A Stain on the Carpet

Her eyes cut into me every time she said it. Normally so loving, on those occasions where my actions warranted such courtesies, she would look at me with such disdain and disappointment that I died a little each time. Her look would tell me how little she thought of me at that moment, how much she wished I could be like her sister's child; but we both knew that was a futile hope.

When she spoke during these times, her caramel-sweet voice changed. Her pitch, normally on the musical side of light and it seemed to stick to you, surround you, leave you wanting one last syllable to enrich you, took on a darker, scratchier tone, ultimately weighed down by the shame she was forced to bear.

And it's not that I was a bad kid. I always got my homework done, tried to keep my nose clean. I was just forgetful, and easily distracted. Maybe this was my penance for having an imagination, and few real friends? Maybe if I was a bad kid, or "a normal" kid, as my aunt would say when she thought I was out of earshot, I wouldn't have received those looks from my mom? Maybe I wouldn't be here today.

But I am here today. And I am far from normal. Abnormal kids don't grow into normal adults. As much as I can pretend I'm fine, that I have forgotten all those looks and incidents, I can't. Irony is usually served up sharp, like that set of kitchen knives I bought for my mom because they could sever a pop can in half, and in my case, this ironic twist have rendered me invalid, severing my spirit from my body. I couldn't remember where left my running shoes, my homework, or my house keys, but I can remember the damn taste of that one tear that flooded my mouth the first time I saw my mom look at me like I had managed to destroy the world.

I had gone to the store the day before and came back, very proudly in fact, knowing that I had managed, without a list, to pick up everything that my mom wanted. At that moment, I was my aunt's son, perfect, responsible, normal.

What happened next wasn't the first time it had happened, just the worst. This time, I really felt the pain in her, felt her pain crippling me, maiming her, killing any chance that we had of ever being us again. That one look is responsible for me not being able to forget another event in the rest of my life.

"Where did you lose it?" It wasn't so much the words, or how she said them, but the images that were delivered with them. I can see the defeat in her eyes; I can trace the guilt through the thick lines that have forsaken her once smooth face. I can see my aunt, arms folded across her ridiculously pushed out chest, looking much like a cartoon chicken on steroids. Each "tsk" she whispers grows in intensity until they reach a high-pitched shriek that would shatter glass, and make an opera singer blush.

The words have little effect on me, but the looks and gestures have done enough. There is, of course, no logical answer to her question. If I knew, would it still be lost? If I knew, would I be standing there, having my life sucked out of me by two women using, what seems like spiral straws with holes poked through the side so I could suffer and watch it bubble and froth on its way out? I may have been forgetful, but I wasn't dumb.

Ultimately, I would end up doing the same thing, retracing my steps, searching all the places I had been, had looked before, or threatened to go to. And usually, I found the item in the last place I'd expect to find it, and of course, the first place I was told to look. This in turn, led to other looks, but none quite as scathing, as damning, or as cold-hearted as the looks when she asked me "where did I lose it?" And so I'm back here, the last place I want to look, but the first place she would have told me to look. I'm back here, and all I can do is remember. But, as of yet, I can't find.

It looks very much the same as it did back then. Of course, even back then the bright lights and manicured walls did little to hide the stench of decay that seemed to permeate from every light socket, doorway, and especially the fibers of the mildew stained carpet. The same spot in the left corner of the living room, a mere two-and-a-half steps from the psuedo-arched doorway remains, although now the color seems to be deeper, if not duller, somehow neglecting the cruel diminishing power of time.

I stood frozen in the doorway, taking in what remained, casting a grave glance back at the way it was. To my left there would have been a couch, weighing close to a quarter ton to us back when we were younger. The left cushion, it was always the left cushion too, had a tear about four inches long and arced. Samantha thought it was the perfect smile. So, one night, after too much booze, one too many joints, and a whole lot of soul searching, she took the lit end of her cigarette and added a couple of eyes and drew an ashen nose.

When the tip of her cigarette broke, sending a glowing ball into the cushion she frantically patted it out and laughed, telling us that wasn't the only cherry she lost on that couch. I laughed along with them, even though I didn't understand what she meant. That happened a lot to me back then. Samantha would say something obscure, remotely or grossly sexual, the others would laugh, and I'd join in. I think she knew I didn't have a clue, but she never once let it slip to the others. She was good like that, among other ways.

I used to avoid the couch. Too many stories, too many thoughts racing through my mind about what exactly the stains were. Most days, I'd scour my biology textbooks trying to find out exactly what it was I might be sitting on; but usually I had already forgotten the exact name of the excrement I was supposed to be looking up.

