Big Swiss(27)

OM:?What?

FEW:?An electronic ankle bracelet. I asked him why he was wearing one, because I was under the impression that he’d been out of prison for years, and he said he was on probation. “I got into it with some Latin people,” he said, “and they called the cops on me. It just means I have a curfew now.” And I remember thinking, Latin people?

Then he tried to kiss me. He took my face in his huge hands and kissed my mouth. I stepped back. He pulled me toward him by my shirt, and I laughed. “Nope,” I said. “Nope!”

“Why not,” he said.

“I’m not attracted to you,” I said.

“Then why are you here?”

I didn’t have an answer. Morbid curiosity? I couldn’t say that. Why are you here? I kept repeating to myself. It was a good question. Meanwhile, he was telling me how amazing he was at oral sex, how he’s known for it all over town, how women tell him he’s the best they’ve ever had—

“Don’t ever say that again,” I said, and laughed. “It’s like telling someone you’re an excellent driver. Or easygoing.”

“But it’s true,” he said, exasperated. “I’m the best!”

He looked dumbfounded when I tried to leave. Then, a flash of anger. He dug his fingers into my arm and grabbed me by the hair. Since there’s literally nothing I hate more than having my hair pulled, I snapped at him. I called him a dumb piece of shit.

Then I said, “I hope you’re not planning to rape me. That would be a very bad idea.”

That’s when everything changed. He punched me square in the face two or three times. I was on the floor now, and he was on top of me. Suddenly he was threatening to kill me, and said he’d rather walk the yard for murder than rape. He’d never, ever walk the yard for rape, he kept saying. He kept punching my face. He seemed certain that killing me was his only option now, even though I hadn’t mentioned the police or pressing charges or anything like that. I’d only said the word “rape.” In his mind, he was already going back to prison—that much was settled—now it was just a matter of how he’d get there.

He choked me, first with his hands and then with the collar of my shirt and finally with the electrical cord of a hair dryer. I was kicking my legs, trying to buck him off me, but I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I stopped and lay perfectly still. I felt myself leave my body. I left the room altogether and traveled back to Geneva. Suddenly I was floating down the Rh?ne, where I’d learned to swim. The Rh?ne is cold, muscular, and has this very rich, very specific mineral smell. I was on the verge of surrendering to it, of letting it carry me out to the lake, and that’s when he stopped choking me. I think he sensed that I was about to lose consciousness, and he seemed to want me awake. So, he went back to beating my face. He hit me with his fists mostly, but he also beat the sides of my head with a boot and whatever else he could find, and I realized that what I was smelling was not the river but my own blood. He reminded me again that he was going to kill me. He wasn’t a rapist, he kept saying, disgusted. I began screaming at the top of my lungs, but no one came to the door—not even the dog. The dog didn’t even bark.

At some point, I stopped screaming and began babbling. I was trying to convince him that it wasn’t too late—he could let me walk out of there and I wouldn’t tell anyone, I promised. When I saw the confused look on his face, I could suddenly hear myself. I was speaking Swiss French. It was as if he’d damaged the language center in my brain. English words weren’t coming to me at all. He must have thought I was possessed. For the first time, he looked frightened, and he seemed to give in. It had been going on for close to an hour by then, and he was tired and out of breath. He said I could leave if I took off my shirt, because it was ripped and covered in blood. So, I did that, I took off my shirt. I remember looking around the room for my purse. When I saw how much blood there was on the bed and floor, I knew I must have been in bad shape. I grabbed my jacket and stepped into the hallway in just my skirt, which was also covered in blood, and that’s when he changed his mind. He pulled me back into the room by my hair and locked the door again.

I’m not sure why he finally let me go. I think he just ran out of steam. I stumbled out of the house and tried to run. I was convinced he was coming after me in his truck, that he was just getting dressed and collecting himself. I didn’t have my phone or wallet, so I couldn’t call anyone or get a cab. Whenever a car approached, I hid behind a tree or some garbage cans. I did this for a while, many blocks. At this point, I knew my jaw was broken because my teeth had shifted. None of my teeth were in the right place.

Then a FedEx van stopped in the middle of the street. Its windows were rolled down, and the driver saw me. Do you need help? I said I needed to go to the hospital and asked him to bring me back to my neighborhood on the other side of the park. Neither of us spoke the whole way there, and he never turned down the radio. To this day, whenever I hear the song “Just the Way You Are,” I feel nauseated. Unfortunately, I hear it about once a week—



OM:?The Billy Joel song?



Greta paused the audio and scrolled up. It was, without question, the longest Om had ever gone without speaking, probably in his entire career.


FEW:?Bruno Mars.

OM:?Oh god, sorry. You must have been in so much pain. Honestly, I can’t even imagine how horrible—