The Silenced Wife

by Collette Heather

  ‘How long?’ I asked shakily.

  ‘How long, what?’

  ‘How long have you been watching me for?’

  ‘Does it matter? Just a for a few weeks, since you ask. You were so beautiful, Joyce, so oblivious. I decided there and then that you were the woman for me, that I had to make you mine.’

  I looked down at my lap, my thighs shrouded as they were in the rose-gold silk of my wedding dress. The sight of that beautiful fabric made me feel sick.

  Oh God, I thought on a rising tide of panic, what have I done?

  I’ve married him is what I’ve done…

  I forced up my gaze to meet his, even though it terrified me to do so.

  He terrified me.

  ‘Why me?’

  He regarded me thoughtfully for a minute, his head cocked to one side. Yet again, I was struck by how hateful he looked, how smug and smirking and I wondered how I ever could have been fooled by the mask of civility he had worn.

  Could love really turn to hate in the space of a heartbeat?

  Yes. Yes, it could.

  Eventually, he shrugged. ‘Because you’re beautiful. Because even without having spoken to you, I could see how vulnerable you were, how alone, how desperate you were to be loved. You wanted me too, you just didn’t know it yet. You may as well have gone out for your little walkies with victim stamped upon your forehead.’ He paused and under normal circumstances, the sheer arrogance of his words might have enflamed my anger, but these were far from normal circumstances. ‘The mask is off, sweetheart. I think that now we should really get to know each other, don’t you?’

  The only thing that kept me sitting on that sofa was the thought of my daughter. He had in no uncertain terms threatened her life, and for the moment at least, I fully intended to play along with whatever sick little games he wanted to play.

  Keep him talking, the little voice in my head told me. Keep him taking and maybe you’ll get to the bottom of what’s really going on, here. You can’t fight what you don’t understand… Know thine enemy.

  I brought the tumbler of whiskey to my lips, almost sloshing it down the front of my dress I was trembling so violently. I knew I shouldn’t drink, that it was imperative that I keep my wits about me, but the temptation was too much.

  The whiskey burned a soothing trail of fire down to my stomach – a beautiful paradox that went some way to calming my frazzled nerves.

  ‘Okay then, so let’s talk,’ I said. ‘Let’s be frank. Who are you really, and what do you want from me?’

  His smile was wolfish and I shuddered in disgust.

  ‘Patience, dear Joyce, all will be revealed in due course. When I say that we should get to know each other, I was thinking more in the physical sense. One thing at a time. I think we should reveal our true natures first, then our motives.’

  I had to make a conscious effort to uncurl my fingers from around the tumbler lest I shatter the glass. I looked down at it, at the intricately carved, cut glass. It was quite heavy. Potentially, it might do a lot of damage, if the aim was right. But I would have to smash it first and I very much doubted that would prove to be so easy. I would probably cut myself in the process and there was a good chance that would impair my reflexes.

  It would be a risky move.

  Before I could even seriously contemplate such a thing, there was something that I had to know first. Something of vital importance and the one and only thing that ultimately really mattered in all of this mess.

  ‘Do you intend to harm my daughter?’

  ‘No. But that isn’t to say that I won’t take her as collateral damage if my hand is forced. Becky is not the reason. You are. If your daughter doesn’t get in my way, I won’t get in hers. So let’s stop the chitchat and get down to business. Take off your dress.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  The words left my mouth before I had a chance to stop them. I knew they were a mistake but at the same time, I didn’t regret them.

  ‘I told you not to speak to me like that. But you’ll learn. They all learn eventually.’

  ‘They? Who are they?’

  His lips pulled tight in that disgusting, smug grin and he shook his head. ‘So many questions, Joyce, and a subject that I’m not prepared to get into right this second. I will soon however, I promise you. You’ll understand everything before long, when you belong to me, mind, body and soul. You’re already part way there, seeing as you’re now my wife.’

