My focus shifted. You were the life in my world. You were the only thing that pulled me from the sludge of what remained inside my head and parted the heavy dark solitude. You were it.
Each time You cleaned my wound or placed the plate beside me was a reminder that You were my life; You were what kept me alive. Each trial enlightened me to the poison that she was, deceiving me into believing choice existed. She let me believe that I wanted her, that I was capable of and allowed to want. But You opened my eyes. With the taste of blood in my mouth, I was born into Your truth. The only truth. Your sweet slavery set me free. Free of my pointless striving, free of my love for her, free of dreams of a life now gone. A peace only the possessed can know.
Shrieks, screams, curses became whimpers before fading into compliance. My posturing wilted, shoulders dropping from defiance to hunger and exhaustion to slumped submission. First, You disciplined me for resistance, then for apathy, then as affection.
The morning after You tangled me in the chain and left me hanging until I finally and completely broke, You were different, victorious maybe. Not the way You were after teaching me, not the way You were after the night with the other woman. This was new, calmer, infectious.
You took my hand as You guided me out of my cage. You were no longer wearing gloves. I felt the electricity and humanity in Your skin, and it sustained me.
I trusted You now. I knew the right answer was just to follow, to be Yours.
You stood me gently beside my cage then took a step back. You retrieved a small, black digital camera from Your pocket and held it out in front of You. The display screen splashed colors against Your face. The device looked near foreign to me now, and I shrunk from it. I felt a deep and forgotten pang of vanity, of shame and disgust at my now gruesome form.
I did not want to be immortalized like this.
You looked at me, almost reassuring me, then pressed the shutter. I flinched against the harsh flash. You checked the image on the screen then returned the camera to Your pocket.
You stepped out of the room, leaving the door not just unlatched by wide open. I took a small step forward and leaned, craning my neck to see Your room on the other side. I could make out a large, dark wooden dresser with heavy, ominous hardware gleaming in the center of each drawer. Before I could take another step, You returned.
You had a book folded in Your arms. It was large and thick, the way I remembered traditional photo albums from my childhood. The ones with plastic over the pictures. My mother would cradle me in her lap as she pointed to each face, making me recite relatives I saw only twice a year.
That’s your daddy, she would say to the earliest pictures. I never would identify him when she pointed to his face.
You turned the book over in Your hands then extended Your arms and offered it to me. I turned my head and looked at You quizzically. Then, tentatively, I reached out and grasped it. The book had some weight to it, and the cover felt thick against my fingers. It dropped into my arms, and I slowly crouched to sitting as I faced it toward me.
The cover was plain, a dark-brown fake leather with gold lines scrolled along the edges. I curled my legs under me and brought my elbows close against my body as I let my fingertips rest on the edges of the book. The pages were limp, soft, and worn. Your thumbs had played through them many times, compulsively even, habitually even. Your touch was on this book.
I felt the cold concrete pressing into my sit bones. My shoulders slumped as the book enticed my curiosity simply by sitting in my lap. My heart was fluttering in my chest. I had no idea what to expect. Something comforting, something horrific. There could be anything under this cover, and in this place, that was terrifying. My fingers shook a little as I looked up at You. You simply waited.
I cast my eyes back down and slowly cracked the cover. There was one picture on the first page. As my eyes cautiously brought it into focus, I realized it was my cell. My cage and the concrete walls were in the background. An emaciated woman hunched beside the cage, right where I now sat. She cowered fearfully and squinted at the camera out of the corner of her eye, wrapping her arms protectively around herself.
My heart started beating faster, and I felt my breathing falter.
I twitched my fingers to the corner and turned the page. The next page was the same woman in the same cell. She was no longer standing. Her body was collapsed on the floor unnaturally, limbs turned in awkward directions. Her neck was twisted and discolored, and her head fell at an angle that betrayed her demise.
Now I could hear my heart in my ears. It throbbed in my peripherals. My vision was pulsating nauseatingly.
The next page was a new woman, equally starved, equally dressed, positioned beside our cage. She was not fearful though; she had defiance and hatred painted in the thin angles of her face. She did not hunch; she stood tall and rebellious with her shoulders high and one hand on a hip.
I did not want to turn the page. I knew what was next.
She was in pieces. Her insubordination had clearly upset You, and she had clearly paid for it. I cringed away from it and fled to the next page.
Four more girls followed them, all variations on the original two. All failures.
I was number seven.
I turned to the next page, and it was blank. This was my page. This was where You would place the picture You had just snapped. And the blank page that followed it would decide my fate. It would define my success or document my failure.
You were showing me Your history. You were showing me how much You had worked to get here, how much had preceded me. This was the fruit of Your mind for however many years.
“It was you.” I breathed. I finally mustered up enough courage to speak it. “It was you in that hospital, when I had my hysterectomy.”
You did not say anything. Instead, You crouched down and gathered up the book, closing the cover and turning it into Your chest. As You cradled Your pictorial history, Your visual track record, You looked down. It was a rare instance for You to cast Your eyes down when not to a task. A memory sparked over my brain. It was the same way You looked down in my hospital room when Lei had spoken to You.
You’re going to take good care of my girl, aren’t you?
“It was you,” I said again with certainty.
Somehow knowing, somehow connecting the dots in my mind flooded a heavy calm through my veins. You had selected me years in advance. You had watched me, chosen me. This was not some random act of violence. Maybe that shouldn’t have made me feel better, yet it consoled me. It was a logic that made this whole scenario make some semblance of sense to me.
It also meant You had chosen me for a reason.
“You chose me then,” I said. “Why? Why me? Why did you watch me for so long?”
I don’t know why I asked the questions; I knew You would not speak, would not answer me. They had been knocking around in my brain for however many days had passed black over me in this box. I couldn’t not ask them at this point.
Your face spoke volumes to me. Still holding the book against Your chest, You looked back up and into my eyes. The eye contact was electric; I felt it shoot down my entire spine. The muscles around Your eyes slackened, lifting Your eyebrows so slightly. Your jaw released, allowing Your lips to relax and not appear so thin and tight. Your expression was as plain and simple as what it meant.
You are mine.
For whatever reason, You decided that then, as I wallowed overmedicated in that hospital bed, bidding farewell to my primal, biological femininity. Perhaps You were seduced by me in that state, a state not all that different from the one into which You broke me down. Weak and physically broken, mentally longing for pieces of me that were lost.
What a poetic little circle You created with me.
You knelt down in front of me, reached out, and tucked the hair behind my ear.
You are mine.
And I was Yours. It was no longer an act or a game or a manipulation. I looked up at You from the fucking bottom, from t
he base of submission and acceptance. The breakdown was behind us; the fight was worn out of me. Now Your real work could begin.
We embarked into our real routine. You provided just enough food to silence my belly, just enough water to lubricate my throat. You taught me every day. You were my savior from gluttony and compliance. You were right; I looked better this thin. Slender, frail, heroin chic. You knew how much I needed and how much I deserved. I never could appreciate the beauty of my own skeleton before. The innate sexiness of the contour of my protruding ribs, the sharp curve of my hip. I never knew I was hiding all this beneath such gluttonous flesh.
The more I withered, the more I became what You wanted. Like unearthing a fossil, You were dusting away my version of me to reveal the skeletal structure of Your rendering.
Two meager meals, two evacuations, then my lesson. I used to dread it. As my mind discerned the pattern in the chaos of captivity, I would start trembling as the hours marched me closer. I could feel the impending pain hovering above me, thickening the air. I imagined You designed this torturous waiting period. I could see You grinning slyly as You knew I was writhing in anticipation on the other side of the door.
At first, I was convinced You must hate me. I had to be a fleshy outlet of anger, loathing, pure evil. How could anyone do this to another human being? Yet, as the shock wore off, as the trauma became my reality, when it was long enough for me to truly take a perspective on it, Your true purpose began to reveal itself to me. Slowly teasing me with glimpses at enlightenment, my own mind coyly playing with me. But it became clear to me.
I started to really only live when You occupied my cold, small space with me. Though a flicker of me did persist in solitude. A soft and muted piece of me hobbled through those waits for You. The wide imaginative expanse of my mind contracted from the whole world of perception and far reaches of fantasy, folded and curled up inside only these walls. There was no reason to let myself linger in that forgotten outside world. Instead, I strove to keep myself here, to be just for You. However, as lifeless and catatonic as my bones hibernated in the quiet hours, I could not kill the extent of my mind. I could not confine it only in my cage.
I only permitted myself a smile when I was alone. I imagined my now thin lips stretching back to reveal neglected teeth. The skin lifted and pulled in forgotten patterns. My mouth pointed to sunken cheeks and tortured eyes. In my mind, I did not recognize myself. I did not look like the woman I left in the mirror; I had been reshaped to Your vision. A corpse to the world. Your corpses did not smile, but alone in the dark, I let my enslaved joy betray Your masterpiece. A smile was my quiet and last rebellion, yet it was still for You.
Sometimes I sang to myself, in the dark, in the quiet, when I knew You had left. After Your shadow had abandoned my sliver of light long enough, I allowed my cracked lips to part and my voice to scratch out old tunes. Something simple and basic, embedded in the ruins of my mind.
Twinkle, twinkle.
Making sound felt foreign, as if another was pulling my vocal cords.
Little star.
She was so weak and beaten, gasping between verses and so different from the one who thrived within my head.
How I wonder.
I let those songs my mother used to sing to me rasp out of my throat and tried not to feel her cuddle me tightly against her chest in the dim of my nightlight, feeling her warm, comforting arms around me and her voice vibrating against my ear.
What you are.
The child rhymes dangled in the darkness momentarily before colliding with the prison walls and turning to more dust.
Yet night by night, these dreams faded, slowly shriveled up without the light. Hope became a memory and then a figment. Each lesson only infected me with doubt. The more You scribed Your word into my flesh with welts and cuts, the more it began to seem true. The more I starved in every way possible, the more I no longer needed it.
Eventually, I could no longer fathom what that rush of freedom would feel like. The idea of finding myself outside of my dark room would waft around my mind like a wayward leaf in the wind. I would struggle to mentally capture it, pull it down, and embrace it once more. I tried to still want it, still believe it could happen, but it all just faded into the dark. It just dissipated against the concrete.
