The Echos

Today's muse: Stony River

The prompt for Microfiction Monday #71:



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The Echos

Though she tried with all her might, the deafening echo of her stomping feet couldn’t drown the voices that ruled in her mind.

Full Disclosure

Today's muse:

Miranda's story continues. If you haven't been following along, you may want to start at the beginning.

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Full Disclosure

The marriage classes were a joke. They’d been living together for over two years. Did the church really think they were still virgins? It was all Miranda could do to keep from laughing at some of the questions the other couples asked. How does someone reach their mid-twenties and still remain so naive?

She had to remind herself that just because she’d never enjoyed the luxury of innocence, didn’t mean that others hadn’t.

At the back of the small room, she fidgeted on the hard plastic chair, her arms folded across her chest. She didn’t want to take the stupid classes, but Gregg insisted they marry in the Catholic church, so she played along. She drew the line at going to confession the week before the wedding. She’d already been down that path and wasn’t about to travel it again. Besides, as far as she was concerned, she could confess directly to the source.

Whispered conversations halted as the guest speaker entered the cramped room. A bald, paunched man stood before them and announced his lecture.

“We’ll be talking about divorce today.”

Miranda rolled her eyes. She’d spent the last four weeks listening to discussions on communication between spouses, insight on raising children within the parameters of the church and—the best one, she thought—a lecture on the Rhythm Method of birth control with a distinct undercurrent of abstinence. And now they wanted to tell us how to pack it all in, she thought. Fucking hypocrites.

Gregg took her hand as they walked back to the car after class. He cupped her ass as he reached around to open the door. She grinned, knowing the outcome of that subtle gesture. For some obscure reason, the marriage classes were the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Gregg had barely set the lock on the front door of the house before Miranda was pawing at him, tugging off his shirt, undoing his jeans. He spun her around, pressed her against the door, trailed moist kisses across her throat. Heat shot through her and she clung to him.

“Upstairs. Now.” The words panted out, barely audible.

They raced up the stairs, tugging at clothing, and stumbled into the bedroom. She fell back on the bed, her hair splayed out, skirt hiked up her thighs. He hovered over her, the gleam in his eyes a mixture of love and desire.

“I can’t get enough of you.”

He bent down, pressed his lips against hers. Soft, at first, then more urgent, demanding. He clasped her hands, their fingers interlocked, and pulled her arms over her head, pressed her into the mattress.

He nuzzled her neck. “I want you.”

She wasn’t with him anymore. In that instant, when he thrust her hands up and stole the power from her, she snapped back to fifteen, with Darryl, who forced, took and broke. She couldn’t see Gregg at all, she could only see Darryl, whose face then morphed into her grandfather’s, his wrinkled face leering and laughing, alcohol-sodden breath washing over her.

“Off!” She shoved at Gregg. “Get off me!”

“What the fuck?!” Gregg rolled off the bed, hiked up his jeans, leaving them undone. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Jesus, Rand!”

Miranda pushed her skirt down, wrapped her open blouse across her chest and curled up on the bed. “I’m sorry.” She pressed her face into the duvet, fought for composure but it wouldn’t come. She’d never had a flashback before, at least not during sex.

“You’re sorry? Sorry?! You can’t just stop it like that.”

No, she thought, she couldn’t stop it. Never could. Never would. She was a fool to think otherwise.

“I have to tell you something.” Curled into a tight ball, staring at the pile of decorative pillows at the head of the bed, she told Gregg everything. Drained of all emotion, her voice raspy, she was surprised to feel better having let it all out. She remembered one of the guest speakers at the marriage class had said communication was paramount, that it would be their salvation. He was right. She could move forward now, knowing she had someone to lean on.

After a long silence, Gregg finally spoke. “I can’t deal with this right now.” Miranda closed her eyes as the bedroom door clicked shut.

Later, she’d wonder whether she would have bared her soul if she knew he’d twist it against her.


Miranda's story continues...

In a Blink

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's words: blink, kind, occasion

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In a Blink

Kind and tender—gentle to a fault—it always took her by surprise when, on occasion, he would morph in a blink, release the demon hidden deep within.

