Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

cold eyes, not brown, yellow eyes, ochre eyes, dirty yellow

eyes, quiet voice, you can leave or you can just come here and

sit with me, sit next to me, just for a minute, or you can leave,

or you can leave, or you can sit here, next to me or you can

leave; and I thought, can I? — the door’s locked from inside,

you can’t stay on the streets, the bars are closed, there’s no

strangers outside you can find, even if you was going to risk it,

and you can barely put one foot in front o f another, everything

in front o f your eyes is streaked and moving, everything’s got

a tail like a comet racing through the sky, everything’s a shiny

streak whirling past you and you are standing still unless you

are falling, you fall and stop, fall and stop; and he’s saying you

can leave and you’re wondering if he’d let you anyway,

because finally it occurs to you he is more than a liar, or w hy

would he be so calm? He’s so quiet; quiet voice; you can leave;

or come right here, sit near me, just near me; and then there’s

w hatever’s past the fucking sunset, you know, the ocean

pounds the shore or something, there’s a hurricane, many die,

it breaks apart the beach, shacks, houses, stone walls, they’re

wrecked, Atlanta burns, you know, metaphor, I’d rather talk

in metaphor than say the things he did, God made metaphor

for girls like me, you know, life is nasty, short, brutish, short,

you can be snuffed out, it’s so fast, so mean, so easy,

someone’s eyes go cold, they go mean, they say sit near me

and you say no and they say sit near me and you say no and

they say sit near me and you say no and it’s like a boy and a girl

and some courtly dance except he is saying you can leave, -a

death threat, you can leave, with his cold eyes gleaming a

devil’s yellow from the meanness o f it, a dirty yellow , as i f his

eyeballs changed from brown to some supernatural ochre and

he puts his hands on m y shoulders and his hands are strong and

he lifts me up from the single wood chair and there’s this kind

o f long waltz the length o f the great ballroom where his arms

are around me and I am going one, two, three, four, against

him, in the opposite direction from him trying to get past him

and he is using m y own motion to push me back to where he

wants and he sits me down on the single bed and w e just sit there

like chaste kids, teenagers, side by side, we each look straight

ahead except he’s got his hand on m y neck, w e’re Norm an

Rockw ell except his fingers are spread the width o f m y neck,

his fingers are around m y neck, circling m y neck and I turn my

head to face him, m y b ody’s staring outwards but I turn m y

face toward him and I say to him I don’t want to do this, I get

him to face me and I look him in the eye and I say I don’t want

to do this and his hand tightens on m y neck and I feel his

fingers down under m y skin and into the muscle o f m y neck

and he says quiet, totally level, totally calm: it doesn’t matter,

darling, it doesn’t matter at all. I’m thinking he means it

doesn’t matter to him to fuck and I smile in a kind o f gratitude

but it’s not what he means and he takes his other hand and he

puts it up at the neck o f m y T-shirt and he pulls, one hand’s

holding m y neck from behind and the other’s pulling o ff my

T-shirt, pulling it half off, ripping it, it burns against m y skin

like whiplash, and he pushes me down on the bed and I see m y

breast, it’s beautiful and perfect and kind o f cascading, there’s

no drawing can show how it’s a living part o f me, human, and

when he puts his mouth on it I cry, not so he can tell, inside I’m

turned to tears, I see his face now up against m y breast, he’s

suckling and I hate him, I feel the inside o f his mouth, clam my

and toothy and gum m y, the cavity o f his mouth and the sharp

porcelain o f his teeth, there’s the edge o f his teeth on my

nipple, and he’s got my underpants torn o ff me and m y legs

pushed up and spread and he’s in me and I think I will count to

a hundred and it will be over but it isn’t, he’s different, I try to

push him o ff and he raises him self above me and he smiles at

me and he pushes me back, he holds me down, and I give up, I

do, I stay still, m y body dies as much as it can, hate distilled, a

perfect hate expressed in a perfect physical passivity, a perfect

attentiveness to dying, he’s going to say I’m a bad lay because I

w on ’t move but I hate him and I w on’t move. I just wait now

for him to come but he’s different, he w on’t come, he pushes

m y neck to hurt it and he kisses me, I feel his mouth on me,

he’s in me, sudden, brutal, unpleasant; vomitous; then he’s out

o f me, he’s kissing me, he kisses me everywhere, he rams into

me then he’s out, he’s kissing, he’s kissing my stomach, he’s

kissing m y legs, then he’s in me and m y thighs are pushed back

past m y shoulders, then he’s kissing me, he’s kissing m y anus

and licking it and he’s kissing my legs and he’s talking to me,

your skin reminds me o f Bridget’s, he says, Bridget has

beautiful skin, some whispering bullshit like I’m his lover or

his friend or something, conspiring with him, and then he’s

ramming him self in me and then he’s kissing me and I am

confused and afraid and I am paralyzed, I don’t move, I don’t

want to move, I w on’t move but also I can’t move, hate pins

me there flat, still, a perfect passivity, I think I am physically

real but my body’s incoherent to my own mind because I can’t

follow what he’s doing to me or what he wants, he’s doing it

to me but I don’t know what it is, there’s no organizing

principle, there’s no momentum or logic, I’m desperate for an

end but there’s no end, he’s brutal and cold and chaotic and I

say this will end but it doesn’t end, he rams, he kisses, I say this

is real, I am real, surely I am real, the physical reality is

overw helm ingly brutal and nasty, he tempers it, he thinks,

with these kisses, each one must be washed off, gotten off,

later, the skin must be gotten o ff later, gotten rid of, the cells

must be scraped off, I will need new skin, clean skin, because

he is expectorating all over me, I will need to rub and scrape, I

can use a knife or a stone, I’ll scrape it off, he’s in me, then he

withdraws, then he kisses, he kisses m y stomach, he kisses m y