I would sit in the big armchair in the right corner, directly opposite the corner with the stain, far enough away from the couch to avoid the thick green smoke that would radiate towards the roof. On the left hand side of the chair, tucked up against the walls stood a homemade side table, hastily put together by Wilbur one shop class. He had given the teacher half a bag of weed in exchange for a passing grade - Wilbur relied on his marks in shop to pass each school year, and he wasn't very good at building things - so, even though the table had three legs the same size and a fourth leg a full inch shorter, he had passed. Now, the wall acted as the equalizer, taking its deformity and blessing it, making the table usable and beautiful.

This chair offered the best vantage point. From the safety and comfort that this hideaway offered me, I would watch as the others would go about "growing up", as Wilbur used to call it. Every so often, I'd take a swig from any of the dusty bottles that came my way, pulled the occasional mouthful or stale tobacco from the poorly rolled cigarettes. I didn't submerge myself into this society as much as I could have, possibly should have. Still, it was here that we all grew up, that we all felt wanted and needed. And it was here that my life changed.

I had heard rumours that the house wasn't actually Samantha's house, or the house she lived in with her uncle. I just assumed, since we all seemed to come and go so freely that it was. I only met her uncle on one occasion, and that was briefly. He worked for the city in maintenance, wore a jumpsuit, and had a badge, all the things that "normal" people would be happy to possess. Wilbur idolized him. Wilbur spent more time talking to him than any of us did, including Samantha. Wilbur was sure he was going to follow in his footsteps.

One Saturday night, long after midnight, I was sitting in the arm chair, legs folded against me, bundled up to keep warm and give myself a sense of security, watching the others as the slept. I had just woken up having heard, what I thought, was a creaking coming from upstairs. The house was a bungalow, meaning the noises banging around in my head would have had to come from the roof. Three of them lay on the couch, legs hanging over the end as they slouched upright oddly bent for comfort, all oblivious to the world around them. I could smell the stale liquor and cheap weed every time they snored or took a breath.

Samantha never slept on the couch or in the room with us. She always managed to crawl away to her bedroom down the hall. Many of the guys secretly boasted about being the only one to see the inside of her room; such was the hold she had over us.

She was our age, but you wouldn't have known it. Samantha, from afar, was a girl much older than she was. She was equally blessed and cursed with curves that many grown women would have loved to possess. While the other girls around her were being fitted for training bras, Samantha had already grown out of two, and was busting out of a third bra. Wilbur said he accidentally touched them once, giving him hero status among us, but whether this was true or not, Samantha wouldn't verify. Many of my fondest, and wettest, dreams, revolved around Samantha and her breasts. I think she knew as well.

But when you were close to her, you could see the child within her. The alarming immaturity in her smile, her flawed complexion, and her embarrassed posture made her out to be far from a woman. Unfortunately, her eyes betrayed her youth as well. She had great wide, green eyes that should have expressed how wonderful and daring she was, but all her eyes portrayed was a sense of longing and an acceptance of futility that should not have been seen in a girl her age. She was, in a word, a conundrum.

I saw her that night, walking from her room to the bathroom. I tried to remain silent and still, happy to watch her from the sanctuary my chair provided. But she knew, somehow she knew. Before she reached the bathroom door, she peered down the hallway, the opposite way from me, turning slightly. The dim light from the kitchen window silhouetted her figure, until she was no longer Samantha, but the vision that visited me nightly in my dreams. She stood there for the briefest of moments, her cotton panties bunched up, showing more of her cheeks than I had ever hoped to see. Slowly, she brought her hand down her back, tracing a seductive line until her fingers slid under the fabric, pausing momentarily as she felt my eyes ravage her, before she pulled her panties away, turned delicately, and walked into the bathroom.

I sat in the chair, afraid of what she’d do to me, afraid of what my body was doing to me. In the minute that passed, my temples greyed, I could see clearly the faces of my grandchildren, and I could not get the image of Samantha from my mind. She haunted my thoughts most times, but now, having seen her in her underwear, posing unashamedly, flaunting her figure and her power over me, I could not get the thought of her naked out of my mind.

I looked away when she came out of the bathroom. My eyes were transfixed on the motionless bodies slumped on the couch, wishing one of them would wake up so I could turn all my energies to them than to trying to ignore Samantha. I closed my eyes, hoping she would think I had somehow, in the last minute, fallen fast asleep.

