the Leathermines

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Caution: Trigger for rape.  Not erotica.

 

She looked at the petals that were scattered on the ground.  As she moved her hand towards them, the mere shift in the air scattered the closest ones.  The scent of the flowers was heady, especially right under the bushes where she lay.

It was not as if she were hiding.  She was hidden by the trailing stalks of the bush, some green and alive, some brown and dead.  The roses moved in the hot breeze, the delicate petals drifting down through the greenery in the calm.  Her eye watched as one of the white petals was shaken loose and caught on a leaf above her.  The kiss of the wind touched it and then her, making both shiver.

The wind was not what really was causing her to feel cold in the heat of the day.  She lay where she had been left, after she had been taken.  She knew that she would live, she just did not want to.

It had been a trip to the field as any other, to check to see if the irrigation gates needed to be changed for the day.  He had dragged her along as usual to make sure she knew how the farm worked.  Her mother had married him after Papa had died, not caring that they had never been on a farm before.  She seemed happy, for a while.

He had a look on his face that she had seen before, but had not known what was behind it.  Now she knew.

On the breeze, she could smell the water from the creek.  They had put up the gate to let the water flow through the channels, the slightly grey water flowing thickly until it slicked the dirt in the water channel.  She had slipped and fallen in.  He had laughed and then had changed.

Her shirt had been soaked showing she had nothing on beneath.  She was not the prettiest of the girls around and knew it, but the look on his face had changed when she had been helped back out of the water.  His hand had tightened on hers, his other going to her neck, pulling her to him.

She didn't know that she could fight back.  It was too late to even try by the time she was on the ground, her pants being dragged off of her.  She had tried to wiggle away, but his weight was too much, and the slap on her face had hurt.

Not as much as when he had taken her.

She was covered with the dirt from the field.  She was filled with his dirt.  She felt filthy inside and out.  He had claimed her, told her that was what he was doing as his hand was around her throat, his heated breath against the side of her face.

She had felt her shirt tear.  She had felt inside of her tear.  She had felt herself tear.

She reached up to the petal hanging on the rose above her.  The lone petal around the slight brown fuzz at the tip of the small stem off the rose cane.  She saw the tinge of pink on the petal before it fell.  Then she saw the tinge of pink on her own fingers.

From somewhere, she heard the sound of people.  Going to or from another field.  It was far away, but the thought of people seeing her ...

They would not be able to see her under the rose bush.  The bramble of old and new growth was thick, the light coming through shattered.  Shattered.  Pieces of the whole that would never be together again.  Torn from the body.  Never again.

She pushed herself slowly from under the shade of the roses.  A few of the petals clung to her, white spots among the dirt, but not pure as they might seem.  She pulled her clothing together.  As much as she could.

Her legs did not want to work.  She tried to walk and stumbled, falling into the tilled ground, her shin finding a rock.  She called out, not meaning to.

There was an answering call.  The people were closer than she had thought.  Her own blood had been rushing in her ears, melding with the sound of the irrigation water, masking how close the road was.  She had people around her, legs with pants and boots.  Men.

She screamed when one touched her.  She fought.  She scratched and kicked.

She was being held.  There were calm and not calm voices.  She thought she recognized some, but she had only been in the farm since the beginning of summer, only going into town a few times with her mother and new Papa-

The stopped struggling and started crying in earnest.  She wanted her Papa.  He would never be there to protect her again.  Her Momma had tried to replace him.  He could never be replaced.

The men tried to be gentle.  They were angry.  They were furious.  They took her to a house she had never been to, the woman of the house taking her and holding her and cleaning her.  She was kind, gentle, but firm that her Momma should not know.

That didn't make sense.  She looked at the woman and saw her own haunted look, the too long of a sleeve in the heat of the summer.  She was scared, too.

The men came back, her new Papa with them.  She was put into a simple dress and he took her back to the farm.  She didn't know where else to go.  This was the house she lived in.  It was not her Home.

Momma came to the door and took her.  She finally saw the look that had confused her some for what it was, the light bruising on Momma's wrists.  She had been expecting it to happen to her daughter, just as it happened to her.

That broke something inside her, just as he had torn her in the field.  Her Momma had brought them into this.  She didn't know how to get them out.

Dinner was strained.  Silent.  She went to her room, to her bed and lay there until she heard them close their door.

No light to see clearly by inside, the half-moon from outside starkly shading what she could see outside, she packed what little she had.  She was not going to live where there was fear.  That was not what she had been brought up in.  She was not going to let it completely break her as she now knew it had broken her Momma.  And the other women around her.

She walked.  The sounds of the night made her frightened, but not as frightened as going back.  The scent of the wild roses came to her, making her stop.  Tears were in her eyes.  She started walking again, making it to the main road in the hot night.

Shattered.  Broken.  Escaped.  Vindicated.

The Sheriff picked her up, talking to her as they went into town.  They went to the clinic, the bleary eyed nurse coming in to do ... things to her.  The looks on the adults' faces were grim.  The Sheriff made calls.  She was given ice cream as she sat in a small office.  Her new Papa was there after a while, but he was not going to hurt her.  Again.