The Waning

by Christina Bergling

  Was someone new sleeping on my side of the bed? Someone who came home promptly every night and gave her all the attention she deserved.

  I wondered when they noticed I was missing at the office. Lei would have noticed the next morning. No matter how late I worked, I was always in bed with her by the time she woke up. An unexplained absence from me was unheard of and unprecedented. Julie would have noticed by 8:15, been worried by 8:30. I imagine, at first, she would have been relieved to not be chasing down my coffee and heading my direction. Then perhaps sometime before lunch, she might have become legitimately concerned. Maybe I had gotten into a car accident. I was never too sick to work from my bed.

  After a few days, despite all the concern they faked, the office would begin to doubt me. Rebecca, the other partners. People like Denise and Andrew would be secretly celebrating, plotting how to consume my clients and cannibalize my success. Greedy bastards. Denise would show up in Rebecca’s office, hand on her heart when she talked about how tragic it all was, offering to help out with my accounts in any way she could. Andrew would swirl a straw in his coffee cup in the break room, saying how he thought I just ran off; I couldn’t handle the pressure.

  But I had cut their metaphorical throats, hadn’t I?

  Did they deserve it? Yes. Would they have done it to me? Without hesitation. Yet here I was in this box. Here I was being tormented, punished while they continued on their ruthless little lives. Why did they get to continue on free?

  Did I deserve this?

  Was this the price of my success? What success was ever achieved if it wasn’t ripped from someone else? You couldn’t win without competition, without crushing your competition.

  Somehow, randomly, my mind surfaced on my first. The first time I crossed that line, the first small infraction where I chose myself at the price of another. It was small, of course, but it was the start. Maybe the first step on the path that led me here.

  “Beatrix, can you step into my office, please?” Mr. Anders said from the other side of my cube wall.

  I felt my nerves ball up into my chest. I knew why he wanted to talk to me. The proof to BareEssentials was incorrect, a typo glaring in the slogan. Your only as beautiful as your makeup. I hadn’t noticed it until the delivery confirmation had arrived. My heart had plummeted into the pit of my stomach with the paper in my hand.

  I knew I was fucked. I knew I had destroyed my chances at this internship. This was my toehold, my foot in the door into marketing, and I had wasted it on bad copyediting.

  My hands were trembling. I clenched them in and out of shaky fists as I forced myself to take a deep breath. It was time to face the music and bid my career aspirations good-bye.

  “Yes, Mr. Anders,” I said as I emerged from my cube and followed him into his office.

  He gestured to the chair and shut the door behind us as I gingerly sat down. I couldn’t even fake confidence at this point; I was so crushed by my own stupid failure. I was already planning my pity party—liquor store and pizza on the way home to cry myself to sleep.

  “Beatrix, have you seen the BareEssentials proof?” he said as he sat behind his desk. His brow was folded thickly, wrinkles deepening. He coiled his hands in front of him, and I saw his skin whiten at the pressure.

  What to say? What to say? Should I just confess now?

  “I worked on it, yes,” I replied ambiguously.

  “The goddamn slogan is wrong!” he yelled, then composed himself. “Your only as beautiful as your makeup? Your! Like we don’t know fucking grammar! BareEssentials is livid. They’re dropping the contract. This is a huge loss for us. A huge loss.”

  He stopped for a moment. I could feel that my eyes were wide. I could feel my hands clutching the armrests of the chair. I was waiting for the axe to fall. He lifted his hands to his brow and massaged the deep wrinkles, swirling the skin around his forehead.

  “What I need to know from you is, did Nancy sign off on this before you sent it?”

  Nancy was the gatekeeper, the last link in the chain before something was released to a client. She reminded me of my mother, the way she could seem nurturing and ruthlessly sassy at the same time. She brought donuts to put in the kitchen one Monday a month.

  When I had brought the proof to her, she was drowning in work. Stray hairs had wriggled loose from the bun tied on the back of her head. She leaned on her hand with her wide eyes frantically scanning the stack of papers fanned out in front of her.

