“Between who?”
“Nicole, don’t act as if you don’t know. Just as in life, things are more interesting when there’s jealousy. Sex with Crystal is more exciting if you’re jealous. And I’m sure she’ll be jealous when she finds out that I won’t be with her anymore because I’m with you. It’s better.”
“What’s going to happen when the book is finished?”
“I’m going to find a publisher and become a best-selling author.” He smiled.
“I mean with me. What about me?”
“I’m not sure yet, Nicole. You’ve been a good girl for the most part. If you continue to be a good girl, I may let you go. However, that may not be in my best interest. You could run to the authorities. How will I become a best-selling author if I’m in prison?”
“I wouldn’t tell,” I said. Sadly, I actually thought about keeping my silence if he’d only let me go.
“We’ll see.”
And that was it for the conversation about my release.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the end of the conversation about Crystal’s pregnancy.
23
Strapped to the chair, hands bound behind me, I watched as Ron slapped Crystal’s cheeks to wake her. When her eyes opened, she tensed.
“Good morning,” he said cheerfully.
“Please,” she said.
“If you don’t mind, Crystal, I’ll talk. You only speak if I ask you a question. Does that sound okay to you?”
“No,” she said.
“Are you a prostitute?”
“No.”
“Are you a runaway?”
“No.”
“Do you have a husband?”
“No.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s his name?”
“Corey.”
“Does Corey have a job?”
“No.”
“Do you have a job?”
“No.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“No.”
He hesitated, and then asked again, “Are you pregnant?”
“No.”
I gasped as he hit her in the belly with his fist. It wasn’t as hard as he could’ve hit her, but it was hard enough to cause fetal damage, and possibly a miscarriage.
Crystal cried out.
“I’m going to ask you again, and it would be wise for you to answer me honestly. Do you hear me?”
She nodded.
“Are you pregnant?”
“Yes,” she cried.
“Do you think it’s wise to bring a child into the world when neither of you have a job? Do you plan to have the working people support you and boyfriend while you spit out child after child, none of which you can support? Do you?”
“No,” she answered through tears.
“I don’t either,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
He patted her belly roughly, reminding her of what would happen if she didn’t answer him. “Answer me.”
“Would it have made a difference? Would you have left me on the street if you’d known?”
“I’m asking the questions here, Crystal. You just answer them. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
He smiled and said, “You should be.”
He stood and stared down at her. “Do you and Corey have a good relationship?”
“Sort of.”
“What does that mean? Does he hit you?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“What else?”
“He...he cheats on me.”
“Come on now, Crystal.”
“What? He does.”
“But don’t you cheat on him too?”
“No.”
“Crystal, don’t lie to me. Would you like to ask Nicole what happens to girls who lie to me?”
He looked at me and I took that as my cue to speak, so I said, “Tell the truth, Crystal. Please.”
She glanced at me quickly, and then looked back at Ron. “Once. I only did it once.”
“If I only rape you once, does that mean it doesn’t count? If I only cut off one of your fingers, does that make it okay since it was just the one time?”
She shook her head.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Well what do you call it?”
“I just didn’t tell you something that was none of your business.”
“Well withholding something is the same as lying, isn’t it?”
“If that’s the case, you lied to me too.”
“What?” he asked with a little laugh.
“Yeah. You didn’t tell me what you were going to do to me. You didn’t tell me you were a fucking lunatic.”
“Such language,” he said. He threw his head up and looked at the ceiling. He sighed deeply. “Well, you did lie to me. Twice, technically. But I’ll only charge you with the first one, the big one. Lying about your pregnancy is too big to let slide.” To me, he asked, “What should we do with her?”
I had no idea what I should say. I said nothing, hoping he would move on and treat it as if it were a rhetorical question.
But he didn’t.
“Nicole, what sort of punishment do you think fits the crime?”
Thinking stupidly that I could outsmart him, I said “Slap her around a little bit maybe.”
“You can do better than that, Nicole.”
I tried to think of something he could do to her that would cause the least amount of harm to the baby. Clearly, he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything small. It would have to be big.
Unable to believe what I was getting ready to say, I opened my mouth and let the horrible words that were sure to haunt me all of my days fall from my tongue. “Maybe you could pull out her piercings.”
He smiled at me and nodded. “That’s my girl.”
She looked at me like she wanted to kill me. I didn’t blame her. At that moment, I very much wanted to die.
“Very good, Nicole. I don’t think that’ll be punishment enough, but it’s a good start.”
He bent down, hooked his finger in the two silver loops that hooked over Crystal’s bottom lip, and yanked. She’d turned at the last second, trying to keep him from ripping them out of her flesh, but instead only making it worse.
Ron threw the lip rings to the floor behind him and grabbed the ones in her eyebrows. One by one, he ripped them out, taking no care whatsoever.
