My mask runs down my face like blood, turning my Prize Winning Looks into a
streaked and muddy mess. I walk blindly, the steady rain mixing with tears and
makeup and dripping down my cheeks. I don’t know how long I’ve been walking like
this, but I know it’s not long enough. I have to get farther away. My heels click
loudly on the wet pavement. I kick them off my feet. They fly off into the night,
disappearing as I want to disappear; quickly; quietly; without feeling. I keep
walking. The asphalt is cold and hurts my feet. It feels harsh. Real. Liberating.
Nothing shields me from it. The pavement is there, and I must accept it and deal
with it. Someone has always tried to shield me from the reality of life. Not any
more. It’s late, and all of the stores are closed. I pass by a large glass window
and see myself reflected in it. The yellow  glow from the dim streetlamps turns
my skin a sickly color, and my face is that of a mannequin, mascara-streaked and
lifeless. "Look at you," my mother’s voice speaks in my mind. It is then that I
know I have gone insane. "You’ve let yourself get dirty, you stupid girl." Her
voice is thin and reedy with disappointment, just as it always has been. "Your
pretty white dress is ruined."  She continues, indifferent to the fact that she’s
been dead for two years. "Honestly, Erika. How do you expect to get anywhere in
the world if you don’t look your best? Where would you get in life looking like
that, like dirty white trash..." "Shut up, mom," I whisper. My voice is weak,
empty, like the hollow nothing that screams inside my chest. I can see her face.
Her thin lips twisted into a perpetual frown. I can only remember her smiling
once, after I had won my first beauty pageant when I was eleven. "Well, you never
were smart enough to take care of yourself," my mother chides. "What did you do
without me to take care of you? Ran off from that nice boy Keith, and got
yourself knocked up by some no-account, greasy garage mechanic who gets himself
killed by some lunatic. And then you don’t even have enough sense to come in out
of the rain." "Shut up!" I take the sleeve of my five-hundred dollar dress and
rip it up to the shoulder. It feels good. I tear the other side, ripping the
sleeve down all the way. I feel like laughing, but all I can do is make choking
noises in my throat. Just like my real mother, she said the one thing that would
hurt me the most. Mark. Oh God, Mark was dead. It was a thought so horrible that
my mind couldn’t hold on to it. It kept slipping away like blood in a rainstorm,
leaving only a terrible emptiness in the core off my being where he had once
been. "What would I have done without you, mom?" I choke into the darkness. "I’d
have grown up. I would’ve known what an asshole Keith was. I’d have known that he
was just going to use me and throw me away. You always taught me to stand up
straight and be pretty. Pose and smile and keep the checks coming in, right mom?"
My voice turns hoarse, but I keep on, saying all the things that I’ve never said
but have always wanted to say. "You were happy that I was a producer’s girl-
friend. It meant more breaks for your little girl, your little breadwinner!" I
continue to tear my dress until I can squirm out of it. I twirl it to the ground,
then stomp on it. I trample it barefoot into the muddy street. Keith bought it
for me, in a small but expensive shop in Beverly Hills. It had been my favorite
dress, but that was back when I thought I knew who I was; a pretty girl with a
storybook life and a promising career. Now I’m an insane empty shell standing
half-naked somewhere in downtown LA, probably moments away from being raped or
shot or forgotten. And the really funny thing is, I don’t care. I fall to my
knees on the curb. Keith flashes by, all dark eyes, tan, and polish. "God,
Erika," he says.  "What happened to you?  You look like a whore." Fresh anger
bursts out of me from a place I never knew existed. "That’s all you wanted, isn’t
it?" I say to the air in front of me. "A whore to fuck and lie to and look good
in public with?" My voice was steady now, level. "Is that why you kicked me out
of your life when I stopped modeling? I’d even started to love you. I was stupid
and I loved you. And you couldn’t even treat me like a human being. Go away! I
hate you! You and mother both!" It suddenly fell silent. I could hear the patter
of the rain on the sidewalk, and I realize 8that my butt is wet and freezing from
sitting on the curb. I had been shivering all over, but now I stopped. I feel
each individual raindrop strike me and trickle down in my hair or on my skin. It
was as if a dirty window had shattered inside me, letting me look out clearly for
the first time. "Hey, lady. You all right?" I don’t need to look to see where the
voice comes from. It came from a young man who’d stopped to help me when my car
broke down on the freeway, a simple, honest man who’d been the only good thing
that had ever happened to me. Mark. He is there, standing next to me on the curb.
