Mercy

by Annabel Joseph

  He frowned. “I know that you belong to me. That you’re mine. You are mine, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why? Why are you mine? How did I get so lucky?”

  “I don’t know that luck had anything to do with it,” I said, gazing up at the three paintings that now graced his bedroom wall.

  “Mmm. How’s your ankle?”

  “Almost completely better.”

  “Lucy,” he said. “Do you think it’s time for you to stop dancing?” Oh, Jesus. “No, I’m fine. It barely hurts anymore.”

  “I think you should stop before you hurt yourself. I can tell it’s not as easy as it was, even in the months I’ve known you.”

  I buried my head in his neck. “Matthew, please. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I worry about you.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Just fuck me again.”

  “Again? You’re a greedy little slut.”

  He pinched my nipple hard, and caught my yelp in his mouth with a kiss. He kissed me a long time, then whispered, “Get a condom and roll it onto my cock. And yes, Lucy, I’m your fucking boyfriend. Your fucking dominant slave of love. If you ever try to top me, I’ll hurt you.” I smiled as he pulled me under him. I had no desire to top him, although I had a certain power over him of my own.

  “Lucy, will you always be truthful to me?”

  “God, yes. Yes, Matthew, I will.”

  * * *

  But I was a big liar. I wasn’t truthful to him, or truthful to myself. I slowly turned into a big, fat liar in the weeks that followed that sweet little talk, because I was in pain of the most excruciating kind.

  Two decades of wear and tear on my joints had brought me to a point where the pain made it impossible to dance. So I did what any self-respecting dancer would do, which is drug myself in order to get by. I didn’t go to Grégoire. He wouldn’t have gone along with it. We all knew what dancers were hooked up to the pills, so I talked only to the people I had to. I took only what I needed, but that amount slowly increased, and then my flexibility started to go and the pain was that much worse.

  In desperation, I considered seeing Matthew’s friend Dr. Rob, who’d been so very kind to me. But I had no doubt he would have told Matthew everything. Not only that, but he would have told me to stop dancing. So I soldiered through on what pain pills I could get my hands on, and I tried, I really tried to not let things get away. But sometimes, you know, they just do.

  Chapter Thirteen: Lies

  Hello, my name is Matthew and I’m an addict. I’m addicted to a drug named Lucy Merritt.

  This girl, this little dancer named Lucy fills my every waking hour with either longing, craving, pleasure, or peace.

  I met Lucy back in October. It was almost May now and spring was in the air. I was sitting and waiting now for her to come to me. It was one of “our” nights, the nights when she was mine. I suppose now that she’d moved in, every night was really “our” night, but there were only certain nights I required her to play. The other nights were by choice, her choice, because my own choice, of course, was a perpetual “yes.” Most of the time, yes was her choice as well, but she wouldn’t move in without a “no” choice clause, so we agreed that some days she belonged to me, and other days she would be able to choose if she was mine.

  But tonight, no. No choice. I’d already planned what I was going to do to her. Some days I planned things, plotted pervertedly, other days I just went with the flow. It all depended on how much control I felt. When I really wanted her, it was better to make plans so things didn’t really get out of hand. Sure, it happened sometimes, but I never hurt her, not really, and I never ever would. By some freakish good fortune, she gets off on pain, the same way I get off on watching her endure it at my hands.

  I was running through my plans of depravity when I heard Kevin bang in the door.

  “Mr. Norris!”

  I jumped up. “Where’s Lucy?”

  “She’s out in the car.” The way that he said that, it wasn’t to reassure me, it was to tell me something was wrong. “She’s in the car. I can’t wake her up!” I was across the room in an instant, pushing past him.

  “She was fine when I got her, and then I thought she fell asleep. But she won’t wake up.”

  “Is she breathing?”

  “Yes, she was when I left.”

  I ripped open the car door, and she was breathing but she was so, so still, and so very pale. I lifted her and her warmth was reassuring, but she was limp and lifeless as a rag doll.

  “Get her bag. Find her phone. Call that guy she dances with. His name’s Grégoire.” I took her inside and laid her on the couch. Her breathing was shallow and she was just utterly gone. I shook her and slapped her face a little, shook her harder again. Nothing. I gestured to Kevin to hand me the phone.

  “Grégoire,” I yelled. “What’s wrong with Lucy? What did she take?”

  “What? Who is this?”

  “This is Lucy’s boyfriend, Matthew. What the hell did she take before she left the theater?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I don’t know what she took. God damn it, she doesn’t tell me.”

  “Who would know? This is not a fucking joke. She’s passed out on my sofa and she doesn’t look good.”

  “Hold on, I’ll make some calls. I’m coming over.”

  “Yeah, get over here, and call whoever would know.”

  Kevin let Grégoire in hardly five minutes later.

  “Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “She’s dead to the world. I don’t know if she’s okay or not. What is she on?”

  “Mariel said she thinks she took some pain pills she got from another dancer, that he bought off the street.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? What kind of pain pills?”

  “I don’t know. Some kind of painkillers. Vicodin. Something like that. Ellie said she thinks she took four.”

  Four. Jesus Christ.

