It’s past midnight and I’m awakened from my sleep when my door creaks open.
Diablo!
Fear grips me and balloons in my throat.
A figure, black and ominous looms towards me in the dark.
The shadow reaches my bed and falls across my body and my heart clangs in my chest, deafening me. Wide-eyed, I look up into Diablo’s face, looking every bit the demon, the beast, the monster I’ve seen and fled from in my nightmares.
I know why he’s here. The thought of him touching me repulses me. In the dark I frantically scramble for the light switch on my bedside lamp, but in my haste I knock it to the ground and we remain in the dark.
He inches closer. I turn my face away unable to look at him, hoping that by some miracle he takes offense at my rejection and leaves. Or even kills me. I don’t mind dying right now. Please, let me die.
He lowers himself onto my bed and I’m forced to look directly at him. I clamp both my hands over my mouth to suppress my scream. All I can really see is the whites of his eyes, but even though it’s dark, in my mind I see every detail about him. It’s burned in my memory. I conjured him – he was the bogeyman coming to get me when I was bad, when I didn’t listen to mommy and daddy. Somehow I managed to breathe him to life and here he is.
‘S ... stay away from me!’ I cry, but my voice lodges in my throat, just like it did in my nightmares.
He hesitates, then unsheathes his knife and brings it slowly towards my face and I feel I’m going to pass out from fear. Earlier on, he used that same knife to kill a man and now, he’s about to use it on me. I know the man’s blood might still be on it.
Transfixed by the gleaming knife, I can only watch as it inches closer and closer to my alabaster face, then my breasts. Is he going to stab me in the heart? Cut my throat? Slice my face?
But he does nothing of that sort. Instead, he slices at the straps of my nightdress, nipping my skin and exposing my breasts. For a few moments he stares at my breasts. Suddenly, he stabs the knife downwards and I scream in terror.
Strangely, I feel no pain.
Gasping, I look down and see the knife plunged inches away from my abdomen, into the mattress. He has not stabbed me. By now, I’m hysterical and gasping. To silence me, he clamps his huge hand over my mouth.
Using his knee, he shoves aside my thighs and rips off my panties.
I scream into his bare shoulder as he plunges into me.
I suffer the stench of stale tobacco and sour whisky breath while he thrusts sadistically into me, hurting me, tearing my core. He’s super strong and I don’t even try to fight him.
The knife next is enough to terrorize me into submission.
As he plunges again and again into me, I feel myself slipping away and it feels really good to slip away. I’m in the ocean ... deep ... scuba diving. Everything is in slow motion. I close my eyes, see nothing, hear nothing, my mind is deserting me. Just what I need.
After what feels like an eternity, he rolls off me and staggers out of my room. I lie frozen, helpless, shell-shocked.
For a long time I stare silently in the dark, trying to keep my mind from functioning, a trick I’m becoming a master at. Finally, I drag myself into the shower and scrub my skin till it bleeds, wanting to rid myself of his flotsam - scour away the stench, the feel, the weight of the beast that assaulted me and invaded my fragile body. I only leave the shower when my hands turn blue from the cold water.
My mind betrays me, refuses to stay empty and forces me to fret over practical concerns - AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases or worse, an unwanted pregnancy.
Then I remember that although he did not use a condom, he ejaculated outside me. That will lessen my chances of falling pregnant. I’m relieved, one less thing to dread in my fucked up life.
As I lie in the dark, I plot his death. It will be horrific, gruesome, painful.
I do not cry. I’m beyond crying. Besides, tears are for sad people. I’m angry.
Actually, I’m beyond anger too.
I want to maim, mutilate, disfigure.
I’m raging.