Just a Kiss

Today's muse:

Miranda's story continues. If you haven't been following along, you may want to start at the beginning.

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Just a Kiss

The coffee table was littered with cashews, potato chips and two bottles of wine—one empty. An oblong ceramic platter displayed three different cheeses and an assortment of crackers. Actors mimed their scenes on the muted television.

Gathered with her two best friends for one last bash as a single woman, Miranda sat cross-legged on the floor in Wendy’s apartment, her hands cupped around a glass of chardonnay. Her long dark curls were pulled back with an elastic, away from the green masque now smeared over her face.

“A week today,” said Wendy, sprawled on the sofa, her own face smothered in an oatmeal paste, cucumber slices on her eyelids. She balanced a bowl on her stomach from which she selected Cheezies, popping them blindly in her mouth with unerring accuracy.

“Then it’s all over.” Sandra blew on her wet nails, waved them to dry. Having opted for the Camomile facial, they all agreed she looked like a cheery sunburst.

Miranda laughed at her friends. “Marriage doesn’t mean it’s over.” She sipped her wine, let it dance over her tongue.

“I hear that love-making is non-existent after.” Wendy popped another Cheezie into her mouth.

Sandra made an affirmative noise as she sipped her wine. “It’s true. Love-making goes out the window.”

“Well then,” said Miranda, “I guess we’re safe. We don’t make love.”

Sandra choked back her wine. Wendy sat up, sending cucumber slices to the floor.

“What?!”

Miranda shrugged. “We don’t make love.”

“You’re twenty-three years old. You’ve been living with Gregg for over two years. And you’ve never made love?” Wendy looked over at Sandra who only shrugged.

“We fuck like rabbits, we just don’t make love.”

Sandra hooted with laughter. Wendy fell back onto the sofa, threw a Cheezie at Miranda. “You had me going there for a minute. I mean, how can you sleep in the same bed with Gregg and not make love.”

“I told you,” said Miranda, topping up her glass of wine. “We don’t make love.”

Sandra blew at her nails, waved off this minor detail. “Making love. Screwing. Same thing.”

“No it’s not.”

Maybe the wine was getting to her, but there was one thing Miranda knew: sex had absolutely nothing to do with love. After everything she’d suffered through, struggling with the darkness to reach the light, she’d been shoved back into the vortex by the first man she’d trusted. Her grandfather may not have crossed that line, but Darryl made sure he broke through it, shattered it beyond repair. It took ages to breach the surface, to breath again. Oxygen manifested in the form of Gregg. And because she could trust him, she would marry him.

Wendy sensed something in her friend’s voice. Setting aside the bowl, she sat up and picked the cucumber slices off the floor, stacked them neatly on a cocktail napkin.

“How can you say that? You’re getting married. You can’t have sex without love.”

Miranda shrugged. “The two are mutually exclusive for me. I can’t—won’t—have sex with someone I don’t trust. I mean, you’re naked for god’s sake. You’re pretty vulnerable. But the act itself? It’s purely physical. A way to release pressure. There’s no love involved.”

She popped a cashew in her mouth. An awkward silence filled the room. Wendy sipped her wine.

“Is it good? I mean, are you satisfied?”

Miranda grinned. “Honey, there are days I can’t wipe the smile off my face.”

They laughed then, talking over one another, the fallout of Miranda’s bomb drifting away; though the mushroom cloud hovered around her.

As her friends chatted about the wedding and exchanged Hollywood gossip, Miranda sipped her wine and wondered if Gregg could feel the gap between them, the distance she maintained. Did he even notice she couldn’t kiss him when they fucked?

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Miranda's story continues...

Catharsis

Memories spewed like vomit, oozed from pores she thought she’d clogged so long ago. But rather than break the fever, the words only festered into puss-filled boils.

“You have to break some time,” she muttered, pressing the angry red lumps. “You just have to.”

The Assignment

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's Words: dare, essence, practical.



Some stories need to be told. Miranda's begins here.
And now, it continues...

