Well you don’t, I think.
You get nothing. You’re just a wannabe.
A nobody.
Someone no one would miss if you were dead.
Not even her.
Not even my Carrie.
And she’s using you while she waits for me, asshole.
And when she sees me, you’ll be history, buddy.
Ain’t that always the way?
The woman uses another man while she waits for the man of her dreams.
Do you see? I want to scream. Do you see who the real winner is here?
I go to the edge of the road and hail my own cab.
Fuck the expense. She’s worth it.
Mr. Fancy Asshole has answered his cell and he’s sitting in his cab talking and smiling, and it starts to pull away. And I panic and think I’ll lose him, but then a cab comes for me and it’s all going to be okay. I just know it.
I climb in, and I start to say “follow that cab,” but then I realize what a prick I’ll sound like so I don’t say anything at all. But I know I need to say something.
And then the driver looks at me through his mirror and he says, “Where to?”
And I like this guy right away, because he smiles when he talks. So I smile back at him and I say, “Straight on please, sir.”
And he nods and smiles again, because he is polite, and I am polite, and it’s all going to be all right. We’re moving now, and I’m following Mr. Fancy Asshole, and I know he’ll take me to Carrie.
I just know it.
And I can’t wait to see her beautiful face.
She’ll be so happy to see me!
Chapter twelve:
Mr. Fancy Asshole lives in a fancy part of town—of course he does. I can tell because as we drive the size of the houses get bigger, and the cars get nicer, and there’s less graffiti on everything.
The driver continues to ask me for directions, and I continue to tell him which way, watching really carefully so I don’t lose Mr. Fancy Asshole’s cab and I can give the right directions.
His cab eventually pulls over, and I tell my driver to pull over too. He’s watching me with narrowed eyes in the rear-view mirror and he’s not smiling anymore, and I think I’ve done something wrong and I wonder what, but don’t care enough to ask. So instead I say,
“How much, buddy?”
He tells me the amount for the cab ride (which is really expensive, but she’s worth it), and he still doesn’t smile. I want to tell him to brighten the fuck up, but I don’t because manners, of course.
‘You can always be polite, even if others aren’t,’ my mom used to say to me. And I wonder if she ever had to deal with people like this, because I bet she’d struggle to be polite if she did.
So I pay my driver and I climb out, and his cab sits there for a minute and doesn’t pull away like Mr. Fancy Asshole’s does. He just stays there, engine running, staring through the glass at me. And then I realize why. He’s watching me, watching Mr. Fancy Asshole, and I think, He needs to mind his own fucking business.
I walk away, ignoring the cab driver’s stare, and I follow my guy because my guy will lead me to Carrie, and Carrie will lead me to happiness. I follow, and then I know he’s not heading home, because he only walks for a minute or two up the road before he checks both ways to make sure no one is watching him (though he doesn’t see me, asshole!) and then he climbs the six steps to the large brownstone house.
And shit, it’s a really nice house. And I know it’s Carrie’s. I can feel it in my bones. My dick twitches at the thought of her being so close. I stare at the house and there’s no peeling paint or dirty windows here. The curtains, what I can see of them, look heavy and rich, and I wonder what it looks like on the inside.
He fishes in his pocket for a key, and when he finds it he uses it to unlock the door. And then he’s inside, and I didn’t see if this was actually Carrie’s house because he used a key and he didn’t knock like I thought he would. And if he would have, she would have come to the door, and I would know for certain.
So now I’m not sure what to do, because I had a plan and it’s screwed now. I wanted her to answer the door so I knew one hundred percent that it was her home, and then I could come back when I was more prepared. But now what?
I can’t just knock on some random house door. Especially with Mr. Fancy Asshole inside.
Our meeting has to be perfect.
I’ve thought it all over and decided exactly what I’m going to do. How it’s going to play out.
Once I know where she lives, I’ll order flowers. NO! I’ll order her favorite flowers, and I’ll get some wine too. Some expensive wine, because she likes expensive things now, apparently. And then I’ll knock on her door with my wine and my flowers, and I’ll make sure Mr. Fancy Asshole is there, but I’ll also make sure that he’s only just arrived because I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself if I turn up and they’re in the middle of fucking and her hair is disheveled and her cheeks are flushed and her eyes have that sexy look in them like she’s just come.
Can you imagine if I knocked on the door and she answered it wrapped in her bathrobe? The knot at the waist not tight enough, so I can see that she’s not wearing underwear. The pink bloom of her flashing at me as she realizes all too late and pulls it closed, full of apologies and embarrassment, and…
‘Ethan, you’re here!’ she’d say, and throw her arms around me.
I can’t do that to her.
To me.
To us.
So the timing has to be perfect.
He has to have just arrived, and it’s important that he’s there, because I want to see the look on his face when she tells him to fuck off.
But now I don’t know what to do because he’s gone inside and I don’t know if it’s her house, because maybe he’s fucking lots of women and not just Carrie. And the cab driver is still watching me and making me feel really uncomfortable even though I haven’t done anything wrong.
