His Hands, His Eyes.

    The cigarette burns on the back of his right hand stung, but still he continued to push the burning embers into his scared skin. Nothing began with such difficulty, yet continued with such ease as self-harm. His creamy white skin between his knuckles and wrist was covered in polka dotted patterns of old and fresh blisters; the ones from three or four days previous were red lumps, barely three millimetres in diameter and sometimes with sunken centres, as is the tendency of blisters. The new blisters, done now were white -like a puss filled spot or abscess- but this was just where the layers of skin had been raised and filled with saline or bile from the destroyed cell membrane. They were also surrounded by a red ring; some more crimson than others (coincidently, these were the older ones and when he had put more pressure on, for a longer time).
    The next port of call would be to take his vinegar and wash basin out,  he smiled to himself as he thought about the daily visits to the corner shop, always buying tobacco products and a litre of vinegar. What they thought he planned to use it for each day, he could not say, but they made no comments on his purchases none-the-less. This part usually produced a thick lump of vomit in the back of his throat, he prepared himself momentarily, strictly momentarily -otherwise he was likely to not perform the act at all.
    He lunged his hand into the basin of vinegar, letting it infiltrate his wounds, his self-inflicted burns. As he wailed and fell to the floor, with the contents of his stomach falling from his trembling lips the young man thought of why he did this; only through this pain could he prevent the terrible acts he dreamt about, the disturbing dreams that filled his mind could never come to pass if he continued this torture. But how long he could continue this, he was not sure. Inflicting wounds upon wounds never gave a relief he needed, but within the past fortnight his entire body had been covered. One, possibly two more days in finding the small untouched sections of skin. If the rest were not healed he knew the dreams would be acted upon; he knew the murder and defilation of young girls would be unpreventable.

*          *          *

    Shit coloured puddle-water covered Sam’s face. She spat the bit that went in her mouth and saluted the driver of the car with a youthful V of the fingers. Soaked; from head to pissing toe, she thought. Her birthday, finally thirteen, but her parents did not care. They made her walk home, not wearing the new coat she knew they had bought her but refused to let her unwrap. And the stupid dolly shoes were actually overflowing with rain water; walking barefooted, Sam thought to herself, would probably keep my feet drier. Not even halfway home and the wind continuously blew rain into her face with such power that made it sharp.
    Sam heard the car behind her in the distance, slowing slightly. To her it sounded like a group of selfish boys wanting to make sure they hit the road-lake just right to make her as wet as possible. Sam was wrong.

*          *          *

    It was a long time before Sam woke up. She realised that she was dry, in fact she was wearing no clothes, just a rough sheet. This terrified her. As she struggled to get up Sam became very aware of the bindings on her wrists and ankles. Slowly, she tried to open her eyes, but it was dark. Being a late-autumn night meant it could be from anytime after five o’clock, but she saw a light, a digital clock between two blocks of silhouetted darkness. 19:06. It had been well over 2 hours. Sam couldn’t understand how she had become unconscious, naked and tied up in a car.
    Lifting her head up turned out to be a bad idea, a combination of the headlights from oncoming traffic and a throbbing in the back of her head had caused her to groan deeply.
    ‘Awake.,’ came a mans voice from the front. He was not talking to her, she was sure he was talking to himself. ‘Sit up,’ now that was to me, thought Sam. The thought of disobeying him never entered her mind, she had become aware over the years of her life that agreeing and even giving herself to the pervert would be better than arguing and making him angry.
    Sam didn’t talk, she waited for him to continue speaking, which wasn’t to long.
    ‘You were hit on the head,’ he started telling her, ‘then you were taken to a barn I know of. Your clothes were taken off and burned, well, not your underwear…that was kept. You were then raped, but you felt nothing. Do you hurt now?’ The rapist asked her, looking in the rear-view mirror into her eyes. He seemed happy when she nodded.
    ‘Where?’ he pressed on. Sam couldn’t stop her bound hands from moving between her legs, making the sheet fall from hiding a small amount of modesty she had left. In a flash his head was turned, eyes trying to move her hands away to peer behind. The sheet had moved to far to reach with one hand and keep covering herself, she had to show him it again. As quick as she could Sam brought the blanket back over her legs and continued to hold her hand between them.
    With a small voice, uncommon for her, Sam said, ‘My head and my…’ She couldn’t finish it. He nodded slowly, his left hand touched his trousers, his zip. Tears began to spill from her young eyes as she watched him unzip his jeans, whilst he got out the filthy weapon he had already fucked her with.
    In her sobbing-state she was becoming numb to the environment around her, managing to ignore the movements of his hand as he remembered violating her. But before the clock changed from 19:17 to 19:18 (meaning they had only stopped talking for two minutes) the man squeezed the rod in his hand and bellowed, ‘SAY THE FUCKING WORD YOU WHORE.’ Sam cried hard, she couldn’t speak but didn’t want him to use it as an excuse to stick it in her again, ‘VAGINA, my vagina hurts. You fucking FREAK! You sick bastard.’ The last words were spoken in whisper, no anger could overcome her tears, her crying.
    It dripped from the steering wheel, back onto his flaccid contraption. A combination of the memory of raping Sam, telling her in detail and the anger with him for causing so much pain and humility gave him pleasure.
    The man‘s face she couldn’t see, only his black eyes in the mirror when a car went passed. They did not speak for a long time.

