Reflections
heryl woke with a start, eyes flying open, heart pounding, the hairs at the back of her neck standing at
attention, gripped by the certain conviction that her mother was dead. She listened closely; sure that she
could no longer hear the deathly rattle of the old woman�s breathing.
No, there it was � the unmistakable wheeze as she forced air into her leathery lungs and the almost painful hiss as it reluctantly trickled out of her gaping mouth.
Cheryl let her head sag slowly back onto the pillow, unsure whether what she felt was relief or disappointment. One thing was sure; the lack of change in the status quo meant that the old woman had had once again beaten the odds by hanging in there for another day.
�She should have been shovelling coal months ago,� she thought bitterly, and straight away regretted having had the thought, feeling the familiar but cold hug of her old and faithful friend � Guilt. Trust her mother to defy the doctors. She had always hated them and still maintained that the only way she would get to see one was if Satan granted her visitation rights in Hell.
�And even then they�ll have to make an appointment to see me!� Huge guffaw of laughter followed by the inevitable coughing fit as the cancer slowly took possession of her body. �You mark my words Cherry.� Cheryl hated it when her mother called her �Cherry�, which meant that her mother always did. �The devil himself has set apart a special place for those blood-sucking needle pushers simply because he doesn�t want any competition!�
A couple of months later her mother had collapsed at the supermarket and an ambulance had rushed Cheryl�s mom to the local clinic. She regained consciousness twenty minutes after her arrival at the clinic and straight away phoned Cheryl from the public telephone at reception to demand that she rescue her from �this shit-house whores playground� as she had so colourfully shouted down the receiver. When Cheryl arrived, the resident practitioner had taken her aside and painted her a grim picture of her mother�s future;
�Advanced Lung cancer. I�ve only given her a perfunctory examination but the signs are clear. We have taken some samples and should have confirmation within the week. My best advice is to take her home and make her comfortable, ensure all her affairs are in order, that sort of thing.� Cheryl couldn�t help but notice the small sigh of relief that escaped the young intern when she agreed. Her mother had obviously been on top form during her brief stay.
That had been four months ago and still her mother spat in the face of medical science and tenaciously sucked air into her diseased lungs day after day. Cheryl sometimes wondered if the old woman was still alive just to spite the doctor�s prognosis.
Slipping quietly out of bed, Cheryl padded softly over the wooden floor so as not to waken Bruce. He was spread out on the bed in typical fashion; arms and legs flung wide, head back and mouth hanging open, a gossamer thread of saliva connecting his lower lip to the pillow.
He seemed to exude a stale beer odour from every available orifice in his body. Cheryl could taste it in her mouth and smell it on her skin, even though she never drank � never had.
Closing the bathroom door softly behind her, Cheryl turned the key and made her way painfully to the shower stall. With the water shooting from the shower nozzle as hard and as hot as she could take it, she proceeded to soap and scrub her body with a rough flannel. Her movements were business-like and efficient and the she obviously derived no apparent pleasure from what should have been a soothing experience. Stepping out of the shower she blotted herself dry and then stepped up to the wash basin, careful not to look directly into the mirror above it.
Cheryl now began the familiar ritual of examining her body. She passed quickly over the already darkening bruises that covered her upper legs and thighs, some of them blossoming out from older, yellowed bruises. She paused at the shallow teeth marks on her inner thigh and reached for the small tube of anti-sceptic cream that held pride of place in the ceramic cup just above the sink.
Standing on the closed lid of the toilet that stood opposite the sink, she studied the reflection of her buttocks in the mirror. She applied some cream to those places where the belt-buckle had cut deep enough to break the skin.
A small cut on her left nipple received attention next. Up till now she had barely flinched as the cream went to work but this one caused her bite her lip and squeeze her arm protectively over her breast. The area south of her shoulders and north of her knees stood out in stark contrast to the rest of her body. Her face was soft, blemish free, and her legs had won her many an admiring stare from both men and women alike � providing of course that the hem of her skirt fell below the knees.
Bruce never touched her face. Not even to kiss her. Hell, especially not to kiss her. Intimacy was not his strong point.
Applying some light cosmetics enhanced Cheryl's natural beauty, but she hardly needed it. With her straight dark hair cut stylishly shoulder length and her regal features, she would have been any director�s first choice to play Cleopatra.
With her ablutions completed Cheryl left her little haven and started quickly looking for clothes. She kicked aside the lace teddy she had worn last night and finding an old pair of white scants she pulled them on � not as sexy but definitely more functional.
Her bra turned out to be much too painful with the damaged nipple sending bolts of pain through her breast the moment she tried to put it on. She opted for a loose fitting sweater instead, tucking it into her favourite pair of faded denims.
