own sweat contacts them. It’s like being covered in biting ants, or having a bad sunburn slapped again and again.
The only thing I am thankful for, through my grief and shame and pain, is that he seems to be satisfied with the back of my body. He’s stayed away from my belly.
“You’ve experienced one of the penalties for disobedience. I think you’ll find that it’s fairly brilliant. I’m careful not to completely debilitate you. I’ll put antibiotic ointment on your deeper cuts, and you’ll be very, very uncomfortable for a number of days, but there’s no permanent damage. There’s not even likely to be any scarring, unless you force me to do it a number of times.”
I am filled with sickness at my own helpless gratitude.
“You have simple rules and a simple life. Follow them, and I’ll leave you alone. Disobey me, and you’ll find yourself back in this room. You should know that I took it easy on you this time, as this was just for the purpose of demonstration. It can get a lot worse. I can make it last twice as long, three times as long, all day if I want. I can dab you with drain cleaner. I can burn you with cigarettes.”
I don’t say anything, but I shiver.
“The rules are as follows. I will provide you with three meals a day. You are to eat the food you’re given. You are to exercise for a minimum of thirty minutes daily. This will include push-ups, crunches, and running in place. You are to use the toilet to relieve yourself. That is all. Once a week, when I am here, I will provide you with dental floss, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. I will watch as you clean your teeth thoroughly.
Try to attack me or harm yourself and the penalty will be severe. This is all I require. Do you understand?”
My mouth doesn’t seem to want to work. He slaps a hand down on my back, making me scream out loud.
“Do you understand?” he asks again, calm and patient as ever.
“Yes!” I moan.
“Very good. Obey these rules and you also remain unshackled in your cell. Disobey them and you won’t just be punished, you’ll be chained. Now, before I tend to your wounds and take you back, I want to show you something. I’m going to lift your blindfold. Turn your head to your left and look.”
He lifts up the cloth and turns my head. I blink at the light. The room is concrete and fluorescents, like everything here. I see another table about four feet away, another naked body bound to it, facedown and blindfolded. I close my eyes and open them again to dispel the blurriness. What I see freezes my heart.
“Leo,” I whisper.
Leo Carnes lies on the table, trembling uncontrollably. It has to be even worse for him; he’s been here the whole time, listening to what Dali did to me.
“Leo, I’m here,” I say.
“Smoky? Is that you? He shot Alan! What’s happening?”
“Quiet,” Dali admonishes, though not angrily.
“Hang in there, Leo,” I tell him. “Do what he says.” Dali replaces my blindfold and then smacks my back again, harder than the first time. I arch against my bonds but bite back the scream.
“Quiet, I said.”
“You killed Alan?”
“The black agent? I don’t know if he’s dead or not. I shot him twice. Now, be quiet or you get another ten minutes with the whip.”
This shuts me up. He proceeds to apply ointment to my back. It’s painful, but I endure it. When finished, he uncuffs me from the table and undoes my other bonds.
“From this point on you’ll be naked. You don’t need clothes in your room. The good news is, you’ll also be uncuffed. Isn’t that better?”
I don’t reply, and this earns me another slap. It’s hard enough that I cry out. I grit my teeth and fight back my rage. “Yes,” I say. “It will be better.”
He maneuvers me into a sitting position.
“Stand slowly. You’re going to be a little unsteady.”
He’s right. I ease off the table, and my knees almost buckle when I try to stand. Dali keeps me from falling.
“Walk forward as I direct you. Do you understand?”
Back to rote and bored.
“Yes.”
He marches me forward. I sense a temperature change against my body and surmise that we’ve gone through a doorway. We go down a long hall, turn twice, then stop.
“Why didn’t you drug me for the trip back to my cell?” I ask.
“Room,” he corrects me. “Better if you look at it that way, trust me. You should be too weak to resist after what you’ve just been through. If you’re not, then I want to know that too.”
I’m surprised that he answered, so I push my luck one last time as I hear the door open.
“How do you see all this, Dali? What you’re doing to us?”
The briefest pause, then:
“Doing to you? I’m not ‘doing’ anything. I’m just storing meat.” He yanks off my blindfold and pushes me forward into darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I travel behind my eyes, inside my mind, and I speak to both the living and the dead. Matt is there, Alexa is there, my faceless, unborn child is there. Bonnie is there as well, but she is mute again and her eyes are full of sadness.
It was darkness when I closed my eyes, because it’s always darkness. Three times a day a rectangle of light appears at the bottom of my door, and food is dropped inside. It’s always the same: oatmeal and oranges in the morning, ham or roast beef sandwich with an apple in the afternoon, hot dogs and lettuce in the evening. A packet of vitamins also comes with each dinner. And water. Always plenty of water.
“Eat it all,” he told me. “Not just because I’ll punish you if you don’t, but because I’m including what you need to survive. I’m giving you meats for protein, and fruits and vegetables to prevent scurvy. The vitamins are a new thing. I’m working to find a balance that doesn’t cost me too much per head but prevents loss of teeth due to a lack of calcium. Milk spoils too quickly. We’ll see how it goes.”
I’ve had no further experiences in the punishment room. I long to defy him, but I can’t chance it. I have a baby growing inside me, and it, along with the light behind my eyes, has become my lifeline.
Three weeks have passed. Three weeks of darkness and ennui. There are no books, no TV, no radio. There is nothing to do but think, and eat, and exercise, and walk from one end of the cell to the other, and use the toilet, and sleep. Once I started to masturbate, simply to relieve the crushing boredom, but then I remembered that he might be watching on a camera, and I stopped myself.
Once a week, as promised, he visits to make me brush and floss my teeth. It’s always the same. The lights go on without warning, blinding me. The door opens and he shocks me with the stun gun. Then he blindfolds me. When I’m able to stand again, he guides me to the pail of water he’s brought with him. He hands me dental floss and I floss my teeth. He gives me a toothbrush, with toothpaste already applied, and I brush and rinse. He shocks me again, turns me face over as I spasm, removes my blindfold, and exits the cell, returning me to solitude and
