I wake. No, that’s not the right word. What I do is emerge from one state into another. The last state was, I think, unconsciousness. This is lucid unconsciousness. Awareness through some senses, others deadened.
Sight.
I have none. The limited, weak atmosphere circling my head is hot and thin, trapped in by something with mass. A bag, I think. There’s a bag on my head. Fabric, perhaps. A sack.
Smell.
Horrific. Vomit. There’s no other aroma like that. I don’t know if the puke is inside or outside this bag on my head. The vomit is certainly mine.
Touch.
I’m sitting in a chair, feet on the floor. I move to take the bag off, but my wrists are bound to the arms of the chair. Each ankle bound to a chair leg. There’s a dampness on the top of my thighs.
Taste.
Bile. Puke and Chinese food. Acid.
Brenda poisoned me.
Pounding headache. Any coherent thought lasts only moments before vaporizing.
Sound.
There wasn’t any until now, but I hear it. Another room. My mind comes back into focus for a moment, and I hear Brenda talking. On the phone, perhaps. Short words. Clipped sentences. I hear something like
Everything’s ready
and
Do you want to watch?
I’m able to focus my mind a little more, and now I feel the first true pangs of panic. There will be a moment when she’ll lift this bag off my head, and then I’ll understand what her plan is. But I can’t be the victim. I might be bound and helpless, but I won’t be the victim.
I make a promise.
If I die tonight, I will face it with deep, long breaths. A clear mind. And I won’t beg for anything.
Nothing.
The wine opener is still in my front pocket, pressing against my thigh. But that’s worse than bringing a knife to a gun fight. It’s like bringing a letter opener to a battlefield.
Richard.
Did he get my text? How much time has passed? The nausea from earlier is gone, replaced with a headache. That should have taken hours.
Then:
Footsteps on hardwood floors.
A door opening, hinges squeaking. A brief rush of air on my face.
Light floods my eyes, but I only see an inch in front of me. Everything is a hazy tan, and I have no sense of depth. It’s like looking onto an endless expanse of sand, stretching forever.
Then the sand disappears.
The hood is yanked from my head, and my eyes recoil against the light. But it takes only seconds to adjust, and then I see I’m in the same room as before. In front of me is the drafting table. The light in the corner. I look down. I’m in a chair from the dining room. Vomit cakes the tops of my jeans. The stench is stronger, and though I gag, everything stays down. Maybe there isn’t even anything left to come up.
The hood falls to the floor next to my feet, and I see it’s just a pillowcase. A light tan pillowcase with brown spots on it. Puke stains. Maybe blood.
My focus is watery. Feels like I’m viewing everything through a swimming pool.
Brenda materializes into view. She peers down at me, like a little boy inspecting an insect he’s just about to squash. No more smile.
“He wants to talk to you,” she says.
I open my mouth to talk and then realize it’s completely devoid of all moisture.
“Water,” I manage.
Brenda furrows her brow at the request, leaves the room, then returns with a glass. She holds it to my lips and pours faster than I can drink, and most of the water ends up all over me. But I get a few swallows, which douses the fire in my throat.
After a few gasping coughs, I ask, “Who wants to talk to me?”
“You know who.”
I sit up as straight as I can, and my spine protests with a sharp pain. I’ve been slouched for too long.
“You took the pictures,” I say. “All those pictures.”
“For two years,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because you’re all I have, Alice.”
“What does that mean?”
She leans down and places her hand on my cheek, pats it once.
“I started reading Mister Tender when I was very young. All sorts of graphic novels, really. But Mister Tender was the one I couldn’t get enough of. And then…then you were stabbed. I was twelve when that happened, and I suppose I got a little obsessed over the story.”
Then Brenda steps back, unzips her jeans, and slides them down her legs. She is wearing just a tiny strip of red underwear that tightly hugs her hips. Her legs are strong, toned, and milky white, and as she steps out of her jeans, I realize this isn’t some kind of bizarre sexual advance. She wants to show me something.
Her legs are covered in scars.
Hundreds of them. It’s like looking at the surface of the moon, in an area covered in the eternal, dusty tracks of rovers. Straight lines, zigzag lines, some not longer than inch, others the length of her thigh. Crossing, parallel, diagonal. Up the calf, across the knee, some as far up as her panty line. Most of them are whiter than her skin, old scars. A few are a dull red, more recent. One, a two-inch incision across the shin, is bright red and puffy. It could have been made yesterday.
I say nothing. There is nothing to say. Brenda is insane.