Slipping on a pair of well-worn trainers she moved quickly towards the door that would take her from last nights torture chamber and into a quiet morning of relaxed shopping, browsing and freedom. Saturday mornings were pretty ambiguous for Cheryl. They were generally physically painful but spiritually refreshing and uplifting as well.
After a week of mental and physical sparring with Bruce she actually looked forward to the inevitable Friday night eruption. It had all become so predictable; Bruce comes home drunk, starts a fight, beats the crap out of her. At least she knew what to expect.
They lived in a sort of violent symbiosis. An outwardly projected form of self-destruction � a negative catharsis of the body and soul.
Bruce hated himself and vented all his anger and frustration by inflicting pain and humiliation on Cheryl, thereby boosting his own sagging self-esteem. Cheryl hated herself and needed to be hurt and humiliated in order to feel worthy. It was a marriage made in hell.
Bruce�s sadistic Friday (and lately any other day of the week) ritual hadn�t come as a surprise to Cheryl. He had hospitalised her twice before they had even been married.
She could still remember that first morning that she had woken up in a hospital bed, unable to move her left arm because of the thick plaster cast that stretched from her shoulder to her fingertips. It was just as well because any movement of her body caused the crack in her sternum to move apart and then the pain that engulfed her would threaten to eat her up and spit her out.
Her mother had come to visit, the ever-present cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth despite the numerous �No Smoking� signs or perhaps because of them.
�What did you do to make him angry this time Cherry? Was it the sex thing again? You�ve got to stop living in this fairy �tale world of yours where everything is flowers and sunsets.� Ash dropped onto the clean bed sheets from the tip of her mother�s cigarette, but Cheryl said nothing, she just bit her lower lip and hoped that the tear which always accompanied one of her mothers speeches would hold out until the old witch had gone.
�One of these days Cherry, you�re going to drive that poor man over the edge and then I�ll be visiting the basement of this building. It�s bad enough that you�ve forced me to come into this stinking cesspool without making me see the products of their labour as well.
�Carry on this way and you�re going to lose him, Cherry. Do you want that?� Cheryl said nothing
�DO YOU WANT THAT!� Her shout produced a hacking cough that lasted a minute. Cheryl could feel her mother�s baleful eyes boring into her and the tears, which she had tried, so hard to hold back now started flowing freely down her cheeks.
�Don�t antagonise your mother, Cherry. Answer me when I speak to you. Now, do you want that?�
�No.� It was a whisper.
�Then stop being such a stupid little bitch and treat your man right!�
�Yes, mother.�
�What do you have to do?�
�Treat my man right.�
�Good girl!� She was smiling now. �You antagonise him so and then wonder why he sees fit to punish you. You have no discipline! You are weak! You are a weak little bitch!� She emphasised each point with a drag and puff of her cigarette, enhancing her already uncanny resemblance to a fiery dragon.
�Cherry, if you don�t want to die an old spinster like me, you had better start acting like a wife. Then maybe Bruce will decide to marry you, though God knows he must have bricks in his head if he does decide to.�
Cheryl nodded in agreement.
�I always knew you were trouble Cherry. I should have been harder on you. Everything I�ve done for you and this is how you repay me! You disappoint me Cherry!� Puff.
�I�m sorry mother.�
�Don�t apologise to me, I don�t want to marry you!� Puff
�Yes mother.�
�Stupid little bitch!� This last was said with such venom that Cheryl winced. She should have been used to it by now, but there are probably certain things one never gets used to. Her mother had left under a cloud, literally, leaving Cheryl to think about the previous evening and the events that had culminated with her in this bed.
Everything had started off perfectly. Bruce had come to her apartment in a festive mood, the unmistakable sign of a few beers blushing his cheeks and glazing his eyes.
After a quick bath, Cheryl had slipped into her new black dress � the one Bruce had bought for her. What followed flashed through her mind now like an express train.
Bruce sitting on the edge of the bed with a vacant smile on his face.
The phone ringing. Answering while trying to pull the zip up at the back of her dress. Cradling the phone in her shoulder so that she could hold the dress with one hand while the other fumbled with the zip.
�Hello, David?� A friend from the office. �What? No I can�t come to the office party. What? No, no, I�ve just got other plans.� Laughing now. David was funny, he always made her laugh and she suspected that he had more than a passing interest in her.
She didn�t see the smile disappear from Bruce�s face like quicksilver. Didn�t hear him coming up behind her and assumed he was helping with the zip when he gently grasped her wrist. She started to turn playfully around when he began twisting her wrist, trying to sound casual to David who was flirting a little on the other end of the line.
Her back arched as her arm twisted more and more in its� socket. She slammed the phone down just as her knees buckled in a futile attempt to compensate for the impossible angle her arm was being forced into. Her scream of pain was muffled as her face was pushed into the carpet.
She didn�t see his totally indifferent stare, as with a final twist, he snapped the radial bone in her upper arm and dislocated the shoulder at the same time.