So I keep on walking, hands in my pockets, chin to my chest, and I walk around the block. I know how to walk without being noticed. How to see without being seen. I lived that way for a long time, after all. But it’s not her fault, and I’ll tell her that when I see her. Of course I will.
By the time I make it back around again, it’s started to rain. The crack of thunder sounds out in the distance. And wouldn’t you believe that I forgot to bring my coat today?
Ain’t that always the way? I want to laugh.
But at least the cab driver has gone, and I breathe a sigh of relief at that small fact.
I sit on the steps of a house across the road but a couple of doors down, so I’m not in plain sight. It has a repossessed sign outside it, and when I look through the windows, all of the furniture is gone. And I think, that’s what happens when you buy a house you can’t afford.
I wonder what she’s like now, and why she likes houses like these.
Is it because the windows are clean, Carrie?
I want to ask her.
I can’t wait to ask her.
Is it because the paint isn’t peeling?
Is it because these houses represent everything you never had growing up?
I can understand that. My counselor-slash-therapist-slash-Mr. fucking Jeffrey says that people like to belong. That they strive to fit in somewhere, because life can be all lonely and shit when you’re on your own.
‘Do you ever get lonely, Ethan?’ he’d asked me.
And I’d shaken my head no, certainly not. Because who could ever be lonely when you’re locked up for twenty-three hours a day with hundreds of other unstable people.
‘Let’s just call them people, Ethan. Because before everything else, that’s what they are. And after they’ve served their time, that’s what they will be again. So let’s give them some humanity.’
He said this with a straight face, like I was stupid. He didn’t understand that those people weren’t like me. They were different; they were sick. They de
served to be there, not like me. I’m a good boy. My mom used to say so all the time.
‘You’re a good boy, Ethan. Stay away from her, she’s trouble.’
And Mom was right, Carrie was trouble.
But it wasn’t her fault.
It was life.
It was the shitty hand that she had been dealt.
It was her perverted father and her alcoholic mother.
It was never having enough money for lice shampoo and no soap to clean the windows.
Carrie was a victim of circumstance, just like me.
But she needs to know that she’s better than all of this fancy shit. That she does belong, she belongs with me. She doesn’t need things and places and money to be something. She already is something.
She’s a something by just living and breathing.
She’s not a fake and a fraud like all of these people. Or maybe she is, just a little bit—I’m not naïve—but I bet it’s all just a ruse to fit in, because she’s got to fit in somewhere while she waits for me.
We’re pieces of the same jigsaw, and we fit together. We always did.
God, I feel awful. All these years waiting for me. I think about the things she’s gone through. The people she’s had to deal with to get by while she waited for me.
Well no more, baby, no more. I’m here now, and it’s going to be all right.
The door opens up, and Mr. Fancy Asshole comes out. His suit jacket is undone and his hair is a mess, but he straightens it quickly like he’s an expert at doing it. And it dawns on me that he probably is. That she doesn’t realize that he’s using her, while she’s using him. And that makes me mad because she deserves better than that.
He heads down the steps quickly, a small skip in his step now that his balls are empty. He opens up his black umbrella and it makes me even angrier because I know he’s just fucked her. My Carrie. And I bet she’s inside now feeling cheap and worthless. And she’s not cheap and worthless, but he’s just made her feel that way. Because that’s what men like him do; they treat women like her like they’re objects to be used and thrown away. Well I won’t do that to her. We’ll use each other but we’ll never throw each other away.
So it’s okay. Really, it is. Because that’ll be the last time he does that to her.
Chapter thirteen:
I walk across the street. It’s dark and late and rainy and cold. And the storm has hit, but it’s not nice just sitting in it. I prefer to be watching from my window rather than living and breathing the storm.
Lights have come on in windows.
People laugh and joke and cheer in houses.
No crying walls or screaming doors.
No tears leaking through broken windows.
Not here. This is a nice neighborhood, and I guess I can already see why she likes it here. Once upon a time, perhaps I would have liked to live here too. I bet you don’t hear prostitutes banging clients while you eat your soup, Carrie.
But it’s just stuff, and things, I’ll tell her. You don’t need it, you need me.
And she’ll agree.
Of course she will.
Because I’m right, and she knows that too.
There’s a small gap between her brownstone house and the next, and I slip down it, splashing through the mud. It soaks into my beloved sneakers, and I try not to get too annoyed that this is probably the end for them. They’ve survived rainstorms, but they won’t survive this night.
I keep going further into the shadows, hoping to see a window soon, because I don’t really like the dark, even though I know there’s nothing to be afraid of. Not really. And it’s weird because this reminds me of the time we ran away together.
It was dark and wet, like tonight.
We were hiding behind Mrs. McElvers’ shed in her back yard. It smelled of cat piss and rat poison.
“I’m not going back,” Carrie said.
“I won’t make you.”
