My heart was racing. I held my breath, unsure of what to expect. I clenched my teeth and stared into his eyes, waiting for the pain to come, but it didn’t.
“I’d be sure I was prepared to reap before I started sowing, if I were you, Nicole.”
After staring me down for a minute with the cattle prod pressing against my breastbone, he walked away. He went back to Crystal.
“I don’t think you understand me fully, Nicole. I think you believe you can toy with me and nothing will happen as a result. It’s painfully obvious that your parents never taught you that for every action is an equal and opposite reaction.”
He squatted down between Crystal’s spread legs.
My heart pounded harder. My palms grew sweaty behind me. I felt nauseous.
In his right hand, Ron held the cattle prod. As he aimed at Crystal’s private area, I was afraid he was going to shock her there. That would be bad for the baby. It had to be.
“What are you doing?” I nervously asked, trying to either buy time to think of something else or make him forget about her. “How is that an equal and opposite reaction to anything that I’ve done? And by the way, what is that I’ve done?”
He threw me a hateful look and said in an even more hateful tone, “You bled on my chair. I had to clean that up. Do you know how horrible that was?”
“Are you serious? Do you know how horrible it was to bleed on your chair? And then to sit in it for hours? It’s your fault. Besides, I’ve seen you clean up some pretty nasty stuff down here. I would’ve thought you were used to it.”
“Used to it doesn’t mean I like it.” He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He looked back at Crystal. “But since you bled on my chair, I’m going to make her bleed.”
“Wait,” I said quickly. I couldn’t believe what I was about to say, but I had to say it. “Why make her bleed? I bled on you chair. Make me bleed.”
“No.”
“Why not? That’s the only fair way to do it.”
“Damn it, Nicole. Would you shut up? I don’t want to make you bleed. I want you to feel bad because she’s bleeding because of you. That’s the punishment. Making you bleed would only hurt you for a little while. Making her bleed because of you will make you hurt forever.”
And with that, he plunged the cattle prod into Crystal’s vagina.
I screamed no, but he couldn’t hear me over her. Once he turned it on, her body jerked and spasmed as she yelled and gurgled. I thought he’d pull it out and stop, but he didn’t. He kept it in her, kept shocking her.
“Stop,” I screamed.
If he heard me, he gave no indication.
As her body stiffened and shook, her heels and elbows scraped across the concrete, leaving red stains on the floor. Her right breast rolled out of the way at one point and I had a clear shot of her infected wound. It was worse than I’d thought earlier. There was a large area that was dark red, but worse than that, there were areas that were black. I could even see the pus from this distance. I was sure it was worse than just an infection. If she survived the basement, she would surely lose a large amount of flesh.
Finally, Crystal stopped jerking around, but the yelling didn’t stop. Ron yanked the cattle prod from her vagina and cursed as the blood dripped from the tip of the prod, falling to the concrete with a splat.
“Damn batteries,” he said. He jumped up and ran over to the cabinet in a frantic search for more batteries.
“Crystal, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Nothing came from her except yells and moans. When the yelling began to taper off, I was relieved that her pain was coming to an end. Little did I know that her pain was only beginning.
32
As I lowered my head and wept silently, Crystal began to scream. Assuming Ron had replaced the batteries and was shocking her again, or maybe brutally removing some of her other tattoos, I looked up. But he was still at the cabinet, fumbling around in his search for batteries.
I watched as she screamed and wondered what sort of agony she was going through, simultaneously hoping I would never find out.
“Damn it. Well,” Ron said, returning to Crystal sans cattle prod. “Since I don’t have any spare batteries, we’ll just have to do things the hard way.”
I saw the knife as he brought it up and ran his finger slowly along the blade. He glanced at me to make sure I was looking. I was. I’d stopped crying, but the tears on my cheeks were still wet.
“Aw. Don’t cry yet, Nicole. Cry later, when I’ve finished with her.”
“Please stop,” I begged. “I won’t make any more messes, and if I ever do, I’ll clean it up. I swear. You don’t have to do this to her.”
“Actually I do have to do this.”
“No, you don’t.” Before I could tell him that I’d learned my lesson, he spoke.
“Yes, I do. It’s not all about you, you know. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Nicole. Don’t be self-centered. It isn’t fitting to you. I’ve reached a slow spot in the novel. I need a little spice. This will serve two purposes. It’ll teach you a valuable lesson, and it will help me liven up the story.”
“Novels are fiction. Fiction means fake. You can make it up, Ron. Please leave her alone.”
“Made-up stories don’t sell.”
“Uh, yeah they do. Every single day.”
“Well not mine. My book was fake, and it didn’t sell. This time, though, it’ll be a bestseller. Why? Because it’s going to be real. It’ll be believable. And I owe that to you, and the other women.”
He squatted down beside Crystal’s torso and watched her face as she screamed.
He waited until her screams became sobs before he set to work, carving away the tattoo above her other breast. Her sobs quickly returned to screams.
Unable to watch him slicing through her flesh, I looked away. That’s when I saw the rapidly growing pool of blood gushing out from between her legs. Dark red blood ran out of her and across the floor toward the drain.
