Jem…Chapter 134

*Molly………………..

My heart was in my throat just from asking.

See I have had this thing for Raven since like three years ago and I was like this little baby lesbian. I’d just gotten out of my house and I was with Trish then and we were like literally living on the streets with a couple of other kids over in “the national”

That’s an old part of the CN yards that had those trailers that the crews bunked in well there’s like four of them that are like in a garbage lot and are kinda rotting out and stuff but they’re still a roof and no one thinks to look there.

Yeah so I was with Trish and it wasn’t really a relationship it was just like sort of two little les-girls that found each other and we were just trying to be something for each other.

And we’d do stuff…anything and everything for a buck or food or to like keep clean and just have a few like simple things and stay the hell away from home.

Well it was like a rainy shitty night and I was just getting into the scene and I was at The Cat and it was like the usual dance spot and kind of like the only LGBT safe spot in town and that was really mostly a lesbian spot even though some nights were like open to all.

And Starlight Butterfly came up on stage and they were good, Summer could really, really belt out the tunes and stuff but then there was Raven.

She was this big girl, goth like me, and she played bass and she wasn’t one of those skinny bitches and no she wasn’t really heavy then she was so just awesome and hot and put together and she could play and when she did sing she could sing.

And it was the end of the show’s first set when I saw her and Summer kiss.

Full on girl on girl holy fuck its real lesbians in an all-girl band.

That didn’t exist for me outside of fiction. There are no bands or people local doing anything like what SLB was doing. Yeah there was stuff I watched online and they were all like far away as to might as well not be real.

My reality lesbian girls didn’t do anything…I mean I kind of was starting to know “the crowd” and there were some teenage lesbians and then there were some of the older chic’s that were like into the younger ones and then there’s well the scene is as freeing as it gets when you’ve never been out but it’s full of a lot of people with no brakes.

But like literally the amount of us that was doing anything was like so really, really minimal.

So I had my few things from home including my old computer and stuff and I kind of fell for the band and fell for Raven a lot too and I blogged about them for a good six months and that actually led me into doing some more stuff and I got a stylus set after working my ass off all one summer at a car wash and burger joint out by the highway and that led to me doing stuff online for art.

And other stuff like me getting out and getting my GED and going to Computer College.

And that let me get the place I’m at with like my student loan cash to pay for the room I’m using and Trish and I broke up because she just still wanted to party and do whatever and I wanted to get out.

I was so tired of living in sleeping bags with the plumbing being the garage that’s like four blocks away.

And things were good, but they were still kind of shit too.

Penny and Brit were my roommates at first and Penny was just.

She’s a slob who thinks anything in communal space is hers to do whatever with and the same applies to any mess in communal space too and that’s the same lines of thought…like if it’s in the living room then it’s everyone’s job to clean it up.

Brit, Brit’s damaged and she’s a stoner and she has bad shithead boyfriend after boyfriend and these guys would even move in for a while and rule the place. Eat the food and leave a mess and ignorant as fuck and just…

I don’t like guys….I’m a lesbian but I’m not just a lesbian I’m…well….

………………….Dad was a drunk and a mean one, mom was churchy and dragged me into places to pray it way and my older brothers…well they thought that I just needed a good dicking to make me right.

Roman caught me with my dolls kissing each other and I was like young…too young for him to do what he did. Royal was worse he threatened me…

‘If Mom and Dad find out you’re a dyke they’ll beat you and they’ll hate you and they’ll cast you out. Everyone one will know and they’ll hate you even more than they do now.’

Roman would break my things, he’d wreck anything that he though was lesbian of mine, and then he’d “fix me.”

Royal would tell me. ‘I’ll fuck the queer out of you, you little bitch…I’m really just doing you a favor…fat, ugly little cow what pretty girl will even want to touch you and your rolls…a dick’s as good as a dildo, it’s as good as fingers…it’s better even because god commands it.’

Roman and Royal are my older brothers and they’re both twins.

They’re both big and handsome and strong and hard workers and dad thought they were great and could do no wrong and mom…mom literally worshipped the ground they walked on.