  “She should go to the hospital, Mr. Norris.”

  “No, I’ll call someone to come here. You stay with her.” I crossed the room and called a doctor friend of mine, and he arrived and examined Lucy while we watched. During that time, she woke up a little, and he told us her heart rate and pupils looked good. He advised me to have her sleep it off, and that any pills off the street were most likely not full strength.

  After he left us with instructions to monitor her, I glared at Grégoire. “She danced tonight?”

  “Yeah. She was fine.”

  “Is she really fine, though? You’re her partner. Is she really fine?” He looked at me, and I saw the answer in his gaze.

  “Who is doping her?”

  “Lucy is doping herself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s in pain! Because her joints hurt.”

  “Well, why don’t you fucking make her stop?”

  “Me? I’m supposed to make her stop? She doesn’t listen to me anymore. Her world revolves around you now, sick as that is.”

  I ignored that barb. “She didn’t tell me. I didn’t know.” I scowled at him. “They don’t drug test dancers?”

  “No,” he said like I was an idiot. “They don’t.”

  “You knew she was taking drugs to keep dancing.”

  “I suspected, yes, but I never saw her take anything.”

  “You never asked her?”

  “I didn’t want to know.”

  “I thought you were a friend to her.”

  “You don’t understand! You don’t know how it is! All dancers have pain, all dancers understand that, and dancers don’t tell each other how to cope!”

  “Oh, nice. Same exact thing she said. ‘All dancers have pain.’ They teach that at the Dance Brainwash Academy.”

  “Yeah, brainwashing.” He made an angry sound. “You wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “You have a problem with me and Lucy? We’re consenting adults. You have no idea, anyway. You shouldn’t talk a
bout shit you don’t know.”

  “Exactly. And you’re not a dancer. So follow your own advice.”

  “Tell me what I can do then. What do I do? Can’t you do anything? You’re her friend, can’t you convince her to stop?”

  “To stop dancing?” He snorted. “It doesn’t work that way. There’s only one way she’s going to stop dancing and that’s to injure herself past the point of return. Which is not far off by the way.” He stopped a moment. “Or else...”

  “Or else what?”

  “There is one other way. To force her to stop.”

  “What?” I would do anything, anything on earth to stop her from destroying herself.

  “If she gets pregnant, she’ll have to stop dancing. At least, she’d have to stop long enough to not be able to come back.”

  Pregnant. I shook away the thoughts that suddenly crowded my head. “She won’t let me anywhere near her without a condom.”

  “I think if you came at her now, she’d never know.”

  We both looked over at her, passed out senseless on my sofa, and I actually considered it for a moment before reason prevailed.

  “I couldn’t do that to her. That would be heinous.”

  “And yet you beat her senseless and call it love.”

  “Beat her senseless?” I stared at him. “Is that what she tells you?”

  “Believe me, she doesn’t have to tell me. I see the welts, the bruises. Everyone does, they’re hard to miss. Whatever. If she likes you to beat her up, that’s her business. But I wouldn’t get all holier-than-thou about knocking her up.”

  “She’d just get an abortion.”

  He laughed. “Lucy? I don’t think so. She wouldn’t even accept a morning-after pill after the rape. If he’d made her pregnant, she would have carried it.” I heard the words, but they made no sense to me. “Wait, what? What did you say? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “She never told you about that?”

  “No.” My mind was reeling from all the lying she’d done to me. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “It’s not my place to tell you. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Because she’s fucking passed out on my couch! How the fuck am I supposed to ask? I want you to fucking tell me about this time that Lucy was fucking raped, right now!” I yelled so loud I think it surprised us both that she didn’t wake up.

  He sighed heavily. “It was, God, probably three years ago now or more. He beat her up pretty bad. An obsessive fan. He came to her place. He landed her in the hospital. He tied her up and he...” His voice trailed off. “You should ask her. Anyway, that’s why I wonder why she lets you do what you do.”

  “I don’t beat her up. Not even close. Nor do I rape her. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Sure,” he muttered. “Whatever.”

  “Not that I have to explain it to you.”

  “Actually, I wish that you wouldn’t. I’d rather not know.” We both turned then and looked at her, and Grégoire said shortly, “Her period was a couple weeks ago, so...”

  “How the hell would you know that?”

  “I know,” he said. “After ten years, partners know.”

  I looked at him, needing help, needing something. The things I learned tonight...The things that she’d kept from me, things that had hurt her. Why? I had asked her point blank to her face, Lucy, will you always be truthful to me? and she’d said, God, yes. Yes, Matthew, I will. What a liar she was.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I said, trying to convince myself. “It would be wrong. So totally wrong.”

  “She’s going to injure herself soon. Badly.”

  “So I’ll make her pregnant? That’s better?”

  He got up to leave. “You can do what you want. I’m just telling you. You asked me how to make her stop dancing, and that’s the way. Anyway, I’ll leave you alone.” I didn’t want him to leave. If he left, there was a chance I’d break down and do as he suggested.

  “I want to know who gave those pills to her, Grégoire.”

  “No. I don’t know anyway.”

  I trailed him to the door. “I’ll find out. And believe me, she’s not taking one more fucking pill.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  We stared each other down, scowl for scowl.