  “Sorry, dear,” she said when I approached her. “Grocery-Mart wants to review contracts from two years ago. It’s just a mess in this file. You need a signature? Here, hand me the sheet. I trust you.”

  She scribbled her name on the sheet; I thanked her and sent the proof.

  “Yes,” I told Mr. Anders quietly, looking at his hands folded again in front of him instead of into his eyes.

  “Thank you, Beatrix. That’s all I needed to know. Get back to your desk and just make sure you, and everyone else here, double and triple checks every proof from now on.”

  Nancy had been fired that night. Taking her family photos and the pictures her grandkids had drawn home in a sad, plain box they provided her.

  I hadn’t thought about Nancy in years. I had not wanted to relive it. I didn’t throw her under the bus or slit her throat. She had made the mistake—of signing a proof without reviewing it, of trusting me. Yet I hadn’t confessed either. I had let her go down so that my career could continue.

  My first trespass. The beginning of my self-serving aspirations.

  Maybe I did deserve to be here.

  But how would You have known all this? How would You have chosen me to punish me for all these sins?

  You clearly had chosen me. You obviously had a purpose for me. But what? If You didn’t know my less than innocent past or career path, if You weren’t privy to the way I wasted Lei, why me? What were You punishing me for if You didn’t know my crimes?

  How did You choose me? The question was like a thorn nestled in the rear of my brain, constant and ruthlessly annoying. Was that You side-eyeing me over a coffee cup as I screamed oblivious into my dear cell phone and pounded the pavement with the spike of my heels? Was that You smiling as You handed me a receipt for my secret cigarettes? Was that You offering to buy me a drink in a shifty tavern before I snarled rejection at You? Did You see me with her? Did You know my life as intimately as You controlled it now? Was I just some random acquisition, or did You meticulously select me? I could not place You in my former life. I could not see You stalking that alternate reality, but I could not see You making any rash or impulsive grab at Your desire either.

  How many nights did You wait for me in that parking lot? Why that night? Why me at all?

  More questions to which You owned all the answers. I told myself that You studied me, that You closely evaluated me and compared me to others, that You saw something special in me. It was the only thing that could make sense, with the way You conducted Yourself, with the work You were investing into me. In my mind, You constructed this world just for me. You fantasized about bringing me here until that fateful night.

  Every person had a motive or an angle. Every client wanted to sell something. What did You want?

  You did not want my fight. You wanted to break me of that and force me into compliance. You did not want my pain. That seemed collateral to Your underlying motives.

  You wanted my submission.

  There was only one thing left for me to try.

  15

  It was my shame. My disgusting, pathetic last resort. My misguided understanding of submission.

  As I heard You enter the room, I took a deep breath all the way in the bottom of my lungs. I let it stretch out my chest until it felt like it might burst. I poured myself into that one breath, attempting to calm my nerves and focus my purpose.

  I could do this. If it would work.

  You opened the cage door to lead me to my bucket. I crawled out cautiously, ever minding my still tender wou
nd. I did not shuffle across to the bucket though. I took another breath and, instead, I stood before You. I could not look up into Your eyes. I stared as boldly as I could at Your scuffless, perfectly laced shoes.

  I could do this.

  You nudged me toward the bucket, but I resisted, tensed my body to hold myself still. I could feel myself starting to tremble from the muscles against my bones radiating out to my skin.

  It had to be done. It had to be at least tried.

  I turned to face You. The contact of Your dark eyes was petrifying. My irises fought against me to dive back to the safety of the concrete. Another deep breath. I forced myself to keep looking at You, to find some sort of terrifying connection with You, to try to make You see me. Then I dropped my eyes and lost myself in my respiration again.

  Deep breath.

  I lifted my hands with fingers quivering like leaves. I focused hard to steel the digits and keep them under my command.

  Deep breath.

