Counterclockwise, Kara/Laura, 5200 words, MA
warnings: drug abuse, child abuse,
a big thank you to clare for her very helpful feedback.
I.
2000-2001
Momma and me, we move around a lot: Athens then Olympiad then Thessaly then Jupiter City. We’re heading to Alexandria now, some shitstain city forty miles east of the Caprican coast, too far inland to smell the sea.
I sketch while she drives, nothing in particular, a wolf then random patterns then spirals.
“You finished that problem set I gave you?” she asks, blowing cigarette smoke out her rolled-down window. I shove my sketchbook and coloured pencils into my backpack, draw my hands into the sleeves of my flannel shirt. It used to be my Dad’s.
“Yes Sir, I finished it,” I say, lying as best I can. She gives me worksheet after worksheet after worksheet like she thinks I’m frakking stupid or something. I keep telling her, I know this shit.
“You lying to me, Kara?” Momma says, and I feel the car accelerate. I think she does it to scare me, but I love it. Long time ago, I used to sit in her lap and take the wheel while she manned the pedal. I’d tell her to go faster, faster, faster. And she would, too, the little needle on the speedometer maxing out.
“No, Momma. I’m not lying. I swear to gods, I finished it.”
“’Cause you’re gonna be startin at a new school tomorrow,” she says. She tosses the stub of her cigarette out on to the road.
“I know,” I say.
“And I won’t have you embarrassing me.”
I shrug. “Gimme a problem, any problem. I bet you I can do it in my head.”
So she quizzes me on the simplest stuff, like if you put a square inside a circle, and the radius of the circle is eleven centimeters, what’s the area of the square? Or how did the Gemenon Civil War resolve? Or what’s the Treaty of Mt. Galilead? How many protons does Vanadium have, and what about its electron configuration decides whether or not it’s a reactive metal?
My own electron makeup is frakked to pieces.
That’s an angsty teen metaphor thing.
Because really, there are billions of atoms inside me, mostly carbon, and they’re configured just how they’re supposed to be. Otherwise I’d be dead, right?
*
Day one, the kids dub me Buck, because of my teeth.
“You are so original,” I say.
My two front teeth, it’s not like they’re really big or anything, but they stick out at this weird angle. Braces are for rich kids.
At least here they’re not calling me Beaver, like they did at that one school. I mean, who wants to be nicknamed after a vagina?
“What’d you say to me, little bitch?” some girl says to me. She’s skinny with dark hair and brown eyes, wears a frilly blouse that’s almost see-through, a skirt, knee socks, heels.
“I was just saying how original you are, that’s all,” I repeat.
She keeps coming at me like she thinks I won’t beat the shit out of her, shoving me into the lockers, calling me dyke, white trash, ugly, worthless, a piece of shit. I’ve heard much worse from people I care way more about than her, so I don’t really give a crap. But then she grabs the tail of my shirt, a flannel I got on over a tank top. It slides off my shoulder, down my arm, where I know there’s a bruise, so I punch her so hard I break her nose.
*
Ms. Roslin breaks it up. She pulls me off the girl and says, “Calm down, calm down, calm down,” her hands firm on my shoulder. She’s frakking strong, ‘cause I try to slip out her grip, but it’s not happening, like, not even a little bit.
“If you don’t get your hands off me I’ll frakking kill you,” I say, trying to wrestle away.
“Right,” she says, like she doesn’t believe me. He hand is tight around my arm as she barks out orders. “Cally, see Margaret to the nurse. Felix, tell the secretary that the headmaster should be expecting me shortly. He’s in a meeting at present; tell the secretary I don’t care. The rest of you, back to class, now. Anyone still in the hallways in thirty seconds can expect both tardy slips and a week’s detention. And you all know how I love to call parents.”
That clears things pretty quickly, til it’s just me and her.
“Are you ready to calm down now?” she says.
Roslin talks funny, like she’s annoyed and happy at the same time, all smooth and quiet and calm, but sharp.
“Let go of me, and you’ll find out,” I say.
“Not an option, Ms. Thrace.”