  I did my best not to give into the despair that threatened to weaken me, the despair that would hand all the power to him. My grip tightened around the tumbler. In my head, I was smashing it on the coffee-table, then thrusting the shattered edge of the glass thrust into his jugular…

  But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was too risky, too violent. Too not something that I could ever be capable of.

  Or maybe I was capable of it, with just a little bit more of a push from him…

  Aaron cocked an eyebrow at me, like he was reading my thoughts. I hated how amused he looked, the way his eyes shone with ill-suppressed mirth.

  ‘Are you a slut, Joyce?’

  I trembled in indignation but refused to drop my gaze. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Are you a whore?’

  ‘Stop it,’ I said, dangerously close to tears. ‘Just stop this.’

  ‘Because I think you are, Joyce. I saw the way you were flirting with the waiter. He was handsome, wasn’t he? A real stud.’

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘I saw the way you looked at him, don’t try and deny it. You wanted to fuck him. You wanted to feel his big cock inside you…’

  I stood up – I couldn’t help it. It was an involuntary reaction to his disgusting words.

  ‘Sit the fuck down, Joyce. Or I’ll slit Becky’s throat and throw her over the cliff edge the first chance I get.’

  He had to be bluffing, he just had to be. I just stood there shaking violently, unable to hold back the tears a second longer. My vision blurred until Aaron’s face turned featureless, like I was viewing him from behind rain-smeared glass.

  I sat back down.

  ‘You will learn to obey me. And you will learn to like it. And right now you need to be taught a lesson for being a dirty little slut with the waiter. So, I’ll ask you one more time. Take off your fucking dress.’

  I could only sit there sobbing, rendered numb and paralysed by this waking nightmare.

  That’s what this is; a nightmare. I’m going to wake up at any second. Oh, dear God, please let me wake up…

  I didn’t wake up. The blood whooshed in my ears, in time to the frantic beating of my heart.

  ‘Better. Much better. I’m not going to rape you, Joyce, but we just don’t want to get blood on your beautiful dress now, do we?’

  Stop crying, a voice screamed in my head. Just stop bloody crying.

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘You’ll find out exactly what I am in due course. But in the meantime, would you please take off that fucking dress? I’m not the most patient of men, Joyce, you will do well to remember that.’

  I couldn’t think of anything that I would rather less do than strip for this monster, but then I thought of my daughter and my mother, and before I knew it, my hand was reaching behind myself for the hidden zip that ran parallel with my spine.

  I closed my eyes in disgust as I unzipped the dress all the way down to past my hips, stood up, and slipped it down over my feet.

  ‘Better. Much better. Leave the shoes on and sit back down.’

  His voice was low and husky, and a wave of nausea roiled upwards from my churning guts. Shakily, I sat down once more. I looked down at myself in despair, wrapping my goose-bumped arms around my near-nude body. I was wearing off-white, brand new, lacy underwear and I shamefully stared down at my toes, unable and unwilling to meet his eye. My feet were clad in low-heeled, satin, beige, peep-toe shoes, and I absently – and stupidly – thought how pretty my recently painted, shell-pink toenails were.

&nb
sp; Thinking how this was supposed to the most special, beautiful day of my life.

  And then, for the first time that day, I thought of my first wedding, to James. It hit me then that I hadn’t thought about him once today. That fact shamed me to the core.

  I was such a worthless bitch. Maybe I deserved to be treated this way.

  ‘Look at me, Joyce. Tell me, do you feel like the worthless cunt that you are?’

  Despite everything that was happening to me, that foul word cut me as deep as anything could. I hated that word. I think, perhaps, all women do. There was just something so demeaning about its usage, so vulgar and repulsive, like the thin veneer of civilised society had been stripped away, revealing the ugly truth beneath.

  And Aaron was my ugly truth.

  Slowly, I raised my head to look at him. ‘I am not worthless.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You’re a worthless cunt. And an incredibly stupid one. Did you really think that Buster would go for someone? How could you even think that your placid, stupid dog could bite me?’

