Til Death Do Us Part

Chapter 10

"Put your hands up," Ted ordered me, "and back up. Slowly."

I obeyed. Why the hell hadn't I taken the gun from him while he'd been unconscious and I'd been getting his keys? I thought to myself. Panic. I hadn't been thinking clearly.

"Shut the door."

I did.

"Now turn around. Slowly."

I turned slowly to face him. Instantly, he savagely whipped the pistol across my face. An explosion of pain in my cheekbone. I fell to the floor. I could feel fresh blood trickling down my cheek. The barrel had cut my face.

Ted towered over me, aiming the revolver in my face, his eyes burning with hatred and vengeance. Small fragments of glass were imbedded in his face from the shattered coffee pot. "That was for hitting me with the coffee pot," he grunted.

He kicked me as hard as he could in the muscle of my thigh. The pain was enormous. I screamed.

"And that was for breaking a chair over my head, bitch."

I writhed on the floor.

"Get up."

I moaned.

"Get the fuck up. Now."

"I don't think I can," I gasped.

He shoved the gun between my eyes. "You better be able to walk, or I'll cancel your fucking show right here! You have three seconds. One..."

In agony, I forced myself to my feet before he got to Two. He went behind me, placing the barrel of the gun back behind my head. I heard him relock the front door and put the keys in his pocket.

"Start walking."

"Where?"

"Upstairs. Move slowly. Don't even fucking think of trying something."

At gunpoint, he forced me upstairs and down the hallway. "Stop."

We were standing at that other padlocked door...the one I had never been in before. I realized it must be his room.

I heard the jingle of keys He dangled them in front of me, holding one in particular. "Take this and unlock it."

I did.

"Now open it."

I hesitated. I was terrified. I had never seen Ted's room...but based on what I knew about him, I didn't think I wanted to. I knew what he was planning to do to me must be something pretty horrible.

He pushed the barrel of the gun against the back of my head, hard. "One...Two..."

I took a deep breath, and opened the door. It was dark inside.

"Go in."

I entered. I walked six steps into the blackness, then Ted told me to stop. Behind me, I heard him flip the light switch. The light came on. I looked around, horrified and repulsed.

"Welcome to the happiest place on Earth!" he sneered behind me.

If Francis' room was a reflection of his shattered, stunted, childlike personality, then Ted's room was a reflection of his twisted, dark, vile personality. The walls were covered with pornography of the violent S&M/bondage variety, crime scene photos of mutilated bodies, medical textbook pictures of deformed fetuses, black-and-white photos of Nazi atrocities from the Holocaust, and still images from horror movies depicting women being violently murdered. And all of the women had my face. Pictures of my face from the show Til Death Do Us Part which had been cut out and pasted over theirs.