The Waning Page 7

  I just waited for Your next move.

  A disgusting thought crept in and started to plague my mind: Do what he says. Do what you need to do to live.

  10

  In the darkness again, I cradled my pain. One hand rested on my cheek, where I could feel the stinging print of Yours on the curve of the flesh. The other hand wrapped around my tender and quivering stomach where Your fist had ignited my torso. I felt Your touches lingering on my nerves, as if You were still with me, on top of me in this tiny cage.

  I didn’t know if I was crying anymore. At this point, I don’t know that I could tell. The messages from my neurons were crossed and convoluted.

  Dry it up before I bust your tail.

  Dry it up before I bust your tail.

  It’s okay to cry, Lei said softly into my hair. It’s okay to have feelings, to let me see. I’m not going anywhere.

  Their voices echoed off the concrete walls in my mind like so many phantoms and ghosts. The longer they raged, the less I could distinguish them from my own.

  Do what he says. Do what you need to do to live.

  That was me; that was my voice. And that silenced them all.

  That fucking thought again. It felt dirty in my mind. It felt like a thorn in my brain tissue, like betrayal beneath my skin.

  Just give up.

  I dismissed it immediately of course. I physically bucked and pushed against that weak, pathetic idea. I didn’t give up. I was a fucking tiger. I had just made my entire company my bitch. I was strong and capable. I took what I wanted. Even here penned up in a tiny cage, even stripped of all fight and reduced to blubbering in a couple of blows, I told myself these things. I slammed my hands into the bars.

  “No!” I yelled to myself. “I won’t!”

  Desperation in my voice, trying to sell myself on my own bullshit, I thrashed against the bars again. I am stronger than this, I told myself. I can do this. But there it was, that tangible thought gently echoing in my skull, slowly infecting me. The crack that would eventually shatter me.

  My body started screaming louder than me, louder than my mind. The beating was still painted on my nerves, reignited by my fit. I could feel the tears of defeat starting to well in me again as I wrapped my arms around my wounded torso and tried not to sniff through my damaged nose.

  “No,” I said to the bars.

  “No no no no,” I said against the drip.

  “NOOOOO!” I wailed at my cell.

  You were going to hear me say no, even if I lacked the courage to scream it in Your face. I tried to bash and beat on and shake the cage, but my body didn’t have the strength. My voice cracked as I screamed; it shriveled in my throat.

  I was a shell of a human. There was a stranger seeping through my bones, infecting the marrow with doubt, with submission. I groped at my flesh, trying to claw it out, scratching to take handfuls of the disease, but it was too deep. Somewhere in my core, I knew the affliction was fatal. I could feel that former reflection of myself starting to rasp and rattle.

  “Not yours!” I screamed. “Not yours! NOT YOURS!”

  I fought it. I forced myself to shake the bars and tear the skin from my throat. You were going to hear me; You were going to hear me say no.

  My entire body was pain now. My head throbbed from Your slaps mingled with my tears. My throat was raw from my fruitless and desperate shrieking. My ribcage captured the throbbing of my bruised abdomen and heaving lungs.

  “No. No. Nononononono. No. No,” I mumbled to myself incoherently.

  No. I had to cling to no. No was the answer. No had to stay the answer.

  I don’t know why I believed I would be able to resist You. Yet I tried to claw my fingers down into the very idea.

  I wanted You back in here. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted You to beat me so I could fight You, so I could prove to myself that I still was a fighter and didn’t believe these nagging little thoughts. I wanted anything but to be by myself against the madness growing inside me.

  That I could give up made me a stranger. That my mind had started to wobble made me a liability. That I could remotely want Your presence made me an enemy. Who the fuck was I anymore? Did I ever know myself at all if this was at my core?

  Slowly, by degrees, I felt myself fearing myself more than I feared You.

  Escape had ended in pathetic failure. Resistance seemed increasingly futile. Now what?

