enmuni

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>Being dragged down the stairs and dropped, being held like she was nothing, her resistance less than meaningless to her attacker—she felt terror and rage pulling her heart into her throat and into the pit of her stomach like thundering putty. She couldn’t sit still; the cacophony of revulsion nauseated her. And then the bastards left, and she, out of her mind in shock, accepted the same condolence pill everyone else had. The worst part? It was such a relief. It was infuriating. She didn’t think to try and puke it up until it was too late to want to resist. She didn’t feel her heart in her throat. She didn’t feel the dread or the hatred. She didn’t feel. She could barely—.

And she lost the momentum again. The assurances felt good. Things would all work out. What would work out? Hard work? She had worked hard. And there would be pizza. She was wrestling to sit straight, to sit upright, to feel what she needed to feel. She shouldn’t feel fine. She needed to focus. She needed to—to—she was so tired. It felt nice. She never wanted it to end. Her heart was quiet. Her spirit was calm. She couldn’t think enough to reflect or want or string together everything she should have felt. There was no knowing. Only being. She drifted away as Sunny’s babbling melted into nonsense. Then nothing. Things would be okay, yes. She was so tired.

The kiss. The hug. So familiar. Almost soothing. Almost right. She was home. Like it was all just a bad—Sunny. Right. It would never be the same. No mother. No family. Just…Sunny.

Chunxin’s eyelids pulled downwards. Her arms felt like sandbags. She was like a ragdoll, looking past Sunny. Her eyes fell into the crevices of the smoke-stained popcorn ceiling. And in that moment, she was struck by a realization she’d spent months trying to avoid. This, right here, felt so much better than trying. This was what made people into lambs for the slaughter. Peace in a pill. It was too simple. She’d always known it, intellectually, and avoided it lest she lose her will, but now that she’d accidentally accepted it, she stared temptation in the face.

Sunny smiled at her warmly. She told her and everyone else sweet nothings about cleaning things up herself, that all they’d need to do was decide what pizza they wanted, that they could have whatever they needed to feel better.

It felt biblical. Pleasure to drown out the inevitable pain. Treats for every torture yet to be endured. If she could only muster terror or outrage, it would have roared alive as it had many times that day. But Chunxin simply sighed. She stared into the buzzing light, drowning out all the commotion that filled the room with Sunny’s departure, and grasped languidly and desperately at enough clarity to appreciate her situation. Like fighting a paralysis of the soul. All she won was the creeping dread that she might want to embrace it.

A hand on her hand dragged her back into the hazy reality. The words that came from the hand’s owner were nonsense. Chunxin squinted and rallied her focus.

“Gen, you alright?” Fi asked again. Chunxin retreated into her own neck. “You’ve never had a full dose, have you?”

For some amount of time, Chunxin managed to pull her focus back to the buzzing light. She couldn’t lose sight of another target. This stuff was so good. No wonder everyone else seemed so relieved to find out they’d be getting it like candy. But not her. She couldn’t dwell on it. She had to stay—.

“You should drink something.” Fi shoved a glass of tap water in front of her face. Chunxin turned up her nose and tried to keep from looking. Fi continued, “It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker if you keep staring at that light. I’m sure you’ve got a lot going on in there. But nothing’s gonna make sense right now. It just won’t.”

Chunxin refused the glass again. She shut her eyes and turned her nose. Fi sighed. “Look, Gen…tonight’s gonna be about the best it’s ever gonna get. Take it or leave it, but if I were you, I’d try to enjoy the time I have left before it all goes to shit.”

Chunxin pulled her head back incredulously. “Fuck you mean?” she wheezed.

“It can always get worse. And it will. So try to enjoy whatever you can while you still have it in you to enjoy anything.”

Fi extended her hand. Chunxin hesitated. She finally took it right as Fi began to withdraw. Fi helped Chunxin up and gave her support as they trudged upstairs.</sup>

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>“It’s gonna be okay.”

Sunny repeated herself constantly. If she said it enough, it had to be true. Things had always gotten better. She’d always bounced back. There were still ways to find lights at the end of the tunnel. Even if she couldn’t see it now. It had always been true, hadn’t it? She’d had bad days before. And even if the new guy seemed scary, even if he meant what he’d said, he hadn’t hit her. He was rough, and his men were being unusually nasty, but younger mob guys often liked to make a big impression. Even as customers, many had something to prove. Like being tougher than children meant anything. The older guys who dabbled were sometimes rough around the edges, but they didn’t so much insist on it in the same way. When she was brand new, it was the young ones that had frightened her terribly. They reminded her of her older brothers. It often seemed to be her fear and instant capitulation that appealed to them. And then they got gentler, having already won. Most of the cruelty came out in the wash. It always did. Why would this time be any different?

Her face was still pale and her hands were still shaking as she helped dress and comfort the poor darlings in her charge, but she didn’t cry. The holidays this year would be hard, no doubt. And it hurt her heart to know they’d have to be. This year. But she’d turn it around today. Then tomorrow they’d get to it, early and eager, and then this new guy would see he’d won and next year could be better. If only the bad news could wait. But it’d already come, hadn’t it? That awful man couldn’t have the last word. So she handed Fi her keys and asked her to “please get some of the good stuff.” She offered a tight-lipped smile. Fi nodded sharply and solemnly and hurried off. The kids would need something to help take the edge off. A chemical bandage to stop the bleeding and smooth out the bumps.

When they were dressed, Sunny got everyone situated, with the older kids on the couch and in chairs, and the younger ones on the carpeted floor. She and Fi distributed the pills to everyone, and each took their share themselves. All but the very youngest and Fi herself gulped them down dry. Only Cherry hesitated. And the second everyone was attended to, Sunny took her place before them all.

“Before I say anything else, I just want you all to know I’m sorry. I’m sorry things are like this. I’m sorry about how you were treated. I’m really sorry. I wish I could make it go away.”

The younger kids erupted into an incomprehensible stream of questions and commentaries, the older kids parroted anxieties and needs for reassurance, and not a one accepted the simple apology, no matter how sincerely Sunny gazed into their eyes and scrunched her face to show her remorse for it. She held up her hands and patted down.

“I know, I know,” she assured, “I just—I’m nervous too. It’s normal to feel nervous. This was a scary thing we all went through today. It was scary for me. It must’ve been so scary for you.” Her voice steadied as she spoke. “So before we talk, let’s take some deep breaths. Deep breaths. Just like we do when we’re learning something new and difficult. Deep. Breaths. In. And out. In. And out.”

The kids quieted down. Her words started to linger in the air as the world slowed down for all of them, and the first inkling of calm began to kick in. The little ones leaned on one another and slowly melted as they kept breathing. Fi and Miggy remained stiff. Sally and Bibi slumped in their seats. Cherry wrestled with herself to stay upright.

And once Sunny was more than settled, she drifted floorwards and took a seat sideways, propping herself up with one arm and gripping the shag rug tightly. She closed her eyes and took a final deep breath.

“Okay. We—so we—we need to—”

She took a shaky breath as she tried to regain her bearings. It had been ages since she’d taken a full dose. Steady as her feelings were now, it occurred to her now that she shouldn’t have joined the kids. They’d earned soup in the head. Maybe she had too. But truthfully, she needed to keep her wits together long enough to break down the situation. Even if she wanted more than anything to just flop on the rug and accept whatever came her way. No. Keep it together Sunny. Use your words. She shut her eyes tight and pulled all her focus towards speaking.

“Words. Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “Here’s—here’s the thing. I need you to trust me on this. We gotta do our best to be good…good for this new guy in charge. He, uh, he’s being tough on us cause he’s new, okay? It’s—Sally, honey, you’ve been with some of these types recently, right?” Sunny nodded insistantly. Sally nodded lazily. Sunny gestured optimistically to Sally.

“And, you know, y’see—uh, they play rough, cause they don’t…know…that—that we know they’re in charge. They don’t get it.” Sunny massaged the bridge of her nose. She gazed lazily past her half-closed lashes.

“So we gotta…show ‘em we know. That we’re good…‘n’ that we’re just—just, uh, y’know, trying t’make’em happy. And, uh, what that means is doin’...what he wants us to do. You gotta trust me on this, okay?” Sunny sat up and crisscrossed her legs. She wobbled in place. Her mouth quivered as she steadied herself. She cocked an optimistic little half-smile. She’d forgotten just how rosy a real dose made her feel. She’d have wept if she’d remembered how much better it was.

“It—This—I know what he wants us to do. Take everybody. Anybody who pays. But it’s—look, I know—the mean, spooky dudes, they’re rough and you don’t wanna—y’don’t wan’em to hurt you. But I’ve been through it. And—and I’m okay, you see? And so, just—” She patted the air with her hand. “—Just trust me and ride the high. Take the pretty pills, and—and we’ll get through this. Do your best. And I’ll make sure we get through this. We’re gonna get through this. We’ve done this before—back—back when we were kids. And the pills make it all better. Right, Fi?”

Fi sat frozen, staring off into the distance.

“Fi, honey? You okay?” Sunny leaned forward with a frazzled grin on her lips. Her hands sank into her lap, then her arms tensed to help support her. “Fi? Fee-fi?” she sing-songed.

Fi blinked heavily, inhaled and heavily exhaled as if she’d forgotten to breathe, then delivered a short, jerking nod. She remained silent. Sunny cocked her head and nodded sympathetically.

“Like, yeah, it’s not gonna be easy-breezy. But—but seriously though. I don’—If it hurts—If-if it ever—if you ever feel bad—You gotta tell me, okay? And while this is goin’ on, ‘n’ we can’t say no—I won’t say no.” Sunny jabbed herself in the thigh with her pointer finger and nodded assuredly. “I don’t want you to hurt. I—You know, I don’t like givin’ these out like candy. I want you guys to be real kids, get your happiness from the heart, y’know?” She drummed her fist over her heart. “But—but we’re gonna get through this, man. We’re—we’re gonna get through this, ‘n’it’ll be okay, ‘n’ we’re gonna smile the whole time cause we got the good stuff, ‘n’ we got each other.”

She held up her hands and smiled.

“It’s gonna be okay! It’s really, really gonna be okay! I'm gonna make okay, okay?” She stumbled to her feet and lurched towards Cherry. She planted a kiss on the zonked-out girl’s forehead, slumped onto her knees before the chair, and hugged her lazily.

“Whenever you’re hurt, I’ll give you pills ‘n’ kisses ‘n’ hugs ‘n’ booze ‘n’ whatever you need.” She flopped back onto her butt and held her hands out to the kids, “And I don’t care what it takes! We’ll clean up…clean up…and then…then we’ll have pizza tonight. Pizza and soda and pretty pills.” She pointed in a sweeping motion across the room. “I love you guys. We’re gonna get through this. I’m gonna make it all better. Promise.”</sup>

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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Outskirts of Camp

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To Nesna’s frustration, reacclimating to civilized life had been harder than she’d first expected. On her own, she’d been able to operate along her own sleep schedule—one which seemed to have become even more wildly out of sync with that of normal folk than it’d been even before the endless night. Sometimes, she’d awaken to a bustling little community. Others, she’d find herself in that same eerie dead silence that punctuated the wild outskirts of the blight. She’d tried to convince herself that she preferred the spells of activity, that it was right and sensible that she be social. And yet, even amongst those who spared her judgement, she found herself subtly repulsed, yearning for the isolated stillness of the silent winter wilderness. It frustrated her to no end. She pushed herself to sit in range of the hearth’s warmth, to sit politely amongst those who’d become unlikely comrades, and tried to force down drinks generously shared. But the pull of nothingness remained.

This dissonance between impulse and ideal only seemed to wane when she worked. Though she had much to learn, both academically and with respect to her new superiors, the unfamiliarity here was expected and stimulating. Especially in the beginning, Eris in particular had seen to it that most of her work be solo and at a safe distance. A sensible measure indeed. And not an unwelcome one. Though she’d made every effort to be approachable, she simply wasn’t—no blightborn could be, herself most of all. The honesty in that treatment was itself a relief, and the limitations it imposed precluded jumping right into the work. So she was eased into both the work and the relationships. At first, she made a point of not pushing the envelope, of keeping a sensible distance and following Eris’ lead. But it quickly became effortless. Though perhaps not as intellectually appealing, the grunt worth she was landed with had a certain meditative property to its dullness.