Had she not lost consciousness at this time she would have seen him gently roll her over and smash his foot down into her chest while still holding onto the dislocated limb.
Bruce had hurt her before this, but never as severely. A couple of slaps and a few punches but never the mindless and wanton destruction of the night before.
A fall down some stairs was the explanation she gave to the enquiring doctor and wondered how he knew she was lying.
She even acted indignant when he surreptitiously left a card with the number of a help line for battered women next to her bed.
Bruce never came to visit. He was, however, at home when she was discharged three weeks later. He was like a mother hen, �tut-tutting� over her broken arm.
He was totally in control � not a sign of remorse. Cheryl thought she needed his stability in her life. He had a powerful presence, both physically and mentally.
He dominated her life and she was grateful.
The second time she came out of hospital she apologised to him and begged him not to go when he threatened to leave her.
Six months later they were married.
After their marriage things had settled down into a routine that all couples adapt to after single life: Work, building a home, cultivating friendships. But the only thing that really changed in their relationship was the frequency of the beatings.
At first it had taken a couple of months for the pressure to build up to a point where Bruce deemed it necessary to �teach you a little lesson� as he liked to put it.
Lately the beatings had been coming after no apparent provocation at all. Bruce rarely lost his temper � he simply dished out the punishment with a cold detachment that had at first scared her badly but which she now took for granted.
The thing that scared her now was not his detachment or even the beatings themselves, it was how she had begun to react to them. Cheryl could accurately predict a �session� and lately found her body tingling all over when she knew one was immanent. Tingles not of anxiety but of pleasure.
She still cried and begged him to stop but it was more for his benefit than her own.
Now Cheryl found herself wondering aimlessly around the mall, unable to enjoy that mammoth bastion of all women that no man in his right mind would ever wish to conquer � shopping. Something was bothering her. Her nipple still ached but she revelled in the feeling. Every time her cotton sweater chafed slightly it would send small vibrations of pain through her breast. Years of practice enabled her to mask the pain brilliantly. The trick was not to retreat from the pain but to embrace it willingly, savour it. The more it hurt the, the more she smiled, sometimes even giggling or laughing out loud if the pain became intense.
No it wasn�t the pain. Her mind was preoccupied with a small incident that had occurred during last-nights� session. An incident that had left her exhilarated and trembling.
After a couple of beers Bruce had started of his usual foreplay with a bit of verbal abuse � small, cutting remarks that escalated slowly into full-scale insults and degradation. He never raised his voice but the quality of insults generally progressed from mild sarcasm to pure venom.
Next came the physical stage, but not a full assault. Each insult would just be punctuated with a small pinch, punch, tug of the hair or a tweak of a nipple between the knuckles of two fingers. These sessions were not always sexual, but last nights had been. After building himself up with the small stuff, Bruce had simply grabbed a fist full of hair, dragged her into the bedroom and flung her onto the bed. Bruce liked to inflict pain when he �made Love�. He needed to inflict pain. A thick black belt with a large ornate silver buckle was his favourite tool and he used it often. He called it his �Peace Maker.� In retrospect, Cheryl had to admit that his expressions were the most serene when she caught glimpses of his face while she writhed on the bed in an attempt to avoid the bite of the buckle. Bruce once told her that the �Peace Maker� sang to him and that the sound it made as he lashed her was the sweetest he had ever heard.
The last session had been unusually long. By the time Bruce had worked himself up into a �peaceful� enough state of mind, Cheryl was curled up in a foetal position on the end of the bed � hands clasped over her ears so she wouldn�t have to listen to the insidious whistle of the buckle just before it bit repeatedly into the flesh on her back and buttocks.
Bruce always took her from behind and last night had been no exception � to start with. Whilst trying to straddle her and complete the last (and usually mercifully short) scene in his Friday night pageant, his left knee slipped off the edge of the bed and Bruce tumbled onto the floor, pulling Cheryl with him. For a full five seconds, but what seemed like an eternity, Cheryl sat astride Bruce, her hands pinning his hands on either side of his head, her eyes locked on his.
What Cheryl saw there was fear. Fear and total submission.
The feeling of power that had coursed through Cheryl�s body was like a surge of raw electricity that set every nerve ending in her body on fire.
Cheryl was never sexually satisfied but the orgasm that she had experienced a few hours ago had rocked her body with its� intensity and power.
For the first time in her life she had looked into Bruce�s soul and seen him for what he really was. For the first time in her life she had looked into her own soul and had seen who she could really be.
She returned from the mall to find Bruce propped up in front of the television nursing a hangover; beer in one hand, remote control in the other. She greeted him cheerfully on her way to the bedroom to deposit her parcels but got no response.
When she returned to the living room she was whistling a tune, something by Hootie.
