Spare Key

don’t scream, it’ll be worse if you scream.

‘How do you like it, huh?’

There was such anger in her voice as she spat it out that Ben was unable to speak. He was back in his bedroom cowering as she stood above him. He knew he was helpless; that he couldn’t stop her; how could he stop her? He could see his blood on the blade still, glistening under the lights as she raised it up and pointed it at him accusingly.

‘You know I just thought you were some sort of pervert.’ The voice was so reminiscent of the tone she had used and the words in his head overlapped the ones Rachel was saying, only confusing him further as they layered. ‘But I’ve just been through your little bag and I now see you’re something far worse.’

Ben could see her eyes were just as focused on the blade’s red tip as his were.

‘You just have no fucking respect,’ she spat. ‘What the fuck have I ever done that would make you think I deserve to be treated like this? What fucking makes you think you have the right to be so fucking inconsiderate?’

She paused and glared at him but Ben didn’t reply. Even if he could have, he wouldn’t dare. He knew only too well that you didn’t talk back. Talking back just made her angrier.

‘You fucking steal my clothes; my fucking underwear. You fucking peep through my window. You fucking stand outside my window and wank. You fucking wank and cum on my window. But are you satisfied with that? Noooo… Then you fucking invade my home. You go through my stuff. That’s right I’ve been back while you were out. I had to get the chair since you have no fucking furniture. I saw what you did. You ate my food. You went through my clothes. You fucking ashed on my fucking carpet. I ask you again. What fucking right do you have?’

Ben stared at her his heart thumping.

‘Huh?’

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t reply. Even breathing was getting more and more difficult.

‘I said what fucking right?’ Her voice rose in intensity but not too far, not loud enough to alert the neighbours. Ben could only stare dumbly, the images, the voice. All of it tumbling head over heels through his mind, mixing with the pain until he didn’t know who he was anymore; didn’t know who she was anymore.

Even the familiar surrounds of the kitchen were beginning to blur and shift, the colours and shapes morphing until one moment he was in the flat, the next he was back in his bedroom; then in the kitchen; then in her room and the air was thick with the sound of buzzing and the smell of eggs.

There wasn’t even time to flinch as she suddenly leapt at him. Not that it mattered. He had nowhere to go anyway. The knife embedded in his shoulder, just below the collarbone and pain erupted through him as she twisted it and yanked it down. He opened his mouth to scream but clamped it shut – don’t scream; it’s always worse if you scream – instead he stared with wide eyes and trembled as the muscle of his pectoral split apart beneath the blade.

With her free hand, she raked his face, her nails carving furrows while the knife continued downwards, bisecting his right nipple. The agony was so blinding that Ben couldn’t help it. Despite his resolve, he opened his mouth to scream long and loud.

‘Oh no you don’t.’ Her voice was calmer now and suddenly Ben was choking as she rammed something into his mouth. He tasted the salty, metallic tang and realised it was the cum soaked panties he’d stuffed in his pocket earlier.

She stepped back, apparently momentarily sated by the violence. Ben’s pain dissipated in the sudden struggle to breathe. He could feel the fuzzy borders at the edge of his vision growing as he tried to suck air around the fabric in his mouth, his ruined nose, seemingly unable to compensate.

‘You’re not the only one with a spare key you know.’

Her outline was blurry as he struggled for air but Ben could see enough to know that the poncho was now bunched up around her waist and that her hand was working between her legs. His sight was rapidly diminishing as he frantically tried to suck oxygen into his lungs but even so, he clearly saw it as she morphed and she was there before him, spreading the lips so he could clearly see the glistening insides and even though he knew that there would be pain. That she’d be angry. His response was instantaneous.

Even as he blacked out, his penis was stiffening

DAY 6

The flash brought him back and as his eyes flew open, the pain hit him like a freight train and Ben screamed from the very depths of his being. It was like all those sessions he’d had with her rolled into one. The panties were gone from his mouth but something was still covering it. By its feel and shape he suspected it was his duct tape. His screams were only muffled groans but he still knew he’d made a mistake. That he’d screamed and that now it would be worse.

The dread flowed through him but then he looked down and before the hysteria overcame him, he had time to clearly think: how could it get any worse?

The camera flashed again as he saw the ruined organ, the skin flayed and peeled until it looked like little more than bloody gristle. The head of it was cross-hatched with cuts, reducing it to a mass of fleshy slivers.

The blood was everywhere. His thighs were coated in a sheen of it. It soaked through the fabric of the chair and he could just glimpse the puddle of it, spreading around his feet.

He couldn’t quite describe the feeling as he stared at all the blood and at the ruined mess of his penis. The pain was immense but he’d experienced immense pain before and, after the initial shock of the first hit, it was beginning to become bearable again. It was more the enormity of what she’d done. The sheer irreversibility of it all. Even if she stopped now he was ruined for life. There was no way to come back from the totality of this and it was that thought, that idea, that was forcing the screams as he thought back over all the times she’d threatened him.

I’ll cut it off. That’s what I’ll do. Cut it off. And now for all intents and purposes that was what she had done. And seeing the greatest fear of his childhood enacted was more than he could cope with. His brain reeled as the flash popped again.

He could hear her giggling but he didn’t look up. He couldn’t take his eyes off the ruined mess in his lap. No matter how much he wanted to.

‘Do you like it? When you passed out it rose to full attention and I couldn’t help wondering what you’d been planning to do with it. What you were planning to do to me with it. Do you think it’ll be much use to you now?’

She giggled again and the camera flashed once more. Ben saw her move across the periphery of his vision but didn’t look up.

‘What’s the matter? Nothing to say?’

Ben thought that summed it up perfectly. He could feel the blackness creeping further and further across his vision; an encroaching void of nothing, spreading out to encompass everything he saw. How much blood had he lost? Surely he’d be dead soon?

‘Not even a little curious to know how I got this?’

Ben heard her place the camera on the ground. Little more than a blink seemed to pass before his eyes reopened and suddenly she was there in front of him, crouching down, something shiny dangling from her fingers.

It took a long time for Ben to focus enough to discover it was a key.

Even when he did, he found he had no opinion on the topic.

‘I bet it didn’t even cross your mind as to why there was a key to my flat in yours, huh? Didn’t even think about it, just took it as a fucking sign to do whatever the fuck you wanted. Bet it didn’t even glimmer on the horizon that if there was a key for my flat in yours there might be a key to your flat in mine… It was the old lady you know.’

Rachel seemed to take offence at Ben’s confusion.