Mazie Baby (12 page)

He cried out and clenched his
teeth. Deep crevasses were carved into his face. He looked old and weathered, drained
of every last shred of the handsome man he once was.

She yanked down the collar of her
shirt and jutted her chin in the air. “How about this, Cullen? When you choke
me? Again and again and again. How long before you get it right, huh? Before
you suck every last ounce of life out of me?”

A half-smile crept onto his face.

She stepped toward the bed. “That
fucking hurts.” She plunged the scissors into his other leg.

He screamed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. You
stupid fucking bitch.”

She put one hand over his mouth.
“Shut up. You trying to wake the whole fucking neighbourhood?”

He tried to bite her but she
snapped her hand away. She sidled up to the window, moved the drape aside with
one finger and peered out. Every house across the street remained in darkness.
Typical. They sure never heard anything when she screamed.

His damn blood stained the drape.
She held her hands out and inspected them. More blood tarnished her fingers and
pooled under her nails. She wiped it on her pants.

He glared at her. “I should have
kept choking you, killed you when I had the chance. You’re a useless, stupid,
waste of skin. Can’t do anything right. Raising our daughter to talk back to
me.” He thrashed against the restraints then cried out. “God fucking damn it!”

“You sorry piece of shit.” Her
voice dripped venom. “You don’t have the goddamn balls to kill me. You never
could finish what you started. Gave up on your music, gave up on me. You’ll
give up on Ariel, too. If you don’t ruin her first. Rape her, beat her, use
her. That’s the plan, right? Move on to a younger version of me? Just to get
your puny rocks off. You don’t give a damn about her. About anyone. You’re a
selfish, arrogant, stinking pile of dog shit!” She had inched closer and now stood
over him. She jabbed one finger into his chest, punctuating each insult. “I’ll
die before I ever let you touch her.”

“That can be arranged.” He yanked
on his restraints. The cow hitch shifted and came loose from the slat that held
his right arm.

Mazie jumped on top of him, pinned
his arm down and grabbed the scarf.

He squirmed beneath her and
laughed. “Can’t even tie a proper, knot you stupid cunt.”

The slick material slipped through
her fingertips.

He grabbed her hair, yanked her
neck back until her face was an inch from his. “You’re my bitch now.”

She stared into his eyes. Something
prodded her leg. Bile rose in her throat.

He had an erection.

She leered at him. “This is what
turns you on, right baby?” She reached back and stroked him over the sheet. “Violence.
Control. Pain.” She swallowed. “My pain.”

He smiled and narrowed his eyes, yanked
her hair harder. “Untie me and I’ll show you. I’ll fuck your fat, ugly brains
out.”

She laughed. “Fuck yourself.” She
grasped the handle of the scissors. “I’m nobody’s bitch anymore.” She pulled
the scissors free from his thigh and jabbed them into his shoulder. The blade crunched
against bone.

He screamed and let go of her hair.

She jumped to her feet, raced to
the other side of the bed, wrapped the loose end of the scarf around her hand
and held it firm in her fist. She dragged his arm straight out to the side.
“How about now, baby? That turn you on?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She eyed the sheet where it covered
his groin. “Oh, poor Cullen. Can’t get it up now? That’s too bad. Because I’m
aroused as hell.”

“I’m going to cut you to ribbons
when I get free.” He turned his head and glared, sweat beaded on his upper lip
and dripped from his forehead. “They won’t even find the pieces.”

“Free?” she shook her head. “I’m the
one who’s free. By the time you get out of this, we’ll be long gone. You’ll
never hurt me or Ariel again, you hear me? Ever. Again.” She filled her mouth
with saliva and sent a ball of spit into the air. It landed on his neck, a few
drops of spittle dotting his cheek and chin.

He closed his eyes and pressed his
lips closed, turned and glared at her. “You can’t even spit right.” His voice
had lost its edge. “You’re pitiful.” The malice waned, replaced by a false
bravado. He’d lost his grip on her and he knew it.