How in the hell does she know my name already? I only know hers because of the assembly she spoke at this morning.
*
She waits with me in a chair outside the headmaster’s office, one leg crossed over the other like she’s afraid her snatch is gonna run off and join the circus or something. I keep my legs spread, my elbows on my knees, resting. Some kids would be worried right about now, about getting in trouble. But not me. I’ll tell Momma what happened, that some prissy bitch thought she could show me. We’ll go out for dinner. We’ll have steak.
“Did you get those in that fight just now?” Roslin asks, gesturing to my arm.
Shit, my shirt. I don’t even know where it is now. Must’ve fallen off when I was hurtling Margaret into the lockers.
“Yeah,” I say. “Don’t worry, though. The other guy looks much worse.”
She nods, smiles at my lame joke. “You’re a very quick healer,” she says.
“What?”
“Those bruises, they’re yellow and green. If you got them in that fight just now, you’re a very quick healer,” Ms. Roslin says.
I shrug. “Yeah, whatever.”
The headmaster calls me in, and I’m supposed to see him alone first. Ms. Roslin takes her blazer off, hands it to me. It’s dark blue with brass buttons, and I put it on. “I’ll bring this back for you tomorrow,” I say.
She frowns at me, “No,” she says. “Keep it.” She’s pretty, kind of. Really pretty. I wonder how long she’s been teaching for. Seems like she’s got the ropes of it, but she’s not old enough to have been at it that long. Twenty-seven, maybe? That’s probably off. I always think people are younger or older than they are, to the point where there’s no use guessing.
“Don’t worry. I don’t have cooties,” I say. “Besides, I’ll take it to the cleaners, and it’ll be just like new.”
“The headmaster’s waiting,” says Ms. Roslin. “And keep the jacket. Looks good on you, anyhow.”
She smiles, and I just want to keep staring at her face forever.
*
Ms. Roslin’s classroom is okay to visit during my lunch period. She’s always at her desk, grading papers, fingers massaging her temples, glasses about ready to fall off her nose. Momma doesn’t give me money to buy lunch, and I never remember to pack anything, so Roslin usually lets me have her chips or something. Then she starts packing extra stuff, two sandwiches, two cookies, two apples.
One day she looks upset, and I ask her what’s wrong.
“That,” she says, pointing to my lip. It’s busted, but it doesn’t really hurt none. I’d forgotten it was there.
“What else is wrong?” I say. “My lip was just as frakked up yesterday, but you were fine.”
I look at the photos on her desk: a man and a woman, I’m guessing her mum and dad, then two girls that look to be about my age, probably a bit older. “Those your daughters?” I ask.
She snorts and spits out some of the coffee she’s been drinking. “Ouch,” she says, “that hurts.”
“You could’ve had them young,” I say.
She smiles as she looks at the photo. “I suppose that’s true. But no. Sisters.”
I hoist myself up onto her desk, swing my legs back and forth. “You know, I’m not afraid of you,” I say.
“That’s good to know,” she says.
“Everyone else is. But I’m not,” I go on.
“Competent people have no reason to be afraid me,” says Laura.
The bell rings, so I have to go. Ms. Roslin says, “Meet me in the nurse’s office so we can see about putting ice on that lip.”
I practically skip through the hallways.
*
A few weeks later a social worker comes by. Momma lies. I lie. It’s all good. Still, I get it with the belt aftewards, hard. She undoes my belt for me and folds it in half, then yanks down my trousers and knickers. It’s cold-heater’s broken-the only heat we got what comes from the open oven in the kitchen.
I have a hypothesis that during the War, someone hurt Momma bad, over and over again.
Now she does to me whatever they did to her, touching and hitting and sticking things places. She gets off on it or something. I know about this stuff, mostly from procedurals. Momma can’t help it. None of them on the cop shows can help it. Nobody can help it. It’s like crying. Out of nowhere, you’re a blubbering mess, and you can’t make yourself suck the tears back up.
I’ve tried, believe me.
I think I pass out, because when I wake up it’s an hour later, and there are clean clothes folded neatly besides me, grey briefs. We move away that night, packing our shit into the pickup.