After that, I no longer lusted over it. Then I feared the idea itself. How could I survive in the light again? How could I look them in the face, let them see me? What would I even do out there? Lei would look at my disgusting, shriveled body, and a grimace of shock and disgust would distort her beautiful face. My coworkers would look at me with my sunken eyes and loose-fitting skirt suit and see only weakness; they would have advantageous pity in their eyes, and their whispers from the water cooler would be deafening. I would not remember how to sleep in the soft spacious spread of a bed. I would wake up in a ball on the floor or tucked inside McAllister’s crate because it would feel safe and familiar.
I wouldn’t be human again, couldn’t be. I could never be anywhere but here again. Any place my body could run, my mind would still be right here, safely in Your cage.
Submission had happened gradually, by degrees, like itching down into a scalding bath. It crept up the back of my mind and spread itself through me in such a quiet accident, I scarcely noticed until I was deeply entwined in its tentacles. It was just one random day when I lay bruised and bleeding at the bottom of my cage. I felt it slip into me. Slow. Just that one innocuous little thought.
Just do what he wants.
That one thought, my foolish little resolve had been the first crack that would eventually shatter me. It was all over in that one instant; it just took me this long to accept it.
I saw it now. When You found me, I was a fool. Delusions of self-importance filled my head. Of course I mattered; I was pulling down six figures with full benefits, which included health insurance with domestic partner benefits for Lei after I came out. The illusion of independence plagued my life. Of course I commanded my life; my mother reared a confident woman who powered out of her house and into the world, taking it by the balls and twisting it until she got what she wanted.
I was lost and reeling without Your sweet control. I couldn’t see that I was a slave to my expectations, driven under the lash of chasing some dream birthed in a classroom daydream. I was broken until You broke my will.
Each day, I waited for the soft creak of the door. The light would spill across the concrete and crawl up the walls in twisted shadows. I would feel a twitch of exhilaration, distant like a memory. I would begin to stir behind my bars, animate from my solitary hibernation for You. You crouched down beside my cage and looked at me coolly as You turned the lock. You stayed close to the floor as You swung the door open, metal hinges whining. I emerged from the cage, crawling on stooped limbs, face upturned to receive Your signals. I squatted submissively at Your feet and stretched my arms up to You, always offering myself again.
You lightly wrapped Your fingers around my frail wrists. I closed my eyes and let my head hang back as the sensation of contact sent heat racing across my skin. I clung to that second, stretched my emaciated being out to exist in that one sensation. The warmth of those fingertips in firm command, holding me by my arms and my mind that followed them. Could You just restrain me here forever?
Then the second was gone. Your grip tightened to guide me to my feet. I wobbled on fragile legs that repeatedly forgot their purpose. My muscles quivered, trying to remember the simplicity of standing. You led me patiently, always drawing me up out of my hunched form. Time stopped again when I finally uncurled enough to stand before You, gazing cautiously up into Your face. I breathed in that instant when I saw cold approval staring blankly back at me.
Then it was the lesson. Maybe You reminded me of the day You broke my will and suspended me in blissful agony of some new, contorted stress position. Maybe You revisited my early instruction with lashes from the strap, painting my body with welts. Maybe You let me imagine the possibilities as
You meticulously cleaned and sharpened Your tools as I crouched by Your feet. Maybe You flayed a small part of my skin, allowing me a small window into my flesh. The lessons rotated in a seemingly random pattern, but I knew You had a design. I knew every torture was a step, a means, a part of crafted puzzle. I knew only that I was to follow.
In the fading echoes of my cries, as the blood dripping slowed and congealed, Your teaching sunk into my mind and into my flesh. The cold professor gave way to the caretaker. Your icy demeanor was betrayed by the traces of pride You let taint Your mannerisms. You cleaned me slowly, gently. You nursed each wound individually and fully, resting one hand upon my shoulder as the other softly swept sterile cloth over cut, contusion, or welt.
Every night after I surrendered, You brushed my hair. The gesture would mark the end of each of our days. This was our routine. You released me from my cage; You taught me; You cared for the collateral damage of Your tutelage; then You knelt me in front of You. The brush bristles grazed my scalp as You pulled them steadily from my forehead down. I felt it tickle my back as my ever-growing hair ended. You moved the brush with one hand and chased it with the other, smoothing with Your palm. I closed my eyes in a trance and only remained aware enough to hold my head exactly as You placed it.
When I heard the brush hung on the wall with the tools again, I instinctively knew to stand and face You. You looked into my eyes, actually connected with me for the briefest of instances, and ran Your hand over my hair once more. Then back into my cage. The whine of the cage door, the click of the lock, the creak of the room door, the rattle of the latch, the swell of the darkness.
19
This was my life. Every day.
Until today.
Today, You are testing me.
Hours early, long before I expect You, before the rhythm of my cells know You will enter, You open the door to my room wide, letting harsh, sharp light invade. It assaults my weak pupils and seems different today, brighter. The yellow in the rays seems like an intruder; the difference makes me anxious.
The Waning Page 13