by Mila Ishikawa-Gonzales, art by Gwen Chan

I’ve known Kennedy’s boyfriend would taste like dollar store vodka since before kissing him even crossed my mind. When I whipped the bottle out for her twentieth tonight, she gave me an earful about how I could’ve gotten in trouble or whatever. Didn’t even thank me as per usu. But Theo just asked me how I got it. He laughed when I said I lifted it and laughed even harder when I said where from. He’s older than us, a grad student at Ken’s ivory tower of a school. I’ve got no clue what he studies. Ever since she first went all gaga about them, I’ve been tuning out whenever Kennedy starts up with the boy talk. I’m not even sure exactly how old he is, just that he gets this dumbass look in his eye when I speak like he knows something I don’t, but he humors me anyway whenever Ken leaves us alone and tells me to behave, like I’m some mangy dog that’s gonna hump his leg. She’s been saying that about all her boyfriends since I dropped out junior year. Like sandbox love doesn’t mean jack. 

Maybe it doesn’t, if the fact that my tongue’s on the offensive in her boyfriend’s mouth is anything to go by. But who’s she to get all high and mighty about loyalty when she hasn’t even noticed I’m not in the back of the car petting her stupid shiny hair like she’s the puppy my mom never cared to get me? Maybe it’s karma or some shit, that I’m making out with Theo. Whatever it is, it’s been a long time coming. 

It’s the kind of kiss that makes your mouth ache, but I don’t relent, even as I let him push me down onto the mattress that cost more than the rent at the shoebox apartments of my childhood. It’s soft and welcoming and warm and I hate it like I hate everything that’s Kennedy’s and not mine. Everything that’s got Ken when I don’t. Furiously, I wonder if she’s ever told him anything—how we met in soccer as two dirty girls, one and the same, or how the only dolls I ever had to play with were hers. Am I anything more than a second thought to her, the scar she swears up and down isn’t hers? 

The bedding smells of the same heady cologne that’s all over me as he follows me down, too warm and too hard even as he tries to keep his junk suspended over mine. I bite my nails into his hips and pull on them until it’s cradled between my thighs. 

I’ll stink of him for days. No way Ken misses it. She might kill me. 

I moan nice and loud against him, grinding myself against him. 

You’re so sexy, he pants into my ear. I feel his breath as much as I hear it, half-drunk and horny. It doesn’t matter what line he feeds me. It never does. I’ve never needed to hear that I’m hot shit from some dumb guy too busy thinking with his dick to get that it’s not about him.

Too much talking, I say. 

Roger Roger, Liv, he says. He’s laughing like it’s some inside joke we have. The jackass. We don’t have shit, and I’m gearing up to tell him that, leave him high and dry just like Ken but— 

But it must happen all at once. One second, I’m pushing the heel of my palm up into his ribs ‘cause I’ve never liked rolling over for anybody. The next, I hear the unbuckling of his jeans and any resistance I’ve got in me up and dies. 

I don’t go limp as he lines his dick up with my cunt, but the only thing anchoring me to my body are the points of contact: him splitting me open, his hips pressing against my thighs, his hands pinning my hips, his mouth a fever at my throat. 

Only one of us is in my body. I thought ruining him for her would be better than watching Ken let him paw at her tits or having her blow me off to screw him or finding his jacket next to mine in her room or seeing that holier-than-thou look she gets whenever she remembers I’m always gonna be the scum on her red-bottoms, always pretending she never liked siccing me on people as if it kept her hands spick-and-span. It’s not better. Or if it is, the good part’s not here yet. Not ’til Ken leaves his sorry ass. 

In/out/in/out/in/out/in/out like a rusty knife reopening a wound I’ve never wanted to look at. 

I wanna look at a mirror instead, see how I look playing with another one of Ken’s dolls, mine to ruin and hers to toss. Another mess she’ll try to clean me up from. There’s only the ceiling above me now. 

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Only one of us is in my body.

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You feel so good. He’s crashing back into me just like I wanted when I kissed him. Just like that.

Just like always. I make myself moan for him. If he’s gonna tell Ken—and he is, and I’m gonna grin and tell her what’s hers is mine, and she’s finally gonna get down in the filth with me again long enough to hit me—I wanna make it dirty. Give him something to really write home about with buyer’s remorse. 

I don’t know how long we’re there, with me giving everything to get the MVP trophy that Ken was always offering to share when we were girls. But I know I’ve finally won it before he groans and unloads. 

I wish she could see me right now. 

He rolls off of me once he’s had his fill, and he smiles, all peaceful and happy like something I’ve seen in other people’s windows my whole life. 

I show him my teeth and say, just to rub it in now it’s over, Tell me I was better than Kennedy.

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“Doll Parts” by Mila Ishikawa-Gonzales appeared in Issue 45 of Berkeley Fiction Review.

Mila Ishikawa-Gonzales (she/he) is from the California town which doubled as Sunnydale on the hit television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where she won the 5th Annual ECC Poetry Slam. She has been published in The Daily Californian’s “Weekender” and in El Camino College’s Myriad. She can be found on Instagram @milafgonzales.

Gwen Chan is a dog-crochet cryptid who can usually be found nibbling cheese furtively swaddled by blankets. With an interest in the absurd and psychological representations in art, Gwen has published “April Flowers” and “WORLD EATER YULIAN” as free-to-read graphic novels on Webtoon.com. She enjoys walking her dog Tofu and competitive dragon boating in her free time.