pim immediately reaches for the sharp metal tool. Laurens tries to catch my eye, push Pim away, make him see reason.

  “Come on, it’s not worth it,” he says. He smacks Pim on the shoulder, but not hard enough. Pim won’t be deterred.

  “Work with me, Eva, and it’ll be over before you know it,” he says. “I know what I’m doing.”

  Should I get off the chair, go stand between them, so we’re no longer physically separated?

  “Be happy your dad never bought an ax,” Elisa jokes. Pim’s the only one who thinks it’s funny.

  I stay on the chair, that seems safest to me. I wrap my feet around it.

  “You gonna help me, Laurie, or are you gonna be a pussy?” Pim says.

  He approaches me, holding the hole poker out in front of him. In his hands, it fits perfectly, unlike in Tessie’s when she used it to dig holes in the garden. His erection swings back and forth in his underwear.

  Laurens breaks eye contact with me and looks back and forth between me and Elisa. I can see him hesitating. Does he really want to stand up for me? Or does he want the chance—probably the only one he’ll ever get in his teenage life—to fuck a nine-and-a-half pointer?

  Then Elisa starts massag
ing her breasts in front of him through her bra, exposing her right nipple.

  I refuse to lie down.

  Pim sics Laurens on me. He kicks over the chair. I let go of the backrest to break my fall. Laurens grabs me by the shoulders, forces me to the ground with all his weight and sits down on top of me, one leg on either side, facing me. He holds down my wrists.

  Gravity is working against me.

  Pim pushes my legs open. I kick and flail, hoping to hit his head, his balls.

  “Can’t you just use your fingers?” Laurens tries again. “You can put these on if you want.” He tosses a pair of work gloves into Pim’s lap.

  “Get your fingers dirty and you can forget about sticking them inside me later,” Elisa breaks in. “I don’t want to get some fungus or plant virus.”

  “Just let it happen, Eva. Then we can put it all behind us,” Pim says. He lays down the hole poker, puts on the gloves and picks it up again, holding it firmly in his hands.

  This is our punishment for their actions this summer. I am their punishment.

  I assume they didn’t picture it this way, that they would have preferred to use someone else. I’m just a substitute. The Diet Coke of sexual experiences.

  Elisa picks up a level and balances it so that the bubble is between the two dashes. Her hands are shaking. Then she places it on top of her breasts and tries to make it level there. For a moment Pim stops moving, his eyes fixed on the scene, but as soon as she puts down the level, he becomes even wilder, even rougher than before. Laurens presses my wrists against the ground.

  I stop resisting. I don’t want to make it worse for them, for myself. The more I struggle, the more I deserve the rough treatment.

  Laurens is getting hard now too; his little sausage inflates in front of my face, its shiny tip pointing straight up.

  It’s so close to my mouth I could bite the tip off.

  “Sure you want me to do it, or do you want to?” Pim asks Laurens, holding up the hole poker.

  “Man, just do it.” Laurens stays firmly planted on my abdomen even though there’s really no need to hold me down anymore. He just doesn’t want to get dirty. Maybe he wants to save his strength for later, for Elisa.

  Pim curses. I can’t see what he’s doing, because Laurens is between us, but I can feel it: he tries to push the hole poker inside me, wriggles the rounded tip against my crotch and butthole, like dogs sometimes do with their wet snouts when they catch a whiff of menstrual blood, trying to locate exactly where the smell is coming from. I tense up, tighten my muscles, just like I used to do when Mom would shove a suppository up my butt—it doesn’t help. There’s nothing I can do to stop the tip from sliding in with ease. At first, I don’t feel anything, this tool is thinner than the handle of the shovel. All I can feel is the scraping of sand, the point hitting my abdominal wall, where it causes a sharp pain, like a menstrual cramp but worse.

  “Does it feel good, Eva?” Pim asks.

  I say nothing. Every time he pulls back, I go over the order we planted the seeds in. Carrots. Leeks. Mint. Wildflower mix. A few poppies, because Tessie wanted them. The seeds had been in the laundry room for a few years. With a bit of bad luck, they’ll never bloom.

  “Here, I think it’s too dry.” Elisa pushes the bucket of wallpaper glue towards Pim.

  Pim hesitates for a moment, then dips the tip of the hole poker in the slippery leftover slime.

  I contract every muscle in my body, but it doesn’t help.

  Laurens looks away. For a split second, I make eye contact with Pim; he’s down on his knees with a focused look on his face, the same look he had at the funeral. He looks through me. Elisa seems lost in her own world for a moment too, they both have the same excited look on their face.

  I’ve never lain on my back in this workshop before. I’ve done it in almost every other room in the house. The roof is made of mossy tiles. Spider webs are strung between the mushrooms. A fat spider crawls out to see where all the tremors are coming from and scurries for cover again. The hedge clippers are dangling right over Laurens’s head.

  I hear a squelching sound between my legs, the sound of races in wet rain boots.

  I hope the clippers will break loose and crash down on Pim’s head, leave Laurens slightly wounded, put an end to all this.

