A Bestiary of Unnatural Women (27 page)

“I can do that.”

She smiled openly. “That's the most
reassuring thing that you have ever said to me.”

“But I still don't understand why you would
ever need such rough treatment.”

“That's the part that I can't explain. You'll
just have to take that part on faith.”

“Is it because you treated me badly?” I asked
tentatively.

“No. It's not so simple as that. I needed
raping for the same reason that I treated you badly, not because of
it. Don't question my logic, just do the job when I need it.”

“I will,” I promised.

“Next time, though, I'm not going to give you
any instructions. You'll have to decide what to do on your own. It
doesn't have to be exactly the same as last time. In fact, it
doesn't have to be anything like last time. Use your imagination.
Surprise me in unpleasant ways. Remember, I'm not supposed to like
it. If I don't hate what you are doing, then you aren't doing your
job.”

“If you don't give me any instructions, then
how will I know when you need the full treatment?”

“I'll send you three letters, 'INR', in an
email or a text message or a voice mail. That's all. I. N. R.” she
enunciated the letters clearly and distinctly to ensure that I
heard them correctly.

“INR?” I remembered the letters in the
subject line of her email.

“It stands for 'I need raping'. When I give
you the INR signal, then you have a free hand to abuse me in any
violent, brutal way you wish from the moment you see me until noon
the following day. And, when you get the signal, you have to do
your part whether you're in the mood or not. If you don't want to
do it personally for some reason, use an object of some kind. Just
make sure that you do it in a way that I will not enjoy. Forget
about vibrators and think about beer bottles. Just make sure that
you use lube in my asshole so that I don't suffer any permanent
damage.”

I hadn't thought about her asshole last
night. That was what the condoms were for. She was right. I could
have done a better job. Next time I'll make sure that I fill her
cavities properly.

The Second time, Deb Gets a Surprise...

Rick was gone to work and I was cleaning up
the breakfast dishes when Lester suddenly popped into my mind.

First, I tried to ignore the thought but I
could not. Lester kept looming large in my inner eye.

Then, I tried to think about something else.
That was hopeless, too. All thoughts led back to Lester. When I
thought about cooking supper tonight, I couldn't help but remember
how much Lester liked my chicken with lime and jalapeño pepper. And
I couldn't help but think that maybe he'd be happy with me again if
I cooked it for him again. When I thought about volunteering for
the afternoon shift at the food bank, I was reminded that I
volunteered at the food bank now instead of helping the Republican
Party because Lester dropped into the Republican Local Office
occasionally. Every time I saw him, I couldn't help but talk to
him, hoping that, maybe this time, things would turn out
differently.

Finally, I had to admit to myself that
anything that I thought about was going to lead back to Lester one
way or another. He was only a couple of degrees of separation from
anything that I could imagine.

Anything, that is, except for that one big
elephant in the room.

I forced myself to walk upstairs, sit down at
the computer and compose an email to Rick. The subject heading said
nothing but, “INR”; the body of the message said, “At your
convenience, any time until tomorrow noon. Please be brutal.” My
experience at Rick's hands two months ago had demonstrated beyond a
doubt that my gentle husband could be more brutal than I could have
imagined; brutal enough to terrify me. And what had I done after he
had brutalized me last time? I had urged him to go even further
next time. Now, with Lester haunting my thoughts again, next time
had to be today.

The email was short, but hard to type; my
hands were shaking so badly that it was difficult to strike the
keys accurately. When I was finished, I had to use both hands to
keep the mouse steady enough to click the Send icon. Why did they
make the icon so damn small?

As soon as the message disappeared from the
screen, I began to cry softly to myself. Tears rolled slowly down
my cheeks. Pain was coming. Humiliation was coming. Degradation was
coming. Sooner or later, Rick was coming. And when he came, he was
surely going to rape me bad.

