Christina
I sit in silence, not daring to speak, after Jordy punches me in the belly. Terror like I have never felt before grips me, feeling like hands inside my belly, twisting and hurting Bump, cruel, powerful hands doing things nobody should ever do to a growing baby. Tears sting my eyes, slide down my cheeks, but I can’t sob; if I sob, he will hit me again. I keep staring at Bump, because something is not right. It feels wrong. Something feels out of place. There is the pain, but there is another element, too, almost like a dislocation in my stomach. I bite down. I want to scream for help. I want to scream for a doctor. What if he’s killed my baby? What if this evil man has killed my child?
He sits at his desk, looking at his monitors, every now and then muttering something under his breath. He hasn’t tried to kiss me again, which I am thankful for, but I am also furious with myself for letting my pride harm Bump; I should’ve just kissed him. I should do anything he wants to protect my baby.
Now…I wince as my belly cramps up, something churning deep inside of me, a feeling like flesh tearing. It reminds me of dry-heaving, the tightness in my belly. The fear grows and grows until I am on the verge of panic. I need to get out of here. I need to get to a doctor. Miscarriage…I try and close my mind to the word: an evil word; a foreboding word. But I cannot. The possibility is too real. Maybe the baby is already dead. Maybe the life I have been tending these past four months is already dead inside of me. I bite my lip, but still a whimper escapes me. The whimper sounds pitiful and small compared with the panic and fear which attacks me. It sounds far too weak.
“Shut up,” Jordy says casually, without turning. “You could’ve made this so much easier, you pregnant slut. You could’ve made everything so easy. Why didn’t you just give yourself to me, that day in summer, eh? Why didn’t you just be a good whore and give yourself to me? That’s what you whores never seem to understand. You don’t get it, do you? You’re not meant to flap your stupid fucking lips every time a stupid thought enters your stupid head. No, no, you’re not meant for that. Why not just shut your cunt mouth and let me do the thinking for you, huh? Oh, god, I hate whores like you. Ungrateful, pathetic whores. And you’re the most pathetic whore I’ve ever met, easy. No question about that. No way.”
He turns, stands, walks over me to. “Look at you,” he says, disgust in his voice. I don’t look up at him, but stare down at my feet. I don’t whimper. I hold my breath. I do nothing which could give him cause to strike me again. I close my mind to pride, I close my mind to the woman who was somehow able to stand up to him that day in summer. I close my mind to all of that and become the meek, obedient woman I would’ve been had I stayed in my parents’ pre-planned suburban life. I become less than nothing; I become a shadow. I make myself so small and meaningless that it would seem like a chore to harm me—or my baby.
“You see,” Jordy says with satisfaction. “You whores are so pathetic that all it takes is a little jab in the belly and you turn into mice.” He chuckles softly, and then kneels down, elbows resting on his knees. “Look at me,” he whispers.
I don’t want to look at him, but I know I don’t have a choice. I say to myself: everything I do now, I do for my baby. Whatever is required for me to survive, I do for my child. The pain in my belly is still twisting and aching and throbbing, and detaching. That is the strangest part. It’s like I can feel my baby lifting his/her tiny hands and pushing away from his/her life support system. Mad, impossible, and yet the thought plants itself in my mind, and grows bigger and bigger as I lift my gaze and look at Jordy.
“Good,” he says. He licks his lips. I force myself not to cringe. “I think it’s about time I had that kiss, don’t you?” At first I think this is a rhetorical question, but when I don’t reply he lets out a long sigh. “I said, I think it’s about time I had that kiss.”
I swallow: pride, dignity, everything. I swallow it deep down, and then nod shortly. “Y-yes,” I say. “I think so.”
He smiles. The worst part is that the smile looks real. It’s like he actually thinks I want to kiss him, like he’s forgotten that he brutally punched me in the belly, like he has given no thought that I might be agreeing to this solely because I am afraid that my child might be in grave danger.
“Good,” he says, standing up and taking two steps to me, and then kneeling down again. “What a good slut you’ve turned out to bet. Close your eyes, and open your mouth.”
I almost whimper at this, the thought is so revolting, but somehow I manage to bury those feelings and do as he says. I close my eyes, plunging myself into a world of darkness, and then open my mouth. My lips are dry, tongue heavy. I hear him lean across to me, the crinkle of his leather jacket, the way his breathing gets quicker.
“Good whore,” he whispers, and his breath spreads over me, just as Red’s has many times now, but this makes me want to vomit again. No—I can’t vomit. I can’t. I have to stay strong. He is less than half an inch from my lips now, not seeming to care that I reek of sick, my shirt and my lips covered with it. In less than a second, he will kiss me. In less than a second, this psychotic, greasy, violent, sickening man will lay his lips on me. “Good,” he repeats, and now he’s so close that his breath is in my mouth.
His lips are about to touch mine when, suddenly, a sound like a car backfiring repeatedly comes from below, shaking the floor.
“Fuck!” he roars, jumping back to the table. “What the fuck!”
I open my eyes, panting. The sound gets louder and more frequent, repeated bang-bang-bangs, and then I realize what it is: gunfire. Jordy’s men are firing. I look over his shoulder at the monitors, some of which are green with night vision. There, three tiny figures on one of the monitors, crouching down behind a large piece of disused machinery. Is that Red? Is that man with the swollen, bulging face Red? I can’t tell, not from here, not with the quality of the image.
The gunfire stops for a moment—perhaps they are reloading—and then carries on, the men on the monitor peeking their heads up to fire a couple of shots and then being pinned down straightaway.
Jordy picks up his cellphone. “What the fuck is this?” he screams. “How the fuck did they get in here—No, I wasn’t watching the fucking outside because I was fucking busy you fucking fuck! Kill them! Fucking shoot them!”
He waves his arms as he talks, and then in one quick movement he spins on me. I instinctively drop my gaze, staring down at Bump and my legs…and the blossoming red patch which stains my pants, spreading out over my thighs, and then dripping down my calves. So much blood: too much blood. More blood than I knew a person could produce. More blood than any single person should be able to produce. That’s my baby. My baby is bleeding out of me. Oh Christ, oh fucking god…my baby is bleeding out of me.
My mind clouds. Nothing else exists but that spreading pool of blood. All at once, I am screaming, not thinking, just screaming as loud as I can. “Red! Red! Our baby! Red! Please! Red! Help! Red! Red! Help me! Red! Red! Red!”
Jordy grits his teeth, growling, and then looks around the room. He picks up a length of wood which might’ve come from a desk or one of the crates in the factory. Still muttering on the phone—words which I cannot hear over the sound of the gunfire and my screaming, words which I don’t want to hear when my baby is oozing onto my legs—he walks across the room and brings the length of wood down on the top of my head.
I am vaguely aware that the wood snaps in two, and then the spot begins to throb. But I don’t stop screaming. Somehow, my desperation pushes me on. Jordy curses, picks up another piece of wood, and then advances on me again.
“Stupid pointless little whore,” he says, lifting the wood up. “Stupid fucking cunt.”
This time when he brings the wood down, my head slumps down and my eyelids grow heavy. In those last few moments before sleep—or death, maybe it is death, maybe this is how it all ends for me—takes me, I watch as my pants turn dark red, the blood shifting and blossoming and spreading like the patterns of some grim Rorschach test.