Beneath The Alphas

Stuffy.

Crouched low in a four-walled closet no wider than my arm span, all I can feel is the stuffiness. The air is hot and heavy, a layer of thickness settling over my head and pressing uncomfortably on the nape of my neck. Perspiration encrusts my skin like a parody of gemstones, an iridescent shine on my skin.

I try to limit my movements within the enclosure and ball myself even tighter, bending low like a warping branch over my up-drawn knees, but it proves more difficult than expected. I used to fit in this space with ease back when I was a child. I was small enough to sit on the floor with my legs stretched out in front of me, bare toes wiggling in sync with the oscillating light that would slip through the blinds of the closet.

I had been growing, although unaware of it, and now at seventeen, the claustrophobic space could no longer accommodate my frame, no matter how small or petite I appeared to be. Each wall of the cupboard feels like a lung expanding, squeezing out the alien object.

I have an inkling my toes have grown numb.

Chin resting on top of my knees, I lift my head just briefly and tilt it side to side. The tension in my neck, my back, loosens by a fraction but returns with more fervour.

It hadn't been this stuffy at dawn when I first crawled inside. It was cooler then but as the sun rose higher, it became hot and oppressive. Suffocating. Within a few hours, the smell of sweaty bodies, friction, cigarette smoke, and menstrual blood, had become almost unbearable.

I can't help but inhale another unwanted breath and flagrant specks of dust dance up my airways in turn, tickling the back of my throat until the sensation of sneezing is unavoidable.

The sound leaves me before I can stop it.

Ah-choo.

The creaking of the bed draws to a standstill.

"D'ya hear that?"

I hear my mother shifting at the gruff voice, maybe turning her head weakly to watch the greasy overweight man that mounts her from behind with wary yet alert eyes. "Hear what?" She tries to keep her voice nonchalant.

Despite not seeing her, I can almost envision her hands slowly fisting the worn-out sheets, a weak muscle-flexing in her forearms as she braces for something, anything.

"That," The man spat in exasperation.

"Oh," feigned understanding, "I--wait-" The bed groans as the man eases himself off of it. "The hostel's been plagued with rodents since last week, I'm sure it's just that." My mother is quick to feed his curiosity and parry whatever direction he was heading.

The silence that follows settles like a thin blanket over us. My pulse quickens - a flutter, like little bird wings trapped between my lungs. It was hard to see with the spaces so thin, but fear forces me to shift and lean forward enough to peer one eye through the space.

I freeze at the sight of the man's nether region.

The straining, olive-brown cock springs up like a grotesque, carnal jack-in-the-box. Thick knotted veins ridged its slightly curved shaft. A bloated purple glans, tipped by a raw-looking eye completed the monstrous tool. Shadowed beneath was a pendulous, wrinkled scrotum now sagging under the weight of his ready sex fluids.

A smatter of bile rises up my throat.

He moves to stand directly before the wardrobe, arms crossed over his chest, face angled to the left as he scrutinizes the cramped room with an apparent scowl.

"It's a rat," my mother's voice is suddenly near, I catch a glimpse of her bony hand tentatively resting on his bicep, urging him back to the bed. "Really... come back to bed, I'll have my son look at it."

He does not move immediately. He stands there searching, haughty black eyes pressed into a doughy white face that glossed along his wide forehead and upper lip with perspiration. I curl into myself and hold my breath with the sudden irrational terror that he could somehow hear my breath.

A hand presses on his rough cheek now, gently urging his face back on my mother. Her expression of alarm is thinly veiled with practiced desire, grey eyes darkening slightly. "Come," she reaches for his hand and tries to guide him back to the bed, "make love to me." The wariness in his eyes dissolves at the sight of her, as though he had just clocked where he is, who she is.

His face hardens in disgust, lips curled in a snarl while snatching his hand from hers as though she had burned him. "Don't touch me whore," his voice snaps like a belt on the skin, already forgetting my hovering presence, he turns and shoves my mother towards the bed watching in mild satisfaction as she loses footing and stumbles. "On your back."

I should look away.

I always looked away. It had been an autonomous reaction to the words, trained and rooted deeply within me, but something stiff holds my neck in position, forehead pressed to the warm wooden slat as I peer through.

Hardly does my mother collapse on her back when his hand curls around her delicate ankle and drags her towards him, spreading her legs far wider than humanly normal.

