King of Her Desire

12

***WARNING: EXPLICIT***

First, it was Carli, pulling on my hair to wake me up and tell me, "I'm scared, Shoni."

Hadn't actually thought about it but they'd never slept alone before, the girls. In fact, none of us had until Cheyenne and I left and Cody started staying away from the house a lot.

Carli and Kelli were still sleeping in a room together and sometimes with at least one other kid from one of the families, though. In a doublewide that seemed big to us but wasn't anywhere near as big as Gerri's place.

Or as isolated, either. Our family compound had a lot of trailers clustered around. Well, four. And there were neighbors across the way and not far behind us, too. Same kind of junky looking lots.

The point out by Gerri was to have enough land around you that you felt "alone." A comfy, calm kind of alone on all this acreage and hidden in all kinds of foliage so you couldn't see anyone and no one could see you, either.

But for the kids it was too much of a good thing, I think. So Carli came in and then Kelli sensed she was gone and came almost sleepwalking in a few minutes later.

Kevin stayed put. I think he was thrilled to have a room to himself and not have to worry about one of the guys socking him or making fun of him or anything.

And he was the oldest at 8. Kelli was about to be seven. There was this big gap between them and Cheyenne, Cody and I. The "intrauterine device" years, we call them.

See, this woman in one of the so-called "projects" we'd lived in actually took my mother to have one of those little gizmos put in. Cheyenne and I kind of bullied her into it when we heard something like that was even possible.

Cheyenne had always vowed she'd never be anything like Gracie. And she'd been talking to some of the ladies in the complex, looking for options, so to speak. Something foolproof that she couldn't forget or let some fool talk or trick her out of using.

The doctor they went to was real good about checking in on us. She moved to Phoenix a few years later, which is in part why the other three kids exist. My mom's body just pushed the little thingy out and we didn't find out until Kevin was on the way.

There'd be three more kids who'd have to tell people their father was, "I don't know. Some guy..." But then Grace almost died having Carli. They had to take her whole uterus out.

Worst/best thing that ever happened to her. And us. She almost bled to death. But it was time to stop with the "baby every year" stuff.

Anyway, I had the girls all over me 'til they were completely knocked out. Once we're out, we can sleep through anything, us kids. Because we had to.

So I moved their dead weight over. And sat there just looking at the two of them for a bit.

She made gorgeous kids, Gracie. That's the thing I noticed a lot in the places we'd lived in, how cute the kids were. We shouldn't have been having babies, any of us, but all the babies were adorable.

Grew up to be good looking, too. The girls especially. Gorgeous faces. Sick bodies. And that got them preyed upon by neighbors and strangers, both.

I always wondered why God did that. Gave the most beautiful kids to people who lived in a world that would take us for fair game.

Not one of the girls I grew up with got out of their teens without being at least touched by someone in the family—men and women both went after 'em.