A dark spot grew on the sheet. She
raised one eyebrow, threw her head back and laughed. “What are you, three years
old? Poor Cullen. Pissed his bed like a widdle baby.”

“Fuck you.”

Mazie yanked on the scarf. He resisted,
but the damage to his shoulder had weakened him. She used a better knot and tied
it tight to the slat.

She stood back and surveyed the
room. The bed sheets were ripped, the cream canvas splattered with crimson
blood, soaked with yellow urine, and punctuated by black mascara smudges from
her attempts to secure his free arm. It was almost beautiful. Like a Jackson
Pollock painting.

Mazie jerked the scissors free from
his shoulder and tossed them on the dresser. She grabbed the bourbon and put
the bottle to her lips, her eyes on his. She grinned at him and tipped her head
and the bottle back. The booze heated her throat and her belly. She shook her
head and marvelled at the cold shiver that trailed from the base of her neck to
her tail bone. She ripped the sheet off of him and poured the alcohol into the
open wound on his left thigh.

He pressed his head back into the
pillow and screamed.

“You like that?” She set the bottle
on the dresser and peeled her T-shirt off revealing her black bra with the
touch of lace where her breasts met to create the ample cleavage he so loved.
“How about this? This good for you?”

His breath was laboured, his face
twisted, but he stared at her chest.

She mounted him, straddled his hips
and rocked against them. She dry-humped him and ran one finger over her
breasts. Despite his wounds, the pain, the blood, despite pissing himself just
a moment before, his erection soon pressed against the crotch of her jeans. A
crooked smile crossed her face. “Yeah, that’s it. Come on, baby. You wanna fuck
me?”

He didn’t speak, but his lips
parted and he stared into her eyes.

She put one hand to his throat and
pressed.

His eyes flew open and began to
water. He thrashed beneath her and gasped. “Mazie,” his voice creaked through
his constricted windpipe. “Can’t. Breathe.”

“Shut up!” She leaned forward, her
face just a few inches from his, and smiled. “I’m not done fucking you yet.”

She stopped humping and stared at
his face, at the colour in his cheeks and the fear of pending death. His eyes
rolled back and his mouth slackened. His body stiffened beneath her.

She released her hold on his throat
and cocked her head.

An experiment the first time, he’d
told her. Erotic asphyxiation. Was supposed to heighten orgasm. She’d fought
it, said no, pushed him away. It heightened his orgasm all right. But as he
climaxed, she had passed out cold. She awoke to him snoring beside her,
physically spent and emotionally absent. She got online the next day and looked
it up. The person being asphyxiated was supposed to get off. It was normally a
lonely activity, one using a belt or a tie. Or a scarf.

His cherry cheeks began to pale, his
mouth opened wide and he gasped for air, coughed, and swallowed. His eyes
darted back and forth, coming to rest on her face, his eyes wide. The throbbing
of his heart shook his body, bouncing her on top of him with each pounding beat.

So that’s what she looked like
every time he’d done that to her. Red-faced. Wild-eyed. Scared to death.
Relieved to be alive. Now he really understood her.

He couldn’t hold her gaze and
turned his head to the side. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, before
moving his focus to the other side of the room. “Mazie, why are you doing this
to me?”

She crawled off the bed, turned her
back to him and pulled her shirt back over her head. Blood smears stained the
inner thighs of her jeans, soaked through the fabric at her right knee and into
her skin. Damn, why hadn’t she thought to change first? Her favourite Levi’s,
ruined. She spun around.

“Look what you did! You wrecked my
jeans. You can’t even bleed right. Maybe you ought to scrub the stains out,
huh? Think you could handle that, you simple bastard?”

He smirked at her and huffed air
out his nostrils. “I get it.” His voice was hoarse. Probably damage to his
windpipe. She could sympathize. But she wouldn’t.

“Yeah? And just exactly what do you
get?” She stared at the bright red handprint on his neck. At the gaping wounds
in his thighs and arm. His flaccid manhood dangling between his legs.

He swallowed and coughed. “You
think you’re showing me what it feels like.” Tears dripped from his eyes onto
the pillow case.

