Thursday, September 4, 2008

Taking Out the Trash

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A short story by Faith Martins
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She met John online one night while she was bored and looking for attention. She liked to frequent adult chat rooms, older men loved her. This particular man happened to live only five minutes from her house, so after chatting with him for the better half of a week, she let him come pick her up on an afternoon when her parents were out.

He was ten years older than her and thought fucking a 17 year old was the best thing that ever happened to him. She was happy too, since he had his own place that she could escape to whenever she needed. The sex was really good, considering he had a small prick, and she kept going back for more. He was into all sorts of kinky shit, which was fine with her, whatever she could do to make him happy, made her feel valuable and alive.

He liked trying to hurt her and she just happened to be really good at faking whatever feeling he wanted from her. He would tie her up and beat her with his belt, she would whimper and beg him to stop, but even as the blood would run down her back, she was laughing on the inside. She knew the more submissive she was, the better he would treat her when he was done.

For three months she was incredibly happy, she was wanted, she had someone to love her. One day though, she found herself sitting on her bed with a small Kmart bag lying beside her. She opened it up and took out the small box inside. She tore it open, emptied the contents, and picked up the piece of paper containing the instructions. She had to make sure there were no mistakes. She had bought the most expensive one they had.

After re-reading the instructions for the third time, she went into the bathroom, hiding the pregnancy test under her shirt, as her dad was in the next room. She shut and locked the door and unwrapped the foil, putting the trash in her pocket. She grabbed a small cup out of the dispenser and half filled it with urine. She picked up the plastic tester by the area indicated, tipped it upside down and held it in the cup for exactly five seconds. She placed it gently on the sink and was planning on turning away for the three minutes, but found she was frozen, her eyes stuck on those two little windows. Her mind was racing, women miss their periods when they are stressed, she had been stressed lately, right? She could not lie to herself. She had already known what it was going to say. Even before buying the test she had looked up clinics on the Internet, writing down phone numbers.

She emptied the cup, put the tester in her pocket and went back to her room. She was suddenly on auto-pilot. She got ready for work, and as she calmly walked towards the front door, she told her dad she would be home later.

She did not want to go to his house. She did not want him to know. She could not tell anyone else though, she had no choice. She was terrified that he would not love her anymore. He looked at her strange when he opened the door, but invited her in. She immediately started crying, crying so hard she could not speak, which irritated him. Finally she managed to blurt out that she was pregnant.

“You haven’t told anyone about me have you? Does anyone know where I live? They can’t know about this!”

She was in shock at his reaction, but answered his questions. She had told no one. He told her to call the clinic, find out the cost, and make an appointment. Then he hugged her, kissed her on the forehead and sent her on her way.

A week later at school, she sat in first period practicing her mother’s signature. She wrote up a final draft of a dismissal note and brought it to the front office. It was a freezing cold walk to the parking lot. She took a deep breath and started her car.

John let her inside as he finished a drink and put on his vest and hat. She asked him for some painkillers and he brought her some extra strength Tylenol. She took three. They drove to the bank and she handed him one hundred dollars to add to his three hundred so he could get a money order. She stared out her window for an eternity. When he finally came out of the bank he got into the car without a word or a glance.

The drive took an hour, she kept her eyes out her window and her mouth closed. They stopped only once so he could grab some food; she was not allowed to eat before the procedure. They arrived at the front of a very large, old house, with a small sign on the front. While he finished his lunch he handed her some quarters and told her to fill the parking meter. The cold coins clinked into her hand and she opened the door, climbed over the snow bank and did as she was told.

They climbed the stairs to the front door and followed the directions on a small, handwritten sign, which told her to ring the buzzer. A woman’s voice asked for her name, appointment time, secret number, which had been assigned to her during a previous phone call, and the name of the person accompanying her. She was asked to hold up her driver’s license to a camera and John was asked to do the same. A buzzer went off and the door was unlocked.

We walked into the front hall. The wallpaper and the hardwood floors made it look like a grandmother’s home. To the right was a beautiful deep red carpeted staircase, to the left was a large room speckled with people, and down the hall were more rooms with closed doors. The woman sitting behind the desk in the middle of the hall was smiling. The woman told John to go in the waiting room, and asked her to sit in the black folding chair beside the desk. She told her to go down the hallway and put the urine samples she had been told to bring on the orange counter in the lab, which was two doors down on the right. Then she handed her a clipboard with some papers. She showed her the places to sign, and which papers were for her to keep. There were side effects from the antibiotics they would be prescribing, and a list of effects from the procedure. She dropped off her sample and went into the waiting room. John had been sitting next to some other men but got up to sit beside her.