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The Assignment

At the front of the classroom, wearing his practical Mr.-Rogers-cardigan-with-the-corduroy-elbow-patches, Deacon Phillips lectured the class.

“Senior year,” he promised, “will be different.”

Miranda rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. Notorious for questioning just about everything her religion teacher preached, she was already convinced that the Catholic curriculum in this final year of high school would be the same as the last four: propaganda meant to put the fear of God in the hearts and loins of young adults.

Thing was, once the devil took you, your loins never quivered again—in fear, or otherwise.

Deacon Phillips turned to the chalk board and scrawled one word in his looping penmanship.

Explore.

A hum rippled through the classroom. A few heads turned, eyebrows raised in silent question. No one spoke.

“Explore.” Deacon Phillips waved his hand at the board. “Explore what?"

He walked to the front of his desk and leaned back, tucked his hands in his trouser pockets.

“What do you want to explore, Angela?”

In the front row, Angela Giovanni twitched in her seat, blushed a deep crimson. “Sir?”

“What do you want to know? What do you need to know to make it in the real world?”

In the back row, in the farthest corner, Miranda uncrossed her arms and leaned forward on her desk. This was getting interesting.

“You’re all of age now,” said Deacon Phillips. “You’re adults. You need to be treated like adults, not kids. Adults have grown-up conversations about grown-up things. In-depth discussions that explore opinions and feelings. So this year, in this class, we’re going to explore.” He underlined the word on the board with three violent slashes. “In essence, we’re going to talk about whatever you want.”

A few students snickered. Dean Phillips stared them down, then pointed at John Walsh.

“What do you want to talk about, John?”

John had the good grace to hang his head and stare at his desk in silence.

“Come on, people. I know you talk. You talk all the time. I hear what you say. You may not think I do, but I hear everything. I don’t judge. You’re entitled to think and feel what you want.”

He paced across the front of the class, met each and every pair of eyes. He seemed to hold Miranda’s for an eternity, daring her to speak. It was as though he could read her thoughts. No one wanted to talk about the same thing as her, she was pretty damn sure about that.

Walking back towards his desk, the Deacon stopped in the centre of the front row.

“What about you, Angela? What do you want to talk about?”

Angela was dumbstruck and only shook her head.

“What about sex? Do you want to talk about sex?” He waved his arms to encompass the group. “Does anyone in the class want to talk about sex?”

It didn’t seem possible, but Angela’s blush deepened three shades and she let out a high-pitched squeak. At the back of the class, Miranda dug her nails into her clenched hands with such force, it wouldn’t have surprised her to see blood ooze between her fingers.

Despite Deacon Phillip’s astounding question, the classroom was silent; except for the quiet humming of the fluorescent lights.

“How many of you use condoms?”

Not surprising, no one moved. Who the hell was going to admit that in a Catholic high school, and to a deacon, no less?

The Deacon sighed, scrubbed his hands over his face. “Alright. Let me start over.” He sat back against his desk, crossed his ankles. “We’re going to be talking about really personal things this year. Important stuff. You have to trust each other to keep it confidential. You’ll also be learning a lot. You can share what you learn with others, but no one repeats information using names.” He paused a moment. “We agree—every single one of us, including me—that we don’t repeat anything personal.”

A few heads nodded.

“When we talk about how to use condoms, how to put them on, you don’t go and laugh about how so-and-so didn’t know how to. You didn’t always know how to either.”

There was absolute silence in the classroom. Even the lights seemed to stop humming.

“There is no grade given for religion in your final year, but you’re required to take it and we’re required to teach it. So we try to make it interesting.” Deacon Phillips glanced at the black and white wall clock. “This class will have but one assignment this year. Over the next two weeks, I want you to pick a topic you want to explore. You will have all year to work on this. If you want to present it to the class, you will be given that opportunity. If you want to hand it in to me to review, I’m happy to look at it. In theory, you don’t even need to complete this assignment.” He shrugged. “I won’t know if you’ve done it. But you will.”

He paused, allowed everyone to digest that.

“Explore who you are, ladies and gentlemen. Explore who you once were, who you are now and who you want to be. Hopefully, you’ll figure out a way to get there.”

