Fade In:
SLIP INTO ASHLYN’S SKIN
The party fired up at nine, but you are one of those people who always arrives late. Not because you’re unaware of the time. You want to make a statement. You will address life on your terms. At least, that’s the case when you’re able to sneak out of the hellhole you’re supposed to call home.
Think of it, Ashlyn!
A solid home, with people
who really love you,
unlike the posers
you live with now.
Users. Abusers. Liars.
One day soon you’ll exact revenge.
Aunt Lou only agreed to take you in because of the remuneration the state provides for your care. And Uncle Frank? Well, he has other reasons for keeping you around.
Another year, you’ll be out on your own. At the moment, you’re thinking about a military career, and have tentative plans to join up. You’ve been drilling with the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. JROTC has taught you a lot about leadership and marksmanship, both of which suit your interest and talents.
The big question is whether or not to join ROTC and go on to college before committing to the service. You’d go in as an officer, so it makes sense if you make a firm decision to sign a few years of your life away. You like the idea of freedom, so you’re torn. But good, bad, or indifferent, once you turn eighteen, your decisions will be all yours to make.
Right now you decide to go on inside, knowing all heads will turn at your entrance. As you’re one of the few girls here, the guys will seek your company, and that makes you powerful. You’ve hungered for even a small sense of power for your entire life. Strange to have found it here, with these people. You just have to know how to play the game because, make a mistake around this gang, things could go real wrong, real fast.
All heads indeed turn when you slink through the door, slender hips and legs sheathed in skintight denim. You’re one of those fortunate young women rewarded by genetics with generous breasts, and yet other girls envy you more because of your ability to wear skinny jeans and look spectacular in them.
The jeans are almost always secondhand, but nobody has to know that, even if they might guess it. What counts is how you wear them, at least to the guys, who are unabashedly impressed tonight. The fact that your swagger is manufactured around a crumbled-to-dust ego seems totally lost on them.
Of course, their woots and whistles might be slightly emboldened by too-eager consumption of cheap beer and accessible weed, and likely other substances not so readily shared. Official TYN guidelines discourage this. But these guys don’t play by rules. Anyone’s rules.
At seventeen you might have a narrow perspective built by relatively limited experience, but you have well-honed intuition, and put both viewpoint and instinct into play now. You wander over to the keg, half fill a plastic cup. Instinct informs you predators are on the prowl, and familiarity with this crowd reminds you that there’s value in keeping your head straight.
Don’t forget to maintain at least one eye on your drink, lest somebody spike it.
You pretend to sip brew while scanning the room. Not much use coming to a party if you hang out by yourself, though that’s truly how you’re most comfortable. Knots of guys, maybe fifteen in all, overfill the small living room, which opens to the equally diminutive kitchen.
You enjoy thinking in big words, though you rarely speak them.
Better to let people believe their own vocabularies are superior. Feigning a lack of intellect is smart, and another facet of acing the game.
if you don’t play to win.
Take every advantage.
Lie. Cheat. Steal.
Lash out.
From time to time a guy peels off and disappears down a short hallway, into a back room. Bedroom, probably. There’s heated conversation in there, muted by a door, but you can’t ferret out what they’re saying. That piques your interest, but you haven’t been invited, so you stay put.
You could say hi to the three girls who hover against the far wall. But you’ve tried that before, only to be rebuffed. You understand their derision is rooted in envy, which is one part hilarious (jealous of you?), two parts devastating.
Instead, you thread your way across the room to greet your cousin, Tim. Second cousin by marriage, or something like that, which is fortunate. The gene pool on that side of the family is almost too weak to fulfill the promise of a superior race.
Regardless, they are relatives of a sort, and without Tim you probably would never even have heard of the Traditional Youth Network. It’s not like they advertise in the local newspapers, though they do maintain a Facebook page, and the national organization has a website. All that’s required is to do an Internet search.
“Hey, cuz.” You have to work pretty damn hard to ignore the obvious interest in his eyes. Incest with an in-law is not on your to-accomplish list, however.
“What’s up?” he asks, somehow missing that what’s up for him is what’s up for you. “Awesome thrash, yeah?”
You should just agree, but tonight your mouth gets the best of you. “Yeah, I guess. Except, how is this different than any other party?” Disregarding the gender ratio, and like you’ve been to so many parties.
Tim grins. “What do you want? Live waterboarding?”
“Well, no, but . . .” Truth be told, you’re not sure what you want. Organization? A call to action? With nothing specific in mind, you amend, “Actually, that might be entertaining, as long as I could pick the person to torture.”
It’s better to sound tough. Act tough. One major problem with this group is the guys are charged with “protecting” their women. Deeper context: own their females. Control them. Maintain the integrity of the tribe.
“Oh, really?” Tim perks right up. “Who did you have in mind?”