I could hear her gentle footfalls walking through the hall, into the living room, and towards my chair. I felt a quick rush of blood, hot, temptuous, come over me as I sensed her right above me, looking down at me. Although I could hear her breathe and feel the warm exhalations tickle my skin, I dared not open my eyes.

“Look at me.” She whispered, and at that moment, a feeling greater than anything I had ever known washed over me. My skin prickled with bumps, my heart thumped like a snare drum inside my chest. As I felt her hand touch my arm, sense her take in all the air around me, I struggled for breath, opting to hold it inside me, wishing this fantastic moment was happening to someone else.

“Open your eyes, I want to see them.” Her voice was gentle, and as I opened my eyes, she was looking back at me, the kindest, almost apologetic look I have ever seen. Her eyes, even though she had just woke up after an evening of smoking and drinking were alive and bright, full of promise and mischief, and, at this moment, looking deep into mine to see if I felt half as wonderful as she did. She leaned in to kiss me, playfully biting my lip, bringing a small bead of blood with it. As it slipped into my mouth, the taste of iron, bitter and strong, had never lingered so sweet, the remnants of her lip balm teasing my senses.

Most of what happened next was a blur, a flurry of hormones, heat, shyness, and reluctance. She placed my hand on her breast, and when she noticed what it did to me, she kissed my neck, pulled away, and quietly removed my pants as I tried to hold on to the urge to scream. Everything went black then. I succumbed to emotions and feelings and a desire so strong I have never experienced anything like it since. I cannot find words to describe what happened, how it felt, how my body reacted and how she reacted to me. All I remember was incredible warmth.

And when I thought it couldn’t get any darker, the sky caved in on us. Lost in the empowering embrace that her lips, and she had over me, I failed to hear the front door open, or hear him come trudging across the room towards us.

By the time I realized what was happening, Samantha lay in the far corner of the room, her cheek sporting a red welt from his hand, her lip dribbling blood from the sting of his strike. The couch was a flurry of activity, as bodies scrambled over each other to protect themselves. Samantha whinnied in the corner, spitting and coughing up mucous. He turned to me, my pants still around my knees, and pushed me backwards over the chair. After my head bounced off the wall and the make-shift side table collapsed on top of me; he turned towards her again.

I could hear her crawling away, trying to get to the bathroom, her sobs interrupted by the scratching of her nails on the floor. I rose, grabbed my pants and pulled them up, and bounded over the chair. The others had found the courage to leave the couch, and their courage led them out the front door to the safety of the dark streets.

“Who’s the little whore,” I could hear him torment her, standing above her as she squirmed in his grasp. “Never saw a cock you didn’t want did you? Well, I’ve got one for you as well.”

I had never heard a man’s ribs break before, but I swear it sounded like a dead twig snapping in half. As he crumpled to floor, pain etched in all of his actions, I grabbed Samantha and told her to go. When he rose, standing over me like I didn’t exist, I learned the true definition of fear. To this day, I don’t know why I couldn’t run, couldn’t walk, couldn’t duck out of the way.

I felt my nose explode, and the crack that formed in my lip threatened to swallow the rest of my face. I staggered backwards, fumbling in the air, hoping my destiny with the floor would feel only slightly worse than the punch I had just accepted. The floor met me with a greeting of hostility and embitterment. I wasn’t welcome here, in this house, any more.

As my eyes welled with tears, with my own blood, with the sweat of a defeated and sad boy, I saw him leap towards me. All I could do was raise my arms over my head to protect myself, not from the beating that was about to come my way, but from the image of her when he got through with her.

The attack never came, only the screaming of a hurt girl, and the gurgled yelps from an angry, and bleeding degenerate. When I lifted my head, vision blurred by blood and tears, and my own damaged pride, I saw her, propped against the wall in the corner, his bloodied frame lying beneath her soaked frame.

I wanted to reach out to her. I wanted to comfort her. I wanted to hold her trembling frame next to my trembling frame and tell her everything would be all right. But it wouldn’t be all right. As she rocked herself into a state of semi-consciousness in the corner, the others piled through the doorway. In the moment I turned to see them, it was over.

Wilbur let out a short scream and when I turned, Samantha had doubled over, her right hand, hanging limply from her arm, the arteries pumping out more blood than I ever thought possible. And then nothing. The world seemed to freeze. My last memory of her would not be the kiss, the warmth of her mouth or the soft breath on my neck; it would be of her slicing herself to end the pain she had finally, and awfully, been defeated by.

I was here when I lost it, all those years ago, and my search for it has come full circle. God, I wish I could see the look in my mom’s eyes one more time.