Bad Woman

Walking down the street late evening after work, I noticed a man in the distant front seemed to be following a young teenage girl. He would stop in his tracks whenever you would pause to adjust your loosened shoelaces. With the street relatively scarce with pedestrians, I took large strides to quickly close the gap between you and me. A whiff of alcohol hit me as I passed by him.

Closing in on your side, I looked ahead with a certain determination. “Don’t look back. There's a man behind you following you for a while now. Keep calm, and act like we know each other. We’ll walk together to the nearby police station.”

I could feel your gaze on me, then you lightly tapped the back of your hand against mine. I took your hand immediately.

“Thanks.” You gave me a squeeze.

Your palm was cold and sweaty. So was mine because I suddenly had a wild fear that the man behind us already had his phallus out. He would rip my pants down and impale it into my ass, shooting ropes of cum in me. I would fall pregnant with a rapist’s child. In that moment, I didn’t fear for you, I feared for myself. That I would be unable to love a child. That I would abandon it. That under any circumstances I would not be able to rise to the occasion of becoming a mother. Without warning, I started sprinting towards the pedestrian crossing, completely forgetting that I had a child in tow.

With the sun down low, I felt terribly disoriented as I dashed across the crossing—the green traffic light that just went into red danced in my sight, the road abuzzed with honking traffic, and my arm felt heavy with burning responsibility with you still holding on to me.

Once we reached the other end, we looked back, but I couldn’t see that man anywhere over the heavy traffic.

“Are we safe?” you gasped out of breath. For the first time, I saw your face, looking to me as if I was of any kind of help. I needed help. I was afraid. Then it occurred to me that it could have been my imagination all along. That my fear had made up this whole stalking scenario. But I wasn’t sure.

“No, not until we get to the station.” I stared blankly ahead, not knowing where we were or where we were heading.

“Then let’s go!” You pulled me along.

“You know where’s the station?”

“Uh huh!”

We kept running without even looking to where the stalker was. We could have bumped into him along the way, and we wouldn’t even know. It wouldn’t matter because we avoided every man. Every man had a phallus. I couldn’t tell from their faces who was a good man or bad man. They all looked the same to me. I couldn’t tell if I felt nauseously sickened by men themselves or by running away from them for so long. As we reached the gates of the station, we were the only ones left. The ones with a vulva. And for the first time, I felt safe.

High with relief, I tried to stagger off towards the vague direction of home.

“Aren’t we going in to make a police report?” you asked, following after me.

I lolled my head around. “I thought we were just going to shake him off.” Now I wasn’t sure if it was even real. I don’t remember seeing him chasing after us.

“Well, I’m going to anyway,” you simply stated and dragged me into the station.

You filled out a form. But the problem came when the police officer asked for a description of the man for a sketch. I couldn’t say anything, not his face, not even what he was wearing. I couldn’t remember anything. What did he look like? A man, was all I could say. He was just a man. This police officer was a man too. But now he was panting near your face with his doglike eyes. You just seemed more vulnerable and accessible after the stalking incident.

As you handed the form back to him, he deliberately brushed his fingers against yours, lingering a little too long. You were oblivious to this, but he already had his gun in your mouth, and you were on your knees pleading him no, tears streaking down your face as he violently pushed bullets of cum into you. You were dying, but I couldn’t do anything to help. You held down your ballooning abdomen desperately with your arms. This was teenage pregnancy. A child within a child. I was shaking with grief and anger, ripped apart, until you slapped your hand on my wrist and dragged me out of the station.

I just stood stupidly outside.

“Are you okay?” you asked, concerned.

“What?”

“Do you want me to walk you home? You look terrible.”

“What if I was lying to you when I said that there’s a man stalking you, so that you would trust me, then I could successfully abduct you. Women can be predators too.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” You flashed me a silly smile.

“How do you know?” I was getting anxious and agitated because this young girl was so kind, gullible, and trusting.

“Look at yourself.” She turned on the front camera of her phone and shoved it in my face. “Is that the face of someone who looks like a bad person?”

I looked like I had aged a decade, fraught with worry, shame, and guilt. Maybe I hadn’t aged, I had always looked this old. My dark-circled eyes sunk into my cheeks.

“But how can you tell?”

“I can’t. But I definitely feel safer around a woman. A guilty woman. You let me down, and you felt guilty. It was all I needed to know.”

I broke into a small smile.

You faked a huff and pouted. “Honestly, you should be the one walking me home. Not the other way around.”

I burst into a soft chuckle, and we walked back to your house.

Except that your mother was a menace. She was criticising the dress you were wearing, the makeup you had on, the way you tread, on and on. That you could have called her to pick you up, instead of walking home alone. But it was getting annoying, the victim blaming. With the gun I nicked from the officer prior, I pulled it out from my back pocket and shot her in the head. She tilted down like a roly-poly doll then rose back up as my own mother.

Growing up, I would get groped or even raped by men at school, men at work, men who were strangers, men whom I met online, and men I dated. It happened numerous times and was getting to the point where I believed it had something to do with me. But it was because everytime I made the mistake of letting my mother know.

Instead of calling the authorities, she would shame me for it, and I went out into the world a guilty victim. Men would see my vulnerability and take advantage of me. I was attracting these bad men. I wondered when sex became violent for me, like a form of punishment. I couldn’t remember. Probably my whole life.

I let out a broken wail at this bad woman. It sounded less than human and more of a wounded animal. Your whole family came out of their rooms at the sound of this mating call, stripped my mother down, and gang raped her, each taking their turn with her. I saw her lying on the floor limp and hopeless, staring vacantly at the ceiling. I looked into her eye and conveyed telepathically the magic words, “I forgive you. All is forgiven. You are free to go now.”

Your mother stopped yapping. She stared at me like I was crazy for wailing and ousted me out of the house. You were sent to your room. I don’t even remember how you got my number, but you called me. I picked up the call and stood below the windows.

“Hello, is this 911?” you asked.

“Yes, how can I help you?” I answered.

“I’d like to report my mother. She has a sense of righteousness that she thinks she can never be wrong.”

“I know. I know it all too well,” I whispered.

“Will I ever see you again?”

“Probably not. I’m afraid I see my younger self in you.”

You opened your window and stared at me from the darkness of your room. “So you’re just going to abandon me?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re supposed to protect me. You’re a bad woman.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Tell me, am I going to survive this alone?”

“You will, it’s called girlhood. A girl goes through it and comes out the other end a woman. You’ll never be the same again.”

“Will I become happier?”

“I hope you do.” I turned away, leaving. I didn’t want to stay a vulnerable girl anymore. “I hope you will.”