“What do you think?” Michael asks as he enters the kitchen, holds his hands out to the sides and does a twirl. He’s wearing black suit trousers and a crisp white shirt, complete with black jacket and polished leather shoes.
“Nice,” is my only reply. I don’t have any interest in complimenting him.
“Nice? Can you not do any better than that?” he retorts, clearly put out by my bland response.
“What do you want me to say?” I reply with a shrug of my shoulders.
“Well, maybe you could show a bit of fucking interest in me? You know, be a bit more forthcoming.”
Sometimes I really do wonder whether Michael has a genuine mental illness. I mean, he can hardly expect me to fall at his feet after his abuse of me, can he?
“You look smart.” It’s the best that I can do, and even saying that makes me feel sick. I pick my plate of food up off the worktop and make my way over to the sofa, but Michael stops me, clearly having something else in mind.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snarls, his anger at my refusal to douse him in adoration ratcheting up a notch.
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you so fucking ungrateful?”
Oh God, here we go again.
“I just want to eat my food, Michael.” Wrong thing to say as he seizes my plate and hurls it across the room. The plate connects with the wall and smashes into pieces, bits of china and food flying everywhere.
“Michael,” I say in shock, not knowing what he might do next.
“What?” he replies, abruptly.
“Why did you do that?”
“Your focus was not on me. Your focus should always be on ME!” He shouts the last word and I flinch. “I look after you and you can’t even give me a few minutes of your precious time to tell me that I look good?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, my go-to response.
“You’re always fucking sorry.” Spit flies into my face from each word. I want to wipe it away, scrub my skin to rid myself of him, but I don’t. I’ll wait until he has gone.
He grabs hold of my wrist and pulls me roughly towards the bedroom.
“Michael, please, you’re hurting me.” My words have no effect on him, I knew they wouldn’t, but the panic flowing through me led to me voicing them. When we enter the bedroom, he throws me on the bed. I try to sit up but before I can, Michael is on top of me, pining me down. He pulls something out of his trouser pocket and my eyes widen as he holds a pair of handcuffs in front of me. I struggle against him as realisation dawns on me that he is going to handcuff me to the bed.
He’s going to imprison me, so I don’t go anywhere.
“Please, Michael, you don’t need to do this, I’m not going anywhere.” I repeat the words over and over, but the sound of the cuff locking around my wrist signals that once again I’m losing.
Once again, I am the fucking puppet that he pulls the strings to.
My struggling comes to nothing as the first cuff locks around the headboard, and then he does the same to my other wrist.
“There. Perfect,” he comments as he takes in his handiwork. “Just making sure. You understand, don’t you, Lucy?”
I can’t look at him. This is a new low that I never thought possible.
“You haven’t earnt back my trust yet, and until you do, this is how it is going to be. I can’t run the risk of you thinking that you have wings, Lucy. You don’t get to fly.”
I can’t answer him. My mouth has become useless. I want to scream and shout, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing that.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” he says as he moves off of me and walks to the bedroom door. “Aren’t you going to tell me to have fun?”
My silence causes him to laugh as he shuts the door. I hear him leave the apartment a few minutes later, and only then do I allow my tears to fall.
