James
By M.R. Jordan

"Get up," James demands.

I raise my head from the pillow. Our eyes meet. I stop breathing. All this air and I'm suffocating. I pull the pillow over my head. He stands there, waiting and growing angry. I know because I can hear him breathe through his nose. I imagine the tiny hairs going in and out above a set of pursed lips. He wants me to say everything will be all right. Or at least that it's me, not him. Then he can go back to his computer games and porn. He thinks I don't know he kept his stash after we were married. Sometimes when he's at work, I watch those movies and masturbate, rolling around on the floor like those bitches in the films.

It's maddening.

It's the only time I feel sane.

"We need to talk," James says.

It's Tuesday. At breakfast. The first time I've been out of bed in … who fucking cares. My life feels like "other," a thing I cannot define. I'm powerless to change it and I'm not sure that I want to. James is not blameless, but is he to blame? Did he make me wrong? Or was I just born this way, with the wrongness lurking in my DNA? I don't know the answers. I don't think they really matter.

I should let him off the hook. I kind of want to  —  in an instant my mood changes  —  now I don't. I hate him, always standing there demanding. He wants to leave, but he'll only go if I say it's not his fault. Maybe I'm punishing him?

"I'll change," I say. "I'll be different, better. I won't pretend."

Now it's dinner time on Sunday. He throws my jeans on top of me and laughs, a dry angry laugh. "Then get out of bed."

"Tomorrow."

Tomorrow is Friday. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at my face. What do I look like? I can't tell you. I have a nose, a chin, a mouth, two ears, and a pair of eyes. I've lost weight, of that much I'm certain. I remember when my sister Lucy was in the hospital after the car crash. She got so thin, and even though she might have died, I was jealous. I inspect my thighs. Now she can envy me.

James is standing there, watching. I turn to him. Our eyes meet and he walks away. Two hundred and three footsteps later he slams the front door. I flinch and stop counting. Now I have nothing to do. I go back to staring at the person in the mirror.

The person in the mirror on Friday was fat compared to the person in the mirror on Tuesday. I hear James downstairs making a smoothie. He slams the refrigerator door and drops the ice into the blender with vigor. I hear the empty ice tray rattle in the sink. He uses ice but never makes any and gripes when we run out. When did I get servant tattooed to my forehead? I leave the bathroom and stand over the bed. I've peed in that bed. The blankets stink. I want to lie back down. I untangle my jeans from the sheets and slip them on without changing my underwear. Downstairs I hear the blender roar to life.

I feel dizzy on the staircase. James appears, smoothie in hand. He is relaxed. Then he sees me there, clutching the banister to keep from falling. Our eyes meet. The look lasts forever. We talk without saying a word. He demands to know. I refuse to say. Suddenly  —  though that word isn't right, because I can see what he's going to do long before it happens  —  he throws the smoothie against the wall. The cup shatters and sticky liquid stains the beige paint and carpet pink. He steps over the mess and stomps down the hall, where he puts on his coat and remembers his umbrella. I guess it's going to rain.

I hear the Chevy start and back down the drive. It motors away, fading to silence. But my mind is on the stain. I approach it, dragging my fingers along the banister. Drool dribbles down my chin. I wipe it away with the back of my wrist. I feel almost relaxed. My feet are bare. Glass bites into my flesh. It hurts and I know I am alive. I lick the wall. It tastes good. I laugh and strip off my clothes. I throw myself onto the floor amid the broken glass. It cuts. I masturbate until my fingers are numb. I never cum.

"My God!" James says. "Have you gone mad?"

"That's a rhetorical question," I say calmly. I smell my fingers. "Ooh."

"Get up," he says.

It's Saturday. I pull the pillow over my head. He stands there. I know because I can hear him breathing through his nose and grinding his teeth.

"I mean it this time," he says and grabs my arm, yanking me off the bed.

I could fight him if I wanted. I think of the stain on the wall and laugh. I hit the floor with a dull thud. I'm all bones now and it hurts more than it should. Now I have bruises up and down my body. What if I called the police and said he beat me? But that would require picking up the phone which seems like too much effort. James throws me over his shoulder and drops me into a bathtub of warm water. I sink down to the bottom, blowing bubbles out of my nose. He leaves me there to drown, which is what I'm already doing.

With the water in my ears, the bathroom door doesn't slam, it tings. I like the way the world is changed, the way sounds are muted down here. I open my eyes. I can see the ceiling, where the light reflected off the water dances. I can't breathe air, so I inhale water. It fills my lungs. My arms jerk and my legs kick out. Water slops over the edge of the tub and hits the floor with a splash. James doesn't come. I sit up, coughing. Water and saliva spill from my mouth. Tears run down my cheeks. I'm too weak to do it and now my throat hurts.

In the bedroom I hear a thump and bump, and the soft rash that is mattress against carpet. And James breathing hard. He doesn't sound that much different from when we used to have sex, back before … I close my eyes and sink back under the water. I wish I could stay there forever, never hearing James breathe again.

