Held (15 page)

“
Oh. That’s what this is about,” he said as if he’d just figured everything out. “You hate that I’m with her and not you.”

“That’s not really true.” In a way, it was. I hated that he was raping a pregnant girl. It wasn’t that I wanted him to myself.

“Not really true? So it is somewhat true?”

“Somewhat.”

Now he chuckled as he shuffled. “Would it make you feel better if I stopped being with her and began being with you?”

I swallowed the bile that rose in the back of my throat at the thought of him touching me. “Yes.”

He smiled and nodded. “Very well then. I suppose that’s the way it will be. Although, Crystal may be disappointed at the lack of a lover.”

“I somehow don’t think she’ll mind,” I snapped.

He laughed. “There’s my girl.”

I hated that he referred to me as his girl, but it beat not being his girl. I’d seen first-hand what happened to girls that weren’t his.

“The book is coming along nicely. You’ve been a bigger help than you could imagine. And Crystal has made a wonderful addition.”

“You put her in there too?”

“Of course. They’re all in it.” He smiled and looked at me over his cards, brows pulled together. “Does that make you jealous?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I thought for a minute, trying to make sure that
no was the right answer. “No, I’m not jealous. I mean, I’m the star of the book, right?” He nodded. “I’m just surprised to hear that they’re in it too.”

“I’ve changed their names, of course, but I had to add them. It makes the story more exciting. Now there
are love triangles.”

“Between who?”

“Nicole, don’t act as if you don’t know. Just as in life, things are more interesting when there’s jealousy. Sex with Crystal is more exciting if you’re jealous. And I’m sure she’ll be jealous when she finds out that I won’t be with her anymore because I’m with you. It’s better.”

“What’s going to happen when the book is finished?”

“I’m going to find a publisher and become a best-selling author.” He smiled.

“I mean with me. What about me?”

“I’m not sure yet, Nicole. You’ve been a good girl for the most part. If you continue to be a good girl, I may let you go. However, that may not be in my best interest. You could run to the authorities. How will I become a best-selling author if I’m in prison?”

“I wouldn’t tell,” I said. Sadly, I actually thought about keeping my silence if he’d only let me go.

“We’ll see.”

And that was it for the conversation about my release.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the end of the conversation about Crystal’s pregnancy.

Strapped to the chair, hands bound behind me, I watched as Ron slapped Crystal’s cheeks to wake her. When her eyes opened, she tensed.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully.

“Please,” she said.

“If you don’t mind, Crystal, I’ll talk. You only speak if I ask you a question. Does that sound okay to you?”

“No,” she said.

“Are you a prostitute?”

“No.”

“Are you a runaway?”

“No.”

“Do you have a husband?”

“No.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s his name?”

“Corey.”

“
Does Corey have a job?”

“No.”

“Do you have a job?”

“No.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“No.”

He hesitated, and then asked again, “Are you pregnant?”

“No.”

I gasped as he hit her in the belly with his fist. It wasn’t as hard as he could’ve hit her, but it was hard enough to cause fetal damage, and possibly a miscarriage.

Crystal cried out.

“I’m going to ask you again, and it would be wise for you to answer me honestly. Do you hear me?”

She nodded.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Yes,” she cried.

“Do you think it’s wise to bring a child into the world when neither of you have a job? Do you plan to have the working people support you and boyfriend while you spit out child after child, none of which you can support? Do you?”

“No,” she answered through tears.

“I don’t either,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

She didn’t answer immediately.

He patted her belly roughly, reminding her of what would happen if she didn’t answer him. “Answer me.”

“Would it have made a difference? Would you have left me on the street if you’d known?”

“I’m asking the questions here, Crystal. You just answer them. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid.”

He smiled and said, “You should be.”

He stood and stared down at her. “Do you and Corey have a good relationship?”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean? Does he hit you?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“What else?”

“He...he cheats on me.”

“Come on now, Crystal.”

“What? He does.”

“But don’t you cheat on him too?”

“No.”

“Crystal, don’t lie to me. Would you like to ask Nicole what happens to girls who lie to me?”

He looked at me and I took that as my cue to speak, so I said, “Tell the truth, Crystal. Please.”

She glanced at me quickly, and then looked back at
Ron. “Once. I only did it once.”

“If I only rape you once, does that mean it doesn’t count? If I only cut off one of your fingers,
does that make it okay since it was just the one time?”

She shook her head.

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“Well what do you call it?”

“I just didn’t tell you something that was none of your business.”

“Well withholding something is the same as lying, isn’t it?”

“If that’s the case, you lied to me too.”

“What?” he asked with a little laugh.

“Yeah. You didn’t tell me what you were going to do to me. You didn’t tell me you were a fucking lunatic.”

“Such language,” he said. He threw his head up and looked at the ceiling. He sighed deeply. “Well, you did lie to me. Twice, technically. But I’ll only charge you with the first one, the big one. Lying about your pregnancy is too big to let slide.” To me, he asked, “What should we do with her?”

I had no idea what I should say. I said nothing, hoping he would move on and treat i
t as if it were a rhetorical question.

But he didn’t.

