Chapter 13

Kim's turn, still:

It's serious. Yes it is. How serious? We got up for Monday morning and did breakfast. He grabbed the keys to his truck.

"You're taking your truck? You just bought the new SUV."

"Yeah, I know. Here!" He pulled the key off his ring. "Yours. Be careful. Like I need to tell you that."

"B-but this is your new car, Tim!"

"And you're my new wife. Or if you want, you can still ride with Jen."

I grabbed him and kissed him. "Riding with Aunt Jen is a good thing, guy. Really. But thanks for the option."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," I said.

He walked out the door. I stood there for a second. The guy just gave me the keys to his car and called it mine. He's serious too. But then I knew that already. Don't ask me HOW I know. I just know. The clock says I have a little time before Aunt Jen leaves for school. I could go over there and wait. Or I could sit in Tim's recliner.

Recliner. Smells of Tim. I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes. Reverie. Interrupted, not at all unexpectedly, buy the tinkling of my iPhone.

Text message from Aunt Jen. "GO." Aunt Jen is so subtle. I shouldered my book bag and headed out to meet her.

"Morning, there," she said. "He hasn't killed you yet?"

I giggled. "We tried killing each other. Passed out. That's ALMOST killed, isn't it?"

"Don't be graphic, Kimberly," Jen snapped.

"Not graphic at all. And tell me that you don't..."

"I'm not telling you any such thing."

"Well, I never knew it would be like this. I mean, just a physical act..."

Jen sighed. "But that's what you and I talked about more than once. It shouldn't be just a physical act. If your shoulder itched where you couldn't reach to scratch it, would you rather rub up against a door frame, get a stranger to give it a quick scratch, or bare your shoulder to somebody who knows exactly how you like to be scratched, and who turns that scratching session into a session of comfort and care?"

"Are you sure I'm not YOUR daughter?" I asked her.

"Only if I slutted myself out when I was twelve, baby doll," she said. Aunt Jen was Mom's much younger sister.

"Well, you made some things sound so sensible."

"And you know how much people pay attention to sensibility, don't you?"

Aunt Jen and I have both seen a lot of the foibles of human nature. Sadly, some of the most negative vignettes came with my Mom's name on them. After that, Aunt Jen and I have pretty normal lives, but we're both eyeball-deep in high school, she being a teacher and me being a student, and when you put a thousand or so hormone-charged teens in a building five days a week, you see and hear a lot of things. And if you're of such a mind, you get to experience them personally.

I chose to be an observer, much to Aunt Jen's relief when I moved in with her. I observed, right up to the time I observed somebody moving into that vacant apartment. The Day. Now I'm playing the game with new rules, off the field, on my own. And it's NOT a game.

"You're thinking again, aren't you?" Aunt Jen said.

"Just where we are in our lives and how we got here."

"Quite a ride you're having, Kimmy," she said.

"Yeah, it is," I said. "You're a big part of that. The good part."

"I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I asked for you to come live with me, you know." Aunt Jen and I had previously had this conversation. I can understand. So many messed up people on the planet these days. I was in a perfect position to be one of them. Could've been. Wasn't.

When Mom started going off the tracks at the end, I was scared. Angry. Could've easily slipped into drugs and sex. It's not like living with Mom didn't give me plenty of opportunity. Mom really didn't act like she cared and there were plenty of men who would've been glad to help me along.

I had that one memorable incident with one of Mom's guys who thought a little push might get me going in his direction. It was horrible. I still get squicked out about it.

Mom was stoned out of her gourd on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol that night. I know that I told Tim she was out 'working', but 'stoned' and 'working', at least Mom's version of work, were about equally reprehensible. Anyway, I guess ol' Rich (who was not 'rich' at all, monetarily speaking) decided that fucking Mom's unresponsive carcass wasn't as attractive an option as her then-fifteen year old daughter in the bedroom up the hall.

I woke up when my door opened. I could see him in the dim light coming in the window. He was completely naked and ready for action. Before I could say a word he slid into my bed and started nuzzling and trying to kiss me. I rolled over. One hand went under my pillow. The other hand went down his belly, reaching for his erection. I actually felt kind of bad for him because all he wanted was sex and he thought he was getting ready to get that.

My two hands came together. One of them had his dick. The other had a Ginsu steak knife. I sliced. He screamed, jerked, fell out of bed spurting blood. I called 9-1-1. Attempted rape. Self-defense. Needed police and an ambulance.