The bell rang then. There was a moment’s pause before everyone gathered their books and filed out of the room. There wasn’t the usual cacophony of voices or the mad exodus. It was a sombre group leaving church after a funeral service, everyone absorbed in their private thoughts.

Deacon Phillips scribbled a few notes in his ledger, tucked folders into his briefcase. When he glanced up, he saw Miranda sitting at her desk, in the far corner of the room.

“Miranda? Did you want to speak with me?”

Nodding, she threw her bag over her shoulder, and wound her way through the desks to the front of the class.

“I know what I want to explore.” As soon as he announced the assignment, she knew. Somehow she knew it would help with the nightmares.

“You don’t have to decide for another two weeks.”

Miranda nodded again. “But I already know. I need…I want to explore this.”

Deacon Phillips sat back and waited. Miranda hugged her bag against her like a life preserver, took a deep breath.

“Incest.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Didn’t move a muscle. His pupils didn’t even dilate.

“Good choice. Let me know if you need any help.”

His tone was dismissive, almost indifferent. Perhaps that’s what Miranda needed. Not the pitying look or the empty platitudes, but acceptance, plain and simple. She turned to leave the classroom, her mind already pondering French class.

“Miranda.”

She stopped at the door, her hand on the chrome handle. She didn’t turn, but waited for him to speak.

“I hope it helps.”

Yeah, she thought, me too.


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Miranda's story continues...

Reports

Today's muse: One Word, So Little Time

Today's word: Reports

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Reports

His last letter was so joyful, filled with anticipation, sheer excitement to hold the child he’d yet to meet; but the paper she held in her hand—that trembled in her grief—confirmed he never would.

Not Forgotten

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's Words: conniption, janky, scooch.

I know that ThomG meant to challenge us, and I struggled with 'janky' (gave him grief for it on Twitter), but I hope that my use of his prompts doesn't sound forced.



Some stories need to be told. Miranda's begins here.
And now, it continues, with a flashback to the beginning...

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Not Forgotten

In a darkened classroom of St. Phillip’s Elementary School, Miranda crouched on the cold terrazzo floor, her arms wrapped around her knees.

The other teenagers participating in the church-sponsored retreat, all of them strangers, were off in other classrooms, now designated as living room, dining room and den—their makeshift home for the duration of the weekend. Laughing voices carried through the halls as everyone exchanged tales of their recent outing: a visit to the local nursing home to bring cheer to the elderly.

For Miranda, it was something of a breakthrough.

Pressed into the darkest corner, she let the tears stream down her face. She couldn’t fight them, didn’t have the energy. The memories she’d somehow suppressed all these years pummelled her, swirled in a Technicolor strobe effect. She slammed her back into the classroom wall, over and over, as though she could jar the memories out of her, make them stop. God, she just wanted to make them stop.

That’s how Jason found her. Huddled on the floor, rocking back and forth.

At first, he thought she was having some sort of conniption, perhaps an epilepsy attack. Then he heard the crooning, a sort of soft keening.

“Stop. Stop. Stop.”

She just kept chanting it over and over, her voice janky as she slammed into the wall with each word.

Moving on instinct, he slipped into the room and slid down to the floor beside her. He would have put his arm around her to soothe, but she scooched away from him, seemed to withdraw even more. So, he sat with her in the dark. In silence. Mirroring her pose, Jason hooked his arms around his legs, pressed his head into his knees and rocked in sync with her.

First, the crooning subsided, then the rocking stopped. Soon, the only sound from her was the occasional sniffle and grunt as she wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Miranda rested her cheek against her knees, her large brown eyes staring.

“I hadn’t remembered any of that…any of it…until now.” She squeezed her eyes shut. A tear leaked down her cheek.

He had no clue what she was talking about, only knew she needed to get it out. “The mind is a powerful thing. Sometimes it shuts out what you can’t process until you’re ready.” He’d read that somewhere in his psych class.

“I don’t think I’m ready.”

“You’re probably a lot stronger than you think. Wanna tell me what happened?”

