Devious Resolutions

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

  Before I know it, I’m toppling backward into darkness.

  Domino

  I dream of carnage and hellfire, cities consumed by flames licking ash-gray skies as citizens wade through streets slick with blood.

  Malice reigns. At the center of it all, on a throne built of bones and wrapped in human flesh, rests Sir.

  He can sense my approach, and his grin widens as I kneel by his feet.

  “Little Man,” he bellows over the havoc. “You had the choice to lay at my feet, but you are anything but worthy.”

  Suddenly, I shrink in size. The chaos surrounding us blends and merges into bars of a cage. I cannot move. My body bloats and deforms, my skin takes on the sickly sheen of plastic. All I can do is squeak.

  “You are nothing more than a chew toy,” Sir barks, getting up from his disgraceful throne. Thick black fur sprouts from his arms and his face narrows. His ears prick up and he gets down on his haunches, ready to pounce. He opens his large mouth to reveal sharp teeth. Sir howls and lunges for me then sinks his teeth into my elastic stomach.

  There’s a name for the position I find myself in when I wake up from the disturbing dream. Child’s Pose. I remember the term from when I used to date a vegan yoga instructor from the more ‘well-to-do’ side of the city. He tried his best to get me into the practice, but I never quite enjoyed it. I much prefer to save the bending, contortions and breathing exercises for the bedroom.

  It’s only when I try to stand up, that I fathom the full extent of the situation I’ve woken up in. My hands are tied behind my back. Something rough has been placed around my neck, attached to a thick chain bolted to the ground. I yank my head back, hoping to break loose, but all it does is put strain on my neck. Wriggling my hands behind my back, I can feel that the one I’d injured at The Red from slipping in the puddle of Glenfiddich has been wrapped in gauze. My bonds are far too tight. I groan in frustration. Whoever has chained me up doesn’t want me going anywhere.

  My eyes haven’t quite adjusted to my surroundings, but I can see a busted television in a corner of the room. Its screen is on, illuminating the stone floor in front of it. A thousand insect voices count down from ten through the white noise and images of people congregating in what I can make out to be our city’s famous square. They reach ‘one’, and fireworks go off. The rain must have stopped. An insect-like rendition of Auld Lang Syne plays over the cheering crowds as people celebrate the first few seconds of the new year.

  Dragging my eyes away from the television set, I take in the rest of the room. I must be in a basement of sorts, because it feels like an ice box in here. A few feet away from me sits a gurney speckled in dark blotches and spots. Further away, a table is set up with various utensils, the kind that doctors or surgeons use in operating rooms and the like.

  It’s only when I see the walls of the room that I realize I’ve been here before – only once, seven years ago – and it’s the last place I ever wanted to be again.

  My stomach drops as ten wrinkled faces stare down at me from the walls, where they’ve been spread out and flattened into photo frames.

  I don’t have time to scream for help when I hear a door open from behind me. Footsteps descend a creaky staircase. I don’t breathe or fight against my restraints. A fluorescent light buzzes to life overhead. It’s hopeless now.

  Sir walks into my line of vision, whistling to the tune of Auld Lang Syne from the television. He stands in front of me and pulls out a box of cigarettes. He places one in his mouth, lights it, and blows smoke into my face. The smell is sharp and makes my eyes water. He crouches down to my level and smiles. He’s fixed his hair again – I can tell by the lines left by his comb’s teeth. His dark hair shines silver in the fluorescent light and, despite the fear bubbling against my rib cage, I want to run my fingers through it.

  He draws more smoke in and grins, enjoying watching me squirm. I’m trapped inside a lion’s den.

  “Are you going to peel my face off and stick it to the wall like the rest of these punks?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

  Sir’s smile fades. Hurt flashes through his eyes. “Of course not, Little Man.”

  I grit my teeth. “Then why did I wake up down here? Why am I chained to the floor like one of your victims?”

