Raven (Orphans 4)

Despite his unsteady stance and his dull, dizzy look, he managed to bring his hand around so quickly and accurately that he struck me across the cheek before I had a chance to lift my arm to protect myself. The blow stung, and the force of it drove me off the seat. I fell to one knee. Before I could turn to stand, he had the back of my robe up as he pulled me closer.

"Naked? Naked sitting here?" he cried.

"It's supposed to be my room," I wailed.

"With the door wide open? You're a tart, a tease, just like your mother was. I'll have to teach you the same lesson I taught her, show you what happens to girls like you."

He reached down and seized me at the waist, lifting me as if I weighed nothing and dropping me on the bed. "No!

" I screamed. "Don't touch me!"

He slapped me sharply across my buttocks and then sat beside me as he pulled my robe up farther until it was at my waist.

"That's all you do want is to be touched," he said, suddenly in a softer voice. Nevertheless, that frightened me more. I felt an icy chill travel up my spine, and I turned to get away, but he rested his heavy torso against my ribs and back, and I was pinned beneath him

I felt his hand on my rear end again and then down between my thighs.

"Just like your mother, all you want is to be touched," he said. I jumped and screamed when his fingers traveled to where I hesitated even to touch myself. "You're bringing shame into my home," he muttered as he continued.

Then, as if he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he stopped and slapped me again.

"Everyone at the bowling alley was talking about the Dunsen boy and what you done. It was embarrassing. They wanted to know what sort of niece I had living with me. You don't listen. You keep being bad," he said. "I've been too easy on you."

He leaned forward and found my hairbrush. The first blow stung so badly I really did see stars. Lights flashed in my eyes. The pain spread out along my back and sides as if I were a plate of glass, shattering. He hit me again and again; his aim was off so that some of the blows fell on my thighs, each taking the breath out of me. When he was finished, he remained on the couch, breathing hard over me.

"You'll get worse if you do another bad thing. I'll burn the skin off you, understand?"

He pinched the flesh under my buttocks harder and harder. "Understand?"

"Yes," I cried. "Yes."

"Good. Good," he said, rising. "Don't you go crying to Clara about this, either, understand? If you do .

I didn't move until I heard him stumble out of the room, closing the door behind him. When I did move, I couldn't believe the burning and the pain. It was the worst beating of all and the most degrading.

I groaned, turned over on my back, and lay there staring up at the ceiling. It was how Aunt Clara found me later. She thought I was sick, and I told her I was just having a bad time with my period. She believed that and let me be, offering to do all the preparation for dinner. As if he wanted to play along, Uncle Reuben did not challenge my story. Jennifer couldn't care less and never even poked her head in to tell me how much of a good time she had had with her friends. William looked in on me, and I tried desperately to hide my pain and agony from him, but he seemed to sense it anyway. His eyes were full of suspicion and fear.

Later, when I came out of my room to join them at supper, I did walk like a girl who was suffering menstrual cramps. Aunt Clara talked about how terrible it was that modern medicine could find cures for almost everything but that.

"Maybe that's because most doctors are men," she muttered.

"That's nonsense, women's lib propaganda," Uncle Reuben piped in, and then went into one of his tirades about the standards in our society crumbling with all the liberal movements in politics and government.

I went to bed early and spent most of the next day in my room lying in bed. The pain went so deeply this time that it changed from a stinging to an aching. I ate little and slept as much as I could. The next morning, Monday, Uncle Reuben did order me to get up and help with the morning chores.

"And don't try to stay home from school, either' he warned. "I know you did a lot of that when you lived with my sister. She probably lost track of the days," he added.

Walking was still painful, but I was terrified that he would think of another excuse to hit me if I didn't obey him I boarded the bus and rode silently to school. During my morning classes, I had to fidget and squirm a great deal to find comfortable, less painful positions. Only Mr. Gatlin noticed and asked if I had ants in my pants. That drew laughter and more whispering and teasing in the halls between classes.

My real problem was in gym class. I tried using my period as an excuse, but Mrs. Wilson wanted me to suit up anyway and stand at the sidelines. I pleaded, but she was insistent.

"My girls always suit up," she claimed. "Those are my rules. No loafers here," she added. She watched me leave her office, and minutes later, while I was changing, she came into the locker room and spied on me.

"My God," she cried, "what happened to you?"

I spun around, holding my uniform to my chest. The welts and black-and-blue marks on my upper thighs were still quite vivid, especially where Uncle Reuben had pinched me.

"Nothing," I said.