Just in case any of you happen to enjoy my nonfiction….namely, this blog, I thought you might also enjoy my fiction.
TRIGGER WARNING: Contains violent and disturbing imagery towards women. Seriously, my best friend AND the Husband cannot read this story without getting deeply disturbed. However, the Amazon publishing thingy isn’t selling, so maybe NO ONE can handle this story. It’s written partially as a response to Jonathan Fowles’ The Collector, and partially because I thought it would be interesting to write a scary story. Let me know what you think, loyal reader!
I visit four houses in my dreams.
One like my parent’s house.
One with hidden rooms and broken stairs.
One on an island, in a lake, by a city.
One by the sea.
The house with hidden rooms is crumbling at the corners. The paint peels off the walls and every surface is yellowed with age. I love this house, the amalgam of every beauty Victorian, twined and detailed, each trinket a priceless curio, all the books first edition classics, all velvet draperies, oil paintings, wood-cut illustrations of fairy tales. All it needs, this place, is dusting. Sweeping, cleaning, sanded edges and sealed pipes and fresh paint. A pot of sage in the window for the spirits; a structure this old can’t be free of blood. Fresh paint.
Paint.
Wet paint.
It was the smell woke me; pain came rumbling after.
Reaching for my glasses on the windowsill and scraped brick, winced and twisted. Foot pushed against the mattress and the joint grated like a rock tumbler. Managed to turn and vomit over the side before nausea caught and dragged me back to blackout.
One thought registered just a flicker: no windowsill. Not my bed.
Later I came to, smelling drywall and musty concrete, glazed in cheap incense. The tang of iron and bile in my mouth when I swallowed, thirsty.
To my right, someone stirred. My eyes scraped open, stinging with salt, I winced from even the dull yellow light. The someone rose and the yellow moved; a candle. A man, by the scent of sweat mixed with nag champa.
-Take these
His hand a lone clear shape in haze.
Smooth yellow pills milky rich in hue. Sweet metallic taste of whatever coating used to make each swallow simple. Water after, one sip to wash away the silt, one to swallow. One more before his fingers seem too close too intimate head jerks back and senses swim, dip, swoon. He caught me before I hit brick.
I am not home, not in my building, not any place I can reference. It feels like summers spent in the basement, no fresh air, playing board games, wet stone smell, diet coke beading dew on frosted glasses. This is not helpful. I am not a child safe at home. Mom is not upstairs.
Upstairs. He walks twelve steps, opens another door, and brings tea still steaming, so maybe a kitchen. Maybe a door to outside. The whole house must be his, to make this room, new furniture, new door, all bolted to the walls. The sheets are clean, but not so new. The mattress has been scrubbed and washed and dried. I’ve looked it over. I’ve had the time.
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My ankle, stupid thing, fucking traitor, isn’t any better. I should have a cast; I should construct a makeshift splint and wait for the twelve steps, key scraping, door then handle then that pause. That pause to see if I’m sleeping, as if he’s going to ask permission before he enters, fucker, like I have a choice. Liar. I should make this splint with stunning ingenuity and catch him off balance, knock him out on the stairwell wall, climb the steps and lock him in, call the cops and sip hot coffee sitting in the door of the ambulance.
This is even less helpful.
I can’t make it to the sink.
Here comes panic. Here she is, the screaming harpy in my ear with her paintbrush painting in heavy reds a closed casket if they find me. Or a short hole in a garden with my pieces in a pile curled like boiled shrimp.
Not. Helpful.
Panic reminds me that we’ve talked this over, after that first night. Or the fifth night, maybe. The first night without the yellow pills. Unless they’re in my food. God, that night.
He came in and sat beside the bed, hands folded, Mr. manners,
-How are you feeling?
My ankle hurts. I should go to a hospital.
-It seems better
It’s twisted, broken; I think it needs to be set.
-You can move it?
I need to see a doctor.
-I can set it. You’re better off staying in bed.