I gasped, but over her screams, no one heard me.
“Ron,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. I couldn’t look away from her blood. I knew what was happening. It was inevitable, but it still shocked me to actually see it. “Ron,” I yelled over the screams.
He looked at me, frustrated at being interrupted.
“She’s having a miscarriage,” I said, nodding toward the blood.
He looked at the steady stream of blood coming from her and smiled. The son of a bitch smiled. I couldn’t believe it. Well, I guess I could. What I couldn’t do was imagine how anyone could smile at such a horrible thing.
I watched as he went back to removing her tattoo, paying no more attention to her miscarriage.
He carved.
She screamed.
I cried.
The baby died.
33
As if I needed another reason to hate Ron, I now had one. It was bad enough that he tortured and killed women, but to kill an unborn baby and smile about it was an unspeakable act of evil. Had Crystal not came into contact with Ron, she would’ve had the baby, and the baby could’ve grown up and lived a full life. Now it was dead, having never fully developed.
The fact that Ron smiled when he saw what he’d done was just a further testament to his capabilities. I don’t know what I’d expected of him when I’d pointed out that she was losing the baby. Maybe I expected him to be shocked, or at least to look sympathetic and sorry. A man who could smile at causing a woman to miscarry a baby was capable of anything.
And he was about to show me some more of what he was capable of doing.
When Ron had finished slicing away her tattoo, he held it up. A piece of skin slightly bigger than a half dollar dangled between his thumb and forefinger, dripping droplets of blood onto Crystal’s neck. He turned to me to see if I was watching. Unfortunately, I was. Satisfied that his audience was captivated, he turned back to Crystal. He dangled the piece of tattooed flesh inches above her face, which was
twisted in agony.
“You shouldn’t mar your body in such a way, Crystal,” he said, slapping the piece of meat against her cheeks. “Tattoos make you look trashy. They’re vile and disgusting. And worse, they’re permanent. Well, they’re usually permanent. You’re lucky I came along and removed them, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
Crystal continued to scream, though her voice was weakening.
“Answer me,” he screamed at her.
Angered that she wouldn’t answer his ridiculous question, he grabbed her jaw roughly with one hand. Ron shoved the flesh that was formally connected to her chest into her open mouth, mid-scream.
Crystal’s scream cut off and became a muffled moan as Ron held her mouth closed. She struggled as much as she could, but it was no use. Ron wasn’t letting go. He held her mouth shut tightly with one hand and held her head steady with the other. With his face only inches from hers, he stared into her eyes as he spoke to her.
“Eat it. You wanted it on your body; you wanted it to be a part of you forever, so eat it. Make it a part of you forever. Swallow it down. It’s part of you, Crystal. Just eat it! Swallow it.” Screaming at her wasn’t going to make her swallow it.
My stomach rolled and twisted in my belly as I watched her wrestle with him, a piece of her own flesh in her mouth.
Several minutes went by with Ron holding her in this position. Finally, he let go of her jaw and slowly pulled away his hands from her face.
I watched her carefully, so when she spat out the tattooed meat, I saw it shoot up out of her mouth and fall to the floor next to her. Quickly, I looked to Ron. His face turned red, his eyes narrowed, and I saw his jaw clench.
“You filthy whore,” he said as he slapped her across the face.
I watched as he picked up the meat and once again shoved it into her mouth. She resisted, keeping her mouth shut tightly as long as possible. It wasn’t until Ron stuck his finger into the hole in her chest where the meat had been just minutes earlier that she opened her mouth. It was to scream, but it was open nonetheless and Ron used the opportunity to shove in the flesh.
This time, he held her mouth closed for at least ten minutes. I started out counting, but after counting to sixty three times, I started thinking maybe it had been four times, and while trying to sort it out in my head, I lost track. But my best guess was at least ten minutes.
Finally, he sat up. She didn’t spit it out this time, and Ron smiled.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked.
She answered his question by once again spitting the grotesque wad of meat out and onto the floor, this time, above her head.
I was afraid he was going to punch her, kick her, slap her, or choke her. In fact, judging by the look on his face, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him beat her to death.
But he didn’t. When he got done with her, she’d wish he had beaten her to death, but that’s not what he did.
With his left hand, he grabbed the nipple of her left breast. He pulled it, stretching it upward until her breast became elongated.
As I tried to determine what sort of punishment this was, I found out.
Quick as a flash, Ron brought up the knife and slashed it through the air. It took a second for me to realize that he had not only sliced the air, he’d sliced through her breast, taking off the nipple and a good portion of the rest of it. When I noticed a third of her breast dangling by the nipple from between his fingertips, I looked down at what was left of her breast. It looked like an erupted volcano, blood oozing out of the opening and running down the sides like lava.
Her screams burst forth, filling the room and bouncing off the concrete walls.
Ron smiled.
He tossed her ruined breast to the floor and grabbed the nipple of the remaining breast. He stretched it upward, just as he had the other one. He again slashed the knife through her skin. This time, however, he didn’t make a clean slice. He only made it halfway through.
I watched as he began to slowly saw back and forth with the knife through the rest of her breast, making jagged cut marks.
