The Death of Me

I was clear-eyed about what my mother did. I had sex, too, but always for free. My first time had been four years before with an older man named Phillip, but mother never knew. If I’d been born closer to the time Phillip was, we might have married.  Now I’m sixteen and usually have a steady boyfriend my age or older. I never knew my dad and like the powerful feeling I get when men pursue me. Phillip broke up with my Aunt Laura, and that ended our time together, but that’s like a lifetime ago.
 
Mother was beautiful at thirty-three with only one child. That would be me. I’m Skylee. Mother loved me very much, so between dancing and “entertaining,” she provided for my every need and most anything I wanted.
                
With mom’s looks, she could command any price, probably depending on how badly she didn’t want to fuck the guy. I usually saw $800-1,000 on her nightstand after a visitor. Her only two appointment slots were 8:00 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday through Sunday, she danced.
 
The night she died was like any other night when she wasn’t dancing. She’d told me to stay in my room because it was almost 8:00. I never saw the gentlemen callers but imagined them as ugly men. They should have been home with their wives and kids but were in my apartment seeking thrills with my mother’s body.  
 
I heard her answer the door and a man’s voice. A minute later, her bedroom door closed, and before long, there was that familiar thumping of her headboard against the wall we shared between our bedrooms.
 
 When the thumping stopped, I heard her say something, but it wasn’t clear. She sounded upset. It was quiet for a moment, then a loud bang. I froze for what seemed minutes. Then my mother screamed and there was another pop and soft thud on the floor.  I heard the man's voice yelling as things hit the wall. The only words I could understand were, "what I paid for" and "what you made me do."  
 
Heat filled my face, knowing my mother must be dead. I stormed out and met a big square-shaped man racing toward the apartment door. I ran past him to where mother’s naked body was folded on the floor. I rolled her over to see her face. There was a hole just below her left eye and in the center of her stomach. I didn’t feel her heart. There was nothing.
 
The man followed me into the room and slammed the door. “You just had to see my face, didn’t you,” he said coldly. “This changes things."

“Why did you kill her!” I demanded, despite the gun in his hand.
 
“She was too damn proper to take me in her face! Women I pay for do my bidding, or they die. Who the hell are you?”
 
His words didn’t make any sense, but I knew he was crazy, and thought I was about to die.
 
“What?” I said.
         
“Who the hell are you?”  
 
"She's my mother.”
 
He laughed. “Well, this is special. Two for the price of one today!”
 
I felt horror, sorrow, and fear all mixed together. I was shaking all over when the man's powerful hands reached down and pulled me away from my mother.
 
He held me suspended in the air and said, “Let’s give me some of that tender pussy."
 
I struggled and pulled, but he threw my small frame onto mother’s bed. He unzipped his pants and sat on my chest, forcing himself in my face. I squirmed and twisted but couldn’t breathe and cried out softly in a raspy voice.  
 
He bent close and said, “Scream again, and I’ll give you a taste of this.” He was holding up a shiny knife, his hardening dick still in my face.  
 
Mother was dead, I was about to be. I chewed the words, “Get it over with,” and
spread my leads underneath him.
 
“There, that’s a good girl.” He yanked off my pants and pinned me face down with his hand in the small of my back. In an instant, I felt him pressing against me, and heard the headboard begin to thump the wall. I kicked hard with my leg up behind me and caught him in his tinder spot. I wasn't going to let this beast into my special place where I'd given and receive so much pleasure in my short life.
 
He yelled,  "You hurt me, bitch," and flipped me on my back. He straddled my chest, jerking himself. He stared in my eyes as hot drops fell on my mouth along with sweat from his face. I spewed the salty mixture of fluid from my lips like poisonous sludge.  
 
“Now I got my money’s worth. Kinda wish I could keep you, but we don’t want pretty little daughter pegging me in a lineup, do we? I’ll never go back to prison, little bitch. Bad break for you.”  
 
He slid down to my waist and pressed his left hand into my chest. "I'm sixteen. I haven't lived yet! Please let me go," I pleaded. 
 
I sobbed beneath him. His right arm was crossed over his left pressing into the bed next to my head. I felt the cold blade touching my right ear. "I want to be a wife, and a mom. I want to do some good someday. I gave you what you wanted. Please let me live!" I went limp again and felt my heart pounding against his hand. "I'm all that's left of my mother," I whispered as my breathing slowed.  
 
He stared long into my face as if considering my life, all I had been and all that I might one day become.  He slowly bowed down close and whispered, “You are beautiful,” then gently kissed my wet lips and I let him with a sense of relief as I felt his body relax. He rubbed his fingers gently on my chin.
 
In an instant, he pushed my chin up and I felt a sting quickly across my neck and the ping of metal against mother's nightstand.  My warm life gushed out onto my chest in unison with my pounding heart. I heard the gurgling exhale of my last breath of air and felt blood flowing over my shoulders.  
 
The man still straddled me as he reached for a tissue to wipe his blade. At that moment, images played before my eyes. My young mother holding me in her arms, my first day at school, ice cream and cotton candy. My first times with Phillip, every laugh, every feeling of happiness, all rushed toward me in a  tunnel of euphoric light that sprayed out over me, erasing my pain.  
 
I felt my face glowing radiantly from those memories of my sixteen years. Then I felt a coldness and an orgasmic rush in my spine and for a moment, my eyes cleared. I smiled kindly up at my killer’s puzzled face.
 
 It was all beautiful in its time, though short. There were no choirs of angels or heavenly gates. No eternal punishment. All went black and silent. I was no more.