Re: Thea Manovi // D1

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You look,

[/i] they say, you look, you look

Beautiful

Sexy

Confident[/i]

Your smile is white and straight, clasped between long, dark pink lips. Your eyes are heavy with mascara, dark glitter and black gunk they pull your eyelids apart to apply. They shine with a dark brown enigma and when you narrow them, your pupils are pure black pools.

You look,[/i] they say, you look

Dark

Mysterious

Scary
[/i]
Your nostrils tend to flare widely and not just in anger or irritation, but with your smile. Open wide. You have long, incisor teeth that have led many to call you “vampire.” And the silver caps on the back of your teeth don’t help one bit. Your hair is a medium brown, complimenting your olive skin and it is the waves of the ocean down your back. So silky and smooth with the oils you put in it, the brushing, the pampering.

You look, they say, you look

Thin

Sick

Sad

So young.[/i]

Your face is still that of a child’s Round cheeks, a flat chin, a crooked nose, or perhaps that’s the mouth. High, surprised eyebrows. You’re the child who didn’t, or rather, couldn’t eat for days when she found herself so alone. You’re the child who can reach down her nearly filled-out chest and nearly hook a hand under her prominent ribs. For those days and days that followed when you knew you were alone, where you had to identify them, dress in black, cry, your body will never recover. Your nails and toenails, hidden by bright polish, have yellowed and it’s just so hard to shave that peach fuzz on your back that sometimes, only sometimes, they feel.

You look, you look

Fine.[/i]

He runs a hand over those hairs now and grimaces. Have you been eating? No one likes a girl who will break.[/i] You’re a porcelain doll.

I did eat[/i] and you don’t lie, but your stomach isn’t a child’s anymore. Not since you nodded down at her closed eyes and then his, identifying the bodies they called it, not since you nodded, have you been able to stomach the rich foods of your childhood. Meats. Breads. Sweets. Most of all, sweets. Candies that melted in your mouth so readily that you were begging for more from your father’s pocket. And more and more. So distant, so long gone. Now, you can’t take a single bite.


Once, you were asked to describe yourself. Who are you? What can you offer me?[/i] My body. It’s small. It’s nice. I’m pretty. Who doesn’t want a pretty girl? Confident, are you? [/i]

Father always said you were special. You’re above the rest. Act like it. You deserve the best. You’re the princess.[/i] And so, you learned. You sat tall during dinner and walked with a strut. You turned your nose up at those not as fortunate as you as you buried yourself deep, deep, deep within yourself, your gifts, your overjoyed parents. You knew you were the best and so you acted like it. Your parents ignored your report cards, you were never good at school, but complimented your beauty. You were obedient and they loved it. Someday, she’ll make a good wife,[/i] your mother would chime and Father would laugh. Someday, she’ll be able to take over the business. Someone else can do the math for her.[/i]

The math was the problem, but not the people. You’ve always been sharp, learning your father’s steely tone when working with a business associate. Are you sure you’d like to sign on with them? Are you sure you’d like to do that?[/i] You inherited his twitching lips, his raised eyebrows. That smirk. Are you sure?[/i] Empty, empty, empty the words were. The honey was tasteless, but poison nevertheless and they knew it. Everything for the good of the business, Thea-Mia,[/i] he told you.

Everything for the good of you.

Say, you don’t have any friends, do you? Anyone who would come looking for you?[/i]

Your parents were your only friends as sad as it sounds. Tragic, really. The girl with the upturned nose couldn’t attract a single being to her. You’re not talkative enough anyway. Not like those snooty little girls who gossip about that boy who winked at them! winked at them! What would you say? Oh shut up.[/i] Who cares? Not you.

No one but you.

