Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels)

by Kimberly A Bettes

  Instantly, his face turned red. Not from the slap so much as from the anger that exploded in him. His eyes narrowed and I swear they darkened.

  “How dare you?” he spit at me, his words heavy and menacing.

  “How dare me?”I asked, finding my voice. “How dare you?”

  He stood and began to pace frantically back and forth across the kitchen.

  “I bring you into my home. I treat you well. I give you everything you want, everything you need. I make love to you. I spend time with you. And this, this is how you thank me. With your infantile behavior and your smart mouth. You’re ungrateful, Nicole. Ungrateful!” He stepped toward me as he shouted, then stepped away from me and continued to pace.

  “I don’t want to be here,” I yelled at him. My body trembled as I stepped across the line I knew I was crossing. I was in dangerous territory and for some reason, I couldn’t make myself shut up.

  He stormed over to me and quicker than I expected, he backhanded me across the face hard enough to nearly knock me out of the chair.

  “You bitch,” he screamed.

  He quickly and roughly unlocked the cuff from the table and forced me to stand. He dragged me down the hallway, squeezing my wrist so hard I couldn’t feel my fingers, and causing me to drop the teddy bear. I tried to resist. I planted my feet and tried to pull against him, but we were moving so fast, I barely had time to plant my feet, much less get good leverage to take a stand.

  “Stop,” I said.

  He responded by yanking on my arm hard enough to cause a considerable amount of pain. I quickly followed him.

  He pulled me quickly down the hallway and into my bedroom. He shoved me onto the bed and locked the cuffs around the headboard.

  While he cuffed me and roughly yanked off my jeans and panties, he said through clenched teeth, “If you want to act like one of those bitches in the basement, I’ll treat you like one.”

  After he’d nearly ripped my panties off me, he unfastened his pants, took his position, and went at me fiercely.

  With my eyes closed, I tried to block it all out, tried to pretend I was somewhere else. If I could separate my mind and body, it wouldn’t be so bad. And for the most part, I was successful. I imagined I was elsewhere, on the hammock on the beach, but I was still aware of the pain he was inflicting on me. I was still aware of the anger inside me from knowing that he’d been in my house and in contact with my family.

  I was also aware that he was having some trouble. He was yelling and cursing at me. It seems he was having trouble having an orgasm. Good. I hope he never had one again.

  When his erection began to fail him, he sat up on his knees and wiped his face roughly with his hands. His chest heaving with his heavy breaths, he glared at me. His mean stare was making me feel really uncomfortable. He’d never looked at me this way before.

  He pointed at me and said, “You. It’s your fault.”

  Before I could ask what he meant by that, he reached down and slapped me across my left cheek. It was my turn to glare at him.

  He slapped me again, this time a backhand to the right cheek.

  “You son of a bitch,” I shouted. “Stop hitting me.”

  “You like being a basement bitch?” Another slap.

  “Knock it off, asshole!”

  He smiled. Then, he slapped me again.

  My face was stinging terribly on both sides. I wished my hands were free. If they were, I’d punch him in the throat.

  Then I realized that although my hands were cuffed, my legs were not. Even as I moved, I knew I was making a huge, stupid mistake. But I couldn’t stop myself.

  As he held up his hand to slap me again, I brought my legs up, planted my feet on his chest, and shoved with all my strength, sending him flying off the end of the bed and to floor, where he landed with a heavy thud.

  My heart was racing. That was so stupid. Now what was I going to do? I couldn’t flee. I couldn’t fight him back.

  He stood, slowly appearing over the foot of the bed. He wiped his mouth, and I saw blood on his hand. He must’ve bitten his tongue or his lip. Wow. I sure could make a bad situation worse.

  He looked at me now with a look that made the previous look seem like a charming grin. In his eyes, I saw hatred. He no longer found me charming and wonderful and great company. I was certain that he despised me. Maybe he wouldn’t always, but he sure did right then.

