I love it when you slap me. In the sharp mineral taste of blood I taste also life. Vampiric tendencies. Tonight you hit me across the back of the head with the cordless phone. You can justify this with the fact that the plastic doesn't crack the bone; it leaves a burgeoning goose egg and a ringing in my ears. I turn my head and vomit.
Brown eyes flashing with anger, you snarl and force a bucket into my hands. Clean it up. It's hard to do with my hands tied together. I clumsily scrape up the piles of sick and slop them into the pail. You sneer at my handicap; laughing at my efforts.
Reaching up, you snap out the solitary bulb and tramp back up the steps. I hear the lock slide into place behind you.
The basement is dank and smells like rat shit. Indeed, for a while I could hear the scutterings of my rodent friends at night. There was a family, they lived just on the other side of the water heater. I named them, mom and dad and four little ones. I used to sing to them at night when I got lonely.
One day you heard me singing. Came downstairs and saw me rubbing the tip of the mother's nose. Next day you came back, grinning. You set the trap just beyond my reach, baited it with a ripe strawberry- my favorite. Doubly cruel.
That night I waited, not daring to sing and bring my friends out of safety. In the early morning hours came the inevitable SNAP. When you came down to check the next day you showed me the mothers limp body, snout stretched towards the juicy berry. Within a week they were all gone, leaving me with the less enjoyable company of ants that burrow into my clothes and nip at my skin.
That's when I started liking the blood. In my own blood I smell also the blood of my fallen nocturnal comrades, in bleeding we are all the same.
I have lost track of how long I have been down here. A week maybe, a month. It can't have been a year yet because when you brought me down there was snow coming in under the door and now there is sometimes rain but sometimes a warm breeze.
I asked you at first what I did. Pleaded to know why you kept me down here, how long you were going to punish me, if you were going to kill me. Now I stay silent.
It was after a wedding that you brought me down. I was in my pretty new dress, green silk on the top with a fitted black skirt. I said I looked like a modern day Scarlette O'Hara. You smiled and told me I was silly. A year and a half we had been dating, and your sister was getting married.
Funny how I can remember details from that day and not from the rest of my life upstairs. She wore lily's in her hair, and I had wine colored lipstick that opened in my clutch and ruined the lining. It was a light spring day; I watched them dance and slipped my shoes off under the table and smiled into your beautiful brown eyes. After that I excused myself and went to the bathroom. Standing outside, your cousin; the one with the brilliant green eyes.
Maybe I smiled too brightly because when I came out he was still there, and then his arms were pushing me behind the stairs and his lips were covering my mouth, neck, breasts with sloppy kisses. He tasted like jack and coke and I pushed him away, hard. Perhaps I screamed, but then there you were looking down at me with my dress wrinkled lying on the floor with green eyes telling everyone that I had pulled him down on top of me. The wedding planner took green eyes away and gave him water and I cried into your breast pocket while you held me on the steps to the reception hall.
Later you told everyone that you were taking me home early to put me to bed. I let you lead me into the house and wrap me in your arms.
Then, my first time.
The blow took me by surprise and I reeled for a second, cowering. They came harder and faster, your rings digging into my skin. I put my hand to my face and felt blood trickling down from my brow, and everything faded to brown.
I woke up in this basement, with a rat licking my face.
I screamed for hours, days maybe, until I realized that there was no one to hear, no one except you. You would come down more often in those first few days, bringing me water and food and roughing me up. I tried reasoning and begging and trying to make you see that it was all a simple misconception. You spat back words, whore and bitch and unfaithful cunt. Now, I believe you.
Last week, I found a link in my chain that is almost rusted through. I have been working at it ever since, wrapping it around itself and striking it with the little rock I found in the corner. Today it broke.
I am waiting, waiting.
Hours pass and I hear the buzz of the oven pre-heater upstairs. Another frozen pizza tonight, your favorite. Finally steps shuffle to the door and I hear the lock sliding back. You descend and reach up to pull the cord to the light. In the moment of confusion between light and dark, I spring. I move with agility, knocking you to the ground and pinning you between my legs with the chain around your neck. I pull and you kick, bite, scratch. I pull harder. Finally, you gurgle and gasp for air and go quiet. I release, just a little. Your breath is shallow, but it is there. Good.
Smiling I wrap the chain around your neck once more. You cannot win this fight, but neither can I.
Here we will remain. I refuse to smother you entirely, but then you refused to put my out of my misery these long days. At least when we do expire, it will be in a loving embrace.
There is one rat left, a little baby boy. He can't feed himself without his mother and sisters. I will give him the feast of a lifetime.
34th and Lexington
15 years ago
