Bitch
by Te
October 1999

Disclaimers: If they belonged to me, I'd make 
them sit down and talk to each other before 
taking them into separate rooms and fucking
them silly.

Spoilers: Eclipse

Ratings Note/Warnings: R for language, unhealthy
relationships. This story is about Ray, but he's 
not actually *here*, if you know what I mean. I'm 
reasonably sure it's still on-topic, though. If not, 
many apologies. And it's on the hettish side of the
fence. 

Summary: Stella does some thinking.

Author's Note: Inspired by Madame LaT and 
Stella's foul mouth... had to figure out what else 
was *there*, ya know?

Acknowledgments: To LaT for wonderful 
encouragement, Dawn Sharon for audiencing 
and whiny writer petting, and to the loverly 
Maxine for superfast beta and much-appreciated 
advice. 

thete1@earthlink.net

*


When I wake up in the morning, the closest 
thing I come to softness is the underwear at 
the back of the drawer. I don't actually wear 
them, but it's nice to know they're there. 

Nice to know I could, if I wanted to.

I wear cotton. Lycra if it's going to be a short 
day. It's never a short day, but sometimes it 
looks as though it will be and I can give myself 
a little room to maneuver. It's all the same 
under the suits, right?

And the suits are tailored, expensive things. More 
than I can strictly afford -- even when there was 
more than one income coming in to my 
household.

Mine. Even when Ray was there, it was always 
mine. He handed me the reins the first moment 
I looked into his eyes and thanked him for 
humiliating himself. See, the way I've got it 
figured is this -- That asshole showing up with 
the gun was His Moment. There I was, there the 
bad guy was, and there he was. And he... pissed 
his pants like the scared little boy he was.

And I ran like hell -- like the scared little girl I
was.

But see, *I* was there. And so he wasn't supposed
to be a little boy, he was supposed to be a man.

And he screwed that up, and I let him believe that
he hadn't, and so he was a man. By my graces.

How fucked up is that?

I'm twelve years old and I'm the be-all and end-all
of another twelve year old's *manhood*.

I loved it. 

Of course I did -- you would've too.

And I loved it for years. 

Don't get me wrong -- we went to different schools 
the whole way through. It couldn't possibly have 
been any other way, since Ray never got the 
grades to pull a scholarship and my father was 
who he was. 

So I would see him here and there, every few 
months when he could creep into my neighborhood,
into my church, next to me in the pew where I saw 
a lifetime of hypocrisy and *service* to something 
the priest didn't understand... I left the Church 
when I turned sixteen. Mother was proud of my 
independence. Father may or may not have noticed.

Ray left the Church as soon as I told him. For 
years, I told myself he left it because he agreed 
with my impassioned reasoning, and I suppose 
it's possible...

So I only got him rarely, and when I had him he 
would gaze at me like I was supposed to be gazing
at the Madonna and I was the most beautiful 
angel ever to mistakenly fall to earth. By the time
I was sixteen I had zits and terminally greasy hair
that simply would not feather the right way and 
a roll of belly that I had until I joined my first 
gym and will have again the second I stop for a 
few minutes... but I was stunning.

How many sixteen year olds actually believe that?
None of the ones I get ahold of, that's for sure. 
The best they can hope for is sexy. Me, I had my 
own personal self-esteem factory.

Best of all, all he ever wanted from me was... me. 
And when I was a teenager, me was pretty easy 
to achieve. Talk about hair, talk about clothes, 
talk about Carter and malaise and the laziness 
and ingratitude of the American people... whatever 
I wanted. Watch Ray go all rapt until it was time 
for me to go -- so far as I knew, *he* never had 
to go anywhere -- and then watch him get... soft.

Very soft, like anywhere I touched him I would 
just have to pet him, too. Roll him between my 
fingers like dough and stretch him out for... 
whatever. So I would just stroke the hands I 
knew would be rough from the hours and hours
of shop class (I could smell it on him, oil and 
cheap cigarettes and the industrial soap 
designed to hide it..), smile, and go. 

Because he wanted it that way. 

All I ever wanted was to kiss him breathless and 
see if I could make the same noises Donna 
Summer could. All he wanted to do was waltz and 
swing and hold hands like the dream of his 
parents. Or probably my parents. I don't know, I 
don't really like going there. The one time I
slipped my tongue in his mouth he tore away 
from me like I had the plague.

