The Beast And Me

by D. S. Wrights

  I wrote down that there’s another room you enter before you get into the cage, didn’t I? That has actually stairs leading upwards to the monitoring room? Well, I wrote that now.

  White told Peter to stay outside of it, and he followed that order with a dark expression, a brief glance towards me that made me worried. Still, he left and as the door behind him, and the one leading to the monitoring room, was shut as well, White and I were alone. It was not the first time, but still it made me anxious. He placed his hands on my shoulders and I tried to keep up this mask I had faked for him.

  “Starting tomorrow you won’t have to see him for a week”, he told me and I knew that I turned pale; I felt it, just like my heart dropped to my feet.

  “Did I... do something wrong?” I asked before I could stop myself, but White took it right anyway; he laughed: “Oh no, Deary, you did great. You were a really nice girl and that is why you get a break.”

  Smiling shyly while feeling like someone has annihilated the ground beneath your feet isn’t easy.

  It hurts, physically and much more: it cuts deeply, like you have to tear and rip your face and muscles into the right position. I couldn’t tell him that he was punishing me with this, tormenting me.

  “He’s in for some tests as well, so you won’t see me for about a week”, he continued, sounding like that would mean something terrible for me.

  Looking sad and downhearted on the other hand never came so easily. It was a kind of relief being able to show that. Should White believe that my Stockholm syndrome applied to him, and not Jay.

  I won’t see him for a week, for a whole week. Does this have to do something with me being on my period this week? Or do they want to test him because he obviously cares about and for me?

  I was in chaos, I felt like being tossed around by a tornado. I didn’t consciously notice that he told me to undress myself, but I did it; in front of him. GROSS. But at least I had turned my back on him and he... maybe he had already closed the door behind me. I can’t tell.

  Jay wouldn’t tolerate me smelling like someone else, definitely, right? So White would never touch me... right?

  I’m freaking out!

  I’m going insane.

  Building my life around these regular things and most of all having him, Jay, close, kept me together and now they took that away from me. I need to focus and write. Think. Focus. Stick to the plan.

  I never truly realized how cool it is in the cage until today. Maybe I froze because I already started to miss him. I had no idea how to behave. So I stepped towards the bars and stared through them, not moving even as I watched them sliding to the side. I waited, and waited.

  I felt like I was waiting for an eternity, until I heard a movement behind me. And I knew he was there, again, not wanting me to see his face. I stayed where I was, tensed up like I was, and my heart racing in despair. Tears already were burning in my eyes.

  The way he moved his hands across my skin, pulling me towards him... he knew it, he knew that something was wrong. His reluctance faded instantly as I leaned towards him, telling him that it wasn’t his fault. Not really.

  Well, partly, because he makes me miss him.

  My eyes grazed briefly that horrid window and I felt like I knew that White was watching, so I bit my lip, like this was terrible for me. In fact, I wanted to turn around, and pull him close towards me, feel him in a way I wasn’t allowed to. For White this only was about giving Jay what he needed as a male creature. I know that for him it’s more than just that.

  And then... he turned me around, towards him.

  I feared my heart would want to strike because it beat that fast. Yes, his face was all warped again into this strange mixture of human and cougar.

  These copper-green cat-like eyes... You know his lips aren’t split like feline ones and his nose isn’t as flat. Still, it could be disturbing to look at him. Even more now, seeing his face that close, but I knew that I wouldn’t get to see him for a week and all I saw were his eyes, these golden-green cat-like eyes asking, worrying, and wondering.

  You cannot tell me that he’s just some dull creature, that he has no feelings, only instincts. No one can make me believe that. White: don’t ever try.

  I managed to bring up one of my hands, shaking, but I touched his face, and he nuzzled his cheek into my palm. There was a hole where my heart should beat. I felt like crying. I do feel like crying still.

  However, I sensed the clock ticking, like I could see White getting impatient. I even heard the speaker cracking, just like Jay.

  Just like that, my back was on the ground and he held my wrists above my head with one of his clawed hands. It all happened so quickly, too fast for me to be scared.

  So, I was simply surprised and looked at him, and the expression on his face, a wild cocktail of self-loathing and need, of pain and care.

  Everything fell into slow motion, and I feel like it is happening right now once more as I write it. How he leaned on that arm, he used to pin me down, how his other hand brushed down my skin, making me move one leg away from the other, how I felt cold that moment he broke the touch. This terribly wonderful moment he entered me.

  It’s like time is stepping back to watch, like air becomes more solid without becoming heavier. Every time he does that to me. His fangs and lips on my neck are such a strange contrast and combination to all of this. I wish I could describe it. I know I repeat myself. He just erases everything. It’s just like they say about drugs. Nothing else is important anymore. No real pain, no real worries, no fear. He is my heroin.

  The most agonizing thing is the moment of realization. As we caught our breaths and I knew that Jay would have to go again. I whispered that I would miss him. I think he didn’t know the extent of what I had said, but what I saw just before he moved away felt more painful than his claws slashing my skin.