I almost forget the directory, the stupid booklet I got on my first day of school with names of all the students, teachers, and administrators. I rip out one page and stuff it into my pocket, then meet Momma out in the transport.
“You got everything?” she asks.
I nod, then she hands me a red bottle, pills. “For the pain,” she says.
I guess she’s talking about my butt and my thighs and my lower back, pink with welts, tingling.
“I’m fine,” I say.
*
to: lauraroslin@caprica.twelve
from: titaniumphoenix80@caprica.twelve
re: (no subject)
18 October 2000
hi ms. roslin. this is kara thrace. you probably don’t remember me but i’m the girl that sent that other girl to the ER. you gave me your jacket, remember? (don’t worry i’m keeping it safe). i know you’re the one who called CPS and everything, but my mum and me are long gone now, sorry. i am okay, though, and as soon as i turn sixteen (one month!) i’m going out on my own. military. my mum won’t be able to stop me since i’ll be legally an adult, and basic training is off planet, so i’ll be unreachable, even to her.
kara
*
to: titaniumphoenix80@caprica.twelve
from: lauraroslin@caprica.twelve
re: (no subject)
18 October 2000
Kara,
It’s so wonderful to hear from you. Thank you for your very thoughtful message, and I’m relieved to hear that you have plans to get yourself out of what sounds like a terrible situation. I do hope, however, you’ll see to finishing up school. The Fleet will always be there, but high school is hard enough the first time around. You don’t want to have to do it again. You are bright and will do many great things, as long as you take your education seriously. Do you have other family you can stay with while you finish your last two years?
Are you safe? Where are you? Do you have an address where I can send a birthday gift?
Warmly,
Laura
*
to: lauraroslin@caprica.twelve
from: titaniumphoenix80@caprica.twelve.
re: (no subject)
24 November 2000
hey ms. r. sorry it took me so long to get back to you. i hear you on the school thing, but no, i don’t really have any family to speak of. i’m still at home. my mom did get me braces for my birthday, though, so that’s pretty cool. a guitar, too. right now we’re both laying low, so that means homeschooling. haha, that’s only for the gemenese, right? well, we do okay.
*
to: titaniumphoenix80@caprica.twelve
from: lauraroslin@caprica.twelve
re: (no subject)
25 November 2000
Kara,
Why don’t you come stay with me?
-L
*
I sneak out so I can get a head start. Even if Momma figures out where I’m going, I’ll be a planet or two ahead of her.
Ms. Roslin bought the ticket for me. I check for it in my pockets every other minute. The taxi ride to the spaceport takes forever. I put my hair up in a hat and wear baggy trousers and a pyramid shirt in hopes that anyone who’d remember me will think I’m a boy.
When I get there, to her place, she’s got it all set up, a guest room in her flat with a giant bed and a dresser of drawers made of some expensive looking wood.
I sit on the mattress, and she joins me.
“You’re really nice for doing this,” I say, “for letting me stay here.”
“It’s no big deal, I promise,” says Ms. Roslin, and she puts her hand on my shoulder.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, then reach over to undo the top button of her blouse, my fingers grazing her neck and collar bone. She shoves my hand away and jumps back, snapping my name like a reprimand. “Kara, what on earth are you doing?” she asks.
“Would you rather undress me first?” I ask. I guess I had it wrong. I figured her for a bottom, not a top.
She stands up, frowning, looking like she’s about to cry or something.
“No, Kara. Not at all, no. What I want is for you to get into your PJs and get a good night’s rest, so we can see about registering you for school tomorrow morning. No undressing. No undressing at any point, ever.”
“You want me to just, go to bed?” I ask.
“Yes,” Ms. Roslin says. “That’s it. Maybe brush your teeth, wash your face, watch an episode or two of Bewitched.”
I ball my hands into fists up into my sleeves. “You married or something?” I say.
That makes her laugh, so I ask, “What’s so funny?”
“I’m too young to be married,” she says. “I’m only 32, you know.”
“32 is old,” I say, “I mean, old enough for marriage.”