When I noticed the silence, I looked at Crystal and saw that she’d passed out. I was surprised she’d made it as long as she had without succumbing to the darkness.
When Ron finished cutting off her breast, he brought it to his face. I was sure he was going to take a bite out of it, or maybe drink some of the blood from it. My mouth began to fill with saliva in preparation of the vomit that was sure to come.
He brought it to his nose, inhaled deeply, and smiled. What a sick bastard.
He looked at Crystal, prepared to speak, but saw she was unconscious. Slamming the ruined tip of her breast down, he stood abruptly and stormed across the room to the cabinet.
I looked back at Crystal. Her breast had landed on her abdomen, making for a spectacle that seemed to have originated in a science fiction horror movie. Her breasts were chopped and bleeding, and on top of her swollen abdomen rose what looked to be a third breast, nipple reaching for the ceiling.
I felt horrible for her. All this because of me. No. It wasn’t because of me. It was because of Ron, but he wanted me to think it was because of me. Even though it wasn’t because of me, I was crying. I felt responsible. I should’ve done something to protect her.
When Ron came back from the cabinet, I begged, I pleaded, I cried openly, but it was no use.
Suddenly, things got a whole lot worse.
34
Ron dropped to his knees beside Crystal and set the tools of torture beside him.
“Wake up, Crystal.” There was a threatening tone to his voice. It was as if he were saying ‘wake up now and prevent what’s about to happen’.
When she didn’t stir, he nodded and began what can only be described as the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen.
As he removed the lid from a bottle with a label I recognized to be rubbing alcohol, I looked at the steady stream of blood that still made its way from Crystal to the drain. Only now, it wasn’t just a stream. It was more like a small river. It was getting worse, and fast.
I looked back at Ron just as he poured a hearty amount of alcohol into the crater that was formerly Crystal’s left breast. This brought her around in a hurry, which was obviously what he wanted. He wanted to torture her and inflict as much pain as possible on the poor girl, but he wanted her to be awake while he did it.
Her screams and wails were loud, but her voice was failing her. She’d done more screaming than any actress in a bad horror movie had ever thought of doing. It was wearing on her.
I couldn’t watch. I closed my eyes and hoped Ron didn’t notice. If he realized I wasn’t watching, it would get worse for her.
I listened to her screams as her voice cracked and broke, and then fell silent. Hoping for her sake that she’d passed out again, I opened my eyes and checked on her. She was wide awake, still thrashing against her restraints, and screaming though no sound escaped her. Her voice had finally gone.
Tired of pouring alcohol into her open wound, Ron set down the bottle and picked up an ice pick.
“What’s that, Crystal? I can’t hear you?” he said.
He used his left hand to grab her right breast at the base. He squeezed it, making the bleeding mound of flesh rise farther away from her chest and jabbed in the ice pick. He jabbed it quickly up and down, as if he really was chipping away ice. Blood spattered across her chest and belly, along with pieces of breast meat.
My stomach rolled and a mouthful of sour spit overwhelmed me. Unable to take it any longer, I leaned forward, spread my legs, and vomited on the floor between my feet. I was aware that my mess-making was the cause of her agony, but there was nothing I could do about this one. I’d held it back as long as I could.
Ron must’ve realized that I wasn’t looking.
“Nicole, are you watching? Are you making another mess?”
“I’ll clean it,” I said between retches.
“You need to watch this, Nicole. These are valuab
le lessons I’m teaching you.”
“I can’t. I can’t watch anymore. Please stop. You’re killing her.”
“I’m afraid Crystal is killing herself.”
“No, you are,” I spat at him.
“I may be the tool, but she’s the one behind it, instructing me.”
“How can she instruct you to do anything? You’ve made her scream so much, she can’t even talk now.” I wanted to add asshole to end of that, but thought better of it.
“Her actions have spoken louder than any words she could’ve said.”
I didn’t know what actions he was talking about and I didn’t feel like finding out. Though I’d thrown up, my stomach was still uneasy. I was trembling. My nerves were frayed. And the guilt was unbearable.
Tired of torturing a woman who couldn’t give him pleasure by screaming, Ron stood.
“I think that’s enough for the day, don’t you?”
“Would you please take her to the hospital? You’re going to kill her. She’s dying right now. Please,” I begged.
“That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? You know very well I can’t let her go. I can’t let any of them go. To let them live is to bring about my death.”
We stared at each other for a minute, neither speaking. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I was hating every fiber of his being. I hated even the thought of his existence. All the ways I could kill him flashed through my mind as I looked into his empty eyes.
“Let’s go eat breakfast, shall we? I’m famished.”
As Ron unlocked the cuffs and dragged me up the stairs and into the kitchen, I wondered how the hell he could possibly be hungry after doing what he did. I’d seen it, and I didn’t know if I could ever again eat a bite without seeing blood and pieces of meat behind my eyelids.
35
I sat cuffed to the table as Ron scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and poured two glasses of milk. When he set mine in front of me, I pushed the plate away and sipped the milk. My stomach was uneasy to say the least. There was no way I could eat. But he ate as if it were his last meal. Oh, how I wished it was.
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