In truth, fetching samples felt almost more appealing than taking notes on them at this point. It had often occurred to Nesna in recent days that she might take a more involved role, but each time she took off on a scouting run or a jaunt off to fetch samples from the surrounding environment, the whipping of the frozen air past her as she flew brought her a sense of tranquility and pushed the thought out of mind. She hadn’t quite accepted the feeling, but she couldn’t deny her heart told her to keep running errands—errands that meant she spent as much time away from the rest of the group as with them. She’d started proposing them herself, sometimes without a real sense of whether there was a real purpose to them.

Today was one such case. Nesna had flown and landed all around the perimeter, then some distance beyond, then back again, and yet even around the abandoned village, she’d failed to find anything worthy of collecting. So she flitted back towards camp, landing on the outskirts so as not to frighten guards who were surely on edge, with empty vials and jars in tow. Again.

Mentions
Eris @The Muse

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>As determined as Sunny was to make today a wonderful day, she understood intuitively that she couldn’t control every factor. And yet, she could have fooled herself with the weather. The sun was shining, the temperature was above freezing. There was still color hanging on some of the trees planted on her street’s median. Especially for Minnenoona, it was a glorious autumn day. Probably one of the last of the year. Ever since going sober—sober-ish, anyway—she rarely found a moment to just appreciate the sights and scenery. Despite the aging “For Rent” signs occupying old storefronts, despite the slowly growing number of windows boarded up rather than repaired, there were still signs of that same life Sunny had grown up with. There remained decrepit neighborhood institutions dutifully limping along to deliver service to those that stayed. Just off the main commercial drag, some townhouses remained near-pristine, tended to doggedly by stubborn old residents who refused to abandon their little front gardens to the rising tides of urban decay And though many of the legacy residents treated it as signs of interlopers, Sunny could never bring herself to dislike the graffiti that had crept out from the alleyways onto the faces of some buildings. It was still new life, after all. It brought new colors to faded bricks.

Her neighborhood could change. It had to—and it had, even if many could only see the uncomfortable stagnance when they looked. In Sunny’s lifetime, the median had lost streetcar lines and gained trees. In her lifetime, new families had replaced some of the old. And she and the kids had kept their little garden growing. They still decorated for the holidays. Some of the neighbors still did too. But the decorations changed. And some of the new neighbors decorated too. A few had decorated for Halloween this year, and had yet to remove their decorations. And yet, where it had gotten stagnant, there were good parts too. Yes, the urban decay had killed off some of the liveliness of the area. But that meant, while many of the residents were at work, school, or running errands, there were quiet, peaceful—almost cul-de-sacian spells during the middle of the day. Sometimes, anyway. Maybe not today.

Turning the corner to her street, Sunny saw black cars of an assortment of models, all relatively pristine, swallowing up the streetside parking on the approach to the stitched-together trio of townhouses that comprised the orphanage. Must’ve been time for another check-in. She couldn’t control that, yes. But despite the serious look of it all, Klimant generally didn’t like to stretch business out. She could work around it just fine. Sally would need a bit of extra encouragement to have a good day, as the guy who checked for wires and taps never seemed to treat her any kinder despite Sunny’s routine chiding. So she kept strolling down the street with bags of groceries in her arms, humming a simple tune to herself as she tallied up what she’d owe Sally to smooth things over.

“Aih-ioh!”

Sunny stopped humming. For a moment, she stood perfectly still, perfectly silent. Had she hallucinated? The screaming continued—gravelly, strained, pained—each new word, each new word forced through vocal chords begging for rest.

“Ka—fu—iohiohioh let me go—Fucker!”

Unmistakably Cherry, even a block away. Sunny burst into a sprint. She dropped the groceries outside the door and grabbed the door handle. Locked. Locked? Her heart thundered alive and crawled up her throat as she fumbled her keys into the lock. How’d someone get in if it was still locked? Had the kids let someone in? Had someone broken in? Had the guy she left Sally with gone rogue? The door clicked open. She tore through it and slammed it shut. She dashed through the hallway and laid eyes on Cherry near the top of the stairs. Sunny’s mouth went dry.

A hulking man dragged a struggling, kicking, expletive-bleating Cherry down the stairs. Sunny ran to her, then stopped. In her peripheral, she spotted the rest of the kids lined up against the wall. She snapped her head to look. There were more men standing over the kids. All of the kids were lined up along the wall, standing straight. Some shook with fear, others stood frighteningly still. One of the younger ones had a bruised eye. Not one dared move from their position. Some of them began to turn their heads, only to snap them back forward as though they’d been previously punished for looking away. The mixture of fright and resignation, how the men paced before them, looking down on them no matter their actual heights—it made Sunny’s skin crawl. It evoked two scenes. At best, soldiers at attention. At worst, the POWs she’d lined up to execute with her squadmates back in Viet Nam. And then, she thought she recognized one of the men. Didn’t he work for…

The Nadolnys? Had someone done something? Had she done something?

She belted out the ultimate question on her mind. “What in blue blazes is goin’ on?”

Several of the younger kids snapped to look at her again, before realizing their mistake as a man slapped one of them. The older ones kept their eyes averted to the floor. The man on the stairs continued wrestling Cherry down.

“Please be gentle!” Sunny exclaimed.

Her words fell on deaf ears. Among the assembled men, one finally spoke. He seemed to be in no rush, entirely unconcerned—disturbingly calm, even. His accent was heavy, unmistakably East European. And his voice was steady, stern, yet as relaxed as the rest of his body language. Of course, whoever this was had been running the show. He radiated it.

“Ah. Here is mama.”

Sunny tried in vain to keep her calm, only succeeding in momentarily twisting her outrage to sound more like worry. “Where’s Klimant? Why are the kids lined up? And for goodness’ sake, would you stop manhandling her!”

The mook made it to the bottom of the stairs, still indifferent to her pleading. Sunny trailed along, trying to help Cherry to her feet, support her—anything—all while trying to avoid being trampled by the great man who seemed to regard her more so as a minor tripping hazard than a frightened woman.

The leading man made some gestures that Sunny didn’t catch, and gave one of his men an order in their language. The mook dragging Cherry brought her to the end of the row with the rest of the kids and slammed her up against the wall. Cherry lost her breath. As she wheezed, Sunny tried to wedge herself between them.

“Can’t you see she’s hurt?” She pushed with all of her strength. Like some awful machine, the mook seemed determined to keep pinning Cherry to the wall, entirely too roughly. All the while, Cherry’s desperate kicking made intermittent collisions with the mook, Sunny, the wall, and anything and everything else in range. Every time Cherry wriggled an arm free, she scratched. She bit between screams, relentless and vicious in her resistance. While trying in vain on her tip-toes to pry the mook’s fingers from Cherry, Sunny shot glances back towards the leader.

“What’s…the matter…with you?”

He wandered past her, failing to give her a first look, much less a second. He passed the threshold into the kitchen, where on the table sat a pile of all manner of things from around the house. Candy from the younger kids. Weed and cigarettes from the older ones. Medical supplies—neosporin, Cherry’s bag from the vet, Sunny’s jar of pretty pills, and the house’s stash of lidocaine gel. The man softly chucked as he briefly toyed with the open tube. “For boo-boos.”

“Yes, yes. For boo-boos,” Sunny affirmed, desperately trying to hurry things back to her question, “What’s going on?”

The man tossed the tube back into the pile, turned, and popped open the freezer.

“What are you doing? J-Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph, would you please talk to me?”

From the freezer, the man produced a bargain tub of Neapolitan ice cream. He cracked it open and made a quiet, mildly intrigued noise as he took stock of the Swiss-precise little scoop marks in the strawberry and vanilla from routine desserts and of the great haphazard gash in the chocolate from someone’s most recent late-night special order.

He flung it—still open—onto the table as though it were trash. It slid across, teetered on the edge, and fell to the floor. He turned his attention to Sunny.

“Ah. We are…tsk, shit…” He gesticulated idly. “How to say?”

Without further prompting, the mook holding Cherry and holding off Sunny finished the thought for him.

“Inspection.”

Sunny’s grip loosened. She looked into the mook’s stern face, then back at the leader. Her fingers quivered. She released her grip. Goosebumps trailed down her spine.

“Did—did Klimant tell you to do this?” Her voice wavered. It took as much force to produce a plea as it had just moments before taken to yell. “Why?”

The man strolled towards them. “Klimant go…bye-bye.” As Sunny fought her impulse to wilt away, he reached past her and birdflapped a hand against Cherry’s ear. His fingers fluttered through the struggling girl’s hair. She bent her head towards him and snapped so hard her teeth clicked. She missed. The man’s hand retreated lazily, as though her attempt on his fingers had little to do with the motion.

“He is…well…eh…”

Sunny reached for Cherry and tried to grab and pull. “I—W—Could please-please-please put Cherry down? She’s real—”

The leader removed himself from them and meandered towards the kitchen. He thumbed his shoulder at Sunny and drawled an order to one of his other subordinates.

“—roughed up. We’re trying to make sure she heals up in time for Thanksgiving.”

The feeling was familiar. Elsewhere, Sunny had long learned to accept that nothing she said mattered. But here? With the kids? It ought to have mattered. It needed to matter. And yet they ignored her, more so than she’d even been ignored when she truly was just one of the other kids. Like she wasn’t even there.

All the while, the leader rifled through the kitchen drawers. He picked up items from them and dismissively dropped them back in as he failed to find what he sought. The way he manhandled everything, the way he ignored her pleas—the way he’d had the kids treated—began to stimulate a long-unfamiliar feeling within Sunny. Frustration didn’t cut it. Whoever he may have been, what made him feel he ought to do this? What kind of a heartless jerk was he? Where did he get off on this? She gave a final emphatic tug to try and break the mook’s grip. Again, not even a budge. She turned and started towards the leader.

“Would you please just speak to me already? What did we do t—?”

A thud. Cherry grunted. Sunny turned back to look. Crack. She caught the wheeze on instinct, but the power spiking from the mook’s oversided back-hand to her cheek squeezed a sound like the last squeak of a dog’s toy from her. Her hand jerked to her cheek as she stumbled back. Her arm down to the shoulder tensed and locked it there. She tried to dart forwards, to get between him and Cherry, who was scurrying into the wall in the fetal position, shaking and shooting a wide-eyed evil eye at the mook. With his great hands, he pulled Sunny back. Sunny stopped fighting. Cherry scurried back into the wall and glared past her shaking knees with a wide, viscerally hate-filled, narrow-pupiled evil eye.

The leader moseyed back towards Cherry. He seemed to address Sunny, though made no effort to speak to her in English. One of his other men—a guy Sunny vaguely recognized as Klimant’s former assistant—acted as his voice.

“You’ve got balls. A waste that you cut them off.”

He stood over Cherry for a moment. Cherry vibrated as though she were fit to explode and take the house with her. Sunny stood frozen and mute with the mook’s hands resting on her shoulders. She just gazed at him, with a blank, emotionless sort of expression usually only coaxed out by still more violent sorts of men. The man walked through her field of vision, past the two of them, tapping on crisp leather shoes down to the end of the line. He drifted past Fi, still stark-naked and freshly glazed from her last job. He stopped at Sally.

A snap. In his hands, a switchblade. Sally tensed suddenly from the sound. She peeped out a question in a small voice which bore less doll, more baby, and a sprinkling of shaky nerves in its quality. “Wo-uld you like me to s-trip—Sir?”

The leader cast an almost bemused side-eye to his nearest minion. “Polish?” he remarked, “A dźěćo’s tongue.” In a fluid motion, he reached for her nape and shoved her down and forward. Sally yelped and hit the wall with a grunt smothered by how her face slammed into the wall. An uncomfortable crackle from her spine punctuated her fall to her knees and eventual hands. Like a deflating balloon, the remaining air escaped Sally in an agonizing wheeze, then cut short by the leader grasping her shirt-collar and pulling it up, gagging her on it. He drew his switchblade through it and tore it open. He nicked her in the back as he snapped her bra strap. Then he hooked a belt loop on her jeans to pull them taut and proceeded down the seam. As though he were peeling an orange.