I try to touch him, and I break a nail on the lamp- post. I want to cry, but my
eyes can no longer form tears. We were going to be married. I am three weeks
along with his child. He can’t be dead. Then, it comes back to me in a rush,
feeling like a cold knife being twisted in my gut. I shiver and sob as I see Mark
smiling pleasantly at me across the table. He wants to get the waiter’s attention
because our wineglasses are nearly empty. He lifts his hand to signal, and I hear
the screech of tires and see the flash of headlights as a car turns and speeds
by. I don’t even associate the popping, chattering sounds with gunfire until I
hear the screams and see Mark moving, sliding over the table to push me down on
the floor. He falls on top of me, and at first I think the dark liquid dribbling
on my face is wine, until some trickles into my mouth. "Mark!" I scream to the
rain, hugging myself in agony. I’d run away. I’d looked up at what was left of
his face and just pushed him off and ran. I don’t even remember if anyone tried
to stop me. I ran away and left him there in the remnants of our veal parmesan
and fettucine, and suddenly I want to die. I get up, shivering, then turn and
slam my fist into the window. It only cracks, cutting myknuckles, but the pain is
a feeling, a good feeling. I scream and hammer at it with both hands until it
shatters. I catch a glint of light from the ground and I freeze, staring down at
a long shard of glass.  It reflects my face back at me; its edge streaked with my
blood. It seems to call to me; to promise an end to my darkness. I bend and pick
it up, then touch it to my left wrist. It feels cold, like a corpse’s kiss.
Mark’s kiss. I snarl at the thought and draw the glass across my wrist. It cuts
like a razor, the pain slicing through the emptiness and into the small part of
me that is still alive. My mind goes suddenly clear, clear and cold like polished
ice. I look at my blood pulsing out of my arm. I look at the glass. I know now
that it has tricked me. It whispered to me of release, but its sharp lies only
lead to a deeper blackness, one that would never end. I throw it down and it
shatters, its cold promise broken. I clench my right hand around my wrist. It is
slippery and sticky. My life is draining out of me, despite the cold, despite the
rain. Not just my life, I realize, but my child’s. Mark’s child. But that already
seems so far away, like some half-remembered dream. I walk down the street,
feeling colder with every step. I can't be dying this fast, can I? I shiver
violently. My blood trickles down my hand and to the street, dripping into the
rain and washing away, pouring out and vanishing like everything I’ve ever cared
for. There are headlights coming, headlights that are already slowing as I step
into the street and wave my arms, not caring that I am dressed only in a
rain-soaked Natural-Fit bra and a pair of black silk panties. The car stops, and
I stumble around to the driver’s side as a man starts to open the door. I hug my
arms to my chest, shivering. "Please help me," I say.  "I-- I’m in trouble." He
looks at me for a second, no, looks me *over* for a second. "All right, get in,"
he says. I hesitate, but I really don’t have a choice. I quickly walk around and
yank open the passenger door and collapse in the seat, barely able to shut the
door as he starts driving. "Jesus," he says, noticing me bleeding on his
upholstery. He fumbles around under his seat and comes up with an oily towel.
"Wrap this around it," he tells me, draping it on my arm. "What happened to you?"
I almost laugh. I don’t know where to start. "I got a little upset," I finally
say. I look over at him, seeing a thirtyish man with brown hair and a stubbly
face, plain features, slightly overweight, with dark eyes that keep looking
straight ahead, seeming to ignore me. Suddenly, belatedly, I begin to feel
afraid. "Where are you taking me?" I ask, my voice trembling. The car is warm,
but I am still freezing. "Home. My place." He looks over at me curiously, as if
to say 'Where else would I take you?' "Let me out." I grip the door handle
tightly. He frowns and keeps driving. "Let me out!" I scream, suddenly near
panic. He slaps me; a light backhand that barely stings. I look at him in shock,
my mouth hanging open. No one has ever slapped me before, not even my mother.
"You’re in trouble, right?"  He says quietly. "I’m taking you somewhere safe." I
sit there and feel nothing. My life has crumbled away before my very eyes,
leaving nothing of me that I recognize. I am not afraid, even as he runs stop
signs and red lights, never stopping, never slowing too much, never allowing me a
chance to jump out. I am still calm when he pulls up in the parking lot of an
apartment complex and takes me by my bloody arm, pulling me bodily out of the car
and tugging me along the sidewalk and up the stairs like some disobedient child.
