She liked to make love, although she didn’t enjoy it for itself. It was just something that she knew she was good at. Where she knew she had the upper hand. As long as she held them at body-point, they couldn’t get to her. It was the ultimate defense. Anticipate and deliver their every desire in a reassuring red bow, so there was nothing left to steal from her.  Her own, honest desire was the one thing they would never get. Megan didn’t know how to exist outside of the roles she played. 

     But she preferred it that way. 

     Tell me what you’re thinking about, he urged, massaging her back. She concentrated on not flinching from his touch. You’re always so quiet afterwards. 

     I’m fine, I promise, I just need... 

     The floorboard screeched outside her doorway, and Megan’s gasp caught painfully below her ribs, stifling her words. The downy hair at the nape of her neck bristled.  

     He dug her fingernails out of his hand. What’s wrong with you? he demanded, annoyed.  Blood flooded back into the gouges from her nails — white half-moons waxed indignantly red on his palm. 

     Outside her door, Dan stopped listening and turned towards his bedroom. Little slut, he thought. 

     He wondered if she was still naked. 
     After her boyfriend had snuck back home, Megan tumbled into choppy sleep.  Again she dreamed of the lace-edged, organ-colored album that had flitted through her dreams since she was a child.  She watched her own hand reach out, opening the album to a picture in the middle of the book. 
 

The little black-haired girl sits on a bench, knees pressed together.  Ducks stud the lake behind her, wind strewing waves on its surface. Her fingers coil anxiously around each other in her lap.  She faces the camera, but a tree on the left edge of the picture casts a shadow across her eyes. At first glance it looks like her eyes are erased, but they are still visible, deep within the shadow.  Pleading ghost-eyes, looking out through dirty windows. A palimpsest on film. Her nose and mouth shine pale against the ethereal blindfold. 

The little black-haired girl sits in a fuzzy blue chair with a green fringe shawl thrown over it.  She is wearing a sexy red outfit that is much too large for her.  She is dwarfed. Eclipsed.  Drowning in waves of red satin and tiny pink hearts.  She is looking down into her lap, her eyes shrouded in a veil of black hair that spills over into her face.

     She slipped in and out of sleep the rest of the night, dreaming silent, frozen dreams of the little girl with black hair and empty eyes. 

     The next morning she woke with the sunlight warming her clammy skin.  Sighing, she sat up and shoved her feet into furry bunny slippers.  The left foot was dingy but intact.  The right bore its share of battle scars, the lone remaining ear holding on sadly.  Thus encased, her feet stumbled downstairs where she plopped down at the kitchen table. 

     “Morning, Meggie!” her mother cried in sliver tones.  “How are we this morning?” 

     Megan stared in silence at the checkered tabletop. 

     Her mother took in Megan’s bleary eyes and pasty skin with a frown.  “Do you want some breakfast?” she asked hopefully. 

     Megan stood up silently and swiped the cereal from the top shelf.  As her mother watched her pour milk into the bowl, she tried again.  “Are you all ready to go to back to school?  All packed?” 

     Megan nodded in reply, trying to figure out the puzzle on the back of the cereal box.  “What’s a twelve-letter word for ‘gutted’? 

     “Disemboweled, maybe?”