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Pulp

Robert James Russell

    He’s screaming beneath the strip of duct tape in hoarse and muted yelps as I walk back into the living room with the plastic drug store bag in-hand, the TV blaring some infomercial about a new blender mostly drowning him out. When he sees me he begins to fight the restraints again, his eyes wide and pleading as the crunching of the plastic tarp gets louder the closer I get to him. He kicks his legs and arms wildly but the cords hold tight on his wrists and ankles and, finally, he stops, out of breath and totally dejected. I can see little specks of blood along his abdominals from earlier, then, like a proud parent might, I study the strips of flesh removed along his right thigh, the little squares of pink that stand out like trophies. I set the keys on the bureau in the corner, along with my purse, and I walk over to him, to his naked body splayed along the living room floor, and just stand there, above him, smiling.
    “See? I told you I’d be right back,” I say and kneel next to him, stroking his cheek. He squirms again which nearly knocks me back, out of pure surprise. I compose myself and sigh. “I told you to stop that. Now, I’m going to take the duct tape off your mouth, because I want to ask you something and give you a chance to respond, but you have to promise that you won’t scream. I don’t need to remind you that when you did that last time, I had to punish you.”
    As I say the words I reach down the length of his body and finger one of the pink patches of muscle showing on his thigh. He screams out in pain, tears in his eyes, then settles and looks back at me, nodding his head in quick bursts.
    “Alright,” I say. “But I’m serious. Don’t try anything.”
    I put the full weight of my tiny frame behind me and rip the tape off his mouth, allowing him to finally let out a solid howl. His lips are chapped and scabbed and he looks at me, realizing he did in fact let out a noise.
    “I’m sorry,” he says. “It was an accident. It just...hurt, is all.”
    “It’s fine. I’ll give you that,” I say. “A freebie, huh?”
    “Now,” I say, putting the plastic bag in front of me, resting it on my lap. “I absolutely believe that you should be made aware of what I’m going to do to you, as I do it, so there are no surprises. Some people say that, when faced with stressful or traumatic situations, like this, I suppose, knowing what’s coming can actually soothe you during the actual events, cause your body to release even more adrenaline, so you won’t feel the pain as much.”
    “Why are you doing this?” he says.
    “Please stop asking me that.”
    “But...I love you, you know I do. So we had a rough patch...so what?”
    “If you don’t stop talking about us, I will slice off your nipples, one at a time, then slice up one of those Greek citrons I bought at the farmer’s market last weekend and rub it over the wounds. Alright?”
    He stops talking, but I feel like he hasn’t really received the message that I’m in charge, that, even though I showed him what I was capable of last night, he still doesn’t get it.
    “You know what? I’ll be right back,” I say, walking to the kitchen. He begins calling after me, telling me how much he loves me, droning on like there’s a script in front of him. Meanwhile, I open the utensil drawer and my fingers hover over the various flatware all mixed together, the twenty-piece set with the shiny hammered stems, the silver-plated set with the stainless steel heads that really should be separated from the rest, and three antique silver forks courtesy of his grandmother which I wasn’t sure what to do with, so I bundled them with the rest. I look at the butter knives sitting in there, then, in a moment of clarity, shut the drawer and open the one directly next to it, where we keep the various knives, spatulas, and other miscellaneous cooking tools purchased almost entirely from Williams-Sonoma, gather a few pieces that stand out, and head back to the living room. He hears me coming, having stopped his soliloquy at some point when I was in the kitchen, and starts up again from where he left off.
    “Remember you said you wanted to go to Maine? You wanted to get some of that lobster, right? We could do that, baby. We could go...soon. Or...go to Europe! I know you said you wanted that too, right?” He’s panting now, desperate.
    “Thanks,” I say kneeling between his shoulder and head, “but that’s okay. Now, I don’t really think you appreciate the severity of this situation.”
    “I really do,” he says and flashes me a desperate smile.
    “See? That, right there. That smile. I have each of your limbs tied down with paracord running to tent stakes I managed to get into the flooring. I mean, you know how hard that was, getting those hammered in? Not to mention the emotional toll it took on me to destroy our beautiful cherry wood floors? You know how much I love our floors. Anyway, I have to show you, that this is a serious matter, that...you need to listen to me. So I’m going to make a deal with you,” I say, stopping, laying out what I took from the kitchen: a Kasumi V-Gold No. 10 three inch paring knife, with the Damascus Pattern; a Shun Classic nine inch Offset Bread Knife with a PakkaWood handle; and a stainless steel three-pronged grilling fork. He can’t see any of these, but hears the noise they make as I lay them out and begins violently turning his head, trying to locate the source of the noise.
