Both of Her Read online

  “Wh-what the hell is she talking about?” Annie looks up to Colin with a scowl.

  Colin’s grin is smug. He knows I am ready to play and I am ready to play with him. He rubs his hands together and shoots Annie a look of annoyance.

  “Get upstairs and cook our dinner. We will want it in the master bedroom seating area. Set up the candles, Annie, and make sure the champagne goes on ice immediately.”

  Colin comes to me and begins undoing the chains from my hands. He is so gentle and loving as he touches each of my wrists. He kisses them before lowering them to the sides of my body. Annie wasn’t able to stop the bleeding of the cut, so he picks me up and carries me up the stairs. Colin halts in the kitchen and places me on an old wooden chair that might break from the weight of my foreboding. Fear is creeping up every side of me like vines of a weed that grow, even in the dead of winter. It is impossible to think that this situation will end in anything but disaster.

  Annie is talking and complaining about cooking our dinner and what I am trying to pull, but as Colin and I look in one another’s eyes, he ignores her. I can’t be happier about that. I have him under my spell, just like Lucia never failed to do. Annie won’t penetrate this. No one ever does.

  “Are you actually going to believe that woman? She doesn’t want to have a fucking bubble bath with you. And a loofa? Are you fucking kidding me? She’s playing you, Colin. Don’t be so fucking stupid. She’s playing you so bad that…”

  It all happens so fast. It’s like an old movie reel flying through black and white images of a guy flailing and a woman pointing her finger out at him like she is putting him in her place.

  Except in the old comedy movies, there aren’t any murders. Not real ones, anyway. One minute she is bitching at him, telling him he is a stupid idiot and the next minute, he has her pulled in a choke hold and the one slice across her neck has me screaming at the top of my lungs.

  Annie’s face registers shock in her last second of her life. Colin looks pissed, but as soon as her body drops, his knife is wiped off on his black jeans, his shit eating, smug grin is back in place, and he is delicately taking my hands so we can get to that bath.

  “Hush, baby. It was a long time coming. She was needier than most girls I am with. It was getting pretty annoying,” he says in a tender voice, drawing me into a hug. “She’s in a better place now. She didn’t want me to be with you in the first place. Didn’t you see that? We saved her from that pain.” His voice shows no strain. No emotions from killing Annie. Nothing. His warped mind is focused on me, while I cannot help but pray for Annie’s soul. That somehow she truly is in a much better place than I am. That any of us are for that matter.

  “But you…you killed her. You sliced open her neck,” I say, fighting the urge to throw up. I need to vomit. I need to heave and sob, but if I do anything out of control, he might get tired of me, too. I can’t do that. I have to stay in character. I have to stay strong. It’s the only way I will survive.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, baby. I’ve done that quite a few times and I haven’t been caught yet. We will be together. Now, let me get you into the bath and I will clean this up. Once I am done, I will join you in the tub.”

  He runs down to the basement without notice and immediately I look around for a phone. I know if I went outside right now with this cut and no pants, I wouldn’t make it far. I see a mustard looking phone hanging from the wall and I plow toward it with all my strength.

  Picking up the receiver, two things happen at once – Colin is back up the stairs staring at me with the phone at my ear and I realize the phone is dead. They don’t have a working land line to this property. Of course they don’t.

  “Come on, Luca. Do you think I’m that stupid to have a working phone out here? We had all of that checked before I brought you here. No one knows you are here. No one will ever find you here. Don’t fight it. Just love me and everything will be okay. I get that you’re frightened, that this is a shock to you, but it will be okay,” he says, as he hands me the first aid kit in his hands. He looks like he is disappointed in me. That can’t be good.

  I take the kit with shaking hands and quietly ask where the bathroom is. I can’t be in the same room with Annie’s bleeding body anymore. There is no hope for her. All I can do is tend to my cut and take a bath. Maybe if I pretend to become hysterical, he will inject that medicine in me again so I can sleep.

  The last thing I ever want to do is have sex with Colin, pretending to be Lucia or not.