  I swear his pupils were round and his eyes were darker, like the green I had imagined in my fantasies.

  I swear that his features were softer, were more human. I know it. I know it for sure. Like pulling at my hair is painful.

  His state is not permanent. He changes.

  I know that I wrote this before, but I always doubted, always tried to make myself believe without any proof. I always thought that this was something I hoped for. But those eyes were human. He is human.

  They’ve done something to him.

  He is human.

  Please, God, let me see him again.

  Day 46

  I really don’t want to write today, or at all, anymore. I just want everyone to leave me alone.

  Peter’s smile is so annoying and he keeps doing that even though I tell him to leave me alone.

  Yes, workout was just great! Ruined a pair of new panties and pants, because; guess what! Thank you Mother Nature. Luckily I have always a change ready in the locker room, because I don’t have extra clothes for training. Left the blood spilled rags on the ground. Have fun with that.

  I don’t want to read. I just want to cuddle up and sleep, and weep. Not that I have. I’ve got cramps. Seriously.

  I’ve never had it that suddenly, that heavily. Like... don’t they give me something? Shouldn’t it help?

  Whatever.

  That I won’t see Jay, that it will be another six days, makes it worse. Yes... like this I would definitely freak him out. No, I wouldn’t be that pissed like I am right now. I’m pissed. I’m annoyed. I don’t care.

  Why can’t I see Doc and ask for something to help? At least Peter leaves me alone and I don’t have to worry about White showing up.

  I’m just lying here, curled up, caught up between anger and being hysterically sad. I feel so alone, but I want to be alone. No, I don’t... I want Jay curling up around me.

  I want to be home. I want my Mom, or my Dad. I miss my cat. I miss feeling insecure around all those normal people in my normal, boring life.

  Dammit.

  Day 47

  I want home. I really want to go home. Where I
can switch off the lights and just... I want to go home.

  I threw my pillow at Peter, and I think I yelled something like “I don’t do workouts on my period!”

  Maybe it was loud enough for White to hear.

  Why don’t I have a hot-water bag?

  I think they can mind-read. Guess what Peter brought me? Oh yes, paradise. I’m not apologizing though. He didn’t look at me like he was expecting or waiting for it. Usually I’m not that emotional. I think it’s just everything lashing down on me now.

  I’m so tired.

  Day 48

  I think it’s because whatever they put in my food. Or maybe it’s because of me actually having sex regularly... Sure... It’s never... I never felt like that during my period. Why do I even write this down?

  It’s the third day without talking to anyone, like really talking. Peter doesn’t count. It’s the third day without seeing Jay. Like I really ever have talked to him, but he does count.

  I know it will be over, right? This will be over. It’s just seven days.

  This is the third so far to go, four more to endure.

  But I still miss home. I still miss the sun, the fresh air. Not like I ever was someone being outside the whole day. I’m not the one that bathes in the sun a lot, but it still feels good on the skin. I always kept to myself. It’s like now I realize what I am missing, now that I know I might never have the chance again to actually just do that: be around people, lie down and sunbathe. The smell of grass, of rain... I miss that. I miss outside. I miss classes. I miss seeing the other students whispering, ignoring me, or looking down at me. I miss normal. I miss boring. I miss being average. I miss... being a human.

  I’m sure Jay misses that too.

  Day 49

  Four days to go.

  I think actually knowing that I won’t get to see him for some days just makes me feel worse. I should have seen the positive about it; like that I know when I will see him again. But then: who knows? Where’s the guarantee?

  Still, I don’t feel very well, so I passed the offer to go training, this time more friendly. It was a stupid idea because I would have at least gotten out of my room.

  Peter asked me if I’d like to have a walk around, as he came to get my tray from Lunch. I really believed that he was kidding and barked at him that this wasn’t funny. But he didn’t chuckle or laugh. He really meant it.

  I’m still not sure if there won’t be any consequences. So we went for a walk, just him and me. Not outside, of course. Not after being here just for 49 days. It feels like I’ve been here for months, or years.

  We didn’t talk, which was kind of relieving, though ironically one might have thought that after being on your own for days you might want to talk to anyone. Yet, I can’t really trust him, can I? He just would report anything to White.

  We walked from my room to my cell – the place of my first days here, which seemed like such a long time ago, almost like a different life. And still the memories flashed back. It seems so strange that I feel so different now.

  We went past the gym and I can quite recall that path.

  I think that this was just because of White not being here. I didn’t see anyone in the corridors, but I could memorize the way and tried to calculate the actual length of this building into that direction. Maybe we can repeat that tomorrow. I didn’t ask Peter, but... who knows.

  I’m insanely tired.

  Day 50

  Two days. Then this week is over. It feels so long gone already. Today wasn’t boring. I’m back in my rhythm, in my daily schedule, apart from, well... my ‘sessions’ of course. I wonder what Jay’s days are like, what this week is like for him, what he has to do. I felt kind of guilty for not thinking about him, which is stupid of course.

