Melissa

By Emma DiValentino

Melissa exists in a world of praise. She has long hair, huge tits, and practiced fuck me eyes.
She never says no
Never has opinions
Or a single thought in her head.

She never complains when men want to fuck her in the back seat of her Honda
She never stares too long at the bruises on her knees,
They’ll disappear in a few days anyway.

She never makes men wear condoms
They say “it doesn’t feel as good”
And she appeases them.

She accepts rough, emotionless sex.
She never asks them to look her in the eye
Or kiss her nicely
Or if they have a girlfriend, maybe a wife waiting for them at home.

To them,
She’s a nameless, fuckable, piece of meat.
They don’t say this with their mouths

But in the rapid, forceful push of their hips
(Ignoring the fact that, yes, she is in fact a woman, with a cervix, and that hurts)
In the bite of their kisses
The way they shove their tongue in her mouth, not questioning what feels good.
Never offering to go down on her.
Always wanting her to kneel for them.

And she swallows what they give her
As willingly as she accepted The Eucharist from the hands of a priest in her youth
Enduring the bland, salty taste

In back alleys,

In hotel rooms

In dark stairwells

In marital beds

The backseat of a Honda Civic.

She still wears the purity ring her father placed on her finger on her fifteenth birthday
Sometimes she thumbs it,

Spins it
Soothes it
As she moves her head up and down a stranger’s shaft.
She thinks of the white sundress she wore,
Of how sullied it is now.
Of how it still hangs in her closet, marked with coffee stains and red wine that a young man
spilled on her at her friend’s eighteenth birthday party.

She thinks of how he looked at her
Apologetic
And Regretful.
Of how upon waking in his bed the next morning,
She promised herself she’d take it to the dry cleaners
But instead, tucked it away in the dark corner of her closet.

Every year like a New Years resolution,
She takes it out to study the stains
Only to return it to its rightful place,
Forgotten and Abandoned.

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Emma DiValentino is an emerging, queer writer and student at American University.