  “What is she to you, anyway, Grégoire?”

  “She’s my friend.”

  “Good friend she seems to be with you!” I was bitter, so bitter that he knew more about her than me.

  “I’m gay!” he snapped. “If you’re insinuating what I think.”

  “Gay, that’s convenient,” I said, but I knew I was being ridiculous.

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay, listen, I’m out of here. Call me if she gets any worse. If you’re too embarrassed to take her to the hospital with all those marks on her ass, I’ll do it.” I wanted to punch his fucking lights out. I really did. But he had been a friend to her for many, many years, and at one time, long ago, we had spoken as friends too.

  “Good night, Grégoire,” I ground out. “Thanks for coming over tonight.”

  “Good night,” he replied, equally grudgingly, and then left me alone with his evil, evil idea.

  What if I did manage to make her pregnant? The idea both attracted and terrified me in its simple grace. My mind was reeling in a million different directions. It occurred to me that I ought to have talked to Grégoire long ago. Grégoire, the keeper of all her secrets. Pain and drugs and violent rape. I thought of words she’d told me one time. It’s hard to explain, but it makes me feel safe.

  I crossed the room and knelt beside her. Her face was so innocent and guileless in sleep.

  Someone, some man had raped her, raped her so badly she’d landed in a hospital bed. What had he done to her? Held her down? Hurt her? Fucked her hard? All the things she liked me from me.

  She wanted me to do them, because I wasn’t him. Because when I did what I did to her, I cared about her, I wasn’t her rapist. It suddenly occurred to me that that’s all I was to her. Her anti-rape hero, her mental defense against what happened to her. I was the way to make it okay. So what was so bad about that? What was so bad was that she’d never told me.

  I remembered how skittish she was when I first followed her. An obsessive fan. He came to her place. How defensive she’d been, how upset that I followed her around. Now, it all became perfectly clear.

  I remembered with crystal clarity when I’d said to her, how long have you wanted it? To get tied up, and beaten, and fucked? She’d shaken her head. She wouldn’t answer me. Then a few moments later, she’d said, “How did you know? ” And she hadn’t meant, how did you know, how did you know that’s what I want? No, I think now she meant, how did you know? How did you know that’s what I need to feel safe again?

  I shook her gently with a lump in my throat. “Lucy. Lucy, wake up.” I shook her harder.

  “Please wake up. God damn it, please!”

  She barely responded, turning her head with a sigh, not even coming to consciousness.

  Then I stood up, still looking down at her, and slowly unbuckled my belt. I undid my pants, and took out my cock and stroked it, getting it hard. Then I took off her pants and I slipped inside her. I fucked her and came inside her twice, down on the couch, still fully dressed. Then I carried her up to bed and undressed us both, and took her in my arms and came in her once more, and then, half asleep in the middle of the night, I came inside her once more again.

  * * *

  It was almost noon the next day before she awakened with a groan. She lurched out of bed and just managed to get to the bathroom. She vomited, over and over, then collapsed beside the toilet on the cold tile floor. I lifted her up, brushing her hair from her eyes.

  “Okay, Lucy, okay. Better?”

  She shook her head. “Nooo...”

  She heaved again, but nothing came out, just dry, broken heaves as she held onto her head. I put a wet cloth against her hot forehead.

  “Go away!�
�� She pushed weakly at me.

  I got up to get her some water, and returned to hold the glass to her lips. She shook her head.

  “Drink it!”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” I got a little bit past her lips, half of which she spit out when she retched again.

  “Please, just leave me alone!”

  “No.”

  She tried to lie down there on the floor, between the toilet and the wall.

  “No, Lucy,” I sighed, pulling her up. “Drink some water. A little more.”

  “I want to sleep.” Her words were still slurred, her color was still off.

  “You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours, you little fuck.” She looked up at me then, at the tone in my voice. “Yes, you’re in trouble.” I picked her up and carried her back to bed. “As soon as you’re healthy enough, I’m going to beat you to within an inch of your life. Now drink some water.”

  This time, when I held it to her lips, she drank. I looked down at her with cold recrimination.

  “Where did you get those pills?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll beat you right now if you don’t tell me. If you don’t tell me the fucking truth.”

  “A dancer. I don’t know her that well. A friend of Remy’s. He’s not even in our company.

  He gets them from someone his friend knows. I don’t know...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Remy? Who the fuck is Remy?”

  “A dancer.”

  “A fucking dancer. Thanks for the scoop.”

  “What time is it?”

  “You’re not dancing today.”

  “I have to!”

  “You listen to me. You’re going to spend today resting, and tomorrow bent over a fucking ottoman. So lay the fuck down and answer my questions like a fucking good girl, before I tear up your ass!”

  “I’m tired,” she said, soft and plaintive. She wasn’t getting any sympathy from me.

  “Does your head hurt?”

  “No, I’m sleepy.”

  “Yes, because you overdosed on pain pills. What the fuck were you thinking? Who the fuck knows what was even in those pills? Why did you do it?” She just moaned.

  “Answer me!”

  “I don’t know! Because it hurts!”