-Just rest, stay off your feet.
I need to go to a hospital.
I need-
-Would you like dinner? You should eat.
-I made you soup, I can bring it down.
-You should rest.
Please.
-You’ll feel better soon.
Please.
I can’t stay here. I can’t-
-You should rest.
-I’ll take care of you.
And touched my shoulder once as if I was drying paint. I’m twisted wire. Pure tension. He stands slow, walks to the stairs. Panic winks and shuts the door behind him. Now we can be alone, she and I, while he warms my dinner.
-There. There you go.
He whispers. He whispers like a nervous john, so terrified to let any mood stain his voice. It could be anger, longing, awe. It takes all his might and courage to speak at all, that’s pretty clear, weakling, coward, zealot. I tolerate his arm while he puts another pillow behind me. The soup is on a metal tray that he won’t leave without. He takes the spoons, the water glasses, the faded cloth napkins after I eat, hurries away, hurries back with tea.
I eat the soup, drink the tea, nod. How can I?
We used to live outside the city, in a house with a garage. The first cold snap would send all sorts of animals to hide in the terra cotta pots and boxes of extra Christmas lights. Mice, sometimes a garden snake half frozen from the cold. I once found a small grey rabbit huddled in a corner, half-conscious. Just a baby, really, or the lost runt of a late litter, all alone. The poor thing was too weak to scurry away, so I scooped it up and to my room, where it died overnight, warm and safe, still huddled by the untouched food and water.
When I held that little rabbit I felt it shiver. I thought it was cold outweighing the fear.
He touches my ankle, changes the bandages, and I shiver too and I know. It isn’t fear.
It’s loathing.
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So I choose to think of something else.
It’s been a few days. No, no, this isn’t helpful. I can’t remember and I know that and it scares me and that’s fine. I will say it’s been three days, and move on. Don’t dwell.
It’s been three days and I can move my toes and feel my foot so nothing’s beyond repair. The bruise is hard to see in candlelight, but darker than before. Which is good, ok? Good because I am healing and resting more than I ever would, say, by choice. And see how I made a joke?
And Tom. Tom is smart and he knows me well enough to know I’m not avoiding him. He knows I can’t go so long without a text or call, no matter how angry I was. He probably knew right away, maybe, and felt something wrong and called me. Demanded I call. Kept calling and knew, somehow, and told everyone and now they’re all looking for me. In fact, Tom probably went to the park and right along the lake, because he knew that’s where I’d be running, and found my keys and prints that matched and someone saw a funny car in the parking lot too early, now that you mention it, and the prints match a license plate for just such a van, with a current address to boot. They wanted to wait to check out the guy, but Tom stormed in and found out what they knew from a sympathetic cop who took him out to the house and Tom will be down any minute, after he breaks down the door and knocks the fucker upstairs unconscious. Now do I say ‘took you long enough’, or, ‘good timing’ or just pull him in by the collar of his slightly sweaty shirt and kiss him?
And just about now it becomes abundantly clear that,
yeah, he put pills in the tea.
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I used to have blinding, throbbing migraines, starting in 7th grade. When my period started in junior year I went home sick, so grateful to my parents for letting me drive the automatic. I couldn’t have shifted gears, holding my stomach and praying I’d get home before I lost vision in my left eye, sure sign of a headache to come. I had a seizure when I was 2, when my temperature spiked during a nasty bout of flu. When I was 4, playing in the backyard, I tried to climb the fence and scraped splinters under my thumbnail. My hand ballooned and I squeezed puss out of my thumbnail until it cracked open and fell off.
I won’t say I’m a complete stranger to discomfort. Waking in this warm bed, in a cool room, painted rose by the sunrise filtered through the storm windows, (barred and soundproof) I’d rather be a toddler, waking to an infected thumb and matching fever.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no idea what he could do to me. A man who locks the door to his basement girl-room eight times each night, click click click click click click click click, is a man whose actions are motivated by something I don’t have.
