by Barbara Bell
The door slams shut. He clicks the padlock together. I piss all over the floor of the box, and I sit in it, thinking about Dumpsters and stacks of the dead.
4
Brooklyn Bridge
Ben had a simple setup that he called the rail. He had several rails spread throughout the warehouse. You were tied with your hands above your head, so that you leaned just a bit forward, the rail hitting at the hips. It was Ben’s form of a whipping post.
There was only one box. Ben kept it in the middle of our living space upstairs. The box was narrow, just wide enough for shoulders and hips. To fit into it, the boys had to bend their heads down. I doubt Ben could have packed himself into the thing.
One side had hinges on the bottom and a hasp at the top with a padlock. He would leave the key on the top of the box as a reminder. We weren’t allowed to touch it no matter how much the person locked inside screamed.
I sit in a puddle of piss, the muscles in my back and thighs cramping. Panic hits like a Mack truck. I try to stay calm. I try to breathe slow, but I’m losing ground.
Hours pass. At first I hear muffled voices and a TV. Then silence surrounds like a solid, pressing thing. Through my thighs and the bottoms of my feet, I sense the trains roving underground like flies buzzing the river. And the hum of the city is the river’s thunder, pounding against banks saturated by rain.
The ghosts are near, but I fight them off, drowsing at times, losing track. My thighs have cramped for so long that I don’t feel the pain anymore. A deadness has crept from my ass as far as my waist. My hands and arms went numb a long time ago.
I think that I piss again, but I can’t tell for sure.
I keep telling myself to wait, to breathe, but I’m getting flashes of light so bright that they bite my eyes, turned in, filled with their own form of death.
Violet comes to me. She strokes my head. She kisses the lumps Ben left on me and wipes the blood off my lip. We kiss and kiss. I’ve forgotten how sweet, how like food and water she is to me, her beaten face strange and wonderful to my eyes.
You are lovely, I whisper. Lovely.
When you hear the person in the box whispering, you know pretty soon, they’re going to be screaming.
Violet raises my face, kissing me long and with care. Sigh no more, she says. Then I see her falling away, disappearing.
Blackness rises up beneath and engulfs. I remember this blackness from before and am ready to go. Wipe memory clean, I plead. Wipe it away.
I don’t know why I start screaming. I just do.
Silence drops again. I wait. Someone starts to cry.
Kat comes to me. I’ve been lying on a floor, drenched in blood. Her face is older than I remember, but she’s still so beautiful. Others come and carry me out. Then I’m wrapped in a blanket and riding in the backseat of a car. I see a soaking wet spot at my side.
Faces look down at me. Hands lift me out of the car and onto a gurney. I’m not strapped down, but I can’t move. My body is sticky all over.
Kat stays in place, but I am gliding away.
Rivertown comes, high on the rise. I see the live oak arching, the mimosa spreading out to cover. And my people wait, shining, the blue sky behind.
* * *
I feel them lifting me out of the box. They lie me on my side and let loose my hands. The blindfold and collar are removed.
“Jesus, she pissed in here.”
“What do you expect? He left her in there too long.”
They leave me and go about their business. I don’t move. I don’t even open my eyes.
The fawn kneels beside and kisses me on the cheek. “Beth,” she says. “Wake up.”
I ignore her. If I have to move or speak, I think I’ll go mad.
She pulls me onto my back. “Beth.” She runs her fingers through my hair. I open my eyes a slit. “I have food,” she says. “And something to drink.”
She helps me to lean back against a couch, then wraps my fingers around a bottle of water. I raise it to my mouth, missing at first. The fawn guides it to my lips.
After I eat a bowl of mashed potatoes, she hands me another bottle. “What day?” I say.
“Sunday,” she says. “Early.”
“God.”
“You need a bath,” she says. “Finish your water.”
I suck down the second bottle like it’s nothing.
“You’ve got a play coming later.”
“God, no.” My vocabulary appears to have gone to shit in the last who knows how many hours.
“Come on.” She coaxes me like Jeremy. I crawl on my hands and knees, following her into the bathroom. When the tub is full, she helps me to settle in, then goes away.
My head is splitting from the punch to my nose, which is fattened and still leaking a drop at a time through the clots in each nostril. My face is tender from my lip to my forehead. I think again about buying futures. Seems a mistake to me.
Ben arrives. He’s dressed in a black silk shirt, gray Armani suit pants, and Italian shoes.
“You might as well kill me,” I say. “I can’t take this.”
He stoops beside the sunken tub. “It’s almost over, Beth. Not much longer. One more play.”
He leaves. I soak for a long time, sinking down and holding my breath, letting the minutes go by, pushing the limit on how long I can stay under.
When I’m done, I drag myself out and lie on the tile in the sun. I fall asleep.
