The Silenced Wife

by Collette Heather

  The pressure lifted from back and I filled my lungs with air. Two seconds later, I was being led into the bowels of the basement, with Aaron holding me against him in a parody of a lover’s embrace.

  At first, all I saw was the basement rather than what was in it. The basement was large; easily as big as the hallway, living room and kitchen combined. Maybe that was why I didn’t see her at first, because she was near the shadowy outskirts of the vast space.

  Or maybe I just didn’t want to see her.

  The floor was concrete, the walls were crumbling stone and the dark, wooden-beamed ceiling was low. A single, bare bulb hung from the centre of the ceiling, which wasn’t nearly enough to light up the space. The way the light pooled in the centre of the room made me think fleetingly of a stage set.

  True to his word, there was a wine-rack on the far wall and I eyed it with a view to grabbing a bottle and smashing it against his jugular.

  Yeah, I thought bitterly, that worked out really well for you with the whiskey tumbler…

  Next to the wine-rack was what looked like a large cupboard or a wardrobe – the only piece of furniture in the room.

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful, Joyce? Look at her.’

  Slowly, I focussed on where he was forcing me to look.

  At first, I simply didn’t understand what I was seeing. The shock I had gone though that evening was enough to tip my mind over the edge, but this, this was above and beyond all else.

  On the wall adjacent to the wall with the wine-rack and cupboard, was a girl. She was lying on her side, unmoving on the ground. It took me a moment to take in the details of her predicament, that she was naked with her hands bound behind her back and her ankles lashed together. She had long, dark hair that fell across her face and her figure was startlingly attractive, with the type of body one usually only saw on the cover of Playboy.

  I slowly came to realise that her wrists and ankles were lashed together with silver electrical tape. When I had taken in the full magnitude of what I was seeing, the basement tilted around me and the sound of screaming reached my ears.

  Only when the stinging slap landed on my face did I realise that the sound was coming from me.

  I think my piercing scream must have roused the girl from whatever stupor she had fallen into, for she twisted her head round to look at us, managing to shake some of that hair from out of her eyes.

  The sight of her face induced a fresh jolt of fear within me. The poor girl looked terrified. Even though there was electrical tape over her mouth and her black-ringed eyes were bulging and wild, I could see that she was a beauty. From her lush body and undeniably pretty face, I guessed her to be around my age, maybe a few years younger, but it was hard to tell.

  Aaron forced me to walk closer to her, stopping when we got to just a few metres from where she lay.

  ‘Joyce, meet Molly. Molly, this is Joyce, my wife. Such a shame that you won’t get the chance to properly get to know each other.’

  I watched the girl struggle against her binds as I struggled in Aaron’s grip. Neither of us achieved anything for our efforts.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I cried in Aaron’s arms, ceasing to struggle.

  ‘Because this is who I am. This is what I do. Does it matter? I like to hurt people, Joyce. Especially women. Beautiful women. But I can’t hurt you, can I? Not yet, anyway. We’re going to the Maldives in a few days time and you have to look good in your bikini for all the pictures we’re going to take. Pictures of the happy couple.’

  ‘No,’ I cried, renewing my struggles but he effortlessly held me in place.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Joyce, will you just keep still? I’ve locked the basement door, and if you insist on continuing to misbehave, I will be forced to punish you. And trust me, you don’t want me to do that.’

  I ceased struggling. He was right; I needed to conserve my energy, think things through a bit more clearly. Blind panic was not helping me in the slightest. All I had to do was get to a phone, either the landline or my mobile. And in order to make that happen, it was imperative that I remained calm.

  His grip loosened on me.

  Sit on the floor, Joyce, just where you are.’

  I didn’t move and he sighed in exasperation, tightening his grip and shaking me for a moment. ‘Sit on the floor because if you don’t I will push you to the ground and that way you might break something. You wouldn’t want to do that now, would you?’

  I believed him. I didn’t want a broken kneecap to add to my already considerable problems, so I gingerly lowered myself to my knees.

