Without an utterance, he puts the bottle on the floor and ties my hands behind my back. Oh god, this is it. What I feared would happen when he learned I was pregnant. I have become too great a liability. It's why I couldn't accept the changes my body was screaming for me to hear.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Please. No. I'll get rid of it. I'll find a way.”
He goes back out and returns with a broomstick in hand. He grabs one of my feet and I pull it back, he grabs it again and forcefully yanks it towards the stick, tying an intricate knot to bind my foot to it. Then he does the other, so that my legs are forced open.
“Please, tell me what's happening,” I sob, the heat of all my anxiety forcing sweat to bead all over my body and soak through my pale pink dress.
“Please!” I scream. Begging, trying so desperately to reach something inside of him. There must have been a time when he was a child himself. Innocent. Unmarred by the world or even the terrifying changes that manhood can sometimes bring.
“I'm so scared,” I cry, a confession to my god.
He picks up the bottle of alcohol and presses it to my lips.
“No!” I protest.
He grabs my face and squeezes my cheeks, pouring it in. I gurgle as my mouth floods with the spicy liquid. Despite my best efforts, I manage to drink some. And it works, sending a warm shiver down my arms and spine, but only for a moment. The adrenaline roars through the dull warmth as he lifts my dress up, pouring some of the whiskey over my stomach and privates.
“What—” I stop the questioning, suddenly understanding what is to come. Oh god, he's going to try to do this. “If you're going to do this, please, I'm a nurse—almost. How? Please just tell me!” I scream, but he's focused on his task and as far as he's concerned, serving me the alcohol has taken up all of his mercy.
He leaves again. I've stopped screaming. Instead, I wait, my staccato sobs synchronizing with the erratic rhythm of my chest. When he returns with a shop vac, jerry-rigged to a suction hose, I begin to wretch in horror. I slide up as far against the wall as I can.
“You're…gonna…kill…me,” I sob. “I'll bleed…to death,” I plead amidst the choking.
He yanks the broomstick, pulling me to the edge of the bed.
“I'll knock you out if I have to. Your choice,” he menaces.
I obey, understanding that that's always the simpler route with him. I wanted this. I wanted this baby out of me. Maybe if I had begged to save it, the outcome would be different, but I didn't fight. I invited this death into the cabin.
He steps outside for a moment, coming back in to switch on the shop vac. The deafening whirring punctuates the chaos in the room. To be heard, I have no choice but to scream.
“Please, there has to be another way,” I wail as he pours whiskey over the hose and coats the end of it with lube. I fight back the vomit crawling up my throat, a smoky vignette clouds my vision as the terror threatens to knock me out.
He pulls the chair to the foot of the bed. I make another attempt to distance myself, but he grips the broomstick to keep me close. The lamp that illuminates the room, goes in and out as the vac steals its energy.
“Oh god,” I plead under my breath. I am seconds away from being siphoned clean of an embryo. I didn't fight for it. I gave up on all hope as soon as I realized I had it in me. And maybe that's where I went wrong. In thinking that my only option was to purge myself of this parasite. Maybe this isn't a curse. Or Night's poison. Maybe somehow it's the key to unlocking this puzzle in front of me.
“Please!” I shout. “I want the baby. I want it,” I sob hysterically, sweat and saliva dribbling down my face. I am reduced. Stripped of pride and agency. This baby is all I have. It's my only tool. My only promise of hope. That in the midst of having everything taken, I have been given something.
“I want to keep it. I want your baby,” I shout, louder, afraid he can't hear me over the blaring of the vac. “We can—” I stop myself. Never have I referred to us as a unit out loud. A team. We've never had a shared cause. We've had things we both wanted and bargained for. I could feel the betrayal he sensed when he realized I was aborting his child. I've gotten so good at reading his non-verbal cues. He dreamed of having me like I dreamed of him. He dreamed of a life with me. We saw the child as a hindrance to our individual goals. But what if this child can get us what we both want? “We can make a family,” I sob.
He holds onto the tube, it's close, so dangerously close to my shivering thighs. I tense every muscle in my body that wants to flail and panic. But he's thinking and I can't set him off with rebellion.