Tired of fighting with her, he put one knee on each side of her face, holding her head so she couldn’t turn away from him. He pulled her earrings out one at a time. First came the scream, and then came the small ting of the metal on the concrete floor.
I couldn’t see her face because he was blocking my view, but from the sounds, I could tell he was ripping out her tongue ring.
God forgive me. This was something else I’d always feel guilty about. It was once again my fault that an innocent woman was suffering.
He returned to the squatted position beside her and grabbed her belly button ring between his thumb and index finger. He looked at it closely, pulling it up slowly, until her skin was stretched. Then, he pulled a little harder, causing it to snap free, leaving blood where the ring had just been. Another ting as he tossed it to the floor.
“That leaves just one more, I believe,” he said as he leaned down and grabbed the piercing that shined on her crotch. As he slowly pulled it the way he had her belly button, I cringed. He said, “I’m going to hate to see this one go.” Then, he yanked it, causing her to scream.
I squeezed my legs closed and suffered through sympathy pains that in no way matched the pain she was going through.
“Did that hurt?”
“You know it did, you son of a bitch,” she yelled through her tears.
“Well it hurt me when you lied to me.”
“That’s not the same and you know it,” she wailed.
; Walking over to the cabinet over the utility sink, he said, “I know a great many things, Crystal. But there are still a great many things I don’t know. For example,” he said as he returned with the tool belt. “I don’t know why a beautiful young woman such as you would want to ruin her body with this hideous graffiti.” He squatted and pulled the knife from the tool belt. It was the same knife he’d used to carve my name into Melinda’s belly.
My stomach knotted and my skin crawled. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly—but I dared only do it briefly—and for the billionth time since the day he’d brought me here, screamed in my head to wake up. This had to be a nightmare. But when I opened my eyes, I sadly realized this wasn’t my nightmare. It was Crystal’s.
24
I watched as Ron straddled Crystal’s chest. I saw her struggling to get away from him, and was saddened to know that she couldn’t. With Ron blocking my view, I couldn’t really see what he was doing, but I knew. And if I hadn’t known, her screams would’ve told me.
I cried silently, sitting in the chair, hands cuffed around the beam behind me. I hated him. I hated being here. I hated having to witness the horrible things he did to these women. I hated knowing that this one was pregnant. This one, he should’ve left alone. But he didn’t. Because he was a freaking psycho.
When the screams suddenly stopped, I held my breath. Had she died? Had he killed her? Was that what he was doing to her, slitting her throat?
But then he laid a piece of meat on the floor beside him. It was bloody, but I could clearly make out what was on it. A paw print.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “It isn’t fun if she isn’t awake.” He laughed, and then he got up and ran upstairs. When he returned, he went by me so fast I couldn’t see what he was holding. But when he used it, I knew.
The screams coming from Crystal now made all the ones before it sound like whispers. Her high-pitched screaming hurt my ears. But it was nothing compared to the pain she was feeling as Ron stood over her, pouring salt into the hole in her skin where her tattoo had been.
“There we go,” he said, sitting the salt on the floor and kneeling. “It’s much better when you’re awake.”
Her screams were so loud, I could barely hear him speak. And they continued for quite some time. I had no doubt that the salt was painful, but I had apparently underestimated how painful it was.
Ron grew annoyed by her constant screaming. He began to pace beside her, shooting her hateful glances from time to time.
Finally, he said to me, “I can see we’re going to have to finish this later. Let’s go upstairs for now.”
As he led me up the stairs, I couldn’t help but think of the way he’d said we would finish this later. I hated that he thought of me as part of his sick world. I didn’t want to be a part of anything of his. I wanted to be home with my husband and son. I wanted to be in a world where Ron and others like him didn’t exist.
We had lunch as we normally did. He’d made tuna salad sandwiches. If he ever considered giving up his career as a psychopath, he could easily become a chef. Even the simplest things he made were absolutely delicious (as long as there wasn’t a rotting finger involved). Or maybe I just thought they were so good because I never knew which meal would be my last. Either way, I ate two sandwiches.
When we were finished, he said, “I’m going to do things a bit different today. I hope you don’t mind.”
“What do you mean?”
As he cleared away our plates, he said, “Normally, I work on my novel after I’ve put you to bed at night and before I wake you in the morning. But Crystal has given me so much to write, I need to get it down while it’s still fresh in my mind.”
“Okay,” I said, unsure of how this was going to affect me.
“I’m wondering if I should gag you. I mean, if someone was to ring the doorbell, and you were to scream, things would get bad, wouldn’t they?” He looked at me and considered whether I was trustworthy.
“I wouldn’t scream, Ron.”
After a moment of intense scrutiny, he said, “You probably wouldn’t. But just in case, I’m going to leave the door to my bedroom open. If I hear anything from you that constitutes trying to gain attention from anyone other than myself, I’ll cause a great deal of damage to our young friend in the basement. Do you understand?”
