Slut

— Nona, when are you coming back?

Her eyes opened and her reflection stared back at her in the bathroom mirror. Her dark eyes flickered in the low light of the single dying light bulb that hung above. Her face covered in water was suddenly smothered with a small white towel. Pulling it away, there were streaks of black eyeliner stained on the cotton and down her face. Wiping away some of the makeup residue, a small sign left her parted lips, and she lightly dug her fingertips into her tear ducts to remove the tiny black blobs. She really needed to remove her makeup properly. Her eyes only stared into the mirror, and the mirror back at her as thoughts started to mull about in her head. Her hair was showing a thin layer of grease at the roots. Her lips looked chapped and she bit down to rip away at a piece of dead skin. A raw taste filled her mouth as the tiny cut started to bleed. She pulled her gaze away from the mirror and turned toward the shower. She pulled back the curtains and turned the rusty knob until the water started to flow. She turned it enough to a point where the water would be hot, but not scalding. It took forever for the water to warm up.

— Nona, I miss you.

Reaching behind her back, she found the zipper of her dress and pulled it down. Letting the fabric drop around her ankles, she saw herself in the mirror again. She was never a supermodel. She had small breasts and a small belly protruding slightly from her otherwise flat torso. Though she was relatively toned, she was fleshy in areas giving her distinct curves. She pulled out her hairclip, letting her straightened dark brown hair sweep her shoulders. Removing her bra and panties, she still didn’t look away from her reflection. Her less-than-perky breasts, dark patch of hair between her legs, faint scars on her stomach and chest from past violations she was constantly reminded of every time she caught sight of them, all completely visible in the dim light of the bathroom. And this was all her: Nona.

— Filthy, filthy little slut! Parading yourself around like that! Are you a whore or are you my daughter?

The hot water poured down her every curve. Her entire body ached, but it wasn’t from the usual pain of wearing high heels too often. It was a different pain that was the worst deep inside her, radiating from her core. It had been months since her last fuck, and that desire, that hunger, that need was burning harder than ever before. But like she usually did, she could only suppress it, and hope to find somebody new to sleep with. Right now, it was only a few days before her period was due, which would explain her heightened sex drive. After her unsuccessful date that night she was just even more discouraged than before. Apparently her excessive flirting wasn’t clear enough that she wanted to fuck on the first date. Either that or he wasn’t interested. Or he was some timid, hopeless romantic who wanted to get to know her better before bedding her. When did you need to know someone to sleep with them? Whatever, she thought, he had a fancy car, and you know what that means. Small cock, big cock, whatever it was, it was better than no cock. Thinking it over, Nona almost gave an audible grunt of frustration. She could have just said she wanted sex, and maybe he was just thick. And then again, thick men who couldn’t take a hint were, at least in her experience, terrible in the sack. They would think you were emitting moans of pleasure, when they were really just sighs of pain, or even boredom. They thought foreplay was a two-minute event and they came way before you were anywhere near your own climax. Of course at that point you had decided to completely and over-dramatically fake it just so that their poor attempts at lovemaking would cease all together. It was lovers like that where size really didn’t matter; it was bad no matter how big.

Nona only wished she could have avoided those men; men who were pretty to look at but had non-existent brains or personality. But she never had much guidance in the way of boys. She never had a mother to tell her about the boys who only wanted to use her and the ones who wanted to love her. According to her mother, all boys wanted to use her. All boys wanted to do was have sex with her and not give her a second thought, leaving her hurt, lonely and unloved. She would never have satisfaction with a boy, so she would have to keep herself away from them forever. She could never show herself off because it would only turn them into drooling dogs with the only intention to violate her. Of course, when taking all the necessary precautions like covering every inch of breast, leg and ass, she still ended up being violated. Her mother’s hostile and demeaning attitude towards boys was close to crossing the line of over-protective into the realm of insane. It seemed she never wanted any boy to come within thirty feet of her daughter, and she would do anything to keep it that way. If she could place Nona into a large plastic bubble that prevented any human contact, she would have. Though it seemed she never needed a real plastic bubble to contain Nona in, because whatever slanderous sayings she could perpetrate towards her own daughter were enough.

She could remember everything her mother ever told her about boys, relationships and sex. It was basically the same three things rephrased over and over again, usually becoming harsher and harsher: boys only want to violate you, having sex is evil, and you’re a slut. Pants and skirts above the knee would only provoke boys into trying to sleep with her. A V-neck sweater would turn the most humble and modest of men into vicious rapists after Nona’s virginity. Any time she tried to toe the line and rebel against her mother, it only led to an endless brigade of insults and days of ugly sneers and huffy lectures on how she was supposed to present herself.

— You show off those filthy things like you’re some sort of prostitute. Do you not value yourself at all; are you just some shameless, cheap, fat slut?

Nona was suddenly back in her bedroom in the old house in Winnipeg. She stood by the window wearing her usual loose-fitting jeans and black leather jacket. Of course, underneath the open jacket was a dark purple tank top that showed off a good inch or two of her cleavage. Her dark brown eyes were searing with anger as she gave her mother the most hateful of stares. Fat Slut. That’s what she was according to her mother. At the age of sixteen, she had stopped referring to her as “mom” a long time ago, and just called her by the cold and technical “mother”. “Mom” was someone who would hug her when she was heart-broken over a boy, who she could talk to about anything, and who she would fight with on occasion only to make up by the end of the day. “Mother” was just who housed her for nine months before she popped out, able to breathe on her own. “Mother” was someone who controlled her and berated her to behave like some perfect modest housewife-in-training. “Mother” called her Fat Slut.

— Right, mother, and I’ll burn in Hell, right?

