He throws me to the bed. The sound of my clothes being torn from my body seems distant until I feel the breeze of John’s movements across my bare breasts. With his one free hand, he twists my legs into contorted mannequinlike poses and cruelly rapes me, ranting accusations of my cheating as he slams his power ruthlessly down.
Afterward, I lie frozen, my insides lifeless as I shake, wrapped tightly in his steel-like grip long after he has finished. Racked with pain and desolate grief, I feel the tears pour silently down the side of my face and into a puddle on the stained bedspread. My soul, tortured and frail, howls in ghostly silence to anyone who cares. No! Why? He can’t be this person again! This can’t be happening! Every ounce of my being screams at my emotional crash into reality. Denial takes its time coming, arriving slowly with the sunrise, like a thin, worn blanket, allowing me to disappear into a shivering sleep.
John doesn’t go to work the next day, and I don’t move from the bed. The phone incessantly rings and rings. My guess is it’s Big Rosie calling to find out why I haven’t shown up for work. Neither of us answers, and within the hour there comes a pounding at the door.
“Answer it!” John hisses as he slips into the bathroom.
I wrap the covers around me and hobble to check the peephole. Big Rosie glares back at me. I crack the door open. “Hi. Uh, sorry. I’m sick.”
“Where’s John?”
Shame-filled and guilt-laden, I stare blankly right through her burning gaze. “Oh, uh, in the bathroom.” I know she’s aware of his car parked in the lot.
She scrutinizes my body and steps back. “You okay?”
“Mmmm. Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little sick. I’ll be better tomorrow.” I hide my eyes from the glaring morning light. I want to somehow give her a secret signal to ask her to watch out for me, to check on me tomorrow for my safety. I want John to hear me say it too, so he will think twice about hurting me. I am afraid for my life now… again. I fear that if anything happens to me, he can easily blame it on one of the hit men. He can get away with murdering me, maybe, as I start to think he is getting away with the murders on Wonderland.
“We need more money. We can’t get out of here unless we get more money!” Like a caged animal, he paces the room wildly. Like a broken record, John says what I know he wilclass="underline" “You gotta go to work. We need more money fast. I think somebody recognized me the other day. We need to get out of here.”
“I do work, John!” His next words ring in my ears before he even speaks them, and my lip curls.
“You know what I mean,” he snarls back, leaping on top of me. His weight presses heavily above me, his backhand smacking across my head. “Not this piddley shit… cleaning rooms… babysitting!” He pauses. “The beach! You need to be making fast money on the beach! Do you want them to catch up to us and kill us? They’re looking for you too! What? Do you think they forgot about you? You’re on at least eight hit lists, baby, just like me. And that kind of shit don’t go away… unless you go away! Get it?” His face hovers over mine, red, puffy, and cigarette stale.
“Stop it! No! I can’t, John!” I’m hysterical, trying to squirm free.
“You’ll do it. You know why? ‘Cause if you don’t, they’ll get you! The shit’s coming down, and if we don’t get out now… that’ll be the end of me… and you!” He pushes up off of me and wipes the sweat from his face with his sleeve. “Now get up!” He yanks me to my feet, raising his hand in a threat to backhand me again.
“No. Please.” I cower and cover my head.
John picks out a pair of cutoff shorts and a bathing suit top for me to wear. He combs my hair and wipes my face with a washcloth from the stack in the bathroom. “Here. Put these on.” He hands me a pair of dark sunglasses to hide my red, swollen eyes, takes me by the hand, and escorts me to the beach.
Thinking we are coming down to eat, Italian Joe smiles but looks confused when we walk past him without acknowledging the crowd.
We continue down to the breaking waves of the ocean. The beach is full of afternoon sunbathers. John nods and smiles at several single men, trying to catch his attention. Reaching a large hotel north of us, he lays down a towel and spreads warm suntan oil over my back. Another dark-haired man lays his towel a few feet away, and John addresses him. “Hey there. Sure is a hot one.”
The man blushes. “Yeah. Sure is.”
John leans into my ear. “See there. There’s a guy who looks like he’ll pay. He sees you’re with me, so you’re safe. Take him across the street, where the motel has the X-rated movie sign—you know, near the rock shop—and meet me back here in exactly twenty minutes. Now go!”
John jumps up from the sand and, before he walks away, gives me a shove toward the leering man who has been eyeing me.
A fearful gulp of air sticks in my throat. I touch the garnet necklace at my neck, thinking sadly, This really doesn’t mean a thing, does it? As the man approaches nervously and smiles, I tremble, my eyes welling up behind the dark lenses. I pull my lips back in a grimace, imitating a smile.
He pays no attention to my expression, nodding to something over my shoulder. I turn to look. John is nodding back to the man, wearing a crooked grin.
The bathtub water is as hot as I remember it, and I remember all
John’s baths before now. Numb, and without a fight, I let John scrub me down while he begs for my forgiveness, tears streaking his face. Then he does it all over again.
My world is rubble at my feet; there is no meaning to anything anymore. I know his perverted ritual is set in motion, and it just doesn’t matter. John has reverted to the person he promised he would never be again. I am trapped in his hell, unable even to die. Back in this pitiful place, there is nothing left… of my heart, my hopes, my reason for being. Every shred is gone… and I just want to crawl under something and disappear forever.
Big Rosie’s phone call snaps me out of my stupor the next morning. I roll over to answer the persistent ringing and let her know I’m still feeling ill. I can’t face anyone! They’ll know! I am humiliated, ashamed, and certain that if Rosie—or anyone—looks at me she will know all my ugly secrets.
Rosie sounds understanding. John, she says, stopped by the front desk this morning to say hello on his way to work. “He apologized for the inconvenience yesterday,” she says, a questioning lilt to her voice.
God, he’s covering his tracks with everyone, I think. Thank God he’s not here. I thank her and hang up. Curtains drawn, I crawl under the bedsheets and spend the day hidden in the darkness.
John gets home early in the afternoon, and I panic when I hear the key turn in the lock. Burrowing deeper under the covers, I wish myself invisible, not wanting to see or speak to him. He bangs randomly around the room, opening a can of beans to cook on the hot plate, trying to wake me and get my attention as I will myself to sink deeper into the mattress and oblivion.
“Get up!” he finally shouts, ripping the covers off. He has been watching the clock, his temper steadily building. Thor is spooked and jumps down to hide under the bed.
“What? Stop it, John! I don’t feel good!” I cry. I know it’s a lame attempt to deflect his instructions, but I don’t want this kind of life. I have to try to resist.
“Bullshit! Now get up. There’s still enough light out for the beach. Let’s move!” He is taking complete control, strutting about the room slamming things around, rummaging for my clothes, and talking as if I am a child he’s waking up for school. His old, ugly self flames brilliantly in orange-red rage, and I think I’m going to pass out.