  He stands up and grinds the cigarette out under his leather shoe. Blowing out smoke, he whispers: “They aren’t victims.” He runs a hand over his neatly-combed hair and turns to the faces on the walls. “Not one of them.” He tucks his hands into his pants pockets and leans against the table. Some of the utensils tinkle against one another. Sir licks his lips, then looks down at his shoes. In all my years of knowing him, he’s always been cool and collected. Now, he seems so uncertain, it’s startling to watch. He clears his throat. “For years I’ve been trying to reach out to you. Ever since you were sixteen, I wanted to explain what you walked in on that night, but you wouldn’t let me.” He glares at me and sneers. “You made me do this; it’s your own fault I chained you up. Tonight, I will get everything off my chest, whether you like it or not. You’re going nowhere until I’m done. Understand, Little Man?”

  My heart leaps into my throat. The rough collar around my throat feels like sandpaper against my flesh. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” Sir shouts. His deep voice ricochets off of the walls and I flinch.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He nods and removes his hands from his pockets. He strides over to me and grabs a handful of my hair, yanking my head up. I gasp, but he holds a finger to his lips. His electric-blue eyes warn me to keep my mouth shut. “You will not speak unless I give you permission to do so.”

  When I don’t respond, he twists my hair in his grip. “Yes, Sir.”

  He lets go of my hair, slowly and painfully, pulling at the ends until I’m certain they’ll rip. Biting down on his bottom lip, he narrows his eyes at the television. “I know my version of that night.” He strolls over to the TV and turns it off. “I want to hear yours.”

  He’s forcing me to recount a memory I have no intention of revisiting. One that’s kept me up at night in the past and given me endless nightmares, the kind where I’ve woken up in my bed with my skin covered in a slick sweat. It’s the reason I ran away and have been trying to dodge him ever since.

  The evening of my sixteenth birthday. The night I discovered Sir’s true lethal nature – when the beast within him bared its jagged teeth.

  Sir lights another cigarette, pausing only once to look over his shoulder. “Every last detail, Little Man.”

  I swallow and attempt to wriggle my wrists from their bonds one last time. My shoulders sag in defeat.

  “Yes, Sir,” I murmur.

  Domino

  I was living on top of the world the day of my sixteenth birthday. Nothing could dampen my mood – not the fact that I had to go to school nor the junkie prostitute with the sailor mouth and halitosis between her thighs I’d always run into on the way to the bus stop. Sir, who was thirty-five at the time, had even splashed out on my birthday gift. In hindsight, it was a shitty old cell phone with only a handful of polyphonic ringtones to choose from, but on that day, it was the best present I could have asked for.

  After I’d written a nightmare of a science test I’d forgotten to study for, I met up with my friend, Katt, at her locker. The two of us proceeded to smoke a joint in the empty anime club room and ditched the rest of school that day.

  “I didn’t ask you to tell me about what had happened during the day,” Sir says, jolting me from the memory and my story. He runs a hand over his face and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Get to the point.”

  “Sorry, Sir. I’m getting there.” A lock of hair falls over my right eye. It annoys me that I can’t brush it back. I wish he’d untie my hands. I wince and reluctantly continue the story of my sixteenth birthday.

  The plan was to spend the night at Katt’s place – watching movies, getting drunk, talking about boys. The works. I’d texted Sir a message on my new phone, asking him wh
at time he’d expected me home the next day. I was pretty wasted, so my fingers mashed the keys, producing garbage on the screen. If Sir knew I was drunk, he didn’t let on. All he replied with was: ‘Anytime. Goodnight.’

  There was something about Sir’s message that left a dry feeling in my mouth. A craving of sorts, one I’d been nurturing a couple of nights prior in my bed, much to my embarrassment. It wasn’t something I could wrap my head around, more so because it wasn’t normal. But in that haze of drunkenness I’d learned to accept the taboo for what it was. I was hot for Sir. Boiling. With enough Dutch courage running through my system, that night of my sixteenth birthday I made a promise to myself – I’d finally act on my forbidden desires, no matter the outcome. It was selfish, and so fucking stupid.

