Black Skirt, Red Lights

Author's note: this story works as a self-contained entity, but it is the second and final (god willing) story involving our narrator, Noora Afshar, and our antagonist, Paul. Their first encounter is depicted in the story 'Blue Dress with Yellow Flowers.'

"Are you staying over in Culpeper again over break, Noora?" the student editor of the sociology journal asked across the breakfast table in the dining hall. "I know you were there over Thanksgiving, with Lizzy Baines."

"No," I said. "I can't contrive a reason to stay away from my family for five weeks."

"Ah," the editor said. "The north then."

I nodded.

"You seemed different when you came back after the summer." The editor was a perceptive girl, but nervous, fidgety.

"Well I was fucking ready to go to school," I said. I looked around for our mutual friends, who were still fixing their second plates, still filling their mugs with hot chocolate, still gathering their spoons and forks.

"I mean, you looked, I don't know, sick. Ill. Noora, that place seems toxic. I mean, your father is," the journal editor leaned forward, pushed her bobbed hair out of her face, "like a religious fundamentalist."

I declined to defend my father's bonafides as a secular, left-wing Afghan exile, and nodded instead at the editor's sagacity.

"Oh yes," I said. "He is the problem."

I did not leave Virginia until the very last. The train takes twelve hours to go from the college town in the Appalachian frontrange to the college town on the northeastern seaboard. And it was not until I packed, on the night of the winter solstice, to go home that I realized how different I was from the girl who'd boarded that northbound train at the end of May.

She'd had two suitcases full of clothes of all colors, long black hair that reached down between her shoulder blades, an open, easygoing disposition.

But as I looked at myself in the dull reflection in the double-paned window in the corner room of the university-owned victorian on Roanoke Place, I could see the accumulated changes.

A thinner face, almost gaunt, answered for the childish cheeks. Black hair, cut to a uniform severity ending at the bottom of the jaw, replaced the great sweep of locks.

I even had another tattoo, a line of verse in Tajik, down the outside of one thigh. The shoulder which Paul had pressed into the brick wall, however, remained always a little higher than the other in a state of permanent tension that left me with burning upper-back pain.

And a black t-shirt, slate-gray sweater, black jeans and black docs replaced the colors, the variance of fabric. In what I packed for home, there was so little, just repetition of black and gray and here and there a splash of red or muted blue. No color, no rich greens or sky blues, no yellows glowing with the promise of sun, no rich browns or burning oranges. So little, I could fit it in my smaller valise.

I found, in the bottom of my dresser, that blue dress and the gray cotton panties. I couldn't remember packing them for school, but I must've brought them from some talismanic need. I had scrubbed the cum out of the panties in the sink in the bathroom at home before I put them both through the wash after Paul, once a friend, raped me in the courtyard behind our hometown coffeehouse on the hottest day of summer.

I'd not worn either since.

And I thought about the semester intervening since my rape. Hard drinking, too much bad, sober sex with a sizequeen sorority defector who wanted to date me, too much bad, drunk sex with a rotating cast of men who gave me a passable version of penetrative pleasure. Too much relief at my first period after Paul raped me, birth control being less than 100% effective. Too much vomiting after meals, too much crying on too-fast walks around campus, with my music turned as loud as it would go. Too long spent lying on the bare wooden floor in my underwear, drunk sometimes, nearly catatonic others.

I closed the shades. I changed into the panties, into the dress. I masturbated.

Noora Afshar looked back at me in the train window as the shit-brown and dull-green of Virginia raced past under the lowering gray sky. She looked back at me as the fallen factories and leaning rowhouses of Baltimore and Philadelphia crept by, as the endless ranks of New York City marched past and the broken coast of Connecticut fell to darkness in the short twilight.

I could not avoid my own eyes, not until I disembarked in my town, somewhere east of Old Saybrook and south of Boston. I'd worn my old underwear on the train. I couldn't explain why.

But I kept it together as my father and brother picked me up, as we made it through a good dinner and a slow movie and evening prayers.

In the quiet of my childhood bedroom, I undressed and I sobbed in silence for the girl Paul had ruined behind the coffee shop, for all the ease of life I'd lost, and for the friendship poisoned now by violence.

The university puts lights up all around downtown, and the northern December gets so dark that when the clouds cover the sun those little silvery strings are all there is to light the place by day.

