Notice

by Heather Lewis

  The trouble was how to ever get up from this. It seemed Beth would stay with me as long as I needed, and longer. That I’d have to be the one to end this.

  As it grew light out I worried the things I thought ought to worry her, like what if the other people who worked here began coming in to start on the day.

  But this didn’t trouble her and so I realized I’d lost all sense of days and weeks. Understood it must be a weekend. I couldn’t otherwise account for her ease.

  I dipped in and out of sleep, but each time I woke she was still there awake and with her arms around me – us curled up together and her sometimes stroking my hair.

  All this endless patience in her tested mine. Asked, did I want to stay or go? And it left me trying to determine what else I could possibly want from her because it seemed there was something else. Some way even this wasn’t enough and never could be.

  I sank back into her arms, back into sleep because I thought that there maybe I wouldn’t have to know this anymore. Wouldn’t have to know that everything left me still wanting. And that this want seemed to stretch on for ever and roll backwards too. It mingled with a need that came before and ahead of everything else and would keep on with me, endless and relentless and never served.

  I did sleep, but it wasn’t the deep kind. Not the black, empty kind I wanted. I kept waking and then dozing. Pretended sleep when I could no longer achieve it for real. And by then what I hoped for was her sleep. That she’d drop off and let me steal away.

  She didn’t do this, though. And she showed no sign that she would. Instead she kept steady, kept watch over me in this same tender way until restlessness took hold in my limbs.

  I wondered if loving her would accomplish what I needed, so I began this in a halfhearted way. Turned into her because she’d settled behind me. I began to kiss her softly but she took this easy. Took it the way she’d taken everything for so many hours.

  She quieted me. She said, “Sweetheart, just rest.” And the words changed me from restless to sad; not huge and crazed now, but quiet and ageless. Her ease took me over, and my tears in her shirt – all of her wrapped around me. I cried easily this time, hushed and tranquil and endless.

  Twenty-Eight

  When I did finally leave, she didn’t drive me. I went by myself. And walking home in that late afternoon, I felt changed. Even knowing it wouldn’t last. That I could barely keep hold of it now. That with each step I took, it went further from me. Or stayed with her. Still, I believed some small piece would remain, maybe show me the way out.

  At the same time I knew this was far off for me and I might never get there. Might not get through the things coming before. I could see it but was nowhere close to it.

  I went into my apartment this way. Took a bath, went to bed and slept. Slept that black way I craved. And I woke the next day, which was Sunday, still some small way different. It wasn’t the presence of something so much as the absence. The things pressing me so hard had given way just a little.

  I stayed in bed. I lounged there half sleeping. And when I heard a knock at the door, I went to answer it in just my T-shirt and underwear – that’s how certain I was I’d find Beth.

  They came in all together in a rush. Jeremy grabbed hold of me. For a moment my body stayed heavy – deadweight in his arms before I began struggling. I heard his soft laugh in my ear, and his arms grew tighter and stronger, and then he had me face down on the bed.

  I didn’t raise my head. I didn’t want to see anything. But he’d grabbed me by the hair, lifted my head this way until I had to lift it myself or feel more of this prickly kind of hurt.

  Burt stood in front of me. He had that same gun in his hand and a smile on his face. He said, “You want something to suck on? You look like you could use something to suck on.”

  He put the gun far into my mouth until it scraped the back of my throat. My head grew groggy and heavy and so Jeremy was holding it up and the stinging from this worked to keep me awake. But I didn’t want to be awake.

  I felt Jeremy shift. He tucked his arm underneath me. Lifted me to my knees and I wobbled on the too soft surface of the bed. His weight was behind me, pressing against me and I leaned back into him to get my balance.

  This made the gun slip a little and so Burt grabbed my hair. A big handful of it that started a duller pain, but it let Jeremy stop pulling on it.

  Burt said, “Come on, sweetheart. Show me something. Show me what you do best.