  I began awkwardly tugging at my clothes, my shaking fingers sending ripples through the cloth. I could feel my whole body tremor outward then down into my core.

  Deep breath.

  All the breathing was doing nothing to calm or progress my efforts. I couldn’t look back up at You now, not while I was doing this; I couldn’t convincingly sell my seduction, but I had to try.

  Sex had to be the answer, had to be what I could sell for the key. Sex would be the ultimate submission, me giving You the only part of me I seemed to still control, the only part You were not going to take. So I offered it to You.

  I thought I heard a laugh swirl into Your breath. I thought I heard a small smile stretch Your thin lips. You simply reached down and grasped my hands. Your gloves were already on, and I felt the inhuman material cradling my quivering hands. You held them in Yours for what seemed like a long moment as You pulled them from my clothes. You turned me and guided me to the bucket, then returned me to my cage and my solitude.

  As I heard the lock click and watched the light dissipate, I realized that I did not understand You at all. I had no idea what You wanted, and even if I was right about the submission, I clearly did not know what it meant.

  You never touched me that way, despite all my fear. You never cared that I was a lesbian, or a woman for that matter. I don’t think the thought even crossed Your mind the many times You peeled the sweaty, bloodstained clothes from my body. That sort of depravity was beneath You. You were creating a new life, not stealing sex. You didn’t need that sort of pathetic display to establish Your power and control. Any violence You showed me was a lesson; it was merely a tool wielded to contour and break me into Your quivering masterpiece. I was simply and purely a human possession.

  I think then You knew I was broken. When I offered You the last thing I had, You knew I was Yours.

  When You returned for my feeding, it was like my sloppy and sad offering had never happened. Your face was as neutral and unreadable as ever; Your mannerisms and movements were as mechanical and purposeful. You let my embarrassment and rejection just drift out of the cell and memory.

  I could almost consider that a kindness, and I could almost be thankful to You for it.

  Your rejection tilted my perceptions of You. Something about You not being willing to ravage me, consensual or not, made me feel safer, made You feel more human. Even remembering the strap, the piss-soaked blanket, the scalpel. Even with all these torments and offenses, this one sanctuary revealed You had standards. There was pain and suffering You were not pursuing; there were things You did not want. This proved You had a purpose and were not acting on savage impulse.

  Somehow, that was more comforting than it should have been.

  As I ate slowly in the dark, my mind wrestled over itself. My thoughts were chaotically conflicted as my emotions surged lost through my veins.

  He didn’t take me. Why didn’t he take me? Isn’t this what this is about? Why else would you lock a woman in a cage? What more submission can I give him?

  Rape is not what this is about. He spared me that. This is about something more. He has some kind of plan, some kind of purpose for me. He wants something more from me, more than my body. He sees me as something more.

  Feeling gratitude toward You, appreciating anything about You, greatly assaulted the deep, writhing hatred I harbored toward my captor and torturer. I felt myself turning on myself and aligning with You as the thoughts infected my own brain.

  As the hours passed in this small box, as the days washed over me in the dark, I was seeing the worst of myself, the more I deserved this fate, and the better of You, the way all of Your torment had an intelligent design.

  The ideas were foreign and still disgusting to the small shred of self I had cradled deep below my heart. Yet they were mounting, growing, and spreading, being reinforced by the silence. He sees me as something more. He has some kind of plan, some kind of purpose for me. I mean something to him. They kept repeating and building. No one was here to contradict or correct me. No one was here to save me. It was me alone against Your eloquent conditioning.

  Maybe You didn’t fuck me just to elicit this turn in me. Maybe it was all part of Your plan. Even with that realization in my mind, it was still working.

  A long string of days snaked through my cell quiet and uneventful. It took me several rotations through the bucket and plate routine to realize You were permitting my gaping wound time to heal. You weren’t trying to destroy me; You were ensuring I recovered properly before enduring more. From the way the red retreated back into my wound rather than advancing across my skin, You were clearly feeding me antibiotics. And some glorious variety of painkiller. More planning, more consideration.