  I breathed in deep, let the air stretch my wounded lungs; then a surprising sound tumbled out from my cracked lips.

  “Ring around the rosies.”

  I heard my mother’s voice. The way she would sing into my scalp and nuzzle her nose along the side of my face. It was smooth and warm, just like her breath teasing the hair by my ears. I closed my eyes, burrowed into her chest until I could hear her heartbeat keeping time with her lyrics, and felt safe.

  “Pocket full of posies.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to simulate the feeling of her. My arms felt cold and foreign, lifeless like the steel and concrete enveloping me. I felt as dead as she was now.

  “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

  The ragged lullaby and my own dead arms were oddly soothing. Or perhaps I was curled up in the comforting memory of her.

  What would she think? What would she want me to do? Would she want me to fight until You beat the life out of me, or would she want me to bow, bend, play nice to make the pain stop?

  Could she see me in this horrible fucking box?

  The darkness stretched out in front of me the way I could not. I could feel the weight of the hours stacking up on top of me. Why had You left me so much longer? Why had You not come to let me to my bucket? Had You heard me screaming no to you? My body counted the drips. Then I felt the time accumulate in my bladder. It felt like every drop hitting the floor was gathering in a pressure on my pubic bone.

  Damn that empty water bottle that left my mouth and throat parched. I could feel every drop in that bottle now pressing heavily on my urinary tract.

  I squirmed at first, shaking my legs against each other, twitching my toes to distract my nerves. The cage was too damned confining. I started pattering the soles of my feet on the bars, tap dancing as hard as I could to think about anything else.

  Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

  The tingling and the pressure mounted with each passing second, with each splash of that incessant drip. It was growing louder and faster; I was sure of it. I could feel the vibrations rippling through my engorged bladder.

  Had You done this to me? Was this Your design? Another step in my humiliation. Another strip sheared off my humanity. Did You provide me the water then wait out the biological time?

  My whole body was practically seizing. My inner thigh muscles were shaking, weak from holding so tightly, from fighting my own body. I screamed out without words and clenched my teeth, making fists until my nails dug into my palm.

  As the hours ticked by with the count of the drips, I lost. I felt the warm failure flood my tiny prison.

  11

  When You opened the door, I was petrified. I didn’t even look up to see You fill the doorframe. I simply shuttered in my own puddle, wept in my own shame.

  I heard You inhale deeply through Your nose, hesitate, then sniff again.

  You knew.

  The sound of Your movements changed. I still refused to look. As if I could ever look up with pride again after wetting myself in a crate like a dog. Your shoes scraped the concrete rapidly; You tugged on the lock hastily. I hid my eyes with my hands like a scared child. I let my wet limbs stick to each other protectively. When Your hand wrapped around my ankle, anger was in the grip. Not the calm resolve and patience You had so consistently exuded.

  I banged along the bars as You ripped me from the cage and chunked me aside on the floor, concrete slamming against my knees and elbows. I raised my arms around my head and curled into a wet ball, still whimpering, still sobbing.

  I heard droplets fall from the bl
anket as You tore it out after me. It fell to the floor with a splat beside me. You reached down and took me by the neck. I felt Your fingertips sink in my flesh, constrict my arteries. My heartbeat throbbed in my temples. You heaved me to the blanket as I remained locked in a defensive fetal position, eyes squeezed shut.

  I didn’t want to know what was coming next.

  You did not yell; You did not say a word. I could read the depths of Your rage and disappointment and contempt in the angry scrape of Your steps, in the force of Your grip, in the stiffness of Your breath. The sounds of Your body and composure spoke volumes to me and managed to unearth deeper fears when I thought I had been fully tapped already.

  I didn’t fight; I didn’t move. I remained catatonic in my protective ball as You moved me. The smell choked me first. It was thick and pungent, acidic in my nostrils. My entire body shriveled in response as my throat tightened. I could feel my abdomen undulating in dry heaves. It was an unmistakable odor that I biologically rejected.

