And I really don’t want to be the one who had to beg to stay alive.
I want to be a woman so caught in this moment, this place, that I forget my past. I want to forget—not forever, but just for a while—that Reid existed. I’m not Teresa. I’m not Tessie. I’m Tess. Stronger than Teresa, built from her broken pieces. Stronger than Tessie, whose pieces were stitched together by Reid’s will and word.
I walk forward, pushing Michael back toward the bed.
“You don’t need—”
“You want me to feel better, right? This will help.”
He backs up until he bumps into the mattress. “I don’t see how this—”
“Shut up, Michael.” I drop to my knees and fumble with his trousers. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do this with my left hand. It isn’t as graceful as I like to be when I’m acting the seductress, but Michael is a man. Men are compliant when women go to their knees.
He lets me have control.
I fumble through button and zipper and tug his trousers and boxers out of the way, careful not to let my bloodied hand touch them. A fleeting thought that I’ll have to deal with blood on the floor after all crosses my mind, but then Michael objects again, “Tess, you really don’t need to do . . .”
I remember the things Reid taught me then: Good wives don’t have to die.
I am a good wife.
I am.
Afterword, I tell Michael about the day I knew that I had to leave Reid—even though I know he’ll write it in his book.
Or maybe because he will.
Maybe writing my story in ink on my body isn’t enough. Maybe I need Michael write it, maybe that’s why I wanted him all along. He’s doing it. I know he is. I haven’t read it, and I know he lies. It’s what men do. It’s what writers do. It’s what I did to stay alive.
26
A Girl with No Past
“Get in.” He pointed at the tub.
When I didn’t move, he set the bottle of wine down on the bathroom counter hard enough that I flinched. Red wine. That means it was for guests. Reid liked white. It was cleaner. He liked everything to be clean.
And good.
I tried to be those things for him. I really did. Sometimes, the rules shifted, and Reid didn't tell me. Sometimes, he liked to explain my mistakes. He watched for them so he could teach me to be good. Tonight, though, I’d made a mistake worse than ever before.
“You don’t need to use the tub.” I looked down as I speak; he didn’t like insolence. “I didn’t mean to—”
“In the tub, Tessie. Now.”
“I was wrong, and—”
“Get off the floor and into the fucking tub.” He wasn’t touching me, not moving.
Neither of us were looking at the girl slumped in the corner. She was sprawled there on our floor. Dead. I didn’t know her name. I tried to learn their names before they died. It bothered me that I didn’t know hers before she died.
Names are important.
Once I had another name. I had another life. Before Reid.
"Tess!" He jerked me to my feet and dropped me in the tub.
I scrambled to get out, trying to get over the edge and away, even though he was watching. The chains he used were on the floor. I got one leg out, but then I lost my balance and fell onto the chains. They made a clinking-clattering-angry sound.
“Stop.” He grabbed my hair with one hand to keep me steady. With the other hand, he knocked my chest and shoved me back into the tub.
I half-fell into the far side of the tub, hitting my arm hard enough that it would bruise.
Bruises heal.
The things that happened to the girls in the tub didn’t.
Reid turned on the water so it poured down from the shower head. He didn’t bother with the temperature. He didn’t speak. He simply stared at me as the icy water sluiced over me.
I looked down.
The water running toward the drain was pink.
Blood. He was rinsing the blood off me.
I couldn’t look at him, and I didn’t want to look at the girl on the floor. She was dead. I was wet and cold, and she was dead.
“I don’t want to stay in the tub.” I said, as if what I want matters.
It didn’t, not to Reid.
27
Michael
Once Tess was asleep, I slipped out of bed and walk to the living room. I knew there was a story here, but I’d had no idea how much of one until her night terror tonight. The sounds of my pen on the pages seem loud in the tiny apartment, but I want to capture it, every moment, every feeling that she shared.
That chapter seems out of place. Do I move it? For now, I write it as she shared it. Mostly.
There’s no way this book won’t prove the critics wrong. Calling me a has-been? First book a fluke? Once they read about Tess, they’ll be begging me for interviews.
I write until my eyes are heavy. I will need to go back and make changes. Her Reid is my Edward. He is the modern Rochester, his wife in an attic as he entraps others. He is Angel Clare before his death, a man who created his own demise. He is Victor Frankenstein, destroyed by his monster.
And I am going to be the name on the cover, the one who wrote the tale. I’m creating the story from the pieces I know and the pieces I want to add. Tessa and Edward will be my masterpiece. Her domestic violence tale will be greater, larger, more in my hands. What I don’t understand is why there were other girls. I wonder if it was one of those many-wives things. That would make for an interesting twist.
Not capturing all of it, but I write for a while longer, playing with revisions on earlier chapters, going back and changing threads.
Do I call him Reid? Or stick with Edward? I make a note to myself. I think Edward has more weight. I re-read, and then I climb into bed. I don’t want her to wake alone. I might not believe in love and all that shit, but I’m not a monster. Tess is more damaged than I thought. She obviously needs me.
And I need her story.
I slip back under the covers and think about what she did afterwards. The part I don’t write down. She was in the throes of a night terror, and instead of comforting her afterwards, I let her suck me off. Admittedly, being with her usually ends in some sort of guilt, but this was worse. She was begging for her life a few minutes prior. Whoever this Reid was, he hurt her more than I think I’d want to know if not for the book.
The first time I realized how many scars she had, I was grateful I wasn’t expected to speak. She’s given me an easy way to never mention them, and I’ve accepted it so far. Now, however, I want to know, to hear the stories that go with each mark. He did that, tortured her, and she escaped. There were other girls there, and I don’t know if any of them escaped too, but Tess is a heroine. Maybe I ought to consider an “inspired by true events” book.
Even as I think that, I reject it. I should protect her. That’s the moral answer. The reality is that I want the fictionalization of her story, making it worse where I need or better if the events are the sort to turn off high street readers. Does it matter why, though? If doing it my way keeps her safe, isn’t that enough?
She moves closer to me in her sleep, and I let my hand fall on her hip. It’s not sexual, merely a comforting touch to let her know she’s not alone. I can do that when she’s asleep. Awake, everything is somehow sexual, a negotiation or a rejection. Tess’s every interaction is about power dynamics, and for her, that’s often sexual. It’s the coin she best understands.