You entered my cell differently, more familiar. You were engaged once more. Your posture had purpose. Your eyes finally fell on me again, examined me, and I recoiled from their intimidating contact once again.
I felt myself basking in Your attention, in You actually looking at me. I was happy You were focused on me; I was comfortable in You reverting back to my original abductor. And then I hated myself for it. The emotions surged out of the darkness in me before I could identify or understand them. I was thinking foreign, traitorous thoughts before I knew they were mine. Why was I hungry for the manipulations of my captor? Why was I not simply and purely loathing You?
Something at my very base, something instinctual and buried miles below my perplexed mind, it felt imperative. My guts said follow; my animal said be necessary; my cells said earn the food; my heart said don’t get left alone here in the dark.
This could be an extension of my resolve, I told myself. This could be learning what he wants and staying alive. At first, I started acting like Yours. As I crawled complacently at Your feet and poised for instruction, I told myself it was just an act. As I bowed my head to march to the bucket, I told myself I was in control here, with my choice to submit. As I basked in Your sweet aftercare, I told myself I didn’t really enjoy it; it was all part of my playing my role here.
I was selling the idea of my submission, selling the appearance of belonging to You. The sale was my control, making You believe what I wanted. And the sale was what I was best at.
My mind insisted on resistance until the bitter, shaking end. Even as forced practice became familiar, even as familiar became habit. Consistently, I told myself this was an act. Play the part right. Sell the angle. It’s working. He’s buying it; he’s buying it all. If I can just play long enough, I can find some way out. I repeated these things to myself in the dark no matter how submission was welling up inside me from all sides.
The more rotations of the routine that swept over us, the harder the scab on my side became. The carefully contained and medicated red began to fully recede from the surrounding flesh and disappear back under the wound. The healthy skin, by degrees, began to crawl over the edges, gradually restaking its claim in rippled scar tissue.
As the color faded and the skin changed, an itch writhed beneath. I felt it wriggling on my nerves. Instinctively, I would let my haggard nails rake at it, but patches were too sensitive to endure it. I had to settle for tapping the bandage or shifting my body against the bars to distract from that concentrated prickle.
Once the scab toughened and became thick, I could run my fingertips over it without flinching away from the sensitivity. My nerves retreated into my flesh. I pushed my shirt aside, stroked the smooth and furrowed scab, and teased at the edges. I tugged gently until I felt the pain, then pressed the scab back down. I traced the edges, imagining the diamond shape in my mind, marveling at how straight the edges could be.
Each night, it was harder to separate the edge from my healthy skin. Each night, the perimeter receded. Gradually, I felt more and more flesh. It was deep and warbled, smooth and hairless—a deviation from the untouched surroundings. I could trail my fingertip along the healthy skin until it dropped off onto the scar. The new skin was both muted and extra sensitive.
I was able to examine my developing scar under the light each time You spread me out onto my vacation on the mat as You cleaned and redressed me. Each time I was allowed to stretch out, I also noticed my body withering away around me. I never had an excess of weight, but it was still managing to fade. My skin was loose from the supple flesh disappearing too quickly.
When I lay on my side, my top hip and set of ribs rose out of my flesh, standing stark out of pulled skin. There was no longer a comforting layer to disguise my skeleton. My skin was slack and sort of pooled beside my body on the mat. It was fascinating and grotesque at the same time, my body so unfamiliar and alien to me. There was no mirror or reflective surface in my pit. I was wrapped up in a tight ball in my cage with no room to examine anything. The only time I could look at my own body was outside the cage, where I was often too distracted to consider it.
As I moved my limbs in the harsh light, I could see the tendons and wasted muscles shifting beneath my graying skin. I could see the roadmap of my veins so deprived of the sunlight. I was only relieved that I could not see the current state of my face. It was hard enough to face the stranger in the parts of my body I could see.
Each day, I recognized myself a little less—mentally and physically.
Once the pain had diminished and the bandage was no longer necessary, I scarcely thought about the injury. I tried to blot the entire incident out of my memory. It was easier that way. I found life more amiable when You were my caretaker, when I didn’t remember the meticulous way You extracted my flesh. When my eyes did fall on the wretched diamond shape, I felt my chest tighten and my breathing quicken. I would immediately avert my eyes and shove the rising memories deeper into my darkness.
If I measured time by how long it took that diamond of flesh to fully grow back, we had existed in this healing holding pattern for months.
Surely, my life on the outside had forgotten all about me by now. No one would have known what happened to me, but they would have given up by now. Hope would have faded a little day by day, and so many days had passed now. Lei had to figure I was dead or gone forever, which maybe I was. Cops would have stopped searching, brushed me into a colder file. Work would have passed my files off to other associates, given someone else my promotion. Probably fucking Denise.
I was gone, completely gone. It was all lost, and all I had left was this small, concrete box.
I ran my hand over the scar, alone in the dark. The slick skin somehow alternated in sensitivity and numbness. The nerves tentatively stretched into the freshly grown flesh as the cells labored to reproduce the original—as closely as possible. It would never be my hip again, not really. This swatch of regrowth was Your skin, Your permanent claim to my body.
