WHEN BAD DOGS DO GOOD THINGS

Look What You Made Me Do

Look What You Made Me Do

 There's something annoying about the anticlimactic nature of life. You always expect to be the hero and to have a set of final words with the villain before you escape, but it's usually a lot more absurd or boring, like when the "villain" is just your plumber and he fucks your girlfriend, then he ends up having to pay child support, rather than being able to beat the fuck out of him in an epic revenge plot that gives you the ability to prove yourself to the girl. It's never that fun, never that interesting.

That's why what happens next prompts a belly laugh out of me that's so loud, if I cared more about myself, I might be scared that Ben will hear me.

As the air becomes more crisp with the approaching winter and even the gourmet food Ben prepares me becomes boring, I hear less animal sounds. It seems to rain more from the open ceiling and take longer for me to dry off. The crickets and birds stop chirping, there's less crunching from deer stepping on sticks around my holding cell, so when I hear the sound of something big sniffing above me, it's hard to ignore it.

It's gentle at first, a little above the level of a dog sniffing a spot in someone's yard, but the heavy thud that seems to almost shake the ground as it walks signifies something bigger. The sniffing grows and becomes more guttural; I can feel the air getting sucked in. The sniffing turns into a deep moan, almost like that of a cow groaning, then into something that resembles a piece of sandpaper over wood; frantic sniffing now.

There's another groan and thud as the beast comes closer, small pebbles and morsels of dirt falling through the iron-gated-ceiling and onto the flood. As I stir back into consciousness, I think for a second this might be my savior: a dog usually equals a person, right?

So when I lurch forward and open my eyes, it's hard to imagine my shock when I see the solemn brown eyes reflecting the light of the perpetual fire and looking down at me in curiosity. In the darkness of night, it's little more than a set of eyes and a black mass sitting on the edge of my holding cell. It sniffs across the open space, seeming to study if it can climb the iron bars above me, the air around its snout getting sucked in.

As I stare at it, I'm almost in awe of how docile it is, like a giant, old dog is sitting at the boundaries of where I am being held. Its eyes seem tiny on its giant body. Its ears are bent downwards like it too feels a sense of cheerlessness in my situation. I somehow wish I could pet him, squeeze him and tell him it's okay, I basically signed up for this.

I don't say anything, though. We just stare at each other. I imagine he's curious how I got stuck in here.

As if to ask me what happened, he paws at the ground at the edge of my holding cell, dirt trickling over the edge alongside fallen leaves. I stare in disbelief, almost wanting to beg him to stop for fear that Ben might hurt him.

As if to answer my pleas, he paws at the ground with his other oversized mit. That's when it happens: God pisses on me and laughs. A stick tumbles down from where the bear is standing, hitting the stone floor and then soaring across it with the impact, bouncing until it lands just a foot or so in front of me.

I chuckle, nearly putting my head in my hands at the absurdity of what's just happened. It's a stick that's nearly as long as my arm and has a single limb jutting out from it. This is a gift from God, perhaps also an insult. It's about two fingers wide but just within reach.

I grab the wooden meal tray, easily removing it from its plastic holders and letting it clatter to the floor nearby. Maybe it's dumb that Ben has only restrained my legs, but maybe he was right in assuming I wanted to die and thus wouldn't try very hard to escape.

I look at the bear who is still staring at me.

"Thank you," I croak.

The bear grunts, slowly sauntering away from the edge of the pit and back into the night. I smile for the first time in what feels like forever.

I lean forward, my back making a cracking noise in the process, the tips of my fingers kissing the end of the stick for just long enough to pull it closer to me. It's cold to the touch but like an old friend, I pull it up into my arms.

"Fuck," I grumble, realizing now that I have it in my hands that I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'm weak and the IV running into me doesn't help. Admittedly, I could just yank it out. Why haven't I up to this point? Maybe I'm proving Ben's point that I wanted this.

I grip the end that's attached to the inside of my left arm, the plastic wrap around it doing little to stop me from ripping it out. With a grunt, I tug it from the wound, a light sting molesting me as I jerk it away, tossing the tubing onto the floor in front of me. It hurts but the freedom of pain feels good, so good. I love it. I love that it reminds me that I'm alive. Pain is the cure for the poison of life. My blood is pumping. My cock tingles in excitement. Oh, the things I'll do.

I grab the stick again in my palms, then lean back down, studying the restraints around my ankles that have me secured to the chair: they're leather and connected together by a silver chain but I can fit a few fingers in. I find quickly that I can pull the restraints on each leg to just below my knee cap without losing much circulation.

In Natural Science Class in High School, which I was embarrassingly not in honors for and is equally embarrassingly the only science class I remember, we had a lab where we would test the hardness of objects against each other. If I remember correctly, and I probably don't, we'd use different minerals or rocks on pieces of glass and if it scratched the glass, the object was harder.

Needless to say, we never compared wood and leather, so there's nothing that makes me feel confident or sure that rubbing the wood against it is going to break through the leather. It also quickly becomes clear once I've stuck the wood in between the restraint and my ankle that it's going to hurt a lot, especially considering that the skin over it is so thin.

Praying that the stick doesn't break, I jam it into the area between the inside of my right ankle and the restraint, already gritting my teeth as I begin to saw through. The knuckle on the wood meets my ankle, the pain already irritating my skin. Up and down. In white flakes, my skin breaks before the leather. I grunt, the pain hot on the surface, blood dribbling out in thin dots like my skin is a cutline on a piece of paper.

Up and Down. My arms get tired quickly, the pain blinding in my ankle. I can barely see if I'm doing anything to the leather but I can feel the wetness of the blood against it. With each motion, my ankle screams out and nothing seems to happen at first.

After what feels like hours of grunting and biting my teeth together, the leather on the inside of the restraint peels, only much slower than my skin has torn away. Chunks of wood splinter off both into the restraint and into my flesh, my leg now a big ball of agony that travels up through my knees and into my stomach. Blood has seeped over my feet and is over the stone floor. I look up to the moon, praying that Ben doesn't decide to give me a meal early today.

I pull against the restraint, tugging up and down with all my might, watching as the cheap fabric mixed with my blood splinters onto the floor, cracking like Velcro as it crumbles to the floor. With each consecutive motion, the motions become easier, the linkage between the segments of leather growing weaker, snapping one by one.

After what feels like at least an hour of sawing, the bloody stick tears through the last pieces of fabric, segments of leather and the cloth inside of the restraint separating, a bloody mess. The searing pain in my ankle has gone numb at least.

I'm panting now but I enjoy the feeling of freedom in my right foot. I twist the ankle, feeling the joint crack with a sense of satisfaction. It hurts so good. The adrenaline is cooking. My dick is so hard. I am going to fuck Ben up. I am going to fuck him up so good.

The second leg is less difficult. With a joy in self mutilation, a joy in accomplishing the greater good, I cut into myself, the leather breaking as I come back together.