There's a phrase which I've always related to. It says:
"Sometimes, giving someone a second chance is like giving them a second bullet, because they missed you the first time..."
This was the case once Eva decided we could move on from my kiss with Dani. Eva was the epitome of a loving, trusting soul who never stopped believing in me. She treated me well because she believed that, really, I was mainly good. She saw the good in me as being huge, extensive, overwhelming, and worth nurturing. It is a testament to her optimism and ability to love everyone... even someone like me.
Eva believed I was good, because she wanted it to be true.
However, the fact is that I was a slave to my evil nature. I capitulated to HIS will.
What did I expect to gain from sleeping with other women, behind Eva's back? Nothing, obviously. There was no conceivable situation in which I could have really convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. I could, at a PINCH, convince myself that it was OK to do, or that it wasn't that bad, at least. And for an ill-disciplined young man like myself, this was more than enough of an excuse.
"You're still young!", I'd hear Lust telling me. "You SHOULD go wild... this is the time to do it!"
"Don't think about it... just do it, and stop worrying about the consequences. She'll never find out..."
Why didn't I stand up to Lust? Why didn't I tell her she was wrong, tell her to get lost, silence her voice? Two reasons. Firstly, I didn't know how to. She was so persistent, so convincing, so powerful sounding, that I felt useless trying to resist her."Listen- if YOU don't sleep with her, someone else will!"
Secondly, I didn't WANT to. I wanted her to be right. Just like Eva wanted my goodness to be true, and therefore believed it- tried to WILL it- into reality, so I wanted Lust to be speaking the truth, to convince me that what I was doing was OK. I would give her ample opportunities throughout the day to make her arguments.
"She's a fox! Have fun tonight, and Eva will never have to know!"
Eva, her trusting nature guiding her, allowed herself to be deceived into thinking that I would be true to my word- that from then on, I'd be utterly faithful to her. I, my lust-filled nature guiding me, allowed myself to be deceived into thinking that my desire to be with other women came above everything else. She was good, and trusting, and believed in me. I was dark, and untrustworthy, and believed only in the urges of my basic desires. With these two people in a relationship together, it could only ever end in disaster...
Abby was kind of wild. I never would have guessed that, judging by the brief interactions we had together. She was a student teacher in the course, and I was her secondary trainer. She was from Texas, and both her parents were from Ghana. She was small, petite, and despite her often serious demeanour, I could tell that she was an attractive young woman.
"Are you going out tonight...?", she looked up at me, smiling those perfectly white teeth. Her glasses framed her eyes well, and she pulled them off in a way not many women can...
"For sure!", I said, smiling down at her as we stood in the busy corridor of the school. She was waiting for her class to begin- the one hour class she had to teach every day on the last week of the course. The other trainer was going to observe and critique her, and I was observing and critiquing another student... but I'd come over to talk to Abby because she was easy to chat to.
"Great!", she exclaimed. "We're going to some bar... I think it's, is it... Two Tribes?"
"...Two Tribes, yeah...", I confirmed
"Oh, so you know it?", she asked, with a hint of surprise...
I knew it. I knew all the bars and clubs in the city by that point. For some of them, I even knew staff members behind the bar by name.
"Of course!", I gave her a wink and a smile.
She laughed and smiled back, and said, "8 o'clock, then. See you there..."
We were about the same age- in fact, she was a little bit older than me, at 24, but her height and petite features meant she looked around 20- and as the crowds of students flooded out of their classrooms to fill the main hall and the corridors leading off of it with bustling bodies, noise, chatter, requests made at the snack bar in the corner, the sound of people spraying coffee into Styrofoam cups, I thought about whether or not I'd be able to resist her if she showed any interest in me...
I wondered, but I already knew the answer. It had been about a month since the incident with Dani. Dani and I still worked together, but as was truly the custom in that city, we had informally agreed to forget about our antics and move on.
Eva was out with her brothers that evening, visiting their sister in her new little house on the other side of the city. She'd asked me if I wanted to come. Sat at her dining-room table on that Friday morning, we'd eaten breakfast together. It had been one of the handful of times that I'd stayed at HER house overnight- usually we stayed together at mine. The morning light was breaking over the mountains in the distance, giving the room with its wooden floor and off-white walls a magical glow that can only be witnessed for a few minutes on the right type of morning...
"What are you going to do...?" I'd asked, knowing the answer already, and interested to see what fabrication Eva would come up with to convince me to go...