He holds me firmly as he unlocks the door of the apartment, then leads me inside.
I am too weak, too numb to resist. He pushes me into the bathroom and sits me
down on the toilet, then fetches a shirt from the other room and tears it into
strips. He takes off the oily rag and bandages my wrist and knuckles tightly. I'm
not bleeding as much now, though I still shake like a leaf. He cleans my hands
and arms with a warm washcloth, then dabs at my face. He’s trying to pretty me
up, I think blankly. He looks at me for a moment before leaving and coming back
with a soft terrycloth bathrobe, which he drapes around my shoulders.  Then he
gently pulls me to my feet and takes me into the living room. He sits on the
couch and pulls me down on his lap. I try weakly to squirm away, but he locks his
arms around my waist and holds me there tightly. That’s all he does. He just
holds me there, letting the warmth of his body soak into me. I let my head fall
against his chest. Despite his strangeness, I feel much like I did when I was a
girl and my father would hold me on his lap to comfort me. As I begin to warm up,
some of the ice that had formed inside me begins to melt, and I cry softly
against this stranger’s chest. Later he might rape me; he might kill me. But
right now he was my father, whose shoulder I had cried on a hundred times, and
now I would do it once more before the darkness swallows me. As my tears begin to
slow, I look around blearily. The living room is cluttered but not dirty, and
lacks any traces of a feminine touch. He is alone, like I am now. I almost feel
sorry for him, but I am still too numb inside to feel much of anything. "What’s
your name?" He suddenly asks. His voice is calm. Soothing. "Erika," I answer into
his chest. "Who’re you?" "Carl. Are you hungry?" I am surprised to realize that I
am, but then I remember that Mark will never eat again. Or laugh again. Or make
love to me again. I feel sick. I shut it off, I shut Mark off. I have to. It
hurts too much. I nod. He slowly slides out from under me and walks to the
kitchen. I wonder why he is doing this.  He is helping me, probably even saving
my life, but I still can’t trust him. People just don’t get involved with other
people’s problems, not unless they want something. Especially bleeding strangers
that appear in the rain. As he moves around the kitchen, I take a closer look
around.I am sitting on a long, soft, light beige colored sofa, which lists
slightly to the front and left, probably from a broken foot. In front of the sofa
is a wide and solid-looking oak coffee table and five feet past that is a medium-
sized television sitting on an imitation mahogany book shelf, along with a
compact stereo system. The TV remote sits on the coffee table, along with a stack
of various magazines and one brown plastic coaster. A tall fluorescent lamp
stands next to the shelf, illuminating the room with a soft yellow- white glow.
My senses somehow seem clearer; sharpener than they’ve ever been. I can smell the
faint odor of spilled coffee on the cushion I sit on. I can hear the soft murmur
of a television set in the apartment below. It is Jay Leno, making yet another
tired joke about President Clinton. I let my eyes rove. The books on the shelf
are mostly fiction, with a large variety of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Stephen
King seems to be a favorite, along with Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur C. Clarke, and
Isaac Asimov. My host seemed to be a well-read person, at least. He returns in a
few minutes with a cup of hot soup. He gives it to me, and I thank him and hold
it between my hands, the warmth helping to steady them. I am no longer shivering,
though I feel like a character in a Poe novel, perceptions twisting and being
driven to madness by the chaos of life. Carl sits next to me--not too close--and
turns on the television.  He flips channels, stopping on MTV. Gwen Stephani
dances around on the screen like Madonna, but Carl’s attention is on me.  I look
at him, the lyrics seeming very loud in my ears. ‘Excuse me, mister, you’ve got
me all wrong.’ Feeling nervous with his eyes on me, I take a sip from the cup. It
is plain chicken broth, still rather hot, but it tastes wonderful. I drink it
down quickly, burning my mouth a little. The heat spreads down my throat and
stomach out into my body. "Feeling better?" He asks after a minute. "Yes, thank
you." I did feel much better. Almost alive. "Why did you do that to yourself?" He
asks, indicating my wrist with his eyes. I don’t answer for a moment.  "I ... I
lost someone today. My fiancee.  He was... killed." I feel the tears starting
again. "I’m very sorry," he says, looking at me with a sympathetic expression. I
look back down at my empty cup. "Would you like more?" I nod, and he takes the
cup and refills it. I sip at the warm broth, still feeling weak, but stronger
than I was. "What do you do?" He asks tentatively. "Are you a model?" "I was," I
answer tonelessly. "I don’t know what I am now." "You’re very beautiful." He
leans closer, putting his arm around me and squeezing me gently. I don’t protest.