There is blood, still partially dry, smearing her inner thighs. Bruises shaped like dark petals splotching the soft sensitive skin on her legs. Her face is tilted to the ceiling, lips pursed in a line that twitches once when he shoves himself in, battering until the full-length bottoms out.

"Well?" He utters, drawing her closer with a yank. He begins to move just as her thighs rise to his waist, her legs enveloping him. Her urgency becomes his, and his slow pushes hasten into grinding strokes as their flesh unites again and again. Like a galley slave rowing ship into battle, his strokes come faster.

Dropping my gaze, I study the planes of my hands, turning them over to rub idle thumbs over the callouses and hardened blisters from working in the pig. The sounds dull out to a rhythmic thump of the bed against the wall, the creak of bolts coming loose, the grunts and smothered huffs of breaths that I am painfully accustomed to.

This session lasts longer than the previous one and by the time my mother opens the wardrobe, I cannot move.

She does not talk, only hovers and I know the expression she is making before my eyes lift in search of hers.

A guileless smile plays at my lips and our gazes meet, I breathe out a nervous chuckle, "Well that was painfully close."

The look on her face is of slight annoyance but she offers no tongue lashing and instead holds out a hand for me. The robe she had dawned on now covers her bruises but the iron tang of blood still lingers like fine mist in the air. "Are you okay?"

My hand slips into her delicate one with a wariness that I might break her. Her skin is cold and clammy against my own, and her hold is weak but the pull is surprisingly strong as she hauls me out of the constricting space.

My bones creak and I let out a drawn groan whilst stretching my arms to the low ceiling, rotating my stiff waist, rolling my neck back and forth in saturated relief. She watches me patiently, her expression is unwavering.

I release a long sigh and smile, "I am now."

My mother's gaze sweeps over my face briefly then slips past my shoulder towards the wardrobe, the ghost of a frown twitching at her lips. "It's too small, isn't it?"

I shrug half-heartedly, "It's okay." When in truth, the thought of cramming myself back into the claustrophobic space drums a patter of reluctance down my juddering spine. "I can manage." I would do it for her again if she asked me to, and I know she will, again and again until I turn eighteen, and perhaps even after.

As if reading my mind, her eyes dim like a candle snuffed and when she speaks, her voice is quiet. "It's not forever."

A thin promise that our poverty and suffering are only temporary, but time is an infinite thing. And temporary could simply mean until the death of one of us.

Determined not to let the uncertainty of our future dim the present, I suck in a deep breath and muster a smile while rounding her small frame, "Don't worry, Ma, if I grow too big for the wardrobe, I could always hide beneath the bed."

This, it seems, gets to my mother for she begins to laugh-- the softest of chuckles like falling leaves only to be disrupted by a sharp cough. Her face contorts in pain as the violent shudder wracks through her center and she coughs again, a faint rattle like loose seeds inside her chest.

Alarmed, I reach for her but she swats my hand away and leans against the worn-out bedpost, head bent low as thin strands of her flaxen gold hair sweep across her face like a curtain purposefully shielding herself from me. The sound is jarring in our little room.

The collar of her robe along her neck slips down slightly, revealing the bony column of her spine beneath pallid skin-- so jarring and prominent. You lift spines like that out of cooked fish.

"Water?" I murmur after a long time.

Still crouched, my mother nods.

Relieved to no longer watch her slow undoing, I turn and pace across the room where a bowl of water lies. Plucking a random cup, I lean forward and blow at the warm stale water with a film of dust on top before plunging it inside.

Four sharp slits of light lay across the moth-decayed rug beneath my feet, bright enough to hurt my eyes, though the bed is in near-darkness.

Mother is still bent over herself but no longer coughing, only wheezing with the familiar sound of nickels rattling in metallic tin. She hastily begins to withdraw her sleeve from her mouth but the action is too late, I catch a glimpse of bright red blood- a fine splatter on the rotted hem of her sleeve.

"I'll get your medicine today," I say while handing her the cup, watching as she begins to drink greedily, her wasted throat jerking with every gulp. "We should have enough money..." Automatically, my eyes sweep the carpeted floor in search of the coins the customer recklessly tossed at her.

One silver coin and two copper nickels lie there, unpicked.

I crouch low to pick them as she empties the contents of the cup and leans heavily against the bedpost while delicately wiping at the corner of her mouth with the non-bloodied sleeve. "Is there any medicine left?"

