When I was four, my mother told me to kiss Reverend Van Tassell. He smelled weird. “It wouldn’t kill you.”
When I was sixteen, Stewie Grant asked me out. Mom made me go. “It wouldn’t kill you.” When he felt me up, I refused. “Come on, you want it,” he said.
When I was eighteen, Rich Emberson pushed me onto his bed, pinning my hands, his beery tongue gagging me. It wouldn’t kill you. I never told.
When I started my first job, the supervisor tucked his hand around my waist, saying he’d look out for me. It wouldn’t kill you. Who was I to make waves?
When I was twenty-nine, Tom wanted to get married. I wasn’t sure, but we were already living together. It wouldn’t kill you. So, we did.
When the kids left home, Tom wanted me to quit work so I could take care of his sick mother. “It wouldn’t kill you,” he said. “It might,” I said, and left him.
Jan English Leary is the author of three books published by Fomite Press. Her short fiction has appeared in such journals as Pleiades, Carve, The Minnesota Review, Ghost Parachute. She lives in Chicago.
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