�I see the old bitch is still stealing our oxygen.� A typical Bruce remark.
�What are you doing this-afternoon?� She chose to ignore it.
�Whatever the Hell I please! What�s it to you anyway?�
�I�m going out later and I�ll need you to be here when the ambulance arrives.� His eyes left the screen in front of him for the first time and she could see suspicion lurking behind his enquiring stare.
�I�ve decided to send my mother to a clinic. She�ll receive better attention there and it will also allow me to get on with my life. She�s no longer aware of her surroundings so I don�t think she�ll put up much of an argument.� Cheryl seemed to rethink what she had just, looking up to the ceiling with her chin cupped in one hand. �Yup, that�s decided then. It will be better for all concerned and at least you�ll have �the old bitch� out of your hair.� She ruffled his hair as she said this, much as a mother would with an errant child. Suspicion had ignited burners in his shocked eyes and she thought she could discern a slight tick in one cheek. His mouth hung slackly open, almost as if his last breath had forgotten to close the door behind it.
�I�ve made all the arrangements with the clinic,� Cheryl continued, warming to her new status. �Dr. Brody I think he said his name was,� she smiled mischievously as she thought back. �Kinda cute really, and sooo helpful.� She gave him a wink as she turned to leave.
Bruce sat there, staring at her as if seeing her for the very first time. His left eye-lid began fluttering in sympathy with the tick in his cheek and the corner of his mouth twitched with the staccato irregularity of a fused light bulb.
As Cheryl reversed out the drive she was grinning like a cat that�s had the cream. Two blocks from the house she had to stop the car and release some of the wild hysteria that was bubbling inside her. She clutched her sides and laughed till she cried. She whooped with delight as she realised she had wet herself at some stage and an image of Bruce�s face when she left had her doubled over with wild mirth all over again. She calmed the hysteria down to little sniggers, giggles and snorts only to succumb to it all over again.
She howled and she laughed and she cried and when she was finally able to maintain a state of seem- normality, she started the car and drove to a public park. Here she sat and watched the people who had come to relax with dogs and kids. Their simple normalness highlighted how very wrong her life had been for so long and she wondered how she had never noticed it before.
For the first time in her life Cheryl felt she was in control of her life and her destiny, but before she started her new life she felt a bit of retribution was in order. This time the smile that took a hold of her face had very little to do with happiness.
When Cheryl arrived home later that evening her mother was gone. Bruce was still guarding the television, but he leapt up the moment she walked in, his face a turmoil of rage and fear.
�Where the Hell have you been?� he shouted, advancing cautiously towards her. She noticed that his voice cracked.
�Out!� She stood her ground.
�Out where God-dammit?!?!� He stopped a few paces short of her, his voice an octave higher and beginning to tremble.
�Just out.� She took a step towards him and he retreated two. His fear and confusion was like a palpable aura that surrounded him. The hunter had become the hunted.
�I�ve got a little surprise for you,� said Cheryl, walking past him and heading for the bedroom. When she reached the door she stopped and looked casually back over her shoulder; �Come into the room in about ten minutes.� It was a command, not a request. As if it were an afterthought she said, �That is of course, if you think you�re man enough!�
He came in as requested � a mouse in an adder�s cage, a sheep in the lion�s den. Cheryl stood on the bed with legs spread wide and arms akimbo. His eyes rose slowly from the floor and took in the steel capped black leather thigh boots that connected to Cheryl�s matching body suite with lace suspender belts. Around her neck was a studded collar that wouldn�t have looked more at home on a rabid Pit-Bull Terrier. Her hair was teased into an angry dark cloud that surrounded her head like a summer thunderstorm. Dark blue eye shadow accentuated her indigo eyes that sparkled now with predatory delight. Her mouth was an almost obscene blood red slash that framed even white teeth glistening with saliva.
The crack of the long black whip she held in her right hand snapped Bruce out of his stupor. His knees buckled and a moan of pure terror escaped his trembling lips.
Bruce woke with a start, a thin patina of sweat beading his brow. There it was; the rasping sound of Cheryl�s mother doing the seemingly impossible and drawing air into her diseased ravaged body. He sat up and listened intently, waiting for the sound to repeat itself. Nothing.
The house was as silent as the grave.
He lowered his head back to the pillow with a small sigh of disappointment. Reality chased the last cobwebs of sleep and hope from his brain and he slipped silently out of bed, careful not to disturb Cheryl who still slept peacefully beside him.
Once in the bathroom he stepped quickly into the shower and turned the cold water on full. He soaped down quickly, wincing as the flannel passed over the dark purple welts that covered his torso.
Stepping out of the shower he lathered his face with shaving cream and selected a razor from the enamel bowl above the basin.
His reflection faced him, shaving in perfect unison. His eyes followed the trail of the razor � never once did he look into their haunted depths.