  It was the smell of my own urine.

  Then I felt the moisture on my face. My own piss spread over my skin as You cupped my skull and ground my nose into the soiled blanket, like disciplining a puppy that failed to be house broken. I coughed and sputtered against the fabric. My nose bent and contorted against the concrete beneath the blanket. I heard the cartilage crunch and grind through my sinuses.

  My arms and legs shot out and flailed helplessly. My hands slapped messily at the concrete. I tried desperately to stop breathing, to keep that scent and that taste out of my mouth. I didn’t know humiliation could have such a distinct smell and sensation. This was humiliation; this was embarrassment.

  This was me losing my humanity.

  You pinned me down firmly for what seemed like an eternity, long enough for me to stop struggling, for me to fall limp and whimper in defeat. When I crumpled at Your feet, You finally released me. Your hand abandoned my scalp, and You yanked the blanket out from under me.

  I gathered myself up, desperately scrubbing at my face with my hands, as You stormed out of my cell with my blanket and my shame. It took me a moment to notice You had left the door ajar behind You.

  This was my chance.

  Opportunity managed to infuse clarity into my muddled veins. I had to do this. This was my one chance to do this. It didn’t matter what happened on the other side of that door; it only mattered that I RUN.

  I scrambled sloppily to my feet, still in my soaked clothes, and lunged toward the light pouring in from the doorway. I could hear my bare feet slapping the floor. My hands were clawing out toward the freedom. My breath was panting through my lips. I could see my heartbeat in my peripherals.

  I’m there. I’m almost there.

  The four sprinting strides it took for the light to overtake my sight seemed to happen in slow motion. As my fingertips neared the doorframe, I heard a large thud on the other side of the door. The light collapsed on me; the door grew, and I felt the shattering impact on my forehead before the world went black.

  I woke up in a pile against the closed door. My bruised nose butted up against the base, nearly tasting free air. I heard the knob turn above me and rolled out of the way before You opened the door again.

  I was a failure at Your feet yet again. You were probably laughing to Yourself at how pathetic I was. Your demeanor had changed, reverted. Slow, methodic, calm, clear once again. I recoiled against my cage, huddling up against the outside of the bars, looping my fingers comfortingly through the thin metal.

  You stepped forward until Your boots pointed at my bare toes. Fearfully, I looked up in Your direction but not at Your face. I couldn’t bear to look You in the eyes. You set a stack of folded fabric on the top of my cage, took me by the shoulders, and stood me up in front of You. I came up to Your chest and stared blankly into the neat buttons trailing Your shirt. It was dark blue today. I don’t think I had noticed a color besides black or gray since my first introduction to the dark.

  You grabbed the sides of my pants and tugged them down around my ankles. Then You grasped the hem of my shirt and guided it over my head. I followed, like a toddler being undressed, yet it screamed in my head again.

  RAPE! RAPE! RAPE!

  I wrapped my arms around my bare body, felt my shrinking frame and loose skin in the air, and dropped my head. You didn’t even look at my naked flesh. You reached down and unfolded a fresh pair of pants and held them out. I looked at them hesitantly, then sheepishly lifted my leg and stepped in, stabilizing myself on the cage. Then You pulled a loose and plain shirt over my head. My arms fumbled into the sleeves, then I cuddled into the feeling of clean clothes.

  You unfolded the last piece of cloth and spread a new meager blanket into my cage. Then You stepped back and held the door open. I glanced at You then back to the floor before crouching down and crawling back in.

  12

  As I lay in the darkness, savoring the warm and dry sensation of fresh clothing and linens, I relived my punishment. I coughed at the memory of choking on my own urine. I shuttered in my arms at the anger I felt in Your touch. The pseudo-smothering changed my mind, slowed time itself. Everything became for vivid in those stuttering breaths. My body had been lost in the panic, but my consciousness had stepped apart, was able to watch You.