I wake when the boys come in with a wide belt and manacles. They help me to stand, very friendly with me as they chain me up. They chatter away about some baseball game they’ve been watching on TV. The boys appear to have gotten over cleaning up my puddle of piss.
One fits the belt around my waist, covering my now famously erroneous scar. The other pulls a chain through the ring in the front of the belt so that it moves freely. They manacle my wrists and ankles, attaching them with locks to each end of the chain. Another in a long series of hoods is fit over my head and a collar is buckled in place. I hobble along as they lead me out.
In the room they take me to, they have me climb onto a cold metal table on hands and knees. Nice doggie, one says. Good girl, the other adds.
Oh, God. Not that.
They leave.
Before long the door opens and someone comes in. The door shuts.
What do you think? says Ben.
I feel hands stroking my back as though petting, then rubbing my ass. The hands check the tightness of the collar.
I don’t like a hood, the man says. You know I like to admire their markings.
I stop breathing. I know that voice.
Not this one, says Ben. She’s still in training. We have to keep the hood on. See? She was bad. We had to beat her.
I would have figured out who it was right off, if I had ever had a clue about it. But I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I didn’t know how good Ben was working me.
The man touches the marks where Ben beat me.
She’s got good in her though, he says. I can see it.
That’s all I need. Good old “the world is a happy place” Jeremy. Jesus. And I thought he was using Sunday afternoons to screw Helen.
My view of the world, the planet in general, the universe, and my very hazy idea of a weak and bumbling God, all of it crashes in with a lot of noise and dust. If you can’t figure Jeremy, you can’t figure anything.
I had already decided that I wasn’t going to see the light of day again, that Ben was going to keep me this time. Jeremy’s presence here cinched it for me. Good old synchronicity. Good old Mr. Bubbly. Arf, Arf.
I wonder how long Ben cultivated him. I imagine Ben and Jeremy sitting together in the Grill Room at the Four Seasons, Ben eventually getting Jeremy to confess his deepest fantasies. Rather embarrassing for your deepest fantasy to come out looking like this.
Ben. Ben. Ben. I hadn’t thought about him for five years, and the whole time he was busy preparing himself for just this moment.
Gotcha!
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Jeremy’s petting me again, stroking me. If I had a tail, I’d wag.
God, if I’d only known. I could have saved him a lot of trouble. And money.
She’s a beautiful dog, Ben. Do you have a leash?
Ben clips one on my collar and hands the end to Jeremy. This seems to really get Jeremy cranking. I can hear him walking around, taking me in. How, after five years, can he not recognize me? Oh well. So much for marriage. He tugs the leash a little.
Sit.
I try not to laugh.
Sit, he says again in a stern voice.
I sit.
Lie down.
God, what a fucking gas. I crouch. I’d pant if he could see my face.
I wish he’d hand me a bit of food. Maybe if I didn’t have on the hood, he would. Maybe he comes to these little appointments at Ben’s with his napkin-wrapped scraps to give as rewards.
Jeremy eventually gets down to business. He finishes fast. Jeremy always finishes fast. I expect him to ask me how it was.
Oh yes, Jeremy, yes, yes.
Good old Jeremy, paying a small fortune to screw his wife doggie-style. T-bonds make it possible. Of all the futures you might want to buy, this one seems to me a silly choice.
I’m starting to chuckle, a little of the berserks coming over me.
How’s Clarisse? asks Ben.
Oh she’s fine. A little stressed. Nervous breakdown. Women have them all the time. The Prozac should help.
Good, says Ben as he opens the door to show Jeremy out. I hear them chatting as they walk down the hall.
Shuffling through a Dumpster one day, I found part of a broken cup. Painted in the glaze was the tip of a tree limb hanging over a small house. So I spent the whole afternoon sifting through the trash until I thought I had the whole cup.
The next day at school, I lifted a tube of glue. I worked on that cup all evening.
I discovered dragons wrapping their tails around the side. The tree was in full blossom and underneath it a woman was walking, holding an umbrella. I worked and worked on it. After I was done, all I had was a cracked-up mess with glue dried on in blotches.
I had been going to give it to Miss Summers, but I knew she’d give me that look that made me feel stupid.
That’s when I learned that if something’s broke, no matter how fine it is, you got to let it be. It’s best to get rid of the pieces so they don’t always remind you of things, stuffing your heart with mud and the smell of the laybacks. They have their own special stink. If you’re worried about that kind of thing, it’s best to edge around.
When Ben comes back, I’m lying on my back on the doggie table, my head splitting from my battered nose. He lifts me in his arms like I’m a baby and carries me into what turns out to be his rooms.
Ben removes my chains and unhoods me. I look around in amazement. I’ve never been in here before. He has a small kitchen, a bath, a living room, and a bedroom. It’s downright common.