Forever is a cold tub on Monday. My skin is wrinkled, waterlogged skin, and painful. I need moisturizer. I think if I get out of the water, I'll crack into a thousand pieces. My sister tells James that he can't do this on his own  —  I need professional help. I hear them through the door in the bedroom.

"I didn't do anything," he says. I imagine tears in his eyes.

"I know," she says. I imagine her patting him on the shoulder.

He kisses her and then fucks her.

It never happens that way, it's just what I imagine. My fingers slide down and I masturbate until I'm numb. It is later. Much later. James stands over me disgusted. He picks me out of the tub and throws me on the new mattress. It's still covered in plastic.

"Get dressed." James says.

My sister is by the door, watching. I tear a hole in the plastic and try to crawl under it. James grabs me and drops me on the floor. My sister looks down at me, and I look up at her. Then she turns away. I hear her footsteps retreat down the stairs. James goes after her.

I follow them to the top of the stairs where I stand naked, dripping water onto the beige carpet. They don't see me. She has a card in her hand. She dials the number on it. He tells her to wait and she shakes her head no. Her clean hair sways. I finger the matted mess on my head. She meets his gaze. They stand there communicating and not speaking.

"This has gone on far too long," she says. "If this keeps up, she'll die."

"You can't," James says.

He puts a hand over my sister's wrist and suddenly I am afraid for her. Tears slide down my face. I know what comes next. He'll take her to the basement. I scream and they both turn to face me standing there naked at the top of the stairs. My legs go weak and I crumple, still screaming. I fall down the stairs, thump, thump, thump. The banister, carpet and ceiling whizz by and then sweet, wonderful, black nothing.

When I awake, I am in the basement, lying naked on the floor beside my sister in one of the rooms. It smells like piss and shit. Here, Wednesday is no different from Friday. Every moment is darkness filled with screams and the sound of metal on bone and the patient hum of power tools.

I touch Lucy's hand. She's unconscious but breathing. I wish she weren't. I pinch her nose with my thumb and forefinger and cover her mouth. Nothing happens, and then everything happens. Her eyes flicker open, meeting mine. "What's happening?" they say, and then they know the answer. Surprise is followed by fear and panic. Her arms and legs thrash.

"I'm saving you," I say, and then the words I could never say aloud before. "James is the Butcher. I married the Butcher." I cannot tell if what I say shocks my sister. She twists and bucks but I hold on. My sister's hands fly out, probing my face and then clawing. Her fingernails bite into my flesh and draw blood. Her thumb presses into my eye. It hurts but I don't turn away. She presses harder, her nails digging into my cornea. Black dots swim in my head, pain hammers and then the thing that was my eye pops. Jelly-like stuff and blood ooze down my cheek. I gasp. My sister struggles once more. A smell fills the air  —  she shit herself  —  and then, except for some twitches, she is still. Her arm falls limp, hitting the cement with a soft plop. I keep my hands in place well past the last twitch. Finally I scoot against the wall and hold my head in my hands. I feel my eye. It is the least of what I deserve.

From a room to the right I hear, "Oh God. Don't. Please, don't!" A power tool whirls and the woman screams. I cover my ears. At some point, I don't know how long after I killed my sister, an idea occurs to me. It's so wonderful I don't why I haven't thought of it before. If I can't see it happen then it doesn't exist. I gouge out my other eye and pass out.

I feel cold air on my skin. It's basement musty, but cleaner than this room.

"What have you done to yourself?" James says from the doorway.

He smells like sweat, antiseptic and blood. I can hear him breathing through his nose, and then his footsteps as he draws closer. I see with my ears now. I hear his pants stretch as he squats down beside Lucy. He picks up her arm and lets go. It slaps the cement.

"What a shame," he says.

"I saved her," I say.

He laughs. "You didn't save anyone. Seventeen years, and the only thing you've done is kill your sister. Now get up."

"It's your fault," I say. "You're to blame."

My words are met with silence. I hear him breathe, long slow breaths. Finally he laughs.

"You … Who are you to judge me! Look at you, lying there filthy on the floor. " Calming himself, he sits down beside me and whispers. "You're just like me now, a butcher. I knew you had it in you. Now you understand how this could happen to anybody."

"Not anyone. Just you." I say and weep.

I'm blind and the world is still real.

He washes my hands and body clean, and brushes out my hair. I think James is finally going to kill me. After seventeen years it comes as a relief. He doesn't. He throws me over his shoulder and climbs up the stairs. My head sways, my hair brushes his back. The basement door clicks behind us. In the living room he wraps a blanket around me and then carries me out to the car. He throws me in the back seat and sits in the front seat, leaning over the steering wheel. He cries and when he is done he lights a cigarette.

"God, I loved you," he says.

 

 
M.R. Jordan is a freelance writer. She has been writing non-fiction and poetry for over a decade. She graduated from East Tennessee State University with a Bachelors degree in Psychology. M.R. now lives in South Korea where she develops ESL materials and resources for the public school system.

 

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