Free West End Girls by Lena Scott Page B

raped her. At first when he kissed her, she liked it, but he began to get rough, sticking his big tongue, down her throat. She wanted him to stop, but he didn’t. Before she knew it, he had her out of her panties and on his lap.
    Unique remembered how ugly she felt, how ugly he looked with his face twisted and his eyes almost bugged out of his head as he lifted her up and down on his rod of hot steel, tearing and ripping through her tender linings.
    Before that moment, when he looked at her, she felt cute and flirty, but while he took her virginity, gritting his teeth and staring deep into her eyes, she felt ugly and animal-like. Even the sounds he brought from her own mouth didn’t even sound human.
    When he was finished with her, she had a hard time walking and peeing.
    After dropping her at school, he said, “Don’t tell anybody, Unique.”
    She nodded, and quietly limped to class. She wanted to call her mother, tell her what she had done—what Marquis had done to her—but there were no phones in that school. There was no way she was going to tell the nurse. That white bitch would have made a mountain out of a molehill. Sure, it wasn’t a molehill really, but Unique figured that way on it. She had to figure that it was one of those things that every girl went through, although she hadn’t figured it happening to her so young.
    Unique had seen her first period at school the year before. That ugly, white bitch nurse was hollering and talking all loud that day, telling Unique’s business for all to hear. Unique remembered the humiliation, so there was no way that white woman was going to ever know what she and Marquis had done that morning.
    When her mother got home from work that evening, she knew something was wrong. “Your period is here early,” she said, having found the bloodstained panties Unique had buried deep in the dirty clothes hamper.
    Unique just shrugged and sat on the side of the bed, her hands folded and her feet swinging listlessly. She’d taken a bath and had been sleeping since she got home from school. She woke up when her mother came from work, but didn’t have the energy to do anything but sit. The pain was still with her, and going to the bathroom had been hell all day.
    â€œWhy you not watching TV?” Her mother stood in the doorway, holding the panties with an accusative expression. No smiles, just heat and anger.
    â€œI’m sick.”
    â€œSick with what?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Unique shrugged again. “Maybe I got what Tanqueray got.”
    Her mother looked at the panties again and this time gave them a sniff. Her eyebrows furrowed at the manly scent mingled with the blood from her torn hymen.
    â€œSo you wanna fuck now.”
    Unique remembered the instant fear she felt. It started in the pit of her stomach. For the second time today she was terrified in the presence of a trusted adult, first Marquis Sr. and now her mother. Backing into the middle of the bed, she shook her head vehemently, holding out her hands as she did when beseeching the belt not to land on her thick thighs.
    â€œNo, Mama, no. I didn’t want to.”
    Javina didn’t care if fucking was what she really wanted to do or not. The belt came from nowhere, it seemed, and she beat Unique mercilessly.
    Unique didn’t sleep all night. She wanted to tell Tanqueray what she’d done, but her mama had called her so many bad names, she figured, why include her in the mess.
    The next morning, she looked for Marquis Sr., but he wasn’t sitting in his car. She wanted him to be sitting there because she had dreamed about him all night, saving her from her mother’s wrath and hateful words. She had made what had happened between them beautiful in the dream. Almost like love. Unique had reasoned in her mind that he wanted her more than her mother did. He hadn’t called her anything bad. He’d even called her baby under his