* * *
‘You have to throw the bum out, Angela,’ Nicole told me. ‘Or call the police and get them to remove him. You can’t let him get away with … that.’ She pointed at the Band-Aids over my left eye.
I chewed listlessly on my cheese sandwich, but it had gone so dry in my mouth that I couldn’t even swallow it. Much like Nicole wasn’t swallowing my story about banging my head, accidentally, on a cupboard door.
We were sitting at the round table in the small break-room in back of the veterinary clinic. Nicole was one of my few remaining friends, because I had to see her at work, if I wanted to earn any money.
‘OK,’ I gulped. ‘He pushed me. And I hit my head on a doorframe. But he was drunk. He didn’t mean to hurt me.’
‘Like heck he didn’t. And next time it won’t be just a push.’
I stared at Nicole, wanting to yell, to scream, to cry. But I was so mentally and physically drained from my life of living hell with Tony that I couldn’t muster the strength.
So I fled. I quit my job at the clinic the next day. When Tony split my lip with a hard slap to the face.
The abuse had started shortly after I’d insisted that Ginger get out of my bed. Tony had kicked the bathroom door, punched the wall. Then, later on, he’d pushed me, slapped me. And with me at home all the time with him, bringing in no money, he would kick me or punch me anytime he liked, calling me useless and other, worse, names.
I was locked in the destructive relationship, unable to escape.
I was too bruised and battered to even go out and look for another job. The rent quickly went into arrears, the apartment and my appearance a mess. And I didn’t care. Liquor was my solace and companion, one hellish day blending into another brutal night, alcohol dulling the pain, Tony having his way with me whenever he liked, abusing me both mentally and physically.
Things only came to a head when the eviction notice showed up in my mailbox, long overdue.
‘Looks like you’re finally going to have to get off your lazy ass and get back to work,’ Tony smirked, sitting across from me at the wobbly kitchen table. ‘My friends and I need a place to hang out.’
I lifted my dizzy head out of my arms and blinked my bleary eyes. ‘Why don’t you just deal more dope?’
Tony slapped me. His hand shot across the table and his palm cracked off my cheek. I hardly even felt it. The man sitting in the third taped-up chair at the table just grinned and nodded.
He was a short, stocky man with a shaved head and gold earrings and gold teeth. Another one of Tony’s street associates.
‘I know how your woman can make you some money, bro,’ he said, his voice low and dangerous-sounding. ‘Good money.’
Tony looked at him. ‘What d’you mean? She’s good for only one thing.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ the man said, still grinning. ‘I can get Lexie to fix her up, put on some makeup, some nice clothes.’ He licked his thick lips. ‘She’d bring in three hundred a night, easy.’
Tony grinned at th
at, then at me, his dark eyes shining.
I looked from one man to the other, my numbed senses gone colder than ever before. I pushed myself up from the table, sick to my stomach.
Tony grabbed for my arm. I snatched it away. Then I stumbled through the garbage and empty bottles that were scattered all over the carpet. I hit my bed crying, burying my face in the foul-smelling pillow.
The last thing I heard before I fell asleep in a stupor, after draining the last quarter of a bottle I’d hidden away in a drawer, was Tony’s friend saying to him, ‘Don’t worry, bro. I’ll break her in. Won’t be difficult.’ The sinister self-satisfaction in his voice was chilling.
I woke up in the middle of the night. I didn’t know what time it was, only that it was pitch-black, and quiet. And that someone was kneeling on the bed, over the top of me.
I was lying on my stomach with my face sideways on the pillow. I was naked, no sheet or blanket covering me. I bit into the pillow, clutching it with my chewed-down fingernails, holding my breath. The bed groaned, and a man’s damp hands grabbed onto and spread my bottom.
I rolled over and screamed. Tony’s friend was straddling me, naked.
He smacked me across the face. Jarring me, shaking something loose inside of me. I suddenly flashed from cold to hot – cold fear to hot anger. I didn’t think, I didn’t worry, I didn’t quail. I whipped my right leg up, slamming my right knee in between the man’s legs. Furious. Fighting back.
He gasped and grabbed at his groin, toppled over onto his side on the bed.
I jumped off the bed, ran to the door and yanked it open, flush with fury. Tony’s snores were fuel to my raging fire.