Miranda Keskes
Perseus Isn’t a Character in This Story
I return to the scene: the abandoned cement plant. The monstrosity stands in defiance against the sandy shoreline, its stone chutes snaking out like tentacles.
Five months ago, I begged him to stop. After, my best friend called me a backstabber and a whore. Now, people avert their eyes when I pass by.
I place my hand against my swollen belly. Standing in the shadows of the stone structure, my resolve hardens.
There is the fluttering of beating wings in my womb.
Further down the shoreline, I watch the group of them around a bonfire, their bodies slithering against one another. Empty bottles reflect the moonlight. He looks up from the writhing body he presses down upon.
He is not expecting me tonight.
Curiosity and lust take over. He disengages from the group and comes to me, his silhouette enlarging as he approaches. The wind picks up, twisting my long hair into knots.
I tell him I want to talk. He has other plans. He drags me inside and forces me down onto a pile of rubble. I hiss at the pain, but he covers my mouth. I taste the grit of sand in my teeth.
Grasping, my hand connects with a chunk of concrete. My eyes meet his. He freezes. There is a rattling in my ears as the stone meets his skull.
Conception
“I’m ready to know how babies are made.”
My ten year old has been bringing up the topic—at the grocery store, after-school care, the neighbor’s backyard—but now he finds a captive audience of one at his bedside.
I can’t get up. His body is too heavy, too strong. The carpet burns against my skin.
“Alright.” I explain the process like a perfunctory scientist. “The man puts his penis in the woman’s vagina...”
Stop. Please.
“...releasing sperm, fertilizing the egg in the woman.”
He moans, kisses me roughly, then leaves to join his friends.
“Did it hurt when my dad.…” He squirms, scrunching his face.
I lie there, immobile, skirt hiked up, one breast bare. Someone steps over me to grab another beer.
“Yes...but it’s not meant to.”
He looks down, frowning. “I’m sorry.”
The right words. The wrong mouth.
“You have nothing to apologize for.” I pull him into my arms, embracing the warmth of his body against my own. My eyes drift to the bedroom window.
The moon is full. Light pierces through the clouds
Miranda Keskes is a writer and educator whose fiction appears in Blink Ink, Pigeon Review, Every Day Fiction, Bright Flash Literary Review, Microfiction Monday, 50-Word Stories, The Drabble, as well as the following anthologies: Heart/h, Hysteria, and 100 Ways to Die. She lives in Michigan with her husband and their two boys. You can find her on Instagram @miranda_keskes_writer.