He reached over and shoved her head down as she began to hesitantly lift it, then he took a knee. Like a farmer, he spread her, inspected the orifices intently, then uneventfully stood and knocked the next in line down. Miggy attempted to anticipate. Perhaps he misjudged. Perhaps this man adjusted to compensate and ensure his head collided even harder with the wall. Miggy wheezed and hissed after his head made such a firm contact with the wall that it made an audible sound. He was summarily peeled, spread, and inspected. The man used the frighteningly sharp blade to maintain a surgical, professional distance to his inspection, lifting Miggy’s testicles up to get a good look at his bruised boyhood. The man made a single, mildly interested sound before ditching him and continuing down the line.

At last, Sunny melted from her handler’s grasp and spoke. “Kids?” Her voice wavered. It didn’t feel right to order them. But if she could take the fall for sparing their clothes… “Please strip for Mister…uh…” Though she received no help in filling in the name, to her surprise, she wasn’t prevented from helping the younger kids strip. She managed to save most of the remaining clothes, save for Bibi, who lost his to the leader’s inspection and received as nasty of a bump as Miggy for failing to pull his pants down fast enough. The leader spoke as he worked, evidently displeased with what he was seeing. Sometimes, his men responded. Klimant’s name came up often, usually with tones of derision or disgust. Though Sally kept her face firmly pressed to the wall, unwilling to make even the smallest move to look at what was happening, Sunny knew enough Sorbian to pick out a few remarks. “Happy little family” and “Brady Bunch” emerged among self-aggrieved, dismissive chuckles. Though Sunny couldn’t make out quite how bad it was, “If Klimant isn’t dead yet—” couldn’t have been good news.

As soon as the stripping concluded, Sunny carefully approached the leader. “Can I help you with anything else, Sir?”

No response. He didn’t even look at her. Not even a shooing away. He simply continued his inspection with the same cold, clinical rigidity as before. He stopped before Cherry, snapped his finger, and beckoned Sunny. He hissed out another phrase—one his translator hesitated on, but one for which Sunny needed no translation to know the gist of. The translator finally spoke.

“Why are these piglets suckling more lollipop than cock?”

An outraged squeak escaped Cherry.

Sunny kept her eyes on the leader; her eyes darted across every inch of him as she thought. She remained silent for a moment, furrowing her brow. Her mouth quivered half-open, as the words kept failing to manifest themselves. “I…I thought…we wanted to k-eep a low profile?” She cocked her head and reeled back, uncertain of her answer. That had always been the way of things, even back before Klimant, back when she was just a real shaking child herself. Surely, it had only gotten more essential to be careful. The laws, those careless child-protection laws, had been tightening the noose for some time now. And what would happen then, if they were found?

For the kids, they’d be scattered to the wind, wrapped up like burritos in red tape, and would never have a shot at love or the light of day. And Sunny? They’d probably find some dark pit with a few meaner, scarier hands than those in the army, just waiting to snap her bones and pick their teeth with them. They’d all be alone, forever. Bobbing along with truly nothing left to their names. The thought made her back tingle with dread. She could hardly bear to even have an accidental nightmare over the possibility. And that wouldn’t just be bad for them, would it?

And this awful, indifferent man? He looked past her—through her—and then turned to his translator, who more faithfully delivered the next message.

“And such a job you’ve done. The kurwičky are saving themselves for marriage!”

His gaze turned to Cherry. With a fine, freshly-polished Italian monkshoe probably worth more on its own than ever Sunny imagined she’d go for as a discount mail-order bride, he tilted Cherry’s chin up. The overwhelmed, crumpled little girl reeled, yet his gentle lift of her chin kept her cornered such that she could not easily escape.

“Finally, a girl who works for a living.” He nodded towards her and her bruised nape and torn orifices. “Thirteen little orphans, and at last I’ve found the one who isn’t useless.”

Sunny gingerly knelt next to Cherry and looked between her and him as the leader drew back his shoe. Her eyes widened. The color drained from her face. She all but stopped breathing. As though she’d seen a ghost. “You…want us to take the rough ones? Those ones put the kids out of commission for…good golly…way too long.” For every few perfect gentlemen, there were monsters. Monsters she’d taught the kids they could scream and escape from for their safety. A privilege she’d never enjoyed. She’d lost her baby teeth to them. She’d lost consciousness. She’d been thrown like a ragdoll and kicked like a dog. She’d been choked and broken, dragged back and forth, in and out, punted over the Pearly Gates and then torn from God’s hands back to Earth like a human tennis ball. Even on drugs, she struggled to love them. She couldn’t ask the kids to try so hard like that. Things were supposed to be easy now. She had tried so hard to make happiness and wellness come easier. But the old ways were creeping up and taking the beautiful new world back.

“Sir, you—you aren’t suggesting?”

The leader’s expression sank. He cast a frustrated glare towards his trusted translator. Then he spoke. Sentence by sentence, call and echo, a pale reflection of what he had actually said still bore down heavily.

“So, you’re ‘in charge’ here, yes, That’s what you seem to think, isn’t it?”

He paced as he spoke. He marched down the line, taking stock of the assembled disappointments, his moustache never loosening from its tight, disgusted scowl.

“You cut off your little man, called the caping stump a pussy, and now you’re Mommy. Now you bake pies…”

He kept busy as his translator condensed musings into digestible form. The translator seemed fatigued, solemn—like he in that moment mourned that man would say such things as he heard to his fellow man. Perhaps the old man felt a kernel of pity for Sunny or for the kids, and for that was stripping the rant down to its essentials. Perhaps he didn’t want to dwell on it himself. The leader kept his attention on the kids—his stock. The translator looked through Sunny. Neither looked at Sunny.

“You prance along as if you just feel them enough treats and read enough bedtime stories, you’ll convince them to make believe in this little Barbie’s Dreamhouse.”

He grasped Fi’s face. “Ah,” he commanded. He gave her little time to imitate his agape mouth before he snapped his shut and pried hers open.

“And then you can all pretend you’re not just some deranged eunuch. Then the world will make sense, mmm? If they’re all as slow as this one, maybe you’d have had a chance.”

He tilted Fi’s face up towards the light and looked in. Then he moved to the next kid.

“If only you had the job you seem to think you do. But Klimant is gone, Schwulette. There has been a—restructuring.”

He grabbed Sally by the hair next. He pried her mouth open and yanked her hair back to force her staring up into the light.

“I am letting you have the weekend to grieve what you must.”

He unceremoniously let go of Sally. Miggy opened his mouth and tilted into the light before he was able to grab him. The leader gave no indication of approval save for expediting the process. The other kids followed suit. The leader strolled along them, using his knife as a tongue depressor on a few, seemingly following no particular pattern in who he chose. He continued speaking all the while.

“Then, expect changes. I will return again next week. Before Thanksgiving, there will be a cock in every mouth, in every asshole—no more of this wasted potential. If I grab a random man off the street and cut his belt, his dick had better smell like one of these little sluts. Maybe then this place will be worthy of the weeds it’s built on. Then again—maybe not.”

He approached Sunny. She opened her mouth. He flicked it shut.

“I already know I’m disappointed today. Focus on not being a disappointment tomorrow.”

He gestured towards the door. The men began to file out.

“Are those our orders?”

He kept walking. The only sounds were those of footsteps. On the roof. Down from the windows. Cars started. The men left, and said nothing.</sup>

Written in collaboration with @TokyoPewPew

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>Simple pleasures make life worth living. Sleeping in, donuts, some weed, a slow morning—breaths of fresh air in the progression of men with more money than hygiene and more lust than sense. Fortunately, quicker and better moves made for less time spent in the mire and more time spent wallowing in the genuine pleasures of life. And whether the random schmucks wandering in on tips or as regulars were ugly as sin or surprisingly handsome, rude or polite—whoever the hell they were—if they had money to spend, just throw mud at the wall, squeeze them dry with a smile, and you’ll get more popular, make more money, and get more good stuff. It’s as simple as that. Sally impressed this upon every newbie that walked through the door. She lived by it. Every day.

Now, the nice thing about doggy style was that there was no expectation of eye contact. The occasional hair pulling wasn’t her favorite, but if it got the job done faster, she’d make the right sounds too. The downside was that adding an auditory component was about the extent of extra things she could throw into the act itself to get so-and-so’s ass in gear. But then, every position took longer than it needed to. To say nothing of when someone wanted to savor their time, and wouldn’t let her nudge things along. Like this chuj. If he was going to take his sweet time, would it kill him to be good at it?

It usually felt like an eternity. But was it really? That’s why she kept the watch on during sex. She pulled her face out from the frill-coated decorative pillow and glanced at the dinky, well-abused standard-issue secondhand Seiko clinging to her wrist. Only ten minutes? She shoved her face back into the over-fluffed, over-stuffed pillow to smother the groan.

“Why’dya stop?” Fucker’d heard her and stopped to see what was wrong. Like he really cared. If he gave her ten minutes to make a list, she could go on for just as long. She just needed a good look at him first. Not that it’d be worth it. So instead, she jerked her voice into the babydoll range and chirped out a lazy excuse about holding her breath because he was “bigger” than she was used to. Flattery usually worked. And it was the right angle here, too. He got right back to it, and she got right back to daydreaming about when he’d finished his business and she could circle back for one of the chocolate glazed donuts she’d set aside and eat it while listening to the college radio.

They continued, until a rap on the door sent the man into a conniption. He nearly fell over her. His nails dug into her skin.

“Fuck, man.” Sally pulled forward, away from him, and sat up on the bed as the guy ducked to the floor. “What?” she bellowed.

The person at the other end fumbled with the keys and slunk on in. Fi slammed the door behind her and leaned in. “Telephone boy’s here.”

Sally dragged her hands down her face and made eye contact with Fi. “Fuck. Already? Feels like he was just here…” “Dunno what to tell you, Sal.” Sally groaned and peeled herself out of bed. She whipped her clothes off the floor. “Fi’ll…finish you…off…‘nless you just…want me,” she offered the no-name she was leaving behind. Without a second look, she left Fi to negotiate with the customer the moment she’d finished hopping into her jeans.

Just like that, the Sorbian bastards who’d put this whole operation together had once again whipped it out and pissed on her perfectly decent day. As always, Telephone boy hadn’t waited. He’d already ticked off the kids who weren’t working by switching off the radio in one room and the tv in another, taken a donut from the kitchen, and gotten right to turning his usual spots upside-down in his check for bugs. She had the privilege of following, cleaning up after him, and answering questions in Polish while getting insulted for speaking it.

He paused his rampage when he saw her. The only consolation he offered was not pretending to be happy to see her. At most, she gathered he was at least happy to have someone who could, however poorly, make his job easier by bumbling through questions. At the very least, he stood by his stance that she was stupid and actually kept things simple. He spoke slowly and splashed the words right into her face with his overenunciation of them.

“Speak” meant he wanted a report. Any suspicious people? Any suspicious activities? He never believed her when she said there was nothing. So lying made things go faster here, too. She kept a running list of some guys whose faces she didn’t like and cobbled together the simplest version for what was wrong about them in advance. For what it was worth, when she could be bothered to, she tried to string together the bungled Polish in advance too, so she could just spit it out and Telephone boy wouldn’t fuss at her. Get it over with, and all. They never found anything. She knew it. He surely did too. This was all just for show, and they both needed to be able to say they tried so it wouldn’t be their problem if something went wrong. Whether or not Telephone boy appreciated that she didn’t actually care to be wasting both of their time, Sally couldn’t say.

So, she started with the ass-covering. First, she fumbled through an observation about a “tall skinny men, he have black hair” and who “take too long at potty.” Telephone boy chuckled darkly as he rummaged through the bathroom. He mumbled some remarks to himself. Sally gathered he thought it was ridiculous someone taller than him and “six times” his weight would be talking like a retarded baby in a language that already sounded like baby-talk. To say nothing of the fact that he had to play plumber for his job well more than he’d have imagined. After all these years, she’d not managed to convince herself that he cared enough to insult her to his face. It always seemed like this was just a job to the guy. Back in the day, he’d seemed almost endeared to the fact that she could help him with a few clues to screen the place down. She was “Girl,” back then. But it’d long “stopped being cute.” She must’ve still been useful enough that he took the time to bark the only English he seemed to know at whichever kid was near when he came by to have her summoned. And he’d learned another word in those years. Anything to expedite the job he’d wasted years in school to get.