"I don't know...", she'd tried to stall. "Have dinner, watch a movie, maybe...?"
I'd laughed sarcastically, and she'd immediately picked up on it...
"What?", she'd asked innocently.
I'd looked at her, to see if she was serious about her ignorance at my scepticism...
"Your brothers are just going to drink, and play guitar super loudly, and then gamble all night, and then ask you to make them some tea...", I'd accurately predicted.
"Nnooo...", she said, before her eyes started staring into the middle distance as she realised I was right. Suddenly aware of this, her eyes flicked back to me sat there with an "AmIright?" look on my face, and unwilling to concede that I was right, she compromised by saying "Well, if you're going to go out tonight instead, don't drink too much!".
It was good advice; NECESSARY advice... but as was so often the case I responded angrily.
"I NEVER drink too much!", I lied, raising my voice in the early morning quiet, my rage at the accusation fuelled by the fact that I knew it actually to be true...
"OK... OK...", she'd said calmly, to try and pacify me... she stroked my face, which was still showing signs of being offended. "Just... be good, eh?"
---
As I left Abby's house early the next morning, I tried to distract myself from the screaming voices of paranoia...
"What if someone saw you last night?"
"You were DRUNK AS HELL- ANYONE could have been watching!"
"What if Billy really does "use those photos for a rainy day"? What if Eva sees them?"
...by trying to recall specifically what had happened in the last 12 hours. Exactly 24 hours earlier, I had been having breakfast with my girlfriend at her kitchen table. 24 hours later, I was leaving the bedroom of a woman I'd only met that week. My head was throbbing, and the morning daylight was blinding on that cold Saturday morning. The glorious glow that had been such a spectacle to behold in Eva's dining-room was now like an interrogation light being blasted into my eyes. As I squinted, making my way groggily down the poorly paved hill, extending my path by avoiding potholes and deep pools of muddy water, I tried to recall the events of the last 12 hours in order...
What time did I get to the bar last night? Maybe, 8:10p.m.? It was already packed, heaving, as it always was when there was a band playing, and it took me a moment to spot Billy and Wendy stood at the bar...
"What you havin'?", Billy asked me with a smile, as I shook his hand, and he tried to call the barman over with his other hand. Billy was Scottish, and was frankly wild. A year or two older than me, at 24 he'd already travelled extensively. Now he was at our school, and having taken our 1 month intensive teacher-training course, had been teaching with us for the last 2 months. As I said- although he WAS wild- drinking like a fish at every opportunity, getting with almost any woman he could (which he did with a pretty good success rate), foul mouthed and full of crude jokes, always smiling and taking the piss out of anyone who was in his direct vicinity- he was also supremely likable, if not for the sheer entertainment factor of his presence alone.Wendy was a sweet girl, who had fallen, as many did, into Billy's charming trap. She was from Minnesota, and had that pretty all-American farm-girl look about her. Her long, dark-blonde almost chestnut hair, her green eyes, her easy-going smile. She smiled at me from next to Billy, as we heard the band tuning up behind us...
"So, where's Cam?", I asked as Billy passed me my beer, and turn to collect his from the barman. Wendy sipped her vodka-tonic through a straw, while looking up at Billy.
"Said he'd be here soon...", Billy said loudly over the noise all around us, and added, "...and some of the trainee teachers are coming. That Abby girl said she'd come...", he said observing the crowd over my shoulder...
Before I even had time to decide how I actually felt about that, I saw her approaching us, squeezing her way through the crowd. "There she is!", proclaimed Billy, redundantly. She already had a drink in her hand- some sort of spirit mixed with lemonade. I was the closest to her in our little circle, so leant in to greet her...
"Hi!", she shouted over the sound of the band, which had just started its first song. She was smiling delightedly as we cheek-kissed..
"How's it going?", I asked, rhetorically over her shoulder as we hugged briefly after the first cheek kiss. As we pulled away after the second cheek kiss, she was still smiling broadly with all her teeth, and her eyes lingered in my gaze as she took a sip from her straw, before dragging herself away to greet the others in the group...
It must have been about an hour and a half later, just approaching 10 p.m., and a new band was playing. Predictably, they had begun with local tunes in the local language, but had resorted to songs in English after a while, as drunk locals and foreigners made their requests frequently more audible and insistent. Abby and I were alone, watching them. The others, I'd assumed had gone out to smoke, or get high, or do cocaine. Any one of those was possible, I thought to myself. Abby was bouncing about to the music, jumping and singing the wrong lyrics louder than anyone else around us.
