Page 4 of If You Go
They had walked in on me cleaning the oven on my hands and knees with a scrub brush and some soap. I remained sitting on the floor, lowering my eyes and being as submissive as possible.
“I have had enough of you, you fucking cunt. You won’t give me an heir, so I am done playing games and waiting on you.”
“No—please, Gavin, don’t say that. I’m trying, I swear I am. I can go back to the doctor, I’ll do whatever they say. Just… don’t leave me.” The words spill out before I can stop them, fear flooding me, because I know when he says he’s done, it never ends well. “No, you stupid bitch. I am not giving you up. How do you think I will take over the entire Western region if I don’t stay married to you? Your father will never give it to me if you aren’t my wife.” I am in shock, completely appalled by what he is saying to me. He never really loved me, did he?
“Instead, I am going to have you filled with cock all day and night to ensure that you don’t forget your most important job.”
I slowly stand and begin backing away, around the island and toward the back door. I don’t know what he means by this. But before I am able to grab the door handle and escape, his goons grab me and throw me onto the floor. Gavin walks up and kneels behind me, removing his knife slowly from his pocket and unfolding it. The creak of the metal raking down my already frayed nerves. He places the knife between my skin and pants, slicing down. The knife is sharp, and the side that touches my skin burns as he cuts into my skin.
I begin to scream, thrash, and pull my arms away from them, but no matter how hard I do, they don’t let go. He shoves me onto the floor and straddles me from behind and I hear the belt he was wearing slip through the loops and the zipper of his jeans come down before he is entering me swiftly and painfully. It is made worse by his men holding me down, arms and legs, watching me suffer.
When he finally grunts his finish and gets off, I am thankful it is over. Thinking that he wanted to make a point that he is in charge and always will be. I feel two hands pull me up by my upper arms, and I am sagging between them. My feet and shins drag across the floor and my head hangs heavy down toward my chest as they move me over to the living room.
“Wha-t are you doing?” I ask, but no one answers me. “Gavin, please stop. Please. I can do better next time!” My voice turns into a shrill scream toward the end and I begin to sob.
“Okay, Neil, your turn.” I freeze. My breath halts on my lips. I second-guess that’s what was said until Gavin is grabbing my arm, shoving it behind my back and up toward my shoulder, nearly breaking my arm. Then I feel someone behind me.
When Neil enters my body, my soul leaves me just as suddenly. No. Not now. If I can just… his hand—knife—burning my skin. I can’t breathe. I cannot believe this iswhat I was meant to do. I cannot believe this is what being in thefamily businesswas supposed to mean. I cannot believe this was what my life’s purpose is, to be raped by my husband’s men.
He thrusts into me so violently that if Gavin and the other man weren’t pinning me down, I would be sliding across the carpet. Regardless, I am sure I will have a rug burn everywhere that my skin touches the floor. Once Neil is done, I feel his body replaced by another, and then another, continuing on until long after the point I gave up counting.
As they all continue to have their turns, Gavin takes off more and more of my clothing. The carpet was hot and made me sweat, scratching my skin to a degree of pain I wasn’t aware was possible. Someone’s shoe squeaked. My hair stuck to my face with sweat. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry as chalk.
Finally, the thrusting ended when several women walked in the door, dressed in almost nothing. The one on the left is tall, with olive skin and slightly slanted eyes. Her makeupis dark and smudged, her long dark hair falling pin straight to where her mini skirt sits on her waist, if that is what you can call it. Her top is a bandanna, a literal bandanna, that is tied around her, and she has heels on that cause her to be probably six feet tall, but it’s hard to say from where I am lying on the floor. The one next to her is dressed nearly the same, skin tone maybe a bit lighter, and her bandanna is pink instead of red like her friend's. I can smell the overwhelming scent of their floral perfume from where I am pinned down.