"No." Straightening, I pocket the coins. They feel foreign and heavy, worth so much in the face of our destitution. Gathering the remnants of clothes strewn on the floor, I make for the opposite side where our makeshift kitchen is; a charcoal stove, one aluminum pot, and an oblong of heavily carved oak, squatting on its own shadow against the wall with our foodstuff and mum's medicine. It was the only valuable item we owned.

"Food?"

I tense. Inwardly, I hope she does not see the tightness lining my shoulders as I make a show of opening the box and peering inside. Two jars of kidney beans, a strip of buffalo meat we use to rub the pot with to give it flavor, and a small box with two white pills.

"Yes," I say, the lie easily sliding past my lips. My ears take on a shallow red hue but with the dull light and the distance between us, she cannot tell. Pivoting on my heels, I cast a final smile at my mother - her body a heap of intricately creased flesh and jutting bone hidden beneath the tattered blankets. "I'll be back in a few."

"Find Matthieu as well."

"Will do." At my tone, she glances up. The narrowing of her eyes is deceived by her mouth softening into a smile that closes my heart in a fist. The moment is brief as a yawn, peaceful contentment without the clawing burden of our lives- the state of our poverty; endless hopelessness; the prophecy of my inevitable future for once I turn eighteen, this would be me.

I break away first, heading for the door, and with a final glance back, I step out.

The Harlot building is a dilapidated thing; creaky floorboards, wet wooden walls with the creeping carpet of mold in the corners. The air is dusky and filmed with drifting spores that flicker with golden avidity as they float through beams of light that peek through the holes in the ceiling, and the strangling sharp smell of cheap perfume, tobacco, opium, and alcohol. I hastily cross the hallway, shoulders hunched up, chin tucked into the collar of my jacket in an attempt to look small, invisible.

A choir of moans and groans ricochet from either side of me.

Some doors are slightly gaping allowing flashes of naked skin, a group of men with an old woman beneath, a small girl no older than sixteen, a boy flat on his belly with a man mounted behind him. Each room holds its person or family, each with its burden and quiet suffering.

Drifting down the winding wooden steps, I cross another hallway, ducking low just as a door opens and one drunk man stumbles out nearly crashing into me.

"You liked it in the arse! Loose fucking bitch-" He spat a green glob of mucus at the door just as it slams shut. Adjusting his manhood back into his pants, he swivels around and makes for another door, merely casting a disinterested glance in my direction.

Outside, I take a deep breath as the shackles that bind me to the building break free. Winter is nearing, the first smell of snow thick in the air as I breathe it in frigid and sharp- it feels like tiny knives scraping the back of my throat-but still smelling fresh after the fetid atmosphere of the building.

Shoving my hands into the frayed pockets of Matthieu's jacket, I pick a random route that slowly winds away from the Hostel and towards the market. The town we live in is slightly larger but not big enough to be a city, with the usual buildings of wooden homes, huts, barns, and farms.

The market sits like a cluster of old wives at the edge of the town. Long thin from the onset of winter, the number of white-capped stalls swells once more, drops of fading colors dotting the square where new produce lies on open carts, meat, bread, and other staples resistant to the cold.

Voices of sellers and buyers rise in an incongruous murmur towards the sky now bruised with dark low hanging clouds.

I sigh flutes past my lips, curling in a plume of white from the frosted air that parts as I walk past it. The market air's stench is different once inside; a mixture of herbs, dried clothes, the tingle of bells, and the bleating of sheep being guided by shepherds towards an open slaughterhouse.

Everyone is bowing in their work, trying to encourage customers towards their stalls, mothers nursing babies whose cheeks are ruddy from the harsh winds of on-setting winter. As I weave past them, their gazes preternaturally flicker in my direction; like the brief fleeting shadow of a hawk overhead, right before darting away.

Children of harlots and bastards are well-known in the town. An invisible brand stamped on my forehead isolating us from the rest.

I had done well in ignoring their disapproving attention for it never lasted long and the insults had faded as I grew with age. Or perhaps I had turned a deaf ear to it, the words nothing but water rushing in the background.

The familiar sight of the low white stall has my feet picking speed, the coins in my pocket tinkling with each progressive step. I duck low reflexively even if the roof is far above my head, and straighten slightly as I step into the open pharmacy. It was not much of a pharmacy, to begin with; a long wooden table marred with fine powders of pills, mortars, and pestles, glass jars stained brown and bubbling with thick syrupy contents.