“Fat girl,” he stated, “I’m done here. What else?”

On to the next thing. “Fat li’l dago in…this room.” The skinny little mole-man scurried in and jerked his head expectantly for more details. “What? Already say he take long get dress? After he go…I see closet. Closet open. Not open before.” Telephone boy mockingly returned her impudent expression with an eye roll and got to tearing the closet apart. Sally perched on Miggy’s bed impatiently. Shortly, he flung a follow-up question her way. “So, why was he left alone in this room?”

Sally fumbled together a series of stalling sounds made to communicate that she was trying to piece together her answer. He continued picking apart the closet. “So? Speak.” Sally burned a hole in the back of his head with a stare and briefly distracted herself from mustering any words at all. He whipped his head around and pulled his bushy moustache into an impatient scowl. “Speak. Come on, speak. Explain, so I don’t have to get the damn translator in here to speak with your little fag-mama whenever it comes back. Why was he left alone?”

Sally hissed and shook her fist in frustration, and blundered her way into a response. “Busy! Fucking…very busy, okay? That day? Uh, Bibi…” Sally gestured vaguely towards the door, “Need run. Wash ass…for next guy. He wait already. Guy have wait? Is bad, yes? Just very busy.” Telephone boy sighed. Sally knew it was a sigh of disgust, but what about, she could never put her finger on. The easiest guess was that he hated these lapses. Probably true, but the way he reacted to things like this more viscerally, the way he seemed so unshakeably impatient—something in her gut told her he had a more general disgust. Like the whole thing was a job he only did because he was the guy who did it everywhere, and had to do it to keep his money flowing. Either way, it wasn’t exactly like she wanted to be doing this either. So if he was gonna give her attitude, she’d give it right back.

He could have made things go faster. He could have learned English, or stopped insulting her, or for a moment reflected and recognized that she wanted to be doing this even less than she did—and if he’d been normal and reasonable, she could share a joint with him and they’d half-ass this whole thing together, and that would be it. Then after the check, Klimant could swing by when Sunny got back from the store, he could skim the books, they could have a quick chat, and then everyone could just wipe their hands of the whole thing. No need to be all pissy about it. Just get it over with, and we could’ve all gotten back to doing something we like.</sup>

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>The alarm went off. Sunny convulsed and jittered. Her arm darted wildly towards the blaring clock. Like a spooked cat, she flopped rigidly upright, breathing heavily, and instinctively tried to steady herself, as if she’d planned it all along. Her bleary blinks waned and tensed fingers digging nails into the blanket waned. She never asked for a snooze’s worth of extra sleep, but with the alarm, she needed about as much time to get her wits together. Especially after a night on the hard couch cushions.

She threw out a swift huff, then pushed off the couch like she was trying to escape it. Linger on the bad, after all, and things started to get thundery. And that meant she’d need something to take the edge off. And that meant cloudy skies. But she couldn’t let herself get too cloudy. Getting all warm and foggy for a little while in the mornings and evenings was fine, but if she got cloudy, she couldn’t show the kids the sun as well. Can’t have sunshine through a bunch of clouds, no matter how lovely they still were to drift through.

She clamored up the stairs and scurried to the sink. Water, water, ice-cold water on a face still pulsing with freshly-awakened energy. The water needed to be colder. No, hot. No, cold. What? She rubbed her eyes and scrambled around in the mirror. She frenetically plucked out tweezers and chased imaginary strays across her face as the water droplets wept away. Finally, she caught something wrong that was real, something she could snag. A nose hair, this time. She tugged the rip-cord and sneezed. She struggled with chasing nonsense for a bit longer before shoving the tweezers to the sink and tearing herself away to move on.

With manic attempts at multitasking, she stumbled through her morning routine, fighting the jitters with clumsy attempts at overstimulating it away. Until she found herself gazing longingly past her own reflection towards her own closed door. Her heart thumped in her ears. It still did after all these years of half-hearted sobriety. Her toothbrush sat lazily in her mouth, half-lathered as she white-knuckled the sink and intermittently gnawed instead of brushing. Her wants kept thundering and whaling on her dreams. She knew better. She needed to kickstart her vibes somehow. But she couldn’t do this. Did she have time for an alternative?

The clock in the bathroom—what did it say? She squinted to read. She hummed as she counted the ticks, losing count twice as she wandered off to wonder where she’d left her watch this time. Intense focus on something frustratingly simple drew her hands back to the handle and got her idly brushing. But the clock! That lovely clock! It told her what she wanted. She had time. She hadn’t gotten a good wakeup with Genn—wait, Cherry? She wanted to be Cherry, right? Whyever s—Well, the bright side of that evil old alarm was that there was time to strangle out the jitters in a healthier way.

She spun anxiously and idly and ran the water and dumped in bubbles and got halfway ready before snapping to the doorknob. Decency, Sunny! Decency! She closed and locked the bathroom door. And remembered at the last moment to drop her increasingly mangled toothbrush. Choking to death was no way to go. No, when she got too old, she’d do something quick and sensible, not in the tub with the toothbrush.

Morbid. So morbid. Happy thoughts.

Then the warm water kissed her skin. It was better to sprint towards Nirvana with someone else. But rarely did she get to share the journey while also enjoying a warm bath. Count your blessings, and all. Becoming one with oneself was silly, really, but in a warm bath with some good-smelling soap, it could be a treat. This fog was free, available, and its heaviest glory cleared fast enough to invite it responsibly.

The shower rained steam towards her as she chased warmer rainbows and heavier fog. She pushed and massaged, pressed, pulled, caressed, and desperately mashed at every point of stimulus. Her troubles smoothed and invited more wonder. Straining reality trickled away into shaking fantasy. In her mind’s eye, she ran for a perfect dream. She pushed faster and nimbler as it came into view. The features and build were always different. So too were the voices. All were pulled from the pages of obscure memories, made vivid by the constant—by the only thing that mattered—by what made it an electrifying fantasy. Her fingers and mind sprung at once. The smile, the smile on his face, whoever he happened to be, was flaming with animal want. But the eyes, they were human and warm. And they stayed. Even as the want turned to satisfaction, a beast sated, those eyes stayed with her and they stayed wanting her. It was a special treat that she adored so deeply she drove herself to hallucinate it many times. A cum-soaked cuddle turned romantic. Perversion turned to affection.

Love. True and genuine. The kind that kept
the heart pounding excitedly even after the body was done. The kind that held the soul even tighter than his hands. She grasped and lurched after it, heavily aspiring, heavily respiring. She pushed herself harder. Joints begged for mercy. The face melted. The dreams melted. Pink. Red. Blue. Flashes. White-hot overstimulation. Halting pushes and desperate grasps for more heights. Impatient and fleeting grasps through the impenetrable light. She stumbled towards it again and again, past the love and the imaginary one who’d stay. Past wildest dreams and impossible fantasies back into the light. Like a moth to a flame, she lunged and jerked back despite her drive towards her electric dream, refusing to accept her muscles’ attempts to tell her they were burning up and could go no more.

Until finally, the pain got sharp. She sputtered and wheezed. She slumped into the tub and weakly pawed at just one more gluttonous jump after heaven. The heavy fog settled over her. The hot mist and tepid water pulled her down. She lay there, eyes closed, trying to peer past the electric-spotted curtains on the inside of her eyes for that last face she’d conjured. She’d never see it again. She’d never hear or understand what this immaculate spectre would’ve told her as he dragged his hand along her bare stomach while they basked in the afterglow. But she’d glow bright enough to pretend she could. It was gibberish. She used the only folds in her brain not ironed out by lightning to strain to listen for it.

Her grip loosened and faded. She graciously let go. She got to choose here, to go at her own speed. And so she let the colors drift away into the pattering calm of the shower’s warm rain. She was still now. Her skin was prickling as waves of warm peace flowed from within and without across her surface and through her spine. Until that quieted too.

She slowly rose from her sprawl in the depths of the fog. She washed herself of the daze and prepared to start her day.

And as she floated down to the kitchen and looked around, she decided. Today would be a good day for everyone. She’d make it be a good day. Everyone would have a good day, even if she had to force it to be a good day. A lazy sigh escaped her parched mouth. Discounts, discounts, discounts. She’d buy what she needed now, and claw back some loyal clients with discounts out the wazoo. It was time for holiday discounts and holiday treats. Everyone knew it. She’d fix everything just like she fixed herself. It would all work out.

For today’s fixes, Sunny knew just where to start, and who to start with. She forgot her tea in the microwave as she bustled off.

Her soft knock at the door was met with silence. Nobody was awake yet—she knew that—but habit and courtesy didn’t need to be ignored just for that. But of course, matrons of the house got to come in anyway. So she meandered to the side of the bed and gently rubbed Fi’s shoulder. The teenager groaned and mumbled. Sunny patiently coaxed her into a vague consciousness with little, careful touches and promises of what awaited. Fi’s eyes fluttered awake. “Really? Why?”

“Just ‘cuz. Been a big week, y’know? ‘Sides, I like treatin’ you guys. You’re always treatin’ me, just bein’ yourselves.” Sunny nudged Fi again, this time with a closed fist.

Fi cracked the ghost of a smile and stretched. She curled her fingers into Sunny’s hand and plucked out her upfront treats. She sat up and took them with water. She eventually dripped out of bed and half-tiptoed half-lurched for the closet. Sunny retreated to conclude her morning routine, punctuated by the soft echo of A Prairie Home Morning Show from down the hallway. When she was ready, Fi took the initiative to hurry Sunny along and get her out the door while a song was on, lest they get stuck as Sunny hung on Garrison Keillor as if she got more than half the jokes.

As the two walked in silence, Fi slowly settled into the reality that Sunny indeed had no occasion. It was, so it seemed, genuinely one of those times where she woke up on the side of the crowd-pleasing side of the bed. It wasn’t a check-in or a need for help. They were just walking out early while everything was fresh. So Fi picked up a bit of that pep in Sunny’s step. Like the old days. Sunny snuck glances at her and grinned. If all went right, she’d see real joy in every eye today. A much nicer treat than donuts indeed.

McGinty’s Donuts weren’t the most popular place in the neighborhood by any measure. There was a case to be made that it didn’t deserve to be. The cops all knew old Mrs. McGinty & Junior had been skimping on the fillings since Mr. McGinty passed. Their coffee had never been anyone’s first choice. And why they offered bagels at all, few could say. Mr. McGinty had developed his taste for them in Montréal, and every out-of-towner who picked one up complained bitterly. Sunny had seen Junior take a punch on behalf of his father over it. The bagels were often stale, too, especially these days.

But that dingy little shop nestled between a gas station and a decrepit old realtor’s office had earned a genuine affection from some repeat customers. Sunny, for her part, hardly cared much where she sourced the donuts she’d only ever end up fully eating a half of. As long as she could lick the icing off the other half and everyone’s sweet tooths were sated, she was happy. For Fi, though, it was the only shop she cared for. They had a powdered donut with fig jam that she liked enough to look past the fact there wasn’t much of it, yes, but what got her looking forward to going was something more human.

Junior’s wife was always singing back there while she worked. She spoke with a familiar sort of drawl, and she smiled a smile that felt so familiar. Like a shadow of a memory trying not to be forgotten. They’d not shared much in the way of major conversation, but she always addressed Fi in particular as “Baby.” She usually hid in the back, but for Fi, she came out and served her. At first, in more optimistic days, Fi had tried to return with Sunny if only to test the feeling. Why this familiarity hung around, she could never quite figure. But these days, she didn’t really care to interrogate it. Comfort didn’t need a how or a why.