The list is extensive, but if you try real hard you can narrow it down to a few pertinent people. Easiest to consider chronologically. Farthest back, perhaps, should go straight to the top of your tally.
That would be your father. Damian. He was never Dad, never Daddy. Thinking back on him now, he was the Wicked Wizard.
Any time you and your mom found some small measure of peace he’d make it vanish, and while some critics want to believe there should be love between child and parent regardless, that’s bullshit. Good times together? You’d define those as Damian, crashed into oblivion before he could deliver some kind of blow—verbal, physical.
Fatal.
The night your mom died will forever remain an indelible stain on your psyche, the kind of blot that gestates nightmares. Your childhood, if you can call it that, was framed by Damian’s violent outbursts. Sometimes they were directed toward you, and always your mother stepped in, willing to suffer his fury if it spared you.
Throughout those ten years of spiraling abuse, you witnessed her subtle manipulations, designed to divert his rage. Often that meant submitting to him, like a mare to a stallion. More than once it happened within your direct line of sight. That was your sex education. You knew the mechanics by age six.
Such diversion was not always successful, however. Whatever frustrations Damian suffered at work were amplified by a stop at his favorite bar, where he’d down as much alcohol as the cash in his pocket would cover. If you were lucky, he was flush and would come through the door, head straight for the couch, turn on a game, and watch it through vodka-hazed eyes until he tipped over into sleep. But luck wasn’t always on your side.
When he got home that evening, you were watching your mom chop vegetables for a big pot of homemade soup. The beef bones were already simmering, and the kitchen smelled a whole lot like what you imagined heaven might. You had just picked up the book you were reading when Damian barreled in, already pissed and drenched in scotch-scented sweat.
He crossed the room in three long strides, closed one iron hand around your face. “How many times have I told you not to leave your fucking bike in the driveway?” His grip tightened.
Oh, no. You’d parked it there to help your mom unload groceries and forgotten to move it.
“I—I—I . . . I’m sorry. I meant to—”
His backhand caught your mouth hard enough to rattle your teeth. “Shut up, you damn brat. No lame excuses. Ever.”
Your mom turned away from the stove, knife in hand. “Damian! Let her be!”
His eyes flared wrath, fueled by insanity, and his hand fell away from your face as he turned toward your mom. Noting the weapon in her hand, he taunted, “Or what? You gonna cut me, whore?”
“Ashlyn . . . ,” she warned. “Go on.”
But Damian would have none of that. “Don’t you dare move a muscle.”
You knew better than to defy him, and didn’t so much as twitch as he swept across the linoleum.
Your mother attempted persuasion, she did. “Hey, baby, take it easy. How about you let Ashlyn put her bike away, while we—”
It wasn’t a backhand that felled her. It was a fist. In the moment her spine thudded against the floor, she raised the knife. In your memory, it wasn’t self-defense. It was supplication. But that isn’t how Damian took it. “I don’t think so, bitch.”
He was a lion. She was a wounded gazelle, and no match for his power. The first time he plunged that knife into her chest, you were frozen in place. But as he raised it again, your mom managed a last plea. “Run, Ashlyn, run.”
You ran.
Past your mom’s twitching form and pooling blood.
Past Damian, who kept right on carving her into pieces.
Out the door, into the purpling light, and up the street.
You ran without looking back, sure he’d come after you, waving a blood-crusted knife. You ran until drawing breath felt like inhaling slivers of glass. And when exhaustion finally halted your legs, you found yourself in an unfamiliar part of town. At another time, that might have made you afraid. But you’d just become immune to fear.
Beneath a bruised sky, you sat cross-legged on the sidewalk and wept. By the time a sympathetic passerby called 911, your tear supply was spent.
The pain of losing your mom was as sharp as the blade that took her life. It has dulled in the years since, but still throbs faintly. The worst part now is the two images of her that appear when you let yourself remember: Damian fucking her and Damian killing her.
“Hello? Where did you go?” Tim coaxes you out of that time and place, pulls you back into the present.
What were you talking about again? Oh, yeah. Candidates for enhanced interrogation procedures. “My PE teacher seems to enjoy torturing me. Wouldn’t mind returning the favor. Besides, she’s a spic.” The word is distasteful, but you use it deliberately. You have to fit in.
“Who is?”
The words drop over your shoulder, into your ear, initiating an anxious rush. When you turn, you have to take a step back so as not to go chest-to-chest with Silas. “Jeez, dude, sneaking up on a person like that could get you hurt.”
Silas grins. “Oh, really? You think you could hurt me?”
Cocksure, that’s what he is, and somehow you find that at once repellent and attractive, mostly the latter. He’s tall. Buff. Silver blond. Gorgeous, really. Which is how he almost—too damn close to success—convinced you to have sex the last time you met up.
