Losing It

Losing It

The first person ever to call Priscilla a prostitute was her mother.
Though that was not the word she used. Whore. Plain and simple: WHORE.
Spat in her face then slashed across her bedroom door in vermilion
lipstick.
"Mother," Priscilla sighed, wiping whisky-tinged spittle off her face.
"Mother " she said again. She resigned herself to another pointless
argument.
Mother said in a drunken drawl: "You disgust me." Spoken with
punctuation: You. Disgust. Me. With a drunken emphasis on the me. She
wiped mascara tears from under her saucer eyes. Blue protruding marble
eyes flecked with raging red veins. She snivelled and then she
shuddered, looking from her daughter to the open window which had been
left open all day, such was the humidity.
"I disgust you?" Priscilla was watching the sky through the open
window.
It was the time of day when the sun set, the thin plane trees pricking
a bloodied sky, thin paper of peppermint blue turning darker. Swallows
chased each other through the clouds. Priscilla felt her heart go heavy
and the bile rise in her throat. It had been a hot day and she was
sweaty and wet between her legs. It was the day she'd lost her
virginity. Though she'd never been a virgin, not really. She'd seen far
too much at too young an age.
"I can smell him on you." Her mother had started to cry. "I can smell
my man on you, my daughter."
She was fourteen and had just had sex with one of her mother's
boyfriend. And this particular boyfriend was married and was a
pharmaceutical sales man and he didn't live in this town, but in
another town, a bigger one, fifty odd miles away. Over the hills. With
a plump wife and two children. And Priscilla had just had sex with him.
Or rather, he had sex with her. She was far too stoned to really know
what the hell had happened. It didn't even hurt.
"He is not your man," she said to her mother. "He's already married.
You are his mistress. And you do not own him."
Her mother continued to cry and attempted to slap her daughter across
the face but due to her intoxication was too slow, her reflexes blurred
by half a bottle of whisky. Priscilla caught her mothers hand
mid-swing, aiming for her face.
Priscilla wasn't sure about much, but she knew she needed to find
somewhere else to sleep that night. She could not bear to be near her
mother a lot of the time. She needed to get out of this house and the
cloying air and the very nearness of her sad and scared mother. She was
drowning, being too near her. Times like this she missed her brothers.
At least when they were near she could go about her business
unnoticed.
So she went to see her friend Sherinita, who lived in a bungalow three
streets away. Dusk settling like powder over the tired summer houses.
The atmosphere there was surprisingly laid back. Sher's father with his
clenched fist was out of town and so she and her mother were for once
relaxed, sharing a bottle of cold white wine and sipping it on the
veranda. They'd dragged the TV out as far as it would go and were
watching the talk show they watched every Tuesday. This week it was
about people who'd nearly died due to excessive dieting. On the screen
was a thin pin of a woman, black pricks of eyes and skin ragged and
pale over her frowning mouth -
- gaping like a chick screeching for food. Dry crying and arid sobbing,
her body had lost all moisture. The orange faced presenter, for a
punchy sound bite and added rating figures, stuffed his face with a
large chocolate bar and then a burger and a milkshake and chips and
fried greasy chicken pieces and the woman with the gaping mouth sobbed
louder and dryer until eventually they wheeled out the psychiatrist and
led the poor woman away -
and Sherinita's obese mother hugged her white dimpled flesh to herself
protectively, feeling safer knowing she wasn't the real freak in the
constant battle with the weighing scales.
Sherinita and her mother were happy for Priscilla to stay the evening,
and made her a bed up on the sofa. They even had a cup of cocoa each
before they went to bed, and also shared a joint, made from the strong
grass Priscilla had scored from a boy in her class.
She slept heavily that night. Most nights at her mothers were not like
this. Some nights they argued over petty nothings. Other nights one of
her mother's boyfriends would be round. And occasionally, like tonight,
it got so bad that Priscilla just had to get out.
Priscilla remembered her dream the next morning: she'd dreamt she was
so skinny that while she was having a bath she got sucked down the plug
hole and had to hold on to the loose hair caught in the plug hole to
avoid falling into the dark, dank and bottomless hole which was the
internal pipes and plumbing of her mother's bathroom.

Gary the pharmaceutical sales man had had sex with Priscilla and then
had gone on his merry way home in his Ford Cortina, happily humming
away to the Rolling Stones on the radio. He could still smell Priscilla
on his fingers, her teenage virginal smell. He had no intention of ever
returning to that god forsaken town - he had a feeling he wouldn't be
welcome. He'd heard through some clients that Priscilla had some pretty
mean brothers and no way did he want to get caught up in any violence.
Besides, he was looking forward to seeing his family and was hoping the
youngest - little Barry - had got over his bout of influenza. And
hopefully Sheila had made his favourite for dinner: shepherds
pie.
Priscilla's mother wasn't angry anymore. She was slumped on her
daughter's bed , mouth wide open and snoring heavily. She was in a
drunken intoxicated slumber, dribbling over her daughter's pillow.