by Julie Frayn
She watched him. “Do you need my help?”
He glared at her over his shoulder. “No, I don’t fucking need your help. I’m not a damn baby.” He grasped the railing and staggered up the stairs.
His uneven footsteps thumped down the hall, the slammed bedroom door cracked against the jamb. His ridiculous oversized belt-buckle hit the floor above her head with a loud thud and the bed creaked under his weight. Then there was blessed silence.
She put the leftovers in the refrigerator, cleared the dinner dishes, filled the dishwasher, and wiped down the countertops until everything gleamed.
She snatched a new bottle of bourbon from the cupboard, twisted off the top and took a long pull before heading to the stairs. With each step she mounted, with every inch she drew closer to their bedroom, the stench of sweat and motor oil that emanated from his pores married the cloying scent of pine cleaner and the sharpness of bleach. The whole house stank of a lifetime of her accumulated failures. Failure to make his dreams come true. Failure to prevent pregnancy. Failure to stand up to him. Failure to leave. To protect her daughter from his anger and abuse. To be happy. To be normal.
Her hand trembled against the cool of the doorknob. She turned it and peered in. He lay on their bed on his back, covers on the floor. His naked body that she’d once found so enticing, now repulsed her. The only sound was his breath, the only movement the rise and fall of his chest.
Why hadn’t she thought of drugging him before?
She approached the side of the bed and pulled the thin sheet over him, blocked his exposed private parts from her view. She poked his cheek with one finger. He didn’t flinch. She smirked and dropped the bourbon on the nightstand.
She pulled the only two neckties he owned from the closet. The coarse hair on his legs rasped against the satin finish of the material as she wrapped each tie around his ankles and tethered them to the bedposts. He slept through the caress of polyester against his skin, through the shifting of the bed sheets when she dragged his legs into place. A sour odour emanated from his feet. He’d never let her put charcoal insoles in those old work boots, complained that they made his feet sweat even more. He tromped those smelly feet all over her clean floors. The sweat infiltrated the carpet, hung in the air like a permanent, inescapable cloud.
She released the scarf from her neck, touched the tip of her fingers to the bruise that ran parallel to her collar bone and winced. Her upper lip quivered and she narrowed her eyes. The silky fabric slithered around his right wrist. It was too good for him, too soft. He didn’t deserve such comfort. Why didn’t she think to get rope?
No. The scarves were perfect. She’d hidden behind them for years. It was time they were put to better use.
She tied a French bowline knot around his wrist like she’d practiced, then secured the scarf with as many half-hitches as the length of fabric would allow. The other end was tied to a slat in the headboard with an anchor bend knot. It worked better during trial runs, without his damn arm attached to the other end.
“Shit!” She tossed the untied end aside and stood, arms akimbo. A cow hitch would have to do. When she yanked it tight, his hand flopped into the air and slapped the mattress. The knot held. And he kept snoring.
She dug into her scarf drawer, all the way to the back where the old scarves were. Her hand brushed something cold and hard. Her flask. She’d forgotten about that. She shook it, still more than half full of brandy. She set the flask on the dresser, chose her least-favourite scarf, and secured his other arm.
She emptied the pockets of his pants and dropped the contents on the dresser. She pushed the items aside with one finger and wrinkled her nose. Used Kleenex stained with the dirt and grime that he breathed in every day, a gas receipt, and a few coins. She fished his wallet out of the front breast pocket of his work shirt and flipped open the billfold. His debit card was right there on top. She slid it free from the leather turned it over. Six-two-six-nine. He’d written his PIN where the signature belonged. She glanced at him.
And he thought she was stupid?
She tucked the card into her back pocket along with the few bills he was carrying. Something purple glinted from the fold in his wallet. With her index and middle fingers, she pulled out a foil packet. A condom? In his wallet? He had her on the pill for years. To make sure her mistakes didn’t come back and haunt him again, he’d told her. Like she wanted to bring another innocent child into this war zone.
“You sorry bastard.” She shook her head. “It’s not enough that you’re an abusive prick? You have to fuck around on me too?” She rummaged in the bathroom drawer until she found the smooth steel of her hair scissors. The packet yielded to the blade, like a hot knife through ice cream. She slivered the foil and rubber and sauntered back to his bedside.
“I don’t give a damn how many women you’ve slept with. Better them than me, right?” She tossed the scissors on the dresser next to his empty wallet, and strewed the remains of the condom across his body and the bed.
The box in the closet came loose from its duct tape shackles. She sat in the chair in the corner of the room and flipped through the duplicate Polaroids, reread her notes and the dates, relived every abusive blow, every choking hold on her throat, every cut, every scratch. Every broken bone.
She paused at one photo. Her first black eye. The first time the abuse took a public form. And the first time she documented what he’d done to her. She held the picture up. “Look at that, Cullen,” she waved it in the air. “Remember that day? I do.” She stood and hovered over him. “Like it was happening this very second. The same way I remember every time you’ve hit me. Beat me. Demeaned me.” She paced around the bed. “Every time you glare at me, raise your voice. Even when you’re silent. Hell, those are the worst times of all. Silence is the eye of the Cullen storm.” She chewed on her thumbnail and stopped at the foot of the bed, her other arm around one footboard post. The smell of his foot, lashed to the bed, wafted up to greet her. She wrinkled her nose and continued to pace.
“Do you know what it’s like? To live your life in fear of someone who is supposed to love you?” She paused at the head of the bed and slapped his cheek. “To never know if what you do or what you say is good enough? Is right?” She resumed pacing. “It fucking sucks, that’s what it’s like. I can never relax, except when you go fishing without me. But when you made me go? That was the worst. I hated those trips. Just there to gut and fry the fish, clean your gear, and fuck your sorry ass.”
She kneeled beside the bed and rested her arms on the mattress, poked at his shoulder. “But the worst is when you apologize. I used to feel so sorry for you, happy that you were sorry for hurting me. Relieved. But you were always sorry, weren’t you? And it was all a big fat lie. Were you ever truly sorry, Cullen?” She stood. “Were you?” Tears streamed down her face and she swatted them off her cheek. “No. No damn tears tonight. Because I’m done with you.” She stabbed one finger toward him with each sentence. “I’m over this shit. Finished with this life. Wake up, damn you! I want to see your face when I leave. When I take Ariel away from you.”
The room darkened as dusk turned to night. The digits on the clock radio glowed eleven fifteen. He’d been asleep almost five hours. Her body vibrated, and she hopped around the room to shake off the adrenalin. She drank a long gulp of brandy and sat the flask, uncapped, on the dresser.
As time wore on, she wearied from the wait. Maybe she should’ve only put two pills in his booze. But maybe that wouldn’t have been enough. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair.
The bobbing of her head jarred her awake. She eyed the clock. Three fourteen. He was snoring now, and his legs twitched and pulled against the tie bindings. He moaned and turned his head, pulled on his arms. His eyes crept open. It seemed to take minutes for him to focus. Then clarity crossed his face. He jerked his head back and forth, looked from one tethered wrist to the other. “What the fuck?” He lifted his chin to his chest and stared at his legs, then his gaz
e found her. “Untie me, you crazy bitch!” He yanked on the scarves, twisted his head around to reach for the knot with his mouth.
She stood and stepped toward him at a glacier’s pace. “What’s the matter? I thought you liked a little bondage.” She reached up under the shade of the floor lamp and tugged the string. Soft light bathed the room.
He laid his head back and laughed. “Oh, I get it. You want to get kinky with me? That’s a first.” He eyed her up and down. “Get these off me and I’ll show you how to do it right.”
Her heart hammered in her chest and her knees shook. But she was out of his reach. For the first time in years.
“What’s your plan here, Mazie? Just going to piss me off more and more? Wait ‘til you see what I’ve got planned for you when I get free.” He yanked on the ties and kicked his feet. “Let me loose, you fucking whore!”