  Of all the things that he might’ve said, I can honestly say that I didn’t see that one coming. My brain throbbed in confusion as it tried to make sense of the nonsensical.

  Aaron grinned and my stomach twisted into a tight knot of repulsion.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, you’re so fucking gullible, it’s painful to watch. I bit myself, not Buster. I sunk my own teeth into my own hand and then blamed your stupid, fucking dog.’

  I couldn’t speak for a moment, stunned as I was by this revelation. ‘What?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Christ, you’re a thick twat. I thought I’d use the dumb dog as a way to get to you. And it worked. It reeled you in, made you trust me. It gave me power over you and Becky, gave me the opportunity to paint myself as Mr Reasonable. Gave me an excuse to see you every day without seeming like I’m coming on too heavy. Then I started poisoning the little fucker with ground-up slug pellets. He was a resilient little bastard, I’ll give him that. Do you really think that I went to the fucking vets the day he died?’

  I could only stare at him dumbly, tears uncontrollably running down my cheeks, frantically piecing together the truth in my mind. No. Buster didn’t go to the vet. Every second of every day that I had spent with this monster had been a lie.

  ‘I can see you’re slowly getting it now. That’s right, dear old Buster’s internals couldn’t take the strain. I took him down a country lane and then I strangled him. I threw his body over the cliff, the dumb mutt. It was so hard pretending to be sad when I got back when all I wanted to do was laugh.’

  It was only with this revelation did I realise that the man was utterly psychotic. It hadn’t fully hit me until that point. I was married to a psychopath. A man that could kill a helpless pet was capable of anything.

  ‘You’re a monster.’

  And then he roared at me. God help me, the man roared at me. He jumped up onto the tub chair like a monkey testing the limits of his cage in a zoo, and he bellowed at me.

  He cut a nightmarish figure, dressed as he was in his wedding attire, screaming at me like the raving lunatic that he was. I couldn’t stand watching it and I lurched to my feet, throwing the tumbler I still held at his face. I missed, and the damn thing bounced off his shoulder, bounced once on the seat of the chair at his feet and rolled unbroken to the floor.

  I turned heel and ran, stumbling unthinkingly for the living-room door. All I knew was that I had to get away from him, from his utter, stinking madness.

  But he wasn’t going to let me go that easily. I could hear him behind me, whooping and hollering like a man possessed. Paralysing fear had slowed my movements, making my body – and my mind – sluggish and heavy. “Nightmare limbs”, as I thought of them, my arms and legs felt cumbersome and useless, like they belonged to someone else. Like I was in the middle of a nightmare straight from hell.

  I felt the hot blast of his breath on the back of my neck in the seconds before he rugby tackled me to the ground.

  The air left my lungs in an almighty rush, and down I went. Searing pain exploded in my body, mainly in my arms and I just lay there on my front on the swirly patterned rug, my head spinning.

  ‘That was very stupid, Joyce,’ he said above me.

  His smug voice sounded like it was coming from very far away, like I was under water and he was standing on the shore, taunting me.

  Suddenly, the weight lifted from my back and despite being so winded, instinctively I went to crawl away. When I raised my head, through my swimming vision I saw his shiny black lace-ups and the bottoms of his trousers. I groaned in despair, allowing my cheek to flop to the rug where I concentrated on trying to catch my breath, on trying to expel the hurt from my body so that I could move again.

  When he spoke again, his voice sounded near, and I didn’t have to raise my aching neck again to know that he must be crouching down by my head.

  ‘Animals aren’t the only things I hurt, Joyce. I kill people, too. Don’t you think it’s funny that your dear friend Sally Goldman hasn’t replied to your emails?’

  I let out a strangled sob, horrified to the core at the implication of what he was saying. ‘No,’ I groaned, not wanting to hear what he was about to tell me.

  ‘Yes, Joyce. That’s right. Let that sink in. Anything can be bought on the darknet, including a hit on someone. In fact, the darknet is one of my favourite places to be. It caters to discerning gentlemen like me of certain refined tastes.’

