Free Mercy by Andrea Dworkin Page B

was
    sorry about his sister and I would go there and I would wait for
    him. He took me there and he kissed me and he showed me
    with courtesy to the little bed where we slept that was all made
    up like a sofa in what was sort o f a living room, with the
    paintings all around, and he showed me where some books
    were, and he thanked me, and I said I would wait, and I was so
    sorry. I waited many hours. Sometimes I walked around.
    Sometimes I sat. There wasn’t enough light to read really. I
    looked at the paintings. Then Eldridge came in and he touched
    me on m y face and I pulled aw ay and said no and said I was
    waiting for Arthur and his sister was dying o f cancer and he
    was at the hospital and she was dying now, dying now, and he
    said yes but I’m his friend what’s w rong with me I’m as good
    as he is I’m as good; and he limped but he was tall and strong
    and angry and he forced me down on the bed and he hit me flat
    out with his fist in m y face and I fought him and he raped me
    and pushed me and he hit me and he was in me, sitting on top
    o f me, upright, m y skirt was up over m y face and he was
    punching me; and after I was bleeding on m y lips and down
    m y legs and I couldn’t m ove and I could hear Arthur coming
    and Eldridge said, I’m his best friend and I’ll tell him you
    wanted it, and he said, I’m his best friend and yo u ’ll kill him if
    you tell him, and he said, he’ll kill you if you tell him because
    he can’t stand any more. I straightened up the bed fast because
    I could have been sleeping on it so it didn’t have to be perfect
    and I straightened up m y clothes and I tried to get the blood o ff
    m y face by rubbing it on m y sleeve and I sat on the edge o f the
    bed with m y hands folded, waiting, and the lights were out,
    and I didn’t know if Arthur would see anything on m y face,
    pain or bruises or cuts, and I didn’t know what Arthur would
    believe; and he said his sister had died; and he sat down next to

    me and he cried; and I held him; and he asked me if everything
    was all right; and I said yes; and he asked me if anything was
    wrong and I said no; and he asked me if Eldridge had bothered
    me and I said no; and he wanted to make love so we made love
    in the dark and the pain o f him in me was like some hot,
    pointed branding iron in me, an agony o f pain on pain, and I
    asked God to stop the pain, I had forgotten God but I
    remembered Him now and I supplicated Him with Arthur in
    me asking Him to stop the pain; and the light started coming
    up, so slow, and it fell, so slow, on Arthur’s grief-stricken,
    tear-stained black face, a face o f aging grace and relentless
    dignity, a handsome face with remorse and sorrow in it for
    what he had seen and known and done, the remorse and
    sorrow that is part o f any decent life, more sorrow, more
    trouble than white men had, trouble because o f color and then
    the burden o f regular human pain— an older sister, Caroline,
    dies; and I turned my face away because I was afraid he would
    see bruises or cuts where I was hit or I was afraid he could see I
    was raped and I didn’t know how to explain because I had
    already lied so it couldn’t be true now later and tears were
    coming down my face and he touched the tears and he asked if
    I was crying because I loved him and was sad for his sister and I
    said yes. He slept then and I went away. I didn’t come back.
    There’s this girl I loved but she disappeared a long time ago.
    When we were children we played in the rubble in the street, in
    the broken cement, on broken glass and with sticks and bricks
    and garbage, city garbage, we made up mysteries for ourselves and enacted stories, we made great adventures in
    condemned houses, deserted garages, empty, scary warehouses, we broke into cars and churches, we trembled and
    held hands, w e’d wrestle and w e’d fight, we were tender and
    we were fierce; and then in alleys we would kiss each other a
    hundred million times. Arthur