And I was the short and fat girl with the strange music and clothes and who didn’t have friends and who locked herself into her room until the boys would bash the door in or the locks or dad would…I was the ugly little lesbian who lied.

Lied when I was thirteen and told my teachers about stuff at home and they didn’t call the cops first or social services nope, nope hell nope Anderson is a small little shithole of a town and they did what all small close minded shitty little towns did.

Called my folks first.

The backlash nearly killed me, especially when I was outed by my brothers and called a liar. Called a druggie and I was grounded and dad nearly beat the hell out of me…He had his belt that night and I was so hurt that I passed out.

I remember my mother sort of saving my life getting in front of dad and screaming at him. “No! No I can fix her!, I will take her and I will fix her!”

And of course my lesbianess got around town, around school.

My brother’s didn’t touch me after that…unless Dad and Mom were gone and they were home.

And I knew that they’d never believe me if I kept telling on them.

And Mom kept dragging me to get fixed.

And Dad drank more.

So I ran away from home…I took off and I walked the train tracks first and then a few side roads and even hitched until I landed Red Pines where I met Trish and she was out on her own too and we ended up a month after that in Harper’s Point.

………………. So it’s been good and it’s been bad lately.

The girls have live in boyfriends.

Guys a whole lot of the time; make me feel scared, sick, they are not good people…not in my experiences.

I know I had a whole childhood of shitty rapist and abusive experiences and that’s colored a lot of things for me.

Grant who is Penny’s guy is big and he’s loud and he yells and shouts and he reminds me of my dad and of Roman. He is also an entitled prick too that takes whatever he wants and leaves nothing left for anyone else….food, towels, toilet paper.

Devon is Brit’s boyfriend and he’s an ass took. He’s also creepy and he watches me and he’s checking me out a lot too and sometimes when I’m not right there in the room he calls me dyke and lezzy…and calls me fat and ugly…usually making fun or something he’s always been snotty about my goth stuff from like the make-up to my clothes and shit.

I hate him because when he’s not creeping me out he’s making me feel really, really bad about myself.

Like I don’t have those voices going on in my own head right?

…………………..and this has been my life until like Angel and her hiring me and I’m like perpetually broke and I’m in debt from my loans and the little bit of shifts I got from being a casual at the few places I’ve work it’s just never been enough.

And she just hired me just like that.

And she looked at me and all my stuff and she treated me like I’m a professional…like I’m good at my job.

Do you know how good it feels to have someone assume that you’re smart instead of not, that you can like do the work instead of not?

I mean the day she hired me she took me to a serious business lunch.

And she’s with Raven, Rayne and she’s brought back starlight Butterfly and she knows what she wants and what she’s trying for and she has a plan.

An actual plan for like doing shit in her life and it’s like including helping others. Like lots of others and doing stuff that is like good for the band and everyone else too.

And…and she has these great guys in her life, guys I didn’t even know existed outside of fiction.

And I’m in the truck with Carmen and Remy Powers who’s Angel’s family and a great guy as far as I can tell…I mean there’s some guys that became assholes at every turn and then there’s some guys that aren’t like that apparently.

Then there’s the two biker dudes who are here because of… well Carmen told me it’s because Remy’s son Jason was nearly killed by Adam 3.0 and company and that Angel showed up to help the family after Jason booked running for his life. And that she got involved because Adam the fucker was running a credit card debt and blackmail scheme to wreck girls and to run a prostitution ring that he exploited to even more blackmail because men are fucking pigs.

And Carmen was part of that.

Another reason for me to have a real uggh over men.

Yes I know not every one of them is like that but Adam is, and then my family and then you have all of these guys that go and use these girls and they know that they’re teens. They know that it’s fucking wrong and they still want it.

Honestly not really surprised, but with Remy and Mike and them I am surprised by.

And Angel and Remy are sheltering her and she’s helping fight Adam because she's sick soul deep and she’s hurting like an open wound inside.