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I wake alone this time, after a quick dreamless sleep. It seemed I had only spent a few minutes dozing, but the sunlight was nearly gone, a red sliver on the ceiling.
I’m tangled in the sheets, new and crisp, cheap, moisture wicking. Hospital sheets, folded in tight corners from my neck to knees, and tented over my foot and ankle, bandaged and raised with pillows. There’s a blanket draped across my hips, cleverly folded to keep my hands still and warm. My left hand aches, the skin bruised against a catheter needle and IV tubing. My inner elbows are dark and raw, so he drew my blood. Checking my cholesterol, no doubt? I wonder if he thinks he’s impressing me. Fucker.
My left hand. My good hand is fine, the other wrapped in an ace bandage and plastic splint, fingers taped and padded. I’m left handed anyway, so with the IV gone, I could manage the other injuries.
This makes me laugh into the pillow, tears stinging. When the IV was gone? Did he bring me home to nurse me to health? Like a baby bird on the sidewalk, the same color as the berries which drop ungathered, red and brown, wet and staining. Something to pick up on the walk home from school?
This wasn’t serendipity.
He planned to catch me.
So he’s going to clean me up and kill me, waste all that time and all those pills? Is it like playing with dolls? Who cry and fall silent with the push of a button, the insertion of a key. Does he want to…
No, no no, silly head. Think of hunger. Think of violence. It may be a good thing he values control. He may think he respect me. He may hold back because he thinks I’m important. Our relationship is relevant. Yeah, I probably smiled too long for once at him on a bus and I’ve never left his crazy fucker mind.
Smiling. Flirting. Wearing a dress cut high above the knee, and kitten heels. Who knows how I looked to him when he first saw me, maybe laughing, drinking a beer and talking loud. At a party, swapping dirty jokes out back on the porch, smoking.
Here’s the rub. I have a sinking, corroding lump in my stomach, thinking back.
I dressed up for attention.
I drank with the boys.
I walked home alone when it was far too late.
What was I asking for?
Thinking back, as far back as I remember. A little girl who knew to never talk to strangers, never accept a gift, never go home with someone other than mommy. Don’t look down when you’re walking, don’t listen to music, but don’t catch attention. Keep your head up and eyes active, read street signs, but don’t stop you feet, don’t linger. Keep your keys in your pocket, take them out well before you reach the door, you can use them to cut and run away. Don’t give directions, don’t say hello, and don’t stop to answer a question. Wear a bra, wear a sweatshirt, wear long pants, and wear shoes made to run in.
They can grab you by a ponytail. They can wait for the right time. Don’t forget yourself for a minute.
I forgot myself. I forgot I was prey.
I hate myself for regretting this.
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The house by the sea is short and compact, with a basement carved into the rocky belly of a bluff. The doors are unlocked, the rooms empty. The floors are gritty and stained, the furniture scratches and stinks of mold. I don’t spend much time inside if I can help it. I walk around the back, past the garage, along a short grassy path to the beach.
At low tide, it’s a steep walk down the sand, tide pools littered with flotsam along the way. The ocean recedes and the seabed is laid dry. There’s not many shells, but piles of salt-streaked junk, scaffolding and old bicycles, heaps of aluminum windup toys, suitcases stacked and rusted shut.
At high tide, the water climbs quickly, wave by wave, until it banks on the high rim of the dunes. You can be caught unaware by the water rising; walk out too far into the wreckage and you’ll have to run back to high ground or risk being washed out to sea.
When I visit, the tide is always low. The waters turn when I reach the beach, and soon I’m running up the slope, ankles twisting, seaweed clinging, and barely make it before the waves pull me under.
-I could get some books
He speaks so quiet, apologetic, as if I have a bad temper and taste for jim beam. I can’t imagine touching him, and hitting wouldn’t help. I think he wants it, so long as he gets attention. Sniveling little shit.
-You read a lot.
