Break Her (3 page)

“I have to say,” he added. “I am quite impressed with you.”

“You said that before.”

“No one is going to come help you. You’re completely at my mercy, as the villains say.”

“You
are
the villain.”

“Don’t interrupt. I’m admiring your nerve.”

“You’re the one with the nerve.”

“You can probably imagine by now that I’m going to fuck you in a variety of degrading ways, but you’re holding your own.”

“Is this all you do?”

“I have hobbies.”

“Professional rape?”

“Oh, no. In fact, it’s rarely specifically called for. My services include rape, beating, torture, and killing. Rape is the one I get asked to do the least. It’s for special. And again, I can’t help pointing out. Usually, all it takes is once. Women really take it hard. My low-key, conversational style also tends to confuse them. They’re wrecks afterward.”

“You don’t know how I’ll be if I get through this.”

He unhooked her from the bed, but kept the cuffs on her, pulling her to him by them and holding her.

“Well, it’s obviously going to take more than once. Or twice.”

“And usually you just kill or beat.”

“Or torture. Yes. But I have to say, I love rape. I really love it.”

Dawn was beginning to peep through the sheer curtains. They were a pale, pale green. It’s funny, she thought, how she was noticing that as if for the first time. So pretty. She remembered picking them out.

“They say rape is about power not sex,” he said.

“Yes, they do, don’t they?”

“But it’s about sex
and
power. The best of both worlds. I can do whatever I want to you. And what I want to do feels better than almost anything else. I mean, I don’t mind beating the shit out of someone. Yes. Like you’d like to do right now. Or killing them. With my bare hands –.” He made a fist in front of her face, flexed the fingers open and closed in front of her eyes. “Or with a weapon,” he continued smoothly. “That’s fine. But nothing is like the, the,
intimacy
of rape. And it’s even better when it’s an extremely attractive woman, which is rare. I can even make it good for you, which will likely drive you even crazier. It’s always win-win.”

“For you.”

“Right.”

“So that’s just ‘win.’”

“Oh. Right.”

“Were you abused as a child?”

“Yes,” he said, pleasantly. And that’s all he said. It was chilling.

She sighed. “Well, you’re very good natured, it seems. Very comfortable in your own skin.”

“I can be. I have, as I’ve said, my own particular style.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“I imagine you do.”

“Is the idea to make me pee in my bed? You’ll get wet, too.”

“You have a point.” He jumped out of the bed and pulled her up and out as well. Removing her cuffs, he pushed her, naked, toward the door. Rubbing her wrists, she made her way down the hall a few steps to the bathroom.

“Are you going to watch?” she asked, hesitating.

“Um-hm.” He leaned against the door jamb. She rolled her eyes, and he raised his eyebrows. “Relax. I’m not squeamish,” he offered.

She sat down and peed. It went on for a while.

“It’s always one of those record-setting ones when you don’t want it to be,” she said, forcing a false lightness into her tone. She wiped herself, stood up and was about to flush, when he casually moved her further inside the room. “Let’s conserve,” he said.

He stood in front of the toilet and urinated. She watched him.

He looked at her.

“I almost never see that anymore. It still fascinates me. As a female.”

He smiled and flushed the toilet. His hand was on his penis, which was rapidly hardening.

“Get down on your knees and bend over the tub,” he ordered. The tub was built-in, fairly low to the floor. It was a light shade of blue. The whole bathroom was blue, the walls a darker shade with a border at the top of red, white, and blue sailboats bobbing on the ocean. The sink and toilet were the same color as the tub. Three small, squeezable duckies faced her from a shelf built into the tiled wall.
 

“Oh, come on.”

“Here’s how it works. I’ll let you talk pretty much all you want, mostly because I’m curious to know what you’re going to say next, but never question my orders. And never hesitate.”

“But you’ll wear me out.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Well,” she said, as she knelt slowly down. “At the very least, I’m gonna have a hell of a case of cystitis after this.”

He shook his head a little, in wonder, pushed her head down until she was staring into the blank eyes of those ducks, and entered her from behind, also on his knees and holding her hips for leverage. She sighed again and grunted repeatedly throughout the process. He didn’t come this time. He just stopped after a while. Keeping a hand on her back, he swatted her on the ass several times, hard. Her shouts echoed in the tiled room, and when he stopped, she remained slumped over the tub.

He pulled her up by the hair, led her back to the bedroom and threw her onto the bed. He leaned against the wall by the door, looking at her.

“So. Every room in the house?” she asked, still a little breathless, but clearly determined, he thought, to be cool.

“At least,” he said, smiling. For a moment, her face looked drawn and tired. Then she appeared to pull herself together. She put on a neutral expression. He just kept looking at her.