  I’d lied to Katt; told her I wasn’t feeling well after we finished a bottle of her father’s Cognac. I caught the late bus home. It was a warm night and my T-shirt clung to my chest like a damp cloth. It would’ve been uncomfortable if I wasn’t so preoccupied with what I had talked myself into doing. Just the thought of what I had planned flipped my stomach and made me stiff. I stroked myself over the crotch of my jeans, pausing only once to make sure no one was watching. I only stopped when I was ready to burst.

  Arriving at the rundown house I shared with Sir in a neighborhood next door to the Projects, I noticed the door was locked. I knew Sir was home because the lights were on, and I could hear music playing, but it was too soft to make out what the song was. I paced around our tiny, overgrown garden as I decided what to do next. A street away, I heard a door slam and a woman scream. I ran up the rickety steps to the porch and tried to open a window.

  After my third attempt, I managed to pry wide the window leading into our living room and crawled through. I misplaced my footing and tumbled to the floor with a loud thud. Sir must have heard, because when I stood up to dust off my clothes, he was standing in the center of the carpet. He seemed unimpressed, but Goddamn, the scowl on his face only made him more striking.

  “Surprise,” I’d said in a weak attempt to break the awkwardness of the situation I’d literally fallen into. Sir wasn’t having it; he scolded me, demanding to know why I wasn’t at Katt’s house. I told him I needed to come home for a bit. When he asked why, I confessed I had something to tell him. I wondered if he could see the erection sprouting from between my legs, but judging by the discomfort, I thought it was safe to assume that my jeans were holding it at bay.

  “Spit it out, Little Man.” Sir crossed his arms over his broad chest and cocked an eyebrow. “I’m busy. My world does not revolve around you.”

  “I love you, Sir,” flew out of my mouth before I even had a chance to straighten my line of thought. The sentence hung in the air, thick and slow, like the smoke from one of Sir’s cigarettes.

  “Okay,” he said, deathly still.

  He didn’t pay attention to what I had said, he couldn’t feel the gravity of my words on his brawny shoulders. I knew it for certain, so I continued. “No … you don’t get it. I love you in a way that I probably shouldn’t. It’s the kind of love that has me thinking about you the second my eyes open in the morning throughout the whole day, right up until I go to bed at night.” I could feel my cheeks color, but I’d gotten that far, so I added: “Mainly in bed at night.”

  “Do you remember kissing me?” Sir asks, and even now in the present I can tell my cheeks are turning the same bright rouge as the night of my sixteenth birthday. When I don’t answer his question, he stamps his foot down on the chain attached to the collar around my neck. I cry out in pain as my head is yanked forward by sheer force. “Answer me, Little Man!”

  “Yes, Sir!” I choke out. My vision goes blurry and my heart kicks up a storm in my throat.

  “And? How did it feel?” Sir jeers. “What did your foster daddy taste like?”

  I sniff. Tears roll down my blushing cheeks and onto the cold floor by my knees. There’s no reason to lie, not now and certainly not to Sir. “Everything I ever hoped you would.”

  Sir removes his foot from the chain and takes a step back. He remains quiet, but gestures for me to continue.

  I reluctantly slip back into the memory.

  Our lips had only locked for a split second before Sir grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the wall. I remember slumping to the carpet, a little dazed, and wondering whether I should’ve felt sour after what he’d done. Sir snapped his fingers at me and told me to take a shower and go to my room. With that, he left me in the living room while he opened the door to the basement and disappeared.

  Like a good puppy, I did as I was told. I took a long shower and brushed my teeth, then stared at my reflection in the mirror and laughed. I knew I should have felt ashamed about what I had done, but nothing could have been further from that. I felt empowered. For once, I’d grown a pair of steel balls and lived my life, even if it only lasted for a brief moment. Screw it, I thought. I’d had a lick of dominance and I wanted more.

  “Dominance.” Sir shakes his head and leans his head back, eyeing the fluorescent light dangling above our heads. “You don’t know the meaning of the fucking word.”