Ben hands me yet another bottle of Gatorade, which I consume, watching as he goes into the kitchen and boils pasta. After it’s done, he mixes it with a white sauce, puts salad in bowls, opens wine, and serves me dinner. I walk to the bedroom, taking in his view over Manhattan. Then I wrap a blanket around me.
After I sit down to eat, Ben walks behind me and folds the blanket down from my shoulders, revealing my breasts. He sits opposite, keeping his eyes on me.
We’re silent. Frankly, I don’t know what to say. If I’d been with Jeremy and a pair of his friends and their wives, we would have prattled on inane and batty about lawns and weedkillers. We might have moaned like idiots about our maids. The guys would have gone off together, trying to cream each other with their latest stock market numbers.
What do you say to the guy who just a day or so ago screwed and beat you? And then locked you in a box, for God’s sakes. For me, it has a nice family feel.
I push back my plate. “Have you got some aspirin? I feel like shit. I think I need to lie down.”
Ben leads me to his bed without saying a word. He folds back the duvet and sheet. I lie down and he actually brings me some aspirin.
Now he undresses and joins me, turning me to him and kissing me, not asking, as though I belong to him. I guess I do. We make love like we’re married, for God’s sakes. I have to admit, Ben is an excellent screw, but I’ve had enough of him for a good long while. I’ve had enough semen for awhile, too.
I fall asleep in his arms, trying to keep the ghosts back, seeing the dangers whizzing inside my head.
When I wake, I hear him moving nearby. He’s already dressed. My headache has spread down into my neck. My nose burns if I try to breathe, which appears to be a necessary function. I see my blue skirt and blouse folded over a chair, but Ben hands me some jeans and a T-shirt, socks and a pair of sneakers.
“Clean up and get dressed,” he says.
I’m looking forward to the life we’re going to have together. All the fun, the freedom, the broken ribs.
After I’m dressed, we eat a light breakfast.
“The Jeremy thing was a nice touch,” I say, trying to chat.
He wipes his mouth with his napkin, showing just a hint of that smile. “The driver will drop you at home,” he says. “Get what you need from the house and bring me the money that you cleared out of your account last Tuesday. Finish things with Jeremy. The driver will pick you up at five this evening. If you don’t show, we’ll find you.” He has his smile on full now. “And you know what I’ll do when they bring you back.”
I try to hide my joy. Oh blessed moment. Agnus dei.
He takes me to the limo with his big arm wrapped around me. The driver opens the door. Before I get in, I turn to him.
“You owe me one thing, Ben. Who was it? Which fucking client of yours cut Violet?”
He turns me around and sits me in the car. Before he slams the door, he leans close and says, “You should know, Beth. You were there.”
The limo stops in front of my house. It’s Monday morning again. Another wasted weekend. Once inside, I watch the limo edge away from the curb and disappear around a corner.
This is it. My last chance. Today is the day.
I stumble up the stairs, still weak, and bumble into my studio. The answering machine is blinking. I think, what the hell, and punch the button. The first message is from my agent. She called me on Sunday. What gall. Doesn’t she know it’s the day of rest?
She tells me I have a book signing next week.
Not on your life.
The second is from Jeremy. “Honey, if you get home today, give me a call. We all miss you so much.”
Little fucker.
I flip through my disks and take out the one with my most recent stories. I clean out the shoebox, slipping Ben’s card in my pocket. It’s so hard to let go.
I sweep the room with my eyes.
Good-bye. Go to hell.
Making for the refrigerator in the kitchen, I chug some orange juice.
The doorbell rings.
Dropping on all fours, I crawl into the living room. I spy out the window, seeing the angel-faced Detective Bates standing at my door holding his ugly briefcase.
He rings again. I wait. He dawdles on the way to his car, then gets in, cranking the engine. As the Chevy pulls away, I breathe a sigh of relief. But then he stops and backs into a side street, parking at a place where he has a clear view of my house.
Shit.
I go back upstairs and pull up my two lists on the computer, trying to memorize them. Then I run downstairs, grabbing my purse and a black windbreaker. I make for the garage.
Sitting in the Porsche, I search my purse, removing the switchblade and slipping it in a side pocket of the nice jeans Ben gave me. Then I open my billfold and take out the Elizabeth Boone IDs, stuffing them in a back pocket with Ben’s card. Just for fun, I put my Clarisse Broder calling card in with them and the Katherine Benson Social Security card. I wouldn’t want to make too clean a break. In the other back pocke
t, I put a few dollars and some change.
I punch the garage door button and rev the Porsche all in the same moment, shooting out. Tires squeal as I throw it into first and race off. In my rearview mirror, I see Detective Bates fumbling around. I laugh.