Do I. huh.
-I’ve seen you…read a lot.
You have. No shit.
There’s the flinch I was looking for. He won’t meet my eyes, but looks at the tray he’s always holding, a chastised servant of a foul-mouthed queen.
And I do something very stupid.
Oh Christ, did I say something wrong? I’ll take a book. Sure. Fucking great. What do you have, picture books? Shitty self-help guides? A subscription to Crazy Fucker Monthly?
-I…
I’m not hungry. Not hungry enough to eat this shit. Get out.
-I
GET out, you fucking mess. Go talk to your mummified mother upstairs, go jerk off in a dead cat, go cut up newspaper and scrapbook the secret messages, whatever you sad crazy fucks do, go. GET OUT.
He reaches and he takes the bowl, carefully, gently, careful not to spill. The spoon is wrapped in a cloth napkin, both unused, on the bedside table. He grabs the bundle and the dinner roll on a small plate beside it. He’s out the door in a rush, and I can see his shoulders shake, I know he’s sobbing. The door closes and there’s a silent moment before those eight clicks, as if he had to steady himself for the task.
My jaw is set and hot tears run down my face. Oh god. Oh, fuck.
That was so, so stupid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know it’s morning again by his footsteps, he walks down slowly in the morning, a kid sneaking down early at Christmas. I suppose it’s the highlight of his day, right? Seeing me? It makes me sick to see him.
What’s the difference between romance and obsession? Reciprocation.
I don’t turn or sit up, but he knows I’m awake. Standing by the bed, I can feel his hand over me, hesitating to touch my shoulder.
Fuck off.
He gulps loud, a sound so exaggerated I can barely believe it’s genuine. Sniffing, he endeavors to retreat, gingerly placing buttered toast on the nightstand. He won’t leave the plate. It occurs to me he’s dealt with this before. Hope I can outlast the other girls, scare him into carelessness.
It’s a stupid plan, but I can’t think of anything else right now. Being hungry will at least be something to focus on besides panic, right?
He returns around mid afternoon, late for lunch, but maybe he thinks a few more hours will whet my appetite. The toast is cold and untouched. I ignore the tray he places beside me. He stands for a long moment, and sighs.
My leg is dead weight when he lifts my ankle, removes the bandages, and peers down at the deep cut on the sole of my foot. He prods it gently, using a moist towelette to rub off a streak of dried blood, and wraps it up again, rubbing the gauze to smooth any wrinkles.
They’ll let anyone into nursing school these days.
When he leaves, he takes the old toast and leaves some new, freshly buttered. He figures there’s only so much damage I could do wielding bread as a weapon.
Is it too much to ask for the fucker to contract a sudden, fatal gluten allergy?
It takes a long time to reach the sink. He must have installed it himself, the pipes are sloppily sealed, each seam bulging with yellow glue. The girls before me must have tried to unscrew them. It’s a plastic tub, cheap white, no stopper in the drain. Maybe they tried to flood the basement too.
I consider carrying water to the bed, pouring it underneath, growing mold. I could eat it, breathe it in, get sicker than he can handle alone.
The water pressure is low, and only sputters a weak trickle. I’m on one foot, hunched over to drink, sucking the faucet and tasting metal. Water hits my stomach and I hold back a gag, swallowing hard.
I make it to the toilet, barely. There’s a stitch in my side, a stone in my stomach, my head is reeling. The lid is bolted open, which seems pointless. Why not take it off? Is there a rough edge, a cutting surface, if the lid is removed? I’m not at that point yet. Never.
Never ever, Tom. I wouldn’t do that to you.
Crawling back to bed, my leg cramps, and I want to lie down. To melt into the rug and concrete underneath, into the earth, riding the groundwater. In nightmares, I often slip into the corner of a dark room, fading into the wall. Playing dead, invisible, intangible. Better to not exist than be taken. Better to dissolve.
Decades later, I reach the bed. Sweating, gasping, and asleep before my head hits the pillow.