Angel brought her into the house, gave her a home and shelter and at the same time it’s sort of a fuck you to The Marshals and Adam 3.0 who must be freaking out over her being there and breaking ranks.

And there’s no safe house, no shuffling her off to someplace. There’s like no proof of things going to Mitch I guess and he’s not even on duty here he’s on leave and staying with Remy.

Yeah there’s a lot I don’t get yet but all I know is I want to be here.

I want to be there in front of the people that want to hurt my friends.

I want to feel like there’s a place for me.

I want to not have to tear up my heart every time I leave the doors to Starlight House.

And I want to be with Carmen.

I want to be here with her because she doesn’t sleep, she bottles herself up who she really is and who she might be if she’s ever be allowed to just be herself instead of the trophy daughter.

I want to belong here.

I was so scared, so terrified of being told no, of being told I wasn’t good enough.

It’s not what Angel and Rayne and the girls are like, it’s not what any of them are like it’s just.

This is the voice that is playing all the time in my head.

We’re pulling into my place and my stomach knots and I feel Carmen holding my hand and I look at her and she looks at me.

“We can do this; you don’t have to take their bullshit.”

Remy looks over at me. “Their bullshit? They’re still being bad housies?”

I nod and sigh. “Y...Yeah, it’s not a big deal though I just want to get out of here.”

We get out and Remy goes and he’s talking to the bikers and Mike heads over to me and Carmen and he smiles. “I’m with you all the way okay?”

I nod and smile at him. “Thanks Mike.”

Mike’s actually a nice guy…one of the rare ones and I got to know him while working with him and learning the stuff he does for the cameras and the online stuff and he’s really smart and he knows how to like film stuff.

He’s a cop’s kid and he got into it with some baddies when dealers were in his school and he lost a friend. The guy was on steroids to play football and they messed with him so much and everything when he broke up with his girlfriend he ate his dad’s shotgun.

Mike told me that part when we were doing stuff the last night we worked The Amsterdam.

So he went sort of undercover and got stuff on the dealers and he turned to his dad for help and they busted a bunch of them.

He’s also like a mixed martial arts fighter because being a cop’s kid, a Mounties kid was bad and being the new kid was bad so he had to learn how to fight.

And he was actually pretty good, like ranked fourteenth in his weight class in the provincial league and he was even in a charity thing where they raised cash with sponsors and fought to raise money for domestic abuse shelters.

And he plays guitar and he sings, and he walked into that shithole that Brooklyn used to live in and he went and he got all of her old things.

And Mike keeps his distance, he’s a friend but he knows shit went down with me, he doesn’t know what but he knows and he gives me my space and he makes space for me.

Twice he’s been a sort of buffer wall of guy between me and people that might freak me out while we’re at a gig.

And when we’ve been at the house, he’ll get me a coffee when he gets one and he’ll share him food…snacks and stuff.

He’s a guy and he’s my friend.

Remy is going in behind Billy and Davey who are going in with a purpose and I can hear grant yelling. “What the fuck are you assholes doing here?”

There’s some scuffling inside and I hear Penny yelling. “I’m going to call the cops!”

I take a breath and Mike goes in first and he sort of walks and he stops at the stairs and lets Carmen and I head up not really looking at them.

Devon shoots his mouth off. “Oh Jesus it’s fucking Molly I shoulda known! What the fuck is going on Molly.”

Remy says. “We’re just here to get her things and help her move out.”

Devon says. “With a fucking gang?”

Billy says. “She did feel safe otherwise with you assholes.”

Devon says. “Not safe what kind of bullshit has she been saying!”

Davey says. “Just your bullshit, now sit the fuck down.”

Devon says. “Man she’s a fucking liar…fuckin fat pig.”

Remy…Remy gets in his face…like right in his face…. “You don’t call her a liar, you don’t shame her, and you don’t say another damned word about Molly you got that?”

Oh...

Oh ow…I…he’s. He’s right in his face and he’s standing up for me.

No one stands up for me, like not ever… (Sob!)

I’m just frozen and watching and Carmen pulls me by the hand the rest of the way upstairs.

