White Trash

"White Trash"

My name is Isabella and I'm a Virgo. You can call me Izzy; most people always have. I don't think that I'm very Virgo-like, though I could be wrong 'cause I don't keep up with that sort of thing. Virgo sounds, well, kind of virginal, and I'm not sure that the word "virginal" has ever described me. Can a girl be virginal when she knows in her gut that sex is just another word for "need", never love? I don't really know when it was that I discovered that if a girl's got big tits you can make a man do anything, say anything, make 'em feel like they love you. Hell, if a girl's got enough sense to use what God give her she can even convince herself that they do, at least for a little while. Sometimes that little while is all you've got in your life, you know?

In case you haven't guessed from my charming accent, I'm Southern (always capitalized) to the bone. I could roll out a pan of biscuits that would float off your plate by the time I was nine, knew that a man could kick off his boots anywhere that he wanted and a woman would always pick 'em up after he passed out in his favorite easy chair in front of the t.v., and had lost my virginity to a first cousin before I was in middle school. Beat that one, Scarlett!

I was eleven years old; my cousin wasn't long out of high school. I suppose that would put him at nineteen or so. Don't let his young age fool you though; I would never have let a kid lead me astray like he did; when it came to other kids I definitely did the leading. I was always the one kids were told to stay away from; I guess I must have raised some kind of hell to have the bad name that I already had.

My cousin was definitely a man for all of his young age, and he made me feel so special, like he really wanted me around. Eleven years old and he spent the whole summer slippin' me weed, homemade strawberry-rhubarb wine, and little pint bottles of cheap bourbon- tryin' his hardest to bust a nut. Sometimes he held the pot and wine over my head; threatened to tell on me for gettin' high. I knew deep down that it wouldn't make sense for him to tattle on me; it would be telling on himself. But I had no experience with being valued so I let him bully me with threats and promises to tell my dad because he scared me. Sometimes it still surprises me how terrified I was of my father. He was a cruel man with brutal fists who despised women; I knew that he would never believe me over a nephew that he liked.

The summer after sixth grade ended was spent curled up in a recliner in his mama's living room, sittin' three feet from a window fan because it was too hot to even sweat properly. I was at that size where I fit just perfect across his lap. I knew enough to know that people would have looked funny at what was going on, but it seemed like a whole lot of people already knew and no one was doing much about the situation. Was what he was doing to me really all that wrong if nobody cared? He said that it wasn't, and since he was the only one paying me much mind, I must have took his opinion to heart. Besides, he said that he loved me and I desperately needed to hear that.

His name was Brett, and his mama (my aunt by marriage) was almost full-blooded Cherokee. He had long, glossy black hair, big dark eyes, and cheekbones that would cut glass. Yep, if a girl had to be taught something about how things worked he was definitely pretty enough for the job. I remember how flattered I was the first night that we stayed up late on my mammaw's front porch, tellin' me how beautiful I was and wanting to hear all about my boyfriends at school, what I'd let them do to me. I didn't have anything to tell that would interest anyone much, but he ate up every word of it. The only thing that I'd really done at that point was kiss a classmate on a dare, and I think that it embarrassed the poor boy more than it did me.

We never spoke too much after that first night or two. We mostly just sat in that recliner, letting the hot air blow across our sweaty skin while he played his games with his hand up the leg of my cut-off shorts. It took him the better part of a week before he went under the elastic of my panties; he was content to touch the damp cotton for hours. He'd make me giggle and I'd wiggle and squirm against his lap the way that I knew he liked, and every once in a while he would close his eyes and jerk against me trying to breathe. I didn't really know what was happening to him, but it made me feel powerful in a way that I didn't quite understand yet. Some days he'd get mad at me 'cause I got such a kick out of the way I was making him act that I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing to me.

At eleven I knew what sex was, and had touched myself, but I was still ashamed of the way I responded to him. I wanted to cry for letting him do it to me but I also wanted him to care about me. I believed that it had to be my fault because I didn't stop him. I know that the Bible says it's wrong, but when those fingers slipped and slid around down there I couldn't always stop the feel good. When I could feel his hard thing pushing against my bottom, and he was begging for me to touch it for just a minute- a second!- I couldn't understand why I felt so grown up and helpless at the same time. It was so confusing, but he told me over and over how special I was, and how much he loved me. I figured that love made it all right, even if it felt bad sometimes.

He never much kissed me, but he loved to whisper things to me that I didn't always understand; things that he wanted or needed from me. I think that maybe he was testing me, to see just how much I'd let him do. We used to sneak up to the river together and swim; I'd always let him rub himself between my legs under the water, but he didn't actually do-it do-it to me until towards the end of the summer.

He called that day, and asked me to meet him in the woods behind my parent's house. I went ahead and snuck out because he'd promised me some pot. I had a couple of friends coming over that weekend to stay the night, and I always was the coolest one, the one that had to impress my friends. He was waiting for me, but didn't have the pot. Instead he begged me to go all the way with him. He told me that as much as I had teased him that I owed it to him, and that he was going to tell everyone that I was a whore and that I'd come to him asking for drugs. I'd already been called a whore by my daddy enough times to know that the man is always right. So I did it. It didn't have anything to do with what he looked like, or how it sometimes it felt when he touched me. It had everything to do with fear. I was scared that he wouldn't want me anymore if I didn't, scared that maybe I really did owe it to him and he wouldn't like me anymore if I didn't do this.

So I laid down on the dirty ground, and spread my legs for him while he pushed against me like a rutting pig. He got it in me a few times I guess; I wasn't really counting. I was gritting my teeth 'cause it hurt so bad and staring up through the trees at the sky, just waitin' for it to be over.

When he was done he collapsed on top of me like he'd dumped all his life into that little piece of rubber he had on then gone and died. He wasn't dead though; next thing I knew he was holding me too tight and talking crazy about us running away to live where nobody knew that we were cousins- live in the mountains maybe. Didn't people do that sort of thing in the mountains? He said that he loved me, loved my smile my laugh my eyes my magic spot. That's what he called it- my "magic spot". But I guess something was broken for me that afternoon laying in the pine trees and blackberry bushes because all I wanted to do was crawl home and lay in the bathtub for a year.

Whatever happened that day in the woods, I never let myself get caught alone with him again. He followed me around for a while, even snuck in my bedroom at night a couple of times. He never spoke, just stared down at me with those big black eyes so full of him missing me. The last time that he did it I acted like I was asleep. I didn't move at all, just kept my breathing real slow and watched him out from under my eyelashes. He stood there forever, and it was only when he was putting the screen back in the window that I saw the hunting knife in his hand. It was one of those cheap ones that every kid gets at the flea market with a compass in the end that unscrews so that you can hide your always-dry matches and a fishing hook. You know the ones that I mean? Well, cheap or not, that shiny serrated edge looked like it could rip me to pieces, tear out my soul, scrape my heart out from under those eleven year old breasts that he'd loved so much.

I'm not sure if that knife scared me, or just shocked me into growing up a little bit, but I took to locking my window at night, no matter how hot those August nights were.

He married his high school sweetheart by Christmas that year, drives a long distance rig, and pays for his fun down in Mexico, or so I hear. On the rare occasions that we've seen each other since then we turn the other way.

I know what he did to me, but still claim some of the responsibility that's mine to claim. What's always made me feel the saddest is that even then I knew that sex was easy. It was feeling loved that was crazy hard.