So Fi always ordered now. She’d learned what everyone liked. She looked forward to the occasion they went here. And when they did, Fi got a taste of a home she’d only the vaguest notions of. With chemical help, she could let her load fade into the vagueries of time for a bit. She wasn’t home, but if she closed her eyes and smelled the fresh donuts and listened for a song, she could imagine what that might have felt like.

And Sunny, standing back and watching flickers of life bloom back into someone whose role in her life she could never have articulated, saw something just as precious. She needed to help herself cheer up at first, but once she got going, she could start lifting others up. And no matter how small it was, if she could wring some smiles out of stones, the glow she had to manually jump-start would keep floating along. This was what she could do. She couldn’t choose where anyone started from, and nobody had a say in where they were going, but she could fill the whole way with roses to smell. And maybe one day, they’d learn to glow bright enough to grow their own roses too.

Just gotta find the right way to put on some rose-tinted glasses. That’s all there is to it.</sup>

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>Sunny always said that sex wasn’t about the destination—it was about the journey. It felt good, yes—often it felt more than good, even when it wasn’t something you wanted or liked for yourself. No, what was really special about the journey was that you got to be seen while you got the customers off. They themselves might not know it, but they loved you, just for a moment.

Sunny spoke lovingly about this phenomenon often. It was something to smile for. It was real. It was enough. And the first time Fi had sat in with her, just learning the ropes, Sunny smiled at her. She always did. If she wasn’t smiling at the customer, if her face wasn’t smothered in some pillow, she always tried to give Fi a smile, no matter how strung-out, how lost that smile might have been.

As long as someone saw you, things were going to be okay. You see? You were real. You were enough. You were loved.

And Sunny believed in Fi from the very start.

And Fi was seen. She was seen every day. Even more so as she’d gotten older. She tried to embrace it. She saw Sunny’s smile. She took Sunny’s pills. And when Sunny left, she wiped away the tears and tried to keep on smiling, just like they’d promised each other. Little Fi did her best to make everyone happy.

But it never clicked like it seemed to for Sunny. Fi would gag and sputter. She’d sober up and see the stains on the ceiling and yelp if something hit wrong.

When Sunny came back, Fi had hoped for guidance. But what she saw shook her, shook her like the last lingering memories of what came before this place did. She remembered Sunny wailing and begging, pleading with Missus Orta to keep her. And when she did get to stay, and she pulled that smile back on and hugged Fi tight, as she pulled back, there was something different. Her lips curled the same way. Her lashes still fluttered. But that sparkle in her eyes felt somehow alien. Like glass instead of a shallow pool. Frozen and unnatural.

Sunny got right back on the horse. And Fi tried to follow. Happiness, she felt, was just outside her reach. Sunny had found it, somehow, and she was clinging to it even though Fi never saw her pop whole pills or throw back drinks like she used to. So Fi kept looking to the customers, trying to uncover what magic Sunny must have found in them. As she got older, it stopped hurting. Sometimes, it even felt nice. Physically-speaking. But it wasn’t something physical she was supposed to be looking for, was she?

So what was missing?

Sunny avoided speaking about her experiences outside the house’s walls whenever possible. Fi, she said, was so fortunate not to have all that nastiness weighing her down. Her life here was something special, after all. Much better and more precious than anything else. Thinking about all that nonsense just weighed most people down. But Fi was light and free; she had more potential to fly high than anyone else in the whole wide world—though she shouldn’t go around saying that. And Sally, for her part, begrudgingly admitted that there were worse parts, but also better ones. At least the old men here sometimes brought gifts, and usually didn’t beat her. Was it perspective that Fi missed? Was it truly so much better here?

She reopened the issue with Sunny carefully at first. She wasn’t asking about the world—that nasty, cold, mean old world—she was simply asking about the future. About what happened to most of them when they grew up. And so one day, Sunny brought curious young Fi and Sally to see Madame Pearl.

Her girls had it good, see. Pearl said so herself. They had as much food and booze as they could ask for. They got good pay, good picks of Johns, and safety. It was just another family, just like with Sunny. Just a family for adults was all.

But Fi wasn’t satisfied with that answer. She began to pick at Sunny herself. Why had Sunny come back, if there were places like this? Places that were just the same as here. Why did she cry and beg to return? Sunny said nothing at first. She evaded and shied away from the question. She didn’t see why Fi would want to know about that sort of awfulness, really. But Fi kept picking. Finally, she got through. She pierced the veil and got an answer. Not the answer she was looking for, but an answer all the same.

Sunny delivered it quickly and sharply, like a sudden smack to the face.

“Fine!” she’d snapped, “You wanna know, do you? I went to Nam. And it’s the same there. Except worse. So much worse.”

How? Fi wanted to know how. How was Viet Nam the same as here? Sunny had tried to click back into shape. She tried to brush Fi off again. But Fi had found a chink in the armor and dug in deep. And she watched as that shining smile crumbled into a shower of tears.

“It’s the same, okay? I was supposed to be a soldier. I tried. I really tried. But nobody loved me as a soldier. Nobody even believed I really was one. I was someone’s faggy little brother. Then I became a toy. A toy they didn’t even love. Just the toy they settled for when they were in the jungle. I was nothing.”

Sunny tried to compose herself then. She tried to pull it together and be the adult in the room. And what she said to Fi echoed the same as those words before them, just perhaps not in the way she’d hoped.

The devil was beating his wife on Sunny’s face, and all she had to say about it was, “But sweetie? God made us this way, sweetie. We don’t get to choose what we are. But we get to choose to love ourselves for it. We get to choose to be pretty and special and earn that love. And we get to choose to love ourselves for it. Love yourself. Let yourself be loved. Don’t fight it. That’s why I’m here. I want to help you to love you. Stay with the love, sweetie. Never leave the love. As long as you have love, you’ll be something. And I know—I know people will always love you.”

Fi took that, and sat with it. She tried to navigate it with Sally. All Sally could offer was, with the solace of certainty, there was no need to think so hard about it all. Whoring was as certain as death, but it could be a hell of a lot more fun if you let it. So Sally ate and smoked and drank and fucked and climbed atop a mountain of nihilistic hedonism.

Fi tried to follow her up those slopes. She tried. She tried praying. She tried looking out the window at the big wide world. And every now and again, she’d speak—really speak—to the guys who visited her—in particular, the men who talked about their mothers when they treated women a certain way. She saw fragments of lives and identities. And as she sprouted from child to adolescent, those thoughts became deeper. She heard about dreams and regrets, about choices people did and didn’t make.

Nobody here ever made choices. Not really. Fi wasn’t sure if Sunny or Pearl had even ever made a real choice in their lives. And these people who visited her, especially the poor ones, had often been forced along the path of life more so than they’d chosen it. It was hard to change trails. Nobody who meant what they said believed change was easy. And if you wanted to, you had to be true to yourself.

So who was Fi? She was a warm body and a nickname, someone who could bring a smile and an orgasm to most people, but what was she other than that?

She couldn’t remember her real name. She couldn’t remember her parents’ faces or much about them, except for how her mother skipped with excitement when they moved into that new house in that up-and-coming neighborhood with the good school that she’d told Fi so much about. She had more family than that. There was an old man, same color as her mother, who would sing to her. She couldn’t remember a single line of a single song, but every now and again, she’d hear a deep, rich voice on the radio singing a beautiful, mournful tune that stirred the place those memories should have been.

Sally knew who she was before this. Sunny knew who she was before this. Other kids still clung to who they’d been beyond this. Some merged the old and the present, as Sally had. Some seemed to let that past inform what they’d become, as Sunny did. A few kept that old human self and doggedly, uncompromisingly enforced it upon their new lives. Like Genny or Cherry or whatever she had declared. She was sleeping in the bed right then, passed out with a textbook resting against her chest. She could read. She could write. She dreamt of different skies and different worlds. She demanded it.

It had frustrated Fi at first. Didn’t this child know that all of that from her old life was gone? Didn’t she understand that there was one way out and forward? But she did. Cherry had pulled that bitter smile and kicked and screamed not against whoredom itself, but against allowing it to swallow her whole. She continued to be a person.

And then when Fi looked elsewhere, seeing Sally embrace an inescapable existence, hearing Sunny praise this inescapable existence, she finally understood.

There were people underneath the makeup and the lingerie and the bodies. There were things motivating them. They had things they wanted from life. Cherry wanted that which she believed she was entitled to. Sally wanted whatever she could get her hands on. Sunny wanted love and joy. And they would all force the world to be that way for them.

Fi had tried other people’s wants. She had been other people’s desires. She had tried to bend herself in every way to become something that fit. And yet even that which she was genuinely talented at, she found fleeting satisfaction from, if any.

Sitting there on that bed, in the sullied remains of her Sunday best after a busy night, Fi let her face settle back in her hands.

Her wants were fleeting. She had never even touched them. She didn’t even want what she needed anymore. She hadn’t felt hungry in years. When she was sober, all she felt was her insides slowly rolling over in her grave of a torso. She could hear her heartbeat if she stood still. There was no discernible emotion between the sensation of these pulsing organs and her conscious experience.

All she had was what she lacked. There was so little she cared for. She drifted along, a ghost given flesh, people-pleasing and yet feeling none of that joy reflect in her own eyes, as Sunny had encouraged.

She had no past. Her future and present were the same. She had no part in any of it. Sally was named for a cartoon pig. Sunny and Genny were named for their attitudes. Fi was named for the only feeling she could routinely muster: her nausea.

She knelt down before that porcelain altar and where others would pray for relief, she embraced what was to come. She could think about any number of things and summon it. Tonight, she thought of how she’d been forced to eat a hearty meal. In the past, when she’d been forced to eat, it had been Sunny grimly holding her nose shut and forcing food into her mouth. Today, she’d eaten under the foolish dream that the soulless beast who’d torn into Cherry would take her sacrifice instead.

It was its own relief. As she sweated and shook, as lightning jolted through her veins and thunder and torrent roared from her insides, Fi felt. She truly felt. She was swallowed by the sensation. It was here and with a man’s hand clenched around her throat that it was natural and right to sink into the darkness. Into emptiness and nothing.

And Fi loved it.

But she came up for air. She had to. Someone would always make her. Sunny would push breath back into her. Sally would keep her hobbling along with drugs. The kids would keep her stumbling forward with a bastardized purpose.

She didn’t have the strength to keep her death.

So who was Fi? She was selfless. She always did things for others. She had no self. She was nothing. Nothing to worry about. Nothing inside. Fi was a human body. A kindly human body kept alive by unnatural, unholy means.

She prayed not to God, but to someone else. Anyone else. Whoever could sever that thread for her. But just as God ignored her, so would the men of the Earth. Like father, like son.</sup>

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>Sunny hemmed and hawed plenty, but she still ended up calling Mr. Radowicz. Chunxin leaned expectantly on the wall, unwilling to rest until her will was done. Sunny fidgeted with the cord as the phone rang. Finally, the secretary picked up.

It was his lunch break, the secretary insisted. He didn’t like to be disturbed, she repeated. And so Sunny called again.

“Would you just tell him Miss Hautala is calling? It’s important, really.”

It took another try of clogging up the line with pleading to get the secretary to relent. The conversation proceeded quickly. Chunxin glared at Sunny as she hung up. She’d not mentioned a name once—in fact, she’d said nothing specific.

“Sweetie, would you just trust me?” wasn’t enough. Not even when Sunny reminded her that she’d gotten Chunxin into the school in the first place. Chunxin expressed as best as she could through expression and shunning alone that the entire affair was emphatically not her problem—that she didn’t care what it involved; it was Sunny’s fault for not asking her in the first place what she’d have been called at school.

The wordless discussion was interrupted shortly by Mr. Radowicz calling back. He didn’t have time to do anything more than stop by. Mrs. Radowicz was still cooking enough for kids who’d long flown the coop, and would be delighted to have guests. She’d probably send them home with enough leftovers for the others. Miss Hautala and Miss Esposito would be more than welcome. He’d pick them up. And yes, of course, it was a school night—they wouldn’t be out late. It’d be an early dinner.

Sunny hung up the phone, and assured Chunxin that she’d meant what she said. Genny would be Cherry at school. She had Chunxin write down the name she wanted on a piece of paper.

