Gysana

By Mona LaVigne © 2002

Gysana, that impossibly delicious little whore, she thought she was so smart.

I’d sit on the Great Dead Stump by the duck pond and chain smoke as she’d cross the Green towards me. When she’d walk, her ass would twitch and twitter and her hair would bounce as her breasts, and the boys, they’d watch her, slack-jawed. I hated Gysana with an almost immoral passion, and yet vainly attempted to call her my friend. She was oblivious to all around her as she walked, save for the sound of polyester, denim, and cotton rising from erections all around her. And her innocence, her playful grin, the toss of her firestarter hair: it was all bullshit. Every bit of it.

She’d saunter across the Green and stand before me, her skirt so short, I could usually see her pussy, shaven and glistening. The boys would see her talking to me, and I could feel their green eyes searing into us, demonic and cruel. She’d sit next to me on the Great Dead Stump, and gently press her lips into my neck, and then tip my chin to her face. Eye to eye, tooth to tooth, this woman, her squeeze-monkey mouth wet and waiting, kiss me, they’d plead…

I’d look away from her and stare at the starers, those envious little pricks. Gysana’s legs would be spread as though she were wearing pants (which she rarely did) and her fingers would trace the insides of her thighs, her bare, liquid thighs and if she moved even the slightest bit, I could smell her, sweet and sweat. Her breath cool on my face, and without me asking she would kiss, her tongue peeking out against the shell of my ear, my fists and toes curling in resistance.

Or sometimes she would appear in jeans so tight you could tell what she had had for breakfast. She would pad coolly across the grass, the strings of her thong peeking out over her pointed hips, her hair flitting across the pale slip of flesh between the top of her jeans and the bottom of her shirt.

This would happen almost every day. I’d sit on the Great Dead Stump, Gysana would cross the Green, cocks would stand at attention, and she’d pass them all to come to me, waiting, smoking, detesting her very being. And after time spent together, I would go home, slip past my mother watching Cops, and crawl into bed alone, where I would chew Valium and write frantic, manic rantings in a spiral notebook.

One day I sat on the Great Dead Stump and acted my usual "I-don’t-care-if-she-shows- or-not-because-I-hate-her-and- why-do-I-even-bother-sitting-here-every-day- because-I-am-a-creature-of-habit-that’s-why" self, noticing everything, caring about nothing, wishing I were drunk, until the sun set. It barely occurred to me that Gysana had not come that day until there was nothing left to look at. It was dark, the sky’s pale gray glow casting shadows of trucks and monsters against the duck pond. I glanced out at the Green and saw a few stragglers heading back to their homes, some dogs running back to the wood. At my feet, there were worms and beetles crawling out from the Great Dead Stump, coming home into the night.


I stood and walked the perimeter of the Green. No Gysana. I started for home, shooting my eyes down each dark street, not really caring, but just curious. No Gysana.

When you’re looking for someone that you cannot find, everything looks like them. The red cars and brick four-story walkups spoke of her hair, the menacing puddles of anti-freeze were her eyes. I had become quite acquainted with Gysana’s cunt on the day when she arrived at the Green with a small hand mirror, held it between her legs, while grabbing my hand and forcing me to stick my fingers inside her while watching the action in the hand mirror. She came on the Green, my fingers sticky and stank with her juice. Now the dark purple sky, I could have sworn, smelled and looked like Gysana’s innermost regions.

I ran upstairs to my apartment and stood in the door, listening to my mother watching the Atlanta PD attempting to negotiate with a strung-out trailer park woman. My mother didn’t smoke and hated that I did, but I knew that in my absence she would go into my bedroom and take my empty ashtray and hold in under her nose, breathing deeply. She was talking to herself about me, her small voice breaking in and out of the Georgia drawls on then television. I knew they didn’t use words like "stupid, ugly, retarded motherfucker" on Cops. I was able to slip past her when the commercials came on, and scurried into my bedroom. The window was ajar and the blinds were flipping nervously. So as to avoid my mother, I crawled out the window and shut it behind me, turning around the back and running to the Green.

When I arrived there, just as I surmised, Gysana was sitting on the Great Dead Stump, throwing my cigarette butts from earlier in the day into the duck pond. The mallards would swim over and inspect each butt before scornfully looking at Gysana and drifting away. As soon as I set one foot on the Green, she turned around to face me. Approaching her, I noticed that she had a black eye. I kneeled before her, beseeching her face for an explanation. Spreading her legs, I held my lighter under her thighs and saw scores of wretched bruises dotting her legs like continents. She slipped a finger inside herself and held it to my mouth, as the unmistakable taste of semen slid in between my lips.

Gysana thought she was so smart, dressing like that, walking like that, taunting and teasing like that. Everyone hated her... it wasn’t just me.

Mona LaVigne is a writer from NYC.