Fear of Falling

like your slut mother! So, first I’m going to beat you. Then I’m going to take what’s mine. I’m going to fuck you like the whore you are.”
    He took another step towards me, unleashing his belt from his pants. He folded it in half and slid the leather between his fingers slowly, a ritual I had seen him do dozens of times. A ritual that sucked the breath right from my lungs and demolished the tidy, fragile compartments of my psyche…
    “You’ve been a bad girl, Kamilla. A very bad girl. And now I have to punish you.”
    “No! Please, no, Daddy! Please! I’m so sorry. I promise to be good! Please, no. Don’t hurt me!”
    “See what you make me do, Kamilla? I have to. I have to hurt you because I love you.”
    “Please. Please, don’t.”
    “Don’t make me angry. Your mother made me angry, and you see what happened to her. Do you want to be like her? Do you want to be a dirty whore like your mother?”
    “No, Daddy.”
    “Then come here and get what you deserve. It’s your fault; you make me do this, Kamilla. You make me hurt you.”
    He stood before me, his pants unfastened and his brown leather belt at his side. He smelled of stale beer, and filth as if he hadn’t showered in weeks. “This is what you deserve, Kamilla. You’re a dirty, filthy whore. And whores need to be beaten. You make me do this to you. You make me hurt you. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love you.”
    Before I could utter a semblance of a plea, he raised his arm up over his head and brought it down in a blur of haggard skin and worn leather. I didn’t even have time to brace for the attack, let alone shield myself from it.
    The first blow landed across my shoulder and face, setting it ablaze, bursting with reds and oranges. I felt my skin split open with the impact. My eye suffered the worst of it, and I couldn’t tell if it was swollen shut or if the blow had taken out my eyesight. It was all pain. All fire. I couldn’t differentiate it. Couldn’t tell where the agony ended and relief began.
    The second one made me see stars. Not the beautiful, twinkling ones that inhabited the night sky. The ones that appeared in blurry splotches behind swollen eyelids. The ones that told you that unconsciousness was near, whispering promises of vivid dreams, if you just succumbed to it. It hurt too much to scream, and I was too weak to even cry. I was tired. So tired. I wanted to sleep and escape this pain. I wanted those dreams that the stars boasted. I needed them.
    The third slash across my face claimed me. Dragged me under in a deep sea of numbness and detachment. A place where pain was no longer felt, fear was not my captor, and my father’s love did not rip me apart and scatter each piece of me, making it impossible to ever be whole again.
    I almost felt this peace once. I was five, and it was waiting for me, beckoning me to the bottom of a swimming pool.
    And now… now I had found it. I found the peace that came with death. And this time, I didn’t fight against it. I ran to it with outstretched arms.

“Can’t you drive any faster?”
    “If you have a problem with my driving, maybe you should’ve driven your own car. Oops! You can’t, can you? Because you’re fucking drunk . So just sit back and shut up,” Angel sneered from over her shoulder.
    Normally, I would’ve shot back with my own assholish comment, but she was right. I was fucking drunk. But I had miraculously sobered up quite a bit once I saw what was lying amongst a clutter of shot glasses and peanut shells almost fifteen minutes ago.
    I had to get away from CJ’s groupies, and had only marginally escaped the pressure to suck a shot of tequila from Wendy’s rack. They were nice tits; I couldn’t deny that fact. But they weren’t Kami’s tits. Kami had great tits. Perky and soft. Perfect, sweet nipples. Just the right size to fit in my hands…
    Fuck. Even my thoughts were drunk and stupid.
    I slumped back and tried calling her again, hoping the reminder would defog my mind. I screwed up. I know I did. But I really hadn’t done anything with those chicks. I didn’t want to.
    I had just been about to grab a bottle of water and a cab home when I saw it. A small, red paper heart. It felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head, and I immediately woke the fuck up. Kami was here. At least she had been. And if she glimpsed what was going on over at CJ’s table, I knew I had some serious groveling to do, whether or not she wanted