TWO

Malika

A month after her escape, Catherine helps a desperate old woman retrieve items of hers picked up by a strong wind, and, in return, the kindly, grateful woman provides her with clothes  from her mobile home, otherwise known as a shopping cart.

Catherine's weight is drastically reduced and the donated clothes fit her much better than what she slipped on weeks ago in the middle of the night, before escaping again. She is also handed a brush, and, after a little wrist-work, her beautiful, long, light-brown hair once again becomes a feature of hers that stands out.

That same night, Catherine wakes up thinking that the tight fit of her new jeans is responsible for sharp pain in her abdomen, but soon realizes that she dreamt the discomfort. Her conscious mind, however, does not allow her to simply fall asleep again.

“She’s not reacting. She’s still frozen. Does she even know what’s happening?” Catherine therefore hears replayed in her mind.

Ignore everything. Ignore the words, healer told her then, and now warns her once again. Its programming worked perfectly well at the hospital, as Catherine successfully disassociated herself from her own body, and, consequently, saw body parts of hers as someone else’s. Swollen abdomen, knees up. Not hers. The only thing that registered in Catherine’s mind that day was that it was her birthday, which she knew because a morning show television announcer revealed the date.

Annoyed, she now shuts the file once again, before exiting what has become a cardboard blanket, or a sleeping bag of sorts, since what was once a box no longer has structure. Her feet then once more guide her to her food source.

Catherine's basic survival without a word spoken yet since her escape has her inner healer daring to believe in forever, as far as the continuance of this removed existence is concerned, but, just as it pats itself on the back once again, Catherine bumps into someone, literally, who does not allow her to walk on: the teenage streetwalker who looks into Catherine’s eyes after their bodies meet before their minds do looks  past Catherine's clothing, manages to hold her eyes into hers, and, recognizing the pain within them, chooses not to let her walk away.

During the two weeks that follow this chance meeting, Catherine continues to remain silent. She follows Malika's directions and rules to the letter, however, and is no problem at all for the prostitute, who is willing to feed her and to keep an eye on her for a little while, until something else can be done for her, with her. And so, Catherine no longer sleeps in cardboard in an alley, but in Malika's hotel room instead, when the latter is not conducting business there. The dangers of the outdoors have thus been replaced by dealing with cockroaches, which Catherine feels climbing up her legs and thighs as she is startled out of slumber by their touch. Should they not be afraid of me? 

Catherine learns that Malika's story is typical of many prostitutes': she ran away from home because there were problems there, and because she decided that she might as well get paid for the services demanded of her. She is two inches taller than Catherine, standing at about 5'6“ without heels, and is petite, with shoulder-length, bleached-blond hair. Despite her frame, however, she is very well endowed where her clients find it most desirably so.

Catherine  finds security in her arrangement with Malika until the day when the prostitute's pimp, after seeing Catherine a few times in the shadows, insists that she be drawn into the life as well,  making it clear that she is to work for him, or else. As he states his case with force, while running his fingers through Catherine’s hair and feeling various parts of her body as if he were buying fruit at the market, Catherine's voice decides that it must now make its comeback. Right now.

"No," she therefore calmly tells him, but nevertheless with strong emphasis in her voice. "Don't touch me or I swear I'll kill you too."

The man finds himself taking a step back, with both hands up, palms towards her, as Catherine's eyes present a credible threat to accompany her words, and as he does not at all like the conviction in them. It matters not that she is smaller than he is: those eyes convince him of the validity of her threat. Guns, after all, are easy weapons to obtain on the street, and a trigger, just as easy to pull. Especially by eyes like those. He leaves the room.

Malika, looking up from a magazine, smiles. "So you can talk," she tells Catherine. "And now you can teach me how to get rid of him like that, please,” she warmly jokes.

Catherine, however, does not register the words nor the warmth since doubt immediately grabbed a hold of her at the sound of her own voice, and she is consequently now weighing whether or not  she should continue to speak, or retreat back into herself. She soon concludes that Malika has been very kind, and that, surely, she, Catherine, cannot remain silent forever, and so . . .

"My name is Catherine," she finally says, in a beautiful voice, a soothing and calm voice, as well as, ironically, a voice that suggests that control could be hers.

"Well, Catherine, welcome to the real world. Lucky you," Malika replies, mildly sarcastically, as she plops down onto her unmade bed.  Catherine's eyes are now most definitely of this world again, and inner healer balks, fearful. "So, what's your story, Cathy?"

"It's Catherine. My parents died in a . . . car bombing. I have no one left, so here I am." Yes, that will do.

Malika raises an eyebrow. Car bombing? Not something one hears every day, even on the streets.

Catherine looks away from her friend’s eyes as she suddenly finds herself having to cope with a feeling roused by her spoken words. Vague memories do not bother her as much as these feelings that suddenly and unexpectedly come to her and that take possession of her without her understanding why nor where they come from. They always make her pause for a moment, whenever they surface. She does not, however, try to solve the mystery of those feelings. Not anymore. She is therefore soon un-paused.