  ‘I said sit, not kneel,’ Aaron reprimanded me, tugging on my up-do so that my head was yanked backwards and I was forced to look up at him.

  ‘On your arse, Joyce. Do not mess me around.’

  I shifted position so that I was sitting on the floor with my knees tucked together and to the side.

  ‘Better. Do not move a muscle, do you understand?’

  I nodded once, cowering at his feet like a damn dog. I watched as he strode the short distance over towards the girl and bent down to pick up the roll of electrical tape near her feet.

  ‘Catch,’ he said, lobbing it at me.

  Instinctively I caught it, for it was on a trajectory straight for my face.

  ‘Nice catch. Now, I want you to bind your ankles together, good and tight. Go at least fifteen times round, all the way up to you knees. I’ll be counting, Joyce. Any less and believe me, you will pay.’

  I looked down at the tape in my hands, then at my legs. I couldn’t do that to myself, it was suicide.

  But then I thought of the alternatives.

  I looked at the helpless woman before me.

  I thought of my darling daughter.

  Yes, you can do it.

  I watched his hateful figure retreat over to the cupboard by the side of the wine-rack. ‘I’m watching you Joyce,’ he called out without looking round.

  He opened the door, and I glimpsed a pile of shelves. He picked something out at speed like he knew exactly what he was looking for, then shut the door again.

  When he turned round to face me and I saw that he was holding a large knife, my blood turned to ice in my veins, chilling me further to sub-zero temperatures. The tape slipped from my fingers and a small whimper escaped my lips.

  Oh, dear God, this couldn’t be happening…

  But it was happening.

  He walked back over to us, grinning, passing the knife back and forth between his hands. It glinted as he passed under the solitary bulb, and then he was standing before me once more.

  ‘I’ve never done anything quite like this before,’ he said conversationally. ‘I mean, obviously I’ve raped and murdered, but they’re usually prostitutes like Molly here. The way I see it, I’m just ridding the world of another disease-ridden whore. When I say I’ve never done this before, what I mean is, I’ve never taken time with a woman before. I’ve never broken someone over a prolonged period. It’s easy to make someone cry and beg and break with the infliction of pain, but what about breaking someone mentally? I see you as a long-term project, Joyce. If girls like Molly can satisfy my more basic needs, who’s to say that I can’t enjoy you on a different level? On a higher plane of pleasure? The pleasure of the intellect perhaps?’

  As he spoke I began to wrap up my legs with the tape. It was hard as my hands shook so violently and it took a fair few attempts to get started.

  Aaron stopped talking and crouched down next to the girl, the knife casually dangling from his right hand.

  I paused in the binding of my legs. ‘Don’t hurt her.’

  He turned to look at me, his voice low. ‘Don’t you ever tell me what to do, Joyce.’

  Without warning, he plunged the knife into the girl’s thigh, just below her hipbone. She screamed into the electrical tape, sounding very much like a wild animal, wounded in the line of battle. The sound of it pierced my skull, a physical thing that twisted in my brain. My hands flew up to my ears and I sq
ueezed my eyes tightly shut, my own scream tainting my lips.

  The vomit that rose up from my stomach caught me by surprise and I twisted to the side, throwing up the seafood platter I had eaten earlier. Wave after wave of nausea held me in its evil grip until my stomach was empty.

  When I was done, Aaron grinned at me and pointedly cast his gaze at the puddle of vomit beside me. ‘You sick bitch.’

  The girl’s screams had given way to terrified, muffled sobbing that was painful to listen to and Aaron reached out to stroke her hair off her face.

  ‘Hush, sweetheart,’ he cooed. ‘It will all be over soon.’

  He stood up and took off his jacket. I thought he was going to stop there, but he didn’t. The foul bastard stripped completely naked and then he got to work on her.

  I refuse to write down what he did to her. What he made me watch.