I spent the day before christmas eve walking downtown, sneaking around the empty university buildings and the quads. And I made my pilgrimage to the coffee shop. I tried first in the morning, but could not bring myself to enter, then went again as the afternoon waned. I took my coffee and went out into the blue twilight and walked to the spot on the wall where Paul had pinned me. A few small flakes fell. Nothing stirred, no one moved. There was no drama to this place.

But as I looked at the spot where he'd fucked me, the fearful arousal grew. And I snuck back into the coffee shop, down into the dark hall where the bathrooms were. I locked myself in one, balanced my coffee on the sink and slid my fingers into my pussy as I faced myself in the mirror.

The need to orgasm was overwhelming, even if the act of masturbation was, at this point, humiliating. I had to stifle my own moans and cries, and when I stopped shaking afterwards I had to wait a while longer to blink back tears.

My phone's vibration shattered the empty silence of the bathroom.

'Katie' the screen said.

Hey Noora, long time no see lol. Simon is hosting his yearly christmas party again on the 26th. I know you missed his black friday bash but i wanted to see if u were coming to this one

A pause.

idk if ur even in town

I snatched it up.

Simon was the year between Paul and me, a gregarious kid with a huge house in the northern part of town. His parents, a hospital administrator and a lawyer, made ungodly money and were the 'it's better they drink in the house than on the street' types.

All through high school he'd thrown parties, a strange combination of rager and formal, girls in fancy dresses and boys in slacks getting Drunk on the third floor, while in the basement the borderline junkies played ping pong and did lines off a cracked hand mirror.

And Katie, my old friend, Simon's girl.

Of course I knew Paul would be there, haunting the halls where he and I had flirted after all the Model UN practice sessions and after the big dances. Where I'd watched him steal a new year's kiss from Katie's older sister.

I was too nervous to eat on the 26th, beyond what was absolutely necessary to avoid my father and brother's suspicions at breakfast.

Food felt like a foreign presence inside me, and I couldn't tolerate the thought of anything inside me, there was some connection there to the feeling of dirtiness I'd had when Paul entered me.

I had, over the semester, perfected the covert art of vomiting almost silently after a meal, when my stomach churned too much. That art had dropped my weight by fifteen pounds. So I was a fucking empty wreck, I guess.

"You're dressed like you're going to rob somebody," my brother, Rustam, said when I got ready to leave. On the television, the tank he was driving took a shell through the ammunition rack and exploded. He quit the game and swung his feet off the couch.

"I'm going to Simon's party, okay," I stepped round him to go to the kitchen for a glass of water.

"They're going to make fun of you. Rocky Balboa training montage-ass outfit." He called after me, then appeared, leaning in the kitchen doorway.

"Fuck you."

"I think I got a couple loose bricks in my room if you want to carry them while you run over there."

"Very funny," I said. "Dad know you're playing War Thunder instead of working on your applications?"

"Yeah," he said. "Just like he knows you're going to go hang out with a bunch of drunks. I guess he'd prefer you wear that hoodie, it's kind of like a Hijab."

"What's your fucking problem, Rus?"

"I don't have one," he said.

"Then tell Dad I'm at Katie's when he gets home. She'll drive me back."

"Right. If the cops don't pick you up for breaking and entering," he turned to go, thought better of it, and rounded on me. "You know what mom said, Noora. If you're going to break the rules you might as well break 'em right. Break 'em all the way."

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, she would say that."

I tried to brush it off, but when I stood at the door, waiting to step out and catch the crosstown bus, I did feel silly in sweats and a hoodie. I'd stick out. People dressed up for Simon's parties. My outfit would raise questions.

I went upstairs. I didn't have many choices. The same black docs, but now with a pair of black tights, a black skirt down to mid-thigh, black tank top and over that a charcoal cashmere sweater with a four-button neck, open to show the little medallion from Balkh I wore on a delicate gold chain. A black-faced watch with a black band, elegant but not extravagant, old but not antique, the one thing I'd really inherited from my mother, aside from her big, dark eyes. Over it all, I wore my tailored wool coat, which came down as far as the skirt and gave me a slim, refined silhouette. It was my only winter coat. I'd had it since my fourteenth birthday.