  I cringe, stifling back my cries after cleaning myself up and stepping into the tub. I laugh uncontrollably. Why? I have no idea. I shouldn’t even be in this tub with a gash so deep. Dear god, put me into some kind of septic shock. End my life now, please.

  “No.” The sweet sound of my mother’s voice embarks my thoughts. “I did not raise a quitter. I raised a strong confident woman who fights for what she wants. Works hard. Your father did not work his fingers to the bone for our daughter to give up. Fake it, Luca. Fake being in pain until you heel.”

  I scramble to sit upright. Water sloshes all over the floor. That’s it. I can fake it. I’ve been faking two different lives for years. Smug. Confident. I can do this. For the last time in my life, I can become two different people. I can become both of her. Only the other woman will not be daydreaming about staying with a man her body demands to have, this time she will be planning his death.

  TWENTY -THREE

  When Annie died that one night, about three weeks ago, I tried to start counting the days I’ve been here at the farm with Colin. I count twenty-three so far. Each day is a bit better and a bit more hopeless. He is mostly good and happy to me, but then he has little tantrums and he will cut some part of my body. My carefully thought out plan about trying to kill Colin has been demolished. I’m trapped. Every time he cuts me I grow weaker. Slowly to begin knocking on the devil’s door, to begin my life in eternal hell.

  We go through a ritual of cleaning and bandaging the wounds. He gives me a bath with classical music, bubbles, and candles. I throw a bit of a hysterical fit and then he has to drug me. It’s all very systematic. This is my new life.

  I have come to realize that I am in Iowa. Colin’s grandparents were dairy farmers and when they died back in the 1990s, no one wanted the farm. It sits on hundreds of acres of land. The kicker is they were his step-grandparents, so they didn’t even share in his last name. No one will be able to trace me here, even if the police find out Colin took me.

  I have absolutely no idea what happened to Heath. My best thought is he made it a mile out into the fields, dropped, and died of the cold and his wounds. If he got anywhere, I know for a fact the police would have asked him about me. I know in my heart he would have said something to them, even if he hates every little inch of me.

  I try not to think about the sex I have with Colin. It never lasts long and where it isn’t the most terrible sex I’ve ever had, it is wretched because I don’t want it, even though I pretend I do. It’s all part of this exhausting play I am preforming for him and God, I don’t know how much longer I can do it. I want my life back. I want my apartment, I want my job, and I want Camden. If by some miracle he is alive, he will never want me again after the things I have done, the sexual fantasies Colin has had me play out with him. I scrub my body nearly raw after each time, trying to rid myself of the experience.

  Dread bubbles up in my chest, because deep down inside, I know Camden is dead. If he was alive, he’d be here, finding me, and saving me. But he isn’t. No one comes for me. Day after day, while Colin goes to the store or out to do something for our life together, I look for televisions, radios, anything I can find in the house to give me a gateway out, but there is nothing. This place might as well be in the middle of the 1800s.

  Days and days go by and my hope dwindles even more as my body continues to heal after each cut Colin gives me. He is proud with his cutting. He sees them as some form of love bites. Love cuts. It’s fucking dysfunctional in
sanity. I have near constant panic attacks about when he will cut me again rather when he will want to fuck. That just goes to show how fucking awful it is. He’s sick, twisted, distorted, and he’s killing me slowly. My body is marred just like he said he would do. I hate him. But, I hate myself even more.

  My mom and dad have to know everything now. The thought of them suffering in any way haunts me every night when I close my eyes and try to sleep with the smell of unwanted sex lingering in the air. The repulsive taste of Colin’s lips on mine. His scent all over me. Sleep vaguely comes. I drift in and out every night with thoughts of my family and friends. I want to die. To end my life by my own hands as a means to an end.

  Colin has gone to the store once again to get more bandages and alcohol. I’m not sure when I last ate a full meal. I wake up, have sex, he cuts me, he bandages me up, we have sex again, and sometime during the day, I eat noodles and he makes me drink alcohol until I pass out. When he goes to the store, however, I am afforded some time to go a little crazy about how the hell to get the fuck out of here.