He actually *did* ask me if I was all right. And 
then he stammered and stammered something 
about waiting and goodness and behaving and 
kissed me on my cheek and ran. 

When he came back -- I never really doubted he 
would -- it was all back to normal. He came with
roses and an apology I was too shocked to stop 
him from making and a promise to never, ever 
treat me like anything but the lady I was and 
everything went back to normal. 

I found the first Gold Coast boy who was good 
enough or bored enough not to come in his pants at
the idea and blew him. 

And then I found another one.

And then I reveled -- *reveled* -- in telling Ray 
all about it in nasty, twisted detail.

And then I refused to see him for six months, 
and when I did he didn't even come *close* to 
letting me apologize, letting me try to make it
up to him. He wouldn't hear it. He covered my
mouth with his hand and then kissed it, 
pressing his palm against my lips.

So I learned how to dance, how to wear pretty 
dresses and prettier shoes that looked nothing 
like the ones in the clubs or the cooler streets. 
And I felt appropriately guilty whenever 
someone's soft and sweet or grubby and dirty 
hands touched me, and sometimes I even cried 
after they made me come.

And when he asked me to marry him I didn't 
make him wait any longer than graduation 
from college. We got married the day after I 
graduated and my parents were there and 
happy for me and I remember being so 
damned *surprised*... His mother was there. 
His father... wasn't.

Midway through his second full year as a cop 
and his dad was only just starting to make his
life hell for it. Sometimes I wonder what 
Mother would've been like had I not been so 
very, very good and strong and so very, very 
married to a pretty doormat.

I cried at the wedding. I sniffled until we got 
to the hotel. Ray assures me everyone who 
saw the two of us together gave him the 
foulest death looks imaginable. "I'm gonna 
die young, Stel, I'm tellin ya..."

I cursed him out royally in the honeymoon 
suite, ripped my veil in two and tossed one half
off the balcony -- the other half he caught, of 
course -- and threatened to use his face to beat 
the stuffing out of the honest-to-God 
heart-shaped mattress and then I cried some 
more and then he asked me if I was done. 

Not very politely at all.

I looked at him, really looked at him for the 
first time that day, that week, probably even 
that month and I saw this strange mix of 
amusement, anger, and lust and I stopped. 
Yeah, I was done. What was he gonna do about
it?

And he spent the whole night teaching me 
damned near every important lesson about sex 
I've ever learned and then it was...

I don't know what it was, really. Even after we 
stopped having sex *every* day I was mostly in
this haze. Law school was hard, Ray supported 
us, and he looked damned good in the uniform, 
out of the uniform, any which way he could but
especially with me in his arms.

I wasn't thinking, I wasn't even really feeling. I
was... believing. He was so confident, so sure, 
so real about everything once his pants came 
down that I just knew I was missing something 
every other time.

But I never found it, not ever. I must be blind, I 
have to be blind, but I never found it. 

And we fought like people and fucked like animals
and sometimes we danced our way through it all 
and he could make me laugh and I could make 
him cry and we could make each other come 
blood if we'd ever put our minds to it and it 
would've been great.

Until the afterglow wore off and I put on my
pants, his pants, and also a halo of strength and
purity that never tarnished too much to be 
wiped clean with a soft, sweet kiss and a promise
to never, ever leave me.

Never, ever, ever. 

I left the first time I slapped him. 

He talked me back and I slapped him again 
eventually and we had raw, bruising sex and 
afterwards it took him three entire hours to 
apologize.

And then I ran away for more or less good.

And I wear the right clothes and I wear the 
right face and spend too much time in the gym
and when the thought hits me I... break. 

I'm lonely now and it's all the same as it ever 
was because the only one who can love a 
princess is a prince and Ray... Ray would 
sooner gnaw his own leg off than jump on a 
pedestal with me. It gets cold. And I'm lonely. 

I am lonely. 

I pray, idly, falsely for change. 

I pray that someday I'll stop believing that just 
one more push, just one more in the right direction
with the right amount of cruelty and some good,
old-fashioned domestic violence I'll have the man 
he was supposed to be. The man that had, once 
upon a time, been a boy who'd pissed his pants 
because he was afraid.

For now, though... I pray for the strength to step
down from the pedestal, once and for all.

end.