  You had been so angry yet still so controlled. I could see it in every mannerism, in the way Your face contorted, in the way the tension quivered in Your flexed hands and arms. Your rage was palpable in the air so much that I nearly choked on it. Yet the punishment was less savage than even my introduction to this place. You hadn’t beaten me senseless; You hadn’t berated me mercilessly. There was a barrier, Your self-control between me and Your rage. You had tempered Yourself and disciplined me. You were teaching me. Your reaction had purpose.

  It dawned on me that You were training me, like a dog.

  The correlation of my cage to a crate, of my accident to housebreaking, of my imprisonment to ownership made me sick to my stomach. It brought a thin, acid taste into the back of my mouth. Yet it also made sense in a way that calmed something deep in my chest—just a little. I was figuring something out about You.

  Perhaps, if I could discern what You wanted, I could make the pain stop; I could survive.

  Did I even want to survive? Wasn’t I just flirting shamelessly with Suicide in my cell? Couldn’t I just defy You until You gave up and got rid of me? In my guts, I knew I did not have the courage for that surrender; I did not even have the courage to say no and face punishment, to stand up and be slapped down. I had no desire to find out how You would get rid of me, and I simply could not resign myself to dying here, in this cell. That foolish shred in me clung to the fantasy of seeing Lei again.

  So if I wanted to live, I had to do what You wanted. But what did You want? I rolled the question around in my mind the way I twirled a pen through my fingers as I thought about what might hook a client’s target audience.

  He doesn’t seem to have any interest in raping me, at least not yet. He doesn’t want to kill me; he is investing far too much time in me. He does want to hurt me, but why? What does my pain get him? I didn’t envision You shutting the door to my cell and jerking it on the other side. That seemed infinitely beneath You.

  You wanted to train me; it was obvious You expected certain behavior out of me. It was also apparent that I had been nothing but a disappointment so far. Yet You still had not killed me. He needs to keep me for something, but what? What is he training me for? What would my obedience give him? What need am I here to meet? What need will keep me necessary and alive long enough to get out?

  Curling up in despair had left me the same in the dark. Escape plots were ambitious and unrealistic aspirations at failure. Maybe if I could just play along, I could make the pain stop. It tasted vile, like submission, in my mouth, but necessity often did. It felt disgusting to play straight and keep my private life tucked in the shadows to succeed at work, but I had done it to get what I wanted. Means to an end. And this was
the greatest end. There was no carrot more seductive than the idea of freedom, than the simply base will to keep breathing.

  I can do this; I can be what he wants. To stay alive. To lessen the pain.

  Now I had to discern what Your cryptic nonverbal commands were demanding. I tried to dig through my dark and convoluted blur of memories from the past few days, or weeks, surely not yet months.

  Most simply, You wanted me on a routine. Feedings and evacuations at the same interval every day. You wanted me on Your time; You wanted to control my world down to the basic, biological function. You also wanted to dehumanize me. Caging me like an animal, denying me light or speech, forcing me to piss and shit in front of You, disciplining me like a dog.

  He wants to break me down, but why? To what purpose? If he doesn’t sloppily get off on it, what is the point of owning another human?

  I just could not stretch my mind around it. You remained largely a placid enigma to me. I told myself the deeper motivations were irrelevant. What mattered was the immediate, doing as I was “told,” and making You happy enough to spare both the beatings and my life. If I played along, perhaps I could unearth Your more complex plans; perhaps I could progress into understanding.

  I didn’t have to understand to obey. All I had to do what read the commands and follow. Submit.

  I tried to breathe the tension out of my muscles as I pushed the resolve through my body. It felt foul permeating down from my mind and into my body. It felt foreign and unwelcome on my skin. My throat coiled into a ball, and sour saliva pooled in the back of my mouth. This was what I was doing, no matter how nauseated it made me. This was all I could do. At least I had a realistic plan now, not like my foolish musings at escape. This was the control I could have; this was the decision I could make.