Take Me With You(50)

“You son of a bitch!” I shout, flailing the razor at him. I get maybe a swipe and a half before he grabs my wrist and pries it out of my hand. He throws the razor against the wall, and it bounces a few times before resting by his feet.

“You're trying to kill me!” I shout. “You're trying to kill me!” Everything is slipping away. I feel myself growing weak. “I hate you!”

I use every bit of energy I have left to kick and wrangle myself out of his grip. I'm well fed now, and stronger than when he had me starving and living in my own filth, even with his poison inside of me.

“You promised you would take care of me if I was good!” I scream. “I've been good!”

I've barely even looked at him thus far, overwhelmed with panic and the sensation of dying, but at that point I notice his frustration. His lips puckering as if he's fighting the urge to say something. His eyes wide and glazed in a way I have never seen.

With no weapons, and rendered almost incapacitated in his grip, I butt him right in the nose with my forehead.

“Fuck!” he says, letting go of me to grab his nose.

I manage to pull the bathroom door open and get to the main door, but he pulls me back by the pretty little nightgown he gave me. Both his arms wrap me as I leave the ground and slam down onto the bed. The joints creak and crack under the force, and I am breathless despite the padded surface taking much of the impact.

I start screaming as loud as I can, choking on the force of it.

Night rears his arm back and slaps me. Hard. So hard everything, including me, goes silent.

He grabs my shoulders and shakes me. Like someone trying to get someone's attention. His eyes are fiery but huge, pleading.

I've learned to read him, his eyes and gestures a language of their own. He's trying to get me to just calm down and look at him.

I grab my cheek, flaming hot and pulsing from the slap and begin to wail. He's never hit me before. It's one of the reasons I guess I trusted him or believed him. I know, it's ridiculous considering all he has done, but the cuts, the bruises from the bindings, those were all unintended consequences, or so I thought. But this slap, I've never been hit like that in my entire life. And it works, to an extent, to get me out of the complete spiral I was being sucked into.

He shakes me again, less forcefully, and I open my eyes, still holding my cheek.

He shakes his head. Over and over again. No.

No what? You're not trying to kill me? You didn't just try to poison me? No—don't you scream again or I will hurt you?

But I don't ask. I don't want answers. I don't want to talk, I just want to keep believing he's poisoning me.

He stays on top of me. Both of us still panting from the wrestling and screaming. And he does so until the poison wears off, my vision clears, my breathing slows.

When he's confident that I won't run or go apeshit again, he slowly slides off of me. Night keeps his eyes on me the entire time as he backs away and plops himself on his seat. He turns it to face the corner, like a punished child, bows his head and pulls off his mask. With a great sigh, he runs his hands through his wavy light brown locks and then buries his hands in his face.

This is it. I'll finally see the face of the person I have been living with and fucking for months. The sadist who broke into my home, spied on me, stole my grandma's necklace, raped me over and over. The person who I wait for every day and miss when he doesn't visit. The person I fantasized about, not understanding the full repercussions of wanting a man like him. I'll see the face that houses those eyes, beautiful and evil.

I sit up, waiting, resisting the temptation to peek and perhaps cause him to rebel and mask himself again.

But just as I am convinced he will show me that we are something more than just a prisoner and a sick, twisted psycho, he bows his head down and pulls the mask over his face again.

I snarl as my expectations sink.

If he had just given me that, reached out to me a bit, I could believe that this morning was a mistake. A panic attack, food poisoning. But he has made it clear with that small gesture that all I am is his fuckhole.

He stands up, straightens out the chair, and heads to the bathroom to inspect the damage to the door. That's just a few seconds. On his way out, he grabs the used plates and utensils.

Night kicks the door open with his foot, and before leaving, he turns and give me one final look. I can't read it. I'm conversational in his language, but not fluent. Maybe I could be if he’d let me see more than his lips and eyes. But I can feel it’s a new look. One laced with disappointment, perhaps regret. Though those aren't words in his vernacular, so I must be projecting.

When he leaves, I throw myself back on the bed. Just like him, I run my hands over my face and through my hair trying to understand how a morning that had started out so quiet, had dissolved into a hurricane of chaos. I'm losing my mind, I think. And he won't help me keep it. This fucking newspaper, designed to taunt me, to remind me no one cares, is not enough.

I don't care how many times he shakes his head. I know what happened. And that sickness I felt after I ate his food was real.

So I do what a person in my position, someone who is weak and left with nothing but an empty room, the clothes on her back and her body does in protest. I guess I should be grateful to him, he's trained me to endure a physical agony I never imagined. If he wants me dead so be it, but it won't be quick. If he doesn't, well then he's going to have to listen to my fucking demands. If anyone is going to kill me, it'll be me.