A figure shifts in my peripheral just as deafening pop skitters across the room, startling me and the person.

"Damnit!" Gibson steps away from the smoking corner, one hand gripping a burned pot while the other fans at the air before him excessively. He coughs raggedly, the front of his white coat layered thickly with soot, his dark skin ashen. "Damn roots-" cough, "Bloody merchants ripped me off-" cough cough. Pushing past me, he tosses the flaming pot out into the open.

I watch from over my shoulder as it clatters to the ground noisily then rolls, kicked about bypassing pedestrians and animals pulling carts. Gibson watched the item, his stance venomous and shaking slightly with the remnants of a cough.

He pivots on one heel while drawing out a kerchief to wipe at his face, and smiles openly at the sight of me, revealing yellow teeth that had, at best, a passing acquaintance with a toothbrush.

"Kid! Didn't see you there," casting a final bitter glance at the pot, he steps back into the stall.

"Hey Gib," I mutter, waving off the final charred smoke that wafts past my face. "Another failed experiment?"

Gibson grunts and rounds the table, "Swear to the gods each time the merchants come 'round they bring cheaper shit, fraud ingredients..." he falls into a string of incoherent grumbles.

Ignoring him, I circle the room slowly, peering through glass jars filled to the brim with liquid and floating limbs from a variety of mammals, mostly rodents.

"What can I get ya?" I straighten and turn at the sound of his voice, watching as he wipes off the remnants of soot on his cheeks.

I smile lightly, already reaching into my pocket, "The usual."

Gibson nods and begins to pull open drawers, utensils, and cutlery rattling like loose seeds. He fumbles for a moment, "How many?"

"Five." The coins would be enough for that much, until next time.

Gibson draws out a folded piece of cloth and unfurls it to reveal a handful of white pills for mum. "How's your ma doing by the way?" He rips out a piece of newspaper and places five pills on the table, "still at her job?"

It was courteous talk and oftentimes repetitive. He would ask about mum even if he knew of her deteriorating state, and then he would ask about her job even if he knew she could never leave it. Then he would move on to Matthieu and his life.

The answers were always the same, but I was grateful for it. Outside of my family, Gibson was the only other friend.

I suspected the friendship was solely out of pity but when craving human connection, pity can be easily overlooked.

"Mum's doing good, she's still working at the place." Gibson would know, sometimes I saw him there. Furtive awkward glances as we brushed past each other in the hallways, him waiting for my disappearance before entering the intended bedroom. He, much like any other man, had little preferences.

As long as it was female, free of disease, and just normal enough to look at without wanting to wretch while climaxing, he would fuck it.

A part of me wonders if he ever did my mother.

Whether it was ever awkward. The man that provides your medicine, the man that is 'friends' with your daughter...

"Everything good?" Gibson inquires, noting my outward shudder of repulsion at such thoughts.

I quickly recover with a vague smile, "Yeah, just cold. Winter's coming."

"Mmmh might be harder this year-'round." Folding the newspaper, he slid it over the table towards me.

I place the coins on the table, already feeling at a loss, and reach for the medicine.

"Hey kid," there is something suddenly wary in his voice that has me halting halfway to the door.

"What's up?"

Gibson looks at me with a guilty expression, "It's four silvers."

And it has to be the way he looks at me -with guilt and saturated pity- that sparks a flint of dull anger in my belly. It rises steadily like steam, clouding my cheeks in slight embarrassment.

"Oh," I mutter, already approaching the table while fishing for the pills already snug in Matthieu's pocket.

"Yeah," Gibson scratches his scalp awkwardly, flakes of dandruff drifting about his head like a crown, "with the merchants bringing in less every season... prices are going up and--" I halt his words with a raised palm.

"It's fine Gib," at his unmoved expression, I force a smile of reassurance, "really, it is. How many can I take home then?"

"Two."

This time he sees my expression shatter before I can fully recover. Gibson glances sideways, takes a breath, and looks back at me. "Listen, why don't you take it all and you can pay me back in installments."

I should have felt relief but all that fills my belly is dread. Pride would have had me refusing the deal but desperation is a sickening thing. I smile gratefully, "I'll pay you back with my first cheque this week."

"I don't doubt it."