She squealed into the putty, holding her mouth shut
Sally could only stare in disbelief. Even after 6 hours of torture, she couldn’t believe this was happening. How could her own boyfriend be doing all these horrible things to her? She and Lucas had been together for 3 years! Sure they had argued sometimes. Sometimes she’d even had to assert her authority and put him back in his place, when he got out of line. But she thought that was just normal for a couple. All her girlfriends had told her that she had to be firm, to keep a man in his place. Could he really have been this angry with her?
Lucas picked up the cane and brought it down hard on her thighs. She squealed into the putty, holding her mouth shut.
“You just couldn’t fucking shut up, could you!” screamed Lucas. “Nothing I did was ever good enough! I had to quit smoking, I had to quit drinking! I had to quit hanging out with my friends! I had to come to your stupid fucking pottery classes! Even the things I watched on TV! Everything I did, you had to fucking stick your nose in and change! Everything had to be an argument, and every argument you had to win!”
He began swinging the cane to punctuate each remark. Thwack! “I am sick!” Thwack! “And tired!” Thwack! “Of your fucking bullshit!” Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Sally was crying now, as much from the things he was saying, as from the pain. This was a man who’d loved her once, how could she have screwed up so badly? Somehow she’d been such a bitch, she had turned him against her.
“Please,” thought Sally silently. “Please give me another chance! I’m sorry I was such a bitch. I was just trying to be an empowered and independent woman. I was just doing what everyone said I was supposed to do. I didn’t mean to make you hate me.”