"Dance with me!", she kept turning to me and saying, grabbing my hand with a vice-like grip- me, still like a lamp post, apart from my arm, which was being held by the wild and dancing singing Abby...
I resisted:
"I don't dance!", I lied.
"Come on! DANCE!". she kept hold of my hand, and took another swig from her beer with the other hand. I drank from mine, let her keep hold of my hand and, despite the looks from those around me at my unwillingness to join in with her, did not dance...
As I turned the corner and was faced with the heavy traffic of the main road, I tried to remember what had happened next. As I waited to cross the road, shivering slightly on that cold but painfully bright morning, I tried to fill in the gaps between 10p.m. and 1a.m.- those three hours... but they weren't coming to me. I had no significant recollection of those few hours at all, I realised, as I made it to the other side of the road, and adjusted my path to follow the pavement. My head throbbing from dehydration now, I just focused on the next bit I remembered...
It was around 1a.m.. We all piled out of a taxi- Cam, Billy, Wendy, Abby and I, still drinking beer from 2 litre bottles we'd gotten hold of. We stumbled, singing, laughing, shouting jokes to each other, from the taxi into the open door of Billy and Wendy's house, and all collapsed, exhausted, on the two sofas that formed a right angle...
As I entered a shop to buy a bottle of water, appreciating the rest the shade was giving to my eyes, I realised that I couldn't remember if Abby and I had kissed already by that point. Had we kissed in the club? I couldn't remember. Had we kissed in the taxi? Again, a blank. Had we kissed at any time before she found a moment when the other 3 were distracted, to take my hand, and lead me confidently into the bedroom at Billy's house? I couldn't tell you. As I stepped back into the dazzling sunlight of the street, and took a sip of the cold bottle of water I'd just bought, I accepted that I didn't know the answer...
It must have been around 1:20a.m.- not too long after Abby and I had made our disappearance. Abby and I were having sex under the covers on what I can only assume was with Billy or Wendy's bed. We were both fully naked, and she was straddled on top of me...
Suddenly, the light and the sound from the living room erupted from the doorway, as Billy pushed his way through the unlocked door. Before either Abby or I had time to react, he said in his thick Scottish accent: "What's going on 'ere, then?", and from his form, silhouetted against the light from the doorway, I could already see flashes from his digital camera...
I laughed about it on that sunny morning home from Abby's house, as I finished my first bottle of water... and, come to think of it, I'd laughed about it at the time, too. Knowing Billy as I did by then, I knew that I would only make things worse by showing that I cared what he did with his camera. As he dodged Abby's reach, as she scratched out from her position on top of me, trying to grab, scratch the camera from his hand, I knew that at least one of us had to be passive about it. Every time, her hand fell short, as Billy leaped backwards, or sideways, giggling and provoking her...
"Almost! ALMOST got it, that time!", he laughed, before taking another picture from his new position. He loved that little game of his, and he knew he'd have even more fun tormenting me over the evidence. I think, in a failed attempt to to make him lose interest, I even adopted an exaggerated smile, and a thumbs up to one of his photos. "If I try to make it look as posed as possible...", I thought... "... then maybe people won't believe that they're real...". I'd completely forgotten that, quite often, people believe what they WANT to believe...
"That'll do!", he said loudly and with delight, and stumbled out of the dark room, back into the living room with Wendy and Cam.
We hadn't panicked... I remembered that much, as I ascended the stairs to my house, sipping my second bottle of water... But again, there were huge gaps in my memory of that night. The next real memory I had was getting ready to go to Abby's apartment...
We had got dressed, and took a taxi to her place, after Abby had said to me "Let's go to my house- it's quieter there...". We had been standing in the bedroom with the lights on, fully clothed by then, and she had kissed me and smiled, unworried. As she had led the way out for us to make that tiny walk-of-shame past the other three, I had braced myself for the humiliation we were about to experience...
Billy had been sitting on one of the sofas, swigging from a beer bottle, red-eyed and bleary looking into nothing in front of him. Upon hearing us creeping into the room, he had burst into a loud, laughing jeer:
"I'll be saving those photos for a rainy day...!"... he had started, but hadn't been able to finish the joke before Abby had gone out the front door, and I had been half way out. Turning to close the door, smiling, I had flipped him the finger before closing the door harder than I should have, leaving deafened laughter to wake up Wendy and Cam, who had probably asked him what he was laughing at...