“You don’t have to stay with me, Ethan. I don’t always need you to be here,” she said indignantly, her fiery eyes daring me to leave.
“But I will, Carrie. I’ll always be here,” I assured her, like I always did.
She shivered from the cold. Her bruised eye and cut lip were blatant under the moonlight. The light of a streetlamp fizzed on and off intermittently by the front of the house, and I didn’t like it. It scared me more than the dark because it needed to be one or the other. It couldn’t be both. It wasn’t allowed to be both dark and light. Night and day. Good or bad. ‘You could only be one or the other,’ I wanted to say to that light.
“Will he be mad?”
“I don’t care,” she said.
“Will she be mad?” I asked.
“She won’t even notice I’m gone,” she replied. “Not until he needs something from her because I’m not there.”
I didn’t know what she meant, so I said nothing.
Carrie opened her brown backpack and pulled out one of her mother’s bottles of cheap vodka.
She unscrewed the lid and took a large swig and then she offered the bottle to me. I shook my head no, because I’m too young to drink and so is she. And I don’t like the smell, so I can’t imagine that I’ll like the taste of it.
And then she laughed.
I didn’t like it when she laughed, and she knew that, so she leant forward and pressed her mouth to mine and kissed me when she saw she’d made me sad. I didn’t like the taste of her mouth. It tasted like the vodka and that tasted bad. But I liked her kisses.
I preferred her kisses to her mocking.
We kissed for a long time. And despite the cold and rain and the horrible flashing light, we both felt calmer. When she pulled away, her pupils were wide.
“You’re dangerous, Ethan,” she said.
And I laughed, because I wasn’t dangerous; I was just cold and hungry.
Carrie leaned forward and kissed me again, and I welcomed her mouth and her lips and her tongue. Then she reached for my hand and pressed it to her left breast. It was small but firm.
“They’re still growing,” she told me.
“I like them like this,” I said quietly, in awe of her.
“Do you want to touch me?” she asked.
I shrugged, because I was already touching her so I didn’t understand. I shook my head and she laughed again as my cheeks grew hot and my hands trembled. I liked feeling her breast; it made my stomach feel strange.
She took my other hand and pressed it between her thighs, right at the top where her panties were. It was hot and damp and my body shivered. She pressed my hand closer to her until I felt dampness seeping through her clothes and onto my hand, touching her, feeling her warmth seeping onto my fingers. It was the most intense thing I had ever experienced.
My fingers were wet and I was shaking, and she laughed again and pushed me away from her. She reached for her mom’s vodka again and started drinking, and then she told me to go home to my mommy.
I stood up. I didn’t want to leave her out there on her own.
I wanted to keep on touching her.
I wanted something more, but I didn’t know what.
I was sad and confused and scared. And my stomach ached. And my jeans felt too tight.
So I turned and ran, and even now I feel guilty about it. Even now I know I did the wrong thing by leaving her there, and I should have stayed with her. I should have drunk the vodka with her.
When I got home, Mom was mad because I was late. And because she knew I’d been with Carrie again. And because my clothes were soaked through from the rain and I was shivering so much my teeth chattered.
She told me to go upstairs and have a bath before I caught a cold, but I feared it was too late.
I felt like a little kid, even though I was nearly a man.
“I’m thirteen now, Mom,” I yelled. “I’ll do what I want.”
And then I stormed upstairs, and I went to the bathroom because I was wet, and I didn’t want to catch a cold and I didn’t like being w
et. It made me feel sticky and gross. I hated the way my jeans stuck to my thighs.
I put the plug in the bathtub and turned the taps on full, and then I undressed and looked in the mirror. I still looked like me, but I felt different, funny, more grown up. I looked at my hand and saw that there was blood on my fingertips.
I checked my body for cuts, but there were none, and then I realized it was Carrie’s blood. I stared at my fingers for a long time—long enough that the bath had filled too much and I had to let some water out before it overflowed.
When I got in the bath, I let my hand with the blood on it dangle over the side of the tub. I didn’t want to get rid of the blood just yet.
I felt connected to Carrie in a way I’d never felt before. I liked it. I liked it a lot.
And I wondered if she’d let me touch her again one day.
Chapter fourteen:
I reach up to the windowsill, thankful that there’s a light on inside the house because it’s black as hell down here, the darkness only punctuated by the crack of lightning every once in a while.
I can hear music—a low steady beat, something soothing with bass, coming from inside. I don’t know what it is, but what I can hear makes me smile. I think on all the new things that she’ll show me and teach me.
She was always my teacher and I was the learner.
She was daring where I wasn’t, but she never minded; she always encouraged me to tag along with her and never made me feel like a baby. I was always a man in her eyes. Older and wiser, yet inexperienced when it came to everything Carrie.
I watch through the window for several minutes, hoping that she’s going to go past any minute now so I can be certain that this is her house. But she doesn’t go past the window, and I’m getting colder and wetter standing outside here. And I don’t like to be cold and wet. That’s all I seem to be this week. Cold and wet.
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