  “Sorry, Sir,” I whisper, studying a lone ant as it scurries over the ground. I’m too afraid to look him in the eye for fear of breaking one of the only rules he’d imposed earlier – speak only when given permission to do so. “But if you keep interrupting me, it only makes telling my story … harder.”

  I left the bathroom and found my way to the basement door. Once again, I could hear muffled music wafting from behind it, only this time I could make out the track. You keep me hangin’ on by Vanilla Fudge rang in my ears in all its record-crisp glory when I opened the door and descended the staircase. As I walked down the final steps, I noticed Sir’s shadow cast against the basement floor. He looked like he was bent over a bed, cutting away at something lying on top of it, which kept kicking and moving spastically while he worked.

  I shiver and break out into a cold sweat as the final memories of that night take their toll on my aching body. I suck in air, but no matter how hard I try, my lungs will only allow for shallow breaths. Pins and needles dance and prick the palms of my hands, my feet and the flesh of my lips. If I’m not careful, I’ll spiral into a panic attack before the story is even done. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to think of something else – anything – that will take my mind off the impending bolt of terror, but it’s only making matters worse. I open my eyes just as Sir kneels before me and grabs the bridge of my broken nose. A nerve-shattering agony bursts from inside me as he digs his fingernails into my stitches. I hiss and he lets go with a chuckle.

  “Stay in the moment,” he commands, using his thumb to wipe the blood trickling from my nose and onto my lips. I flinch, but he grabs my chin and forces me to keep still as he wipes my face. “If the panic gets to you again, focus on the pain in your nose, and nothing else.”

  I cough and blood spatters onto the front of Sir’s trench coat. He doesn’t seem fazed, but he won’t take his eyes off me. He’s waiting for me to finish. All I want to do is scream and drag my fingers over his eyes. I hate him, more than life itself. Yet … there’s still a part of me that yearns for the psychopath; an undeniable craving for his touch, even if it is one of pain.

  Through the blood and tears I force myself to finish the story he’s asked me to tell.

  When I took in the scene inside the basement, the first thing I noticed was the man on the table with the skin of his face hanging over the right side of his head. He turned his head my way and screamed, begging me for help. Still quite drunk and consumed by the horror of what I saw, I stumbled backward, knocking into the record player. That’s when I saw the faces on the wall. At the time, there were only six. The music stopped, then Sir, who was standing over the man with a bloody knife in his hand, snapped his head in my direction. The man continued to plead for my help, until Sir plunged the knife into his chest, silencing him for good.

  My body went into
autopilot. Leaping to my feet, I ignored Sir as he called out to me. I raced up the basement stairs, out into the hallway through the front door. Before I knew it, I was out on the street, gunning down the pavement until I felt it was safe enough to gasp for air.

  Sir nods when I let out a shuddered gasp, signaling the end of my version of the night. He pats me affectionately on the head, then runs his hand through my hair, pushing the loose lock out of my right eye.

  He waits for me to control my breathing and, as though he’s certain I’ll be alright, stands up and tinkers with the bonds around my wrists. I hear a sharp snap, and all at once blood rushes back into my clammy hands. I bring them to my chest, massaging my left wrist first, then my bandaged right. My fingers find their way to the collar around my neck. It’s soaked from all the sweat.

  “You’ve done well, Little Man.” Sir places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “You gave me exactly what I wanted.”

  “Please, Sir,” I ask softly, barely recognizing my own voice. “Remove my collar.”

  Sir finds his way back to a kneeling position in front of me. His eyes are glacial razor blades. “Not yet.” He pulls the box of Marlboro Red out of his pants pocket and lights another cigarette. He blows smoke out through his nose. “I’ve never asked you about your past,” he says, almost carefully, as if he’s trying to contemplate what to say next. “I have never told you about mine.” He smiles, and his pearly whites shine bright under the fluorescent beam. “But that ends tonight – call it a New Year’s resolution, if you will.” He takes one last drag of his cigarette and places it in my mouth, where it dangles from my bruised lips. He knows I don’t smoke. “You did a good job telling me your version of that night. Now … it’s my turn to tell you the truth.”

  Domino