Jasmine

by Bene, Jennifer

  I reach down and grasp her under her thighs, lifting to position myself between legs that spread this time with no resistance. She is so at peace right now. So willing to share our love together. Maybe what I did today has finally driven the vestiges of the Devil out of her. By protecting her, perhaps she’s realized that I will never let anything take her from me. That she will forever be protected and loved as long as she remains within my arms.

  As I push inside her, she does not push back as she’s done in the past. She is wet, eager for this union of our bodies, and she welcomes me with the quiet love of a good wife accepting her husband. Usually there is some resistance from Jasmine, an almost unwillingness to consummate our union as man and wife. But not this afternoon. Now she moves with me, rocks to each drive of my hips, and it is all a testament to God filling her with the righteousness of this as it filled me in the hours of the morning.

  “Yes, Jasmine. Yes,” I murmur as I thrust into her, her womanhood slick with her own desire, and I wish it could be today. Could be here and now to create life within her, but I know that cannot be the case. God’s ways are infinite and not to be questioned. But soon. Soon the time will be upon us and the idea of that makes me surge harder, claiming her as mine.

  “Jasmine!”

  She doesn’t call out my name as I have imagined, but it is still too much, too perfect. I feel that sensation again, the one I feel every time. A coming loss of control, and I drive forward with an intensity that makes my thrusts almost violent. She doesn’t cry out, nor do I feel her body tense, and knowing her acceptance allows me to continue on in a way I haven’t before. Holding her against the tile, I let go, forget restraint for this one perfect moment as the tension peaks inside me in a bright cascade of bliss.

  And I fill her with my seed.

  My body shudders and, other than the jerking of my shaft inside her, I go still. I hold her encased in my arms, pulled tight to my chest. I’m still inside her, stretching her tight as she surrounds me, and I feel no part of my seed slipping from her. Once I leave her, some will, and it has always fascinated me to know the milky liquid that both fills and flows from her is God’s gift from my body to hers. The sight of it always makes pride abound within me, and I must be watchful of that sin, but I know it will happen again.

  We are all sinners in some manner in God’s eyes.

  I reluctantly lift Jasmine from me, making sure she can stand on her own before I release her. She doesn’t move, does not pull away to another part of the tub as she has in the past and I run my hands over her, touching my wife. The future mother of my children.

  After a final rinse, I shut the water off and wrap her in a towel. When she is tightly curled within it, I carry her to our bed. A voice whispers to me I should make her dress, at least put on underwear and one of those feminine things she asked for to protect the bed during her time. But I don’t. For now I let her burrow under the covers still ensconced in the towel, and I crawl in after her. She is tired, needs rest, and for now I am happy to lie with her. I don’t feel drowsy, but rather strong, powerful. I pull her to me as she closes her eyes, cradled in my embrace where I can give her the peace and comfort she needs.

  Soon, her breathing smooths and she falls asleep. Pressing a kiss to her hair, I whisper, “I love you, Jasmine.”

  Today was a good day, a blessed day. God looks out for and blesses the pious and righteous among His servants. Today I have proven to Him to be worthy. And I know that soon He will reward me for that.

  Reward us both.

  Thirteen

  Her

  He wakes me before sunrise. I’m asleep, but I feel his body move and I stiffen because I never know anymore when he’s going to exercise his rights as a ‘husband.’ I flinch as he drags his hand over the bare flesh of my shoulder, his fingers lingering at the hollow where my neck flares out. He lifts my hair letting it run through his fingers and then tumble back to my shoulder before he slips from the bed and moves into the bathroom. The light there blinds me for a second when he turns it on, and I bury my head into the pillow to let the starburst at the back of my eyes fade.

  It’s Sunday, and he’s up early. He doesn’t work on Sundays because that is the day of rest and worship, although it’s never stopped him from fucking me. He moves around, and the faucet in the sink turns on, then off. I peek quickly from the pillow to see the broad swath of his back facing me. Those pale tracks of his scars stand out where they pass over the hard cords of his muscles in the harsh light from the bulb.