*          *          *

    01:58. They had arrived at the end of a dirt track. Sam thought it must have lasted for twenty or thirty miles at least. She had no idea where they were, which direction home was. She was lost and on her own. The car slowed to a stop and he undid his seat belt.
    ‘I have to prepare something, I don’t know when I will be back. But it is going to be special, I promise.’ He smiled, not the sick perverted smile from before, but a loving smile. Sam felt confused. She jerked out of his reach, none-the-less, when his hand cam towards her to touch her face. ‘Okay. I understand, I will be back soon. Trust me, my love, it will be brilliant.’ He took up a bag from the floor of the passenger side and left the car, locking it from the outside.
    First of all Sam thought about the words he had used; my love. Was he delusional? She couldn’t be sure, maybe he had formed regret, or felt that as he had raped her it was somehow love making. Or maybe he had stalked her for a long time, he could have developed a psychotic relationship for them both in his mind. After forcing the speculations from her mind Sam preceded to see how to unlock the door. There were no locks, they were taken out and she could never be able of pulling the pin up far enough to open the door. She thought it was probably for the best, it was cold and had only just stopped raining, wherever they were. She had no shoes or clothes and bound hands and feet. She would end up making so much noise in her escape, or fall and break her ankle that he would find her and kill her for the treachery.
    The clock showed 02:17 when she decided to open her legs to view the damage. It was easy enough to see, and the action of pulling them apart ended up hurting her more than it had before. She slowly closed them and tried to forget the way it looked as she cried into her arms, curled up against the left-hand door.