16
Then the fateful day came when I was healed enough. Lessons could resume.
It had been so long I had almost forgotten the pain, almost forgotten my purpose here.
There was no lazily outstretched mat waiting for me anymore; there was only the cold blank slate of the concrete. You no longer held alcohol and gauze; You were once again selecting from Your tools mounted on the wall. I had stopped looking at them once the pain stopped; how could they not have been a constant reminder that I would only end up back here, that all roads in this tiny box led back here?
My heart dropped in my chest when I crawled out from my cage to the empty floor and to You standing beside the door empty-handed. If Your face ever changed, the caretaker I had been quietly basking in had drained from it. Your limbs no longer moved with the soft fluidity of nurture; they were rigid to a different purpose once more.
I did not know my heart could be broken by one I did not love, by one who stripped me from my life.
I felt my legs wobble beneath me and crouched down, wrapping my arms around my knees. I knew You would instruct me; I knew I would only have to follow. Until then, I only wanted to hold myself in tragic wait. I wanted to quickly mourn the passing of my brief vacation.
You reached down and guided my chin until I was squinting up at You under that swinging bulb. I tried to read Your face in the harsh shadows the light carved in it. It was futile. You were more steeled again, rejuvenated by returning to Your work. Maybe it was a smile hiding behind those thin, pursed lips. Maybe it was a twinkle reflecting on the edge of Your eyeball.
Maybe I was imagining it in my fear.
You continued to tug at my chin until I reluctantly stood to follow the gesture. You took me by the shoulders and turned me around to face the blank wall. Then You lifted my arms and slid Your gloved hands down them until You extended them out and pressed them into the wall. I could feel the rough paint abrading my neglected palms.
When You flattened my hand against
the wall, You looked back at me and pressed Your hand on top of them firmly. Keep your hands here. I nodded shakily as tears started to well behind my eyes. From then, I could only hear You. I did not dare turn my head, crane my neck trying to see what was coming.
I heard the subtle tinkling and scraping as You ran Your fingers over the instruments. The chain clanked against the concrete. The straps slapped against each other. All harsh and unforgiving materials brushing against more harsh and unforgiving surfaces. With each noise, my body tightened. I felt my skin tense fearfully, a conditioned response.
This is what You wanted.
Your hand made a selection. Your footsteps marched up behind me. I felt them move closer in the imagined vibrations of the floor. I flinched as I felt You slide my shirt up to expose the skin of my back, yet I no longer foolishly feared rape. I knew You desired something entirely different of my flesh. I felt myself contract as I tried to curl all parts of me as close as possible, without breaking Your positioning. If I clenched enough, I could protect myself a little.
The implement split my back in a sharp line of pain. I gasped at the vividness of it, the way I could feel the sensation clean through my torso to the other side. My belly dropped as my back fled the strike, but I did not dare shift my hands. I kept them planted, though wriggling, in the impressions they had left in the dust. My fingertips dug desperately into the concrete until the tips and knuckles turned white.
I peeled my eyes back open and breathed harshly against my own body, trying to dispel the shrieking of my nerves. You were waiting for me to recover. I could hear You tapping it against the palm of Your glove methodically. A whip maybe. Perhaps a switch. I felt the shock waves spread and finally flatten over my body, leaving all my skin buzzing, leaving goose bumps trailing in strange patterns.
Then I steeled myself for the next.
You took it easy on me, considering. Perhaps You did not want to destroy me after I had grown so complacent. I could not think straight to discern Your design with the pain throbbing into my brain, demanding my constant attention. I had forgotten how primal and consuming it was, the way I completely lost myself in it.
I would forget that many times.
You divided my back no more than five times. Then I heard the instrument find its home back on the wall. I still did not move, tensing my fingers against their place on the wall, feeling the texture of the cracks and rough paint. I could feel the blood slowly trickling down the curvature of my spine. It was light and thin, so I knew the wounds were not deep. You had just opened the sensitive surface.
You left me standing there, awkwardly, wallowing in the lesson, for a long moment. My anger toward You burrowed deep through me. I felt it burning in my belly, a deep, radiating heat. You had constructed the comfort for me to fall from deliberately. You had broken me down and built me back up just to be able to devastate me once more.
This was a game to You.
I was a game to You.
You were a sick fucking bastard.
Yet I remained there, immobile, seething in my own skin. I heard You exit the room and return. Then I heard the familiar flop of the mat on the floor. My heart jumped back at out my stomach; my ears perked. I wanted to turn around and look, for I was surely imagining it.
You stepped around me, and by the wrists, You guided my hands away from the wall. I looked tentatively into Your eyes for just a second and glimpsed something softer. The rigidity had fallen from Your form as You led me to the mat and directed me to my belly. Sheepishly, I spread myself flat and vulnerable and folded my arms under my head.
You knelt down beside me. The unscrewing of the lid, the slosh of the alcohol, the bite on my skin. I nuzzled against my own forearms as You cleaned and dressed me. As the pain faded, so did the veracity of the memory. Once the vice released my nerves, my mind instantly strove to abolish the evidence. Like I always heard it was like in childbirth.
