I walk in the direction my feet take me of their own accord, the decision out of my hands, having no idea where I’m headed.
I now realize I am indeed a coo yon, a stupid person. Master William had called me a coo yon more times than I could count, and now I agree with him.
What am I doing? What is my plan?
But, I keep on walking, knowing I have freedom, yet I don’t know how I’m going to cope now that it has been granted.
The only two people I have ever known, or been able to remember, aren’t my parents. They were not my family because one was my abductor and one my mistress.
I made the mistake of calling her mother once and was beaten severely for it by Master William. Mistress had explained I was wrenched from my home as an infant, stolen to be used one day for Master William’s needs. I never, ever referred to him as my father. I learned they were just people in my life and I did what I was told without question.
I was a quick study. Mistress told me I was gifted, so I made her job a lot easier. I, of course, was only taught what Master William would allow because there was a bigger picture I was yet too young to understand.
When I was little, I was granted television time, watching children’s programs only. I learned from these programs that I lived a vastly different life from what most children did. I hadn’t understood that my life excelled at being different until I started getting older.
I loved reading, and I had one toy, my small ragdoll, Jenny. She was dressed in her little white apron over her little black and white checkered dress, with her bright red shoes and a bright red bow in her dark, curly hair. I cuddled her at night. I never wanted my mistress or Master William to see me loving something. I did it in the safety of my room and under the covers.
I was told when it was my birthday. I was given necessities for my existence and growth during the year; a birthday meant turning a year older and nothing more. I didn’t know I should be praised for getting older, sung to and given gifts and a cake. We didn’t celebrate Christmas or any other holidays. My life was on repeat, every day of the year.
The woman who raised me from an infant to a teenager is now long gone. Master William slit her throat in front of me when I was just thirteen years old. I clearly remember the gurgling noise she made as she fought to keep breathing, her eyes widening in surprise and recognition as all that red drained out of her. It was so quick.
I was to be the last person she saw before she died. Her eyes had searched my horrified face out where I had been quietly reading on the couch. He let go of her body when she had taken her last breath, and she slumped to the floor in an undignified heap with a disgusting squelching sound.
I think it took a few moments for my mind to play catch up with what had happened in front of me. He had snuck up behind her and slid the sharp metal across her neck, making a clean gash, which opened up as she threw her neck back in surprise, red soaking into her crisp white blouse, a look of triumph on his evil face.
I think, to a certain extent, I checked out the day she bled out in front of me. Master William chained me up while he got rid of her body, then made me clean up what had been left behind. It was a thick and sticky mess that smelled of fear and metal.
Blood is not easy to clean up, and it had sprayed everywhere. You have to scrub and scrub to get every last spot clean. I wanted to vomit, but I knew I would be punished, so I had to go to another place inside my head to get through it.
I knew this was all a game to him. He wanted me to have a front row seat and be a witness to what he’d done. He didn’t have to do it in front of me, but that was all part of his twisted, evil mind. It was also a warning to me he highlighted in dramatic style.
My youth was starting to slip away and I was becoming a teenager. He took her life knowing I was old enough to take care of myself, to obey and fear him into total submission.
She was expendable.
She made the mistake of thinking she wasn’t. My mistress lived in a fantasy world filled with his evil, but thought she was his partner, his equal. Even at a young age, I could see the tight rope she walked so carelessly.
She had an expiration date.
He was so calm when he took her life, and that was when I knew I was on borrowed time, because any time he pleased, I knew my life would be taken in just as gruesome a manner. I did not doubt that for a minute.
Was she my friend?
Well, you learn to make do with what you have. She was all I knew in a female. She was very guarded with me, and she kept her walls up emotionally, but she didn’t physically hurt me. I didn’t fear her like I feared Master William. I didn’t even know her name. She was simply Mistress to me.
I wasn’t capable of mourning her death because my emotions were too broken, but I think in a twisted way I did miss her female presence in the house, although I couldn’t understand why she would want to live with a man like Master William voluntarily.
Every now and then, something will trigger a particularly bad memory and I have had to break off another piece of tape and tightly reseal the box. Mistress’ death is one of those memories.
It’s the way I survived in my world.
He was sick and twisted, prone to outbursts of great violence for no good reason. Sometimes I was on the receiving end, and other times I witnessed my mistress receiving punishment.