“Nicole, what sort of punishment do you think fits the crime?”

Thinking stupidly that I could outsmart him, I said “Slap her around a little bit maybe.”

“You can do better than that, Nicole.”

I tried to think of something he could do to her that would cause the least amount of harm to the baby. Clearly, he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything small. It would have to be big.

Unable to believe what I was getting ready to say, I opened my mouth and let the horrible words that were sure to haunt me all of my days fall from my tongue. “Maybe you could pull out her piercings.”

He smiled at me and nodded.
“That’s my girl.”

She looked at
me like she wanted to kill me. I didn’t blame her. At that moment, I very much wanted to die.

“Very good, Nicole. I don’t think that’ll be punishment enough, but it’s a good start.”

He bent down, hooked his finger in the two silver loops that hooked over Crystal’s bottom lip, and yanked. She’d turned at the last second, trying to keep him from ripping them out of her flesh, but instead only making it worse.

Ron
threw the lip rings to the floor behind him and grabbed the ones in her eyebrows. One by one, he ripped them out, taking no care whatsoever.

Tired of fighting with her, he put one knee on each side of her face, holding her head so she couldn’t turn away from him. He pulled her earrings out one at a time. First came the scream, and then came the small ting of the metal on the concrete floor.

I couldn’t see her face because he was blocking my view, but from the sounds, I could tell he was ripping out her tongue ring.

God
forgive me. This was something else I’d always feel guilty about. It was once again my fault that an innocent woman was suffering.

He returned to the squatted position beside her and grabbed her belly button ring between his thumb and index finger. He looked at it closely, pulling it
up slowly, until her skin was stretched. Then, he pulled a little harder, causing it to snap free, leaving blood where the ring had just been. Another ting as he tossed it to the floor.

“That leaves just one more, I believe,” he said as he leaned down and grabbed the piercing that shined on her crotch. As he slowly pulled it the way he had her belly button, I cringed. He said, “I’m going to hate to see this one go.” Then, he yanked it, causing her to scream.

I squeezed my legs closed and suffered through sympathy pains that in no way matched the pain she was going through.

“Did that hurt?”

“You know it did, you son of a bitch,” she yelled through her tears.

“Well it hurt me when you lied to me.”

“That’s not the same and you know it,” she wailed.

Walking over to the cabinet over the utility sink, he said, “I know a great many things, Crystal. But there are still a great many things I don’t know. For example,” he said as he returned with the tool belt. “I don’t know why a beautiful young woman such as you would want to ruin her body with this hideous graffiti.” He squatted and pulled the knife from the tool belt. It was the same knife he’d used to carve my name into Melinda’s belly.

My stomach knotted and my skin crawled. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly - but I dared only do it briefly - and for the billionth time since the day he’d brought me here, screamed in my head to wake up. This had to be a nightmare. But when I opened my eyes, I sadly realized this wasn’t my nightmare. It was Crystal’s.

I watched as Ron straddled Crystal’s chest. I saw her struggling to get away from him, and was saddened to know that she couldn’t. With Ron blocking my view, I couldn’t really see what he was doing, but I knew. And if I hadn’t known, her screams would’ve told me.

I cried silently, sitting in the chair, hands cuffed around the beam behind me. I hated him. I hated being here. I hated having to witness the horrible things he did to these women. I hated knowing that this one was pregnant. This one, he should’ve left alone. But he didn’t. Because he was a freaking psycho.

When the screams suddenly stopped, I held my breath. Had she died? Had he killed her? Was that what he was doing to her, slitting her throat?

But then he laid a piece of meat on the floor beside him. It was bloody, but I could clearly make out what was on it.
A paw print.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “It isn’t fun if she isn’t awake.” He laughed, and then he got up and ran upstairs. When he returned, he went by me so fast I couldn’t see what he was holding. But when he used it, I knew.

The screams coming from Crystal now made all the ones before it sound like whispers. Her high-pitched screaming hurt my ears. But it was nothing compared to the pain she was feeling as Ron stood over her, pouring salt into the hole in her skin where her tattoo had been.

“There we go,” he said, sitting the salt on the floor and kneeling. “It’s much better when you’re awake.”

Her screams were so loud, I could barely hear him speak. And they continued for quite some time. I had no doubt that the salt was painful, but I had apparently underestimated how painful it was.

Ron grew annoyed by her constant screaming. He began to pace beside her, shooting her hateful glances from time to time.

Finally, he said to me, “I can see we’re going to have to finish this later. Let’s go upstairs for now.”

As he led me up the stairs, I couldn’t help but think of the way he’d said we would finish this later. I hated that he thought of me as part of his sick world. I didn’t want to be a part of anything of his. I wanted to be home with my husband and son.
I wanted to be in a world where Ron and others like him didn’t exist.

We had lunch as we normally did. He’d made tuna salad sandwiches. If he ever considered giving up his career as a psychopath, he could easily become a chef. Even the simplest things he made were absolutely delicious
(as long as there wasn’t a rotting finger involved). Or maybe I just thought they were so good because I never knew which meal would be my last. Either way, I ate two sandwiches.