  My head whirled like I was on a merry-go-round and a fresh bout of nausea clenched in my stomach. All I could do was groan into the rug, doing my upmost to force down the rising tide of sick and to halt that damn spinning.

  ‘I mean, Christ, it’s bad enough that fucking busybody slag Linda is sniffing around you. I honestly thought that you were too damaged to make friends, I thought it would be safe introducing you to Gary and Linda. All that spiel I gave you about wanting us to make friends… Get real. As if. I thought it best that I disposed of Sally, we don’t want any do-gooders sticking their noses into our private business, do we?’

  I could only groan in response, every word he uttered sinking me further into my spiral of misery.

  ‘You have no idea how much I wanted to hurt you in the bedroom. The thoughts I had of what I wanted to do to you was the only way I could get hard.’

  His voice was closer now, a sickening whisper close to my ear.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I groaned pathetically into the rug.

  But he didn’t leave me alone. That was something he was never going to do.

  ‘I still have my wedding present to give you. It’s in the basement. I cannot wait for you to see it. In fact, why wait? I’d like you to see it now. Come on, dear wife, quit lounging around, it’s time for the real fun to start.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Aaron hooked his hands under my armpits and pulled me to my feet.

  ‘My God, you’re a lot heavier than you look. Help me out here, will you?’

  I leaned against his broad chest as he propped me upright like one might a drunk, ramming the crook of his elbow under one armpit so that the side of my body was wedged against him.

  ‘Come on, just walk you useless sack of shit.’

  I had only just managed to regain my breath after being so roughly tackled to the ground and I still ached all over. Yet by some miracle, my legs were more or less obeying commands to move and I was able to shuffle along in this awkward fashion until we reached the hallway.

  Out in the hallway, I threw a longing glance at the front-door.

  I have to get out of here.

  But even if I did manage to escape through the door, what would I do then? Hail a taxi? Flag down a passer-by? A wave of despair crashed over me. This was hopeless.

  Aaron walked me to the basement door under the spiral staircase.

  ‘Are you ready for your present, darling wife?’

  No, I wasn’t. I struggled in his grip with renewed vigour, but he effortlessly
held onto me.

  ‘Oh, come on. Women. Always so ungrateful.’

  Holding onto me with one arm, he reached inside the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a key, which he inserted into the door.

  The basement door opened inwards with an accompanying, theatrical creak.

  ‘Walk,’ he said, shoving me forward.

  I stumbled over my own feet, tottering in the heels that I still wore.

  ‘Christ, woman, try not to break you neck, that would be terrible.’

  He laughed at that and pure panic clawed inside my skull. I grabbed hold of the rickety banister and began my descent. For a fleeting second I imagined hurtling myself down the stairs so that I did break my neck.

  But then I thought of Becky. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. I would protect my daughter to the bitter end and how could I expect to do that if I were dead?

  He was right about it being cold down here. Maybe my sudden, uncontrollable shivers were partly to do with shock, or maybe it was purely because of the sudden drop in air temperature, but either way, I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.

  As soon as my foot touched down on the concrete floor after the last step, he rammed me face first against the stone wall.

  I squealed in shock, fully expecting pain to blaze through my body, but it didn’t happen. Aaron pressed his body against my back so that the entirety of my front was pushed against the bumpy stone. He hadn’t done it hard enough to draw blood, or even wind me, but my terror was in no way dimmed for it.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Mrs Bailey, if you don’t behave yourself, you will end up in that girl’s place, do you understand me?’

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about at all and I just stood there whimpering against the stone.

  ‘I said do you understand me?’ he roared into my ear.

  I felt my eardrum pop and I let out a short, sharp scream that painfully scratched my throat.

  ‘Yes,’ I wailed.

  ‘Good. Because I have needs, Joyce. Because you are my wife, technically you are the one that should fill them, but if I can meet my needs in other ways, with your support, maybe I don’t ever have to hurt you that much.’