He had no soul, no conscience. He was Hell’s bastard. He was spontaneous with his actions, which made him dangerous and unpredictable.
I was beaten black and blue when I failed at any task set before me. To be the best would mean no time in the slave cabin behind the main house, chained to that filthy floor, where I would be beaten and kicked, only enough to break me a little more each time.
When my mistress was alive, she was good at fixing broken bones. I was very careful not to be given a broken bone when she was gone. It was enough to kill the last bit of my soul, which had been fighting back. I didn’t want to be in pain and mended, only to be in pain again.
So I gave myself over and became submissive to everything he asked of me. Sometimes I slipped up by not doing something right. I tried real hard to be flawless, but sometimes I was unable to be the kind of perfect he needed.
As I grew older, things changed. When I turned fourteen, I started to bleed. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I was dying. It crossed my mind that I was excited my life was coming to an end. I feared it, but it also meant the end was near and on my terms.
Master William threw a book at me in disgust along with a bag of female hygiene products, while I lay on my bed after I’d told him I needed help.
I did as I was ordered. I read the book. I then understood I wasn’t dying. I felt disappointment at having to endure more time with this man.
From then on, I was given access to a computer, but only while he supervised me. I could never surf any sites unless he approved of them, unless he watched my every move with that mouse.
I began to understand there was a world outside my existence that I was missing out on.
A big world.
I was allowed to shop online and choose nice, pretty things. I could buy personal items for myself as a reward for turning old enough to bleed.
I was granted movie time. I loved superhero movies. What I would have given to have had some of their powers, been the one being saved. Although my life was not nurturing or loving, I was also allowed to watch chick flicks about finding that elusive love. I chose Pretty Woman because of the title, Sleepless in Seattle, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Holiday, The Notebook, The Lucky One, Valentine’s Day...I devoured them. I saw how people communicated and loved each other. I learned what heartache did to people. YouTube videos on how to style my hair were welcomed. I had no idea at the time it was all a pay-off for what was to come. You see, I was making myself prettier for him without even knowing it. I was making myself knowledgeable about men and women. I just needed to age, as I was not yet what he wanted. I was being groomed.
My life became like a piece of wood that somebody had taken a knife to and whittled into a shape, which could only be changed with more whittling.
It couldn’t be bent. It did what the whittler pleased.
The wood couldn’t stop what was being done to it, but nevertheless a shape was formed, which was pleasing to the whittler.
I was carved and shaped. I hurt and bled when beaten. I was bruised and felt pain for days. That’s where the piece of wood and I were different, because wood feels nothing.
Another thing I learned over the years was he liked to film me. Cameras were set up all around the plantation home. I would catch their winking red lights out of the corner of my eye when I’d worked out where they were all hidden. When I had free time, I would take a book into a room and sit and pretend I was reading as I looked through my thick curtain of hair for where the camera could be. It became a game. Mistress told me he filmed many rooms I frequented, for security reasons.
I soon switched off and forgot about the cameras, as I didn’t fully understand what they meant. I grew bored of them watching me, and there was nothing I could do about them.
When I was older, I discovered his library by a pure lapse of Master William’s mind. He always kept one door locked, which led to his end of the house and his rooms. Because of this one powerful door, which shut me off from his privacy, he didn’t have to lock each and every room within.
He got drunk on my birthday every year, and when Mistress was alive, he could afford to be more careless. But now she was dead and he’d made a big mistake. It was my first birthday after he’d slaughtered her, and he obviously wasn’t thinking when he started hitting the bottle. He never drank at home any other day of the year.
I was on my way to my room to save myself from the punishment which would come when he woke up and realized what he had done, but then I saw the door was wide open. It was a temptation calling out to me, too hard to resist.
I knew he was blind drunk, out cold on the couch downstairs, and I was old enough to smell an adventure and be a teenaged rebel. That open door beckoned to me. I was curious.
He didn’t have cameras in his wing of the house, so I was free to enter the library without fear of being filmed. I knew I had at least six hours before he would regain consciousness.
The library, I discovered, housed all the footage he had taken of me over the years. Everything was labeled and dated. He must have spent hours editing so he had the most memorable moments of each month of my life recorded.
