Featured Author / Fiction ~ Fall/Winter 2018
Brian Burmeister teaches communication at Iowa State University. He is a regular contributor at Cleaver Magazine, and his writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He can be followed on Twitter: @bdburmeister.
Such a Good Girl If I’m being completely honest, I don’t remember much. I could feel fingers on my head. Petting, swimming through my hair. One hand after the other. That much I remember. Then the whispers: Such a good girl. Such a good girl. Granny loves you very much. Some minutes or hours passed in this way. The syrupy-sweet words poured atop each caress of my hair. Whatever she’d done, I couldn’t move. I don’t think I was bound, and yet I didn’t leave. Didn’t sprint. Didn’t struggle. Didn’t spit in her face. Eventually she kissed me. First on the eyelids. Then on the cheeks. Then on the lips. When it was over she wiped at her mouth and said she would let me go today if I promised never to tell anybody. If I promised to send my pretty little sister to her tomorrow. Whether from drugs or magic, I was unable to conjure words. So I nodded, nodded. And with that, she seemed pleased. With that, she held my hands, softly, as she helped me to my feet. I stumbled some as we walked down the steps of what I then learned was an old train car. Everything, everywhere else I looked was forest. She pointed. And when I didn’t move, she waved with her other hand repeatedly in that direction. No words passed between us. That’s where she left me. I walked and walked through the woods. No idea where I was or where I was going. Or what just happened. Eventually I exited near an old farmhouse I recognized near the edge of our town. An hour or so later, I returned home. I walked through our front door, through the kitchen and past my mother on the phone. She laughed and smiled and didn’t even see me. I went to my room, grabbed clothes, showered. Took many deep breaths. I entered my sister’s room. Shut the door. Whispered sweetly to her, “How’d you like to go on an adventure tomorrow?” “Such a Good Girl” originally appeared in River Cities’ Reader.