Nothing but Your Skin Read online

  Single Voice

  Cathy Ytak

  Nothing but

  Your

  Skin

  Shh, listen, there are people walking on the shore. They have dogs. Did you tell anyone? No, no one. They won’t find us, we’re too far from the edge. All I can hear is your heart echoing in my chest. I feel the sweat on our stomachs, and on your forehead, too.

  Shh, listen! All I’m listening to is the two of us, the ice crackling, and the water of the lake flowing far below. When we were rolling around, the wrapper from the condom got stuck on my bum. I don’t want to take it off. There’s not enough room to move in our sleeping bags, zipped together to make only one. They’re heavy sleeping bags for camping in the mountains, and you were right, they’re very warm.

  Listen, I hear voices and footsteps, and I can see the beams from their flashlights. It’s true, Matt, it seems like they’re getting close.

  You tell me that we have to hurry, that they can’t find us together like this, naked, that we have to get dressed. But I’m with you, I don’t want it to stop, and I don’t know where my sweater is. I took it off so quickly that I heard a rip. It might be torn. It’s blue, with a white stripe.

  Where did the moon go? Isn’t it shining on us anymore? Matt, what color do you think the moon is?

  The ice of the lake is beneath us, and above us is your voice, your voice that sounds anxious. Lou, they’re coming…Lou, shit! Hurry up! But I don’t know how to hurry up. When things happen too fast, I get confused.

  I hear them now. They’re crushing the frost under their feet. We’re trapped, lost in the middle of a frozen lake. We’ve been caught! Do they have guns?

  I slide my hand between my thighs to dry myself a bit before pulling up my pants, they’re tangled around one of my ankles, I don’t have time to…

  I hear my mother first, and behind her I hear dogs barking, and then two men, at least, yelling at us to get out of there, get out of there. But we don’t get out of there. We don’t get out of there fast enough. So they start kicking the sleeping bag. So I get scared. Don’t shake, don’t shake. Why, Matt, why? They don’t have the right. Your lips on my lips and your tongue in my mouth… Be quiet, don’t ask questions, don’t be scared, I’m here. You won’t say anything, I won’t say anything, it’s our story. They can’t take it away from us. Hands grab the sleeping bag and pull in every direction. They tear at everything. The dogs jump in; the sleeping bag rips and feathers come out. My mother screams like a mother and calls me my daughter. I hate her.

  They make us stand up and their hands pull us apart. They want to know what the hell we were doing, and what that bastard did. It’s my father’s voice and it’s you he’s talking about. He’s taller than you, he threatens you, he yells louder and louder, asking what you did to her, to his daughter, saying you’re despicable, you’re scum.

  I see my mother hunting through the ripped sleeping bag, she searches and searches and she finds a condom, used and tied up. She stands up under the almost-full moon and she points at you, yelling that you assaulted me. That’s what she says: “He assaulted her!”

  I see my mother pushing the men aside and walking toward you. She still wears that ring my father gave her on her little finger. She slaps you so hard that your head goes back, and you slip and fall on the ice. The ice shakes and echoes as if the whole lake was going to split in two. The ring hit your cheekbone and cut your skin. You struggle to get up, you have your hand on your cheek, you’re bleeding. In your eyes I see the fear, and I hear all the noise: the dogs barking, the men yelling, our beautiful silence shattered, dirtied. You assaulted—assaulted—me? And I don’t exist, I don’t exist anymore. They gave me a sweater but I’m cold. Blood is running down your cheek, your face is gray. My body is gray, too, like stone.

  Suddenly I’m in so much pain that I want to howl. Howl like I howled when I was a baby, like I howled when I was a kid, like I howl every time someone comes near me and I’m not sure if it’s to hurt me or to comfort me. Howling is worse than talking, it makes everything more confused, and the dogs won’t like it. But I’m going to howl because there’s no place for words, for explanations, and because I don’t know how to cry.