Once we get up there it breaks and I’m crying, I’m sobbing because it hurts. What Devon said hurts and it always fucking hurts and it’s just like he has his ear to the abuse played on that tape deck in my head.

But no one’s ever stood up for me before, not like this, never like this and it’s fucking amazing but it is breaking me too because…because… (Sob!) “Why wasn’t I good enough? Why? What was so wrong with me that they all hated me, what’s wrong with me that people can see…that makes them hate me? Why?”

There’s a whole lot more too but it just gets swallowed in the sobbing and me crying and it’s just Remy and Billy and Davey and Mike and Carmen all here and all protecting me and loving me is just making the fact that my own family didn’t and all they ever did was blame me and abuse me and…all my inside buttons are getting mashed.

Carmen’s hugging me she’s got me pulled so close and tight that I just…I’ve never been hung onto, I’m never had arms around me so tight that they’re keeping me from flying apart.

She’s rocking me and I feel cared for and safe and that’s making me cry more.

And I hear some yelling and Brit and penny are screaming and then there’s doors slamming and stuff downstairs.

Penny won’t call the cops, she hates the cops and Brit has enough drugs between her and Devon here that the cops would just be trouble.

I hear yelling outside but it’s muffled and then some smashing glass downstairs and I hear a motorcycle engine turn over and I’m trying to breathe and my chest hurts from the crying and the hyperventilating I was close to doing and Carmen backs her hug off of me some and she touches the side of my face and she’s so amazing and she’s so beautiful and I’m not even talking about the outside.

She hates her outside looks sometimes, because it’s all she’s been measured by.

We’re doing that looking deep into each other’s eyes thing, into each other’s lives thing and she has a few tears falling down her cheeks of her own. “You’re good enough for me Molly, you’re better than good enough…you make me want to breath honey, you make me feel like there’s life after me…after what I was.”

I can’t even really get a response out I’m still so choked up with everything and just this sort of whine comes out and she kisses me and she’s shivering too because she’s scared…scared for me and scared for herself and us and just everything that happened.

Her kiss is sweet and shivery and it’s just got this whole feeling to it of please, please, please… and I kiss her back.

I can feel the change in her breath, in that first inhale and something in her feels better and safer and good enough.

I so get that when you feel just so damaged that you have a hard time even wrapping your head around that someone would even be good with you loving them.

Yeah…not being loved, that’s there too but just being so fucking self-hating and awful feeling inside that there’s a very real voice or feeling in you that is tiny and hurting and terrified that if you loved someone they’d feel like it was-would-be awful and just wrong.

And I’m there so often and she’s there so often and we’re kissing and then we’re desperately kissing and I…I don’t get why we’re doing this now…here and now but Carmen kicks my door shut and then we’re getting naked and undressed and it’s just.

It’s need, need to feel something good, to feel each other feeling something good to be that for each other and heal maybe?

She’s so beautiful and she’s even more so naked.

Carmen is Brazilian and white but she had black in her family and that shows. She hides it, she hides that part of her with her clothes and her hair because she was raised to and taught to and naked she’s just….she has freckles and she has these spots that are like big solo freckles here and there and she’s just herself and she’s raw and that’s beautiful because she’s being herself.

And she says I’m beautiful, and she cuddles into me and my size and my bigness that I’ve been really so, so ashamed of and she kisses my scars…I have cut scars, I used to…I really used to just to deal, just to feel something else other than what I was feeling all of the time. She loves my tattoos, okay I love my tattoos as well I have a lot of them and I think that they’re pretty and neat and they make me feel good things.

I Carmen’s world though tattoos were guy things.

It’s hot and desperate and it’s joyous too once we really get to that point and Carmen’s loud, she’s loud a lot since she can’t cum with a guy…she never could and just fakes…faked it.

She never actually had a real orgasm until that time when we first hooked up.

We really shouldn’t have, we had all this stuff going on and it’s just.

Actually afterwards it’s quiet.

We looked at each other and we almost laughed and Carmen and I went and cleaned up and she went and peeked.

