Between the Lips of the Waterfall
Content Warning: This story contains depictions of sexual violence
Mandisa bends. Unwraps the buckles. Unstraps the glitter bands that crisscross and bind her feet on these plastic platform heels which elevate and separate her from the ground. She lifts off. Lands. Lets her feet rest on dust grains that since yesterday have gathered for this return, softening as she listens to their bidding, “Welcome.”
At the back pocket of the bag is the opening. She pulls a wet sheet soaked in alcohol. Takes one. Runs it gently from forehead to cheeks to chin and to nose. Bit by bit, the colours smear. The contours smudge. Rouge un-reds until all that is left are pores. Bared. Open.
She peels off the artificial nails. Unhooks the chains around her wrists and neck. Unclasps the hoops from her ears. Releases the gold and watches as it jingles against the fabric lining of the purse, the one now sliding from her hands and thudding on the ground.
The clips are unfastened. The wig is removed. The iron-pressed shirt is undone along with the bra and the pants. All limbs buried become released as everything is pulled over. Under. Down.
She stands before the door. Feeling the tremor. Goes forward to the lock with fingertips trembling. Searching. Naked. Vulnerable in this corridor of wall, greyed like the lips of a waterfall.
Laughter tingles, then the pair of phantasms appear. Figures that walked this place, a long time before she arrived here now. They come in through the gate. The one now creaking at her back. She spies them before they are at her side. It is a teenage girl and a young man. They walk hand in arm with mouths greeting and tongues leading each step forward. They smile at each other.
Keys tinkle. The young she-spectre turns open the lock, letting herself be kissed on the back, then allowing the man into the room. This, her tiny dance studio.
They go in, closing the door, leaving Mandisa behind looking on as the teenager unfolds the chair and puts him to sit. Steps and glides over to the stereo, turning it on. Dips and dives and curves and bends, cascading in a torrent, slinking energy moving in patterns like the sound of an incantation, chanting and summoning the sound of clattering on a waistline, chattering in the chill of the night.
Her hands float up slow, rising like a flag of mercy, and fingers curl like fabric ends cut up and flapping through hair that inundates the rhythm of the body rippling below. When she turns to peek out at him through arms that bend over her eyes, her body rolls as her hair falls, sweeping her feet that lift off its heels, landing her again, taking her closer to him as her chest continues to circle in the surge of the music streaming out the speaker set.
She gets to him, places her hands on his shoulders. Slide. Shoulders. Swirl. Shoulders. Shimmy. Side to side. Into him.
He holds her. Commanding her into a spin. Bringing her down. On top of him.
Their bodies undulate together. Hands thread the salt of her skin together. Hands spread on the surface of things, sweating. Until she asks him to stop now. Pause, so she could catch her breath. Pause, because actually, this isn’t working for her. She isn’t in the frame of mind. Pause, actually, stop altogether because she doesn’t want it to happen. She isn’t ready. Yet. Remember? She’s told him this already.
“So when?” he says to her. “When, when, when will you ever be ready?”
He doesn’t bother to listen any further. His mouth glowers in the heat of the frustration. Impatience is a glassy film over his iris.
His hands slowly separate from her, letting her go, but when she gets up, they change their mind and instead grab her, pull her tighter. Push her back. Bend her forward. Lift up the shirt. Uncover her crests. Sink into troughs
dripping.
Her water begins falling
freezing
scared
solid
stiff
when she feels him
unwanted and uninvited
slow and shifting
sliding
sque eezing
sho ving
thru sting
in
in
in
in
in
to
her.
Slit ting
open
her
screams
n o
n o
n o
n o
n o
stop
please.
That
no
no
no
no
no
stop
please
that no one hears.
Not him.
Not her.
Just the stone walls
trembling
stillness.
Mandisa does not recognize the she-spectre when the two emerge. Something is. strange. Something different. Something changed. As though the spirit skin she is wearing has shuddered out of its place. Somehow. As though it is shrunken and shifted.
She grabs at her. Wanting to hold it. To fix it. Fasten it back into place, but out she slips. Passes by walking with him. Leaving Mandisa behind, trembling, still facing forward, but seeing as he pulls her close to him for the second time. As she pushes him away. Refusing. As he presses into her. Pressuring. As his nails rupture her skin. As he bites her all over and his penis breaks into her hips, and she is still shouting and screaming, “No. no. no.”
She isn’t ready yet. She doesn’t want this. Stop.
There is the crashing loud.
The lashing. Loud. Against her stinging, shrieking, screeching:
How?
How?
How?
Could this happen?
First, there is the silence.
Then the snapping. The slumping body on the concrete floor, like ice frozen
breaking, shattering everywhere.
As he walks away and she remains, sinking under eye water.
