A short tale I did for uni. I wrote a small critical review for this which you can find here.
Megan – minxy and independent
You could do worse than me. There’s death row or life sentences out there, with no hope of you ever seeing freedom again. I’ll get out of this prison one day and when that happens, me and Patrick will be a real item again and you won’t stop me. Nobody will.
You’ll want to know why I’m in this reform jail for young female offenders. Easy. I’m in love with a boy called Patrick. They say I’m too old for him, and he’s too young for me. My mentor at the orphanage was an old bitch named Sister Elizabeth or Sister Liz as I thought of her. Sister Liz caught me playing with myself one day while I was in the wash-house, and I only just had time to pull these borrowed shorts up before she really sprung me. At the time, I didn’t know why I had those shorts on. They are the kind boys wear playing rugby league and you must think I was a real butch wearing them. They don’t look all that great on me but the magistrate who locked me up reckons I was an attractive young sort. Patrick feels I’m gorgeous.
You know why I had a pair of boy’s sports shorts on? Sister Liz had taken my trackpants away, didn’t she? So then I had to wear those cacky shorts, the ones that rode up my arse and strangled me.
The washing machine beeps and I get the nuns’ clothes out of them – their “habits” as Sister Liz and her kind called them. All black and white things, scapulars, surplices, under-vestments. No, they just can’t call them clothes, can they? It was like God Himself gave them these names and we must always properly name them, no-men-clat-ure.
Black and white clothes and that’s how Sister Liz and her kind think too – matching clothes and matching brains, and everything’s either good or bad, sin or purity, lust or chastity. No in-betweens at all and it’s all very down the middle. Funny thing is they don’t wear shorts, hell no, they wouldn’t wear something like that. Might offend God, mightn’t it? They reckon they’re married to Him and He wouldn’t want his missus wearing skimpy things like boy’s school shorts.
You could see Sister Liz was triumphant about something when she came into the washroom.
‘Megan, I want a talk with you,’ Sister Liz said.
You want to say nothing but it’s not good to ignore them, so I stopped what I was doing, and faced her.
‘Megan? You have nothing to say?’
‘I’m sorry, Sister Elizabeth.’
‘With little Patrick, did you touch him?’
‘Can’t help if I touch him,’ I said. ‘Sometimes he runs into me and can’t get out of his way.’
‘That’s not what I meant Megan, and you know it.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Sister Liz.’
‘It’s Sister Elizabeth, and you know precisely what I mean.’ Then she was really mad. You could see she was getting really angry at me, standing there with her arms folded under her huge boobs and I wonder if Jesus liked those boobs. I bet He did.
‘Answer me truthfully, Megan.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘You’ve touched a child inappropriately, and that is wrong, Megan. God, you are barely beyond being a child yourself.’
‘It’s not wrong,’ I said.
‘What?’ Sister Liz asked, her mouth open like it was about to catch a few flies. ‘What did you just say, Megan?’
‘You heard.’
‘No cheek from you, girl!’ There she went – the backhand. I rubbed my face; it didn’t sting as much as it used to. Either my skin’s getting thicker or Sister Liz was getting weaker. I remember back when I was little, her smacks used to knock me over, and I’d bawl like a little crybaby for hours.
‘I said you heard,’ I repeated. ‘Me and Patrick are like this,’ I said, and I held my thumb and forefinger close together. ‘We’re each other’s.’
‘Each other’s what, Megan?’
‘What you are to Jesus, I am to him and the other way around. We’re the same, you know? Me and Patrick, not me and you.’
Another wallop to the face. I kind of stepped out of the way of that one, but she still got the nose and a bit of my cheek. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that! I’ll not have you uttering such rubbish in this orphanage.’ She got a crafty look on her face and if I had half a brain I should’ve figured to take the bolt. You would’ve, I’m sure of it. ‘So Megan, you’re admitting you had improper relations with a minor?’
‘Nothing improper about it.’ Then it was my turn to get angry. ‘What’s it to you, Sister Elizabeth? I’m it in this world and so’s he. His Mum dumped him just like mine did and he has nobody, only me. I don’t want to marry myself to God like you did. I want to be me.’ I pointed at my chest. ‘I want my fucking trackpants back too, as I itch in these stupid shorts.’
I knew Sister Liz was setting me up for something bad. There were a bunch of footsteps behind me and I didn’t need to guess who was making them. She’d threatened to call the cops on me for a bunch of stuff and the old biddy finally made good on it. That’s why my trackpants were stolen off me – for forensics, so I was told later. Little bits of me and Patrick on them. Sick stuff I guess, but the courts and lawyers all love it.
You can see me in kid’s jail, with a bunch of other chicks around my age, but they’re mainly in for doing shit like thieving or assault. I’m in for being a pedo – indecent dealing with a minor as the old-fashioned law calls it. You can call it whatever you like too but I’ll say to you that people just don’t get it with me and Patrick. I haven’t done anything wrong, not to me, not to Patrick, not to anybody. We weren’t hurting anybody when we were alone in the little coop they let us sleep in at the orphanage. We were not hurting a soul, and you know what? We’ll get together again, we will, and no cop or genius will get in our way. I dare them to try. Me and Patrick forever. That’s the plan.