  I lie still, slowing my breathing as I listen to him moving about the room. A moment later I feel the bed on my side dip deeply as he sits on the edge of it. I stay still, and since it’s Sunday, I pray. I pray to a God I have never known for him to get up and leave.

  Maybe there is a God but if there is… the God of men is not benevolent.

  He moves slightly, and once again this morning he strokes my hair. He brushes through it, lifting it and letting it fall back down before he does it again. I don’t know if he expects this tenderness to wake me, but I refuse. I just lie here hoping that once he’s done pawing at his obedient pet, he’ll leave to do whatever it is he’s going to do. But God shows me how much concern he has for my prayer.

  “Jasmine.”

  I try and still myself even further, monitoring every breath to make it smooth as I grasp and hold onto hope that he will leave me alone.

  “Jasmine.” This time it’s a little louder and hope slips away because he wants something of me and he will have it — my pleas to his God notwithstanding. He gives me a gentle shake and my eyes snap open. That should tell him something right there, but as I turn my head slightly to look up into his face I see nothing but his blank stare looking down at me.

  “You need to get up.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “Yes.”

  “I… thought Sunday was the Lord’s Day. A day of worship and rest.”

  He nods and smiles a little. Like his pet has learned a trick that he approves of.

  “Yes. It is. But today is a special Sunday.” He gets up from the edge of the bed, and I do too. He reaches for my hand, interlacing our fingers, and I freeze.

  Don’t fight. If I fight him, he’ll take it as needing to provide discipline, punishment, and he actually smiled a moment ago so I don’t want to fuck this up. I can’t.

  “Come, Jasmine.” He tugs at my hand, pulling me toward the shower, and I let him. I follow, because he killed a man yesterday, and I don’t want to press my luck.

  I finish my shower quickly, and aside from the fact that he doesn’t shove me against the tile and take me like he has before, it could be any other morning in this hell. It’s almost worse that he hasn’t, because now my brain is going ten thousand miles a minute with nightmare scenarios of what he has planned for his ‘special Sunday.’

  “Dry yourself. Then you should dress,” he commands, and I move, trailing water as I step out of the tub to grab my towel.

  I need to get dressed before he changes his mind. Maybe if I’m in that stupid cotton Sunday dress he’ll think twice before yanking it off me and pushing me down on the bed to fuck me. I start to move, but then stop. My pills. They’re in my bag in the cabinet, and I’m trying to stretch them out, give myself as much time as possible, but every day that I wait, I’m gambling with my life. My period could stop at any time, and if he keeps fucking me, it’s too much of a risk. I glance from the shower to the sink. I could wait one more day, try to eke out another twenty-four hours of safety, but…

  Pulling open the cabinet door as quietly as I can, I fumble out the round pink case. A cry catches in my throat as I open it and remember it’s the last pill in this one. A cruel reminder of just how little time I have left. I turn the dial, pushing the pill through the foil, and then pop it in my mouth. Dry. I swallow, pooling as much saliva as I can to get it down.

  He’s still showering, and the faint outline of his bulk moves behind the curtain as I tuck the case back int
o my bag. Thank God he’s too fucking stupid to realize what those pills are for. At first I prayed to God he wouldn’t find them in my stuff, and when he did, and I realized he had no clue what they were for, I’d lied my fucking ass off. ‘My medicine’ I’d called them. And they are. They’re one of the few things holding my life together right now, but the number of empty buttons, the dents of popped foil, are stark reminders that my lifeline is finite and getting shorter every day.

  I reach under the cabinet, grabbing the box of tampons only to find it empty. Sighing, I put it in the trash basket as quietly as I can and crouch down to look for the new one, but the purple box sitting beside the little toiletry bag from my suitcase isn’t filled with tampons. They’re pads. Cheap, store brand, with wings. I glare at the shower curtain, knowing exactly why he bought these instead of what I asked for — but I can’t bring myself to say anything. If I do, I’ll just draw attention to myself, give him ideas of what to do with my body now that there’s literally nothing in his way.