*          *          *

    The car door opened, it was him. Sam had fallen asleep crying and it was now 05:37.      ‘Come with me, please,’ it was not a request, just worded to sound like one.
    ‘I can’t walk, my ankles are bound,’ Sam reminded him. He nodded and pulled a long knife from the back of his jeans. She hadn’t seen him with it before and it must have been from the bag he took with him. He cut the bindings around her ankles, but left the ones on her wrists.
    ‘Put this on, its new and clean,’ he said. She stood in the cold outside the car, completely naked with gooseflesh skin and her nipples hardened. She had openly taken the blanket in front of him, he had seen it all and abused it already without her knowledge, so what use was it in hiding it from him.
    He had got her a small bra, it was a soft yellow cotton and felt comfortable. But it was far to small and she had to make it bigger to stop it hurting her shoulders. There was a yellow thong, about her size and also soft cotton. She had never worn one before, they seemed uncomfortable. It was obviously his fantasy. The other items comprised of a slut skirt and a orange and cream chequered shirt. When it came to putting the shirt on she asked him to untie the bindings and then redo them after, it worked out well for her that he had made her dress. Sam used this as a way to gain his trust, that she wouldn’t run away if he turned his back on her.
    They began to walk, in silence. After a few yards Sam took her captures free hand, she put her head against his shoulder. If she could only make him trust her, make him happy, maybe she could beg him to let her go or at least to keep her but not kill her. Anything, so long as she didn’t die.
    It worked, he took it. Eventually, after how long Sam did not know, they came to a high hill in the Wolds. Around the side they went, and she saw light. The man had laid out a huge blanket with candles in glass wind-protectors. There was a foam roll mat in the centre on which he laid Sam down. Kneeling next to her he kissed her lips, her head and holding her hands he said, ‘You have been hurt, you saw a perverted act in the car and if I could change those things I would. But I love you and want you to make love to me again.’ His eyes, dark as ever in the warm glow of the candles, watched her expression. They seemed to pierce into her head to see her thoughts.
    ‘I want to do that as well. I love you too,’ Sam said. But she could not leave the conversation at that, ‘My love,’ using his own wording from earlier to be safe, ‘how did you get the scars on your face? And the ones on your arms?’ He took away his hand and sat down in a position that he was darkened again. He did not answer her and as Sam was about to repeat herself he moved. He was kneeling and pulling his t-shirt off. His entire body had scars over it, she reached out but he flinched. Sam didn’t stop, she touched them and felt the roughness and soreness. They were not infected, from what she could see, but they pained him when they were touched.
    Sam was suddenly taken over by instinct and knelt up to his level. Her bound hands went around his neck and she put her lips to his ear. ‘It is all alright now darling, I am here, I will look after you.’ She kissed him on the lips, gently. Passionately. She pulled him back, between her legs. They kissed for some time. She then whispered to him, ‘Now, again.’ He looked into her eyes, not doing anything. Frightened might be his emotion, but Sam took charge. She unzipped his jeans and pulled out what she had agreed to accept this time, what she had actually asked for. He pulled them off as Sam took her underwear off.
    He had taken the knife and held it up in front of her, Sam smiled and lifted her hands whilst pulling her skirt up a bit, enough for him to see. As the rope fell he through the knife to the side, Sam threw the rope the other way and then grabbed his shoulders to pull him down onto her. It hurt, she was sore and it was inevitable, but wanting him to do so made it more tolerable than the alternative.
    In finishing he rolled to her side, to her left. She turned and asked him if she was good, he grinned and nodded. She smiled and played with his hair whilst he lay sleepily. ‘What is your name?’ Sam eventually asked, ‘I don’t like that I have made love to you twice now and still don’t know your name.’ He grinned, she had made him happy.
    ‘Jack. My name is Jack,’ after a pause he finished by saying, ‘your name is Sam. I read it in your school bag.’ She smiled for sometime and complemented his name.
    ‘Can I put my underwear back on?’ Sam asked. Jack nodded and let her fetch them herself as he laid back, still with the overwhelming tiredness of post-sex. Once she had returned to lay next to him she touched his chest, the scars that covered almost the whole of his naked body.
    ‘My love, you trust me?’ Sam began. He nodded and she continued, ‘Can you tell me how you got these, and how you found me and why you chose me to become your lover.’
    Jack then began to tell her the story of the three days gone by. ‘I have always had these thoughts, I’ve always wanted to rape girls like you, but I controlled it with burning myself and then putting the burns in vinegar. The thoughts became worse, more often, more intense since Halloween. I had to do so many in the eleven days after that I had no space this morning, the stinging pain isn’t long lasting anymore and I got in my car to find one.
    ‘You were the first girl I saw alone. You are slender, you seemed unhappy. So I slowed my car down and hit you on the back of the head.’ His eyes dropped to the floor for a moment and he laid back, creasing his eyes.
    ‘So it was by chance? You didn’t do it because you had been stalking me? Falling in love with me for weeks?’ Sam asked, with hurt in her voice. He merely shook his head. ‘Okay, then I think this is a perfect time to tell you, ‘we are over!’ ’ With this Sam thrust the a knife between Jacks legs, beneath his penetrating rod. It probably caught a blood vessel and would make him bleed to death quicker, but the symbolism of taking away his destructive device and leaving him in a painful state for some time to die was what she wanted for him.
    She said one last thing to him as she stood, he made no noise but was curled up in a ball. ‘I did not make love to you, that was rape. You would have done it whether I asked you to or not, but if I asked you to and made you trust me you would slip up. That is what I thought, I was lucky; I was right. You fucked up and now you will die, I will forget what you did to me one day. But your disgusting, sick fantasies are all you had to live by and ended up killing you. You disgust me, goodbye Jack.’
    He made sounds, maybe he tried to talk, Sam didn’t care. She just rose up the hill with his eyes following and piercing her every step of the way. When she reached the top the sun was rising, she continued over the Wolds with no look back. At the car she checked the time, it was 07:20. She opened the boot and found her school bag. She took out her clean PE kit and changed into it, the clothes he had made her wear went into the boot, except the underwear which was covered in evidence, this she put into a pocket of her bag. Then she walked away along the dirt path.
    Sam let the anger, resentment, the evil feelings he had made her have and feel become determination to get home. She vowed to herself to not let this night affect anymore of her life than was needed. She walked away feeling, somehow, as if she had won a battle.