She leans against the dresser like she’s thinking about something, then shuts off the overhead light. “I’ll see you in the morning, Kara,” she says. “And remember, you’re here because I wanted you to have a safe place to turn to. That’s it, okay? You remember that.”
I do remember it, but it takes a while to get used to.
She has me call her Laura, which I like better. It’s a pretty name.
We register me for school, but not at the same one as before, where she teaches. Laura says she thinks it wouldn’t be a good idea. I hate this school as much as the last, and the one before that, but I make myself get good grades. Laura helps with the harder stuff, and is somewhere between a mum and a sister and a friend, only you usually don’t want to see your mum or your sister or your friend naked, like I do, so it’s a bit different.
Usually, she picks me up after school. We go to a coffee shop, where I do my homework and she does whatever it is she does.
I meet this girl, named Kat, and we drink together in the back of the school, cutting the last few periods of the day. Laura hates that. I’m drunk one time when she picks me up, and she’s freaking out. I brace myself to get hit, my eyes shut tight, but she just lectures me about my future and my potential.
I get sick that night, all nauseated from the booze. I expect her to be all I told you so about it, but she just makes me eat greasy food and drink water until the pain subsides.
“You’re not allowed to do this,” she says. I’m brushing my teeth, finally done throwing up, and she’s standing in the doorway in her PJs. I just shrug.
“Your house, your rules,” I tell her, spit into the sink, rinse my mouth out with warm water.
“That’s not it,” she says. “It’s just, have you ever thought of talking to someone?”
I laugh and grab the wash cloth of the rack, get it wet with some soapy shit Laura bought me that’s pretty good at making me not get pimples. “Do you talk to anyone about things?” I ask her.
I know she doesn’t. She talks to her sisters on the phone, but always about easy stuff. I don’t even think they know I’m staying with her.
I hope she’s not too disappointed when I enlist a few months later. I’ve just never been good at the whole school thing.
She sends me care packages whilst I’m away, with pulpy mystery novels and formulaic thrillers, some comic books, shampoo, soap, sweets. I miss her so much but I don’t tell her that in any of the letters I send her, because she never says it to me.
II.
2010-2012
I cremate Momma because I hate to think of her in the ground, rotting away. I’d rather think of her burning then disappearing forever.
I call up my dealer and meet him at his place, give him twenty cubits for a hit.
When I’m high I think of swimming naked and flying Vipers and Laura, her face, her smile, her voice. I barely remember it, it’s been so godsdamn long. Since when I started using, I guess, five years ago, maybe six.
I’d been on leave, back on Caprica, so we went for lunch, to catch up and shit. I must’ve been twenty-one, I guess. This guy kept hitting on her, like an ass, even though she told him no over and over and to back off. He grabbed her ass as we were leaving the café, so of course, I kicked his ass.
Laura acted fine on the cab ride back to her place, but it was like I was on stims or something and I couldn’t calm down. How could she sit there like that, like nothing had happened, stony and hard and unmoving?
And gorgeous and sweet and strong. I wanted to hold her and take care of her.
Shortly after that I guess we just lost touch.
*
She finds me somehow. All I know is that I wake up in sheets that smell like her, sick out of my mind, nauseated and sore and parched and too hot and too cold and too sticky and so fucking depressed I want to burn myself alive, ‘cause that would feel better than what I feel like right now.
“Laura?” I ask.
She’s at my side in a second, with a cup of water. “You’re so sick,” she says. I close my eyes so I can listen to her speak, her voice lolling me back to sleep.
Later, I throw up and throw up and throw up. Her palm is on my back, and my cheek rests on the toilet bowl. This a la canona approach is bullshit, and gods, I want a fix so bad. There’s a baggie of tar in the pocket of my trousers, and I make a run for it. I tear up her place looking for those stupid jeans. Not under any of the pillow cushions, not in the desk drawers, her dresser drawers, not in her closet, not in the coat closet. When I finally find the trousers in the laundry room, clean and folded and smelling like detergent, I search the pockets. There’s nothing there.
“It’s all gone,” she says, hands folded over her chest, and I half expect her to grab my shoulder and tell me to calm down, like she did all those years ago, refusing to relinquish her grip.
