Blessed Virgin of the Circus- 17.

Sleepy-eyed shifting and a push of the hand. “What the hell’re you doing, Jerry??” Mara mumbled.

“Nothing, Kiddo. Nothing.” His voice sounded disappointed.

It was starting to feel like jail.

**
Mara pretended to be asleep until Jerry left the camper next morning, packed all her things and promptly moved back into Yana's and her old camper. Maybe she could just forget the past two weeks.

“Wurrr you doing back here?” Yana mumbled. Mara expected to find her with a man but she wasn’t.

“Some shit went down. I’m back. It was only temporary anyway.” That wasn’t her original intention, but it was now.

“Ugggggggggggggh.” Mara could see that Yana’s depression had worsened. If she were really pregnant, the mood swings were certainly starting to show more profoundly than usual.

“So…uh, you doing ok?” She really didn’t want to have this conversation but social lubricant if this was what she was stuck with was probably the best choice.

“I prayed to the statue yesterday. Like you said. Then I had some vodka.” Mara’s eyes wandered to the 3/4ths empty bottle on the counter.

“Really. I thought you were atheist.”

“I’ll take anything right now.”

Mara prepared her best to attempt diplomacy. “So, uh…do you know who the dad is?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter. I’m not keeping it.”

“Ok. I see.” Mara had no opinion either way. She wouldn’t ever want to have to go through an abortion or miscarriage herself, but she couldn’t picture herself nearing that state in any way. She always just assumed she was barren. None of it was terribly disappointing. But as much as Yana had whined and made her life awful, she didn’t want her sister to suffer.

“Ok. Um, good luck, Yana. I hope things work out ok. I want you to be ok.” Mara shifted on the bed to look at Yana opposite, in the fetal position.

“Thanks.” Defeated. A soundless “I love you” hung between them.

**
Mara began to have a nightmare of the groping that night. In the dream, Jerry’s eyes were hollowed-out, like Yana’s had started to be. He was clearly hungry for something, but Mara did not know what. In the dream her eyes were open the whole time. The creeping, creaking camper. The utterly eerie wind. No explanation for why any of it happened, why a gay man would want it, why he wanted his fingers inside her instead of something else, why her, why that relationship.


Only this time, a hand stopped his. Caramel-colored skin that glowed dark olive and gold. A radiant gold. And the sound of live steel drawing from a sheath. A severance of his hand, and words in a language she had never heard. Long-smooth locks. Perfumed hair. Then waking.

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