“You’re ... what is the word...valiant, I think, and surprisingly level-headed,” he said. “You may just be ruining me for all the rest.”

“Gee, I’d hate to do that.”

“You know,” he went on, imperturbably. “I’m a little peckish. What have you got to eat?”

“Well, where are my manners?” She said it without moving.

“Up. Now. Kitchen.” He waited until she rose from the bed. She seemed to be looking for something. He shook his head.

“No clothes. Like that.”

“That’s dangerous in the kitchen,” she said.

“We’ll take special care.”

She frowned and, at his indication, walked by his side to the kitchen.

“In the movie version, they’ll put underwear on us.”

“You are funny.”

“I just want to make you happy, lover.” Her tone was sharp.

“You do. You do.”

She looked at him with hate, as she passed his powerfully built, naked body and led the way to the kitchen. He let his hand caress her behind as she did so. She tried to wiggle it off, so he slapped her twice there quickly and she stopped trying.

He kept a close eye on her as she opened and closed various of the butter-yellow cabinet doors and drawers, gathering the necessary elements and setting them on the white-and-yellow speckled Formica countertops.

“It eats like a human,” she noted a little while later, as he bit into the ham and cheese sandwich she’d made him.

“Isn’t that amazing?” he agreed.

The sun was rising. The windows in her dining room faced east. They could see the sun hit the water of the bay. It would soon begin to heat up the room.

“You sure picked a nice, secluded location,” he said.

“Should I call you anything?”

“I thought you’d decided on motherfucker.”

“Like a name?”

“I don’t care about that.”

“Well, you know, for me to call out in the throes of passion.”

“How about ‘master’?”

“Never mind.” She looked out the window again. There were four small fishing boats in the middle of the bay. They might as well have been on the moon.

“I’m going to have to send you a card afterwards,” he said, interrupting her thoughts, “thanking you for making this my most entertaining rape, probably ever.”

“Why do you keep talking about an afterwards? I know you’re going to kill me.”

He put down his sandwich. “I see I have to explain something. If I were going to kill you, I would tell you. Why would I bother to lie? The point of telling you that I’m not is twofold. One, so you aren’t tempted to do anything really stupid out of desperation, and force me to kill you. And two, because the idea here is that they want you to live through this and through the aftermath. They want you emotionally and permanently scarred, not dead. For whatever reason, that’s what they want.”

“But you’d say that anyway. To keep me from trying something desperate before you’re finished having your fun.”

“So bitter. And so logical. I can’t argue with your reasoning. I guess you’ll have to figure it both ways. But remember, there are fates worse than death. Although just between you and me.” He paused. “I think they made a mistake in this case. But I’ll give it my best shot.”

She just scowled at him. When he frowned back in mockery of her, she turned her frown upside down and gave him a big, fake smile, with lots of teeth. He bit into his second sandwich.

“Hmm. Nothing like a good rape to give you a hearty appetite.”

She couldn’t help it. She actually chuckled, a tart, acidic sound.

“Ah, you see, deep down, you too have a sick sense of humor. We’re not so different after all, you and I. ‘I am but a shadowy reflection of you.’”

“‘Now you’re getting nasty.’”

He smiled. “
Raiders
. You recognized it. One of my favorites. It’s so good to meet someone on my level.”

“‘Try the local sewer,’” she said, continuing to channel Harrison Ford.

“Exactly. Speaking of, anything good on TV? You have cable, right?”

“Make yourself at home.”

“I am.”

She started to rise.

“Leave the dishes. Let’s see what’s on.” The living room opened off of the dining room. He directed her in and looked around to see how he wanted to arrange them. Turning suddenly, she aimed a quick kick at his balls, but he moved too fast in response and knocked her to the ground. Placing his foot, lightly but threateningly, on her abdomen, he shook his head and spoke.

“I understand why you had to try that, if only for your own self-respect. But that’s the point of this. You don’t get to have any self-respect. You’re supposed to feel like you went along with this, and maybe you could have done something but you didn’t. A moment of weakness, I suppose, because I know you’re a logical person.”

She didn’t look like that at the moment. Her face was feral, her lips drawn back over her teeth. Her breathing was fast and heavy. For a moment, it was as if he had a wild animal under his foot. He smiled.

“I know that you’re aware that you can’t do anything without putting yourself and your beloved cats at risk. I should take one of them out right now for that.”

Her demeanor changed immediately, the fierceness gone in a flash. “No, please don’t,” she begged from the floor. “You’re right. You’re right. I won’t have any self-respect, and I’ll hate myself forever, I already do, but please don’t. I forgot for a second. Please. I’m begging you.”