Cherry Chunxin Calvert. Cherry C. Calvert.

Sunny let out a delighted little sound as she observed the alliteration. It was adorable. It was pretty. It rolled off the tongue. A darling name for a darling little bookworm.

Sunny pinkie-promised that Chunxin would hear her lovely name from all of her lovely teachers, hugged the girl, and helped her up the stairs. Then, it was only a matter of finding a candidate to be Regina at dinner tonight. And to be there when Mr. Radowicz collected his fee afterwards.

She knocked on the door.

Knocking was always a formality with the younger ones. Sunny remembered it well. The older, stronger kids usually just entered. No need to ask. Nobody else had to, after all. But Sunny even knocked on her own door. Cookie was very clear about knocking, even with the older kids. It was his room, after all.

So Sunny knocked on the new girl’s door. Nothing. Sunny opened and entered. And there she was. Her roommate was out eating dinner. But she was sitting there, head in her hands, and then she looked up at her. Eyes wide, just a bit watery, just a bit confused. She was young, young enough that she might well not have been old enough to go to real school yet. The girl reeled away as Sunny sat next to her on the futon couch.

“It’s okay,” Sunny cooed, “It’s okay. I just wanna give you a little gift. Something to make things easier on you.”

She produced several little pills from her bra. She split them with her nail, popped the halves in her mouth, swallowed, and offered the others to the girl. The girl looked at them suspiciously.

“I wanna share, honest,” Sunny insisted, “First year can be scary. But new stuff doesn’t have to be scary. These little guys make new things easy. Everything’s just a happy surprise.”

Sunny sprawled closer to the little girl, holding her hand closer to the girl’s face.

“You won’t puke so easy with these. I used to be pukey too. But that’s just your body overthinking it. Trust me. I got these extra pills, just for you. You’re adorable. Everybody’s gonna love you here. Just gotta calm down and let that love inside. You’ll feel warm and happy, and everybody’ll feel so nice, and you can just float along bein’ the best thing ever.”

The girl hesitantly took the pill fragments from Sunny’s hand. She held them there, hopped up from the couch, and took them with a swig of water from the cup on the bedside table.

Sunny flopped up and delivered an enthusiastic golf clap. She hopped up and embraced the little girl. “Oh, honey, we’re gonna have so much fun skippin’ dinner together!”

She fell to her knees and looked the girl in the eyes. “And I almost forgot. I asked Missus Orta already—we’re gonna be a special together. I’ll show you the ropes. I’ll help you be the best you you can be. Things are gonna get good. Promise.”

It was time for another special double act. A different kind of act. But Fi wanted the same price. Sunny provided the full pretty cocktail. In just enough of a dose for the nerves. Fi’d get the full fun amount tomorrow night; tonight they needed some wits left over. Sunny got a half of a half of each pill, and Fi got the rest. She was the bigger girl these days, after all.

The older the two girls got, the more strings came attached to these double acts. They’d be doing a new one tonight—the first new one in quite a while. Dinner. Neither of them ever took dinner, but they’d have to tonight. Mrs. Radowicz would be insulted, terribly insulted, otherwise, and Mr. Radowicz wouldn’t help if his wife was spurned like that. They had to, for Genny, dear Genny, who’d worked hard for everyone else. Besides, one night wouldn’t hurt the figure—and sweet lovely Fi was growing from girl to woman every day, and a lot of the guys who liked grown women were plenty happy with meat on those bones anyway. She was so pretty, Fi. Pretty child, pretty girl, pretty woman. She’d be pretty no matter what, didn’t she know that?

This line of chatter continued as the two floated along getting things ready for the early dinner they’d be taking. Pills made it all easy. Joints didn’t ache. Throats didn’t scratch. Fi’s easy smile said it all. It was like the good old days, back before those nasty words—adulthood and responsibility—rained on parades. But that was silly to think about, wasn’t it? Sally and Miggy would keep things together while they were out having a nice dinner, just being two nice young ladies eating with the lovely grownups who were so generous and charitable and Christian with their donations to the darling orphans of the world.

But of course, Mr. Radowicz had to come by too soon and sour the mood for Fi. But wait, did he have to sour it? Sunny slid Fi a little something extra as he knocked firmly on the door, and it was flowers and sunshine anyway.

Mr. Radowicz wasn’t as frustrated as he might’ve been, really. His eyes lit up, in fact, looking at Fi sway from hip to hip with a lazy smile in her Sunday best. He was quick with a plan. Since Sunny didn’t hand him the paperwork last night, the only person who needed to be sold the new version of reality was dear old Mrs. Radowicz. Easy-peasy.

The Radowicz residence was a lovely suburban place, kept pristine over twenty years of wear, growing up, and tear. In the summer, Sunny told Fi, the Radowicz roses were something to see. And those curtains? Oh, the semi-sheer white curtains with the lacework, Sunny’d loved them since she first fell into them all those years ago. Mrs. Radowicz had found them in a catalogue, and Sunny managed to scrimp enough to get some for the house, and one day she’d get more and make a dress out of them, and—“Honey, I’m home!”

Mrs. Radowicz dropped everything as they stepped through the door and Mr. Radowicz took their coats. She greeted Sunny with a big hug, and asked about the kids. They were all as wonderful as always, and what about her kids? Now, Gary had gotten married, you know, and wouldn’t you know it but they were expecting come February, and then Shirley—she cut herself off, looking to Fi—where were her manners! “And my goodness you’re tall. You must be Regina. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Her handshake was firm and enthusiastic, like that of a young man looking for a job. Fi tried to keep up, but the Radowiczes effortlessly swept her and Sunny along like children plucking daisies in the garden, and her handshake was soft and placid. Just gotta bob along on the waves like Sunny with these people. Then, Mrs. Radowicz released her and the attention was gone. Mr. and Mrs. Radowicz touched base on the day’s affairs—oh, girls, please make yourselves comfortable, dinner will be ready shortly.

Roast and potatoes and veggies, plenty of gravy, and a bit of wine. Mrs. Radowicz whispered to her husband as she watched Sunny pour some for Fi. Wasn’t Regina, she asked, a bit young to have wine?

“She’s sixteen, dear, right, Miss Hautala?” Correct. But Regina was going into the 6th grade, wasn’t she? Whatever did she mean? Sixth graders, they were around 11 or 12, weren’t they? Too young to drink. Much too young.

“Oh, honey, I think you’ve gotten the names mixed up again. Regina—Gina, she likes to be called—she’s not going to St. Rita’s. That’s Cherry. Cherry Calvert. Remember?”

Mrs. Radowicz didn’t remember, of course, how could she have? But as her brow furrowed, and Mr. Radowicz maintained a calm, steady hand at the till, and Sunny chimed in with a “Oh yes, I’d have loved to bring her along and introduce her to you, but poor Cherry’s just not feeling so well today,” Mrs. Radowicz smiled softly and corrected herself. She must have mixed up the names, and she was terribly sorry to Gina for the misunderstanding. And to poor Cherry for what was ailing her. Could she send something back with the girls to help the little darling feel better? Of course, of course she could. She was too kind, too generous, too lovely to them all.

The unfamiliar, glazed over eyes of someone who had no idea where they’d lost the plot fixated back on Fi. Mr. Radowicz tried to smooth things over by laying out the proposal to have Gina as a maid, and even dangled the idea of tea with Sunny and the kids before her, but Mrs. Radowicz wouldn’t let go.

“So, Gina, would you tell us about yourself a bit?”

The downside of the good stuff was that it wasn’t just hard to focus on the bad; it was hard to focus on the necessary too. Especially when wrestling with the alien sensation of a hearty meal.

A gentle nudge from Sunny under the table dragged Fi back into the moment.

“Of course, ma’am. What—uh—what would you like to know?”

The first couple of questions were easy enough. They had proper, correct answers, or easy little white lies—the sort Fi had literally told in her sleep. Until Mrs. Radowicz unknowingly went for something Fi had no good answer for. She should have prepared, and as much as she could muster a half-hearted kick to her own addled mind, she had nothing. She was too out of it to whip together a good response.

What the hell even was the nearest school to hers? There was just no truth to twist. Or so Fi thought. She stumbled along, trying to assemble even the beginnings of a non-answer, only to be cut off by Sunny.

“Well, you see—” And then Mr. Radowicz cut her off too. His face contorted into a smile that seemed almost genuinely apologetic.

“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Hautala—and to you, Gina,” he began. His eyes settled on the floundering teenager, and they gleamed with that same sort of smugness they’d held as he walked out on Genny. “I should have mentioned your situation privately before dinner. It escaped me.”

Mrs. Radowicz glared inquisitively at her husband, trying her best to keep her curiosity directed at him rather than Fi. Before Mr. Radowicz could move things on, Sunny interjected.

“Gina, may I share? I’m sure Missus Radowicz will be understanding.” Fi hesitated. Mrs. Radowicz attempted to backpedal, assuring Fi that she meant no offense. Sunny squeezed Fi’s hand under the table, while darting her eyes between Fi and Mr. Radowicz.

Mr. Radowicz looked at Fi with a warm smile. “It’s perfectly fine if you’d rather I privately fill in Lottie—that is, my wife—later.”

Sunny gave Fi a gentle pat under the table as she began to speak—the sort of pat that was supposed to mean everything was going to turn out alright. And Fi found herself insisting that it was fine—that it was simply that she would rather not say it herself. Better the devil you know.

The answer was right in front of her all along. She was just missing Sunny’s incredible talent for making things sound pathetic and pitiable rather than genuinely upsetting.

Mrs. Radowicz, of course, must have remembered how Sunny had failed to properly graduate, even despite Mr. Radowicz’s best efforts as a devoted tutor. Plenty of kids in such sad situations had even worse troubles; Sunny, after all, had maintained access to school the whole time. She had a foundation. But Gina? Poor Gina had nothing to start from. Why, when the poor thing had ended up on their doorstep—and this was all the way back when Missus Orta was in charge—they were starting from less than scratch. It took a whole lot just to get Gina to be okay. And, well, as a family of educators, the Radowiczes surely understood how hard it was to catch up.

“So we’re gonna shoot for a GED one day, maybe, but right now we’re just keeping it simple. One day at a time, you know?”

Mrs. Radowicz nodded along sympathetically, punctuating the lines with all the platitudes Fi could have expected. At least Sunny had spared the full, honest truth. At least she was just struggling, but honestly bright. Maybe Sunny believed it. Maybe Sunny believed her when she said she’d move past Dick and Jane and read with Chunxin instead.

But when lies are just twistings of the truth, does the difference still matter?

Maids and bed-warmers don’t need to read or write anyway, do they?

Mrs. Radowicz evidently finished off that evening feeling terrible for Fi. Mr. Radowicz seemed at most mildly disappointed his hand wasn’t as free with reality as he’d hoped. Did Sunny have discernible feelings, the way a normal person did? Hard to say.

Fi didn’t know how she felt. The night had gone by easily and everything was put in its place. Most things went by easily with enough drugs. What Sunny had given her wasn’t quite enough, but the night hadn’t been what she’d anticipated either. The other shoe hadn’t dropped. She came away with nothing but another little bruise on a mashed, shredded, dead-purple ego. She was just a bit slow in academics. The kind of girl who could hope for a GED while working as a maid, instead of someone who gave up two years ago on becoming functionally literate.

And yet that wasn’t really what she was most ashamed of. Fi felt the most shame over the fact that Radowicz just left. She was an I.O.U. She didn’t even get the dignity of sparing her fellow girls something terrible, or the flicker of hope, the light at the end after watching her life flash before her eyes. And yet she was lucky. Lucky she’d gotten away without a beating. Lucky that she didn’t have to watch what little of her life there ever was. And still, she could barely tolerate herself for it. Even on drugs.</sup>

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>“Listen, kid. When Sunny says you can be something here, she means something. Not someone. You stopped being somebody the second you walked through that door.”

Those were the first words Fi had said to her, a couple years back, when she’d first gotten settled. Genny had pushed the notion down into the pit of her stomach. So many people in this world had doubts. So many people in this world denied themselves any chance of escape from their miserable lives.

And yet here they all were, still standing. After getting stitches on her ear and pretending to sleep through the doctor collecting his fee right in the same room, Genny was upright, hobbling forward like a baby giraffe, carrying a box with a gerbil along with her. As if this was all normal, as if she’d just tripped in soccer practice or fallen off her bike. As if this was a normal doctor’s office, and not a vet’s office. A vet’s office where the vet gawked at her just like she was some baby-giraffe—a zoo animal—and not a person.

With the drugs pushing the pain away, it felt good to think again, even about things like that. Sunny was hard to ignore, as always. It never seemed to matter where they were. As she chattered along, flirting with the cab driver, acting like he was the most interesting man in the world, it struck Genny, again.

Sunny was an anomaly bobbing around in a sea of negativity. Fi wanted nothing to do with even an attempt at freedom. Sally was convinced the only way out was through. Her mother died alone, without seeing the fruits of her labors. Her uncle could not face her when she was dragged away from him as a payment for some debt that was his, not hers. Some of his last words to her were, “Don’t you get it? In here, in Taiwan, in Japan—there will always be a part of you that nobody wants. We’ll always be half trash, no matter where we go.”

And yet Sunny, when she talked about “being something,” the sentiment, clearly, was hardly the same as the others made it out to be. She smiled when called a doll. She graciously accepted being treated as less than human, and seemed unwilling to even pretend to confront the obvious issue therein. This taxi driver, with his sparse hair and sparse teeth, got the treatment of a man greater than a broke slimeball nobody with a laugh that sounded like an avalanche of black phlegm. Why? Why humor even this man, who would never give her a discount, never do anything but gawk jealously in the mirror at every light? It made no sense. She didn’t seem to believe in a future. Just like the others. But rather than resign, she cheered.

Genny sat with the problem as that little cab bounced along, gripping tightly to the thoughts as the painkillers and residual anaesthetics tried to pry her into blankness.

It made no sense. Until Genny saw her giddily pick at the most pitiful little kiddie cup.

They were all treated by a vet. Not a doctor, but a vet. Fi was right, yes—none of them were people in any way that mattered to anyone else. But what else did Sunny say? She was keen to reinforce customer service—saying, “No matter what, give your friends the look they want to see from you. They’ll appreciate it. They’ll come back. And when they come back, you can be sure you gave them something special.”

Paczki and Sunny were, in a way, the same. The difference? One was carelessly set aside, ignored by all but a few handlers. Sunny, meanwhile, was keen to reinforce that here, with her and everyone else. For Sunny, in her little world, people who’d been abandoned elsewhere could be wanted. Could be loved. The older kids were quick to dismiss the word “love” as lies and fantasy—bullshit, whether Sunny knew it or not. But seeing the pet and the doll, it all started to make sense. Dolls weren’t meant to feel. And pets? How excited did a dog get for the barest of scraps. Sure, it begged for more. But it always wagged its tail and devoured the smallest scrap. So that’s what she did, didn’t she? Dance for the scraps and feel none of what was missing.

Was that all there was? Was this woman, sitting across from her, simply content to be more pet than person? Had Sunny simply decided that being something at all was enough? Was this all there was?

No. Fi and Sally were resigned to being things, awaiting their turn in the trash compactor. Sunny could insist that being a pet—an esteemed animal—was a worthy fate for any real person. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be enough. It shouldn’t be enough. And how dare it be inevitable.

Now that the physical pain was suppressed, the spiritual pain could take center stage. Ice cream could not be sweet here. Not like this.

Her jaw tightened. It was trained to smile, to smile no matter what she actually felt, but her eyes couldn’t keep up the lie this time. She’d stopped eating. The stupid, placid doe-eyes couldn’t hold. Her ice cream was melting. And Sunny was trying to get through. Genny didn’t want to talk about it. She tried to kick the can down the road with shrugs.

What was wrong, after all, was that this was simply a great cosmic joke. To have come so far, to have worked so hard, only to have ended up a third-generation glorified comfort woman in the conqueror's homeland? Her mother had seduced, then married an American soldier, had ruthlessly enforced Mandarin and English over their shared mother tongue of Hokkien, just as her mother before her had done with the Japanese. And when her husband left her, happy to go to war in promise of younger flesh, she dragged herself to the United States, abandoning her career as a teacher to become that which she had previously tried to leave behind, in hopes that her daughter—that Genny—might never have to.

And yet, here she was, doing the same thing, but younger than even her grandmother, without even an illusion of a way to enforce accountability on any one of the endless stream of older men. It was two steps forward, who knows how many steps back. It made her angry. It was easy to be angry. When she had first come, fresh off the wound of seeing her own uncle turn his back on her and leave her to her fate mere months after her mother—his sister—had died earning money to help pay their rent, Sunny had tried to get her to stop crying, to give up on that life she was promised, and embrace a new one. That’s what it was, though. Giving up.

When Sunny spoke of being lucky, perhaps she was right. She had made it here. To America. She had continued to stand back up, even as she found herself surrounded by older kids who’d been trampled by the endless stream of fuckers that Sunny clung to for validation. She continued to awake early and make her bed with precision. She continued to claw for study materials, to continue her education even after Sunny dragged her kicking and screaming back through the door insisting that she no longer needed to attend school. She continued to stand straight, like a person—like she was somebody.

Genny stood up from her seat.

“I’m done,” she croaked.

She gave no response to Sunny’s contestations. She rigidly stalked to the trash and discarded the half-full cup of melted ice cream. She returned and seized Paczki’s box.

Maybe everyone else was willing, for one reason or another, to just be something, and not someone. She had stopped crying. But where Sunny tried to teach acceptance, Genny stoked the embers of rage.

She had not come this far to give up and take it. Maybe others could be reeds and bend with the wind. In the past, she had taken it upon herself to do wake-ups. She had tirelessly demanded school books from the library. She had clawed back her very own self. A self that could not accept confinement as a lesser. A self that could not appreciate anyone yielding to this Hell and behaving as if there were truly no tomorrow. And for it, she was granted a moniker.

Like all of their names, it was a mockery. Sally was short for Salomey, the pig from Li’l Abner. Fi was short for Fire Hose, because she had a gag reflex that could spray chunks fifty yards at the slightest prompting. Miggy was short for Migiem, some Sorb or Polack crap that had something to do with the youthful vigor he used to have. Sunny, as Fi recalled, was short for “Little Miss Fucking Sunshine.” To be Genny, the General, was a commentary on her rigidity, her uncompromising will to continue with the expectation of a future, and her discipline. In some respects, it was a comment on an otherwise positive set of traits, just as Sunny’s name was. But it wasn’t given in that context. And the context was key. Before it, she had been given generic addresses. “Kid.” “Sweetie.” “Little one.” Innocent words at their face, but guilty of stealing her name. These names were assertions, weren’t they?

You are not your own. You are not your parents’. You are ours.

Pets get new names with new owners.

And yes, for now, she had owners. Practically speaking. She was an animal, a lamb led by sheep.

But with Radowicz? At school? The future she was after over there was one where she belonged to nobody. A future of personhood. And the only people with the right to name people were the parents.

When Genny crossed the threshold to the house, her mind was made up. She stood straight. She ached down to her bones, but she stood straight, meeting Sunny’s concerned expression with resolve. If she hadn’t put her foot down before, she wouldn’t have gotten this far. If she waited only for opportunities to strike, they would never come.

“When I go to school,” she croaked, “I want my name.”

Sunny responded with confusion.

“My name. My English name.”

Even her stupid English name, given by a mother that didn’t know better and a father who didn’t care—it was still her name. Her. Name. Hers and nobody else’s.

“When I go to school, I won’t be Gina. I want to be Cherry.”

She had no rights here. She was no citizen, not even a person as far as anyone was concerned. But at school, she would be playing the part of a person. A real person. And that chance at personhood needed to be hers and nobody else’s.

Sunny hesitated and wheedled. It would cost money, she insisted. Radowicz would have to agree, she cautioned. The lies would have to shift—it wouldn’t be easy to redo these arrangements.

Chunxin set the gerbil’s box on the hall table. She reached for Sunny, stepping forward heavily. She gripped her shocked keeper’s collar with sudden, swift strength.

“I don’t fucking care.” She wheezed. Sunny tried to calm her. To get her to stop hurting her voice. Chunxin thundered out her demands. Her voice crackled and tore.

“I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll see him tonight. I’ll cry and bleed. But I want to be myself when I do. I want to hear him say my name. My. Fucking. Name. Che—”

Her voice rattled and broke. Right at the end, it faded into silence. She pushed, repeating herself, trying to force past the whisper.

She continued to echo her name until Sunny agreed.

Chunxin. Cherry. The General.

I will not let those bastards win.</sup>

̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅𝙴𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙽 𝚃⌖ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴̸/̸̅̅ ̆̅ ̅̅ ̅̅

<sup>She cried as she hugged a woman. The woman did not hug her back.

Time passed. Still, the she stayed there, crying and hugging. She whispered to the woman sometimes, whimpering, begging that she respond, calling her Má-mah. She had to respond. Someone had to make her respond. Nothing. She went hoarse. Then silent, still weeping, but silent.

A young man’s yell echoed from the hall, breaking the silence. He asked why the front door had been left open. No response. He came into the doorway, and he stood. He was silent. Nobody acknowledged him. He turned the lights on. He pulled her back from her mother.

The flickering incandescent light-bulb revealed the woman wore a bathrobe which fell slightly ajar. She was nude underneath. Her neck was purple. Her face was darkened and contorted. It was frozen that way. Trapped in a scream. Yet she struggled to break free and return to her.

He spoke to her. She should have understood him perfectly. He was familiar. But he felt blurry. His words escaped her. All she knew was that he was right.

She was dead.

Siâu ga nái, an old soldier’s words—a hated ancestor, probably.

Nothing to be done.

It simply is.

We can’t change things.

This is the best we can do.

The words he said, they meant something like that. Nothing fit right. It wasn’t the same. Nothing was.

She couldn’t see Má-mah’s face. She only knew the expression. And the young man? Had he ever had a face? When she looked in the mirror, would she see a face?

She rolled over in bed with a painful groan. The sun was streaming through the curtains. There were sounds. People talking. People like her. And there was clinking. She stirred and squinted through burning eyes, looking in the direction of the clinking. Movement. It was…?

She shut her eyes. She lay breathlessly. The clinking stopped. A door’s click. The sound of stairs. She retreated into the covers. She searched the insides of her eyelids for fleeting faces, voices, and words. Names. Chunxin. Cherry.

“Genny?”

Different world, different words. Can’t be helped.

Genny kept her eyes closed. She nodded weakly.

“I need you to sit up for me. I’ve got something to help you feel better.”

She shook her head. The sound of a glass and a small, hard object on wood disagreed. “You have to sit up, sweetie. We need to get you looked at.” She had no chance to agree. Clammy hands pushed her from laying down. She flopped upright and slumped forward. Fingers guided a pill into her mouth. She reflexively choked it down and flinched. “Water, honey!” She squinted forward, and gingerly grasped the ice-cold cup on offer. She drank. She handed back most of a glass. She began to fall back, pulling the comforter with her.

“I know you’re tired, sweetie, but I need you to wake up. I know it hurts. We’re going to take you to see the doctor. We just need to get you presentable and then we’ll take a cab. I’ll take care of the rest. And…we can get you some ice cream or something afterwards. Okay?”

Genny flopped over and curled up. Sunny pulled the covers back. She left and returned. Genny still laid there, grasping at sleep. A warm, wet rag touched her cheek. Genny jerked awake and squeaked. Sunny softly shushed and tutted that she’d handle it. Genny sat tense. Sunny gently wiped her face down, then her neck, then dried both.

Genny winced repeatedly as Sunny patted thick layers of color correction and foundation onto her. From scalp to shoulders, Sunny slowly built a suffocating new skin onto the girl. Then, she wriggled an oversized, ratty sweater over the nude girl.

Genny’s passive resistance continued. When Sunny asked her to help, she said nothing. She stayed limp. Sunny eventually stopped asking. She simply continued. Underpants and thick, dark pantyhose. A skirt. To keep things easy.

Then she put her foot down.

