Whipped

I didn’t stand still before I found myself in the bathroom; and barely even managed to stop when I reached the sink. My hands gripped the white glazed china for dear life and I retched.

Oh god. It felt like all of my intestines twisted in one painful peristaltic motion.

I saw the red streak of blood on my cheek in the mirror. His blood… His gross, filthy blood. On my skin. And it was drying, turning sticky as it coagulated… I imagined how it was seeping into my pores, being absorbed…

Fuck.

With shaky hands I turned the faucet on, letting the water run hot, soaking my hand and roughly began to wash my face. Rubbing hard, barely noticing how it stung or how the water burned my hands.

I just wanted to feel clean…

My throat was tight; I knew I could be doubling over any minute.

Salty tears were streaming down my cheeks, making my cheek sting even worse. And I somehow welcomed that sensation.

The pain always helped grounding me…

I screamed loudly when a hand laid on my shoulder; probably trying to stop me from destroying my poor face.

“Are you okay?” Kate wondered, baffled.

I didn’t stop, I was still rubbing that dirty cheek frantically; slowly realizing it was my entire body that was dirty… my mind too.

Oh what had I done??

“I’m gross” it felt like my lips moved themselves. I didn’t want to talk to Kate…

I didn’t want her, or anyone for that matter, to see me in this pathetic state.

“Want me to draw you a bath?” she really tried to understand what I was on about.

I do wonder how crazy I must have looked to her.

I bit hard into my bottom lip and no other words came from my mouth.

The only sounds I made were frustrated grunts as I could still see the blood on my face, mixing with flashes of what had happened in that room… and what had happened in the past with the men Miss A. had made me imagine that he was…

Dutifully and carefully Kate undressed me, somehow without looking at me, wrapped my arm in a plastic bag and prepared the bathtub and helped me in.

It was a caring act, but I knew she didn’t truly care about me. How could she?

“She is still wrapping up with her client, I’ll tell her to come and see to you when she’s done, okay?”

I didn’t even look at her. But I nodded. And she left me alone; closing the door behind her with a soft click.

In my eyes the water was turning greasy so fast, turning into a pool of my own grime and shame… as if all and everything that had ever happened to me was still stuck to my skin.

I let myself sink; forgetting the dressing on my arm… holding my breath and closed my eyes… wanting so badly to forget everything…

I fought my own body as it wanted to get up; my lungs were beginning to realise they were running out of air; and the only way to acquire more was to sit up.

I flexed my muscles… holding myself down.

I should have known by now that it’s near impossible to drown yourself that way… I learned that lesson years ago… but that was the thing, wasn’t it?

I never learned.

I don’t think I wanted to die, actually. I just wanted to disappear… like I did way back then when I took swim lessons in school and I was clinging to the bottom of the stairs in the deep end of the pool… hiding myself away from the funny looks and the laughs… and if anyone had ever asked what I was doing I’d simply say I was practicing holding my breath…

If anyone had cared about me…

I put my hands against the sides of the tub, keeping myself down… my lungs burned.

‘Just a few more minutes’ that voice from the back of my head whispered, trying to soothe my body’s natural panic reflex.

I felt my heart beat rapidly… oh that damn muscle. It had survived so much, way too much.

I didn’t want to die… right? I just wanted peace… I wanted the pain to end, the emotional as well as the physical.

I wanted to be numb.

But, this wasn’t numb. This hurt. My body was pricking and stinging, my chest cramping as my poor lungs and heart seemed to try to claw their way out of my noncompliant body and make it to the surface… back to the horribly oxygenated world…