I know what’s coming, but I won’t fight him. I don’t have the strength, or the
anger. He takes my hand and kisses it. "I won’t hurt you," he says as I look at
him. "I just want to make love to you." In a strange way, I feel relieved. I
believe him. He doesn’t want pain or violence; he just wants to use me. I’ve been
used before, though not so blatantly. I think I can deal with it. I say nothing
as he stands, then pulls me to my feet and guides me to his bedroom. There is no
fear in me; no desire; no anger. Only resignation. I am powerless in this, just
as I was powerless to stop Mark from being murdered. He steadies me with an arm
around my waist as he slides the robe off my shoulders, then lowers his head to
kiss my neck. His lips are warm. He reaches around and unclasps my bra. He pulls
it off and cups my breasts in his large hands. His hands are also warm, and cover
my small breasts completely. He slowly removes his hands, then bends slightly to
take a nipple into his mouth. It hardens as he sucks at it. It feels pleasant,
but that’s all. He nurses at my breast for a few minutes before switching to the
other and slowly sliding down my rain-soaked panties.  He seems to want to take
his time.  He slides my underwear down around my feet and runs his hands up my
legs to caress my ass. His breathing is heavy and shuddering. Standing, he gently
pushes me down on the bed so that I’m lying on my stomach. I look back to see him
drop to his knees behind me, then lean forward. I feel his mouth on my butt,
kissing over the cheeks and down the cleft between them. I feel his tongue on my
asshole. It feels nasty. It feels good. I grit my teeth, trying to fight the
conflicting sensations. He slides his tongue down and over my slit, coating it
with his saliva. At first I think that he just wants the added lubrication, but
he keeps tonguing me, kissing and sucking at my pussy until it begins to awaken;
despite my numbness; despite my lack of desire. I feel him searching for my
clitoris, and as the heat grows between my legs, it emerges for him to find. He
sucks and nips at it with his lips, and I lie there helplessly as I feel a orgasm
being drawn slowly out of me. In a short while, I climax silently and
emotionlessly on the bed, the only sound is the rasp of his breathing and the wet
sucking noises of his mouth. He moves behind me, then I feel the pressure of
something warm and blunt at the entrance to my vagina. It slides in slowly
without pain, just filling me steadily until I feel it nudging the entrance to my
womb. He groans as his penis bottoms out. I can feel his crinkly pubic hair
against my ass, and his testicles brushing against the skin over my clit. He
stays there for a long while, and I feel my insides molding themselves around
him, my pussy clamping itself snugly onto his penis. It seems to want him. I
don’t, though the sensation of his intrusion is like the pain of the glass
window. It takes my mind away from the other feeling, the other pain, the one
that has stolen my soul. Slowly, he begins to pump his hips, driving himself in
and out of me with long strokes. I lie there like a cheap whore, motionless and
silent as he humps me eagerly. I turn my face away from him and he stops, pulling
out of me gradually until I hear a wet sound as his penis pops free. He gently
turns me over on my back, so he can see my face again.  He grabs me around the
hips as he slides back in. It’s not me he’s fucking. Its my face. After a minute,
he begins to pump faster, and he grunts as I feel his penis swell and send a hot
jet of semen into me. He groans and rocks his hips, trembling as he ejaculates
heavily in my body. At least I don't have to worry about getting pregnant. He
stays there between my legs, his penis beginning to soften in my vagina as he
kisses my neck and breasts. After a while he pulls out and cleans me up with a
washcloth. For a rapist, he seemed very considerate, even passionate. I wondered
how long it had been since he’d had a woman, willing or not. I crawl tiredly
under the sheets, and he joins me, quietly whispering how good I was. A little
while later, with the lights still on, he fucks me again, this time for almost
ten minutes before he comes.  I lie there with my eyes tightly closed, wanting
only to sleep. He finishes and turns out the lights, then snuggles up to me under
the sheets, holding me like I was his girlfriend. For tonight at least I suppose
I was, and somehow that brought me a small measure of comfort.