  I let my head fall back toward the starry sky, toward the moon that’s almost full, long enough to take a gulp of frozen air and let it drop all the way down to my heart. This is for you, Matt. It’s my gift. It’s filled with me and you, multiplied by ten. The dogs growl, sniff me, then lay their snouts on the ground, whimpering. My mom has her head buried in her hands; the men are frozen. Now they’ll all know that I’m the one who howls at night, in the valley. Or maybe they knew that already.

  I’m not breathing anymore. I’m drawing out the strength and the softness from your eyes as they stare into mine. I howl again for your lips and your hands, for the blood flowing down your cheek and the blood that just flowed from my body, just a few drops, pink. I howl, most of all, so I’ll never forget.

  When I come back to myself, there’s nothing but silence on the frozen lake. I see a man push you roughly into his car while my parents wrap a coat around my exhausted body. Before the car doors close, my eyes meet yours, one last time. You’re crying. Tears slide down your cheeks, turning red from the blood of your cut. The dogs stay back, far behind me. I can see on the ice that they’ve peed out of fear.

  Since then, Matt, the hours go by slowly, matching my own slowness. All I have left is the memory of what there was, before. I hurt my vocal cords when I howled. The doctor said it will be weeks or maybe months until I can talk again. I don’t care. I caught a cold, too; I’m in bed, I don’t want to get out. My mother brings me something to eat a few times a day, and herbal tea, and orange juice. She doesn’t look at me; her eyes shift away and look at the blanket so they won’t meet mine. My father never comes into my room. I hear his heavy steps in the hallway. They don’t speak to me, not even to scold me or ask me questions. They called the gynecologist. She was a tall, skinny woman with frozen hands. When she put them on my skin, they felt like ice cubes. She wanted to check something, and I didn’t want her to. She spoke to me gently so I would trust her, but since that night, I don’t trust anyone. She wanted to know what happened between you and me. She put on a clear plastic glove, then slid her hand between my open thighs.

  She said, “Excuse me, I always have cold hands, but it won’t take long.” I didn’t like what she was doing to me. But she was quick, and she didn’t hurt me. She pulled out her glove and on the tip there was a bit of red. “You’re not a virgin anymore, are you?” I made a sign to her to lower her ear to my mouth. I murmured in a hoarse wisp of a voice, “No, I have my period.”

  And it’s true, because it’s the full moon and my period always comes on the full moon. So I didn’t really answer her question. She didn’t ask again, she was sure that she had the answer on her fingertips. I’m not a virgin anymore and I have my period. Yes, that’s right.

  I huddled up under my covers and pretended to sleep. Then I fell asleep for real, and then the psychologist came. He asked me questions, too. He asked if you forced me, and I said no by shaking my head. No, no, no.

  “So, you consented?”

  I didn’t understand what that meant. Consenting means I said yes to you. But that wasn’t right, because you were the one who said yes to me, so I wasn’t sure. I said no to the psychologist, then yes. So he asked again, “Did he force you?” No. “So, you were okay with it?” Yes. And then I waited for him to ask, “Were you the one who wanted to do it?” And then I would have said YES. But he didn’t ask me that question. That’s how it went, Matt.

  “As strange as it may seem,” the psychologist said to my parents, who were waiting in the kitchen, “I believe that Lo
uella agreed to go with this boy and to have sexual relations with him.” My mother said that it wasn’t possible, that I wasn’t mature enough, that I was incapable of making even a simple decision. So, no. It wasn’t possible.

  “Louella’s intellectual and decision-making abilities are limited,” he said. “However, she yells less than before and seems to be acclimatizing socially little by little. Her obsession with colors, which we’ve observed for several years, is nothing to be concerned about. At the special needs school, her behavior doesn’t cause any major problems. We know that she is very impressionable. It’s possible that she agreed to go with this boy and to have sexual relations with him. You know, normal or not…we never notice our children growing up.”

  My mother didn’t agree with what the psychologist said. She told him that he was wrong, that she knew me because she was my mother. I buried my head under the covers and didn’t listen to the rest. It was dark, and hot. It was almost like the sleeping bag on the lake.

  That memory makes me jump up inside, in my bed. I don’t care what other people say. I just remember us, us, us.