How soon? He might already be reading the
email. Hell, he didn't even have to open the email. The “INR” in
the subject line would tell him all he needed to know; those three
letters meant that “I needed raping” and gave him absolute
permission to violate my body any way he wanted, as hard as he
wanted, and as often as he wanted between now and noon tomorrow.
How long did it take an email to show up in his computer? How long
would it take for him to read it? How long to decide what to do to
me? Maybe he was already walking out of his office, telling his
secretary that he was feeling ill and was going to take the rest of
the day off. It was only ten o'clock. He could be home in half an
hour. That would give him more than a full day, twenty-five and a
half hours to be exact, to brutalize me without rest or respite if
he was of a mind to really put it to me. And why wouldn't he do me
as soon as he could? What man could sit around in his office
writing memos and phoning clients when he could be towering over
his woman, pounding into every orifice in her body with wild
abandon without fear of consequence or recrimination.

Maybe it wasn't too late to stop him. I
turned back to the keyboard and began typing furiously. Subject:
“Please don't.” Message: “I've changed my mind. Please do not come
after me. I'm begging you. Make love to me tonight if you want, but
be kind and gentle like always.”

I clicked the Send icon as quickly as I
could, praying that the counter-message would arrive before Rick
left his office.

I waited and watched the email window, my
heart pounding, whispering my prayer to the gods of the Internet.
“Please, please let him get my message. Please, please let him
understand that I've really changed my mind.”

Nothing happened for the longest time but I
dared not move from my chair, staring at the Inbox icon on the
screen, waiting for a reply to arrive. Every time a car approached,
I strained to hear if it was pulling into our driveway, shaking in
terror until the muted rumble of the engine continued down the
street.

Then the computer dinged; a new email had
arrived. A glance at the screen told me that it was from Rick. My
heart sank when I read his subject line, “No Mercy.” The body of
his message said, “Type until your fingers are raw, beg until your
voice is hoarse. You have no power to stay me from my course. Your
pleas are my marching music and your desperation is my motivation.
My lust has slipped its chains. Nothing can stop me now. No matter
what you say, I am coming for you and I will show you no
mercy.”

I cried out in despair. I had told him that
the “INR” signal was irrevocable; that once sent, he should ignore
any attempt to revoke it. Obviously he believed me. He was playing
by my rules, now.

My terrible rules.

Too weakened by fear to stay in the chair, I
slid to the floor and curled up into a ball of raw terror. Last
time he had bent me over the dining room table, tore my clothes
from me and raped me. I had tried to stop him but had been
powerless against his superior physical strength. It had been a
miserable, demeaning experience. So what had I done about it the
next day? I had told him that simple rape was not enough. I had
told him that he should make the next rape worse. What kind of fool
am I?

My heart was pounding like a bass drum. I was
moaning like an abandoned soul that had been dropped into the
deepest pit of Hell.

An hour passed. What had I told Rick two
months ago? I hadn't just asked him to rape me, I vaguely recalled
telling him that he could bloody my nose, blacken my eyes, beat me
black and blue. Had I really said those things or only thought
them? I couldn't kid myself. I had really said them. Last time he
had visited ample pain onto my body. I remembered the bruises on my
face and chest and back. It had been almost a week before they had
faded enough for me to cover them effectively with makeup. I
remembered the pain in my crotch. It had been tender to my touch
for days. The next few times that I had let Rick make love to me,
he had been his normal, gentle self but it had hurt terribly. I had
had to stifle my cries so that he wouldn't know that his rape had
been so brutal that I had been left torn and bruised. A rape is
never over when the act ends; the echoes linger for a long
time.

And, still, I had urged him to do more to me
next time. This time. What had I been thinking?

When I had sent the INR message, I had
unleashed hell and a demon was coming for me. Already, I was
repenting as sincerely as any sinner ever had, praying to a deaf
god for forgiveness that would never be granted. Rick had no
inkling of why I so richly deserved my terrible punishment, but
that made no difference. He was going to do it regardless simply
because I had asked him to do it. He loved me so much that he would
do as I asked without hesitation. And I was pretty sure that he
enjoyed doing it to me.

