NINE: SYLVIA
"I'm just telling you," Jenny grins at me, her chocolate orbs glittering with determination. "Why him? He's not even like McCartney!"
Paula, smirking at the sisterly shows of affection, rushed to my defence. "Yes, he is," she interjected hotly, onyx eyes brewing something light-hearted and fresh. "And he's so cute."
"Don't you already have a boyfriend?" I tease, lightly brushing her shoulder, and she smirked at the contact before shrugging my question off.
"So what?" Paula shrugs, dark eyes seemingly in a deep, faraway trance. "It's not like we're exclusive or anything. I'm fucking him occasionally, not …. Seeing him."
"Whatever you say," my sister giggles, hurriedly wrenching the Baniszewski's door open. "And anyway, Sylvia, it's not like you said he liked you, so what's the matter?"
"Nothing," I shrug, giving my sister a shrewd glance before grinning back up at Paula. "But he has a girlfriend, and I don't know how they're going right now."
"Well, there you go." Paula, her face darkening in a sickly triumph, smirks down at me and Jenny. "If they break up, he'll be all yours."
Giggling, I give a slight shake of my head, my caramel curls bobbing slightly. "I'm not really interested in that sort of thing," I admit, and Paula wrinkles her nose, her onyx eyes glinting softly. "My last boyfriend, all he wanted was sex. I did get close to it a couple of times, but we had to move shortly after I was ready to go through with it."
Paula, her eyes shimmering with satisfaction, gives a slow nod, her skin seemingly blanched and paper white in the harsh overhead sun. "Oh, yeah, I get it," she grins, giving my sister a soft look before stepping into the house, the sunlight overhead striking her raven hair.
"Hey, momma," she says by way of greeting, setting her bag atop the rickety kitchen table and pecking Gertrude's frail, crinkling cheek. "Busy day?"
The mother grunts softly in agreement, her onyx pits glaring deep into my soft brown gaze, her eyes twinkling with wicked delight. "Sure, Paula. Sylvia, Jenny. I want you two down in the basement."
I wrinkle my nose and glance at Paula for a comforting word, but she's behind the kitchen counter, hastily boiling water from a worn down stove, resisting the temptation of the scenario around her. The other kids, at Gertie's hasty word, retreat back into the safety of their bedrooms, the warmth of the air dissolving around us like a parted sea.
The basement is damp and musty, dust gathering almost harrowingly around every surface of the room, as if to outline the perverse nature of the whole space. The walls are dented and somewhat caved in, as if it has given up on itself completely, folding into itself like a sponge.
Gertie, the harsh overhead bulb flickering eerily over her features, stalks toward our waiting forms. "Your papa's cheque didn't arrive today."
The undertone in those few little words, they make my sister, already so fragile and meek, step back as if stung, as if the heat from Gertrude's sentence has branded her like an open flame. "Oh," she says softly, her eyebrows knitted inward, as if this could stop the impending scolding that we expect.
"It's probably just late," I advise, smiling a bit to ease Gertie's tension.
"Shut up," came the brittle hiss, the biting retort, and I flinch a little, shocked by the vicious pleasure that writhes through Gertie's blazing expression. "You know what I think? I think I've just looked after you bitches for two fucking weeks for nothing! Now lean over those!" A brittle, speckled finger motions to two hard-backed wooden chairs, carved and tailored for someone much older than Jenny and I, and our hesitance only angers the woman further. She herds us to the supple, smooth furniture, and instructs us to bend over. From the corner of my eye I see Jenny, shaking and weeping uncontrollably, and, unable to find a comforting word, I clench my knuckles around the slender wood as if it could relieve my sister from this humiliation, this abuse.
"You bitches!" Gertrude snarls, eyes blazing with a fierce hatred, and that's when the lashes begin.