The Dog On The Edge Of The Camp

'My mum thought if she touched anyone she'd catch disease. All she can see is disease, sin, uncleanliness everywhere. Whenever she goes out she wears gloves, like the Queen. And then she's forever washing her hands. I once called her Pontius Pilate and she slapped me so hard I fell over. She hardly talks to me anymore, you know. Everybody else goes home at some time during the holidays, but in the past year I only went back for Christmas Day, and that's because Dad asked me to. He's crazy. You know he's a minister? He's a nice guy, really. He writes to me and never mentions my sinful lifestyle. I went to church with them on Christmas Day. Some of the older people, people I've known all my life, shunned me like I was Jezebel herself, but some of the kids were okay. Sometimes I feel so lonely I could cry. When everyone else goes home to see their friends and their brothers and their sisters I stay here, where there's hardly a soul, an outcast. It's as if everyone has placed their sins upon my head, like the Israelites in the wilderness, and they send me off into the desert to die. Is that my place in the world I sometimes ask myself? When I'm here on my own I feel invisible, as if I don't really exist. When Mary's gone to see her big happy family I feel so unnecessary. As if anyone cares if I live or die! I'm just one of the dogs who lives on the outside of the camp. For days I just curl up on the bed and I read, old fashioned love stories, if you must know, and I cry. There's an endless aching hollow in my stomach, a yearning for love so intense that I can't even eat. Sometimes I tell myself that maybe God loves me, but that would be a complete cop out. He asks for nothing, just complete self-abasement. And I'm too low for the devil, never mind the Almighty. God wants you to beg forgiveness for your sins, but I don't need forgiveness. No, I don't need submission. I just want someone to put an arm around me, not out of pity either, someone to make me feel good, so that I can feel that I am good, if only for a day, for a minute, for one small moment to feel that I'm not complete shit. I'd sell my soul for five minutes of tenderness and not feel so alone. When I was at primary school my best friend Zoe used to tell me how she would get up in the middle of the night and climb into her mum and dad's bed. Sometimes, in the morning, she would wake up and there would be five of them all in one bed. Her two brothers had got in too. It was a veritable orgy of affection. But I was left alone at night. The light would be switched off, and if I was caught with the lamp on, reading a book under the covers, I'd be smacked. I used to wonder what it would be like if I slipped into my parents' bed, but I knew, of course, that it could never be. I'd just be inviting more rejection, more coldness, more punishment. I'd pray to Jesus, but what did he know? He was a boy, and anyway I couldn't see him. I couldn't touch him and he couldn't touch me either. He wasn't going to get into bed with me, was he? For a start he'd be punished by God the almighty damned patriarchal father. I used to doodle 'I hate God' and draw pictures of smiling devils. After all he clearly didn't want me in his club. He'd dumped me in the world, the only child of soul withered Methodists. Could anything possibly be worse? I would have become a Satanist gladly, but even the devil himself wouldn't hold me, not me, the living Jezebel, the dog on the edge of the camp."
Tears were running down her cheeks, her slight frame was trembling. her face had turned red and blotchy.
Tentatively he put a hand on her forearm, "Hey come on now, come on, dry your eyes."
"I'm sorry, " she said, and she leaned her head upon his chest. He kissed the top of her head and gently rubbed the back of her neck. She hid her face, but her body still shook, at least for a little while. Bit by bit she pulled herself together and the sobs became a snivel. Without daring to look him in the face, she whispered, "Can I ask you a favour? But you must promise not to tell anyone. I'd die of embarrassment."
"Yes, of course," he answered a little uncertainly.
She scarcely dared make her request. rejection would send her crashing back down onto the rocks once again. "Will you sleep with me? I mean, like, with our clothes on."
He laughed.
"It's not funny," she said, prickled, but he continued rubbing the back of her neck and she knew she hadn't been rejected.
"I'd love to," he said, "I'm pretty tired too."
He lay down on the narrow bed and she lay down next to him, pulling the blanket up to her head, slinging a leg over his leg, and resting her head upon his breast. The last thing he was conscious of before he fell asleep was seeing her blotchy face, eyes shut, peaceful, fast asleep. a thumb in her mouth.