You forget how much it hurts.
Your swipes along my wounds painted the pattern in my mind. They were long and thin strokes, barely intersecting. You had drawn near parallel cuts down my once plain and unadorned back. I imagined the bright red lines through my pale skin, the flesh surrounding them angry with sympathy, the swelling rising as the injuries sunk in.
When You finished applying the bandages, You pulled me back up to my feet. You stood me against the same wall. You pressed my hands. You retrieved the mat and left the room once more.
Again, You did not bolt the door. Again, I made no effort to lunge for it.
I waited at my place on the wall. You returned with a chair in one hand and an indistinguishable handful of something in the other.
Where is this going? Aren’t I supposed to go back into my cage? Aren’t we done?
You placed the chair in the center of the space in the room, adjacent to my cage, parallel to the wall of tools. And I instantly knew to sit in it. Though utterly bewildered, I did as I knew You wanted. I stepped forward with cautious steps, checking Your approval each time I dropped the sole of my foot to the concrete. You simply stood still and waited for my compliance.
It felt foreign to sit in a chair. My body no longer knew how to fold into perpendicular angles. I wanted to lay out flat on my mat. I wanted to live on that mat. I didn’t feel like any good could come from this awkward intruder in my cell, this inappropriate furniture forced in.
As You moved around the chair and in front of me, I could discern You were holding a handful of straps. My chest coiled tighter. First, You secured my ankles to the legs of the chair, gently but firmly tightening each strap until motion was denied. You extended each of my arms along the back of the chair until You could bind them to the posts that met the seat.
You raised one more strap in front of my face. It was divided in the center by a large, red ball. I rolled my lips into my mouth and pressed my teeth down at the sight of it. I wanted to turn my head away, but I didn’t dare. You held it in front of my mouth for a second. Then I heard You let a warning breath out of Your nose, and I dropped my jaw.
You gently seated the ball between my lips and buckled the strap behind my head. I hated the full sensation in my mouth. I detested being forced to breathe through my nose.
You placed Your hand softly on the top of my head and leaned toward my face. Eye to eye, You brought a finger across Your lips. Not a sound.
Then You silenced the light and stepped out of the room, leaving the door ajar just enough to let a sliver carve the dark wall.
You left me awkwardly situated alone in the dark so long that I began to nod off. It was amazing the positions I could sleep in at this point. But then the sound pulled me back from the edge of consciousness.
It was a woman’s voice.
My heart seized in my chest, frozen between beats. I could not make out the words, but it was a woman talking just behind and beyond my door.
Holy shit, are You luring in another one? Am I about to share my cell with another captive?
I couldn’t breathe, even above the gag. I tried to thrash silently on the increasingly uncomfortable chair. My heart had started pounding so hard I could see it in the edges of the dark.
She was continuing to talk, but I never heard You. I strained to the limits of my hearing, willing my eardrums to stretch out past the door that hid me. You either did not speak or did not speak audibly for me.
No no no no. God no. Not another one.
I did not want another woman in here with me. The thought of company was actually upsetting to me. At first, I was not sure why. I only knew the thought was blaring through my mind. I did not want another woman suffering the way I was suffering, yet I did not want You to supplement me, to replace me. The idea of sharing Your attention amplified my anxiety. Competition could undo any progress I had made in my manipulation, any strides I had accomplished toward my eventual freedom.
I worked alone.
I willed her to run. I pleaded for her to flee. I screamed silently in my mind, as if she could he
ar me.
But I did not make a sound. As I was told.
There were tears on my cheeks. I could feel my nose running down over the ball gag. I tried to calm myself quietly so I did not choke on my sobs. I forced the quivering breaths through my nose until my body stopped shaking. I could not save her. And I could not stop listening.
Then her sounds changed. The words I could not articulate faded out. At first, I thought it was the muffled sounds of pain, but as they built, I knew they were not. My body knew those sounds. I felt my skin involuntarily flush as my blood redirected toward my center. I felt my sensual nerves awaken. Her noises climbed and progressed until climax.
She was having an orgasm. I realized that my prison was in Your closet, that Your bedroom was always there on the other side of my door. You slept on the other side of the wall with me locked in here.
What the fuck!
Why does he want me to hear this? Why is he putting on this show? Is he still planning to shove her into this cell after he’s done with her?
I detested my arousal, but I could not resist those sounds of a woman. I despised the way it resurrected Lei in my mind. The way she bit her lip and twisted a ball of the sheets into her fist when she came. The way I had to wrap my hands around her hips to keep her from fleeing the climax.
Goddamn him.
Was this just another form of torture? Was her pleasure just a device to remind me of what I had lost, what I would never regain in this prison?
How could You do this to me directly after splitting my back? You hadn’t even given me recovery this time.
You did it to her again and again, until I could scarcely bare it. I tried to escape into my mind, but all avenues led to Lei writhing beneath me, which only amplified my anguish. When the sounds finally relented, I dove off the edge into the oblivion of a very unpleasant sleep.
17
I woke up when the light spilled across my face as You opened the door. I snapped my wrenched neck up to see if You were dragging the woman behind You.
The Waning Page 11