"Car bombing. You got away? Or you weren't there?" Malika enquires, once she sees that Catherine's attention is in the room again.

Me? I . . . Car bombing . . .

Two weeks ago, despite inner healer's guidance to forget all, Catherine had recognized her name in print and had read about an incident that had supposedly left her for dead. She had then realized that, since the whole world believed this end to have been her reality, this turn of events was perfect, since no one would come looking for her now, believing her not of this world anymore.

Inner healer had hated to see her retrieve reading and vocabulary files stored in a mine field of horrific memory archives. Once they were quickly closed after the reading of that article, Catherine had returned to her present state of reading and writing only the most basic of words, and of existing guided by a line of conscious thought that is restricted to a simple A-to-B reasoning. No big words. No big terms or concepts. No complex structuring.

"Well, Catherine, you need to put food in your tummy, and I heard you say no, but you’re very pretty, and men  . . . “

"No."

"Catherine, it's not difficult. I can help you. I see the pain in your eyes, but you have to learn to tune it out, to tune them out. And you do learn. You learn to be miles away from your body while they take what they bought. What else are you going to do?"

"Anything but that. I can't. I can't separate my mind from . . . I can't fly off to somewhere else, not anymore." Not anymore?

Don't ask questions, Catherine, and don't wonder why you slip up at times. Listen to your guardian angel, inner healer tells her, believing that it can permanently stop her from using the full capacity of her powerful mind. Wanting to believe.

Malika looks into Catherine's eyes and knows that she is vehemently refusing due to serious trauma, which confirms what the young prostitute had immediately seen in Catherine’s eyes when the two first met. "Okay, Catherine. I know something else that you can do, if you can earn this guy's trust, and if your math's good."

"What?"

"Never mind what for now. I'll set up a meeting with him. I can get you in. He's sweet on me," she adds, smiling. "It's just a little money, but it'll put food in your tummy, and you won't have to go back to wherever it is that you don't want to go back to."

"I don't have anywhere to go back to, Malika, even if I wanted to."

"Whatever, hon. Everyone out here has their secrets. You’ll tell me yours when you’re ready.”

Doubtful. Although all is not forgotten yet, most details are not recalled. Inner healer's plan has progressed well, but deleted files can be recovered again, and so, it has more work to do for a complete wipe, for a blank slate.

A few days later, as Catherine and Malika sit in a small diner waiting for the man Catherine is to impress,  Malika works the place -- rather discreetly however -- and some men are biting. They want innocence. Innocence. Perhaps the real thing can be found in a high school student, or perhaps even in a college student, but to expect it in a prostitute of such school age . . . Then again, those men only want the semblance of innocence, because, once they have the young girl, they want her to know what she is doing and to do it well, do they not? Many of those same men would, however, be appalled and homicidal if their own daughters or sisters were in this line of work, but other people's kids, other men’s daughters, they do not matter to them. The whole world would be a much different place if they did matter, if these men did care. Empathized. This tiny, minute moment in time itself, in this very diner, would be.

The man there to meet Malika's new friend soon walks over to their booth.

"Hey, Tate. This is Catherine. Catherine, Tate. She's interested in working for you," Malika tells him, while still juggling prospective clients in the diner, as this is the world that it is, with men biting.

"Malika, I can't just bring in everyone that you introduce me to. I have bosses, and they have bosses. And if she messes up, then I get shit for it. Talianos don't put up with screw ups."

"Tate, look into her eyes. There's your answer," Malika replies, while still maintaining eye contact with men in the diner. She licks her lips sensuously, but not in a blatant, buffoonish way many women have.

Catherine looks into Tate's eyes as he looks into hers. She recalls being told since she was a child that she has beautiful eyes, but later on, people had then implied that there was something else in her eyes but beauty.

Catherine, who used to tell you that you have beautiful eyes?

I can't remember.

Good girl.

"Cathy, if you sell eight units at fifteen dollars a pop, how much money should you make?"

"It's Catherine. One hundred and twenty dollars."

"Good. You can multiply. Alright. Come with me. I'll show you the ropes," Tate gives in, rolling his eyes at Malika as he stands up.

Once he and Catherine are headed for the door, Malika stands up as well, as a man takes her hand.

Approximately ten months later, Catherine is a seasoned pro at selling narcotics. She knows her new world well and knows the rules and laws that concern her and her activities. She has several acquaintances/friends on the streets, as she is well-liked for being soft-spoken, calm, reliable, and intelligent, despite her missing files. She makes enough money to feed herself, to see to her basic needs, and to rent her own room.  She has, however, unfortunately become addicted to one of her own products: little pills that insure that she does not remember anything unpleasant, that therefore allow her to be “even,” but that are not strong enough, however, to allow her to get over her phobia of being touched in that certain way again.

When she worries, which is rarely as she does not regularly allow herself feelings and most certainly never any powerful ones,  it is most often about a certain part of herself, and of her friends, that she just cannot define clearly to herself, but that she believes was once important to her. Or to those around her.

“Even” and her life, however, are about to suffer a shake up once again.