“The assholes are gone and the guys are actually outside sitting and waiting for us I think.”

I look at her and I’m blushing. “We’re so going to be like doing the walk of shame y’know.”

Carmen walks me into the shower. “Mmm…I don’t care; I’ll never be ashamed of us.”

We shower and I smile as she’s towel drying her hair since I don’t have a blow dryer and she’s frowning at the shower. “Might as well have used a water pistol.”

I nod. “The house is kinda crap but it beats taking a sponge bath in a gas station bathroom.”

She looks at me. “We have two bathrooms at Starlight house.”

“Are we really calling it that?”

“Well Angel does go by Jem as her stage name.”

I nod. “Actually I kind of like it besides Kimber’s totally into girls.”

She looks at me like huh?

I laugh. “Kimber had this kinda sorta thing with Stormer that was like all head canon.”

“Head canon?”

“It’s a fan thing where there’s kind of semi-solid evidence of something that was never intended to like go on in the story but it’s like totally plausible.”

She nods. “Okay…I’ll take your word for it hon.”

I smile and we kiss and I start actually in the bathroom and taking what’s mine.

Clean or dirty I’m taking what’s mine because well they honestly kind of put me through a lot of shit with both of the assholes and the girls for not stopping them from being assholes.

And Carmen went to get the guys and soon we’re getting everything out of there even the shelves I have the knickknacks and my laundry stuff and dish soap and…

I’m looking at the kitchen box and frowning. “Jesus really? I was like the only one that bought cleaning stuff?”

I also like owned half of the dishes too.

I look at Mike. “I really don’t need a lot of this stuff.”

“Chapel street church runs a shelter for girls and women they’ll take anything that you don’t want.”

“I feel kind of bad for taking all of this out of here.”

Mike’s like. “Don’t, you were pretty much on the paying end of like a whole lot of stuff just because they figured you’d get fed up enough to buy some yourself. They used you stuff, ate your food and it’d like be different if they cared or thanked you or really pitched in and stuff but they really kind of didn’t did they?”

No, not when I’m adding this all up and stuff like who bought the light bulbs when they burned out or the dishwasher stuff or the laundry soap. Who bought even the friggin paper towels and toilet paper, and I’m a little ticked off too because really I can’t really remember them doing any of that.

I didn’t notice really how much I was getting nickel and dimed.

“Y’know I’d never mind helping out if like someone couldn’t but this, this is just getting me mad.”

Mike takes the box. “Good you’re allowed to get mad; you have a lot to get mad about.”

I look at him and he does that walk away in that whole I’m Mike and I’m a cat kind of way and I just meowed at you and I was right.

…………………………………….We took everything and I cancel my internet and cable for here saying I’m going to be moving and I take the boxes with me because it’s in my name and there’s a deposit on that stuff.

Then we leave and we drive to the overnight grocery first because I want to get a few things and I get two big super packs of toilet paper and a box of pads and tampons and Carmen chips in and we drop those things off with the things I don’t want or need since I’m moving and it feels good actually.

And it’s late but there’s two women that are up anyways keeping watch and doing things and they’re more than happy for the things.

I stop and get their information too before I leave. I look at Jan the older of the two women that run the place. “If you wouldn’t mind I’d like to maybe work something up for the shelter for like funding and maybe set up a PayPal or a link to your webpage?”

“Uhm we don’t really have one.”

I smile. “We’ll talk maybe I can work something out with my boss.”

It’s charity and for a charity so maybe I can get the fees paid for through the SLB site I’m building and we can write the costs off as a charitable tax thingy?

Wow…that actually sounded like Angel and it sounded like Ai actually know what I’m talking about.

But I’m smiling as I get back into the truck and cuddle up to Carmen. I’ve never ever had the chance to give back even once in my life.

We’re not that long in getting home and It’s Brooklyn and Rayne coming out to help with my stuff and then Angel too and the house smells like fried things and love and it’s bright inside and it’s warm and it’s clean and it’s safe.

And I think I’m home.