Abby lived alone, in an apartment that was more than comfortable for just one person. It was spacious and generously furnished. Comfortable sofas, a queen sized bed, a full-fridge and at least 2- maybe 3- bedrooms. All recently cleaned- far cleaner than Billy's house. And the view was spectacular- it was on the 3rd floor of an apartment block in a hill on the outskirts of the centre- a block where each floor housed only 2 apartments. In a city where there were no buildings over 3 stories, it was perfectly set up for a night-time view. As Abby had put away her handbag items, and had gone to make sure the bedroom was ready, I had peeked out of the curtains. I had seen the view that I'd always loved- that particular, land-locked, ancient mountain city, it's yellow and orange lights twinkling down below in the darkness. Huge cathedral walls, given an orangy glow by street lights. Winding, twisting mountain roads lined with lampposts curving their way down towards the main cathedral and the plaza in the centre, which was still blazing orange with street lights, even at that early hour. A dog had barked in the night, close by. Those ominous, looming mountains on the horizon, black, even blacker against the dark night sky behind them... mountains watching over us, with the occasional tiny dots of orange to represent houses, and small communities. It was like they had escaped the hub of light down there in the valley, and were sitting on the faces of the mountain, cautious not to get too close to the blazing fire below them. I had looked down at the city, at that wonderful, distant blaze of light, spread out here in the naturally pitch black valley... and I had thought about whether or not Eva was asleep by now.
Abby and I had spent the rest of the night together, a few hours later I was there, back in my bedroom mid-morning on Saturday morning. I felt rough- my head was still pounding its way through my hangover. I was tired- even just sitting on the bed, I was struggling to keep my eyes open... but most of all, I felt scared at my lack of control. As I listened to the growing traffic passing outside, down below my second-floor bedroom window, I asked myself:
"Do I tell her? Or not?".
I sat, waiting for the answer to come to me. I sat, cold, tired, hurting and alone... and I waited.
---
I awoke in my cell with a start, one forced breath in, that was entering into my lungs far slower than usual. As I drifted from sleep back into consciousness, in that split second I got the impression that I wasn't breathing, which caused me to panic as I desperately searched for how long I hadn't been breathing. Now fully awake, suddenly thrust back into consciousness, I tried to take in one deep breath, but the stress had caused my neck muscles to tense, and my throat to be far more constricted than normal. My eyes still bulging in panic, I urged myself to calm down in my standing position...
... as my lungs gradually, but still far too slowly, expanded with the increase in air, I forced myself to stay calm and be patient while my lungs expanded. It took about 4 seconds to take that first, single breath, but it felt at least double that. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I closed my eyes as I then exhaled, letting out a whispered curse in my relief...
I exhaled slowly... and then immediately took in another breath; slowly, forced, but at least under my control...
"What was THAT?" I asked myself, as I began to breath normally again. As my breaths became more and more normalised, set at a more realistic capacity, and a stable breathing rhythm was established, I realised I was quivering a little. It had shaken me, that sensation of not being able to draw breath. Would this be a common occurrence? Could I expect this every time I awoke from now on? I wished I had someone to ask, before conceding that, in fact, I'd rather not know...
It was morning. I think I'd slept through the whole night, but there was no way to be sure. As I squinted up to the tiny high window with the first real rays of sunlight starting to blaze through it, I thought about how I didn't feel as tired as I usually did. Furthermore, I took a new-found joy at simply being able to breath properly again...
What had I dreamed about? I tried to think back, tried to recall... With my head bowed and eyes closed, still controlling my breaths, I concentrated on inhaling through my nose, and out through my mouth...
The homeless man. I'm pretty sure I dreamed about him. Behind my closed eyes, I could still see him standing there in that giant open plastic wheelie-bin, his hair dripping wet from the rain, the blood from his nose still forming a river down his lip, and onto his chin. Looking at me from side on...
I started to consider whether it had been a dream, or whether it was a memory. Sadly, I knew already that it was a memory- something which HAD happened, and which I still felt guilty about. I shook my head vigorously, to stop myself from feeling anymore torture than I was already suffering.