  I am staring out the kitchen window at the brown, cold landscape, day dreaming. If I can even call it that. I wonder what he did with Annie’s body. I wonder, again, how far Heath made it before he dropped. Then, like seeing a lake in the middle of a desert, I see a blue sedan flying down the country road toward the house. Colin doesn’t drive a sedan. He drives the farm truck while the limo sits behind the barn. As the car comes closer, I see a little red light streaming on and off, like a siren, but it’s inside on the dashboard of the car.

  As the car comes closer, my breath hitches and I start to freak out. Either this person is here for Colin or they are here for me. I go to the silverware drawer to grab a knife, but there aren’t any. Mother fucker got rid of everything I might use to hurt him. I grab a plastic fork and laugh at how it won’t do a God damn thing to help me live if this guy isn’t here to save me.

  The man jumps out of the car with a clipboard. He is wearing a polka dot tie and a corduroy blazer. He looks like an old English professor. As he walks toward the porch to the front door, I know he isn’t here for Colin or me. This is a random visit from someone looking for something else.

  I don’t waste a moment. Running out the door, I jump on him.

  “Help me. God, fucking help me. He’s keeping me here against my will. He killed two people. Help me. Please,” I scream. I can’t stop. I’m crying. I’m out of control.

  The guy looks at me like he’s just seen a homicide. He slowly backs away from me.

  “No, no, no. Please. Don’t leave. Please. Just let me…let me use your phone. Let me give you a phone number to call. You’ll see. I was kidnapped weeks ago from Chicago. People are looking for me.”

  “Miss, I’m just a Census Bureau worker. I’m here to see if this farm is still in working order. I don’t know anything about your business with your family. I just have some questions about the animals you have here on the farm.”

  Is he fucking serious? Did he not just hear what I said about being a fucking missing person?

  “Fine. I’ll tell you everything you need to know if I can just use your phone,” I say. I try to remain calm, but everything in me is dying. I look up at the road every five seconds to be sure I don’t see the truck coming. “Please, do it quick before he comes back. He will shoot you. He will fucking stab you if he comes. Please. Let me use the phone.”

  The guy looks at me with a dubious expression. “Is this some kind of joke?” he laughs. He pulls out a cell phone and I snatch it out of his hand with all my energy.

  One fucking bar. He barely has any service. I send a quick prayer up to the Gods of cell phone service and start to punch in the numbers.

  It takes forever to connect, but it does. Oh my God. It’s ringing.

  “Hello?” her voice is strained. She sounds so tired and sad.

  “Lola. It’s Luca. Help me. Oh God, please help me.”

  “Luca!” she screams. “Where are you? Where the fuck are you?”

  “God damn it, where am I?” I ask the man.

  He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. After a pause, he looks down at the clipboard in his hands and points.

  “Off Heritage Road in Holly Oak, Iowa. It’s the only farm on the road. Help me, Lola. Help. Please. He’s hurting me every day. I can’t get away. I’m too weak.”

  That’s when both of us hear the approaching car coming down the road. Everything is again in slow motion. “Please come quick. He’s coming right now and I don’t know what he’s going to do.”

  I give the man back his phone.

  “Act like you never talked to me. Act like there hasn’t been any answer to your knocking. Act dumb. When you get back to a town, please, please send the police.”

  I hurry back inside and head into the bathroom to draw a bath. I quickly undress so it looks like I was in the tub the whole time. I am shaking so badly, I can hardly breathe right.

  I hear Colin outside and he’s arguing with the man. Please, old man, please go away and don’t act like I’m in here. I strip down and look at the body I no longer recognize. It looks like I got caught up in a food processor. The raised cuts all over my stomach and legs make me want to cry and yet, I have to pretend to know nothing right now. What the hell am I going to do when he gets in here?

  Colin slams through the bathroom door just as I am easing into the hot water. I look up with the fakest smile I can muster.

  “Hey, babe. How was town? Did you get that champagne I love?”