  Suffice to say that the girl’s screams will haunt me forever.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Come on, Joyce, you need to pick out some outfits for our honeymoon. Most women would kill for their husband to say such a thing; I just don’t know what’s the matter with you.’

  I stared blankly at the computer screen, the images of bronzed bodies, brightly coloured bikinis and smiling faces blurring before my eyes.

  ‘Drink this,’ he said, thrusting a bottle of water into my face. ‘Don’t want you to dehydrate, do we? But you’re not having anything to eat for a few days, your arse is way too fat. How are your wrists?’ he asked, like he actually cared, or something.

  ‘Fine,’ I said when I had taken a swig of the offered water with him holding the bottle.

  He had kept me chained to the marital bed all night, my arms stretched high above my head, shackled to the wrought-iron bedstead.

  Thankfully, he hadn’t wanted to consummate the marriage, but he had slept beside me all night.

  I had hardly slept a wink, partly due to crippling terror and partly because my arms kept going numb and there was no position in which I could possibly find any comfort.

  But I told myself it could’ve been a lot worse. Like, spend-the-night-in-the-basement-with-the-dead-body, kind of worse. My hands and wrists were paying the price now, though. They throbbed and ached from their mistreatment and I think Aaron was alarmed to see that I had bright red rings around each wrist.

  Apparently, he didn’t want to mark me.

  ‘Look at the computer, Joyce.’

  The quiet threat in his voice made me focus. I stared at the two inanely grinning girls on screen, absently wondering if I would ever smile like that again.

  ‘Which bikini do you prefer? The plain red one or the navy-blue and white, nautical-stripe one?’

  ‘The red one,’ I said, because that meant less words to say.

  ‘Fuck it, have both.’

  He clicked on “add to basket” and dragged the cursor to the top of the screen, choosing “children” in the drop-down menu.

  I sat passively with my hands in my lap, still dressed in my white, wedding underwear. I don’t know why he hadn’t raped me, or made any attempt to remove my underwear, but I was pathetically grateful for that fact.

  I knew he was toying with me, though; he had proved himself to be capable of anything.

  We were in the dining-room that I hated. I strongly suspected that we were in here purely because I had casually mentioned to him a few weeks back that I found this room too austere and a little intimidating. That, and the heavy, oak dining-chairs in this room were also ideal for him to tape my ankles and shins to the chair legs. With my feet an inch or two elevated from the ground, I was taped into place, rendering me immobile from the knees down. There was also a length of it wound around my waist, securing my torso to the back of the chair. My arms were free, however, not that I could use that to my advantage.

  ‘How about that Peppa Pig swimming costume?’ Aaron said.

  I stared at the little girl on the screen. She was maybe a few years older than Becky with the same shade of mid-blonde hair. I stared hard at the image until it blurred into a meaningless jumble of colours.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said.

  I wanted to ask him again if he intended to harm my daughter; if he was the worst kind of pervert, afflicted by the darkest, most deviant of all human desires. I wanted to, but what good would it do? He had said that he lusted after beautiful women, and I think I believed him. I don’t know why I did, but the simple fact was I did.

  I hoped and prayed that I was right. Because if he touched a hair on Becky’s head…

  No. Don’t go there. Not unless you have to.

  I pushed the horrendous thoughts from my mind, instead focussing on the here and now, namely, how the fuck was I going to get out of here?

  ‘I think she needs some pretty summer dresses, don’t you? How about that blue one with the daisies on…’

  He abruptly stopped speaking and then I heard it too; the distant shrill ring of the landline. Instantly, my heart started hammering.

  That has to be Mum.

  A hundred thoughts rushed through my mind at breakneck speed. Would Aaron let me speak to her? And if he didn’t, would that fact arouse her suspicion? And oh God, what if Becky did want to come here today? Would Aaron let me go with him to pick her up? What if he made me stay here, and I missed my chance of sounding the alarm when I picked up Becky? But if I was alone here, maybe I could escape, or at least get to the phone? But what if he tied me up properly before he left? I might be able to escape these binds as my hands were free, but I doubted very much that he would leave me in any position to do so.

