PAPER DOLL

Paper Doll

by Roger C. Jones

Christie thought back to that day, The Day When It Happened.

She hadn't been in the city long. The school had helped her find housing. She had a small stipend, but that wasn't enough to live on. Thankfully, the old Polish woman who was going to rent to her also ran the small bakery downstairs. She had offered her a job, saying she knew what it was like to be young and on your own.

"On your own." It was still a frightening concept to her. After her father had passed, she still had Mom, and her sister, Ginny. Her brother, Russell, was still in the army, stationed in Germany. She missed him so much. He was always able to make her laugh. He was always looking out for her. But Germany was a world away.

With Ginny working full time, Christie knew it was best to try to ease the financial burden on her family. The scholarship had seemed like an excellent opportunity to do that, a once in a lifetime opportunity. Everyone said she'd be crazy to pass that up.

Christie had acclimated well to her studies at the fashion institute, although it was still a culture shock for her. The girls here had designer handbags and thrift store clothing they had paid far more for than anything she would find in her town's second hand shop. Some of her students had complimented her on her  handmade dresses, but there was condescension there. Derisive remarks like, "Oh, that's adorable. You made that yourself?" were only made to belittle her. She knew that.

She wondered if she had done the right thing. She was a simple, country girl. All she wanted to do was design the kinds of dresses her mother or sister would feel pretty wearing. She had no dreams of creating Hollywood wardrobes or attending red carpet galas. But she wanted so desperately to master the craft. She had been drawing and designing, clothing her little paper dolls since childhood. She had been saving her mother money for years, using that old Singer sewing machine to work her magic, turning old into new or at least giving vintage clothing a new lease on life.

No, you can do this, she told herself. You've always dreamed of it. Believe in yourself. That's what Russ always said.

She had just gotten off the train that day. The sounds and smells of public transportation here were still new to her. There was filth, and graffiti, and usually the unmistakable odor of stale urine, but the gentle rocking of the train always soothed her somehow. She would imagine who lived in all of these apartment complexes that rushed past. Were there women there, like her mother, sister or even herself? Were there young women like her, even now dreaming of the future? She even let herself dare to dream of young men, although the ones she had seen never seemed to notice her, except perhaps to look at her as an oddity, something out of place in the background but hardly worth taking note of.

She supposed that she was plain-looking by men's standards. She was fair, with often unmanageable brown hair she often kept in a ponytail or bun. She wasn't thin or heavy, but perhaps unremarkable. Her mother had always told her that she had beautiful brown eyes, but of course she could be forgiven for bias. She tried to apply makeup, but never too much. She hadn't dated much in high school. After that, there didn't seem to be many prospects. Perhaps things would be different here. Maybe the "Small Town Girl in the Big City" television romance was something that really happened.

Christie was walking across the raised platform, headed to the stairs going down. She clutched her shoulder bag filled with art books tightly as she walked. She had been instructed to do this by one of her classmates. Juanita, the closest thing to a friend she had found so far, had recently given her tips on how to survive here. She had also asked her how she intended to defend herself if trouble came her way.

She hadn't considered this. It wasn't that she was naive. She knew bad things happened to people. She just had no personal frame of reference. Things like that almost never happened where she grew up.

"Whatcha got in that big ol' bag?" Juanita had asked her one day, after a lesson on color theory. "Peppa spray? A knife? Shit, you could hide one o' them three fiddy-sevens in there."

"What? No. I don't carry any.. weapons," Christie informed her.

The other girl had snorted out a laugh. "Oh no. You gots to be carryin' somethin'. Juanita moved her small black purse under the table. She withdrew a small object from it, pressed a button, and revealed a switchblade.

"Ain't nobody fuckin' with me, girl. And I keep other stuff too. You need to be armed, so you can't be harmed. Survival 101. You just got your first lesson."

"Oh, thank you," Christie had stammered, taken aback by this sudden sharing of urban wisdom. She supposed the girl's heart was in the right place. It was advice that Christie should have listened to, in hindsight.

Christie was almost to the stairs that day when THEY started calling out to her. She had noticed the young men on the platform when she got off but had deliberately not made eye contact. They were of mixed ethnicity, wearing denim and leather vests with markings on the back. They had been passing a bottle of liquor between them. They seemed not to have any business with the train until she came off, and she had almost felt their eyes burning into the back of her.

"Heyhey.. Look!" she had heard one say. Some catcalls had followed. She quickened her pace.

"Girl! Hey, girlie! Don't go away! Hey. Hey! Don'tcha wanna be friends?" Some mocking kissing sounds and laughter could be heard.

She didn't want to run. She could ignore them. If she interacted with them, it might only encourage them. She didn't want to look back. The entrance to the stairwell seemed so distant now, as if the length of the platform had increased somehow. She focused on the stairs.

Suddenly a man was in front of her. She stopped in her tracks, startled. She tried to move around him, but he blocked her path.

The young man was white or perhaps mixed ethnicity, probably in his early twenties, with short, dark hair that had been dyed bleach-blonde with neon green streaks. He was dressed in full gang regalia, with a headband, multiple piecings in his nose and ears and his entire body, including his face, was covered in tattoos depicting violence. A bleeding skull patch stood out prominently on his vest.