She started filling out the papers, while John occasionally looked up from the book he had brought. She hesitated on the question that asked about what type of contraceptive had failed. He noticed she had stopped, looked over at what she was staring at and mouthed “condoms”. That was a lie. He refused to use condoms with her.

When her name was called a strange wind swirled around her and carried her for the next few moments. She had her blood drawn, watched a video, and a lady explained to her all the instruments they were going to use. She was handed a little gown, guided to the bathroom, and instructed to empty her bladder, put on the gown, and put a pad in her panties. When she walked out of the bathroom it felt as though only seconds had gone by since she had been sitting in the waiting room downstairs. Now she was in a new, smaller waiting room on the second floor, with other girls in little gowns. They were sitting on a couch making strange small talk about how far along they were and how they were always throwing up. She sat in her chair, leaned her head back against the textured wall, squeezed her freezing legs together and stared at the shelves that lined the wall in front of her.

A woman in her mid-twenties came into the room and called one of the girls. She grabbed her little tote bag of clothes and followed her out the door. A little while later the other girl was called. She was not alone for very long before her name was called. She was brought to the bathroom one last time and then followed the woman, who introduced herself as Medusa, into the surgery room. She met one male doctor, one female doctor, and was told to lie down on the table, slide all the way down and pull her gown up. A white sheet was placed on top of her from the waist down, and her legs were spread apart and put into two supporters. Medusa stayed by her side and put her hand gently on her left arm. The female doctor sat on a chair by her feet and the male doctor began the examination. He checked to see how far along she was, which turned out to be eight weeks. When he shoved in two of his fingers, she was surprised at how rough he was. He inserted the cold metal instrument inside of her and opened it up to do a pap smear. When he was finished he asked if there was anyone downstairs she wanted to have with her. She said no.

Medusa told her that there would be cramping as they dilated her cervix. She rubbed her arm as she winced in pain. The sensations were getting stronger, but before they started anything else they gave her some shots of anesthetics, which burned in a sickening way. The female doctor stroked her leg and Medusa put a cold cloth on her forehead. She did not know they had started the actual suctioning until she could feel her insides being sucked out in waves. She stared at the landscape poster on the ceiling and then into Medusa’s comforting eyes. She tried concentrating on breathing as they had instructed, and listened to their soothing voices. It soon became the most severe pain she had ever experienced, she wanted to disappear, she wanted them to shut up, she wanted to cry.

When it was over, the cold metal was taken out, and her legs were put back on the table. The doctors had rushed to the other side of the room to test everything, and Medusa asked her if she could sit up. She tried to ignore the lingering pain as she stumbled off the table.

She was brought to a room with reclined chairs, water and crackers. She could only stomach water. She sat in one of the chairs and was given a hot pad for her stomach. Medusa went downstairs to get John. She adjusted her gown and her hair so she would not look completely awful. He walked in and sat down in the chair beside her, not once taking his eyes off hers.

She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, so as soon as she felt she could stand she lied about her pain and went to the bathroom to change. The blood in the toilet made her pause to catch her breath, but she wanted nothing more than to get out of there. On the way out the woman at the desk spoke briefly to her about scheduling a future appointment to check on everything. On her way out the front door she had to put her hand against the door frame to catch her balance.

When they got back to his house she asked him if she could go inside and lay down for a little bit. He said yes, and led her to his bed where she fell instantly asleep. She woke up when he crawled into bed beside her. She looked over at the clock, she had only been sleeping half an hour. He had taken his clothes off and put on some pajama pants. His bare, warm chest felt good against her face. He wrapped his arms tight around her and as she dozed back off to sleep she thought to herself that maybe everything would be just fine.

His movements awakened her only moments later. He kissed her, then took her finger and rubbed the tips of them on his lips. He opened his mouth a little and put one of her fingers on the tip of his tongue. He slowly moved her finger in and out of his mouth, rubbing it on his wet tongue and then on his moist lips. He pushed against the inside of her thigh with his leg and let go of her hand. She knew what he wanted and knew she did not have a choice. He took off his pants and pushed her by her shoulders down to his waist. She gave him what he wanted, and when she was finished he said, “You’re going to be late for work, you should probably get going.”

She looked over at the clock. He was right.

3 comments:

Everett Marx said...

This story gripped me from beginning to end, Faith.

Candace said...

Yes, I agree with Everett - this story is very grippingly told. And sad that the main character thought of herself as trash, capable of producing only trash.

Unknown said...

Amazing. One of your best, but not THE best. Keep writing and keep sharing it. In my opinion, you are the clear winner.