  I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

  The words are easy to say in my head, but I won’t let them past my lips. I just rip the top of the box open, grab one, and move to the bedroom. At least, if yesterday is any indication, I won’t have to wear these for long.

  By the time he comes out of the bathroom, I’m dressed, and his eyes roam over me for a moment before he says, “You may wear the shoes today.”

  He moves to the chest of drawers, and I go to the closet to grab my sneakers. Mine, not her shoes that I’d accidentally taken that night. The ones too small that made my feet bleed while I ran. Sitting on the chair, I think about how different things might have gone if I’d been wearing these shoes.

  Maybe I would have made it. If only I hadn’t fucked up.

  He puts on dark blue dress pants and a crisp white long-sleeve shirt, those giant boots of his pulled on and tied as the last piece. When he stands, he reaches for me again. “Let’s go downstairs, Jasmine.”

  I follow him in silence, still trying to understand what’s going on with him today. Sundays are always a day of rest, and typically there’s little that he demands of me. Fuck me in the morning, and then make sure breakfast, lunch, and dinner are made on time. The rest he spends reading the Bible, while I pretend to do the same as I make fantasy plans of how I’m eventually going to escape from here.

  Right now I should be making breakfast. Instead he’s gathering things from the kitchen while I stand at the island, watching as he pulls leftover roast from the refrigerator. He starts to make sandwiches without my help, because apparently I’m still not allowed to touch kitchen utensils.

  He makes four of them, and then turns in a circle, looking a little confused, before he murmurs, “Oh. Right. That’s where she kept it.”

  His hand brushes my arm as he passes me, and I hear him move down into the basement. For a second I wonder if I could lock him in, but I have no idea where he keeps the fucking lock. I’m not willing to risk him catching me digging in the kitchen drawers, because if he did I’d definitely end up back in the barn. Or dead.

  Neither are good options, so, I simply stand, unmoving, even more confused by his actions than usual.

  This is definitely unlike any other Sunday, and coupled with yesterday I feel completely off-kilter. I’m not thinking clearly, and it’s reflected in the fact that I haven’t moved from my spot when he returns to the kitchen carrying something.

  It’s a basket. A fucking honest-to-God wicker picnic basket. I have no words. This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder, and that’s saying a lot living in this hellscape he’s created.

  What the fuck is going on?

  He packs the picnic basket with the sandwiches and other food, and all I can do is watch. Numb. Yesterday, last night, right now… all of this feels surreal, disjointed, completely out of sync with reality. Except I know this is real. All of it is as real as him murdering that man yesterday. Fuck. It was only yesterday. And now… this? A picnic? He’s going to take me on a fucking post-murder picnic?

  “Let’s go, Jasmine.” He’s gathered the basket, a blanket shoved under the handle that he grips in one meaty palm. With the other he reaches toward me, and I take his hand and follow. We’re passing the small washroom before I realize how compliant I’m acting. But after yesterday, am I suddenly going to strike out against him?

  He killed that man.

  Yeah. He killed a man. And I’m pretty sure that it’s only the insane notion that I really am Jasmine that keeps him from slitting my throat and putting me wherever he disposed of that man’s body.

  Fuck, I’m treading a much thinner rope than I’ve ever admitted to myself.

  All my fighting against him during the weeks since he took me have relied on him continuing to believe that I’m Jasmine. That my defiance has been a function of the Devil taking root inside me. And he has believed up till now that with his guidance, and God’s will, the evil can and will be driven out of me.

  But I know the truth. The Devil is not within me. No, I’m in a dangerous dance with a madman and I need to start watching my moves and not step on his toes… or maybe he’ll look for a different partner.

  A new Jasmine. A better one than I’ve been.