  Each day, the light cracked my world open and announced You. Without a word, You knelt beside my cage. I felt the exhilaration of You being in the room, my heart pounding as You were so close to my space, as if the bars under Your fingertips were my own skin. You turned the lock, and the quiet release echoed through the room.

  You placed the plain, metal plate at my feet and watched as I clumsily turned to face it. I looked up at You cautiously then waited for You to shut me back into the silent darkness before I gingerly nibbled at the plain chunk of bread or piece of undetermined meat. I tried not to attack it ravenously, attempted to temper my hunger and behave and ration.

  The routine repeated for my second meal. You permitted me my two visits to my bucket, thankfully across the room, in the dark corner out of mind. With so little intake, I barely filled the bucket anymore. However, I waited for my designated time, like a dog crated all day while his owner is at work. Months of conditioning and that one harsh lesson taught me to not dare to soil my space, to train my bladder and bowels. Like a dog crated all day. My body learned to dance to Your rhythm long before my mind relinquished and fell in step.

  And in this isolation, I started to want You. I didn’t notice it at first. It was something new welling in my chest, something I did not recognize. You came into my cell, as the normal routine, yet as You reached in to deposit my feeding or to escort me to the bucket, I found my muscles were no longer flinching. I no longer curled away from You in anticipation of pain.

  With no fresh lessons, the fear started to fall dormant inside me.

  The next time I lay alone in the dark, I felt the need rising in me, swelling up in the vacant space in my chest. I wanted You there; I wanted Your care. When You came in to unlock my cage, my heart quickened. It was excitement maybe, not fright. I sat up, coiled my limbs beneath me. I moved my head, tried to entice Your gaze, tried to engage Your eyes.

  You denied me. You left me wanting.

  I breathed into my loneliness, even in Your presence.

  The silence continued and felt heavier on me than it usually did, more empty. I wanted the soft edge in You when You were treating my wound. I wanted that concentrated attention. The squeak of my cage door whined through the quiet, drowned out my own sad breathing for just an instant. Your arm broke into my pla
ne to deliver my meal.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  Again, the words escaped my lips before I could purse them down. Why was I saying it again? Did I mean that? Was I thankful? Or did I just want some kind of reaction, any kind of interaction with You? My voice was hoarse, unpracticed, and unrecognizable. As haggard as my physical body and as tragic.

  You did not respond this time. No hesitation or even a hint of a smile. It was like being cared for by a robot.

  My heart sank into the black in my chest as the darkness consumed the room behind You. I didn’t bother to eat or reach for the water. I did not care. Again, I managed to feel heavy and more alone, neglected, and forgotten.

  The fact that I had been reduced to wanting You disgusted me to my very core, yet it persisted below my skin just the same. I curled up with it as I forced myself to sleep.

  In my feverish dreams, it was not Lei who greeted me. It was You. You were infiltrating and polluting my subconscious; You were staking Your territory into the deepest recesses of my mind. I had nothing of my own anymore.

  You walked into my cell without hesitating. You did not stand in the doorway; You did not look down at me from the sides of Your dark eyes. You moved to my cage with purpose and loosed the lock quickly. You did not make me wait for You. Both of Your hands broke through the door. You did not guide me; You reached for me, taking my hands in Yours, no gloves between us. The heat of Your fingers tangled in mine raced through my body. You led me out of my cage, unfolded me, and pulled me to You. You held me to Your firm chest as You hushed into my hair.

  I woke up heaving, cold, alone, and crammed between the bars of my box. Had I eaten the last meal You laid at my feet, I would have vomited in my cage. Instead, the acidic wretches just shook my empty frame.

  Then I heard the door. I caught the gag in my throat and swallowed it back down, air contorting in my stomach. I wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand, somehow scared that You would be able to read the vile dream on me.