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Tom worried about me all the time. He had me text him when I got home at night, especially when I was out after work. He gave me pepper spray for my car and purse, and money to keep in my wallet, for a cab. I took it and teased him, but he didn’t smile. He didn’t like that I lived alone in the city.
When I went running, I didn’t tell him. It felt like sneaking out in high school, breaking curfew.
The lake felt safe in the morning. Chilly and clear even in the summer. I waved at the habitual bike commuters and runners and dog-walkers. Clear air, a fresh breeze, cut grass. The city landscapers mowed in the mornings, before the sprinklers wet the grass down. So dirty white vans parked by the path were nothing uncommon. So I didn’t notice the one without a company logo stenciled on the side, or in any case didn’t avoid it. The man beside it, wearing work gloves, didn’t raise an alarm, although he was clearly watching me.
Tom knew this and I knew this -although to me it was an annoyance and to him it was a constant fear- since I’m a girl, in public, someone’s always watching me.
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I dream my left hand is growing, swelling until it’s pink and raw, a shapeless weight roughly the size and hue of a raw ham. It’s too heavy to carry, I’m bent over like a crone, the skin peeling and bleeding when I drag my arm at my side. With the certainty of a dream, I know it’s infected and ruined beyond repair. I should find a cleaver and hack it off, or it’ll get worse. I could lose the arm.
Fuck. Wake up. Now.
It’s dark now, early morning, but I can see the red rivulets made by fingernails, I was scratching at my hand in my sleep. I knew, somehow. I rip out the IV. The catheter needle catches on my blanket and tears open the skin. I wrap my fist in the sheet and tuck it under me, pressing down. Please, please please stop bleeding. Please clot. Please.
When my breathing slows down, I kick out with my good hand and hear the IV hit the floor. Ha. Fucker. We’re not playing fair, huh? Fine.
The sheet rips easy, and I bind it tight around my palm. First, however, I lick up blood until I start to wretch, roll over, and vomit beside the bed. That should even things out. Ha. The real joy comes when he drops his tray the next morning, rushes over, and I have enough bile in my blood-caked mouth to spit at him.
He doesn’t come down for lunch. I bruise my knees getting to the sink and toilet again, since he rolled up the soiled rug and took it with him. He took the bread, and left nothing.
When the door opens, he’s not alone.
-Be careful with her.
-I’m always careful.
-I know. Still.
The door shuts. Click click click click click click click click. Now I’m not alone.
-Word has it you’re being a very bad little girl.
He turns on the fluorescent light overhead; it stings, my head reels.
-Such a pretty little girl, too. How lucky am I? Guess what, little girl? I brought a present for you.
Harmonizing with the humming lights, a sound I can’t place. Until he leans over and shows it to me, chuckling. A drill.
I need to be somewhere else right now.
Tom. On a summer night, late summer, late at night. We’re sitting on the front steps of my house, because I can’t ask him inside. Inside mom and dad are screaming in their bedroom, as if their door provides privacy. Not at that volume. Not when they’ve had this fight so many times before I can tell the dialogue just by the volume and pitch of voices.
When they get to the topic of me, they’ll drop down to hissing whispers, still easy to hear.
Tom drives over when I call him. He walks to the porch without a word and sits beside me. After a time, he rubs my back, and I rest my head on his shoulder. He kisses me on the forehead. We sit in silence. It occurs to me that, all things considered, I wouldn’t trade places with anyone.
Holy crapping goodness, having two jobs is rough work. The Husband starts his second job tomorrow, so he’s in bed sleeping right now….he works 2am-10am at one gig, then goes to the dentist for some work, then goes to his second job noon to 6pm. Sleep, rinse, repeat. I’ll be lucky to see him for an hour or two around 7pm. Mostly to feed him and tell him to get his fine ass to bed. did i mention he brought me flowers last week? I love that sexy, hardworking man.
Memoirs of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl 