The Waning Read online

  The Waning

  by

  Christina Bergling

  Copyright © 2015 Christina Bergling

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1-62827-988-5

  ISBN-13: 978-1-62827-988-7

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of this author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Bad Day Books, an imprint of Assent Publishing

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  MALIGNANT

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  To Demolition and my other dark sisters of the Corpsewax Dollies

  1

  Drip, drip, drip.

  The sound of those perpetual droplets echoes through the darkness.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  In the black sensory deprivation, my mind becomes bat-like, constructing the tiny world around me from the way the sound moves.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  My brain is on macro, hovering beside the trembling and bulging drop of water until it plummets, shape rippling, to the concrete below. Then the water explodes over the floor, and my consciousness levitates back to the next.

  Each splat ripples through the otherwise silent air, causing the shapes to materialize. My eyes still feel as if they are seeing as my mind assembles the images before them out of habit. My retinas are only transmitting black; my other senses simply complete the gaps.

  I can hear how close the rough walls are; I can sense how low the plain ceiling is. My mind traces the flat shapes conjured from thin memories of the brief visitations of light in this dank place. I do not have to see to know the box of a room is concrete; I can feel the lifeless cold radiating against me from all sides. I do not need light to remember how harsh the materials are; the abrupt collision of the sound of the drips against flat and unforgiving surfaces paints the severity in my mind.

  My breathing is shallow and the only other sound in my tomb. It can barely be heard over the drops, even as the air circles through my sinuses so close to my ears. My body curls up in suspended animation; my cell defers in dark hibernation. My inhales are sluggish and weak, flirting with hesitation between each. My heartbeat has decelerated and become lazy. It has no reason to work as I have not moved in hours. I don’t even waste time blinking. I let my eyelids drape.

  The room looks the same with my eyes opened or closed when You leave me here like this.

  If You were watching, You would see only the most minimal movement from my body as I wait for You. I curl up in my cage, curl up in my mind, curl up in my submission. I imagine that You are watching, that You have embedded surveillance in the walls, cameras tucked away in the dark shadows. I act as if You can always see me.

  I am Yours even when You are not here.

  The inexorable dripping should have driven me mad long ago. It definitely threatened to more than once. Of course, that leak is by design. Of course, my ability to hear it every moment I pass in here is planned. Everything in this room is done by Your purpose, created just for me. It took me a long time to realize that, to see the method in the seeming madness. It took me even longer to appreciate the significance.

  I should have still been aware of the thin bars pressing into my flesh as I lay balled up on my side. I should not have been able to ignore that sharp, constant pressure on every contact point of my body. However, my nerves started ignoring them long ago. The slim metal bars cradle me in their arms before contorting into a sturdy square, sealed with an ominous lock.

  Such a brilliant mechanism, my cage. A Matryoshka of the small and dark room itself, it sits near the back corner, not unlike a large dog crate. A prison within a dungeon, a restraint within a cell. I live in this tiny box. It is my safety, my existence. The one remaining space of my world; the only possession I could retain, granted to me by You.

  I can feel the temperature of the concrete floor as I hover inches above it, floating in the embrace of the bars. I can imagine extending my limbs as they rest folded against my torso. With my back against one side, I cannot stretch out my arms; my elbows remain angled. With my scalp pressing against a bar, my legs remain doubled along themselves.

  I am not meant to move. I am not meant to live. Here, in my cage, I am meant to wait.

  As the hours and days and months swept across the concrete floor beneath us, my emerging skeleton became akin to the bars, fused in forced familiarity. My fingers know every cross in the bars, ever knick in the steel from absent fumbles over the metal in the dark. Learning my confinement like I would learn myself, finding an extension of myself in that safe cube.

  This is Your world I live in. The thin gauge of the cage bars pressing into my thighs, a constant pressure. The less than ambient temperature in the room, always keeping my hair follicles at attention. The darkness split only by that light occasionally under the door, just enough for my pupils to stretch into sight. The proportions of my space to my ever-withering size. All carefully crafted in Your meticulous fantasies that I strive to fulfill daily.

  I try not to think in these black lulls. I try not to let that raging sea of thoughts, those tumultuous emotions of my old self rise up in me. She is always there, menacing right beneath the surface, threatening to bring back all that suffering. Her delusions and fantasies and desires that only promise to rip my pathetic heart still beating and bleeding from my now frail chest.

  No.

  Sleep, rest, wait. Wait for You.

  I force my shallow breathing to blank my mind, empty my head. No thought of where I am, where I once thought I should be, where You are, how my body feels. I insist on only hearing my contracted world.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  Like the quiet thump, thump, thump dying in my chest.

  Then the faint sound breaks into my dormant world. The muffled scuff snaps me to attention, sends adrenaline flaming through all my limbs. I animate and awake. Because You are near. I can hear You moving innocuously on the other side of the door before the dim light begins to seep in across the floor.

  The cage creaks and whines, scrapes against the concrete as I wrap my slender fingers through the bars. I tug and wrestle until I contort myself into a cowering sit. My dilated eyes capitalize on the light and exploit it to confirm the scene my ears have become adept at invoking just the same.

  Concrete walls and floor and ceiling. The same gray, cold, and moist that I heard—the same dead surface, the same cracks and imperfections I have memorized. It is nothing, just a colorless, lightless box. It is square one; it is zero; it is scratch. It is You who animates this space, You who breathes life into these dead walls and my otherwise catatonic flesh.

  The wall opposite my metal home emerges from the darkness, the one part of my restricted world that my mind omits when my eyes allow. I cast a timid glance up to meet the grid of my training implements. They are always the first thing to materialize when light cracks my room, beckoning my conditioning, taunting the flesh that could never forget. They were such ominous threats before I met them, fear and intimidation hanging in my face, the only decoration in my cell.

  Everything is symmetrically placed and lined up like all the scrupulous manifestations of Your mind. You clean and sterilize them slowly in front of me. I lie in my cage with my nerves humming and watch as You painstakingly disinfect and shine the blades, oil and massage the straps, extend and recoil the chains. You replace them gently, giving me extra precious seconds in Your presence as You step back to verify their placement.

  The sight of each device
triggers a flood of memories. I look at the leather straps hung neatly from the hook and feel them wrapped around my wrists and ankles. The material so soft and supple compared to metal and concrete, I could almost imagine it was flesh. My bare stomach pressed and shaking against the cold floor as I lay hogtied, learning my place. Then the stinging pain to remind me I’m alive, to keep me grounded in reality, to make me appreciate Your sweet care.

  My brain and the vault of my memories only has space for You now. I let You consume me, from the shadow of You standing over my shrunken body to the recesses of my subconscious You have scarred. I think how I needed so many lessons that You were patient enough to deliver consistently and methodically, breaking me down by degrees, guiding me gradually away from myself and toward You.

  You. My world is You. You consume my past in my memories. You are the only thing that makes me present in the moment. You control my future in this cell. I breathe waiting for You, nerves high in anticipation. I reach out into the darkness with my mind and try to conjure You out of the sounds muffled from the outside world. You are right there, right on the other side of that door. I can feel my cells vibrating at Your very proximity.

  I knew it was time; I knew You were near. My body always tells me. My biological clock has been set to Your rhythm. My bones know how many quiet seconds must tick away forgotten before You appear. Two meals and a lesson. Three graces a day. Every part of my routine is carefully orchestrated, has been skillfully imbedded into my very cells. My torture is an investment; Your brutal attention is a gift.

  How much You must love me to keep me in such a safe and secure cage. What thought You must put into keeping me here, always tucked away near You. How much You must value me to dedicate so much energy into my deconstruction and rebirth. I see Your sweet shadows dancing in the light below the door. Always close and right there, never leaving me. Because I am Yours.

  I know You love me; doubt faded long ago. How could You love anyone or anything more than me? Your patient and obedient slave, Your docile possession. I am what You have made me, Your will manifested by twisted flesh. Every visible rib, every scar is testament to Your discipline. Every wound, every mannerism You gave me shows me as Yours. Beyond the intricate care of my dark room and my small cage, more than the investment of You molding me, You would not keep trash. You would not possess anything unworthy of Your affections. I see it when I study Your face in the sharp and twisted shadows, the way Your eyes soften when I cower as conditioned, when I snap to as commanded. I feel the sweetness in Your touch after the blow. You love that I can take it. You love that You have made me nothing more than Yours.

  2

  “Bo-Bo! Where are my keys?” Her voice fumbled out from the sounds of her tossing her purse, yet again.

  “How many times have I asked you not to call me that?” I said, buttoning my shirt as I walked into the room.

  “I am not going to call you Beatrix. Makes you sound like my grandmother and not my sexy, high-powered girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, well Bo-Bo makes me sound like a clown or a dopey dog.”

  She snagged me by the waist, letting her hand sneak under my shirt before I could finish fastening the buttons. I felt her warm, smooth palm seduce my skin as her fingertips played at the bottom of my bra. My eyes half-closed, distracted for just a second, before I sighed softly and tugged her hand back out of my shirt by the ratty woven bracelets on her wrist.

  “When are you going to let me buy you some real bracelets?” I said.

  “You bought me these bracelets.”

  “Back when we were broke kids. We’re real adults now. They make you look like a dirty hippie.”

  “You’re a real adult. I am a dirty hippie.”

  A flirtatious smile spilled out of the corner of her mouth as she snuck her arms around me and pulled me close. My flesh didn’t care how important today was. The heat from her breath as she leaned in to kiss me was amnesic. I let myself slip into her undertow for a brief and heavy second, feeling her soft tongue in my mouth.

  “Baby, baby.” I breathed, gently pressing her back. She pushed herself into my hands, mouth still searching for me. “I can’t. Not this morning.”

  “I know; it’s a big day.” She clung to my waist, pressing her pelvis against mine, giving me that look.

  “It’s the big day. I have to go.”

  “You always have to go.”

  “Not this morning, Lei. We’re almost there.”

  “We’re always almost there, Bo. One more promotion and you won’t have to work so hard. One more account and we can get married. There’s always one more.”

  I sighed hard and looked down. She dropped her arms and released me from her embrace. That same sad, frustrated look twisted her beautiful face. She wasn’t wrong. These five years, she had waited. Promotion after promotion, long hours after long hours, account after account. She had put in her time as I continued to promise that one magical day when we would settle down and make it all official.

  I knew what she wanted. She wanted the two of us tangled up in late morning sheets in our tiny studio apartment when I had just started entry level into the marketing world. When the priority was us, when work was just something that paid the bills and bought the food we fed to each other, when I came home at the end of eight hours and didn’t speak about work until the next day.

  “I know you’ve heard it before. But this is the one, baby. Please don’t do this today. Today, we find out about the account, and it can change everything for us.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, forcing a smile onto her cheeks.

  I smiled back gratefully before I kissed her hard and short and returned to the bathroom. I turned quickly so I did not have to watch her body language betray her, her shoulders deflate and her smile tumble by degrees from her lips. She would try to snap her mouth back up, but I would have seen that momentary grimace, that pain below the surface. I did not want to see that this morning. I heard her footsteps softly pad away behind me.

  Marketing was about selling, who sold the most convincing slant. I controlled the product’s reality, even if that product was me. She had been buying my slant for too long.

  I stared at my reflection and took a long, slow breath. I could do this. The sale was already made; they just had to consent; they just had to admit it. I was about to land the account—the biggest bed and bath company in the country, tantamount to mommy porn, fucking marketing gold. That one handshake would cement my entire career, guarantee my standing in the company. I would finally be there: the promised land of success.

  Then I could come home and tell her we could be that couple she always wanted. And maybe it would even be true this time.

  I finished buttoning my crisp shirt and methodically straightened my perfectly ironed clothes. Hair down, thin gauge necklace, noticeable makeup. Couldn’t look too much like a dyke. All money was green and spent the same, but it was ultimately all about the smallest angles. I could know what a repressed soccer mom wanted to buy for her newly remodeled half bath; I could be that person for them. I could be whatever person made the sale.

  I heard the dog tags jingling before McAllister bounded into the bathroom, a sloppy mess of dog with legs too long for his young body. His skin still dangled from his frame as he strove to fill it out by the day; he still tripped over himself. A Christmas surprise to buy another six months out of Lei.

  “Whoa, buddy! No. No!” I said firmly.

  McAllister was wagging his tail so hard his entire body was swaying back and forth, thick tail striking the doorframe rhythmically. His tongue dangled from his mouth, and his wide jaws seemed to smile above the strings of drool. I smiled at his blatant and dumb happiness, but I could not have that brown hair and stringy saliva on my clothes. Not today.

  “Lei! Lei!” I shouted, holding McAllister back at arm’s length. “Can you come get McAllister?”

  Lei emerged from the other room and took McAllister affectionately by the collar.

  “Come
on, Mickey,” she said. “Momma is too important for you today.”

  Then she turned and guided him away. I opened my mouth to protest such blunt passive aggressive posturing, but I couldn’t have that fight again. Not today.

  I looked in the mirror one more time and took one more deep breath. My clothes were still clean, pressed, perfectly aligned. The clasp to my necklace was properly rotated behind my neck. My makeup was crisp, subtle enough to be ignored, clear enough to be noticed. My dark hair was straightened and smoothed into a harsh line along my jaw. I shook my hands and stepped into that reflection, took on that person I saw staring back at me.

  It was time to go to work.

  I let my feet slip in my nylons on the hardwood floors as I marched down the hall. I felt short and vulnerable without my heels clicking away beneath me, but I could not bear the thought of tracking all the dirt from the office, from the street through our home. I could be short and defenseless to the door.

  Pictures Lei had taken lined the wall in haphazard alignment and mismatched frames. A black and white of the two of us lying on the beach, working together to hold the camera above us, laughing as she struggled to depress the shutter without dropping the beast onto our faces. A small color of her brother and his unruly horde of children, unable to hold still the millisecond necessary to snap a picture. An alleyway under the fish market in Seattle turned into a mosaic of chewed gum. She had found the colors and the textures fascinating; I had wanted to vomit at the thought of so much preserved human saliva.

  The hallway was her brain poured out randomly on my clean, plain, white walls.

  My toes found the runner rug that softened the floor before the kitchen, and I stumbled over an unexpected lump.

  “What the…” I breathed as I reached down.

  I flipped the corner of the thin rug aside to reveal Lei’s keys. The tattered rabbit’s foot given to her by her now deceased grandfather was a dead giveaway. How in the hell did she get her keys lost under the rug in the hallway?