Jury of One

2

Just a dream. Go back to sleep.

A memory that is hardly a memory at all. A memory of dreams, of racing, wild, intoxicated dreams. Men running and shouting. Winter. Screaming. Crying. Stabbing. Grunting. Hands, cold hands. A voice, Shelly’s voice. Don’t. Stop. What are you doing? What’s-what’s this-? A man’s voice. Relax. The cold hands, again. She is flying through the chilly air, so cold, so very cold. She is suffocating. A weight on her, pressing down on her chest, her abdomen. Tobacco and alcohol and winter-

“Relax.”

Darkness. Where is she? She has forgotten. She feels the bed. She is spinning. She is nauseous. The bile rising to her throat. He is on her. Her shirt is open. Her-her bra is off. His face, whiskers scraping against her cheek. The smell. Alcohol, not like the kind Daddy drinks, cigarettes on his breath, his body odor, the flannel rubbing against her chest-

“Don’t.”

“Shut up and relax.” His voice. Her legs are spread and this is what it is. This is what she’s heard about. He is inside her, his penis is inside her, ripping into her, back and forth, in and out, and she’s not dreaming because she can feel his sweat on her face and his awful breath and he’s so heavy. She raises her hands but can’t make fists. She concentrates on what she can control. Her name. Her age. My name is Shelly. I am sixteen years old. I took the train from Haley. My parents are out of town and don’t know. I don’t know where I am.

“Don’t,” she hears herself repeat.

Light, coming from her right. A voice, a man’s voice, then a female, then she hears the voice of the man on top of her. “We’re in the middle of something here.” Laughter, muted laughter as the door closes part of the way, reducing the light, then opens again.

She remembers the name Andrea. She remembers Mary and Dina and-

She remembers now. She remembers coming in here, thinking this might be the bathroom, but it was a bedroom and she was overtaken, simply overcome with drowsiness and she thought if she just sat for a second on the bed, just for a second, she might get the energy to get up and find the bathroom because she needed to go-

She looks into the blinding light and opens her mouth but the words don’t come. Laughter from the light, then darkness again. Harder now, and quicker, driving inside her. He is going to come. The phrase, she didn’t know what it meant when Brandon Ainsley asked her at lunch, sixth grade, in front of a table full of boys-“Do you come when you’re called?” and she said “Of course” and oh, how they laughed and now he’s going to come, this person whoever he is, he’s making the noise and she feels him shiver and moan, she feels it shooting inside her and she wants to return to the dream, she wants him to leave, it hurts and she wants him to leave but it’s over now, he’s off her, and she catches her breath and shuts her eyes and she’s crying. She hears him zip up his pants and she doesn’t know what it means when he chuckles and says, “Nice to meet you,” and then, “Go back to sleep, it was just a dream.”