They begin to panic, seeing me lying on the floor and bleeding, fully undressed, with multiple men surrounding me. The one in the red screams and begins to back away, and the one in the pink holds up her phone and snaps a picture, made obvious by the shutter sound, before they both run out the door. I am not sure what she is planning on doing with the picture, but at this point, who cares? It’s the least of my concerns. Gavin grabs my hair at the root and begins to drag me across the house and shoves me into my room, leaving me there to rot.
That is, until I hear sirens outside. Why are the cops here? Those girls that ran out must have called them. I hear a struggle outside, but my door is locked from the outside, and I can’t go and see, so I just listen while I wait.
Soon, I hear a voice on the other side calling “is there a woman here? Do you need help?” I begin banging on the door. This is it. My chance to escape this hell that was supposed to be my fairytale.
After a moment, I hear him say “stand back,” and I do as he says, sitting on my bed in nothing but an oversized t-shirt I found on my floor, blood and cum still all over my legs. I had just been dragging myself to the shower to wash it off when I heard the sirens. I am thankful I didn’t get that far, because I may not have heard the officer. The door bangs open, splintering at the frame, and the officer looks me over before reaching to his shoulder and speaking into his radio.
“10-23, found her. I need EMS, Code 3.” Then he looks at me again and puts his hands in the air, palms outward.
He takes one step toward me. “We received a call that a woman needed help here.” He glances down and sees the blood streaming down my bare legs. “Is that you?”
I nod, unable to form words. I don’t know if I can trust this. If this is really a cop, or a figment of my imagination. I can’t believe those women called the police. I am so incredibly thankful, but I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had high-tailed it and simply never looked back. It doesn’t seem like it was something those types of women would do.
“What’s your name?” He asks me. But I simply cannot speak. I just shake my head, and silent tears begin to pour out of my eyes. “Okay, that’s okay. Do you want me to call someone? Your husband?” He must have noticed my ring.
I shake my head and speak for the first time. “C-can I ca-ll my m-mom?” My voice is shaking.
He hands me his cell phone, and I punch in the numbers that my muscle memory thankfully knows, her voice flowing through the speaker after only one ring. A damn inside of me breaks as she speaks, sobs wrenching free fromdeep inside of me. It takes everything I possess to squeeze out the smalled of words. “M-m-mom. It’s S-s-surry, I need help.”
“Is that your name, Surry?” The officer asks, and I nod, holding the phone with my frantic mother on the other end out to him. He puts it to his ear just as an EMS crew walks into my room. I see the officer put his hand on the chest of the male medic, but he allows the woman to walk into my room. She nods at him, something flashing on her face before she looks back at me.
“Hi, honey,” she greets me in a warm, slow, low tone. “My name is Elise. I am here to help you. Can you tell me what happened?” I shake my head, and I see her do a once-over of my body with her eyes. “Can I get you to come with me into the ambulance?” I don’t answer. I see the officer lean over and whisper something to her.
“Okay, honey, Officer Martin here says he will come in the ambulance with you if you would like. Just you, him, and myself. Would that be okay?” I nod. I still can’t tell ifthis is real. But if not, it is at least a nice figment of my imagination and an oddly comforting thing that an officer will still be around.
“Okay, let me get you a blanket, and we will take you to the hospital to get you checked out.”
I nod again, and she takes a few slow steps toward me, holding up something I didn’t notice before. She stops before me and places a blanket around my shoulders, and then hooks her arm around my shoulders to keep it wrapped around me. We make our way out of the house and to the ambulance, and just as promised, it’s just me, Elise, and Officer Martin. None of us speak. Elise starts my work up–blood pressure, pulse ox, and temp. She asks if she can look under my shirt, but I just close my eyes, answering her with my silence.
When we arrive at the hospital’s Emergency Department bay, I can hear someone screaming in a heavy Irish accent, using words that are old Gaelic, which she only uses when she is top-level furious. I know it’s my mom. My eyes gowide as I search for her. Officer Martin obviously hears it, since he also has ears, and looks at me.
“I will go get your mom, Surry. She will be back with you as soon as possible, okay?” I nod again and speak to him finally. “Thank you.” It’s all I can manage, and it’s barely above a whisper.