    “What...what is that?” he says.
    “Please don’t interrupt. I say, I’m going to make a deal with you. I’m going to show you just how serious I am, and I need you to not cry out at all. That is the only stipulation. You don’t cry out, I won’t make this even more painful for you, okay? And trust me, I have a host of ideas on how to make this even worse.”
    He stops shaking his head and looks at me, tears welling. I look back at his cracked lips, a trail of dried blood smeared from his nose along his cheek. “I understand,” he says.
    “Good,” I say almost giddy. I start by making long thin incisions in his shoulder with the paring knife, finding it difficult to cut through the muscle, thinking it might have to do with the angle I’m positioned at, all while he makes little mouse sounds, being a good boy about not screaming. I grow bored so take the small bread knife and repeatedly stab it directly into the shoulder, sinking the blade about halfway in, the serrated edge pulling out with it chunks of flesh and thick clots of blood. He’s now making a low guttural noise that irritates me more than any of his other noises so I take my index and middle fingers and pinch his nipple elevating it from the rest of him, and saw off the entire dark piece from his chest with surprising ease, the skin pulling back from the wound and curling around the edges revealing a deep red area set with stripes of white and even deeper red, forming a brilliant little pattern I feel like I should photograph. I hold the nipple up to him and he’s writhing now, hardly able to stay still, and I say to him, “I don’t like that noise you were just making. It bothers me. So please, just stop.”
    I stand and let him stew a moment, stretching my shoulders and hamstrings. He’s biting his lip so hard it’s bleeding, and for a moment I think about helping him clean it, then chastise myself for thinking such a thing, for relinquishing control like that. Irritated at my own willingness to give in to him, again, I kneel and open the plastic bag from the drug store. I pull out a package of gel toe spacers, used for pedicures to keep the toes apart, making sure to show them to him.
    “If you want,” I say, cutting the package open with the paring knife, bits of blood and flesh sticking to the plastic, “you can scream a little bit before this next part. You know, sort of let it all out. But once I start again, I need you to keep it in check, okay?”
    I wait for him to belch out anything, strings of expletives or pleas for his life, but he does nothing, just keeps biting his lip, the red staining his chin now, his eyes wide and bulging, not giving me the satisfaction.
    “Fair enough.”
    I fan his fingers apart and insert the gel toe spacers between them, then, smiling, I slick his hair back which is wet with sweat, nervous stinking sweat, and say, “If we’re being totally honest, this next part is probably going to hurt a lot,” and he looks genuinely terrified, as if he’s finally understood what’s going to happen, which moves me, his opening up like this in a way he hasn’t done in years, really showing me what he’s feeling, and he starts sobbing, genuinely sobbing, then I add, as I stand, “just relax, honey.”
    I walk over to the apothecary-style walnut coffee table (an anniversary gift from his parents three years ago), which I moved to the far end of the room behind the comfortable whiskey leather studio sofa that I moved when I was making space earlier and look down at the tools laid out across the surface over a piece of brown parchment paper, all of which I plucked from a rarely used tool box tucked up on a wooden shelf in the garage: ten inch hacksaw in pristine condition, two sets of pliers (locknut, tongue and groove), a lever-action mini bolt cutter, brick hammer, pile of 2-1/2" galvanized nails, and a DEWALT 1/2" (13mm) 28-volt cordless drill. I gingerly wipe my fingers across all the tools, finding the contrast of the almost beige-looking parchment paper against the weathered worn walnut of the coffee table titillating for some reason. The neck of the hammer between the head and the grip feels cold to my touch, and I look back at him for a moment, his head propped up as best he can, trying to gauge what it is I’m doing back here, the poor soul. I finally grab the hammer and some nails and the bolt cutter and return to my position between his right arm and his head. His eyes are wide and bloodshot, and I stroke his hair again as I set the tools down just out of his sightline. He struggles a bit in his restrains, which seem to be holding fine, but, just for good measure, I stand and systematically check all four stakes I have planted in the corners of the living room floor, making sure that everything is tight in place so that, when things really begin to get heavy, there’s no way he’ll break free. Everything’s fine so I take my place again kneeling next to his head and shoulder. I think all the walking back and forth on the plastic is disorienting him, because the crunching as I get settled seems to drive him to look away from me, his face going pale.
    “Are you going to be sick?” I say wiping his forehead clean of sweat. “Please make sure you’re turned away from me if you are, okay? I won’t judge you.”