I nodded. It pissed me off that he always threatened me with harm to others.
“Very well. If you need me, you may loudly say my name. I should easily hear you.” He kissed my forehead and left me sitting at the table while he retreated to his bedroom.
For the first few minutes, I tried to pull myself free from the handcuff.
For the next few minutes, I tried to pull the metal hook out of the underside of the table.
For the few minutes after that, I rested, having used up a lot of strength with all the pulling and tugging.
Then, I decided to do whatever exercises I could with one hand shackled so low. In my time with Ron, I’d noticed changes in my body. A weakening of muscles, especially in my right arm because it was always handcuffed to something. My legs were weaker too. There was going to come a time when I’d need to fight Ron or run away, and this was no shape in which to do either.
I stood and did some stretches. My muscles were weak from lack of use, and they were stiff. I knew I’d be sore tomorrow, so I tried not to push myself too hard. I didn’t want Ron to know I was doing any exercises. I didn’t know if it would make him angry, but there was no sense in poking the bear.
After managing to do some push-ups with my hands on the seat of the chair, I quietly slid the chair out of the way and laid on the floor. With my right hand shackled to the table and held up above me, I managed to do several sit-ups. Exercising made me feel better. It made me feel stronger and more in control.
When I’d finished exercising for the day, I sat in the chair.
I was thirsty now. When my breathing had returned to normal and I didn’t think Ron could notice anything different, I called out to him. He didn’t come the first time. Or the second time. On the third time, he came.
“What is it?”
“I’m very thirsty. Could you please get me a glass of ice water?”
“Sure.” He poured me a glass and brought it to me. “It would be nice if I didn’t have to restrain you, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could live here without me worrying you would try to get away?”
“Yes, Ron.” It would be. Because then he could remove the handcuffs, go to his room, and I could get the hell out of here.
“Well, if that’s all, I guess I’ll get back to work. Call if you need anything else.” Another kiss on the forehead, and he was gone.
Had he not been a psychopath, he would’ve surely made some lucky gal a great husband. If you left out the sadistic serial killer part of him, he was a great guy. He was clean and orderly. He was kind. He catered to the woman he loved. He was a great cook. He had high hopes for his career. He didn’t plop down in front of the television for hours at a time. He enjoyed playing games and great conversation. His sexual stamina was impressive. And he was a handsome man. It’s just that pesky habit of his where he raped, tortured, killed, and dismembered women that was a turn off.
I sat there for what felt like hours more, thinking, but trying not to.
It angered me that there were no clocks visible to me. The microwave was digital and had a clock, but it was always flashing twelve o’clock. The stove didn’t have a clock. None hung on the walls, and Ron didn’t wear a watch. I had no idea how he ever knew what time it was.
So I never knew the time, I never knew what day it was or what week it was or even what month it was. All I had to go on were my periods, which thankfully, came like clockwork. So I knew that I’d had three periods here so far. So I’d been here about four months. Damn. That was way too long. Of course, four minutes would’ve been too long also.
Even though I needed to pee, I didn’t call for Ron. The more he wrote on that stu
pid book, the quicker this nightmare would end. Or so I hoped.
25
The next few days went the same way. We ate breakfast, he ran down and offered Crystal a fresh bowl of dog food, which he complained about her refusing to eat, and then he went to his bedroom to write while I secretly exercised at the table. I would yell to him when I got hungry and he would come and make us lunch, after which he returned to his room. The same thing happened for supper. I was hungry. I yelled for him. He made us dinner. Then, he retreated back to his room. We didn’t even have drinks or play cards. Which was fine by me.
Except after a few days of that, I grew extremely bored. Just sitting at the kitchen table all day was mind-numbing. I hated it.
During dinner one night, I begged him for something to do while I sat at the table.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Crossword puzzles, real puzzles, word searches, magazines, books, anything really. Just something to do other than sit here and stare at the floor.”
“You could always try staring at the wall.”
I looked at him and he laughed, clearly trying to be funny.
“You’re hilarious,” I said dryly.
“Come on, Nicole. Don’t be so serious all the time. I’ll see that you have something with which to occupy yourself tomorrow.”
“Can I read your book?”
“I told you, not until it’s finished.”
“Not that one. The other one. The one you said bombed.”
“I never said it bombed. Bombed is such a negative word. Why would want to read that one?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just to get a sense of your style.” I was curious. I wanted a closer look to how his mind worked.
“I’ll think about it.”
I dropped the subject for the rest of the evening. I guess he felt bad for me because he actually stayed and played cards with me that evening after dinner. As much as I hated to admit it, it was better than nothing. I never would’ve thought that I’d find myself preferring the company of the sadistic over loneliness.
That night, as he shackled me to the headboard and hovered over my body, he smiled.
“Do you still want me?” he asked.
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