Wednesday, December 05, 2012

The Letter, Part 3, Continued 4


Today, more from Amy in her captivity as her situation gets worse.
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Amy: The Problem with Puzzles

The problem with puzzles is if you don't solve them, they never leave your head.  They linger and remain until you can find an answer. I've always had a mind for puzzles. But here in this dark attic, I am in one I can't seem to puzzle myself out.  Yesterday, when the man came to bring my bread he didn't ask if I was ready to begin my new job.  He cocked a shotgun and threw me down onto the wooden floor and pointed the two barrels at my head.  I could feel the cold steel pressing into my flesh.  Then with the weight of his whole body he threw himself into me and growled,  “You gonna fuck whether you like it or not.  You gonna take your first customer tonight, or I’m going to find the little town you are from and kill everyone you love one by one.  You hear me?  Now, I want you to fuck me like I’m paying for it.”

I have never felt as small as I did in that moment.  I begged and begged.  “Please, I screamed.  Please let me be.  Not this way.  Please!” 

But he didn't hear my words.  I was like an animal he was there to break.  I was nothing more.  I scratched his arms.  I bit him.  I did everything in what little power I had to stop him.  But it was all to no avail.  With one arm, he pressed me the barrel of the shotgun down on to me.  And with the other, he pulled up my skirts.  Pain ripped me as he entered me and I felt a darkness wash over me as his he grunted above me. 

When I woke up, I was alone again.  Lying on the pile of blankets he'd taken me on with my skirts pulled up.  I couldn't move but smoothed my skirts down.  Oh what have they made me? What have I become?

The puzzle has started to unwind in my mind. I am at its center, a dark, dark knot and I am unable to get out.  Will he come again?  When will my first customer visit me?  As the night passes and the dawn comes.  The days are no longer seamed.  Instead, they blur together. I fear the passage of time.  Every creak the house dares me that it might be him, or worse, another stranger that will rape me.  Reminds me that I am not safe.  I am trapped in a monkey’s fist.  I am at its center and the labyrinth I’d need to travel to get out is un-mappable.  I cannot see in the dark. 

I feel like I have walked through a door. On one side was before -- my life in Millerton, the sunlight pitching through trees, the quiet whiny of my horse. And on the other is the dark universe I now inhabit. It feels as if I am wearing new skin that is no longer my own. The sun has sunk low enough to dim the light, to let it into the room from the high windows. So, this is my new life, this is what I've become.

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