The fucking perv.
It was proof of my existence. These were his personal tapes to view as he pleased.
I spent three hours watching as much of my childhood as I could, for I knew he would not make the same mistake twice. I watched the pain of the little girl growing up before my eyes, as I fast forwarded through year after year. I felt so sad for what that little girl had been forced to become.
I was too scared to stay there any longer because I was breaking the rules. Very costly rules if I was caught.
Sadly, I couldn’t stop the inevitable. I was led into a false numbness, which had protected me from thinking about what worse things could be done to me to degrade and humiliate me for his pleasure.
Master William liked routine, but things escalated when I turned eighteen. I had been made to watch porn for hours and hours on my eighteenth birthday.
That was the day I was introduced to his satin, midnight black, hooded shirt and pants — his uniform.
Master William had me sit between his legs with my back against his chest while I viewed what he put on for me. All I wanted to do was shut my eyes and think about one of those romance movies I had watched, but he would know if I wasn’t paying attention and I would be punished for my insolence.
I always did as I was told. It was the smartest move. I was granted reasonably safe passage if I did what I was asked of me the first time.
On this birthday, I was expected to learn from these women, who had sex in the back of taxis and on couches, on kitchen floors and counter tops, while their bodies got sweaty and their makeup ran down their faces, making them look like racoons. Some got slapped about and appeared to enjoy it, while others liked their throats clenched as they struggled for air, their eyes bulging, while the man pumped and grunted inside them in front of the camera.
I watched, not understanding what was going to come next.
I heard his breathing change and felt his hardness poking into my lower back. I did not flinch or show my discomfort. It was better to play ignorant and not invite the devil in. I remained outwardly calm, while I was so fearful on the inside, my heart pounding heavily against my chest. It wanted to escape from this man too.
Master William had requested I wear the new low cut white maxi dress he’d recently purchased for me. I still didn’t understand what was expected of me while I watched the porn, and felt nothing but fear as I tried to ignore his hardness pushing through his loose black pants into my back.
I had been obediently watching, when one hand snaked around and latched onto my throat, squeezing my neck tight. My immediate reaction was to panic and start bucking against his chest.
That little box I had her murder tucked away in burst open like a jack-in-the-box, and I thought I was going to have my throat slit too. I cried out pathetically, knowing nobody would hear me on his property. He lived on a lot of land, and there was not a single neighbor close by. I was only ever allowed a short distance from the house, and I didn’t mind. I didn’t like venturing too far, but I welcomed the sunshine and the rain.
I wanted sunshine and rain now so badly.
My heart skipped a beat and I gasped when his other hand slid down between my legs and moved up slowly. The sounds coming from the porn were drowned out by my heartbeat pounding frantically inside my head.
What is he doing?
His growl in my ear was deeply low and menacing. “Your time is running out, Whisper. I’ve been patient, more patient than should be asked and expected of any man, who has you tempting him every day. Who knew you were going to turn into such a beauty? I cocooned you for all these years, and you turned into a beautiful butterfly.” His unshaven face was scratching my skin. I could smell his stale breath from the cigars he liked to smoke. I tried never to look at him if I could help it. It was better for me to think of him as a faceless man, rather than the attractive man he was, even in his late forties.
He shouldn’t be attractive.
He is so ugly on the inside.
He is a contradiction.
He is a Venus flytrap.
When my mistress was alive, I knew he went out, and now I understand more fully why he went out. I remember hearing her talking to him. She was jealous about what he had been doing, even though he did it to her as well.
When he’d killed her, he started cuffing and chaining me to a floor-to-ceiling thick pole that was inside a deep storage closet whenever he went out. I waited in the dark until he returned and released me, the heavy chain weighing my torso to the pole. I would dream of more for my life when I was inside that closet. It was the only way to make it through. I would go to my happy place of movies and let them play out in my mind until he came for me. I was no longer in a closet, though. I was in a big room watching a big screen TV and laying on a soft comfortable couch with a warm blanket. I always saved the comedies for that place.
I feared then he wanted to do it to me. I understood then what their conversations were about.
As I walk aimlessly, I let my mind wander back to that wretched night.
***
His hand had stalled.