I was late, fashionably so, because I'd taken the time to change. Katie and Simon played hosts. And it was like old times. Drinks and conversation upstairs, drugs and idiocy in the basement, the first and second floors shut up, save the big bathroom on the second floor.

Everyone was there. A whole score and more of people I'd known once. I made conversation, I sipped bourbon on the rocks from a red cup, though it was one of the midmarket brands kids auditioning for the state department bought without a thought to taste. And I caught up with Katie and Simon and the others. When the dancing started, towards ten, I danced as best I could, making sure to keep my distance. The rooms upstairs were lit by claret string lights which bathed everything in a romantic, almost visceral hue so every girl looked like she was blushing and every boy looked afire with want.

Paul showed up around then, but either he didn't see me or he didn't care that I was there. He went down to the basement to play pool. I poured myself a second bourbon, slugged it back, poured a third, this one generous. The fire spread in my belly, my chest. I could feel it working fast on my empty stomach, feel it spreading inside me. I was drunk.

And I went downstairs. The cool girls and the druggies were all around the pool table, where Paul and a two-bit coke boy (Calvin) played on a team against one of Simon's friends (Matthew), and Katie's sister. But Katie's sister gave up after one game, and I thrust myself forward as Matthew's playing companion. There were only three pool cues, so he and I traded off while Paul and Calvin kept theirs.

I made sure my hands lingered on Matthew's as we exchanged the cue, and I flirted dangerously with him, driven by the bourbon to want. I had some notion of hooking up with Matthew after, in one of the dark anterooms where I could swallow his cum and let the aftertaste of it reassure me that I was wanted, that I had control.

But Matthew had a girlfriend, as I learned during our third game, when a white girl with flowing brown hair in a red dress came down and gave him a kiss. I turned bright red.

When we lost that game, I passed the cue to someone in the crowd and staggered upstairs. All these people, all this music, all this noise and drink and the bodies shifting, the constant negotiation of want and rejection, feeling and fear, had worn me low. I needed somewhere quiet. And I needed to piss.

I went into the big bathroom on the silent second floor.

Below, in the basement, they were playing indie pop, while above, on the third floor, Katie's cousin had put on a playlist of Troye Sivan remixes and I could hear the feet moving a heartbeat behind the beat.

I pulled my tights down, pissed, then looked at myself in the big mirror over the deep set sink. Still elegant, still sharp, but drunk and stupid too, a little girl in over her head. I checked my watch. A hair shy of 11. I couldn't go home until I was sure my dad was back and asleep, somewhere past 1. That was last bus territory, or a bummed ride from Katie.

I briefly considered spending two hours locked in the bathroom so I wouldn't have to face everyone. And I was abstractedly aroused by the flirting and by Paul's presence--the memory of him pressing me to the ground made my pussy drip even as it turned my stomach--but a knock on the door shook me from that.

"Just a minute," I said. "Occupied like the Golan."

I washed my hands, splashed a little water on my face, picked up my bourbon cup again and drained it. The bathroom was large, a big shower stall on one side, a wall of cabinets opposite, then the counter, the sink and across from it the toilet, and a frosted glass window beside.

I left the tap running and opened the top pane in the window.

The stinging cold slowed the racing thoughts in my head. I could do this. I could get through the night as long as I avoided Paul.

I half-closed the window, crossed to the door, unlocked it, opened it.

Paul was there in the doorway, all six feet and one hundred and eighty pounds of him.

"Ah."

"Sorry," he said. But I could tell from the way he said it that he wasn't sorry about anything.

"No you're not," I declared with all the courage six ounces of bourbon spread across two hours can give a hundred and five pound girl.

"Can you, like, get out of my way? I need to piss."

"No," I said. "Not until you've sincerely apologized."

"For what?"

"You know what," I said. "And if you won't apologize for that, you can just go back up to the third floor bathroom or you can piss outside."

Above us a door opened in the third floor hall, voices moving.

"Hahaha," a voice in the hall said. "You mean they've got blow in the basement?"

Paul's face flickered with indecision for the barest of moments. He put both hands on my waist and shoved me back through the doorway; hooked the door closed behind him before the voices upstairs reached the stairwell. Then he shut the bolt.

I grabbed the wall of the shower to stop my stagger, aware now that I was at a desperate disadvantage.