Until she gets up, determined to close the lock on the gate. Vowing never to return to this place. Travelling far, far away. Her footsteps fading, never once noticing Mandisa alone in the sound of her breathing
in
out
in
in
in
with fingertips trembling and reaching to unlock the door that she mustmustmust unlock the door that she mustmustmust unlock the door that she mustmustmust unlock
why?
Why has she come to this place again?
She asks herself:
Why?
As she turns the lock and enters again
this place that is outside of her
that is inside of her like a vein
this place that she has tried to leave, but keeps coming back to her like an echo
this place that belongs to her
this place that has become her.
Why has she come to this place? she asks, feeling the openness. The emptiness. Where only now insects live, and there is just the rotting shoe stand and the chair, the folded chair that is open exactly where she left it eight years ago when it happened.
Why has she come to this place?
This place she smells with her tongue and tastes with her ears.
Why has she come to this place?
This place she hears with her eyes and sees with her fingers.
Why has she come to this place? she asks as she appears in the glass mirror
The girl. The ghost. The spectre who is outside of her
who is inside of her like a vein
who she has tried to leave but who keeps coming back to her like an echo.
The spectre who will never leave her.
The spectre who is her.
Mandisa looks to her and tells her:
“Mandisa, I’ve come to tell you that after eight long years in the making with these words which have been whispering inside like a drizzling,
these words which have been gathering inside like a swelling,
these words which have been gushing like water in a river travelling to the surface of the mountain, these words are now ready to spill
into the shapes:
Rape is not sex.
It was his fault.
Not yours.
Not the way you moved that night, or the dreams you had, or the way you dressed, or the way you walked and talked around him.
It was him.
All him. All his fault. For betraying your trust. For going past the limits you kept trying to set. For taking advantage of you in those moments. For pressuring you to continue. For berating you when you refused. For still hurting you after he had left. Still hurting you long after he had left.
So I’ve come to ask forgiveness.
Beg forgiveness.
Plead forgiveness
In loving forgiveness
from it
all
because
none of this was ever yours to own.
None of this blame. This shame. This guilt. This silencing. This suffering that you have been bearing.
None of it your own.
It is all his.
All this belongs to him.
All him. All of it. All his own.
Give it to him now. Give it back to him. Now stand strong in knowing what has always been known but was never ready to be known until now
that it wasn’t your fault.”
Mandisa stands before her girl-ghost-spectre and sets the burden down before her in a release. She stands quietly, breathing in peace, and slowly allows the smile to unfreeze when she bends. Folds forward. Then rises up. Slow. Hands drifting up through the air. Hands coming together. To heart center. Hands opening out. Parallel to side. Parallel to feet. Opening before herself as mountain saluting her sun, which had once been forsaken for darkness. Breathes in again and welcomes herself rising from the ashes that cover this place as she bends. Fold forward. Let palms greet the floor.
Exhales. Straightening her elbows
Inhales. Lifting her torso.
Exhales. Lengthening her spine.
Inhales. Lunging forward.
Exhales. Lowering to floor.
Inhales. Snaking into cobra.
Exhales. Moving into dog.
Inhales. Floating like a butterfly.
Exhales. Rising like tree planted under her sun, sparkling
shining
shimmering in all her glory when she begins to dip and dive and curve and bend. Cascading into a torrent. Floats up. Slow. Fingers curling in and out like a wave through hair that inundates the rhythm of the body rippling below. Turns and spins to peek out through arms that bend over eyes as hands fall over and spread the sweat on the surface of neck to breasts and thighs while hips roll and hair sweeps feet lifting off its heels landing again in the rhythm of chest circling in the surge of the stream of stomach whirling and body swirling up and down in and out with calves flexing firming
smoothening
up and down
in and out of the stream ebbing her shoulders swirling. Shoulders. Shimmying. Shoulders. Side to side to side. Into her girl-ghost-spectre that moves before her in the mirror.
She turns before her. Twists into her. Body into her.
Winding
Grinding
Together.
With hands threading the salt of skin together and hands spreading on the surface of thighs, sweating, pushing back into her. Bending forward on her. Sinking into her. Lifting up from her. Spreading onto her, sweat dripping. Water falling. Unfreezing, when she lowers herself to the ground in front of her. Raising her legs, rests them on hers, lifts the curve of her back against hers. Opens out and feels her for the first time again in years. This girl who is outside of her, who is inside of her like a vein, who she has tried to leave but who keeps coming back like an echo. Who will never leave her. The girl who is her.
She sees her with her fingers. Hikes the mountain of her legs. Travels down low into her valleys, between her peaks, over her crests, into her troughs, dripping warm, liquid water swelling, spilling, streaming out from everywhere inside of her, smelling sugar creaming and caramelizing on her tongue, moist and wet and salting sweet.
Hears her screaming, shrieking, screeching as fingertips touch and tremor and tremble in the water falling between her lips.