“Watch the television. Watch what I will do to you. I have kept you whole. You have no idea how much I want to take you now.” He bites my shoulder hard and takes his time letting go.
I’m frozen with fright.
I’m screaming on the inside.
“Today, you just watch.” The remote clicks by my ear and the movie speeds up to a scene he’s obviously all too familiar with and he hits play.
The guy has the girl in front of him. She’s naked while he’s standing behind her clothed and cupping her chin in his hand. One finger’s moving up and down her slit, while her head rolls back onto his shoulder as she closes her eyes and moans. He pushes it in further, and she cries out in pleasure as the camera zooms in to show his glistening finger as he pumps it in and out of her. She tries to stand still, but her body betrays her and her hips move, greedy for more.
He stops, and she whimpers as though she wants him to continue. He slides his finger all the way out and glides it up her body and over her erect nipple, making his way to her mouth and slipping it inside as she opens wide for him. She moans again as her tongue flicks out, licking as much of it as she can, then sucking on it so deeply, dimples formed in her cheeks.
The video is paused.
He taps me on the head with the remote control. “When this happens,” he points to the screen, “I want you wet for me, Whisper. Do you understand?” His thighs tighten on either side of me when he talks to me.
I can’t pull away from him. I’m caught in the Venus flytrap.
His fingers creep their way under my dress to make a point. He rips at the side of my panties, painfully tugging until I hear the cheap seams give and tear.
I now understand from all the movies I have been allowed to watch in the past, and the porn today, that he wanted me to wear white because I’m a virgin. He methodically plans everything, and I’m too naive to know what’s coming for me.
I am trapped.
My heartbeat has accelerated to dangerous levels, and I know the camera trained on me for his sick pleasure later will be capturing my anxiety and my undoing.
But he said it wasn’t happening today. He’s just trying to torture my mind.
He rocks us from side to side so he can pull my underwear roughly from my body as his excitement builds.
I’m a block of wood. I don’t feel.
He said it wouldn’t happen today.
He licks the side of my cheek slowly as his hand cups my breast hard. I squeak out in protest, while his other hand at my throat tightens more. He could break my neck if he chose to.
He’s a strong man; he spends time on himself. I’m lean and tall; I would weigh nothing to him. He is also much taller. My neck is long, and it would snap with a twist. It would bleed out if sliced open. I could be defeated so easily, and he knows it.
“Whisper, when the time comes, you will be sopping wet for me.” His hand is painfully tight wrapped around my throat, and I think he has finally lost his mind and I will be suffocated.
“Stop...please,” I rasp out.
I thrash my body out of sheer uncontrollable terror, and he responds by squeezing his hand even tighter. I’m gasping for a small bit of air to inhale.
This excites him more. He wants to see how far he can go. I’m being choked to death. If I live, I will bear the bruised fingerprints on my neck for days.
I try to thrash about, or my mind wants to thrash, but I can’t even feel his hand anymore. I’m starting to see spots. I have been mindlessly clawing at his hand on my throat, but now they have given up the fight and fallen limply to my side.
He’s crushing my windpipe. My soul feels like it’s leaving me. I have nothing left in me.
I have stilled.
“Fuck! Whisper! I haven’t waited patiently all these years for you to take the easy way out. You do not have permission to die today. You will die on my terms!” I faintly hear him shouting abusively at me.
I’m in a tunnel.
I’m no longer able to keep my eyes open.
His fingers have released my throat and he’s shaking me.
I am a blob of jelly.
My body and mind can take no more today.
I wake up later in my bedroom with a sore throat and having a hard time swallowing. I check myself over. My panties are gone and the dress is in place. I’m trying to feel for any changes to my body.
“You’re finally awake.” He’s walked in on me while I was assessing myself.
I wait for him to brag.
I won’t look at him. My eyes are downcast. He’s faceless to me; it’s a coping mechanism. I won’t think about what he could have done to me. I can’t change it.
He tells me nothing. He waits because I know he wants me to ask.
I won’t give him the satisfaction.
***
From my eighteenth birthday onwards, he came for me twice a month. He knew my cycle, and I was left to fret when those two times would be. The only peace of mind I had, was knowing he wouldn’t come for me when my period was due. He granted me ten days of peace, but when he did come for me, I would have to wear an identical white dress every time, and I would be drugged, blindfolded, and bound by my hands to the banister of the staircase. He always liked to remind me of the punishment ahead of me, but he never told me what he did to me.
