Chapter 4: Patrick

They both sat propped by pillows against the headboard. Sarah pulled the covers over her bare legs to her waist, but remained unabashedly topless, her hands clasped in her lap. Brady had kicked off his shoes, tucking his legs under the sheets beside her. He still wore the blue button-down and the khakis below the covers.

“Where did you go?” Brady asked.

Sarah, confused by the question, looked towards the open window. The sun had set beyond the pane of glass, evening sounds tickling her ears: distant sirens, the faint tinkle of girlish laughter rising from the street below, the hum of traffic and the occasional blaring horn.

“I’ve been right here with you in bed since dinner,” Sarah replied slowly. She was only confused because she knew what he meant; however, she didn’t understand how he might know. She turned her face to look at him.

“You went somewhere else when my fingers pushed inside you,” Brady said. He had the decency to blush as he spoke. “You were here physically, but...” his voice trailed off. I wasn’t really in my body. “Were you thinking about someone else? Someplace else? It’s okay if you were.”

Sarah shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t speak for a long time, undecided about how much to share with this virtual stranger. On the other hand, this stranger had given her the first orgasm she’d experienced in longer than she could clearly remember.

It should have been a magical time. The wonders of being a teenager: friends, parties, dating, first kisses, first loves. Instead, Sarah lay shivering awake in her single bed wearing her drabbest flannel nightie listening intently and hoping. She clutched the covers protectively to her chin and prayed.

Beyond her closed bedroom door she could hear their shrill screaming voices arguing. She couldn’t discern the words, but it was always the same: fucking whore, fucking bastard. Sometimes the sound of an open hand striking a defenceless cheek. Tonight, the voices resonated the same chorus, only broken by the inevitable slap followed by the stomping of angry feet and the slam of a door.

Perhaps an hour of silence passed. The silence disquieted Sarah; it would inevitably be broken by the soft creak of rusty hinges. It mattered not if she was asleep or awake, but tonight sleep evaded her, as it often did.

His breath stank of Jack Daniels, Smirnoff and stale tobacco. Her mattress groaned with his added weight, not nearly large enough for two.

Her spirit left her body as his hands traced up her bare thigh, pushing up the flannel, primally hunting her teenaged nether lips; her spirit rose protectively above her simple bed, merely an observer. It was someone else’s breasts his hands touched. Someone else’s fingers guided to massage his erect penis. Someone else feeling his penis against her tongue and teeth. Someone else fucking him. Someone else climaxing involuntarily. Someone else. Someone else.

Not her.

“My father, he died when I was four,” Sarah said dully, staring up at the hotel ceiling. There was a slight discolouration in the paint above her; she studied it intently in the dim light. “I didn’t really know him, but I recall his eyes; his eyes were kind. That’s all I remember of him. After that, I had a lot of uncles. My mother drank a lot of Smirnoff, and my uncles smoked a lot of weed. I had to take care of myself mostly: make my own breakfast, get myself to the school bus, but I didn’t mind. With my father gone, Mom became a little lost. But then Uncle Patrick arrived.” She paused gathering her thoughts. She continued dispassionately, as if relating the events of another life, another person. “After their first big fight, he found my bed. That’s the first time my spirit left me, watching, protecting me. It’s been like that ever since,” she sighed. She turned towards Brady, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. He watched her, listening intently. “I wasn’t thinking about someone else, Brady. I was someone else; I don’t exactly have a choice.”

He sat silent for a moment, his turquoise eyes completely unreadable.

“Mine was named Uncle Terry,” he said so softly she could barely hear him. His hand sought hers, reaching into her lap. His fingers felt warm and safe entwined with hers.

Sarah turned her eyes back to the discoloured ceiling, leaning her head against the headboard. She wished she weren’t naked; she felt exposed and vulnerable, qualities she’d fought to shed over the last five years.

“I guess you now understand the girl under the willow,” she said faintly.

He nodded, but she didn’t see his assent, lost in her own thoughts.