He slaps my hand away, angrily biting my shoulder.
“Don’t touch what’s mine.”
That’s ridiculous! I scream in my head—I just want to fucking come. I’m oversensitized, I’m soaked. What else do I need? Datu scoops the thing dripping down our legs, lathering it all over my swollen clit. When he begins to sweep his fingers over it, my toes curl, and my body shakes involuntarily.
I have no control over myself. I’m flexing, unflexing, growing weak at the surge of dopamine, oxytocin. They crash over and over again. I’m not coming, I’m canonized. Uplifted. I become a saint impaled by his cock.
As my body fumbles for any kind of stability, Datu slides home until he is fully sheathed. In me, on me, all over me. The ground cracks, the walls shake, and his thunderous roar shatters my bones, my skin a sheen of sweat. I am weightless, limbless.
I don’t feel like myself. I know now—I am owned.
I belong to the Void.
Xiaoyu
“Ma, can I keep my lights on? I’m afraid of the monster that comes inside my room.”
Mother’s gaze slices toward me, disapproving. “You are grown up, Xiaoyu, you should not be believing these kinds of things.” She says firmly.
Grown up? I’m eight years old. Is eight a grown-up? “But it’s real! I’m not imagining it!”
“You have a really overactive imagination.” She dismisses me, and my throat feels tight. “It’s only in your head.”
“Why don’t you believe me?” I cry, my heart squeezing in my chest.
“You always see things that aren’t there, Xiaoyu.” She snarls, and I wince away. “Can you please stop?”
She’s doing it again. Mother is going to leave me with the monster again. She says I need to get used to it, that it’s not all the time I have somebody by my side. That I need to toughen upbecause I’m the eldest daughter. That I have to stop reading so much of that crap stepfather does.
When she leaves, she takes my capybara night light with her. I can’t close my eyes, I’m afraid someone might take my clothes off without my permission. I have to stay awake.
As I stare up at the ceiling, I tell myself I’ll be strong, but my empty stomach pushes me to rest my eyes. I hold my blanket tight up to my chin. I’m shivering, trembling, wondering what I did wrong for Mother not to believe the monster is real.
Footsteps come my way, my door opening. I see his shadow. The monster is an older, bigger man. He wears pajamas right now, but sometimes he wears a suit. Sometimes he’s shirtless with his thick gold chains. I only see him when the moon is full, his silhouette showing a big belly.
“Xiaoyu, what did you tell your mother?”
My breathing grows louder as something I recognize as fear takes over me. I don’t answer him. I don’t want to, but I also can’t move my mouth.
“You’ve upset her. Now she’s taking it out on me.” He chastises.
I want to scream and fight, IT’S NOT MY FAULT, IT’S NOT MY FAULT! But I know no one will hear me. No one will believe me. No one ever does.
He sinks into the bed next to me, his breath hot, rancid on my face. My eyes adjust to the dark, and his skin is thick with those same tattoos Mother hates so much.
I’m gritting my teeth together so I don’t make a sound. He sweeps his hands over my face, removing my blanket. I can’t move. Terror has me paralyzed. When he tugs my pajamas off, I keep my eyes on the ceiling, unblinking until my sight swims with tears.
I refuse to see anything, and as soon as the pain subsides, I curl into myself and let the tears fall. I cry myself to sleep almost every night as soon as the monster closes the door behind him.
When exhaustion finally embraces me, I dream of it for the first time. My friend, the hole. It blinks, its eyes the only light in the dark. I like it when it blinks, sometimes it changes the colors for me. When it shines, I hug it, so happy to not be alone.
It has no body, but does magic with what looks like its version of hands. It clothes me, and comforts me. It swathes me in kindness I have never felt anywhere else. The hole does not hurt me like the monster does.
Its glowing violet eyes are sad.
“What’s wrong, friend?”
The black thing that’s formed into a hand is placed over its chest, over its heart. Its voice doesn’t seem real. It's thunder rumbling in the sky.