"Where you goin'?" he asked, with a leering grin. "Don'tcha wanna be friends? Aww, wets be fwennndds.. pweeease? Pwetty pwease?"

"Please, just.. I just want to go home," she explained, clutching her bag tightly to her chest like a shield.

Christie had looked around to see if anyone else was around. She had only seen an old woman departing earlier. Despite it being only late afternoon, no one was here. No one that is, except her and her newfound acquaintances.

She heard the other men, three of them approaching from the rear to surround her. She knew there was another set of stairs on the other end of the platform, but they had cut her off from it.

"Please. If.. if you want money, I don't have much. But.. just take it," she offered.

The man in front of her put one hand on his chest, and made a mock expression to imply he had been insulted.

"MONEY? Do you think that's what we're after? We look like THIEVES to you?"

"Ain't we though?" came a voice from the back, accompanied by some snickering.

The lead man ignored it. "Oh honey, no, we ain't after your money. Oh nooo. You got us all wrong."

The other men crowded her now. Christie could feel hot breath on her neck and smell cheap booze and nicotine.

"No, sweetie. We're invitin' you to a party."

The lead man (she would think of him as "Blondie" later, but she would learn his name was Ramon) moved closer to her. There was a glint of sunlight on metal as he produced a butterfly knife.

Christie tried to scream, but a rough hand clasped tightly over her mouth. The men grabbed her as she began to struggle. Blondie grabbed her bookbag, tossing it over the platform railing without bothering to inspect its contents. Christie heard her textbooks and art supplies hit the gravel below.

The men dragged her as she kicked and squirmed. The world spun. Her eyes darted about, looking for someone, anyone who might be nearby. She heard her brother's voice..

"I'll always look out for you, kid. You know that."

But Russell wasn't here. No one could help her.

The punks descended onto the tracks. One of the men threw her off the platform. She landed hard and couldn't brace her fall. Shsrp rocks between wooden tyes bit into her face. She could feel the warm wetness as blood seeped onto her face. Before she could move, the men had already grabbed her again and were carrying her away from the tracks, to a spot underneath the platform. There was a small wooden structure there, a toolshed or machine room, she imagined. Graffiti covered it, including a crudely spraypainted image depicting a grinning white skull dripping blood.

"Welcome to the clubhouse!" another man said. He was a tall man, with a large nose, long, greasy black hair and a mustache, attired similarly as the others.

They carried her inside. It was cramped, but all fit. She was stretched out on the ground, with the weight of more than one body pressing on her. She could feel one man's erection pressing against her arm. She had experienced such a thing only once, but had not seen what comes after.

Christie's couture white linen blouse and skirt were torn, then cut with a knife. Her modest leather boots and even her socks had been removed. Multiple hands groped her, painfully kneading her exposed breasts. Blondie used his knife to slice her white cotton panties on one side, then yanked them off. Big Nose laughed and descended on her womanhood, and she felt his face and tongue press into her.

Blood and tears streamed down her face. They weren't keeping her from screaming now, but she felt they would if she began to do so again.

The small golden cross she wore on a thin chain, a symbol of her Methodist upbringing and a gift from her mother, was ripped off her. The rest of her clothing was cut and stripped. So too, was her innocence and all that she had once been.

The four men entered her and defiled her. They inflicted terrible wounds upon her body and soul. The sound of a train drowned out the only scream she made. They left her to die, naked and bleeding along the fence line, where trash and old leaves accumulate, hidden from view.

Christie's mind flashed back to more recent times. After she had been discovered, after she had convalesced and recovered, after she had taken Juanita's advice, she had gone hunting.

Christie's brother had taken her hunting in the deep woods back home. He taught her proficiency with firearms. He taught her how to go after game and how to skin it. It was not something she found to her tastes then. It simply brought her closer to her brother. He had said he would always look out for her. Perhaps without realizing it, he had been teaching her to look out for herself.

Now Christie stood in a small garage. She laid a shotgun down on a bench. It had last been used to ensure that "Big Nose" would no longer be worthy of that nickname. She remembered thinking how much shorter the man looked afterward, minus a head.

"Snickers." "Woody." She had taken care of them too.

Snickers would never laugh again after she fed his tongue to him. It's amazing how much blood loss can follow having a severed tongue. She imagined choking on both asphyxiated him.

Woody would never get an erection again. She had seen to that. He thought he might get reacquainted with her. She acquainted him with a razor blade instead. Having his corpse wear his cock and balls as a necklace seemed fitting punishment for taking her gold cross.

Now only Blondie was left. He was tied to a wooden table now, one that had many marks from using a circular saw. His arms were spread apart and tied at the wrists. His legs were spread eagle, with his ankles also tied to opposite corners.

"What are you going to do to me, you crazy BITCH?!" There was fear in his voice. Gone was the leering grin. Absent was any sign of bravado. This was no longer a predator menancing his prey. No. He was on the receiving end.

"What are you going to DO?" he demanded again.

Christie smiled. It wasn't often that she smiled now. Her scar still hurt when she did. She picked up an electric drill, tapping the trigger a couple of times to test it, the sharp drill bit spinning as she did so.

"We're going to have a party."

The sound of a train approaching covered Blondie's screams.