Free Beautiful by Amy Reed

in this apartment building. He knows that mymom sleeps like the dead in the late afternoon, that we have bulk quantities of snacks, that my door locks, that I’m a good kisser, that I let him do anything he wants. He knows that my underwear and bra are pink and lacy. He does not know about the old white cotton bras and underwear hidden in the back of my drawer. He does not know my face without makeup.
    He knows what it feels like to be on top of me, that I don’t move, that I am small and thin and pliable, that my breasts are the perfect size for his hand.
    I am thinking,
This is supposed to be special.
I am thinking,
Everybody’s lying about this being special.
I am strangely not scared. All of this seems vaguely familiar, like I’ve seen it in movies, like I’ve seen myself doing it. I wonder why I can hardly feel anything else, how I can know that it hurts but not even feel it, how I don’t even have to be here, how I can drift away to somewhere else, float up to the ceiling and watch how ridiculous we look: him thrusting into me like his life depends on it; me lying there looking like I’m wood, something hard and unbendable, when really I’m nothing, when really I’m just skin wrapped around fog.
    â€œDoes it hurt?” he asks me.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I say.
    â€œDoes it feel good?” he asks me.
    â€œYeah,” I say. I am lying. It feels like nothing. I wish hewould stop talking. I wish he would stop making me speak. It is hard to speak when I’m on the ceiling, in the corner. It makes me have to come back down, feel his weight on top of me, feel him hard inside me, punching my insides. I come down long enough to say what he wants to hear, then float away again. It is not difficult, this flying from place to place. It is like I was born knowing how to do it.
    â€œOh, shit, I’m gonna come,” he says, and I hear him and my ears bring me back to the bed just in time to feel him shudder, hear him groan. He holds his breath and the world pauses and I feel like I’m holding the whole thing up with my skinny arms and bent knees, my legs spread wide open, then everything lets go and he falls on top of me and I sink into the mattress until I am nothing.
    He lies like that for a while, like he’s dead, and I think for a moment that he is. I would not be traumatized if he died on top of me, his shrinking, shriveling dick still inside me. Anything could happen and it would not matter.
    He rolls over and digs through the pockets of his pants on the floor. He puts a cigarette in his mouth, gives me one. I open the window, light some incense and put the jar I use as an ashtray on the bed between us. I lie back down next to him, cornered between the wall and the ashtray. We barely fit. I feel too naked. He rolls onto his side and faces me, puts his armaround me. He kisses my shoulder, my neck, my jaw, my ear, making annoying cooing noises as he does it. I want him to stop. I want to crush my cigarette on his eyelid. I would rather he keep fucking me for the rest of the night than lie here staring at me and tracing my ribs with his fingertips, acting like what happened meant something.
    â€œThat was beautiful,” he says, and kisses me softly on the mouth and all I can do to keep from throwing up is squeeze my eyes shut, lift the cigarette up to my mouth, tighten my lips, suck, blow, put my arm back down. Over and over I do this, visualizing the smoke becoming solid inside my body, until the cigarette filter is melting and I put it out in the ashtray.
    I make myself move to get up to go to the bathroom. I make my body turn and climb over him, my feet walk, my arms pull myself into my bathrobe. His eyes follow me, heavy-lidded, like they’re just moving because they need something to do.
    â€œHey,” he says.
    â€œYeah?” I am backing out the door.
    â€œI love you,” he says, and it sounds ridiculous. Everything about him is