When you let police into your house and your Mom is not very discreet about her habits involving undocumented pharmaceuticals, there's bound to be some interesting interactions. If you add a naked guy writhing on your bedroom floor in a pool of his own blood grasping his almost-severed penis, it gets MORE interesting.

Mom and Rich ended up in the hospital that night. Mom was hauled in because she was unconscious and unresponsive. Rich, well, his problem was obvious.

Me, I was hauled in because I had blood on my pajamas and my bed and I admitted that I'd retaliated to an attempted rape. Being fifteen at the time, I was a minor as far as the legal system was concerned so I was handled differently. I had a court-appointed advocate, a nice lady who was roused out of a good night's sleep to come assist yet another unfortunate youth.

"I'm Pamela Bardon, Kimberly," she said. We were in a little private conference room at the police station. "I'm here to help you with the legal things and the social services things. Do you want to talk with me? It would be much easier if I knew what was going on."

Poor Mizz Pam. Thought an avalanche had hit her. I dumped the whole load on her. As I explained some of the things that I heard or saw from Mom's unconventional lifestyle, there were a couple of times that Mizz Pam stifled gasps.

"Are you doing drugs?" she asked.

"No, ma'am. Not so much as cigarette or a beer has ever touched my lips. I know where that can end up. It's too ugly to imagine."

"This next question is personal, but you're claiming attempted rape. Are you sexually active?"

"No, ma'am." I didn't get into asking why my previous sexual history might indicate that this particular scabby bastard might think he was entitled to my wares. I couldn't see where it would enhance my position to argue with Mizz Pam. "I am a virgin. Really. I know it's a surprise in this day and age, 'specially living with SuperMom. But I am."

Mizz Pam sat at my side through the questioning, along with an attorney who was just as happy being rousted out of bed as she was. The detective assigned to my case questioned me. It didn't take a lot of sleuthing to figure out things. I was in a pair of bloody pajamas. Ol' Rich was stark naked. I recounted his relationship with Mom. The detective was scanning the preliminary report from the responding officers as he questioned me.

"Nothing in your bedroom, it says here." Lieutenant Travis was serious-looking, fortyish, a few doughnuts over the USDA daily minimum requirement.

"If there WOULD have been anything there, I wouldn't've known about it. I do NOT do drugs. ANY of them."

"They found a pretty good collection of stuff in the apartment, though."

"Are you asking me if Mom and Rich might be dealing?"

"You don't have to answer," the lawyer said.

Lieutenant Travis glared at him. "You don't, Kimberly."

"Am I being charged?"

"No. Nothing in your room."

"Yeah, I heard 'em talking about buying and selling."

He scribbled notes. "Did you hear any names mentioned?"

I had. But honestly, I had no idea who might be connected with names like 'Bug' and 'Harry' and 'Gleester' and such. Still, he scribbled notes.

Afterward, in the mid-morning, I was about to drop in my tracks. The adrenaline rush was long gone, I was shy a night's sleep, I needed a shower. The jail-issue coveralls weren't even up to my rather innovative standards of outer-wear.

Mizz Pam and a patrol officer took me back to Mom's apartment. I packed a gym bag with things and then went home with Mizz Pam. After a shower I crashed for a few hours, got up, she and her husband took me out to eat.

"Do you have any relatives who you might stay with, Kimberly," she asked. "In the morning we need to talk with the social worker about your disposition."

"Disposition," I said sadly. "Disposed. That's what I am now. Something to be disposed of."

"Kimberly, I'm on your side here. I will do the very best I can to get you the best outcome. Do you..."

"Aunt Jen. Jennifer Elkins. She lives here in town. She's a school teacher." I didn't add the part what Mom liked to harp on, that Aunt Jen, her sister, was 'A big bull-dyke'. Aunt Jen was a college grad, naturally, since she was a teacher, and that was about all I knew of her. I can't remember talking with her much since Granddad's funeral three years before. All I could remember was that Grandpa was gone, Mom was dressed like the proverbial 'whore in church' and Aunt Jen was wearing a simple and tasteful dress. And Aunt Jen told me how much I'd grown.

I wondered what she'd say today. I did know what she looked like, though. She's a teacher at my high school. We just didn't talk. I didn't know if it was because she wanted to distance herself from her sister's drama, or if I was tainted in her mind, or what.