Official Disclaimer: The bad little cunt in this story is thirteen years old. Deal with it.

Bad Little Cunt
by clarise
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_____Greta Elisabeta awoke to an otherwise empty bed and gave the room a desultory sigh. She wrapped herself in a bathrobe, shuffled out barefoot, and took a seat at her Mason and Hamlin concert grand piano. She played for more than a half hour before she realized that she had an audience.
_____Thirteen year old Leticia sat nearby cross-legged on the floor and listened.
_____Leticia had been the first adoptive child to arrive and had taken the longest to acclimate herself, a process still unfolding. She whispered meek, abject monosyllables, scurried like a mouse from place to place, ate nothing but crumbs, and for the most part hid in her room, where she lived out of two little brown bags which she refused to unpack. Leticia’s room had nothing for adornments. She had been offered a choice of several spaces that had been decorated, but she had selected the one room that had contained nothing, whatsoever, not even windows— in fact an unutilized walk-in closet. Now the room contained nothing but a small bed and the two brown bags. She sometimes emerged from the room to listen when Greta practiced her Etudes. She would silently listen until Greta finished her drills. Then she would return to her room, where she would sit cross-legged in the dark, in the farthest corner, facing the wall.
_____Slender Leticia had a mauve blush behind her nails and the pale, blue veined pallor of raw meat exhumed from permafrost. Her dark brown hair fell straight across her face and concealed her aloe eyes.
_____On this particular morning, Leticia sat upon the same tile as always, with a hunched spine, chin almost on her knees. She wore a billowing poncho that draped across her body and concealed her figure almost entirely. She rested her bare forearms on her knees, palms up, and stared at deep lengthwise scars carved from her palms, across her wrists, nearly halfway to her elbows. Perhaps no one on earth but Leticia’s adoptive mother could comprehend how she had found the strength and determination necessary, nearly four years ago, to carve the near-fatal gashes into both arms. According to the official report, she had sliced herself open in the school yard during fourth grade recess by dragging her arms across a razor that she had gripped between clenched teeth. The reason? According to her file, she had done it so that the school would not send her home that afternoon. She had been dreading Friday night all week long, a special party to be meted out not only by her stepfather but also several purported uncles. She had known exactly what to dread, because she had barely survived several previous weekend-long parties. Leticia’s suicide attempt had done nothing to dispel the nightmare: an act motivated by good intentions, to no effect whatsoever.
_____An Etude ended, and Leticia spoke up for the first time. “You play so beautifully, Mother Greta. Did you learn before you were broken?”
_____Greta froze at the piano. She had never said more than good morning and good night to Leticia. The girl could not possibly have been apprised of Greta’s irreparably ruined state, but somehow she just knew. Greta stared at the strings and golden frame that overlaid the Mason and Hamlin’s soundboard. “No,” she replied. “I first began lessons as a very young girl, but I was already broken, long before I first learned how to play.”
_____Leticia speculated to her palms, with sullen despondency, “I could learn, too. Or, I could have learned. If I had not cut my hands.”
_____“Piano might be good therapy for your hands.”
_____“Maybe. Mother Greta, why does God hate us?”
_____Greta slowly slipped off the piano bench and sat upon the polished tiles, cross-legged, nearly ten feet from Leticia. She knew better than to attempt to approach. Leticia never allowed anyone to stray within the range of a determined lunge. She said, “God does not hate us. In order to hate us, He could not be this indifferent.”
_____“When did you know you were broken, Mother Greta?”
_____“When I first felt myself breathing. Most never perceive that much. Most eat and do not know it; drink and do not know it; breathe and do not know it. What I mean, dearest Leticia, is that most people do not ever behold the miracle that they are; they never stop to marvel at themselves and say, ‘My God, this dumb wet muck thinks and moves and beholds itself.’ Leticia, if we recognized the miracle that is us, then we would treat ourselves and each other better. We would behold each other and perceive grace.”
_____Leticia looked down at her ruined hands and whispered, “I did not treat myself very well at all.” She looked about warily and perhaps realized for the first time that she sat vulnerably in a large, open, light-filled space. She began to tremble.
_____Greta recalled herself at that age, alone under the basement workbench, huddled naked in a dirty tarp behind the paint cans. Soaking the pages of her diary with her tears. Hating herself, wishing herself dead, silently begging to be discovered in the process of dying a thousand deaths, scratching the unrequited wish into her diary autonomically in the darkness. Greta perhaps erred that moment, and if so, she did so only out of compassion, empathy, an intimation that perhaps darling Leticia secretly yearned for discovery and rescue, too. Greta bent forward, onto her hands and knees, and began her approach with the forward progress of just one palm upon the tiles.
_____Leticia abruptly leapt to her feet and sprinted for the mezzanine stairs. She ascended like a witch in flight upon her broom and disappeared into the corridor overhead.
_____Greta sighed, picked herself up, and gently closed the cover of the Mason and Hamlin. Three minutes later she padded into the suite where the girls slept, bypassed the three bedroom doors, peeked into a closet door that had been left ajar, and closed her eyes for a spell, to acclimate herself to the gloom. Then she pushed the door open, crept into the closet, and found Leticia prostrate in the corner, stark naked on her knees, hands on head, hyperventilating with her face upon the floor.
_____She awaited punishment. She expected to be beaten.
_____She also whispered to the corner, her nose within two inches of the spot where two walls and a floor intersected. “Not a miracle,” Leticia whispered, “a bad little cunt.” She repeated the denunciation over and over, a desolate chant.
_____Greta knelt behind Leticia and caressed her shoulders. The girl cowered against the wall, and her plaint devolved into a terrorized whine. Greta pressed herself against Leticia’s back and soothed, “Sweet darling, open your eyes. Look at this corner with clear, unsullied sight. Do you know where you are? This corner is part of a marble balcony high atop the uttermost tower of a giant pearl and diamond palace. Kneeling here at the foot of the railing, it is difficult to tell, because all you see are the walls of the balcony. But all you have to do is stand up and look out over the rail, and do you know what you will see?”
_____Leticia began to murmur again. “Bad girl. I’m sorry. Not a miracle. Bad girl.”
_____Greta pressed her cheek to Leticia’s brow and gently whispered into her ear, “Dearest, all you have to do is kneel upright and peek out, over the balcony, to see the vast plain of hell, teeming with souls who are doomed to suffer forever, for the mere act of finally seeing their own faults clearly, and then you will look up and see God above Creation, who looks down with wonder and joy upon a little tower, because on that tower, far below, on her knees, naked and afraid, kneels Heaven’s greatest miracle.”
_____Leticia convulsed and wept without restraint for the first time in four years. Greta held her tightly and kissed away her tears. “This place is all wrong,” Leticia wept. “It is too beautiful to be wrong. It is so wrong, so painful, this place without rightness. I want it to be right. If I could forget everything and leave it all behind; if I could start again, then there would be rightness. There would be nothing but happiness and love. It hurts, Mother Greta. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.”
_____The antichrist and destroyer of worlds rocked the girl and whispered, “I feel your agony every moment, and I weep with you.”
_____“Mrs. Collins, are you really my mother?”
_____“My beloved daughter, yes.”
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Comments are welcome.

