Content Warning: Graphic sexual descriptions, rape, self-harm, blood
She’s sat on the floor next to a locked bathroom door, terrified. A mix of blood and her own climax has coagulated into a slick line down her inner thigh, as if a wounded snail has crawled out of her and vanished right above her knee.
On the other side of the door, listening intently to her fractured hyperventilations is her girlfriend. The person she had planned a whole life with. The person who had come into her life as an unexpected burst of blue sky. The person who, on her birthday one year, had planned a South Park-themed surprise party for her and invited only the people she loved. Mel remembers how Billie had sat on the edge of the bathtub and smiled as she changed into a Kenny costume. They laughed and laughed as they wrangled the big orange hood over her face. She thought she had found her forever.
Billie pushes her ear against the door and traces the M she carved into the side of her wrist.
“Mel,” she pauses and her resentment hangs in the air. “You need to clean yourself up now.”
Billie’s voice doesn’t sound like her own. It has lost its sing-song trill and upward inflection. She sounds severe but calm, two traits she’d never really had before.
Mel pushes her head back into the wall behind her, wishing it could just envelop her. She looks up, and whispers a prayer; her first in years.
“God, please please please get me to a safe place. Make her go away. Make her fall asleep so I can run.”
A year ago, Mel and Billie were on a train, wrapped in each others’ arms after a New Found Glory concert. They should have been finished with the infatuation and butterflies that come with the honeymoon stage, but four years in and they were inseparable.
What had started as a friendship in high school, when they would dismiss their boy crushes at parties just so they could be alone, soon turned into more than either were ready for. It started gradually, from holding hands on the bus, to spending all their savings on presents for each other that were so secret, so esoteric, that they further crystallised their impenetrable enclosure.
Then one night Mel awoke to feel Billie’s face so close to hers that if she pursed her lips they would be kissing. Mel imagined turning her head away and laughing if Billie got closer, but instead she waited, and waited; her heartbeat pounding through her ears.
The kiss wasn’t weird or repulsive, it was exactly the opposite. It was two women unlearning everything they thought love was meant to be, and opening a new door in their hearts.
Six months ago, they were at a party on the coast when Mel had walked off with a boy. Billie caught them kissing and when she smashed her own head against a brick wall in a fit of rage, she needed six stitches.
Hours ago, they’d rented a cabin just outside the city to see whether the relationship could be salvaged.
Moments ago, Billie held Mel down on the bed and despite the surprised screams, the flailing arms and tears, Billie forced her hand inside her and pumped her bitter, unresolved hate into a body that soon turned limp, a body that had given up.
“Come like the whore you are,” Billie spat through bared teeth.
And in the screwed-up way that a woman’s body can betray her when triggered with medical precision in exactly the right spot, she orgasmed into her own stifled cries.
Minutes passed, then hours. Mel had to be sure Billie had fallen asleep before she allowed the click of the lock to sound down the hallway. She opens it carefully but stands tall to prove to herself she’s resilient.
Billie isn’t in the bedroom. Instead she’s sat at the kitchen table nursing a glass of water and staring at nothing in particular. Mel briefly imagines taking that glass and smashing it against Billie’s head. She’d like to see Billie fall to the floor as a small pool of blood spilled out behind her like a forming halo. Just like in the movies.
Billie looks up at Mel with a menacing smirk; again, completely unrecognisable. She takes in the sight of her blood-stained thigh pressed against her denim shorts, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her phone in her hand. She considers what Mel’s next move might be and she hopes it’s violence. She’s already dead anyway.
Mel slowly walks over to Billie. It’s an awkward seven steps, but they feel deliberate and each one seems less threatening than the last. She puts her hand on Billie’s shoulder.
“I forgive you,” she says, already feeling her power return to her limbs.
Billie’s face changes and she starts crying. She seems to be getting smaller and smaller as she hunches forward and buries her wet sobs in her hands.
Her dank, blackened spirit had turned almost sickly. She’s no longer threatening or strong, she’s a little girl who looks like she’s woken up from a nightmare, only to find it’s her reality.
After removing her hand from Billie’s shoulder, Mel turns and walks out the door.
Illustration by artist and designer Janey Li. See more of Li’s work at @jane.ey on Instagram.
If you or someone you know is impacted by rape or sexual assault, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