  The chances of that are slim. Almost as slim as the chances of Miss Emma watching us right now. There’s no one in here but us. And there’s less and less of us left.

  The wallpaper glue is starting to dry; it’s getting grittier and more abrasive. It’s not just burning, it’s itching now too.

  “You know why scars can be so itchy? An itch is the mildest detectable form of pain,” Jolan once told me. I don’t know if I believe him anymore. Maybe an itch is the body’s way of telling you the pain threshold has been reached, the warning light for a power failure.

  Pim thrusts the pointed tip in more violently, checking my face every now and then to see if I want him to push harder.

  “Come on, Eva, try. You can moan if you want.” He dips the thing in the glue again and pushes it up my ass. I’ve got more muscles down there, or better control. With my last remaining strength, I tighten everything up. He pushes and twists, trying to get the thing in as deep as possible, stretching my sphincter as far as it will go. First it’s cold, then it burns, then both. I scream, kick my legs into the air. The metal won’t yield; it’s as unrelenting as Laurens. The unprecedented pain triggers new reflexes. Someone puts a hand over my mouth. I bite into it.

  Laurens screams. Pim pulls out the hole poker and sticks the tip back into my vagina. I can smell my own ass.

  “Come on, Eva. Imagine I’m Jan if you have to,” he whispers.

  How Pim found out, I have no idea. How could he possibly know I’ve fantasized about Jan? Who told him? I want to say something, but the words don’t come. My mind is a vacuum, I can barely remember what Jan looked like, what I look like, I can barely remember language.

  I look at Laurens’s chin, at his nostrils. He must smell it too, the smell of old feces. He keeps his eyes closed. Sweat pearls on his forehead and drips down in my face. I taste the salt.

  What’s he thinking about right now? About Elisa? About that Christmas we had to stuff sixty turkeys, fill their butts with plums, smash them down in there with the bottom of a glass? We joked about it for months—“fucked fowl” anyone?

  Pim keeps poking. My labia become stiffer, so dry that they’re dragged inwards with the metal. It feels like they’re about to rip off, like they’re just barely hanging onto my body by a thread. The throbbing of the pain alternates with the beating of my heart, swelling with every thump.

  What’s my best option here? I could go on like this. Or I could pretend to orgasm so they’ll stop. But I don’t know how to make it believable, what sounds to make, how long it usually takes for girls to come. And then I’d be letting Laurens and Pim have their way with Elisa.

  I want to close my eyes, but I can’t. If I stop watching, I’ll be all alone. There’ll be no more witnesses, only offenders. And without a reliable witness, it’ll be like this never happened.

  I hear car doors slamming. Pim does too. He freezes, tells Laurens to cover my mouth. I can smell the sweat on his hands.

  I had no intention of screaming. I wouldn’t want Tessie to see this, Mom either.

  They’re talking, walking around to the front door. Tessie’s shoes appear behind the crack under the workshop door. She sets the beer crate on the ground, then the grocery bags. Mom disappears into the kitchen. Tessie begins her ritual—we hear her tapping, spitting, humming. Elisa and Pim exchange mocking looks. The back door clicks shut. All goes quiet. The coast is clear.

  Pim starts jabbing again, faster, harder. If it were a fireworks display, this would be the grand finale, the point in the show when, after a dramatic pause, the loudest, most expensive explosives are detonated all at once. The final push for the ooh’s and aah’s.

  “Come on, Eva. Work with me,” Pim b
egs. He passes the tool into his left hand so he can stretch out the fingers on his right and jams my leg under his armpit to give himself more power.

  All the color drains from Laurens’s face, he looks at Pim petrified.

  Elisa steps back too. I call out her name to make her look at me. I want the image of me seared into her mind when she’s showing Pim and Laurens her clam. She needs to know that my labia were once more beautiful than hers.

  But she just looks down at the tops of her shoes. Her cheeks have gone completely pale, accentuating her lips.

  Now Laurens is shouting. “Pim! Stop! Enough.”

  He clambers off me. Now I can see why they’ve gone so white: Pim’s hands are covered in blood. It’s running down his wrists. His bare chest looks like Laurens’s dad’s apron after an afternoon filleting meat. Pim slides back but stays there on his knees. He drops the metal tool; it clangs down on the concrete floor beside him.

  I scramble to my feet. Without Laurens’s weight on top of me, my body feels light, as if only half of me is left. Sticky globs are dripping down my inner thighs, leaving a trail of pink glue behind me.

  I don’t dare to look down.

  Pim looks up at Elisa. Has he earned the right to fuck her now?

  She unbuttons her pants.

  My hands reach for the shovel, which is still lying in the middle of the barn. The handle has dried by now.

  I want to whack Pim in the crotch with it, but I can’t. He’s still sitting down, and he’s still Jan’s brother, the one who’s already lost so much. So I draw it back and aim the tip of the spade right between Laurens’s eyes. But as I thrust it forward, the blade snaps shut, and the blunt end of the shovel hits his eyebrow, not quite hard enough and with a dull thud.

  Laurens sinks down to his knees, clutching his eye. He pulls back his hands to see how much blood is on his fingers, what kind of screams he can lay claim to.