But the swing of hips, the long, lovely hair, the blossoming breasts, how they attract you. You’d make a good wife, yes, but a wife to a husband. Not to her. Or her. Or her. Maybe that’s why you strayed from them, those girls, that one with the freckles across her nose, and this one with the low-cut shirt and oh and oh, Mother would never agree. So, you denied yourself, forcing that feeling to crawl back into its shell. It twists at you, contorts you, but you dated boys. You kissed boys. You flirted with boys. You lost your virginity to a boy behind a dumpster one time and Mother and Father pretended to not notice the slur in your words and instead brushed your hair lovingly and put you into bed and those were the days.

How you miss them.

Tell me about yourself,[/i] some of them ask. Some before. Some after. Some during. Some not at all. But, you do. Whatever gets the money in your hands. You tell them that you were born into a wealthy family. A wealthy business. Only you and your parents, successful, all successful. You tell them that it was a good life. Sweets, sweets, sweets, you tell them.

You decline to tell them that you were fourteen years old and Mother is walking home alone one night. She was at a dinner party and Father couldn’t attend because he’s sick and you serve him soup in bed. Mother turns a corner, but they’re hiding and they seize her. Give us your money. B-but, I have none![/i]

They find her in the morning, but by then, the blood has hardened on her wounds and she’s staring at the sky as if she’s seeing something, something, but the coroner says she sees nothing now and everything changes. Father. Oh, Father, Father, where are you?[/i]

You tell them that your mother was sick and died and your father was extremely sad. You forget to let them know that Father completely shut down. The bills, the letters, the mail piled up outside the door, but he never touched it. The doorbell rang, but it echoed through an empty house. You hardly saw him. He hardly left his office. You ate dinner alone and searched his untouched coat pockets for stale sweets when you had nothing else to do. Sometimes you fantasized about girls until your stomach hurt for Mother, if she were really someplace better, would surely know what you were thinking and to compensate, you drank and let be. Except there was no one now to brush your hair and put you into bed, but yourself.

My father died of illness. It isn’t a lie. He had an illness, but it was all in his head. And it was his head that paid the price when he pitched himself into the gorge at the edge of the District and you have to identify the body and his skull is all in pieces and that face, broken, jaw distorted, it isn’t his. He died when Mother did.

But he had you! What about you? What about you? And your stomach twists. Suppressed. Angry.

You had to think quick,[/i] you tell them. The community home was just around the corner from you and no one of you caliber should ever have to go there. No, no. Not with the bruises. The insults. Not there, never there.

There was a white house around the corner of you. Mother said it was the whore house, but the glimpses of the girls you see in the window, they’re beautiful. Rosy cheeks, long dresses, done-up hair. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Pampered. As long as they paid their rent.

You tell them how you approached him. Albert, they call him. You be my uncle, you be my uncle and I’ll pay your rent. As long as I can stay here.[/i] He scratched his jaw. How old are you?[/i] Fifteen, almost sixteen. They’re going to send me away. I need a relative. I know business. My father was a businessman.[/i]

This isn’t your kind of business.

Are you sure?[/i]

Your sharp words, temptress lips, your poison. He readily drank it. He liked it. Spunk, he called it. You have spunk. [/i]That I do. And it was that spunk that got you the rent you needed. You don’t tell them that you hate their hands, their lips, their flat chests, their prize, just below the waist. You hate their degrading words, their hungry eyes. Their everything. But, spunk. It was that spunk that had him calling you down from your room. Meet your new master.

She’s perfect. [/i]

Scum. Spunk and scum. He was scum, but you nod and go anyway. You will teach my sister all she needs to know,[/i] he tells you once you’ve told him all about yourself. That shouldn’t be too hard for a whore like you. Whore.

Are you sure? Are you so sure?[/i] But, the words never leave your lips. Only a sigh when you see her. And that twisting, it begins again. Mother and Father, they must know, but you twist and teach and show, and how you long and lust and hate yourself all the way for it. She’s beautiful, but she has another and twisting and turning, you contort and moan. And your new master comes for you and your new “family” comes for you and they all have in their hands and you must, you must, all for your new master.

All for you, remember?

But, for once, you’re not so sure.



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