 

Meh... sophomoric attempt to be controversial on an 18+ site whose restrictions you're endlessly lamenting, highlighting "underage" status of character (which doesn't matter since there's no sexual content anyway) and throwing the (shock-value) word "cunt" at her. I thought you were better than that, but it's not the first time I've been mistaken (it's the second... I once thought I had the flu, but it was just a bad cold).

That'll teach me to pop in here when an unexpected few minutes of free time presents itself. Shoulda made a cuppa and read the mail...

Consider the cage unrattled.

 

I am impressed by your writing, clarise. This is an astounding story that had me ripping my heart out for Leticia, who has obviously been through some considerable life trauma, while being both intrigued and drawn towards Greta. There was no sex or violent action featured here, but the download of cognitive input from this story into my positronic brain resulted in some curious form of enlightenment, stimulation, and satisfaction. A real subtle serpent of a story. Good stuff.

 

Glad you guys like it.

I've got stories with sex too. Whatever.

 

Is this a case of "suicide by Mod"?

 

You read my story! I knew you would!

 

more please

 

Unconvincing, overripe tosh.. was this your first story?

 

Hi, Brian.

No, I've written lots of stuff!

 

Thanks, sure.

 

I didn't "read" it. I scanned it.

 

I know, I know (she acknowledges, gushing with satisfaction).

Just like AesopsTails and her bosom pal, Brian Damage! Three peas in a pod! I am pleased, so immensely pleased!

 

I don't know who brain damage is but as far as I can see, its just three people who know tripe when they read it. written in desperation.

Get over yourself already

 

You didn't read it. You scanned it.

 

That was Joe, that scanned, not I.

I read it all... Then wished I hadn't.

My apologies for not gushing and kissing your ass like the others... But I didn't like it.

 

Well at least you read the tosh, esl, and that's good enough for me. Thanks for taking the time and responding. I super-appreciate it.

 

I'm glad I could clarisify it for you. I'm gonna go ahead and give you 2 out of 10 for this.... As I know you can do so much better

 

Two out of ten is more than I deserve.

 

Ok. Despite your demeanor.... I'll give you one