Down in the Zero

'When your father took you in that room, it was never when you were having your period, was it?'

'Burke!'

'And he always did it the same way, right? Said the same words, made you do the same thing. Did he have something special he hit you with?'

'His hand. And a…paddle. A black one. With holes in it.'

'Yeah, he's perfect. A ritualistic scumbag.'

'No. He never…you mean, like Satanism and that stuff?'

'It's all ritual abuse, girl. Got nothing to do with Satan. Child molesters love their rituals, their secret ceremonies. You remember how you told me Charm never got punished in front of you? That's because it wasn't punishment that was going to happen once the door closed. Not like you got, anyway. Your father was having sex with her. For years and years. You were just the appetizer.'

'Stop it!'

'Where do you think she learned it, child? You weren't getting punished, you were being used. Spanking kids…the way he did…it's erotic for them. Foreplay, that's all. That's why you hate people who do it— you've always known the truth.'

'Noooo…'

'Yes. Trauma is scar tissue over memory, but nobody ever really forgets. Charm showed you how to flip things over. Get powerful yourself…at least that's what you thought. You see it in the kiddie joints all the time. The weaker ones get taken off. Raped. You do it to somebody else, you're not the target, see? Sex in prison, it's not really sex. Any more than rape is. You get to beat on somebody else, it doesn't happen to you. Remember how you said it made you feel? Strong?'

'She was just— '

'Playing. Sure. Playing you. For your father. With him. He picked her out from the beginning, Fancy— she never had a chance. She's doing the same thing. Getting powerful. Drinking blood.'

'I don't believe you.'

'Yeah you do. Charm set you up in business. So you'd have a 'thing' of your own, isn't that what you said? Instead, you've been a Judas goat, staked out so the prey comes sniffing around. And Charm's always there. With her cameras.

She made a moaning sound, dropped her shoulders. I reached over, held her hand. It was damp.

'There's more,' I told her. 'Charm used Sonny too. When he was just a kid. Got him involved in sex way before he was ready, and it really fucked with his head. She may have been with his mother too…Cherry's gay, right? There's a wire on my phone, in the caretaker's apartment. That's her work too. I thought it was you at first, when I saw the tape. But there's money floating around here. Big money. More than Charm could score from some lousy little blackmail scheme.'

'But why…?'

'Your mother knew it too, Fancy. Remember when you told her, what she did? She gave her daughter away. Handed her over like a present.'

'I saw that once…what you said. On 'Oprah.' How people get abused when they're kids and they remember it all of a sudden, years later.'

'I know.'

'But there's like nothing they can do, right? I heard it on the show, the Statute of Limitations. It's too late to make them go to jail…'

'Yeah. They need to call it the Statute of Liberty instead. The freak does his work good enough, he makes the kid block it right out…and then he walks away giggling.'

'You think Charm…doesn't remember?'

'I don't think she ever forgot. That's what turned her. Into whatever she is, now.'

She was quiet a long time, all inside herself. Then she looked over at me, gray eyes in the dark. 'My own sister,' she said. 'My twin. Now I don't have anybody.'

I made her come back to the caretaker's apartment with me. Showed her the tiny microphone that had sat inside the phone until I pulled it loose.

I took her to the bedroom. Undressed her slowly. We made love. A deep, rich vanilla.

'I want you to stay with Sonny,' I told her the next morning. 'All day, no matter what, wherever he goes. Whether he likes it or not.'

'Okay.'

'Don't 'okay' me, Fancy. It's important. Make a promise.'

'I swear,' she said, her hand over her heart.

I puffed on my smoke, absently, wondering if she knew. 'Fancy, what happened to your other sister?'

'My other sister?'

'Charm said you were originally triplets, remember?'

'Charm tells stories,' she answered, looking somewhere else.

I walked over to the big house. Sonny was awake, at the kitchen table.