Joyce Oates: Sourland

Trying to speak but she could not speak. Her throat was shut up tight, her eyeballs turned in their sockets. Trying to protest No! Trying to tell him No she did not want this not like this, she was frightened of him, she was terrified of such sensation, now truly she was resisting him, trying to push him off. The whiskers like steel wool scratched her skin. The rough serrated skin like an animal’s hide was wearing her skin raw. She had never kissed a man with such a beard before, the sensation was so very strange. She had never kissed a man with a mutilated face, a ruin of a mouth, the sensation was so very strange. The man lay with his full weight on her, as a wrestler might lie on his opponent, naked, sweating, determined to triumph. Like some bare smooth-skinned creature she squirmed and thrashed beneath him, she could not breathe, another time he was smothering her, his hungry-sucking mouth on hers was suffocating her, his penis was immense and terrible as a club, she could not believe the size and hardness of this club sprouting from the man, such a thing thrust against her blindly, stupidly, a blind brute thing, that had no idea where to enter her, by sheer force pushing inside her as she gasped for breath her eyes flung open Oh! oh oh in the girl-sized bed that creaked and jangled beneath their struggling bodies she was being pounded — hammered — beaten into submission — beaten into unconsciousness — she was clutching at the man’s heaving sweat-slick shoulders, her nails tore and broke on the man’s back, she felt scar tissue like Braille beneath her fingertips as between her legs she was torn open, eviscerated as darkness rushed at her, into her, in the bliss of utter extinction.

Waking then, later. How many hours later. In the tangled and smelly bedsheets. And the man was gone from her. Rising painfully — she was naked, barefoot — her hair in her face and her eyelashes stuck together — she began to pull on her clothing — what she could find of her clothing — the fine-woolen trousers, the linen shirt, the sweater — quickly and clumsily she dressed — she stumbled to the door, that was shut — she turned the knob, and the door opened — she had not expected the door to open.

In the other room the man turned to her, startled — in waning firelight his face was a demon’s face, she could not bear to see it.

Sophie told him she wanted to leave. She was desperate to leave this place. She would leave now, he must drive her back to Grand Rapids now, she’d been very sick, her head pounded. She’d been very drunk. She was certain, she was not drunk now. Except she’d been sleeping with her mouth agape, the interior of her mouth was parched as sand.

Kolk came to Sophie, to touch her — to calm her. Sophie threw off his hand, like a snake. Sophie could not have said what was wrong, why she was so furious with the man. She began to scream — Take me away from here. I hate it here take me away from here. The man seized her arms, her elbows. The man was speaking harshly to her. The man was shouting at her. Sophie kicked at him, or tried to. Sophie wrenched her arms free and beat at him with her fists — his head, shoulders. He cursed her, and pushed her back into the room. He pushed her back onto the bed. In the doorway, the little pig-dog was barking hysterically. Flames rippled in Sophie’s brain, blue-rippling flames of madness. With furious strength she struggled with the man, like a panicked cat, trying to claw him, trying to bite but the man was too quick for her. He left her — he shut the door — she heard the door being locked from the outside and knew that it had happened now.

All that she had dreaded in Sourland, had happened.

What happened next, Sophie would not fully recall.

She’d been furious with her captor — she’d been hysterical — she shook and turned the doorknob, to no effect — she pounded her fists against the door, to no effect — the door was solid planks, it would not yield. In the other room the fierce little dog continued to bark, there was a hysterical elation in the dog’s barking. The man stood close outside the door and spoke to Sophie — he was telling her to be still, to be quiet, to lie down and try to sleep, he would not hurt her, he would not touch her, but she could not leave.

In a voice of forced calm the man spoke to Sophie but she knew, the man was furious, shaken. His manhood had been insulted, he would never forgive her. He would keep her captive forever, he would murder her. He was not to be trusted. The mock-calm of his speech, the “logic” of his manner — he was not to be trusted. Between her legs Sophie was raw, luminous with pain. Something liquid-hot ran down the insides of her thighs, revolting to her. She smelled of her body, and of the man’s body. She could not bear it, she’d been violated by him. She would never forgive him. The man was saying she couldn’t leave by herself — it was the middle of the night — and he wasn’t about to drive her. He had driven more than six hours that day, he was not going to drive her anywhere now. In the morning, maybe — if she still wanted to leave. In the morning — maybe — he would drive her to the airport at Grand Rapids.

This, he told her: but she paid no heed to him. She did not trust him, she detested him. Her body crawled with the memory of having been touched by him, there was no part of her that had not been violated by him. She was screaming until her throat was raw, she was pounding at the door with both her fists. Everywhere, her body was covered in bruises. Her fists throbbed with pain, her knuckles were skinned, bruised. She could not bear it, the man had locked the door and would not open it. The man had locked her in the room, and would not release her. She was his captive now, he had triumphed over her and would not release her until she was broken by him, annihilated. In a faint she stumbled back to the bed. All her senses were alert, spinning. Her brain was so alert, so alive the nerve-endings pained her. She was so distraught she’d begun to hyperventilate, she could not breathe normally. She crawled onto the bed, she burrowed beneath the blue-striped comforter that was a soft-down comforter, and kept her warm.

She woke later, it was very quiet. The air in the cave-like room was close and stale and chilly but beneath the comforter, she’d been warm. She stood now, shakily. She was not so furious now. The hysteria had subsided. Her quick sharp vaulting breath had subsided. She breathed more normally, her thoughts came more normally. The door — she tried the door — was still locked. She was at the man’s mercy — was she? He would wait for her to beg him — would he? Through the single window she saw a bright moon. Half the moon’s face had been battered, there were bruises, creases. Yet the moon was cunning, glaring light into the clearing. Snow had ceased falling hours ago, now the sky was clear. The air was very cold, a scrim of snow remained on the ground, un-melted. She tasted vomit at the back of her mouth — she’d been very drunk — but no longer. With frantic fingers she managed to loosen the window — it was opened by a crank. Her heart beat quickly, in astonishment. It was not possible, what she was doing! — while the man slept in the other room drunk and oblivious.

She managed to open the window, that was no more than two-foot-square. She pushed her coat through it — she pushed her gloves, her scarf. Her shoe-boots, that fell with a thud. She pulled a chair to the window and climbed onto it trembling with excitement, she forced herself through the window as a cat would force itself through a small space, squirming, writhing. She forced herself through the window like one giving birth, the creature to which she was giving birth was herself.

The night air was very cold. She was panting, her breath steamed. Where she would go, how she would find her way to a road, or to another house — she had no idea. She could not think coherently, the circuits of her brain were jammed. Enough for her to escape. Enough for her to escape the spiders’ nest. The man’s crude groping hands, the thing he had jammed up inside her. The man’s hungry mouth, so like her own — she had escaped it. She was sick with disgust, to recall what she’d escaped. On the snowy ground she groped for her coat, she shoved her arms into the sleeves. She had lost the gloves — she couldn’t find the gloves. She would tie the wool scarf around her head, her face. She would protect her face, that smarted from the man’s hateful beard, against the cold. Her swollen lip was not so swollen now yet ached, throbbed. The man had gnawed at her mouth like a ravenous animal. She set off behind the cabin, in the direction of a trail she’d seen the previous day. How long ago that had been — a lifetime ago!