I never remembered.
I didn’t want to remember.
I just put it all back into a box and sealed it down tight. I knew it was a game and I didn’t want to play. I could at least keep that for myself and show no outward signs of anguish.
It was a form of torture not knowing, a hideous mind game, which he played for his own amusement. I found no physical form of sexual assault, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.
He would play with my mind by leaving sex toys on the floor and empty condom wrappers to be discovered when I came to my senses, my mind still foggy, while he sat in a high-backed chair he positioned facing me. He would be dressed in the same outfit, his face shadowed by the fabric of the hood, laughing while I slowly moved, trying to get my body back under my control.
He was mocking me.
He would grant me permission to go to my room, knowing I couldn’t stand properly and I was bared to him. I didn’t care. I would pull myself up, feeling as wobbly as a newborn calf, hold my shredded dress to cover some of my body, and make my way back to the sanctuary of my room.
I had long lost the emotion of embarrassment for my nakedness displayed in front of him. I was a cardboard cutout of a person.
He took to handcuffing me to my bed every night from the time I turned eighteen. It crossed his mind I might entertain the thought of fleeing; he really didn’t get that my mind was too broken. I was a pet who lived in an invisible cage. I had mental boundaries I was too scared to breach.
Cameras were my constant spies, always ready to confess all my sins for breaching the rules. Master William did grant me the privacy of my bathroom and bedroom, which I was grateful for. Small mercies I devoured.
My days were kept busy. I did what I was told. I was the cook and did the washing. I kept the house tidy, not that there would dare to be anything out of place. Gardening was a true joy of mine.
My life was on a timetable, which was monitored each and every day.
I was waiting for a superhero to save me, but my mind wouldn’t entertain the thought of leaving by my own will. It was trained too well. I was a hostage to my own fears. This is where I had lived all these years.
How was I ever going to get freedom? I craved it so much, yet what would I do with it? Where was I going to go, anyway? I had no money or transportation. Those thoughts were always on a hamster wheel, going round and round.
Never an end in sight or a solution.
Master William always promised me he would find me if I ever left him, and I wholly believed he would because he would be quicker than me, he had money, and he had transportation. He’d hunt me down and execute me for escaping, and I totally believed he would follow through with his threats.
I only knew I was in Louisiana, somewhere, because I had overheard my mistress and Master William talking one day. I held onto that valuable information, even though it did me no favors.
I was too young to understand what a Louisiana was. It wasn’t until I had been able to use the computer, looked at a world map, and studied the vast planet that was laid flat before me that I understood what it was. He had no idea I even knew the state I lived in, so he wasn’t worried about me seeing a world map.
He wanted to show me how big the world was, how small and insignificant I was in relation to it, but I knew this one piece of information, which I kept tightly packaged up in one of the boxes in my mind.
I live in Louisiana.
I shake off the memories and seal them back down in their boxes again as I keep walking. The skies have opened up and rain has built from a slow patter into an angry downpour. It’s dark and cold now; I’m shivering and drenched through to my skin. The jacket is too big on me, leaving room for the heavy bloated drops to run down my back.
I can handle rain.
I remind myself, none of this is going to happen again.
It will never happen again.
I was out here walking in the dark, and I only had a pillowcase stuffed inside a stolen jacket and nothing of worth to my name. I am officially a nomad.
I was purely moving, hoping on a wing and a prayer that my path would be crossed by someone kind. Miracles happened in movies, so why couldn’t one happen to me? I can’t think about what I had left behind dead on the floor, the bad memories. I can only walk, take this adventure, and see what will happen. I’m now free, and that’s all that matters. Life could not be so cruel to me twice.
Could it?
But I keep right on marching. I have not seen another soul on this dirt road. All there is to keep me company is the sound of rain falling. My feet are getting muddy and soaked through, but I keep on going, huddled inside the jacket.
After what felt like well over an hour, I think I can see a light flickering in the distance. I squint through the harsh rain that’s caking my eyelashes and hope to find shelter for the night.
Then a thought occurs to me and I let out a mad little laugh. I just remembered I turned twenty-one years old today.
Happy birthday to me.