  I’m going to play back my memory. I’ll rewind to the beginning, because that’s how stories are told, from the beginning. They took away my right to play a part, so I’m going to take it back. I know that wherever you are, you’re doing the same thing, too, every night.

  The first time… I really like those words, the first time… The first time I saw you…see, my heart is already starting to beat again. The first time, you never know it’s the first time. You only realize it after, a little later on. The first time I saw you was in the evening, when the bus was taking me home, just like every day of the week when I go to the place I call the school for retards. I had on my mauve jacket and black pants, and my beige hat with two maroon stripes around the edge. You were getting off the bus. I hadn’t seen you get on, and normally, I’m the only one who gets off at that stop. I have to walk from the bus stop down a path that winds through the forest to our farm in the valley. Normally, it’s just me on the path.

  Actually, the first time I saw you, I didn’t see you right away—I just heard you. You were getting off the bus, behind me. I had said good night to the driver, and then I heard another voice say good night, and that’s how I knew there were two of us getting off the bus. I didn’t turn around. I put my backpack on my shoulders and I adjusted the straps because I don’t like it when the straps are too loose. I checked that my shoelaces were tied well, because it’s hard to retie them when it’s dark and you can’t see much. And I took the path, like I do every night, but this time, you were behind me. There was some hard snow and our shoes crunched on it. I heard you walking with big, sure strides, crack, crack, and I thought you would pass me. But you stayed behind me. I knew you were a man, and young, because I had heard your voice when you said good night to the bus driver. I’ve never liked people following me, so I turned around. You were walking a dozen steps behind me and you stopped, you looked at me, and then you looked at your feet, as if you didn’t know where to put your eyes. I started walking again, and you started walking, and we went another twenty steps like that. I stopped again because I really didn’t like a man I didn’t know, a young and tall and strong man, following me at night on the path going to the valley.

  Then you said, very quietly, “I’m not following you. If you like, I’ll go ahead.” I nodded yes. You passed in front of me, without lifting your head. You looked annoyed. We started walking again, you in front and me behind. But it wasn’t working, and you stopped.

  I said, “What is it now?”

  You answered, very quietly, “I don’t like being followed either.”

  I listened to what you said, I thought for a moment—probably for too long but you didn’t seem to notice—and I said, “Then walk beside me.”

  I was standing on one side of the path and you came over to the other side, and we started walking again. I could see that you were shy. I didn’t know what to say either. I’m not good at talking to people, it always takes me time, and this was happening too fast, so I didn’t say anything and neither did you. You were walking at the same pace as me. Once in a while, you kicked a half-eaten pine cone that had fallen out of a tree. I didn’t dare to, even though I like kicking pine cones for fun, too. Ten minutes later, we got to the spot where I turn off the path to get to our farm. You kept walking straight. You didn’t say goodbye and I didn’t either. I heard your steps on the snow getting farther away, crack, crack, quieter and quieter.

  I tapped my feet against the wall of the house to get the snow off my shoes and I went into the kitchen. I heard the dogs moving around in the garage. I was the first one home, just like every night. I turned on all the lights, I put two logs in the fireplace, because I like the smell and the color of the flames, and I sat in front of it. Then my mother came home, then my father, and they started talking, both of them at the same time, just like every night. The same words, the same routine—work, the animals, the people at the hospital—my mother is a nurse, my father is a farmer. There were two little sick calves and an old cow that died when it tried to get up to go home, you know, the old ones always want to die at home. My dad shook his head, and I stared at my bowl, watching the butter melt in my vegetable soup, until my dad said to me, “Good Christ, can’t you just eat your soup instead of daydreaming? Do you like it better cold?” My mother probably said, like she did every night, “Leave her alone, you know Louella’s slow.” And I probably winced, because I hate that name, even though it’s been mine for almost seventeen years now. After, there was the sound of dishes in the kitchen sink when I washed them, banging them together a little too much, which always annoys my dad when he’s watching TV, so he grouches, and then I probably make a bit more noise because of it.