— You best be prayin’, girl. The Lord sees all, and He will see this disgusting display you have presented in His presence.

Wisely, Nona would begin to ignore her mother when she started preaching her usual fire and brimstone. Eventually she would shuffle over to her closet and pick out a baggy collared shirt from many to shut her mother up. This was most days before school before Nona would get to school, only to change into something a little more revealing once she got there. There were times where she could be without her mother always looking over her shoulder and screaming at her. Even after school she could slip home and be completely alone as her mother was at work and her five younger siblings still at school. Her father had left the family when Nona was twelve for a much younger, much more beautiful woman. It was that which had sparked her mother’s newfound over-baring nature, condemning all forms of sex. With Nona entering puberty right around the time of her father leaving, it was the perfect chance for her mother to start molding her into the perfect virgin.

When she learned what sex was for the first time, like all the other fifth grade girls in the class, she giggled and blushed at how gross it sounded. But as she grew older with her mother’s severe warnings against it, curiosity started to take hold of her. She started exploring her own body, before moving onto the bodies of others. She wanted to experiment, finding a stronger attraction to the male species rather than females. Her first boyfriend was a childhood friend who she decided to take home when she was alone and slept with him in her bedroom. She was fifteen.

— Have you ever done it before? Like, I mean… Fuck, I guess?

— Of course I have.

— No, it’s okay. I haven’t either.

It was never the ripping pain her mother had spoken of while looking half-possessed, staring through the walls as she attributed penetration to all the fires in Hell. There was no blood, no burning, nothing. Nothing but pleasure, and that afternoon Nona had discovered every single lie she had been fed. Though she broke off her relationship with her first lover, she continued to find new ones, one after another, all forming a small series of bedfellows. Though sex for her was perhaps the most enjoyable part of her teenage years, she never anticipated the lying and deceiving committed by her ex-lovers. When she was sixteen, rumors started to spread about her. There were rumors that she was loose, as if she never cared about the boys she slept with and only used them for sex. Though it wasn’t entirely false, Nona found the word ‘slut’ suddenly attached to her name whenever she was mentioned among her classmates. She would walk into class to a group of staring eyes, which lingered in her direction for a few seconds and then turned away to face each other accompanied by hissing whispers and the occasional malicious giggle. She could only ever make out small pieces of conversation.

— Hissss hissss what a whore hissss sloppy cunt…

— Hissss ssssslut! hissss hissss

The swishing sounds of whispers floated around in her head like fog. The word ‘slut’ was the word spoken by snakes’ tongues, a rapier lashing against her conscience leaving the horrible scars of hatred and disdain. Eyes always followed her, and the whispers followed the stares. Occasionally someone called out at her, ‘slut’ or even ‘Fat Slut’ to which Nona found entirely ironic. The same abuse her mother was dishing out at her was the exact same of her peers. She wondered if her mother had known about her having sex and was somehow convincing her school to scorn her for it. She was certainly not the only girl in the school who had lost her virginity. While eavesdropping in the washroom stall, she could distinctly hear two girls discussing the best ways to give a blowjob. What she never heard them say, however, was anything about their own satisfaction. They spoke of how to make their men come, but never themselves. Nona knew what an orgasm felt like. She doubted the other girls did, or ever would.

It became apparent that Nona was branded a slut because she actually enjoyed sex. She was a slut because she wasn’t satisfied emotionally and physically with whomever she was fucking and broke up with them. She was a slut because she didn’t know how to give a good blowjob. She was a slut because she put herself first before a boy. And she was a Fat Slut because she had a belly, thighs, hips and breasts, unlike the other girls who seemed to starve themselves to appear like beanpoles. She never did find out which boy had ever told the entire school that she was sleeping with them. But as it was behind her, it really didn’t matter.

It didn’t help the fact that she was still in need of a fix. As if waking from a trance, Nona realized she was still in the shower, the water pelting her back. Taking the soap and lathering it in her hands, she pondered. She was beginning to grow desperate for satisfaction. Running her soapy hands down her body, she seemed to tremble. Perhaps it wasn’t just sex she needed. There was only really one person she had a lasting relationship with. He had come the last year of high school from the Netherlands, the perfect reflection of a completely Aryan teenager. Nona had started a friendship with him before ever dating him, feeling herself drawn close to him purely by his personality. She had judged him harshly at first, thinking that he was nothing but a pretty boy with no brain. They had gone out for a year, but their separate directions after high school strained their relationship until they rarely saw each other. They decided to end the relationship. Nona’s hands traveled down towards her hips. A small part of her might have missed him. Considering he was actually receptive and even partially intuitive, sex was never bad with him. An obviously experienced man was much better than the bumbling virginal (or sometimes not) boys who didn’t even know what a clitoris was. Nona’s fingertips grazed the hairs above her opening. It wasn’t that it was completely awful. Sometimes the cute awkwardness could partially make up for not being any good. It was potentially entertaining, even if it was a little frustrating. Her index finger had dipped inside her, and the sudden pulse of feeling sent a shock throughout her body. Nona sucked in a breath, but didn’t go any further. It was no use. There was no point.

She turned off the water, having all the soap rinsed off her and opened the shower curtain to grab her towel. She dried off, changing into her soft pajamas and curling up under the covers not bothering to blow dry her hair. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry. Lack of sex was nothing to cry over. Crying was for heart-broken girls who were hopeless without men. She didn’t need a man. She needed a cock, and that was hardly the same thing as having a man. But as she stared out the small window of her apartment bedroom into the starless Toronto sky, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of loneliness. And something that was completely out of her control started to happen as a single tear rolled down her face. She sniffled once, just once, and closed her eyes letting the peacefulness of sleep finally envelop her.

— Nona, please come home.