“I fucking hate you, you worthless cunt,” I say. “You think you’re doing something? You think anything you’ve done matters? It doesn’t, none of it, because you’re nothing.” My breath comes in heaves and everything hurts.
Laura’s got her hands tucked into her robe. She doesn’t look at me, eyes on her feet. “If you want to go, then go,” she says, walking to her bedroom, shutting the door.
I try to open it but it’s locked. I end up sleeping on her porch because I feel like an invader in her house
*
I get clean, I guess-or rather, Laura gets me clean. I can’t afford rehab and I won’t let her pay for it, even though she insists over and over. She drives me to and from these meetings, sometimes two times or three times a day, and lets me stay at her place.
“Don’t you have work?” I ask, and I’m crouched on the toilet, trembling because I’m covered in sweat and it’s freezing inside her place.
She pokes a thermometer in my mouth, under my tongue, and I feel six rather than twenty-six. Maybe that should be a bad thing, but it’s okay. “38.9,” she says, frowning, and dabs a warm wash cloth on my cheeks and forehead. The vomiting’s stopped, but my muscles still ache from all the heaving, especially my back and stomach, and I wonder if she’ll give me a Percocet for the pain.
“Do you have anything I can take?” I ask her. My voice doesn’t sound like my voice. Too quiet, too deep, too raspy. It scratches at my ears. I wonder what I must look like. For the first time in a long time, I can see my body for what it is. In just briefs in a t-shirt, my thighs down to my knees look underfed, almost thinner than Laura’s, which isn’t right because even when I was a kid I was bigger than her.
“You can have some Tylenol,” she says, “it’ll help with the fever, too.”
“Tylenol?” I ask.
“Tylenol,” she says. “That’s it.”
“Great,” I say.
She smiles and gets the pills for me, lets me wash them down with some chicken broth, the first food I’ve had in days. “I’d give you ibuprofen, too,” she says, “but I worry the combination of pills will upset your system even more.” Laura sets her palm on my belly and massages. My breath snags in my throat.
She stays at home with me for three weeks. It’s summer, so she’s got some time off. When the sickness goes away and it no longer feels like I want to throw up or shit out my insides, she makes me eat. I tell her I haven’t eaten this good since the last time I lived with her.
She’s remembered all my favourites. I sit at the kitchen table, wearing track shorts and a hoodie she bought me, while she stir-fries noodles and pork and veggies.
I need to pay her back somehow, but with what? The last five years have been an exercise in burning bridges. I’m glad I mustered out the Fleet when I did, before I got like this, and there’s a chance I can re-enlist, maybe take a local post, I don’t know.
Laura sits across from me for supper. She’s kind of giddy, I can tell, but I don’t know why. Her smile makes me feel unbroken. Her laugh makes me want to laugh and never stop laughing.
*
We frak for the first time after she gets the news about Cheryl and Sandra. She doesn’t cry, not a bit, just shakes and trembles as she sits on the edge of her bed. “Do you want me to leave?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer.
It’s early evening, but she’s still in the night dress she wore to bed last night. It’s short and shows off her legs. I reach out and squeeze her thigh. It seems like the sort of thing to do for someone, I don’t know. I want to give her heroin. I want to shoot it into her body so that she can feel good. I want her high to never end.
“Do you want a drink or something?” I ask. She doesn’t keep booze in the house, on my account, but it’s not far to the corner store.
“No, thank you,” she says.
“A coffee?” I say. “Some supper?”
She’s not eaten, not all day.
Laura reaches out and rubs the tattoo that encircles my wrist, a laurel wreath. I got it after one year of being sober. She lifts my wrist to her mouth and kisses gently.
“I suspect you know how to do it hard, yes?” she asks, and in case there’s any doubt about what she means, she places my hand over her breast.
I swallow and shrug. “Yeah,” I say.
“That’s how I want it then,” she says, and pushes my palm down and presses it to her knickers, between her legs. There are good people, the sort who move their hand away and say, this isn’t what you really need, but that’s not me.