  He smiled wickedly and climbed back onto the bed.

  I learned a few things that day and in the days that followed. If I fought him, it turned him on. It drove him harder. Regular sex with me wasn’t enough for him anymore. He needed the thrill of a fight. He needed to hit me and have me struggle. Just like the girls in the basement.

  This frightened me. It hadn’t taken him long to grow tired of me sexually. He found a horrible way to be interested in me again. How long would it take him to bore of me this way? And worse yet, what would the next step be?

  29

  My next period brought me some peace. It meant that for a few days, Ron left me alone. He could rape a woman—alive or dead, he could torture and dismember bodies all day long, but he couldn’t have sex with a woman while she was menstruating. Well, even Superman had Kryptonite.

  Usually, when I had my period, he still sat at the table with me and had dinner and played cards. Everything was the same. But this time was different. After he made our meals, he set my food on the table in front of me and took his to his bedroom.

  He barely spoke to me. The conversations were minimal at best. We didn’t play cards or have drinks.

  As much as I hated to admit it, I was lonely. It wasn’t that I liked him or even liked having him as company. The problem was that without him to keep me occupied, I grew sad. I thought of my situation more. That meant I dwelled on Wade and Mason and what would happen if I didn’t make it back to them. I could’ve easily fallen deep into a depression, but I fought it. I tried to keep myself thinking about what Ron was doing in his room. What his book was going to be like. Different ways I could escape if I could ever get out of the cuffs.

  On the third day of my period, which was definitely the heaviest, I sat at the table, having just finished my lunch. Ron came in to return his plate and glass, and to take mine to the sink. While he washed the dishes, he spoke. It was the most he’d said to me in days.

  “I’m going out for a while. I’ll bring back a pizza if you want.”

  I had noticed his tone was flat and emotionless, but I pretended not to. “Yeah. That’ll be fine. How long will you be gone?”

  It took him so long to respond, I was sure he wasn’t going to. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”

  I wanted to ask him if he was going back to my house. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to anger him, especially at this point. I had a terrible feeling that I was only an inch away from being shackled in the basement. Also, I was afraid he’d say yes. I couldn’t sit here and wait, knowing he was with my family. It would kill me.

  As it turns out, it killed me to sit there and wonder if he was at my house just as much as if I’d known he was.

  Ron left and I sat at the table doing word search puzzles. After completing ten puzzles, I grew tired of word searches and switched to crosswords. After five of those, I needed to pee.

  Squeezing my legs together, I continued to sit at the table. I had no other choice. I tried to do another crossword, but lacked the concentration. All I could think of was waterfalls, rivers, creeks, and dripping faucets. Damn.

  I thumped the crayon on the table rapidly. Then, in a lame attempt to take my mind off my urinary needs, I tried to thump out the tune to a song. A drummer, I am not. I failed miserably, cussed loudly, and put the crayon on the table roughly.

  My feet bounced on their toes, making my legs bob up and down quickly. It helped for a while, but soon enough, I was thinking again about peeing, and the bouncing legs only jostled my gorging bladder.

  Putting my left arm on the table, I rested my head on my arm a
nd closed my eyes. Eventually, the urge to pee subsided. I still had to go, but the feeling let up a little. Now I could concentrate on my wrist, hanging in the handcuff, barely touching my right thigh.

  I opened my eyes and looked at the shiny cuff on my wrist. I hated it. Turning my arm slightly, I looked at the keyhole and wondered what all I could stick in there that would possibly open the lock. Even if I came up with a long list of items, it wouldn’t matter. I couldn’t get my hands on any of the things that might unlock the cuff. The only place I was ever allowed any sort of freedom was the bathroom. And the only things in there were a toothbrush, a comb, and some other hygiene items.