    He manages to swallow everything down and just as I pick up the hammer and a nail, I hear him say, “She didn’t mean...anything. You have to understand...there has to be some other way!”
    “Shh,” I say. “It’s just...pathetic, especially at this point. And, anyway, I thought I told you to quit talking about her. This, all of this, is about you and me.”
    I sit up on my knees and hold the nail in place between the center two knuckles of his index finger, then, without so much as a word, I lift the hammer up and swing it down, careful not to hit myself. I can feel that, at first, there’s a little give as the steel breaks through the thick outer layers of skin, finally settling about a quarter of the way in. He screams, of course, then resorts to biting his lip once the adrenaline kicks in, trying to show how tough he really is. There’s some blood, but not a lot, so I smile and wind up again and hit the nail head once more with all I can, driving the nail deeper into the flesh of his finger, watching as it sinks almost all the way in, hitting the bone which makes it go in crooked, coming out the side a bit. Blood is pouring out now, the steel of the nail surrounded by a puddle of the stuff, but it isn’t shooting up like I thought it might, just leaking down his hand and onto the tarp below, collecting in little pools.
    He’s looking the other way now, avoiding any eye contact with me, and I half-expect him to beg some more, as I’m sure most would, but he doesn’t. He just makes these little mousy sounds every so often, little whimpers, I guess, but never looks at me.
    “Well, look at you,” I say picking up another nail from the pile. “Mister Tough Guy showed up to play, huh?”
    I hammer nails into all the remaining fingers on this hand, making sure they get driven all the way through (although, not to the floor beneath), him screaming as they first go in, then, if by habit, biting his lip until it finally is too much and he has no choice but to show me how much it hurts. So by the time I hammer the last one into this thumb, he’s sobbing, just crying in place and writhing back and forth.
    “Good boy,” I say. “Not too bad, huh?”
    He mumbles something, and, worried he might pass out, I walk back over to the coffee table and pick up a small brown lunch bag. I unwrap it and pull out a small box that almost looks like a pack of gum, filled with tiny paper lozenges, ammonia inhalants, or, smelling salts. I grab two and walk back to him and, ripping the first open, almost in half, force it in his left nostril, leaving it there as he comes to, saying over and over “I’m awake, I’m awake! Take it out!”
    “Take what out? The smelling salts, or the nails?” I say, being purposely coy, some might even say downright villainous.
    “Yes, it burns my nose! Take it out!”
    “But, what if you fall asleep?” I say straddling his head, wondering how wickedly hot it would be if I was wearing a skirt and no panties right now so he could see everything from where he’s at. But he doesn’t deserve that. Not at all.
    “I won’t, I won’t. I’m up!” he says, exhausted and pleading.
    I reach down and take the salts from his nose and pocket it. He’s breathing heavy and snorting leftover bits from his nose, and I feel like the mood is a bit too somber now, so I go over to the main unit of the entertainment system resting on the second shelf of the TV stand next to the Direct TV box, a Bose
Lifestyle V25
with built-in iPod dock, and, turning it on, scroll through the artists and songs, finally finding the perfect one. I hit play on the iPod and fiddle with the volume controls, turn it up as high as it will go, then, waiting for it, hear the delicious melody of Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling” start up.
    “Remember this?” I say, my eyes closed, swaying in place as she sings “First, when there’s nothing but a slow glowing dream / That your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind.” “Our honeymoon in Jamaica...at the Sandals Resort.”
    “You...itch...” I hear him mutter.
    “Sorry? I couldn’t hear you,” I say, stopping my dance and looking at him. He looks different now, changed even, perhaps due to the song, maybe my dancing. He struggles to lift his head up to face me, but when he does a ferocious sneer splashes across his face that, admittedly, shakes me to my core.
    “I...said...you’re a fucking bitch! A...cunt!”
    The song is still playing as I approach him, becoming background muzak to the symphony of his groans and cursing. I stand far enough way, out of habit, even though he can’t get at me, just watching him. I study his wounds, wonder how much blood he’s lost, then, finally, meet his gaze.
    “I thought I told you—”
    “Shut the fuck up,” he says, blood and spit dripping down his chin as if he’s in some sort of rabid frenzy. “I...I’ve had enough of this. If you’re going to fucking kill me, just do it.”
    “I never said I was going to kill you,” I say, kneeling in place.
    “Just fucking do it! I fucking...hate you!”
    “No, you don’t. In fact, just a bit ago you were begging me to—”
    “I’ve never loved you,” he says smugly, letting his head fall back to the ground. His eyes are wide, crazy-like, and his mouth twists and sneers into a wicked grin. “I fucked your college roommate one weekend when you were home. We fucked in your bed.”
