Five Brothers

by Penelope Douglas

Don’t walk alone at night. I don’t think my parents ever told me that, but I learned it well enough.

Everything in life is about power, and it wasn’t that I was taught that I didn’t have any. I learned that men would like me better if I didn’t show it.

His black hair is pushed back under a backward baseball cap, and his eyes gleam in that way that I know by now. Men have been looking at me like that since long before they should have.

he pays me no mind as he takes his pleasure.

My stomach drops a little. We were together three days ago. He had two condoms left in that box. His brothers don’t use this truck.

I know what he feels like, and that wasn’t it.

“Or maybe I liked it.” She smiles bitterly. “Because nothing felt good, so when it felt really fucking awful, the blood made me feel like I was surviving something. And that made me feel powerful.”

Literally fucking crying....

Red Right Hand?

Dallas eyeballs me every time I look at Trace. I really feel like I’m going to end up in Dallas’s trunk someday.

He literally finished his senior year from home last spring, and while no formal charges were brought, everyone knew why.

What I wanted to do was kill him. I could have. A lot more easily than having sex for money. It’s a question I often ponder. What would I be like if I weren’t worried about going to prison?

I shouldn’t have asked her to go to the strip club. It’s somewhere you go with a woman you’ve been with for a while for a fun night out, maybe. Not someone you want to fall in love with you. Someone you want to impress.

I mean, it can’t be that unsafe. They sell them on Amazon.

“It’s going to be one of us,” he tells me. “Not Jerome Watson. You’ll be ours, or I’ll make sure we all fuck you before we give you back, so nothing compares. So you always regret leaving us.”

I whisper, “We could share her.”

“Tell me no,” I whisper. I think I like her all tied up, unable to push me away. But she can still speak if she wants.

“Oh, Jesus,” one of the cops say. I hear car doors open. I think they’re about to pull me off her, but all I hear is “Just hurry up, goddammit!”

frantic to feel it all.

I fucking hate condoms, but she’s so tight I can’t even tell.

I smile, knowing she came. I can tell when they do. They’re like boa constrictors on the inside when they’re coming. I taught myself what to do to make sure they do every time.

“Just some nonsense about how real chili has beans.” It serves no purpose to repeat Jerome’s bullshit. Today is about fun. “Dumb motherfucker,” he mumbles under his breath. “If it’s got beans, it’s not chili.” I shake my head. “It’s just a stew.”

No... No no ... No beans = sauce.. Beans = meal..

“Yo pretendi mis orgasmos contigo.”

He didn’t deserve the stress. He deserved a brother who wouldn’t abandon him. And he deserves Krisjen.

He deserves her. I don’t want to tell her to go, though.

I stare at the floor, trying to feel my feet under me. Trying to stand. Get up. Go. Get up. Another day. Same as yesterday. Stand. Don’t think. Stand. Get up. Work. Don’t think. Do a job. Fix something. Build something. A car. A bike. The broken shutter. The door to the backyard. Turn it off. Move. Fucking move. Another day. Same as yesterday.

How can they just go through their days not feeling how cold everything is? I can’t just act like I’m not cold.

I went to a doctor a few times, but I said more to Krisjen last night than I told that guy in three visits. He was smug and entitled, and once I made the mistake of telling him I’d been in the military, that was it. That was the easy answer to what was wrong with me, even though I admitted to feeling bad since I was a kid.

Big validated fears…

Aware of the darkness and always spotting it first. Sensitive to the world.”

“That’s Krisjen’s recipe,” she says. “She makes all of your food.” My body warms.

I climb in the truck, excited to go, because she’ll be here when we come home.

She’s sleeping in my room tonight. Not forever. Just one more night.

when I notice the one that I had stashed there is missing. My brothers always knew it was there. It’s been there for years. She’s in my bed for a week, and it’s gone. I guess I have to go after her now. I need the gun back.

“You want me to stop?” I ask her. She shakes her head. “You gonna listen from now on?” She shakes her head. I smile. Of course not.

One of the St. Carmen women wanted me to pretend I was her son. One liked to hit me. A lot.

“I’d always had spells where I didn’t feel good, but God,” I go on, “I felt like an ugly piece of shit walking out of that first house, Krisjen. I never felt so worthless.”

A screech hits my ears, and I pop my eyes open, seeing my mother standing in my open doorway. “Oh my God,” I gasp,

He rubs his jaw, turning his head back to face her. “I remember you liking my hands on you.”

Le gasp!!! I didn't see it comin!!!

I believe him. It sounds like him. And Macon is not someone who ever feels the need to lie. But I believe everyone.

“I’ll let Dallas know he’s up.”

NO HE DIDNT

“That’s your job.”

Oh death penalty... Fuck that bitch

People fuck for money all time, but they weren’t paying for sex. They were paying to fuck a servant. A nonperson.

I’d never had sex with a woman I didn’t like before that. I always knew her. Liked her. There had never been a one-night stand. It had never made me feel bad.

Tomorrow won’t be any different. Neither will next week.

It could be over in one minute. Less, even. I could just stop. I just want to stop.

They may even feel guilty about the sigh of relief they’ll feel when I’m not around.

“I’m not coming back to that house just to exist,” he states. “You understand?”

GOOD BOY IRON!! GOOD BOY!!!

If he can do this—keep going—so can I. It’s going to be over eventually. No one lives forever. I can do more before I go.

“You and your friends victimized a young man who’d just lost his parents and was trying to support his five siblings.”

The worst of this is that Krisjen doesn’t even know the extent of what her mother did to him. She’s the one that hit him and told him it was his job to get hard even if he didn’t like it. Fucked up…

All you care about is that I fall into line.”

Mhm! You’ll tell that bitch ass.

Genuinely, I think.

Yikes, this hurts my soul.