  I tried to. But it seemed I couldn’t control my body well, any part of it. My mouth had gone all slack around the gun. I didn’t like the taste of metal and the scraping. I kept trying to get away from these two things. Tried without trying. My mouth wouldn’t hold on to it the way he wanted.

  I had this want to explain. Tell him I would do what he said if only I was able. But I wasn’t able to talk either.

  He said, “Suck it, now, or I’ll blow you.”

  What let me do this was Jeremy. He’d put his extra hand into my underwear, was playing with me and it gave me a strange safety. Something to feel besides already dead.

  I found myself moving my hips back and forth against him. And then with him. I tunneled into this and sucked the gun. Moved my head back and forth with Burt helping me, him sliding the gun in and out of my mouth. Still lifting my head for me.

  “That’s right,” he said. “That’s it.” And his voice sounded gentle now and the comfort I felt from this seemed wrong but no less soothing for it. And so that’s how I felt – soothed but sickened, sickened at the way these two things so often arrived together.

  This kept on and on. I’d closed my eyes because it made it easier to feel what Jeremy was doing. Let me keep what I was doing for Burt a little away. But, like he knew he didn’t have my attention, Burt jammed the gun hard until it’d ripped all of my mouth. And then he yanked my hair so I was looking right up into his eyes.

  He pulled the gun out and slid it along my cheek, then across my lips. Did this before he handed it back to Jeremy. My body went all soft again without Jeremy’s hand and my arms ached suddenly and fiercely. I began sinking forward until Burt yanked me up again.

  He’d undone his pants. “Come on now, sweetheart,” he said, putting his dick in my mouth. It felt soft and small, like it couldn’t hurt me the way the gun had. And Jeremy having the gun felt better until he began to slide it back and forth between my legs.

  “You want Jeremy to fuck you? I think that’s what she’s been wanting.”

  Jeremy still just rubbed me with the gun for a little bit. My legs ached now, all of me ached. And I ached the way Burt meant, too, and so when Jeremy put the gun into me I didn’t know what I wanted or where I was in myself. But all of it changed when he pulled it out again. When Burt said, “Fuck her ass.” And then this sharp, tearing pain shoved me forward.

  I would’ve cried out. Maybe I did, but Burt’s dick was still there muffling everything except this pain that wouldn’t quit. I kept waiting for it to. My body that’d been so slack now went the opposite. Tight in this way I couldn’t undo, nothing in me able to stop that spiking barbed thing inside me.

  Burt stood there, laughing a little. He said, “You’re going to suck me off, sweetheart. You understand me?”

  And his dick went half-hard from him saying this because I knew I hadn’t accomplished it. And I knew what he wanted of me was impossible. That he couldn’t get any harder than he already was, much less come off. And so I saw too clearly the beauty of my position.

  “You understand?” he said again. “Because otherwise, Jeremy’s pulling the trigger.”

  He yanked at my hair more. He said, “You like that, don’t you, sweetheart? Knowing the chamber’s full? Is that enough to satisfy you? Huh? Answer me.”

  He pulled at me harder, yelling this last thing again and again. And then he pulled at my hair some more, made it like I was nodding my head. And Jeremy pushed harder, too, pushed the barrel further and further so the hurt inside me never let up. And this horr
ible heaviness took hold in my chest. Dragged me toward the bed. Left the two of them pulling and pushing at me all the more, or making me feel it worse.

  And when I thought it would keep on this way for ever, Burt began laughing. Not quietly, but loud. Like the joke on me was even better than I’d thought. And then he was taking his dick away and zipping his pants and, when I’d sunk to my elbows, he leaned down and stroked my cheek. His laughter had turned to a low chuckle. I watched him walk out into the living room, saw him settle on the couch, with my phone in his hand. I watched him get on with his next piece of business.

  Jeremy took the gun out of me, and while he did this slowly there was still the tearing and it made me jerk my head around and see for the first time the other one in the room. The guy from the car who’d done all that waiting in parking lots, and had waited through this, too. But before I could wonder what all his endless patience might mean for me, Jeremy took me back again. And so it was that much clearer they were nowhere near finished with me.