    “Darcy?”
    “One of the best fucks I ever had, too.” He’s laughing now. “And that bitch you caught me with? Best lay I’ve had my entire adult life.”
    “Stop talking,” I say, standing.
    “Aw, can’t handle the truth? You’re just a fucking...slippery cunt. You’ve got nothing, no job, no ambition. You’re a fucking...cliché...a joke. You think she was the first?”
    “Stop.”
    “Fuck you. I fucked that bitch’s pussy right on our bed. She was so tight. And her body...fuck me. Something you’ve never had, believe me.”
    “Stop...” I say, my hands on my temples, trying hard not to picture it. “Just...please...”
    “You are such a fucking joke,” he says. “Oh, and by the way, I fucked the front desk receptionist on our honeymoon, this little nigger girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. Then I came back to our room and fucked you without even cleaning up.”
    He’s laughing again, trying to say more hurtful things, going on and on and years of verbal abuse come roaring back, years of neglect, of putting up with his “late nights” and his dismissive attitude, his inability to appreciate me and love me, his complete and utter lack of respect for me as a woman, his wife, and, crying, I run to the kitchen and grab the Ginsu Freedom Cordless Carving Knife (which I hoped I wouldn’t have to use) and fly back into the living room and when he sees it, he stops his little tirade and starts professing his love again telling me how much he loves me and needs me how he was joking he was trying to make me hurt like he was and I tell him “You’ll never know how much you hurt me” and he’s pleading crying like a baby and I start cutting into his scrotum just below his penis, the soft skin tearing open from the serrated blades, blood seeping out first then pouring out in torrents, and he’s screaming loud and I’m laughing, blood on my cheeks and chin, splashed across my breasts me singing along with Irene Cara “What a feeling, you can really have it all” and he’s flailing around like a fish a fucking fish and I cut deeper into him and I hit tendons and some fibrous tissue and what I can only assume are his vas deferens and it’s almost completely sawed in half now ligaments and fibers hanging there a bloody fucking stump of what was once there a gaping hole into his insides and he’s shaking now convulsing and I stop and take a cut into his thigh and he comes to from the new pain and starts screaming again and I’m saying “I love you!” and he’s screaming and trying to pull up his restraints and with my free hand I grab a hold of his scrotum and begin pulling it down while I finish slicing through it and it finally comes off cut clean from him and I hold it up it’s almost completely stained red and I put the carving knife down and he’s crying shaking and blood everywhere bits of him everywhere and I reach inside the sack in my hands and remove the two testicles and I crawl up over him toward his head and slap him awake and I show him his balls, his prize, I show him what I’ve done all proud and he starts throwing up all over himself and I’m laughing laughing laughing HA HA HA HA HA HA

    Later, I’m lying on the couch, replaying the events, cleaning my face off with a wet dishrag. He’s lying there, still breathing, barely conscious, and I look at where his scrotum used to be and admire my cauterizing work with the butane torch I found in the garage—the sickening smell of singed hair and skin and blood still fresh in the air—and it looks like some sort of black gelatinous blob of scorched and almost-reptilian-looking skin with an icepack propped against it. Part of me feels bad, letting myself go like that, but then I remind myself of what he said, how it was, I’m sure, true, and that he really did deserve this. I smile and walk over to him. He cowers as I approach and I kneel by his head, wiping his cheeks clean from cold sweat.
    “Don’t worry, we’re done for now,” I say. “Anyway, I want to make you dinner, something really special, so I’m going to head in the kitchen for a while, okay? Let me know if you need any more of the smelling salts and I’ll be in as quick as I can.”
    I pat his head as I stand and take the TV remote, turning up the volume to some courtroom procedural drama, one of his favorite shows, but I can’t remember the name at the moment. I make my way into the kitchen, humming Irene Cara, and on the counter, soaking in a saltwater bath in an eight-quart stainless steel mixing bowl are the two testicles, completely clean now, a beautiful pinkish-white color. I handle them in the water, and they feel softer now, not as firm, so I assume they’re ready. I remove them from the saltwater and lay them on the Chilean Cherry Hardwood Cutting Board I got for my birthday from Amanda last year (a must-have for any gourmand, she assured me), and start by splitting the tough skin-like muscle that surrounds each testicle, careful not to puncture the meat itself. I rinse them thoroughly in a steel bowl until they are completely clean. I grab the largest knife in the block, because I’m worried of them being too tough, and slice the testicles into approximately quarter inch-thick ovals. I blot them dry with paper towel then dredge the slices in egg then flour and place them gently in the twelve-inch non-stick stainless-steel frying pan I have heating on the stove (containing oil that’s been heated to 350°). The sizzle is familiar and makes me smile, and the smell, especially as I add the chopped onion and garlic, creates a rush of sensations in me. I can’t help it but I move to the entryway and look out into the living room and I think he’s crying to himself, but I say anyway, “I hope you can smell this, my love. It smells delicious, and I think, think, it’s going to taste absolutely divine.”