  Looking at the hole, I had an idea. If I broke a tooth off the comb in the bathroom, maybe I could hide it in my pocket and later use it to try to open the cuff. I wasn’t a criminal. I was a lock-picker or a locksmith. To be honest, I didn’t even know how the lock on the cuffs worked. But I had to try something. I made a mental note to try it.

  Then the urge to pee came back.

  I sat up and spent the next ten minutes trying to pull my hand out of the cuff. I had some success, if you count chafing the skin and bruising the bone where my thumb attaches to my hand.

  As my hand fell to my thigh, my eyes welled with tears. I fought them back, determined not to cry, not to let the situation get the best of me. But just when I thought I couldn’t be any more uncomfortable, my situation got a whole lot worse.

  I felt it. I held my breath and prayed that I was wrong, but a second later I was certain. Sticky warmth spread between my legs. My tampon had failed me. It had done all it could, but in the end, was unable to last until Ron decided to return. Damn him for leaving me like this.

  What felt like at least an hour went by and the urge to pee was painful to say the least. I’d done all I knew to do to fight away the urge. And when I lost the battle, as my bladder released itself onto the chair and spilled onto the floor beneath me, I damned him for putting me in this predicament.

  I cried now. I had no reason not to. My situation was hopeless and only getting worse. I was covered in blood and piss and still handcuffed to the table. I couldn’t get away from the smell or the man who caused this whole mess. I cried hard, letting the sobs rock my body.

  Exhausted, I stopped crying.

  Surely he’d be back soon. He’d been gone a long time now. I had no way of knowing exactly how long, but it had been a long, long time. The sun was low in the sky now, casting a dark orange glow in the kitchen through the window over the sink. I watched some dust speckles dancing in the glow of the fading sun and wondered how much longer I’d have to sit here before Ron came back.

  As it turned out, I had to sit here until the sun was completely down and night had fallen. The room was too dark to do any puzzles, so I just sat in the chair, staring at nothing, listening to the hum of the refrigerator.

  By the time Ron flipped on the light, I’d fallen asleep with my head on the table. When the light came on, I opened my eyes and sat up.

  I looked at Ron, who put a pizza on the counter and grabbed two plates from the cabinet. He turned to face me, one plate in each hand, and stopped when he saw the mess. After staring at the mess, then up at me, he brought my plate and set it on the table in front of me. Though I wanted to stomp away in anger and demand he tell me where he’d been and yell at him for leaving me sitting here like this for so long, I was hungry. So I picked up the pizza.

  “It’s cold,” I complained as I took a bite.

  Ron said nothing. He looked at the mess again before taking his plate to the other side of the table and sitting. I was surprised that he was sitting at the table with me, but in my present mood, I didn’t give a damn.

  “You’ve made quite a mess,” he finally said between bites.

  “I believe you made this mess,” I snapped.

  “I didn’t urinate all over my kitchen floor.”

  “No, but you left me here for hours. What did you expect to happen?”

  “I expected you to exercise control over your bladder.”

  “And I expected you to exercise common sense. You should’ve known I couldn’t sit here for that long without using the restroom.”

  “You should’ve waited.”

  “You should’ve hurried.”

  He stopped chewing and stared at me. That was bad. But when he nodded as if he was agreeing with some inner voice (which he probably was, the crazy bastard), it was worse.

  Now I sat there in my mess, eating cold pizza, wondering what he had in store for me and hoping that I never found out.

  30

  After Ron allowed me to clean myself up, he cuffed me to the bed. I slept well, having exhausted myself while sitting at the table earlier.

  The next morning, Ron led me to the bathroom, where my new clothes were waiting. I suppose he didn’t want to clean the blood and urine from my panties and jeans, so he’d gone out and bought me some. That was fine. My other ones were getting worn pretty thin. Just like my nerves. And my mental state.

  I did everything I had to do in the bathroom, including wondering if a string of tampons tied together would be able to choke a man to death, and snapping a tooth from the comb and sticking it in my left front pocket. Had I put it in my right pocket, I’d never have been able to retrieve it. He always cuffed my right hand, probably because it was so awkward to use my left. It was surely his way of keeping down escape attempts. He was clever that way.