  He knows I know something, because he is seething. It is then that I notice he is holding a big knife and it has blood on it. My face drops when I see little bloody droplets bounce onto the linoleum floor of the bathroom.

  “I think you are done with your bath now,” he deadpans. He knows I talked to that man, because I’ve never seen his face like this before. It’s do or die time. That is what his face is telling me and fuck, fuck, fuck, I am going to die.

  I gradually get up from the bath and start to go for a towel when Colin sternly shakes his head. I look up into his eyes and I go so cold. He grabs my arm and forces me out of the bathroom. He walks me through the kitchen and out through the porch, where I see the man lying on the ground, writhing in pain. Oh, thank God, he isn’t dead, but he can’t help me now. The police won’t come anytime soon and if Lola heard me, she won’t be here for hours or know where exactly to send help to.

  I don’t have hours. I have a few minutes. Maybe not even that long.

  I walk completely naked and freezing to the barn. He takes me to a different stall than I’d been in before. There is a cross like structure with chains and leather bands. He pushes me up against it and I start to freak out.

  “No, please, Colin. Please. I’m so cold, please. I don’t want to be out here all alone. Please, don’t do this. I’ll do anything you ask me to do.”

  “Shut up, bitch! You told that man you were here against your will! How could you disappoint me and do that to us? We’ve been so happy these past few weeks! How could you? You’ve broken my heart before, but this? This is unforgivable. It’s time you had your end punishment.” Colin is so enraged; I can’t get a word in. He won’t let me try to talk to him. Like a robot, he chains me up. He bands my ankles, grabbing something from the corner of the stall, and in seconds, I feel a sharp cut across my chest.

  He is whipping me so hard and fast that I can’t take a breath before he whips me again. Tears and blood fall from my body as I cry out each time the whip connects with my wet, naked body.

  Suddenly, everything goes quiet and the abuse stops. I slowly lift my head to see Colin. His face is white, the absolute shocked expression it holds makes me wince.

  I blink a few times to take in what is happening. I see blood coming out of his neck, a knife still piercing his skin. That’s when I see the old man behind him with a strange look on his face. Before I can fully comprehend what happened, both men fall to the ground.

  A few minutes pas
s before everything around me starts fading in and out. I welcome the blissful blackness.

  TWENTY - FOUR

  Camera flashes are everywhere. Coming from all angles, men and women alike are photographing my body. There are people in suits, in uniforms, and then there are people just staring at my body.

  My body.

  It’s whipped, cut, starved, dehydrated, and obviously a crime scene.

  My eyes find Colin on the ground. He is clearly dead. I let out a long exhale before I feel the burning pain again. The blackness takes me under against the stern command to stay awake. It is too hard to live. I’d rather die.

  Oh my god. I’m going to die. I just know it. I need help. Don’t tie me down. Don’t leave me trapped in here. He’s killed two people. I saw them. Dead. Blood.

  I nearly jump out of my skin. It’s a dream. Flashbacks or the horrible scenes imbedded in my mind. Flashing red and white lights twirl round and round in a blizzard of haze. I’m on a stretcher, covered in a white blanket, tied down with black straps. I struggle to get free but can’t.

  “Let me out. I’m not your prisoner. Let me go!” The screams coming from my vocal chords don’t sound familiar. Everything is foreign.

  “It’s okay, ma’am. You’re going to be okay now. Just relax,” a woman’s soothing voice says. I don’t want anything to do with her. I need to hide from Colin. No matter what, he will come find me. Even though every part of me knows he is dead, I still know he will find me and cut me in my dreams. I thrash and almost succeed at getting free by toppling the stretcher over.

  There it is. A needle pricks through my leg and suddenly, everything smooths into a flowing painting of beautiful colors. I let out another large breath and everything goes black.

  ***

  Beep. Beep. Beep. My heart rate sounds good, but I know I look like shit. I know that because I feel like shit. Everything is wrong and I know that no medication, no surgery, no stitches, nothing will take the pain away. I will always be in this place of fear. My only question is where am I and who do I need to pretend to be now?