He took it as a good sign that she unfolded herself then, stretched out her legs, though she kept her arms hugged around her body. She gazed up at the ceiling.

“He grabbed my ass.”

“Who?”

“One of the old guys at the nursing home. He was going to play cards with some of the other folks and I helped him put on his sweater. He thanked me by grabbing my ass.” Her voice caught. “He squeezed it and gave it a little shake.”

Jason was silent. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he knew there was more. Somehow, he knew there was more.

“It’s what my grandfather did to me. Until I was twelve. I don’t know how, but I’d forgotten all of that, all these years. I’m fifteen and I buried it somewhere deep inside all this time. Kept it locked away until…until that old man put his hands on me.”

She let out a huff, allowed the vignette of horrors to simply wash over her. “It started when I was four. We were alone. He took my hand and rubbed it against his…”

She made a vague gesture and Jason nodded his understanding. He wouldn’t make her say it.

“It was warm and hard and wet. I ran away, hid in my room and cried. But I never told my mom.” She shook her head in wonder, amazed by that. “I think I thought she wouldn’t believe me.”

Miranda took in a shaky breath. Jason sat beside her in silence, never touching her. His presence seemed to comfort, give her strength to purge.

“Every time my grandparents visited, or we’d visit them, he’d arrange it somehow so that we’d be alone. It was worse every time. My entire childhood was shredded. And I’d forgotten that. All of it.”

Her moist, sad eyes slid over to his and held him.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget again.”


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Miranda's story continues...

The Basement

Today's muse: One Word, So Little Time

Today's word: basement.

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Basement

The closet is where most people keep theirs, but Andrea hides hers in the basement; problem is, it's getting pretty rancid down there.

Eternity

Today's muse: Sunday Scribblings

Today's muse: Eternity.

Some stories need to be told. Miranda's begins here. And now, it continues...

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Eternity

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.”

It wasn’t her sin, but Miranda didn’t know what else to do. She knew God had all the answers; faith was not something she lacked.

“What is it, my child?” Father Andrew prompted her when she hesitated.

Even her parents didn’t know. She couldn’t tell them. Wouldn’t. It would destroy the family. She could live with the memories that haunted her dreams, but there was a small matter that pulled at her.

“Father.” Miranda closed her eyes, prayed for strength. “Father, when bad people die, are they forgiven no matter what they did?”

“If a person repents—is truly sorry for their sins—then, yes, they are forgiven and will join our Lord in Heaven.”

Miranda nodded in the darkness of the confessional. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“What if they did something that is unforgiveable?”

“Miranda, what have you done that is so unforgiveable?”

She wasn’t surprised when Father Andrew addressed her by name. There were no secrets in a small town. Well, very few.

“It’s not me, Father. It’s…someone I know. He made me…he did bad things. Very bad things.”

Father Andrew was silent, his silhouette a blur behind the mesh partition. The thin padding on the kneeler offered little support and Miranda’s knees began to ache.

Father Andrew coughed. “Forgiveness must come, not only from God, Miranda, but must come from us.”

“I don’t understand, Father.”

“You must forgive as well.”

She must forgive? She must forgive the sins of the one who destroyed her childhood, who forever changed how she viewed relationships, shattered her ability to trust a man—be with a man?

“But I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Fingers of ice crept over her heart, the pulsing beat slowed, life-giving fluid all but stopped.

“God will forgive if He is asked for forgiveness. It is those who cannot forgive who will face eternal damnation.”

“What?!” Miranda was outraged. “Are you telling me that because I cannot forgive my grandfather for destroying my life, that I’m the one who’s going to hell? And that slime is going to be welcomed into Heaven with open arms?”

“Miranda, the church teaches us that forgiveness is most blessed. In forgiving, we receive the Holy Spirit.”

“The church teaches this?! The church!” Miranda’s voice was shrill. “Fuck the church, Father. The God I believe in would not treat me like that.”

To his credit, Father Andrew didn’t flinch at the vulgarity. He merely shrugged his indifference.

“That is how it is, Miranda. If you do not forgive, it is you who will be damned for eternity. No one else. Only you.”