  Jeremy lay the gun near my head. It stayed lifeless there, leaving this little streak of blood on the sheet. I felt lifeless, too. A short moment of sweetness in this before Jeremy pushed me down and then was pushing into me. Trying to get his dick into my ass. My body went from dead to too alive all in a quick rush of soreness. And unwilling or unable or both, I knew I couldn’t take him. There just wasn’t room in me for this.

  He wouldn’t stop trying though. Not for the longest time and by now I’d given in to just crying. This occurring somewhere inside me while on the outside I didn’t feel any tears or cries or movement, just the limping, unmanaged jerks of my body. Of it reacting to things. I couldn’t be sure if I felt anything at all.

  And then maybe I wasn’t wholly there for a time because what I felt next was the other man’s arms around me. Him behind me and me leaning against him. I felt his hands in my T-shirt, heard him in my ear, saying in a voice I’d never heard, “You’re going to like me. You’ll see.”

  And I wondered whether I was alone with him until I opened my eyes and saw Jeremy still there, loafing on the bed. He still had the gun. Was fucking me with it in a way I could only watch. I had no other way to know it was happening.

  My head lolled back against this other one, which seemed to please him. I felt the stubble of his beard scratching my cheek and his hands still fooling with my breasts. Of all of it, I seemed to have the most trouble with this.

  I tried to rest. I felt so tired. I closed my eyes again but still it took me some time to get away. To stop feeling the one behind me, him fondling me.

  I must have at some point managed it, though, because a slicing across my belly and an instant numbing there startled me back awake. I opened my eyes to see Jeremy lapping a little coke off my stomach. I could feel this little damp place left by his tongue. From the look of things, the look of me, he’d been doing this a while. All across my belly these little hash marks from his knife. This last one maybe just went deep enough to impress me. Went deep enough that the coke spilled into it, making this pinkish clump.

  He noticed me. Licked a bit from his knife and then scooped more on to it. Held the knife to my face and told me to have some. “You need to wake up,” he said.

  I jerked my head away but the one behind me stopped that, held me still until I snorted some. Jeremy cleaned the blade on my cheek. Then he wiped it on my shirt, which they’d cut off me apparently. It lay near me in pieces.

  Jeremy snorted lines off my belly, then smeared what was left into those little scratches. He closed his knife and instead of feeling glad for this I felt suddenly scared because he was getting up to leave, to go join Burt in the other room. This would leave me alone with the last one.

  Jeremy closed the door most of the way when he left. I could hear him and Burt talking but I didn’t think it was about me. This last guy came around from behind me and I fell back until first the bed and then the wall stopped me. My head hitting the wall woke me more than the coke had.

  He was sitting on my chest. He had his hand behind my neck and was lifting my head toward his lap. He pressed my face against him for a while. Rubbed himself against me until I could feel him getting hard through the soft cloth of his pants.

  He took his dick out and rubbed it along my face and the softness of this and his pants meant it hurt more when his zipper scratched my cheek.

  This all seemed nearly friendly so when he began yelling, it caught me short. I didn’t know what I’d done. Had trouble making out the things he was saying. They seemed to come from his throat all clumped together, and so I’d only get little bits until he screamed, “Open your fucking mouth.”

  Then his fingers were opening it for me, prying me open. And once he got his dick inside, he fucked my mouth hard enough that my head kept hitting the wall. I slid down to try and stop this. To stop the pounding back of my skull, not to get away from him. But my moving made him slip out.

  Then he got rough. He pulled his belt from his pants and doubled it over, smacked me across the face. And I could hear the sound of this and him still shouting; shouting, “Oh, you’ll do them, huh? And not me.”

  And it going on this way in a rant about me thinking him not good enough, and I was wanting to tell him that wasn’t it at all. That I was just very tired. That if he’d let me rest, just for a while, I’d do whatever it was he wanted.

