became the manager of the candle factory. They ran it twenty-fourâseven, rotating the workers on day and night shifts. I guess they had enough customers that they needed to make all those candles. Iâm sure it had something to do with the âillegalsâ they hired as wellâmaybe they knew there wouldnât be inspections at night. My mother used to talk about the two payrolls, the one on the books and the one that was cash. Greg worked on and off as a carpenter. He used to tell my mother to keep track of the cash, donât trust anyone. Especially the âillegals.â He had several tattoos. One of them was on his neck. It was a snake and then some words under it. âDonât tread on me,â they said. He wasnât a fan of the government. âThe manâ he used to call it. Anything that had any authority was âthe man,â like some kind of hippie. He was an idiot.
The first night it happened, my mother was at work. I was seventeen. We lived in this little shithole apartment with one bedroom and thin walls. The kitchen was nothing more than an electric burner and microwave. We didnât even have a proper oven. There was one bathroom with a tiny shower that ran out of hot water every morning because the neighbors were also âillegalsââthey must have had six or seven people crammed into that place. Greg disliked âillegalsâ almost as much as the government. He used to walk around, talking to himself. He and my mother shared the bedroom and I slept on the sofa, so I had nowhere to go when he came out of there. I heard a lot of crazy shit coming from him.
Anyway, I would be lying if I said I didnât see it coming. Women just know. Maybe men do, too, but Iâm not convinced of it. We can tell when thereâs a shift, when a man has decided he wants to fuck us. Iâve felt it with guy friends in college. Iâve felt it in crowded bars. Iâve felt it with colleagues at work. And I felt it with Greg. I did my best to ignore him, stay out of his way. I started wearing more clothing, pants instead of skirts, flat shoes, turtlenecks. It didnât matter. It never does, does it? Like I said, once a man has decided he wants to fuck you, thereâs no getting him off that position. So the night it happened, I had come home from work. I was a waitress at a diner a couple of nights a week. I remember being really upset about a customer. I truly can remember every minute of that nightâhow this customer yelled at me for bringing him pie with ice cream on it when heâd said no ice cream. He was right and I said I was sorry, but he asked to see my manager, kept yelling, wanting his meal for free. I started to cry. I thought I was going to be fired. My boss told me to go home. God, it sounds so stupid now. It turned out the guy did this every time to try to get a free meal.
âThat would be upsetting to any seventeen-year-old,â I told her.
I suppose. The point is, I came home crying. Greg was there. We sat on the couch and he listened to me talk for a long time. He got us each a beer. He told me everything would be okay. And I actually felt comforted by him. I let my guard down.
The rest of the story requires some graphic detail, but I believe it is important. I apologize if it is hard to read.
Greg smiled at her and stroked her hair. I imagine he had convinced himself that she wanted him as well, even behind the turtlenecks and the long pants. People believe what they want to believe. Her heart started to pound wildly, but she didnât move. He stroked her face. He moaned. It sounded like the word âahhhh.â He studied her eyes like a lover. He reached under her shirt and touched her breast. He moaned again and she felt his hot breath on her face as he leaned in to kiss her.
Charlotte remembers feeling frozen. He had comforted her and she wanted more. Not like this. Not with her body. But that was all that was on
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