She opened her mouth, clamped it shut again. The tiny cubicle smelled like wet hay. She stared through the partition at Father Andrew’s blurred profile, his head bowed in prayer. Or was it shame? He should be shamed, she thought. How could he believe that bullshit?

“I want you to pass on a message, Father.” Miranda’s voice was soft.

Father Andrew’s silhouette leaned closer.

“Tell your god I’m leaving his church. The God I know wouldn’t try to sell this crap.”

Without looking back, she left the confessional and walked out of the church.

* * *

Miranda's story continues.

Good Ol' Reg

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's Words: descent, kill, surreal

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Good Ol' Reg

The soft scent of carnations and roses tangled with the antiseptic stench that clung to his body. Miranda stared down at her grandfather, his hands casually folded, as though he waited for an elevator. The undertaker had arranged Reginald Porter’s left hand over the right, concealing the stubs of two fingers hacked off by a lawnmower blade back in seventy-two.

Miranda’s mother, Laura, dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “He looks good, doesn’t he?”

Yeah, Miranda thought, he sure does. He looks damn good dead.

Reg wore the only decent suit he owned: shit-brown polyester, paired with a wide-collar peach shirt and a paisley salmon tie. It smelled like mothballs.

The whole thing was surreal, Miranda thought. She’d prayed for this day since she was four—killed him many times over in her fantasies—and it was finally here. Family and friends mingled in the visitation suite, laughed and swapped stories about Good Ol’ Reg. What the fuck was so good about him? They talked about him like he was a goddamned hero. She knew the truth, though. Reg was no hero. He was a villain; a sociopath who fed on stolen innocence.

“It just won’t be the same without him.” Laura squeezed her daughter’s arm and wandered away, sniffing delicately into a balled up tissue.

No it won’t, thought Miranda. There’d be no more empty bottles hidden in the garage. She wouldn’t feel his breath against her ear, smell the stench of alcohol and chewing tobacco, shudder as his calloused hands groped and prodded.

It was all over now. Except for her nightly descent into the black abyss of memories.

That, she knew, would never end.


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Miranda's story continues...

School Girl

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's words: plausible, taint, willingly
(and I even used them in that order!)

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School Girl

Sneaking out of St. Augustine’s School for Girls was not only plausible, she thought, it would be a walk in the park. Well, a walk across the manicured lawn, two-lane country road, then up the limestone lane to Father Henry’s Academy.

Rhonda swiped lip gloss over pouty lips, puckered a kiss at her reflection. Stepping back from the full-length mirror, she undid one more button of her crisp white blouse, exposing a hint of the leopard-print bra beneath. The hem of her navy skirt hung several inches above her knees, revealing well-toned legs. Years on the swim team had served her well.

She debated wearing the baby-girl cotton panties that Jason had asked her to wear, but knew he wouldn’t mind that she’d decided to go commando instead. It would be much easier. She didn’t want to waste time with a languid prelude fumbling with clothes. Tonight, she wanted hard and fast.

Rhonda knew it was ridiculous to risk the danger for a tryst with someone she could never be with. Not in public, anyway; it would taint her unblemished reputation. It was worth it, she thought. Need coiled through her, bringing a flush to her cheeks. Jason was so unlike her other suitors; he was attentive, nubile and—damn!—he had stamina.

He had approached her at the coffee shop, shuffling over to where she sat alone, tucked in a dark corner. Rhonda could see he was nervous and knew his friends would tease him about it later. Yet there he was, stuttering a little, the tips of his ears reddening. Her heart flopped at that moment and she cursed it for yearning for the one thing she couldn’t have. It was the same every time.

Someone of her stature couldn’t be seen with the likes of him. She had convinced herself that what she was doing wasn’t wrong. He’d come willingly to her bed, and he was, she told herself over and over, a student at another school. Their relationship didn’t breach protocol at either institution. Technically.

Still, she mused, if the Headmaster found out she was banging the students at Father Henry’s—tutoring them in valuable life lessons—he’d likely ask for her resignation as Professor of French Literature at St. Augustine's.