  I was beyond speaking, though. Had lost this ability way before his belt pulped my lips.

  He left off the smacking, finally. Looped the belt around my neck just as Ingrid’s husband had. He tried to tie my hands with it, but his girth wasn’t big enough and so the belt wasn’t long enough and this angered him too. He yanked me up by it before he let go and got off the bed.

  He sorted through all those clothes still in a heap on the floor. Came back with a belt from a robe, one Ingrid had borrowed while she was here. This cord was sure long enough, and made of a stretchy, scratchy synthetic that made his job easier and mine harder. Harder still when he hog-tied me with it.

  I’d never been in exactly this position before. And when he turned me on my back I had to scramble for space in my throat – this cord clutching it and tightening and never seeming to give way no matter how I arranged myself.

  I pulled my legs up under me, or my feet really. Kept them close together underneath me but my legs wide open before him. Held myself up with my thighs, the muscles in them waking up angry, forcing me to feel that part of my body again.

  None of this worked. My wrists were down too close to my ankles and all the slack was in the wrong place. And this tugging around my neck wouldn’t stop, didn’t really stop even when I got my hands up under my shoulder blades. I kept trying to lift myself up, get myself off the cord. But I wasn’t doing well at this, and he was pressing down on my legs, and then pressing them further apart until I had to give way and wait him out.

  I couldn’t not feel how he fucked me. Felt it more for all the feeling that had come back to my legs. I felt everything – the cutting in my wrists and ankles, my throat closed off, and the only good thing about this was it kept me from crying out loud. This feeling like some kind of victory until I realized it served him for me to be quiet.

  He kept pounding at me until I went numb despite all the things stacked against it, though maybe it was just my blood wasn’t moving. That it couldn’t get past the cord anymore.

  When he pulled out, I tried to turn on my side, turn away, but he was over me again, jerking off on my chest and my face until finally he went away. I curled up inside-out of how I wanted to be. My arms and legs behind me instead of tucked up in front of me. I was retching and trying to spit but my throat stayed too raw. I turned my head into the sheets to wipe his come off me. I kept turning my head into the sheets.

  And, too, I listened. Heard them all moving around and talking, all these bustling noises, which I wanted to mean they were leaving.

  But before they did, they came back to me. Burt said, “Just one more thing, sweeth
eart.” And I’d hated his calling me this all along, but hated it most now when I’d just begun to let myself think of Beth.

  Burt said, “Gabriel wants a little trophy.”

  I saw Jeremy had his knife out. I began to scramble. This coming before I could think about Ingrid’s husband having sent them – something I seemed to have known all along anyway.

  “He wants proof we were here.”

  Even with me still tied, it took the three of them to hold me down. Jeremy ran his fingers through my bush, smoothed it before he pulled at it. Before Burt said, “I can see why he’d want that pelt.”

  I began struggling again but only inside myself. I didn’t want them taking this piece of me I’d only just realized I felt vain about.

  He was still tugging on me, and then he rubbed at my clit. He said, “I think I want this for myself.” And in me this turned-on terror, this frothy airy stuff working my chest and running inside my head, not letting me leave.

  He laughed and then tugged at my bush again. He said, “Don’t worry, darling. We won’t take the one thing you need.”

  I didn’t move when he cut. It seared, felt warm in this way, but maybe that was my blood. He was quick about this, businesslike. And when he’d done it, I fell away from them.

  He cut the cord and, soon as I could, I curled up. Curled up as tight and small as I could and just lay there, not moving, not hearing, not crying, not registering anything. Except Burt saying one last thing, “Here’s your souvenir. I figure you’ve earned it. Hell, sweetheart, I think you’re going to need it one day soon.” And he tossed a bullet my way. It thumped my back before falling somewhere behind me.

  Twenty-Nine

  When I woke from this stupor I knew they’d left. Still, I didn’t move. I found I could move but didn’t. I didn’t want to look at what they’d done. I’d balled the sheets between my legs and could only see blood there.