Kara’s chance

“First I have to say I don’t remember having much joy in my life, so to make you understand my moments of joy in this section, I have to tell you more about myself,” Kara told us, although she was looking directly at me. It felt like she would be telling her story more to me, rather than to the others.

“Most of what I am about to tell you, Alex, I already told the others, here present.”

“Hmm, just what I thought,” I mumbled. “Take your time,” I continued slightly louder, but gently.

“I was eighteen when my mother threw me out of the house, leaving no siblings behind. I wasn’t too bothered by it anyways. We always fought, we hated each other. Mom was jealous with me, over nothing more than my looks. How bad can you get as a mother, that she is jealous with her own daughter over my looks? My father was never in the picture. My mother had one boyfriend after another, bringing them at home, fucking them, arguing with them over money, then they left, and she went to look for the next one. Not until I grew up and became more like a woman, her boyfriends started to stay longer. But not for my mother, they wanted to see me, more than I liked. My mom was really angry at me when I got a present for the first time, a gift from her boyfriend at the time. I hadn’t asked for a present, but he did anyway. He was nice to me, but triple my age. Mom yelled at me, I was a whore, trying to steal her boyfriends for presents. I was fourteen at the time. With mom being a bitch all the time, with me, with her boyfriends, with everyone around, I found it no wonder she couldn’t keep a boyfriend.

Sometimes her boyfriends tried more than giving me presents, they touched my hair, my face, sometimes my... well, you know how it goes. Whenever that happened I got mad, and left the house and stayed on the streets. I met boys, but they didn’t ‘do nice’. I met girls, but they pushed me away. So most of the time I wandered the streets on my own. At school it wasn’t better. I got bullied, teachers didn’t care. I had a big mouth, always got me in trouble with the teachers. In my last year of school, I met another boy. The first one to be nice to me. I knew he had a reputation, but still I liked him.

When mom threw me out, it was to him I first went to. Of course I could stay with him. He lived on his own. He was older than me, but he didn’t mind I was just eighteen, just thrown out of the house, with no skills to go for, no work, just the cloths in my backpack. He took my virginity. It hurt, but he said:

“It was supposed to hurt. Next time will be better.”

We did it a lot more than ‘just next time’. He said he loved me, and I believed him. I could stay with him as long as I wanted. I didn’t even need to go to work. One day I surprised him and gave him a blowjob, something I had seen in a romantic porn movie. He said he was pleased with my initiative, but the blowjob could be better. Next time he wanted a better blowjob. And with better, he meant rougher. He tried to throat-fuck me. I puked my guts out. He said I would need more practice. He said I would do it, because he knew I loved him.

“Girls in love do that for their loved ones.”

And stupid as I was, I believed him.

It didn’t end there. He wanted more and more. He wanted to fuck my ass. I allowed it. It hurt so bad, oh, did it hurt.

“It was supposed to hurt. Next time will be better.”

But it didn’t get better. I loved him, but all he could do was hurt me. Was that what love was all about? One day he needed money. I was costing him a lot, with the extra food, the extra after-morning pills, the extra birth control pills, the extra heating and water costs. For now he had paid it all himself, but time had come I had to contribute too. I couldn’t believe my ears, he had said I didn’t have to go to work to stay with him, and now I had to go to work. I understood on a certain level. Perhaps he had sacrificed his savings, perhaps I was costing him more and more. After all, the war had started, and things did start to cost more and more.

“No, no, it is too late to look for a job, I am already in debt, I need the money now.”

I told him it was a bit late to tell me that then. I could have worked and paid the bills too. But still he argued, and persisted I had to give him money, cash. He knew I hadn’t any money, it was unreasonable to ask me for it. So I told him that too. He said I was right, but had found a solution for it. A friend of him fancied me and for just a bit of cash, I could suck him off or even fuck him. That bit of cash would help us along the way.

I yelled at him, telling him he wanted to make me a whore. I would never become a whore. I had told him about my mom, telling me I was a whore. He lost his temper, then he said, you will become one, if I wanted to stay with him another day.

I couldn’t stay, I gathered my things, and just left. I enlisted that same night. After all, where else could I go?

It was there where I met Sara and Cindy. They took me right into their little circle of two. I told them my story at a night, and they told me theirs. We cried, we laughed, we bonded, we had a great time together. We stood up for each other, against the men that disrespected us. They insulted us, except for one. One was nice to me. We belonged to the same platoon, but were in a different section. Sara and Cindy didn’t approve, but I let him fuck me. I gave him a blowjob when he asked for it. Because at the root of it, I thought that was what I was supposed to do. If someone likes you, you like them back in the way they ask you for it.

After the battle at the Regen... It was awful. I was shellshocked. But happy that Sara and Cindy were still alive and well. And my boyfriend in the other section was too. I had to choose between new sections. My boyfriend said he loved me. I chose to stay with him. It was a bad choice. I felt unhappy with him. He barely said anything to me, he just wanted sex, and after it, he said he loved me, but left me on my own to fend for myself against the other men.

I met Sara again. She had looked me up, when she was on a training course in demolition. I told her I wasn’t feeling happy. On the contrary, I felt really bad. She said she was in a great platoon, a great section. There were already two women in it. The leader was – her words, not mine – a strange cookie, but a good guy. The section he was leading had also some odd group dynamics, but all were happy in it. She would tell him of my situation. Perhaps he could find a solution.

And what a solution it was! The women enlightened me on my new role in the platoon. How you simply stole me from the platoon, without ever telling anything. And then you asked the whole section to rename me. You named me Kara. And as simple as that I was part of the section. I found a new group of people, caring for me, to laugh with, to cry with at bad times. To talk about others. To talk about this weird section. With two of the women sleeping together with the platoon leader. Willingly, happily, even encouraging each other. Taking care of him, even if he didn’t ask for it. And he never asked them anything in that way, they told me. You made stupid jokes to try to make people laugh, as if you found it important that they could find a way to laugh. You were actively trying to care for us, and everyone admired you, even though you didn’t realize it. But most of all, you changed my name to Kara. Everyone had to call me Kara. And I realized that with that new name I could forget about my past, I could be a new person.

Not that easy of course, just forgetting your past. Every time you called my new name, my heart made a little jump. I knew what I was starting to feel. The others noticed it too. I think even you noticed. But instead of using my feelings, you stayed far away from it. I got confused. I talked to the others. They said you wouldn’t use my feelings. You were here to take care of me, and that was it. Kylie and Kate understood what I went through, but wouldn’t take action for or against it. They weren’t jealous, but couldn’t interfere. I would be welcome to join the little circle, but they couldn’t **** it against your will. I had to let go of the pattern first. The pattern that instructed me to give my body in order for you to love me. They said you would reject that. They knew I wanted more, but I didn’t know how to approach you. I got shy, me of all people, whenever I was near you. I wasn’t sure you just cared for me and called me Kara, just to make sure the other platoons would not look for me.

But now, after that second battle, after I lost my dearest friends, after the disintegration of all the platoons, after the decimation of the platoons that once mattered to me, there is no one alive that knew me from those platoons.

I asked you if I could keep my new name, despite there was no need for it anymore. You said yes. And I felt pure joy. You just didn’t simply care for me as a section member, you cared for me as if you really liked me.

And now I want to ask you, do you really “like” me?”