Pretty When She Cries Read Online Free PDF Page A

the situation she sank onto the thick mattress, burying her face in her trembling hands. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her, that someone could do this. He could do whatever he wanted with her. Struck again with panic, she began pulling and tugging at the chain, making violent efforts to disengage herself. “Fuck!” she screamed. “Somebody! Please! Help me!”
    She stopped yelling after a few minutes. The silences in between were worse than if she stayed silent. She curled on the smelly mattress. Her mouth had puffed up and was numb where he had hit her. She shivered in a cold sweat, feeling vulnerable in her nakedness. She was so exhausted, she was almost going unconscious.

Chapter 3
    She didn’t know she’d fallen asleep, until she heard a door close. She was alert in an instant. The room was newly dark, and she could just see the outlines of things. The lounge door opened and he came in. She lay absolutely still. He switched on a lamp, and sat down on the couch, as if he might have forgotten her. He was holding her handbag. He emptied all its contents on the floor between his boots. He bent forward as he went through it, lifting and dropping things uninterestedly.
    He collected a few bits of her make up, and went to her. She huddled away from him. “Do you want to put some on?” he said, as if it was some kind of peace offering. When she made no movement, he dropped it all on the floor in front of her. He went away into the kitchen. After a minute, he came back with a can of beer.
    “You can’t do this,” she said, brokenly.
    He took off his boots and his clothes. He sat on the mattress with her.
    “I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t have to cry,” he said. “I’m going to tell you something, Nicole. I was raped in prison.” He took a swing of beer and offered it to her, but she wouldn’t take it. “So I know what a woman feels when she’s raped. I know the feeling of helplessness, the shame, self-doubt, self-blame, the fear. It was a very sick, twisted, brutal thing. I kept getting kicked in the face and punched for no fucking reason.
    “It’s pretty routine in jail. Young guys are sodomized and forced to suck dick while being nearly beaten to death. Once a guy gets owned he’s property, man. He can be rented out, sold or auctioned, told how to dress and talk, given a woman’s name. Half the guys end up dead, either by the cocksuckers forcing them, or it’s self inflicted. I almost became a statistic, several times over.
    “I never tried to participate in any of it. I’m just not a mean, or hurtful person. But I got really violent after the prison experiences. It’s been ten years, and it’s still hard for me to confront. It’s rough in there, so fuck the people who will never understand what it takes to survive.
    “When I told my wife she left me. Since then I haven’t gone looking for any counselling or help, which was pretty stupid of me, because all I’ve done is channel the pain and hurt in to rage. But I’m in a good place now. It’s very healing to talk about it.”
    Nicole was silent, hugging her knees to her chest. She was afraid to look him in the eye, fearing what they might reveal.
    “I was only twenty-two when I went in. Your age! But I was six-foot-tall and weighed about a hundred and ninety pounds. I figured I could pretty well take care of myself. My first night I was approached by three guys. They asked who I was and what I was in for. I told them and then one of them asked if I had ever been fucked.
    “I said nope and I’m not planning on it, and he told me I was going to give them all head. I can tell you, I was filled with fear like I had never felt before. I couldn’t imagine sucking another man’s cock! I got my fist into him, but his partners knocked me to the floor and slammed my face into the concrete. Two of them sat on my legs and the other guy lay on my back. He was beating into me and said, I