Page 67 of The Vixen

My chest aches at the images that play in my mind, two girls with a doll—hers. She brought it on her weekly visit, and I marveled at the clumsy stitching, gushed as I brushed coarse dark hair stolen from a horse's tail. I teared up when she told me I could have it.

The next week my Father filled my room with dolls—shiny silk hair, porcelain skin, purchased online. When I gave one to Zephyr, he beat her twice as hard.

She deserved better… And she deserved to hate me for it.

“She was sad,” I finally finish past the gunk in my throat.

This time, I’m grateful when Sawyer doesn’t respond or ask me to elaborate. We lay in the silence, the air thick with sex and naked truth.Mytruth.

I swallow. Close my eyes. Tap my nail against a rib. “Your turn.”

“My turn,” Sawyer parrots. A breath blows past his lips while he searches his mind. For a truth. For a lie. I don’t know.

“It’s not as good as yours.” I feel his head turn but don’t open my eyes.

“Then find one better.”

“You have one better,” he counters like he was waiting for it.

My molars grind—subtle, gentle, not angry. My thoughts take me back to the training house, to the very last words he spoke before my time as a captive was officially up.

His mother. He told me about his mother.

“Fine.” Eyelids fluttering open, I drag myself off of him and lie flat on my back. Seven cracks in the popcorn ceiling, all counted before Sawyer speaks.

“I cried the first time I watchedPinocchio.”

Pinocchio. Like the children’s book…

I suppress a scoff.

How revealing.

“Afraid your nose would grow?”

He laughs—barely. Maybe it’s a cough. “Something like that… No, mostly I found it unbearably confusing. Mrs. Carter kept saying over and over ‘see what happens to boys who tell the truth?’. It all just seemed very backwards. Like…” Long pause. “I don’t know. But my pillow was soaking wet the next morning.”

“Poor baby,” I mock, though I can’t help but see what he’s saying.

A memory plays, almost forgotten.

Sitting on my father’s lap, a children’s book in his hands. After closing it, he pressed it to my chest and asked the same question he always asked after finishing a story.

What does it mean?

Simple answer, however meaningless: bad things happen when you lie. Good things happen when you tell the truth.

Good girl, he whispered in my ear.

I smiled. And as soon as he was gone, I tucked the book on the bottom of a stack, never to be seen again.

“I suppose this happened in college?” I joke. Because why not? If we’re going to talk nonsense, we might as well paint a picture.

“Kindergarten.”

Hurray. Details.

My hands clasp over my belly, thumbs tapping while I look at the door.