“Genny, seriously. We need to go. He’ll help you feel better. You can go back to bed when we get back. But we need to go now, or we can’t go today.”

Genny groaned. She looked pleadingly at Sunny. Sunny looked pleadingly back. They stood in a stalemate.

“I don’t want to make you. But if you make me call him here after his office closes, I’ll be busy with visitors. So you might have to help pay him yourself.”

Genny blinked.

Sunny extended a hand. Genny took it. She rose and whimpered.

The limp down the stairs took as long as the train that brought her to Minnenoona. She collapsed into a plush old chair as Sunny called a cab. The phone clicked, and Sunny addressed Genny again.

“Genny, dearest, the painkiller should be kicking in any minute now. Remember your posture. We can’t have you limping around like you’ve been playing football.”

Genny groaned and straightened her back. Sunny left and soon returned with a small container with holes poked in the top.

“Now, Genny, you’re going to need to keep Paczki in your lap, okay?”

Genny looked at Sunny quizzically.

“The doctor works as a vet during the day. That’s why we have Paczki. Because Paczki is the name we’re writing down, okay?”

Paczki. A Polish donut, a gerbil, and now, another name for Genny.

Genny slumped to the side in the cab while Sunny made small talk with the driver. The voices faded into babble. Just like she remembered. Before she knew it, they had arrived. Sunny rattled off a string of numbers to the driver as she undid Genny’s seatbelt. The driver—he was laughing about stepfatherhood. Of course. Flirting is an essential part of small talk. They might take you up on it, after all. Genny trudged along, seeking relief in the nearest chair.

The waiting room stank of cleaning supplies. And animals. It was a mixture foreign to Genny. Sunny knew it quite well. They didn't have to wait long. The nice lady at the desk nodded too Sunny after a few minutes in the waiting room. "The Doctor is ready, you know which office is his?"

The door to Joe's office was open. Cracked slightly. When Sunny poked her head in, he was standing by the counter, on the phone. His face lit up when he saw hers. He held up a single finger. "... Good. That's what I needed to hear. Exactly what I've been paying those premiums for. Lovely... Okay, I've got a client waiting. I'll be expecting it by the end of the week. Goodbye." He gently hung up—his phone was one of those fancy wall-mounted pieces with the buttons. His warm gaze landed on Sunny. "Sorry Sunshine. Insurance." He rolled his eyes and gestured for her to come in.

He didn't even glance at little Genny yet. Genny finally got a look at the room, and the man. It was cold. The lights were bright. All of the furniture was cold metal. Pale blue linoleum covered the floors and climbed half way up the walls. Two counters, one against the wall with the frosted windows over it. This counter was covered in things. Genny couldn't really make out what. The other counter, in the middle of the room was bare. Both counters went up to the doctor's waist. One of the windows had a blanket taped over it. There was a single stool, almost Genny’s height. As soon as she entered, Genny leaned onto a table, putting most of her weight on it, her eyelids hung in pain.

When Sunny was in and had shut the door he flung his arms up and pulled her in, planting a quick but enthusiastic kiss on her lips. "It's been too long! What have you brought for me today?" She returned the smile and shoulder tensing of a young star getting photographed. “Well, doctor, you know we always say to be gentle, to not roughhouse.” She spoke slowly, her eyes wandering around the room as she did. “But sometimes—” She interrupted herself, finding what she was looking for, “That’s—well—that’s not always what happens, is it, right, sweetie?” She dragged a set of steps meant to help large dogs get up on the counter over to the table. Genny scooted to the side, softly nodding, eyes slowly crawling open again.

And with that, the doctor’s gaze turned to Genny. Like Radowicz and many others before them, he wasn’t some knuckle-dragging monster. He was a well-groomed, decent-seeming, taxpaying guy. He was well dressed, in a suit and a long white overcoat. But he had huge dark circles around his eyes, and he spoke and moved with unnerving haste. And his eyes? They wandered viciously. He snatched Paczki's box from Genny and set it on the cluttered counter, he didn't bother looking inside. Nobody ever did.

Genny closed her eyes again, as Sunny coaxed her to lean in. She used wet wipes, produced from her purse, to wipe away the makeup. Genny remained stuck in a wince. “I just wanna make sure it’ll all heal up. And make it a bit more comfortable, you know? I always wish I could just take the pain away.” She gave Genny a peck on the cheek and softly rubbed her back. “He’s gotta give it all a look now, okay?” Genny nodded weakly, and began to strip, helped by Sunny.

A cursory view of Genny revealed that her bruises from the night before had persisted and matured into dark purple marks. One of her hooded, downturned eyes had a frightening mark across it which extended along her narrow face, down her cheek, over her swollen lip, down to her chin. A little cut near her chin, and the imprint of metal just above suggested it was a belt mark. And as the coverings peeled away, a similar story played out across her thin, shivering body. Dark marks. Little cuts.

When they finished, Sunny asked Genny to open her mouth wide. Hesitantly, with no shortage of further prompting, Genny did so. “It’s the same kinda rough downstairs. But up here, you can see it—he held way too tight.” Sunny rubbed Genny’s shoulder softly, “And I’ll have a talk with him about that when it’s a better time. But in the meantime? We’re so very proud. Genny’s going to St. Rita’s—and we wouldn’t want to spoil the moment with something negative like that.”

The Doc's eyebrows knitted in sincere concern for a moment as the makeup was wiped away. He tried to return his expression to a calm neutral position. "Oh Genny. I'm Joe; I've helped Sunny for a long while. St. Rita's eh? One of my girls went there, I'm sure you'll meet some lovely new people." The words he said to try and comfort her ironically stung in a way he would never comprehend. He glanced at her eye and turned back to his cluttered counter.

When he faced them again he was holding a small vial of colourless liquid. The plain printed label had lots of tiny words on it. His other hand held a blunt syringe. He casually drew a dose and looked at Sunny, "Special K. I think I treated you to it a few times in the jungle." He opened his mouth wide and squirted the dose straight into his mouth. He drew another dose and offered the syringe to Sunny. "A light pick-me-up, doll." Sunny shook her head quickly. “You’re too kind; I couldn’t.” He always offered; she always refused.

He produced another larger syringe and drew a heftier dose now. "Okay Genny, this will stop it hurting while I look at you. Open wide please. It doesn't taste nice, so just swallow it, eh?" Genny hesitated, looking expectantly to Sunny, but a small nudge from Sunny made her relent. She could still feel it, even after the painkiller Sunny had given her. She just wanted it to be done. The pain. And the day.

Genny winced, swallowed, and froze. She crawled up onto the table, and sat rigid and straight, averting her eyes from the doctor’s present gaze and Sunny’s careful attempts at comfort. Blessedly soon, the tranquilizer began to work. She wavered, swaying slowly like a reed in a light breeze. She wilted bit by bit, reflexively fighting her hard-earned rest all the way. Sunny stroked her back, then her hair, trying to coax her down. Genny lazily curled away from her hand. Sunny followed her across the table.

“Poor baby,” she remarked, “Genny’s worked real hard to get into St. Rita’s. I’d hoped she wouldn’t need stitches like I did. But we gotta get her healed up right and ready to meet her new teachers. Just glad she didn’t break her nose. She looks a bit like one of those, uh, whatcha-callem? At the museum. They’re old Japanese paintings, with the Japanese knights and all that. She looks like a princess from one of those, doesn’t she? It’d be such a shame if she got her beautiful nose broken.”

Sunny chuckled. “It’s a darn miracle mine has never gotten properly broken.”

Joe parroted Sunny's chuckle. The wilting girl really was elegant enough to be a maiko. Once she was out cold Joe let his face break out into a grimace. Sunny spoke first.

“Alrighty then. How bad does it look, really?”

"You know how tough this life is. Poor thing." He leant over her, scanning her nude form with an examining eye. "She won't need many stitches. I'll disinfect her first. And I'm a bit worried by this:" He gently tucked Genny's hair behind her ear, revealing a vicious split in the cartilage and a swollen purple scapha. Sunny hummed sympathetically. “He was always good at keeping things hideable…” she murmured.

Joe continued. "There's a big risk of this scarring. But I can try my best to suture the skin back together. With a bit of care and some luck, we can avoid your pretty doll getting cauliflower ear." He ran his eyes over the little cuts smattered over her legs and placed a careful hand on one leg, moving them slowly apart; steeling a look of grim anticipation. He exhaled with relief. "Good. I had feared worse at first. My prognosis is she'll be right as rain well before school starts. Just make sure your 'man' learns some manners." He turned back to his counter; shaking his head and tutting.

He washed his hands in the sink before turning around holding a pack of dentist's cotton and a big bottle of iodine. "It's a good thing she's out." He fished out a cotton ball and stained it brown with the antiseptic. He got to work swabbing her ear first, then the small cuts around her face. He got a fresh swab and disinfected the large mark on her eye, dabbing at her face with extreme care. Then he moved onto the rest of her body. He looked up at the frowning Sunny before speaking, looking at her over his glasses frames. "I know you're fine with needles, you can stay while I stitch her. But before that, the aftercare:" He turned back to his counter, putting away the bottle and swabs and rifling through his stuff as he spoke.

"Warm water rinse, twice a day. Any of the regular signs of infection and I'll put her on antibiotics... " He paused for a moment in thought. "In fact I'll give you a prophylactic course. Some a'these fellers are filthy." He turned back to Sunny holding two paper bags, one in each hand. He held the first one out to her, it simply had "AMX" scrawled on it. "One a day until she's had them all, ten days total. After a meal, don't let her take this medication on an empty stomach, or she’ll get ulcers."

He held the second smaller bag out, "As for pain relief, acetaminophen or some of your weaker Opies during the day. If she can't sleep at night: one of these. Never ever more." The smaller bag had "Innovar" scrawled on it. "The painkillers won't go off, if she doesn't need 'em don't use 'em. They'll knock anything smaller than an elephant out like a light." He nodded sternly as he handed them off and turned back to his counter rifling for his suture bag. Sunny nodded along seriously, offering him a grave little smile. She took the bags and tucked them in her purse. “Thank you, really.”

He peaked over his shoulder with an occupied glance, "It's nothing really hun. Girls like her don't have someone to look out for them often. I figure this makes up at least a little for all the other wretches I patch up." He turned back, he had a black leather bag, clipped shut. Like an woman's coin purse, oversized. He slumped it on the counter next to the limp reclined girl on the steel counter. He fished about and dragged a little white fabric packet out of the bag. He handed it to Sunny and turned to the sink. "You're gonna tear the perforated top off for me, doll. And you're not gonna touch the needle, hear me?" He finished vigorously washing his hand and turned to Sunny and checked for her nod of affirmation. The corners of his mouth curled with affection as he looked at her. She tore the perforated top off and he pincered the curved suture needle with his index and his middle finger. Then he leaned over the counter, right over Genny, inspecting her ear closely. After a pause of examination he placed a well-practiced stitch on the inside of her helix, taking care to catch the skin and not the cartilage. Then he snipped the needle and remaining material; detaching it from the surgeon's knot and dropped it into a little sealed container on his counter. He passed Sunny another suture packet before washing his hands again and repeated the process on the outside of Genny's ear.

Joe looked back up and her after tossing out the needle and patted his hips, "Right. Give her ten days of good rest, that should do her a wonder. If you can bring her back for me to look at: great; if not, you should be able to cut the stitches out with a small blade you've heated white hot first... Now poor Genny must be freezing. Help me get her clothes back on her." Experienced as they were with the process, the two made quick work of it. And as they finished, Joe looked back at Sunny with a mischievous glint in his eye. "Now I don't feel right taking any money from you, hun, but I reckon we have probably at least half an hour to kill until little Genny is right enough to walk." He glanced at his office door, evidently having engaged the door bolt at some point. "How about you help me kill the time?" He winked at his fairy girl with a face that might've been repulsive if he wasn't so helpful.

“Of course, I’d be happy to!” And with the brightness of a telephone operator, Sunny gave Joe his pick of her offerings.

When Genny finally did come to, it didn’t take long for her to have the good sense to pretend she was still out cold. If only she could close her ears as she had her eyes.</sup>

Written in collaboration with @JFK