  I stepped out of the bathroom and faced Ron, who still hadn’t returned to his old self. He was still cold and distant, but really, what else did I expect of a psychopathic serial killer?

  Ron grabbed my arm, cuffed my wrist, and led me to the basement.

  Trying to sound as if I weren’t terrified, I asked, “Why are we going down here?”

  “I think you have lessons yet to learn, Nicole. Don’t you agree?”

  “No, I’m good. I’m pretty sure I’ve learned enough.” I tried to sound light, as if we were just having an ordinary conversation. As if I wasn’t afraid to find out what lessons he had in mind.

  I’d assumed he was going to put me back on the mattress. But he didn’t. Instead, he sat me in the chair and handcuffed my arms behind me, around the beam. When he moved away from me, I noticed Crystal. This was the first time I’d seen her in a while, and she looked awful. Beyond awful. She looked so terrible there wasn’t a word to describe it.

  But there was a word to describe her baby bump. Larger. Somehow, the baby had managed to grow inside her. I didn’t imagine she was eating. She certainly didn’t look like she’d been eating. She was stick-thin.

  Ron walked to the cabinet to retrieve whatever implements of torture he desired. While he was across the room, I called to her quietly, but she didn’t hear me. I saw her breathing. I knew she was alive, but she didn’t respond.

  “Crystal,” I whispered louder.

  “She won’t answer you,” Ron said, turning to face me.

  I watched as he walked over to her, cattle prod in his hand.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Does she look okay, Nicole? Really, you can be so ignorant at times. It’s disappointing and unbecoming of you.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said as sarcastically as possible. “Did I make you think less of me? You, the psychopath. Thinking less of me, the victim. Bizarre, isn’t it?”

  “Is that how you see yourself? As a victim?”

  “It’s what I am.”

  “We are all defined by the way we see ourselves, Nicole.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well I see myself at home, snuggled up with my husband and son.” I looked around, eyes wide with feigned shock. “That’s weird,” I said. “I saw myself one way, but that’s not the way I am at all. So odd.”

  “There you go again, Nicole.”

  “There I go again what? Showing you how stupid your way of thinking is?”

  “No, there you go again, proving up your ignorance. There’s
no need to continue proving yourself, Nicole.”

  “Are you calling me ignorant?”

  “If the shoe fits.” Before I could call him all the bad names I had in mind, he spoke again, this time turning the conversation towards Crystal. “Crystal, wake up.” When she didn’t respond, he nudged her in the side with the toe of his shoe. When she didn’t respond the second time, he kicked her in the ribs.

  She moaned.

  He smiled. “There you go. Wake up and say hello to Nicole. She hasn’t seen you in a while. But today, your special day, she came. We both agreed that she should be here, and we knew you’d want her to be here as well. Isn’t that right, Crystal?”

  She didn’t respond.

  He stuck the cattle prod to her and shocked her to screams. It may have not been so bad if he’d put it to her belly or leg, or anywhere other than where he did. But he put it on the worst spot possible. Where there had once been a tattoo. A tattoo that he’d carved away, filling the remaining hole with salt.

  From my position, I could see the hole, swollen and an angry shade of red. It was obviously infected, and the shock that he sent through it had to hurt like hell. Only a monster would do something like that. I looked at him as he shocked her wound and knew I was right. Only a monster would do something like that. And his name was Ron.

  31

  When Ron had finished torturing Crystal by shocking her infected wound, he turned to me.

  “Do you see, Nicole? Do you see what’s going on here?”

  “If you’re talking about the psycho with the shock wand inflicting damage on an innocent pregnant woman who can’t defend herself, then yes. I do.”

  I saw the anger wash over him. Then, I watched as he stomped over to me and stuck it to my chest, between my breasts.