The sight of him tied down, unable to get loose — at her complete and utter mercy — along with brandy still warm in her veins, bolstered her bravado. She edged up to the bed and leaned her face toward his. A sneer crossed her lips. “Make me,” she said, her voice a low growl.
He jerked his head forward. She jumped back and covered her face with her hands. Her heart pounded, legs trembled.
In the quiet of the room, his laugh cut right through her.
She lowered her arms.
He grinned at her. “You chicken-shit bitch. It doesn’t matter what you do, I’ll always have you. Always.”
Her peripheral vision blurred and his face came into clear focus. She spun around, snatched the scissors from the dresser and plunged them into his thigh.
He screamed. His mouth and brow contorted and he thrashed his arms against their restraints.
She retreated, one hand over her mouth, and stared at the black plastic handle sticking straight up from his leg. Blood oozed from the wound, dripped onto the cotton sheets.
That would leave a stain.
When she backed into the bookshelf opposite the end of the bed, she stumbled and landed on her ass on the carpet. She laughed — a snicker at first. Soon she was lying on the floor, doubled over, killing herself laughing.
“Mazie, it hurts.”
She stopped laughing and sat up, her back against the rows of books that had kept her company these past years, when friendships waned and her isolation grew. When she couldn’t find the energy to lie about the damage to her body and simply hid from the world, covered head to toe in clothing, and buried beneath a landslide of self-doubt and guilt.
She stood and edged closer, stared at the scissors, at bright blood juxtaposed against creamy sheets. The black plastic handle, the stainless steel blades buried in his olive-toned flesh. “Mazie, it hurts.” She scrunched up her eyes and spit his pitiful plea back at him in high-pitched baby-talk. She touched the handle of the scissors, drained her face of emotion and looked him in the eye. “I think that’s the point.” She turned the blade.
He gasped. His eyes went from dark and angry to pinched and pleading. Frightened and in pain. “Stop. Please.”
She cocked her head. He was vulnerable and wide-eyed. She’d never seen him like that.
She neared the head of the bed, transfixed by the pain in his eyes. By his need for her to save him. To rescue him. She kneeled down and touched his chest with one hand, rested her chin on her other arm, and watched his expressions change.
His breath was heavy and laboured, his chest rose and fell in fast rhythm with each inhale and bourbon-scented exhale.
“Mazie.” His voice was gravelly. A hoarse whisper. “Baby.”
She used to love it when he called her that. Mazie Baby. It spoke of his love for her, his desire to take care of her, protect her. Like a mother is supposed to keep a child safe from harm. It morphed into a taunt, like a schoolyard bully mocking a weak kid crying for his mommy. What’s the matter, baby? You gonna cry, baby?
“Come on, baby. Untie me. You’ve made your point.” He smiled one of his fake smiles. “You know I love you, right?”
How many times had he said that? After he hurt her. After the apologies that used to mean something but now rang as hollow and untrue as most every word he spewed.
He took a deep breath, his cheeks ruddy and splotchy. “Let me go now,” his voice had turned from sweet and conciliatory to low and growling. “And I promise I won’t hurt you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You promise?” She pushed off against his chest and stood. “You promise?” Her voice gained strength with the understanding that no promises would ever be kept. That he would hurt her if he wanted, whenever the whim struck. “How many times have you promised you would stop? Then what happened, huh? I’ll tell you what. You beat me. Again. And again.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s never going to end, is it?”
“If you don’t take those scissors out of my leg and untie me,” his voice grew stronger and louder with each word. The pleading and fear in his eyes dissolved under the weight of the hatred and fire that returned with a vengeance. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Every emotion drained from her. She turned and snatched the brandy from the dresser and took a long drink.
“It fucking hurts, damn it! Can’t you see that?”