    Back at the stove I’m careful that I brown both sides of the testicles evenly, adding a few tablespoons of water, black ground pepper, chili powder, and finally white wine (a Riesling from a vineyard in northern California I’ve had the pleasure of cooking with previously which has a wonderful balance of sugar and acidity). Once the wine reduces some, I add thyme, salt, crushed red pepper, and a tablespoon of flour, and stir every few minutes until the wine has completely evaporated and the sauce itself has thickened. I then add a tablespoon of honey to sweeten it up, and, making sure the testicle slices are golden brown on both sides, remove the pan from heat so it can sit for a few minutes longer.
    I go to plate the food and I’m angry because I can’t find any of the Toscana ivory dinner plates from Pier 1 given to us as a housewarming gift by Chris (one of his many business partners) and his wife, Theresa (plates that, for some reason, I have an odd attraction to and fascination with), so I settle with two putty-colored stoneware dinner plates from Pottery Barn that I believe, while not my first choice, will still compliment the striking scarlet color of the final dish. I spoon helpings of the testicles on the plates, making sure the sauce settles evenly in a concentric circle around the portion, paying close attention to the aesthetic of the final product as I wipe the lip of the plates clean. I finish up by adding sprigs of fresh mint along the tops of the dishes then step back and admire the final product.
    Out in the living room he looks as if he’s nearly passed out. I set the plates down on the nearby bureau and gently touch his forehead: clammy, pale. I pull out the smelling salts and shove them up his nostrils, one by one, alternating until he comes to, screaming, eyes wide, cursing a mile a minute.
    “Calm down,” I say. “I’ve brought dinner. Let me check your bleeding first, okay?”
    He begins to kick, weakly, as I make my way scoot down to his crotch. I lift up the towel which is now soaked a deep maroon color from the blood. The cauterized wound seems to have quit bleeding as much now, which is good, but I can still smell the burnt skin and hair smell from the blowtorch mixed with the scent of piss and shit, which makes me feel nauseated, so I replace the towel and go pick up the plates again.
    “I’ll have to change that towel soon,” I say sitting cross-legged next to him, resting his plate on the floor between us, my own on my lap. “And I really want to do something about that smell. Just horrible, isn’t it?”
    “What...” he starts to say, lifting his head up, then drops back down, his eyes spinning wildly in all directions.
    “Shh, honey,” I say. “Save all that energy. Look! I made you dinner. Now, it’s probably going to be a bit gamey, since, you know, I haven’t had proper time to soak them and get your taste off of them, but I really do think, beyond that, this is going to be a delicious meal. I hope you’re hungry!”
    I take a forkful of the testicle and sauce and smell it, holding it close to my nose, then, deciding it really does smell fantastic, I eat it all. The testicle itself is somewhere between tender and chewy, again, I think, because I haven’t had a chance to properly soak and prepare it, but the seasoning is fantastic and the mint adds an extra layer of sophistication to the dish that I think it might have otherwise lacked. I take another forkful and, with my other hand, force his mouth open. When he realizes what I’m doing, he begins to fight back, his head moving side to side as violently as he can afford, but, I wait a few moments and he’s tired, not able to fight back any more, just like a child. I pinch his cheeks which opens his mouth just enough and I shovel the food in, careful he doesn’t bite down too hard on the fork.
    “Do you want help chewing it?” I say.
    “Fuck...you!” he says, spitting the food out, dribbling it over his chin and neck, some of it landing on me.
    “Damnit, honey,” I say, standing. I go to the kitchen and grab a wet hand towel and blot myself clean, then return to my position. “I made this especially for you...for us. We’re going to try again, okay?”
    I take another heaping bunch from the plate and put it in his mouth, forcing it through his lips and teeth, and, learning from last time, I hold his jaw shut until he starts to chew. I smile, and after a few moments, remove my hand but as I do he spits it up again, even more landing on me. I wipe myself clean and, composed, smiling, radiant, say, “You really should eat up. You’re going to need your strength.”

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