"I won't apologize because I'm not sorry," he said. "And I don't think you want me to be."

"You're a rapist," I said. "Scum of the earth."

"No one made you cum. Well, I guess I did." He flashed a small, hateful smile. "But the point is you sure seemed to enjoy it. And you wanted it for years, I know, I saw how you used to look at me. You were practically begging to suck my cock."

He did a whining impression of me then, I winced. This was getting cruel.

"And then all that talk about how you fuck women," he said. "But you're not a lesbian. And just now you practically had Matt's dick in your mouth on the pool table. Fucking slut. He has a girlfriend, they've been together for a year and a half."

"None of that," I had to pause to keep control of the anger and fear in my voice. "None of that makes it okay, what you did to me."

"Oh so it's kosher to cum twice and the guy who makes you do it just has to walk away."

He was very close to me now, the dark wool of his sportscoat stood out sharp to me, though the room was lit solely by two nightlights, the same shade of red as the string lights upstairs.

"Yes," I said. "I had blood in my fucking underwear, that's not normal after sex. I could barely sit or walk the next day. It was like you'd bruised me." I wanted to say more, that he'd left a wound inside me that festered to this day, a psychic wound crying out for some form of redress. A wound infected now with uncontrollable lust, a need to fuck and be fucked, regardless of partner, regardless of desire, regardless of the fact that each assignation tore open that wound of the heart and left it bleeding afresh. But I could feel harsh gray static closing in inside my head, choking off thought, pushing me towards debasement.

"You know, usually when a girl says she couldn't walk right after it's a compliment."

He stepped so close I could hear the tick of his watch, smell the light cologne he'd sprayed on himself, the faint sweat beneath, the wool of his jacket.

Then his hand was on my cheek, the other in the middle of my back.

"You raped me," I whispered up at him.

He kissed me. My hands came up to push him away, but they rested useless on the lapels of his jacket.

"I don't care, Noora," he said.

"It's wrong."

He pushed me against the counter, gripped my throat in his hand. I gaped up at him, surprised at his force. He'd practically lifted me off the ground, the toes of my boots played useless on the tiles.

He forced his tongue into my mouth. He pushed me so far back my head rested on the big mirror. Then he broke the kiss.

"There is nothing either right or wrong, but thinking makes it so." His voice was low and sullen, carrying a hint of violence and a lot of want.

That was the old Paul, the hesitant rebel, the bookworm insecure about the breadth of his knowledge. The cash-poor rich kid. He slid his hand up my skirt just like the first time.

"Paul," I said. "Please don't fuck me."

For a moment I was afraid he'd rip the crotch of my tights, pull my panties to the side, force himself inside me, first the fingers, then his thick cock. The panic that had seized me after I came with him inside me reoccurred, flared up. I kept gasping, but I couldn't get enough air.

"Let's start on the right foot," he said. "And I won't fuck you."

He kissed me again, then stepped back, undid the fly of his trousers and pulled his dick out. I eased myself off the counter, took my sweater off, reached down and grasped his dick. I kissed him as I did. He was rock hard, thicker than the strap-on I used to fuck the sizequeen. I broke contact between us and folded my sweater neatly and set it to one side, it was too nice to get spit or cum on it. The cold air pouring through the bathroom window made my skin stand on end.

I squatted down, unwilling to put my knees on someone else's bathroom floor, and looked up at him.

"Like this?"

I opened my mouth, kept my lips soft, brushed them over the head of his dick, ran my tongue over it. He stiffened, put one hand on my head, braced himself against the wall beside the counter with the other.

I could feel him struggling with the urge to slam forward and force his cock into my mouth in one go. This restraint, the tension in him, the taste and feel of a hot, clean dick, made me wet. I could feel my arousal in my panties--plain black--feel my nipples harden in my black bralette.

"Pull your tights down," he said. "I want you to finger yourself."

I pulled him out of my mouth, lifted my skirt and complied, pulling my tights and my underwear down to mid-thigh. Then I took his cock in my right hand, held it steady as I slid it back into my mouth and ran the fingers of my left hand over my pussy. The tips of my fingers trailed along my lips, so sensitive, so slick already. I worked the tip of my middle finger in while I widened my mouth, took him further.