Raw
by Riley E. Smith
Allie walks into Dr. Wuff’s office hours hiding her twitching hands in her jacket pockets. Dr. Wuff has a reputation for “smelling fear.” If she can tell you aren’t confident, she’ll crack down on your story twice as hard.
Dr. Wuff is an award-winning literary fiction author, usually swarmed by her squad of student admirers. She refuses to take a frequently-offered department chair position because it might “poison her well.” She speaks French, German, and Latin, although she is quick to tell you that nobody “speaks” Latin; it’s a dead language.
Allie can only speak English. She won Most Likely to Be Famous in high school. Her friends want her to run for student government, but she thinks it would be too stressful.
For the last two months, Dr. Wuff has been heavily critiquing Allie’s short stories. Dr. Wuff says Allie “shows promise,” but needs to “be more raw.”
Sick of it, Allie decided to get as raw as possible. Her short story this week is about sexual assault and abuse. Nothing in the story, no words spoken, did not happen to Allie, although she was careful to wrap it up in pretty words and false names.
Dr. Wuff looks at Allie when she enters, and she sighs. Allie tries to go into these weekly critiques without positive expectations, but she was not prepared for a depressed exhalation.
The story in question lies on the table between them. Allie stares at it as she sits down, her vision filling with the red pen-strokes that have marked and circled and struck out. There is very little that Dr. Wuff did not cut apart.
“I’ll start with a compliment, which is rare, so I hope you appreciate it,” Dr. Wuff smiled, making a joke at someone’s expense, perhaps her own. “Your writing is beautiful. It’s a pleasure to read. You have a good ear, and that’s hard to teach.”
Dr. Wuff leaned forward, her upper lip curling back (A smile? A sneer?). “So now that I’ve got that out of the way, we can talk about what’s wrong.” Her eyes narrowed. “I know what you think you’re doing.”
Allie hates when Dr. Wuff does this. She turns every critique session into a dramatic monologue. Allie wonders if she practices the pauses in a bathroom mirror before the sessions.
“You think when I say I want something raw, something real, that I’m tragedy farming. I get that it seems popular nowadays, but come on, Allie. Did you really think making up a rape story would impress me?”
“Making…” Allie was flummoxed. It had not occurred to her that the problem with her work of fiction would be whether or not someone believed it.
“By the way you handle this topic, it’s obvious you’ve never had a violent experience, my dear. I can read people, and you’re one of those people with a charmed life.”
Allie feels like the ON switch in her brain has a cover on it. A cover with tape, and a lid, and a lock, and the key melted. Her jaw clamps shut so tight, her molars protest.
She hears her mother… This isn’t the type of thing that happens to us, Allison.
Dr. Wuff says, “You don’t need to try to shock the reader. Share your own life, your own feelings, not the feelings you feel you should have.”
I don’t care what you think happened; I’m telling you what did happen.
“There’s just so much that doesn’t feel realistic. It’s overwrought. Like this part, where he tells her what will happen to her little sister if she doesn’t shut up? It’s so… formulaic bad guy. He’s one-dimensional with everything he says.”
Nothing happened.
Dr. Wuff smiles. “Listen, I get it. You’re young, pretty. All these advantages are open to you in a literary world that seems to be begging you to act oppressed. But don’t give in. Don’t pretend to be what you are not.”
Allie pulls her jaw open, just enough to whisper, “I thought it’s fiction. Can’t we write anything? It’s not real.”
“There’s fictional, and then there’s inauthentic. This,” Dr. Wuff taps the manuscript with her manicured finger, “This is inauthentic. It rings false to the reader.”
A gust of cold from an air conditioner springs to life, and Allie is in an interrogation room. A woman police officer is frowning at her sadly.
I believe you, but a judge? It’s very hard to prove, sweetheart. And it will take months and months of telling the same story over and over again.
Dr. Wuff says, “I gave more specific feedback in the manuscript itself. You also have a strange habit of inserting humor where it’s not wanted. If you’re going to steal someone’s sob story, you probably shouldn’t make jokes about it.”
Allie laughs. “I guess I should just let it go, then.”
I’m not trying to tell you to do that. But I want you to know the truth. Very few of these cases ever get to trial, and when they do, it’s hell for the victim.
With a shrug, Dr. Wuff says, “I liked some parts of it. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The part with the female police officer is good. It’s poignant how your main character finally finds someone to believe her, but even that person says she’s powerless.”
Allie nods. She takes it in.
She is reasonable, damn it, she will be reasonable. She will not take the officer’s or the professor’s coffee mug and smash it against the table until there are shards sharp enough for her purpose. She will not give this woman, who is only trying to help, who is not the perpetrator, scars across her long, thin nose.
You’re handling all of this very well.
“I appreciate you trying to take my feedback, but you’ve overcorrected. Let’s scoot back in the other direction, eh?” Dr. Wuff winks. “You’ll be a shining talent if you can just find your voice.”
Allie laughs. She is not handling this well. She is starving herself and carving runes into her wrists, hidden by soft pink sweaters, protection spells that hurt now so maybe she won’t hurt later.
“I’ll think about what you said.” She nods at the woman across the desk. Allie reaches sharp scissor-fingers into her throat and slices out a thick, mucus-y, “Thank you for your help.”
I’m sorry I can’t do more. We have some resources in this brochure.
“You’re welcome,” says Dr. Wuff. “Do you have any other questions?”
Allie shakes her head no. But she does have one question. One thing she feels she has the right to know.
“Have you ever been assaulted?”
Dr. Wuff stares at Allie. “That’s not an appropriate question to ask a professor. I know you know that.”
The police officer looks at Allie and nods. Yeah. That’s how I know. It never goes anywhere.
Dr. Wuff says, “My personal experience doesn’t matter. What matters is your experience. So, take this, cut out the parts that are real to you, and put them in something else.”
Allie does not know what to say to this. She decides it is her fault for saying anything in the first place, for writing it down, for asking, for telling. What did she expect? That they would celebrate her for this, for taking the filthiest thing to ever happen to her and giving it to someone else?
She wonders what she will have to do to her body to fill this hopelessness. She hopes she will survive it.
Riley E. Smith was raised in the Arizona desert, where she developed a fondness for pretty things that could kill you. She earned her BA in English Literature from Rice University with a Distinction in Research on the strength of her thesis, an overly long exploration of Bugs Bunny’s performance persona. She is an award-winning improv comedy player and teacher, and a budding clown, because in order to face our fears, we must become them. Find her on socials @rileyisyelling.