She spun around and threw the flask against the wall behind his head. It hit with a thud and bounced onto the floor. Sticky alcohol sprayed the wall and the bed and his face and chest. She crossed her arms, twisted her face up, and bent toward him. “It hurts.” She imitated the mocking tone he’d turned on her countless times these past years. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!” She grabbed the stack of Polaroids and held them up. “You want to know what hurts?” She flung each picture at him, like dealing a deck of red-hot cards. With each photo that landed on the bed, she reminded him of the damage done. “A black eye, that hurts. And a broken arm. Two broken ribs. Yeah, that hurt too. Oh, remember this?” She held the picture up and shoved it in his face until it was pushed up against his nose. “That’s what my lower back looked like after you beat me with an empty Jack Daniels bottle because I forgot to get you a new one!” She paced and shook her head, derision huffing from her nostrils. “Yeah, that fucking hurt, believe me.” She turned back and yanked the scissors from his leg.
He cried out and clenched his teeth. Deep crevasses were carved into his face. He looked old and weathered, drained of every last shred of the handsome man he once was.
She yanked down the collar of her shirt and jutted her chin in the air. “How about this, Cullen? When you choke me? Again and again and again. How long before you get it right, huh? Before you suck every last ounce of life out of me?”
A half-smile crept onto his face.
She stepped toward the bed. “That fucking hurts.” She plunged the scissors into his other leg.
He screamed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. You stupid fucking bitch.”
She put one hand over his mouth. “Shut up. You trying to wake the whole fucking neighbourhood?”
He tried to bite her but she snapped her hand away. She sidled up to the window, moved the drape aside with one finger and peered out. Every house across the street remained in darkness. Typical. They sure never heard anything when she screamed.
His damn blood stained the drape. She held her hands out and inspected them. More blood tarnished her fingers and pooled under her nails. She wiped it on her pants.
He glared at her. “I should have kept choking you, killed you when I had the chance. You’re a useless, stupid, waste of skin. Can’t do anything right. Raising our daughter to talk back to me.” He thrashed against the restraints then cried out. “God fucking damn it!”
“You sorry piece of shit.” Her voice dripped venom. “You don’t have the goddamn balls to kill me. You never could finish what you started. Gave up on your music, gave up on me. You’ll give up on Ariel, too. If you don’t ruin her first. Rape her, beat her, use her. That’s the plan, right? Move on to a younger version of me? Just to get your puny rocks off. You don’t give a damn about h
er. About anyone. You’re a selfish, arrogant, stinking pile of dog shit!” She had inched closer and now stood over him. She jabbed one finger into his chest, punctuating each insult. “I’ll die before I ever let you touch her.”
“That can be arranged.” He yanked on his restraints. The cow hitch shifted and came loose from the slat that held his right arm.
Mazie jumped on top of him, pinned his arm down and grabbed the scarf.
He squirmed beneath her and laughed. “Can’t even tie a proper, knot you stupid cunt.”
The slick material slipped through her fingertips.
He grabbed her hair, yanked her neck back until her face was an inch from his. “You’re my bitch now.”
She stared into his eyes. Something prodded her leg. Bile rose in her throat.
He had an erection.
She leered at him. “This is what turns you on, right baby?” She reached back and stroked him over the sheet. “Violence. Control. Pain.” She swallowed. “My pain.”
He smiled and narrowed his eyes, yanked her hair harder. “Untie me and I’ll show you. I’ll fuck your fat, ugly brains out.”
She laughed. “Fuck yourself.” She grasped the handle of the scissors. “I’m nobody’s bitch anymore.” She pulled the scissors free from his thigh and jabbed them into his shoulder. The blade crunched against bone.
He screamed and let go of her hair.
She jumped to her feet, raced to the other side of the bed, wrapped the loose end of the scarf around her hand and held it firm in her fist. She dragged his arm straight out to the side. “How about now, baby? That turn you on?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
She eyed the sheet where it covered his groin. “Oh, poor Cullen. Can’t get it up now? That’s too bad. Because I’m aroused as hell.”
“I’m going to cut you to ribbons when I get free.” He turned his head and glared, sweat beaded on his upper lip and dripped from his forehead. “They won’t even find the pieces.”