And Then We Sever by May Rinaldi is on page no. 252. Read the story and then it's your turn to have your say and tell us what comes next.
And Then We Sever by May Rinaldi is on page no. 252. Read the story and then it's your turn to have your say and tell us what comes next.
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My stomach lurches as I look down. Nausea rises as the floor recedes, my brain throbs twice with vertigo. Gasping and bearing down, I push out a guttural scream that shreds the wake of my previous one. I don’t know what will rip loose first, my shoulder joints or vocal cords. He emerges briefly to inspect a pulley. In a move that no doubt gives him pleasure, I gawk wild eyed and plead to his good graces in absentia.
“Please,” I croak. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll surrender- I’ll surrender custody of them to you…” He moved over, coolly taking my ankles in each hand. Chin lifted, jaw clenched, he pulled down, my shoulders burning like white hot stars. I push out a chain saw of a scream. “JUST LET ME DOWN!”
“Then tell me," He lets go of my ankles, turning to a storage trunk. “Tell me what ever made them yours to take. Tell me what gives you the right to call anything that belongs to me, yours.”
“Because they’re my children…!” I whine, lips wrenching downward to let a trail of saliva fall out of my wracking sobs. He unlatches the trunk, producing a pair of hooks, connected to chains of indeterminate length. I see them and force a wail. In my hysteria I know two things- he’s not letting me down, and those hooks are destined for the thick skin of my back, and I’m going to hang here like a duck in a wet market. I let him see my terror, and voluntarily release my bladder, as if my misery were giving way to panic.
I’m not sure what is more exhausting, keeping up the deception that I’m really the children’s mother, or hiding that I’m not actually terrified, that this all has me burning alive with sexual gratification.