RAW Short Story Contest Winner 2007

The Closet

by Brooke Edwards

            She wore the closet door like a protective cape.  The musty old Pendleton blanket draped the stench of mothballs over her; an invisible cloak protecting her from the roar of chainsaws outside the cabin.  While her dad and grandfather worked toward stockpiling winter warmth, she sequestered herself in a mysterious forbidden world.
            Angela was eight years old when she discovered her grandfather’s hidden pile of Playboys in their cabin’s closet.  The tower of magazines doubled her in size and tripled her in age.  He had acquired quite a collection.
            What drew her to them at first was the intuitive knowledge that these were “dirty” “bad” magazines; not for the eyes of a curious eight year old.  Yet, sexual curiosity had been sniffing around corners since she was very young. It was this budding sexuality that kept her returning to her private cave.
            Wide-eyed with excitement, she flipped to the centerfolds first every time and studied the round soft curves.  She touched her own body and wondered if she would be hourglass-shaped one day.  The more she looked, the more she touched.  The more she touched, the more a unique new fever pulsed from the core of her shi-shi.  She enjoyed the butterflies that began to dance in her stomach; though, sometimes it tricked her into thinking she had to go pee.
            One day, deep in her page-turning admiration, she didn’t notice the squeak of the cabin door.  Heavy boots bee-lined for the bulging blanketed closet.  “Whaddya think you’re doing in Grandpa’s closet?” boomed her dad.  Spittle from his stale Budweiser breath awaited the waterfall of her brimming tears on her cheeks.  Too frightened and ashamed to answer, Angela clung to the tattered wool that had failed to protect her.
            “You better be careful,” he leered, ripping Miss August from her hands, “or you’ll grow up to be a lesbian!”  From the tone of her father’s voice, she imagined a lesbian to be a green, wart-covered, troll-like creature cursed to the ends of the earth.   
            “You’ll grow up to be a lesbian.” “You’ll grow up to be a lesbian.”  “You better be careful.”  The words echoed their way through Angela’s teenage years.  They followed her like shadows through college.  They hung, like musty old blankets, waiting to dampen any fire she might feel for someone with curves like her own. 
            Now, she is married ~ to a man.  They share a subscription to Playboy; he, for the articles and she – for those secret moments when the house is quiet and the curves can be all her own.