Another damn stain.

“A little payback, maybe.” He was
barely whispering now.

She crossed her arms. “There is no
amount of shit I could do to you in one night that will ever make you ‘get it.’
Do you understand?” She paced the carpet beside the bed, shook her head, and
grumbled unintelligible words. Her head was woozy from sucking on brandy and
bourbon — more booze than she’d had to drink in years. More than she’d meant to
have that night.

She stopped short and stared at the
floor, at the stains of drying blood on her feet. She spun around, her eyes
darting across the carpet around her. Her bare footprints stared back at her,
the bloody toe marks diminishing as she’d wiped his blood from her feet with
each step. Her heart raced and she took three steps toward the hall.

She had to get it cleaned up before
Cullen got home.

When she got to the threshold of
their bedroom door, awareness struck her like a fist to the side of the head.
She turned back and found him still lying on the bed. Still tied up, one limb
to each corner. Drawn and quartered.

How many times had she cleaned up his
filth? Piss on the toilet seat, on the floor, on the side of the bathroom
cabinet where he splashed because he couldn’t bother to sit or wipe up after
himself. No, that was her job. And his vomit all those times he got drunk and
missed the bowl. That was her job too. What used to be just normal smells of
human life had become the stench of him, a vile, inescapable odour that
followed her every move. His sweaty armpits when he fucked her without
showering, his stinky feet when he walked across the spotless linoleum and
ground his smell into the carpet, coffee and cigarettes and bourbon and beer
that he breathed, hot and moist, onto her neck when he held her hair, pulled
back her head, and growled obscenities into her ear.

He was covered in blood, soiled
with his own urine, stinking of the booze he’d drunk and of the bourbon she’d
poured into his wounds. She cocked her head and smiled.

There would be no cleaning up. Not
for him. Not ever again.

She paced at the foot of the bed,
her arms crossed, her gaze fixed on his eyes.

He turned his head. “Stop staring
at me.”

He looked deflated. Like a balloon
with a tiny hole that had lost a lot of hot air. She’d broken him, made him
cry, hurt him and demeaned him. She should be elated. Satisfied. A tiny bit happy.

But she was none of those things.
There was no joy in seeing him this way. No excitement, no release in causing
him harm. There was only emptiness. The relief of that fact was overwhelming. She
was not a monster. She’d never be what he had become. She took no pleasure in his
pain, despite every hateful blow he’d heaped upon her, despite her own hatred
for him. The stream of tears it brought to her eyes was unrestrained.

“Damn it, you’ve made your point!”
His breathing became laboured, his chest heaved. His eyes lost their
resignation and regained a familiar glint. He was angry.

Nothing had changed. If she let him
loose she would suffer at his hands. He would overpower her, attack her. Break
her. Kill her. That was the inevitable end to life with Cullen.

Death.

He pulled on the restraints and
kicked his feet, his face contorted in pain. The bed creaked and the headboard
hit the wall.

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

Her body rocked with the sound of their
sex.

Creak, thud, gasp, thud, gasp,
creak, thud.

She wiped one palm across her
forehead, then covered her ears with both hands and closed her eyes. “Stop it!”
She barely heard her own voice screaming over the incessant banging of wood
against drywall. The room began to spin. Her eyes shot open.

The whole bed rocked with his
attempts to rip himself free. “Let me loose. Now, so I can fucking kill you! I
hate you, you fucking bitch. You hear me? I hate you!”

Mazie raced down the stairs to the
kitchen. The thudding and creaking followed her with each step. Her eyes scanned
every inch of counter space. She yanked open the knife drawer, touched the
handle of each blade. Her fingers tingled when they made contact with the
smooth surface of the black pakkawood handle of her favourite chef’s knife. She
raised it from the drawer and slid it from its sheath. Moonlight streamed in
the front window and glinted off the sharpened edge. Her reflection in the
steel was warped and twisted, like a funhouse mirror. She focused on the purple
bruise around her eye and scabbed wound on her cheek. On the smear of his blood
across her forehead.