  I have to admit that it’s nice talking to Peter. It’s like no one else is around, which is something I should be worried around, right? At Lunch I asked him if he wanted to eat Dinner with me, keep me company if he has to look after me anyway, he doesn’t have to stand the whole day in front of my door, right?

  Still, I feel bad about even asking, like I am betraying Jay, or even worse: myself. Or is it my paranoia, I am betraying? It’s not like only because I’m offering Peter to sit at my table – this second chair is still mine, even though White apparently has intended that one to be his – that I completely trust him. I can make that offer with an awake mind. He is nice, I like having company because it is a difference, nothing more. If they read more into my gesture, it is their fault, not mine, and if that puts me in an advantageous position, even better.

  And all of a sudden a simple question is overthought. That truly is paranoia. I’m done with it.

  Peter brought his own dinner along with mine. We didn’t talk about his work or my... obligations, but about other stuff. It was like, yes, being awkward teenagers, who had been put together by their parents because they were the only ones around the same age. But it was nice.

  You know, those were random things we talked about: if I liked those paintings White had brought me... and at that moment I really looked at them for the first time. Until then I had only noticed them as colorful spots on my walls. I realized that there is one painting by Van Gogh, and one by Monet. I like art, especially that kind of art, and we talked about it for a bit.

  All of these are rather classics, but I like them. It’s van Gogh’s ‘night sky’, like ‘water lilies’ of Monet.

  “Well, they bring color to this place”, I simply stated, but now I cannot stop staring at them, and notice how much they display my own emotions, my longing, my dreaming, this feeling of being lost and alone, and still finding beauty in the darkness and the simplicity of my life.

  We didn’t go for a walk today, but I told him that I really appreciated it.

  “Maybe we can put that into your schedule”, Peter answered much to my surprise; I hadn’t realized that he was able to make changes, and it admittedly made me feel a bit uneasy, like I had underestimated his influence

  Welcome back paranoia.

  “It’s not like you’ve done anything that you don’t deserve something like a little promotion.”

  He can smile really warmly. It keeps me wondering, why such a nice, good looking guy like him ends up being a soldier, or – I don’t know – an associate of such a thing, organization or whatever... like this.

  Questions keep popping up in my mind. I want to ask him so many things, but I don’t dare to. I guess it’s better that I don’t befriend him, but then he makes me feel comfortable, normal, like being a human being and not a subject, some object of their experiment to... well... release its sexual tension. But that’s what I’m here for.

  Day 51

  Nothing interesting happened today. And tomorrow will be the day I see him again.

  It’s not like nothing happened, but you know what I mean, right? It was a normal day. Normal as it can be. I mean: my normal session-free schedule. No walking around, but my meals with Peter. Normal. Not really, I know, because I spend my meals with him now, and it still feels like betrayal, it still feels like something I should not to. It feels so totally normal – apart from being locked away in a white room, only having one outfit to wear like I am a patient in a mental institution. I’ve written that before. It still feels like it, even though I am not insane.

  That’s one upside of my diary: it’s the 51st day of me being here. I was abducted, imprisoned, shackled, left to be... abused by someone...

  It’s strange what one week without that can do. Is time running faster or slower? I really don’t know. I mean, I know what I’m here for and yet again it seems so far away, even though it has been just a week, not even a whole one. Tomorrow it will be over, tomorrow.

  Seeing Jay had been everything my life had circled around for more than a month, almost two.

  It was the only difference of the day I got and I... I liked it... did I? I mean, it is just a week, how can I feel different about it?

  Do I, because of Peter? />
  No. I know that I don’t want to stay here, I know that I want to leave and go back home, even though I don’t have a real home, I live between my parents' places. I had lived like that until my own life was about to change in college. That never happened.

  I know that I want my life back, that I want a life, a normal, boring, average life, everything seems... strange. But this silly phrase is so fitting: you don't appreciate what you have until you lose it.. In my case I realized what I could have had, if I only had appreciated my chance. If I had made friends fast, if I at least had tried, people would have known me, there would have been a chance that they would have noticed that I was gone. And maybe I never would have been taken, if only I would have tried, if only I wouldn’t have given in to my self-pity.

  Most things you learn too late.

  I mean... do I appreciate Jay? Do I miss him? I think I do. I think, I’m rather worried, which is stupid... I know more about Peter after a few days than I know about Jay, but can I trust Peter?

  I catch myself staring at the painting. The night sky painting of van Gogh – I’m not even sure if this is the right name, but... I think I miss him, Jay. I feel with every day that passes by, when I don’t see him, all that has happened vanishes into the distance, like it has been a bad dream, or a very disturbed good one. Even though I am still here in that white room with a few of my books, my iPod on its station, and these two paintings next to my door. Still, I feel almost like these things hadn’t happened. The human mind is a strange and wonderful thing.

  There are people who like what happened to me, who like being put through things like that. I mean they choose to be blindfolded, to be shackled, and to be fucked. They enjoy the terror, the imprisonment, the pain.