  And would it even be her, anyway?

  ‘Best get that,’ Aaron said, getting to his feet, but not before making sure to slam down the lid of the laptop. ‘Even if you did manage to reach it, it’s password protected,’ he called over his shoulder in a singsong voice.

  I watched him leave the room and shut the door behind himself. The adrenalin coursed through my system, emboldening me. I held my breath and strained my ears, listening hard. I could hear nothing.

  I growled in frustration, barely recognising my own voice, for I sounded like a crazed animal.

  I then began to claw at the tape which bound me. I arched my back and thrashed, struggling and pulling against the tape, breaking the nail of my forefinger all the way back in the process. I barely even noticed as I tore at the tape.

  I also started to scream. There was nothing gentle and ladylike about the guttural wails that ripped from my chest; it was the type of scream that tore at my throat like I was gargling with shards of glass.

  I pictured the landline in my head, next to the fridge. It was a stationary, old-fashioned job, attached to the wall. Whoever Aaron was speaking to, he was stuck there, by the fridge.

  Please let whoever he is speaking to hear me…

  I don’t know how long I was screaming for, or for how long I was scrabbling at the tape; it might have been seconds or it might have been minutes. I was in a state of such utter, adrenalin fuelled distress that it was nigh-on impossible to tell.

  Suddenly, I was free. I let out a savage cry of victory and staggered to my bare feet, falling against the table edge as I did so. I ignored the pain that exploded in my hip and lurched around the table for the door. My feet had gone completely numb, making it incredibly hard to hold my balance.

  The door opened inwards before I had a chance to get there.

  ‘Going somewhere?’

  I staggered back around the table, almost falling over my treacherous feet.

  ‘Keep away from me,’ I sobbed.

  ‘Oh, Joyce, don’t be so fucking ridiculous. Do you want me to chase you around the table? Do you want to play kiss-chase?’

  ‘I’m warning you,’ I said, frantically casting around myself for something to protect myself with.

  My gaze latched onto the sideboard up against the far wall. I knew that the “best family silver” was in the top drawer. If I could just get my hands on a knife…

&n
bsp; Mentally I kicked myself; it’s what I should’ve done straight away instead of unthinkingly going for the door.

  ‘Silly Joyce, you’re nothing if not predictable, I can see where you’re looking. Do you really think you’d have time to even open that drawer before I got to you?’

  He had a point but still I edged nearer the sideboard because it was further away from him than where I was now. Aaron took a step towards me, making it comically sudden and jerky.

  ‘Boo,’ he said.

  To my shame, I flinched and screamed, which made him laugh all the harder.

  ‘Here comes the wolf, he’s coming to get you.’

  Even though I knew it was idiotic, I still ran from him when he chased me. I don’t think I even got three steps before he grabbed me from behind. My stupid feet betrayed me, numb as they were from being elevated above the floor and bound to the chair legs.

  He shoved me face down onto the table-top, making sure to twist my head to the side on its descent so that I didn’t go and break my nose.

  Aaron was really keen that I show no physical signs of abuse.

  ‘Keep fighting me, Joyce, it turns me on.’

  I was painfully conscious of my undignified position, of my arse in the air in nothing but those flimsy knickers I’d bought a few days ago for the sole purpose of pleasing him.

  I groaned in protest when he slapped one buttock, hard enough to sting but possibly not hard enough to leave a mark that might ruin the look of my bikini. With one hand still pinning me in place by the back of my head, the other slipped between the tops of my thighs. I tried to clamp shut my legs but he rammed his hard, jean-clad thigh between mine, preventing me from doing so.

  I closed my eyes in disgust when I felt his weight shift on top of me, followed by his solid chest pressing against my back and his hot breath on my neck.

  ‘Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?’

  Yes. I had a good idea. I had seen what he had done to that poor girl down in the basement of horrors. Whenever I closed my eyes, cruel flash imagery of what he had done flared in my mind.