  That night, under my covers, I dreamed about the path that goes to the farm. There was a shadow on the other side of the path. Whenever I turned my head to look at it, the shadow would disappear under the snow. I kept dreaming the same thing until the grandfather clock sounding three o’clock in the morning…bong, bong, bong…woke me up. And then I fell asleep again. So that was it—the first time we met. The next evening, when I left the school for retards, I went straight to the back of the bus. But the driver called back, “Did you lose something?” so I told him no, then I went to my usual spot and looked straight ahead, at the driver’s back, because I always sit just behind him. When we got to the village, I got up, I said good night to the driver, and I waited a few seconds. I didn’t hear you say good night so I thought I must be alone, as usual, and I walked home, shuffling my feet. The next day, it was the same thing. After that, I lost count—well, I didn’t count the days, you know I’m not good at math, but I think there was a weekend, and then a Monday, and a Tuesday…and then one night, when I was getting off the bus, after I said good night, I heard someone saying good night behind me, and I knew you had come back.

  From that moment, my life started to change, slowly. So slowly that at first, I didn’t even notice it was changing.

  One night, you got off the bus, you said good night to the driver, and you came up and walked beside me without asking. It was cold; it was only September and everyone was already saying that winter this year would be longer and colder than usual. That’s always what people say when it snows like that in September. But, twenty-four hours later, the snow melts and it starts raining, and they always forget what they said before.

  We live in the mountains. Sometimes it’s really cold in the fall, sometimes really mild, sometimes really warm, and sometimes even really hot. I like the fall because of the color of the trees and because it’s so close to winter. I don’t like it because of the dogs that get all excited by the hunting and the gunshots in the forest. I don’t know anymore how many days we walked along the path together without saying anything but good night. Or sometimes not even that. It’s like you were scared of me. And I was a bit scared of you, too. So we each stayed on our own side of the path, k
icking our pine cones. Sometimes, one of yours came over to my side and I kicked it back to you. Once, the pine cone that you kicked over to me bounced and did a little spin. I started laughing, and you started laughing. And something moved in my stomach. I didn’t really understand what was happening. I wondered if it was my period, but it wasn’t anywhere near the full moon, only the first quarter. Later, I figured out that it was your laugh that made something move in my stomach, and little by little I got used to that nice, gentle feeling. So you walked closer beside me, and after that, we didn’t need to talk using pine cones anymore.

  You said, “My name is Matt.”

  I said, “I like that.” But I didn’t tell you right away what my name was, because I hate my name. I thought about it, probably for too long, and then I murmured, “Call me Lou.”

  It came to me just like that. Lou. Because it sounds like Louella. And it sounds like “lupine,” which a teacher at school told me means like a wolf. I thought that since we were talking, maybe I should tell you that I was the one who howled sometimes in the valley. But I kept quiet.

  “Lou? That’s not very common,” you answered. And I don’t think we said anything else that night. On another night, I apologized. “I don’t talk much, Matt. People say I’m stupid. But if you talk, I’ll listen.” You seemed surprised. You stayed silent for a moment, then you just mumbled that you didn’t talk much either… But actually, you can be a chatterbox. I’ve noticed it. It’s just that you were shy. And that, I understood.

  How do people talk to each other? And what do they talk about? I didn’t know anything about you, or you about me. I didn’t know where you had come from or where you were going. I didn’t ask you those questions. But the night you stopped on the path, when you made a sign to me to stop walking and be quiet, and you pointed at a tree where a robin was singing, I understood. I understood that you liked birds, that you liked the forest, that you weren’t one of those guys who go chasing after animals on the weekends with a rifle. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I hadn’t known, until then, that any other kind of guy existed! I remember that day really well because that afternoon, at school, I had a “traumatic incident” or, at least, something really horrible happened. I got trapped in the hallway by a boy who wanted to kiss me. A big boy, with hands like tennis rackets. He pushed me up against the lockers where we keep our gym clothes. He managed to force his tongue into my mouth. I struggled, I freed myself, and as soon as I got far enough away, I slapped him.