Ev
When I opened my eyes, I smelled sawdust, urine and copper. I tried to move from the floor and cried out in pain. Tears began to fall from my eyes and I was so thirsty. I heard footsteps above me and my heart begin to race in my chest. I heard the door open and footsteps on the stairs. I closed my eyes and wished it were the police coming to rescue me. It wasn’t.
He ran at me and I tried to make myself smaller. “Oh Ev. I am so sorry.” He looked me up and down and reached for me. I flinched. “You poor thing, I am going to go back upstairs and get something to help you. I didn’t realize I go so carried away. You must be in agony!”
I looked at him and tried to remain calm. “I am,” I said and flinched when I tried to move. “I am in a great deal of pain. Could you help me? I need to be cleaned up.” It made me sick to ask him for help, especially since he was the one who hurt me in the first place. I had no choice. It was survival. If he didn’t kill me, catching an infection from the piss in my wounds in the dungeon would. “I peed myself. I’m afraid of getting an infection.”
He stared at me for several seconds to see if I was being sincere. “I will be right back,” he told me and rushed upstairs. I heard drawers opening and closing. I wondered what he was looking for. I was hoping like hell he had some high-powered painkillers up there. I wanted to drift off into oblivion and wake up when someone came for me. “Get a fucking grip. No one is coming. Be the tough chick and try to think your way out of this. Think.” I couldn’t think. I was so miserable and scared, but I knew I had to get better so I could get the fuck out of here, somehow.
Whether I was lost in delirium or thought, the next think I knew, he was back and he was cleaning around me and sitting the bed back up. He helped me get to the bed and gently helped me lay on my stomach. I sighed and caught my breath in pain with every move. As I was lying on my stomach, he began to clean my back side off with warm water. The agony was immense and I cried out.
“Sweet, sweet Ev,” he said in a soothing voice. “I am so sorry. I got carried away last night. I meant to punish you, but not so badly you couldn’t move or that you would soil yourself.” He sighed. “I am so sorry. Please don’t disrespect me again. Some days I can’t control my anger.”
I flinched as he moved on to different wounds and cleaned them. “I don’t know my own strength,” he continued. “I sometimes feel like I am outside of myself. Like someone else did this to you last night.”
It was official. This pecker was a full-fledged fucking nut cake with extra nuts. What was I going to do if he “left” his body and beat me to damn death? I decided if I couldn’t beat him, I might as well join him. “I know you didn’t mean to,” I said and I wanted to vomit as the words left my mouth. My brain kept whispering “self-preservation’. Do what you have to do and get through this.
He sighed in relief and kissed the back of my neck. My skin crawled. I wanted to scream but contained myself. “I am so glad you believe me. I just want to have you. You are like a butterfly to me. I want to look at you always and bask in your uniqueness. It felt so good to be inside you.”
Puke threatened to spew but I swallowed it down. “Why did you choose me? I’m plain. I not attractive. I’ve never considered myself sexy in any way. In the past men who dated me just considered me funny or cute.”
He laughed. “Ev, you have no idea how pretty you really are, do you? I didn’t choose you for your beauty. I chose you because there is something in you that needs to be broken. There is something in you that this world can’t understand or contain and therefore it needs to be broken.”
I stared at him dumbfounded. Where were the men in the white coats when you needed them? “If you break me, I won’t be the person you wanted in the first place.”
He smiled. “Maybe you will better.” He kissed my forehead. “Maybe you will be a better you.”
I was perfectly still, wishing the pain away. Wishing him away. He was washing my nether regions and I was in too much pain to get a royal fuck. He was gentle and didn’t hurt me. I couldn’t understand how this man was the same man from last night who beat me until I lost control of my bladder. My brain was screaming for release. I wanted to drift into the darkness and feel nothing. I wanted to be numb.
When he had finished, he covered me with a sheet. “I am going to warm you some soup and I have some pain medicine from when I had my te3eth pulled I am going to give you. My housekeeper comes today and I want you quite. I don’t think she could hear you if you cried out. I put mattresses up to sound proof the wall.” As much as I wanted to be rescued, I wanted relief from the pain of my injuries more. I didn’t have the strength to cry out.
“Okay,” I told him weakly. “I am glad you have those pills.”
I heard him go upstairs. I barely heard the sound the sound of the cabinets opening and closing and the volume of the TV. I heard ice tinkling in a glass and was reminded of how thirsty I was. I hadn’t had anything to drink. I didn’t want to become dehydrated on top of everything else.
He came down the steps and sat on the floor in front of me. “Can you sit up?” I tried but winced and began to cry. “Lay on your side, that way you can eat and drink. You have to eat something with these pills or they will make you sick.” I clumsily got on my side. He fed me warm soup and let me drink the ice water. The soup was okay but the water was exquisite to my parched throat.
After I had eaten the soup, he gave me the pills and I drank them down with water. He loosened the chains enough from the wall for me to get to the porta potty to relieve myself. Before he left me, I asked for more water. He brought me a glass and pitcher full, if I wanted more. I thanked him, within twenty minutes, my eyes begin to droop, and I sank into the nothingness I so craved.