"I've lost weight", I thought to myself, when I opened my eyes and considered my fragile torso and legs below me. It was true- I'd lost A LOT of weight over the years. My biceps, which, although never huge, had always been well-toned and reliably tight and compact, were now strung out streaks of bacon, with minimal nutrients on their thin flesh. The muscle that WAS there clung to my arm bones weakly, out of habit, and looked like it could have been pulled off by a tenacious and hungry bird in less than a minute.
My thighs and calves were spongy, even when tensed. They showed no real shape- just a gradual and unimpressive arc outwards that led equally as passively inwards again towards the knee...
It never occurred to me then that looking back, reliving, remembering the events of that day before my incarceration was doing me harm. As I stood there, day in day out, for weeks on end in my solitude, it seemed that looking back and replaying those events in my mind was the only option to me. After all, there was nowhere to look in front of me- the grey stone wall and that menacing wooden and metal door directly ahead consumed my vision, and I was sick of staring blankly at both of them. I needed a rest, a change for my eyes, and so I often closed my eyes to see what images would congregate from out of the darkness. I would convince myself that by shutting my eyes, and letting my mind wander on its own was a positive move. That letting it skip back in time to play around in a distant past, and a distant place, was healthy. I had no-one to warn me about the danger of letting this become part of my personality... and even if I had done, it's unlikely they would have been able to convince me of that fact.
Inevitably, my mind would send me on a journey of guilt and remorse to dwell on something I'd done, said, BEEN, long ago, in a different lifetime. I would stand, helpless, chained, alone in that cell, as my corrupted and infected mind tortured me from within. My mind had it's own agenda, and cared little for my psychological well-being. It's a terrifying feeling, finding out that your mind is your greatest enemy. As I regretted and scolded myself for the way I'd reacted on that day when the homeless man had been so publicly humiliated, I was buying into the lie that this was how one SHOULD react to past failures. I thanked my mind for displaying my weaknesses, and shunned myself for making those mistakes.
And it seemed increasingly natural for my brain to send me there- more and more, every time I closed me eyes, I would be sent back to that rainy afternoon, with the homeless man's soaking hair dripping water down his face, a bad habit became an addiction, and that addiction became part of my persona. I was obsessed with reminiscing, of looking back and dwelling on my iniquities, despite the fact that it was hurting me. Surely there is no better definition for a true addiction...
---
The day that I saw my captor's face for the first time started off regularly. It happened months after the fourth and final chain had been attached to my leg. I woke up slowly, and was hungry, I remember, as I heard the jangle of the keys on the other side of the door. As they reached a climax and the door started to scrape and squeak open, I remember the pain in my gut distracting me from any fear that I'd normally have felt from the arrival of my captor. As the door continued on its journey open, I scrunched my eyes closed to alleviate myself of the burning pain that my starved stomach was suffering from...
"Stand up straight when you hear me coming in..!" barked my captor as he stepped across the doorway. It was probably late-morning. I opened my eyes and lifted my head, forcing it up despite the pain in my neck muscles as they creaked from the hours of inactivity they were being forced out of, just in time to see him walking into the light that was forming bars from the low, high window...
I looked up at him blearily approaching me through my eyebrows, my forehead furrowed in a wave of creases. I was practically hanging from the chains on my wrists, and I wasn't awake enough to defend myself from the speedy attack I predicted was about to be thrust upon me any moment. I didn't care, and I closed my eyes and let my head sag down again, knowing that I was really awake, but vainly hoping that I was dreaming...
I heard the tapping of his footsteps increase gradually in volume, but slow down in tempo, until eventually they kind of scraped to a halt. Silence followed, with me barely conscious, being held up more by the chains around my wrists than my own legs, weak, thin, starved, powerless and hopeless... dying. In contrast, my captor was full of vigour and energy, under complete control in the centre of the room. Looking back, I see why he was so lively that morning. Torturing me gave him energy, and that morning's torture was about to begin...
After a few seconds, I realised that he was waiting for me to look up at him, standing there waiting in the middle of the cell. With nothing but the will to get the impending torture over and done with driving me on, I slowly looked back up at him. Immediately, before I'd even fixed my eyes on his form properly, his hands were at the fringes of his hood...
Gradually, he started to pull it back...
To my horror, I realised that I was seconds away from seeing his face.
"WHAT DO I DO???", the question blared in my head, like a foghorn, and I caught myself not breathing as his hands slowly pulled that concealing dark hood back...
"It's too late to do anyt..." I started a thought, but it cut off when his hood flopped back limply to rest behind his shoulders...
...and I couldn't believe what I was looking at...