I lost track of time. Had it been one hour or
two? Surely it had not been three hours yet. Curled on the hardwood
floor, the pressure points on my shoulder and hip and ankle had
blossomed into flowers of pain. With the advent of the pain, I
began to think about my predicament a little more rationally. If I
was powerless to stop what was coming, I should at least prepare
for it.

How? How does a woman prepare to be beaten
and raped? What is the dress code? Does one strip naked to make
access easy? Or does she wear her dowdiest, most shapeless sweat
suit in hopes of dampening the enthusiasm of her rapist? Or does
she go the other way? Should she wear her sexiest negligee and most
whorish makeup in the hope that that the man will be overcome by
his need, slake his lust as quickly and simply as possible and then
fall asleep, leaving her mostly undamaged and feeling almost
untouched?

Silly thoughts. I looked down at my jeans and
tee-shirt. Clothes didn't matter. Rick had undoubtedly already
decided what he was going to do to me and he was going to it when
he got home no matter what I wore. These clothes were as good as
any other. If he tore my tee-shirt to ribbons, it didn't matter; it
was inexpensive. If the jeans got bloody, they could be soaked in
cold water tomorrow and then washed clean.

Bloody? There had been no blood last time.
But last time he had not bloodied my nose. I had the impression,
based mostly on movies, that noses could bleed a lot. Was that
true? Maybe I'd find out tonight. Or maybe not. I remembered asking
Rick to surprise me in unpleasant ways. He was a smart man with a
rich imagination. If he took my request literally then I don't know
what I should expect. Only that I should expect a truly unpleasant
experience.

If I cannot prepare myself for the unknown
then all I can do is be brave and accept whatever comes, when it
comes, as best I can.

I pulled myself off the floor and stood tall
and brave. What a joke. I wasn't a brave woman. A brave woman
doesn't tremble in terror. I was using every ounce of strength in
my entire body just to keep standing upright and Rick wasn't even
in the house yet. For all I knew, he might stay away all evening.
He might not come for me until the darkest hour of the night. Maybe
he would go to a bar after work and stay ‘til close, getting
stinking drunk, and then stumble home in an alcoholic rage,
completely out of control, and beat me senseless.

Even if that's what I deserve, I'd never have
to courage to endure so much punishment. Of course, after a certain
point, courage no longer matters. What I had set in motion would
play out whether I was brave or cowardly, whether I fought back
like a tiger or curled into a ball and took a beating without a
whimper. A bad time was coming and there wasn't a damn thing that I
could do about it.

But I had to be honest with myself. Rick
wasn't going to beat me half to death. That wasn't his style and it
wasn't his assignment. He wasn’t a sociopath. His assignment was to
rape me. Rape me bad. Sooner or later, he was going to walk through
that door, push me down and force himself upon me in whatever ways
he could imagine, using as much violence as necessary to get his
way. That was the deal. I had been clear and explicit about
that.

My only option was to wait and for him to get
here and then accept whatever he wanted to do to me.

Or was it?

I had a daring thought. I could run. I could
sneak out right now, before he got here. I could get in my car and
start driving. To where? Anywhere. I could drive to a random motel
on the edge of town and hide until my offer to be a rape victim
expired at noon tomorrow. That would work. A few bucks for a room
for the night and I would suffer nothing. No pain. No degradation.
Nothing.

I looked at his email again. He says, “No
mercy.” I say, “Fuck that.” I asked him – no, begged him – to call
it off and how did he respond? He threatened me all the more. Well,
I'll show him what his “no mercy” means. It means that I'm out of
here.

I practically ran down the stairs, paused to
pull a pair of shoes on and grab my purse and raced out the front
door.

INR, my ass, I thought as I slid behind the
wheel of my car. I don't need raping. I need to get out of here,
that's what I need.

I popped the shift of my lovely red Explorer
into reverse and pulled out of my driveway. I charged through our
neighborhood full speed ahead. I didn’t run down any of our
neighbors or their dogs, but I definitely did not waste any time
sightseeing. I only cared about getting out of Dodge before high
noon. On the drive across town, a couple of other drivers glared at
me when I cut a little too close to them and one honked at me, so
maybe I should have been a little more careful.