lifestuck

The motel room is small, the window – wide open. The breeze is playfully tossing the curtains back and forth, but it can't chase away the cigarette smoke that lingers in the air. It's dark and tense. The noise of the speeding cars on the street is penetrating my mind, making me want to escape. The squeaking of the bed in the room next door is being anything but helpful. The roughness, the moaning, the screams of satisfaction. How long has it been since I have last screamed with pleasure!?

And then silence. The only sound left is the one of glass meeting wood, as I slowly place the bottle of scotch on the table.

Another moan. I shiver and catch myself biting my lip - so hard I can actually feel the taste of blood in my mouth.

There's no point in waiting for him, but also no point in going to bed. He's gone. Getting drunk probably, hitting on other women: I've gotten used to that. After the fourth year, it has become nothing more than a daily routine. He'd come back in the middle of the night, wasted, with the smell of women's perfume all over him, wanting more…this time of me. Back in the days, I would try to stand my own and not let him use me as a punch bag for all his physical needs. I never managed. He would toss me around the room, tie me to the bed and beat me until I'd have no more strength to scream or cry.

Nothing's changed since then. No, he has gotten better at one thing – using cruelty to his advantage. Perhaps I've made it easier for him: it's been so long since I've last tried to confront him. But then again, what's the point!? Has my body not suffered enough - my face, my arms, my legs and everything in between? Have I not heard my ribs crack under his weight so many times…?!

It's the same story over and over.

I know tonight he'll come back drunken again and look at me with that perverted spark in his eyes. And I know I'll turn my head to the side and will have to stand the humiliation of being his wife. But it is what it is. I can't escape; I've tried. He knows how to look for me. And when he finds me, he'd be 10 times as hard, and 20 times as disrespectful. There is nothing I can do, but smoke my cigarette and drink my scotch.

And wait for the night to be over.