  We’re out of the house and crossing the packed dirt of the drive toward the truck when I come out of my thoughts. It’s still cool, not quite warm yet in the crystal sharpness of the morning light. There’s no breeze and little sound except for the cheep-cheep of some little bird nearby and the sounds of our feet scuffing the ground as we approach the pickup.

  “Inside, Jasmine,” he commands, and I scurry around the hood to get in. Daniel starts the truck, and with a shifting of gears we’re heading past the barn, out of the drive, moving along the dirt road that was my downfall. I zone out, imagining potential escape scenarios, ones where I don’t make the same stupid mistakes, and I don’t realize how far we’ve traveled until he turns the pickup down another dirt road.

  I never made it this far.

  The rolling terrain, the turn in the fence line here, I don’t recognize any of it from my run. I swivel my gaze back around and discover there’s no sign of another road, another barn, another house, another anything out here. Just a rolling expanse of endless grass stretching across the horizon.

  No one could — will — ever find me out here.

  Daniel continues to drive, the tracks of the dirt road rattling the dash and the glass in the windows. He says nothing, staring straight ahead, his face impassive. Whatever thoughts, whatever reverie of madness he’s lost in, his face gives no outward indication of it. Wherever he’s taking me only he knows, and it’s clear at this point he has no desire to share it.

  I lose myself in the barren landscape until the engine growls down into a lower gear, and the truck jolts over the ruts of the main road, switching onto a track that is barely two thin lines stretching out into the distance. The pickup splashes through a small stream, a sheen of bright reflection mirroring sunlight and sky, and we continue on until we come to a group of trees at the base of a rise. Daniel pulls the truck over and turns it off.

  Silence fills my ears for a moment, broken only by the ticks and creaks of cooling metal, and then he looks at me. “Come, Jasmine.”

  I don’t have any choice except to climb out, hoping he wouldn’t pack a picnic to kill me out here. He closes the door behind me and leads me toward the grove. There’s only a trace of a breeze, and though it has to be getting past morning and near noon, it’s still comfortable. The sun warms the soil and grass around us, the smell of baked earth and dried plant life permeating everything.

  “This is one of my favorite places,” he says as we walk underneath the shade of the trees, but I don’t respond as he lets go of my hand so he can spread out the blanket. “Sit, Jasmine.”

  He smiles at me, gesturing to the spot beside him, and I obey. The mixture of grass, dirt, and leaves from the trees crunches underneath as I sit, and yet it’s soft under the blanket
. I’m almost comfortable, and that’s the fucked-up thing.

  This, here — right now — under different circumstances this could be beautiful. Romantic. Instagram-worthy. A picture-perfect picnic with the trees shading us from the sun overhead, the nearby brook providing white noise to the sounds Daniel makes as he unpacks the food. This could be relaxing, soothing. Sexy. Except the man sitting next to me is a monster who killed without thought yesterday. Who has fucked me repeatedly, sodomized me, held me against my will and who, if he has his way, will put his child in me to create his fucked-up version of the all-American family.

  No. Fuck no. Never.

  When he finishes spreading everything out, he turns to me, face solemn. “Before we eat, we must pray.”

  Of course. It’s always this way. Every meal. He bends his head down, and I mindlessly follow suit. Christ, I’ve already become more compliant than I ever have before. But, what the fuck, after yesterday? Would anyone blame me?

  “Heavenly Father, we thank you on this day of worship for the food you provide, and for the grace and love you show us each and every day of the week. Amen.”

  “Amen,” I echo with a whisper.

  It’s awkward as we sit on the blanket, my legs to my side and his crossed, because I want to enjoy this. The open air, the mockery of freedom, but I can’t.

  Daniel hands me a sandwich and takes his own, and we eat in relative silence, only a few polite offers of food from him, which I decline. My appetite has dwindled to nothing, because I have no idea what he wants from me.

  Is this just his version of a date? Is it a test?

  I can’t figure it out, and his face gives nothing away as he watches the empty horizon.