Not that you’re abstinent. Sex has proven to be a useful tool. And beyond that, you like it. But only on your terms. Any time there’s any sense of coercion, you’re finished with the seduction game.
“Yeah, well, you never know what kind of protection I might have concealed somewhere.”
Tim, who is now sure it won’t be him getting lucky with you, snorts. “She’s got a point. I’ll let you two discuss self-defense. I’ve got something else in mind.” He wanders over to the gaggle of girls, insinuates himself between a couple of them, and soon has them cackling like poultry.
“Sorry if I interrupted something,” says Silas, who isn’t sorry at all.
“Nothing but small talk. Well, not really small. We were discussing waterboarding and possible ‘volunteers.’ ” The last word you put in air quotes. “Thus the reference to my PE teacher.”
“Ah. The spic. I get it now.”
Silas reaches out, dares to rub the back of your head where it’s shaved beneath the longer swath of coppery tresses you’ve left on the top and sides. “You should grow it out,” he suggests.
“Nothing prettier than long red hair.”
You push his hand away. “I like it this way. It’s comfortable and besides, it’s me.” It’s a statement, like your piercings and tattoo. You’d have more ink than the flying monkey sprawled across your shoulder blades, but tats are expensive and money is scarce. The monkey was bartered, sex as commodity.
There have been times when you needed something expensive that you straight-out traded sex for cash. Better than giving it away for free, like too many ridiculous girls, looking for love. You’re not even sure you’d trade it for love. That scenario, as yet, has not presented itself.
Silas shrugs. “Suit yourself. I happen to like feminine girls. Lots of guys do.”
“To each his own. It’s not my job to make you happy. You don’t own me. Nobody does, or ever will.”
He reacts by nearly choking on a huge guffaw. The result is a giant cough, complete with spit spray.
He’s fucking maddening. “What’s so goddamn funny?”
“We are all owned, lamb chop. If not by parents or spouses, by the United States of America. I work a half-assed minimum-wage job. Can barely pay for gas and insurance to transport myself to school. But the government wants to tax me to cover wetbacks on welfare. I call that ownership.”
Disregarding the “lamb chop” thing, he might be right. “Which is why we rise up and fight tyranny!”
This time his laugh is a low chuckle. “Where did you hear that?
The movies?”
Such contempt is intolerable.
Put him in his place.
“Who says I heard it somewhere? Don’t you think women are capable of independent thought?”
He looks like he’s chewing on that. At least, he pauses before answering. “Well, sure. Obviously, they’re capable of melodrama, too. Look. The point isn’t ‘rising up against tyranny.’ It’s embracing white identity. Safeguarding our race by keeping it pure. Discouraging others who want to overrun us, yes. Making bold statements sometimes, sure. But nothing like armed insurrection.”
“So you mean you wouldn’t pick up a gun if government goons came after you?”
“I never said anything like that. I’d have no problem at all defending myself or my home and family.” He strokes your cheek with the back of his hand. “Or you.”
Somehow you believe that. It’s both kind of sweet and a whole lot frustrating. “Well, thanks, but I can take care of myself.”
He looks you straight in the eye and you can’t help but notice his eyes look like marbles—milky blue, with swirls of green around the irises. Striking, really. The tug toward him strengthens.
“I’m sure you don’t need my protection,” he says. “But the offer is there just the same. Now, how about we step outside and smoke?”
You know you shouldn’t. You know what he wants. And yet, you say okay. You follow him to the keg, where he refills your cup and pours one of his own, after emptying his pockets of a whole lot of quarters, which he adds to the contribution jar.
He gives you your beer, takes hold of your spare hand, and leads you out into the cooling evening, where the two of you sit on a sad patch of browned sod. At least it’s soft. He lights a joint, already rolled; you pass it back and forth. It’s decent weed and between that and the beer, which you drink to fight the dope-inspired dry mouth, a warm fog writhes inside your skull and words thicken on your tongue.
Still contemplating action that does not involve actual torture, you suggest, “We should organize a rally or something.”
“You haven’t heard? There’s a pro-immigration rally in Tucson on Monday. We’re organizing a protest. It’s all over the Internet.”
“I haven’t been online much.” Fact is you don’t have a computer, and your aunt Lou wasn’t about to spring for a Wi-Fi-capable phone. If it weren’t for school, you’d be totally disconnected from the wider world. “When and where?”
“We’re meeting at nine o’clock at U of A. But we’re not encouraging girls to come. Things could turn violent.”
“Like I care? I told you, I can protect myself.” You’ve made damn sure of that. “I’m coming, okay?” At last, some action.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m positive.” You scoot into his lap, allow him a sloppy, beery kiss, one he returns wholeheartedly. A small corner of your brain reminds you that he’s played you, and remarkably well. But the reverse is also true. This will be sex as reward.
Violence as aphrodisiac.
You are totally turned on right now.
Fade Out