Wings of a Hummingbird

Chapter Six

Lloyd and I commenced a staring contest in his absence. Lloyd won, which prompted me to tell him, "Our captors transforming. Eventually all things come to an end, even this nightmare." But Lloyd remained stubbornly silent; he didn't want to listen to my truths. Shackled to the wall, I stared at the picture of him and his mother, and wondered what causes a woman to leave her child, if she did? And if so, why? What makes a man act this way? It cannot be one thing, but a drizzling of maladies.

I must have dozed off, being awakened by the sound of something being dragged. I assumed it was a body on the other side of the door, due to a happier, content tune being whistled. He gloated to Lloyd of how he broke her jaw with one punch. A punch that knocked her out. I braced myself for what would come next. She got strung up on the wall next to me like a rock 'n' roll tapestry in a teenagers room. I briefly wondered if I looked the same to them when I came out of my unconscious state. Her name was Abby Muniz, a chunky girl with dirty blonde hair, slightly greasy, with damaged split ends. Abby begged him not to hurt her, as much as she could beg through a swollen jaw. As she awoke, he sliced her yellow sweat suit off; Bra and panties followed soon after as the knifes cruel blade left her flesh vulnerable. Lloyd snickered, reminding me of an immature adolescent seeing a nude picture for the first time as fabric tumbled to the floor as leaves do from an autumn bough.

He turned to me – his lover, unlocked my chains and beckoned with his finger. He sat me down as if in the front row of the magician show. I acted unfazed and filled with curiosity, but I was terrified and sad for myself, first and foremost, but also for poor Abby. He looked at me, seeming to silently ask how to proceed. Not wanting to antagonize Lloyd and put nails in my own coffin, I remain silent and complicitous as he choreographed each move. I believe he wanted me to be proud, so a plastic smile froze on my face. When he pointed to the black moles on Abby's body, he reminded me of what he wanted to do with my freckles. Moles dotted her skin like a jigsaw puzzle. He and Lloyd discussed what images they could make out: clown, scorpion, kite? He used a scalpel and drew lines between them as Abby screamed. Before, he told her to scream as he did me, to show the futility in it. But Abby was not the survivor I am, and she stubbornly waited until the metal bit viciously into her creamy skin. Her vocal chords bellowed across the room as he waved his hand like a malevolent maestro conducting in front of an orchestra while I watched from the sidelines: his reluctant cheerleader, his caged hummingbird, as I waited for the end. I could tell he wanted to thrill me and show me what he was capable of. He probably believed me willing to accept him despite the flaws-insanity.

Abby's breasts, more ample then my own, plopped to the cold, cement floor as his machete sliced them from her torso. The mutilation revealed severed nerve endings, that led to a crimson waterfall. One rippling with her shrieks of pain as she went into shock.

Like a well trained animal, I knew instinctively what he wanted. It didn't take a whore to notice the rock hard bulge, pulsating with every drop of blood that fell. I crawled over to him on my hands and knees, kneeling in the blood and gore, with Abby's bodiless nipples watching. When I was done pleasuring him, I looked up, winked and smiled, while a stray drop of fluid lingered in the corner of my mouth.

***

I smiled because I saw the police enter behind him. I smiled because he never saw the copper bullet as it exploded in the mushy part of his skull, never seeing the greyish brain matter that splattered on my face. I heard something clatter to the ground when he fell – a knife destined for me after all. I suppose that old saying is true, love hurts!

Abby was airlifted to the hospital. The surgeon couldn't save her mutilated breasts or remove the scars during the many surgeries it took to make her a whole woman again – but she's alive. No, the inner-Cicatrices will never heal either, not really. Abby became my unknown saviour, a savior I'll be forever grateful to. In his haste to do Lloyd's bidding, our captor snatched Abby as campus police responded to a false alarm in the faculty lounge. The officer saw the assault, and had the acumen to recall enough of the license plate, which ultimately led to our liberation. I watched them carry Lloyd out, and I wanted to tell them he was an accomplice, too. But I know how such an accusation sounds – how it sounds even to me as I write this. I have dreams of burning him, so he'll never look at me again.

I refuse to name my captor. I will not give him a voice or the dignity of a name. He became the father of the child growing inside me, a child many would choose to abort. I'm not yet sure what I'll do – what would you do? I keep his diary, re-reading it on the nights I wake up with nightmares-the heartbeat inside me. Each day I don't think of him, I burn a page, a small victory in my week. After all, this is my story, not his...