I rub her through the satiny fabric, feel her getting wet. I vow then that I’ll make her soak so many pairs of underwear for me.
She rests her head on my shoulder, reaches her hand up my shirt, moving up slowly to my bra. She unclasps my bra, lets out a little moan when she palms one of my breasts.
I don’t frak her hard like I’m supposed to, like she asked for. Because I can’t. She’s too beautiful and perfect, and for now it’s all I can do just to touch her, feel her skin, which for years has seemed holy to me. I pull her knickers to the side so I can see the sparse hair and the wet skin. I want to taste her, shove my tongue inside her. But I know if I do that any modicum of self-control I have will be good and gone, and it won’t be long til I’m throwing her onto all fours and fingering her pussy from behind.
So I hold off for now, rubbing circles around her clit. Gods, she’s hot, and her body is incredible. My fingers are all wet with her.
I circle her faster as she starts to move her hips a little bit and close her thighs, whispering into her ear about how I’ve wanted to frak her since I was fifteen, that she’s the most stunning thing that has ever existed or will exist, that soon enough I’m going to lick her off until she screams. She bites my neck hard as she comes, then we kiss, off and on until it’s light outside.
*
It’s weird how out of nowhere there are good days again.
I am filling out this stupid application thing for this stupid university when I see her kneading a ball of bread dough. She’s got flour on her trousers, right over her ass, and everywhere else, too. In her hair. On her nose.
“We need to get you an apron,” I say, walking up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and kissing her neck, nibbling and licking the skin until she shudders and sighs and makes the sweetest little noise.
Then she pulls away. “Nope, nope, nope,” she says, “Back it up. It is me versus sourdough at the moment, and I cannot afford any distractions. Besides, I know you haven’t finished your application.”
I kiss her one more time, pulling her hair up, my lips pressed to her nape, but then leave her alone, par her request.
When the bread is in the oven, I take Laura on the table. I lift her up and get on my knees and lick her and tongue her clit and taste her, and I can never get enough, no matter what. My face doesn’t want to be anywhere but buried between her thighs, her slick skin pressed against my cheeks, my lips getting her off. She cries out so loud when she comes, her hand knotted in my hair, pulling me closer so I can barely breathe.
*
There are bad days, too, times when she can’t bring herself to leave the bed. I make her tea and oatmeal, all did up with half-and-half and brown sugar how she likes it, cinnamon and nutmeg sprinkled on top.
She lets herself cry now, every once in a while, and I hold her as she sobs. I never know what to do, how to make her all right. Those are the moments I most wish I was her, because she always knows what to say, how to act.
I try to take care of everything, the way she always does. Laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking. Everybody calls for her, in need of something, ever since she got elected president of the board. “I’ll get to it tomorrow,” she says, curled under the blanket. She will. She always does.
*
I need her all the time, but some days, I’ll go off alone. There’s this shop that sells old, rusting fighters, and I save me up enough to buy this classic Viper, all bent out of shape. I work on her whenever I can.
I hear Laura before I see her, her heels clicking, revealing her distinctive gate. I push myself up from under Laurel-that’s what I’m calling the bird.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “You okay?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” she says. “At the book fair.” I nod, remembering that that was today.
I’m dirty and stained with tylium but I kiss her anyway. We’re alone in the garage, most everyone else out for lunch. “I brought you food,” she says.
We lay up under the Viper, where it’s dark and warm, and she tells me about all the crazy characters she saw at the fair. She’s laughing as she tells me a story about this one family who had their six kids, three sets of twins it looked like, on a leash, and how one of them just started barking, then all the kids started barking, then all these actual dogs started barking.
I kiss her as she laughs, silencing her, slipping my tongue into her mouth, reaching my hand beneath the waistband of her trousers. She reaches for me, too, her fingers inside me, and I lose it, frakking her hand because I need her so much. We come together.
Sometimes, I worry our trajectories don’t quite match, but I live for these moments where we intersect. That night when we go home, we order pizza for supper. It’s all so normal I could cry. But I don’t, just kiss Laura’s neck, thinking thank you, thank you, thank you over and over again.