Page 25 of Z For Butterfly Man
But he didn’t actually promise to come back after the time ends. He just set the timer and told me to think carefully. The rest I inferred, assumed.
Twenty minutes.
My shoulders shake. The pins shift with each tremor, sending fresh spikes of pain through the puncture wounds. I try to breathe through it, but my breath comes in short, sharp gasps that don’t quite fill my lungs. My lips are cracked. My throat feels lined with sandpaper. When did I last drink water? Before he took me. Hours ago. Maybe six or seven hours. The shivering makes it worse. Dehydration accelerates with each tremor that racks my body.
Why is it so fucking cold in here? Colder than before? My vision blurs. I blink hard, trying to clear it, but the edges stay fuzzy. What time is it? He took me around seven. I don’t know how long I’ve been out. Is it the middle of the night on this dreary island already? It must be why the temperature is dropping.
Thirty minutes.
God, I’m cold, and I’m thirsty and, at the same time, have to pee. “I have to go to the bathroom. It’s urgent.”
Silence swallows my words.
“Seriously? What is your plan for this anyway? I mean, I can last without food or water for a few days, but going to the bathroom…” I don’t have a catheter. Is he planning on shoving one inside me with his filthy fingers or putting me in a diaper like an ageplay fetishist? Or is he a sadist psycho who will unpin me, unstrap me, escort me to a bathroom every time I need to relieve myself, and then nail me back to his stupiddisplay? “Fuck. You know what? I’ll just pee myself and soil your masterpiece. How about that, Butterfly Man?”
Thirty-seven minutes.
“You don’t believe me? I’ll do it. I swear to God…”
No, you won’t.My mind calls my bluff, ironically, in Butterfly Man’s metallic distortion.You’ll only soil yourself, make yourself colder and humiliate yourself for his pleasure. Then he’ll come in with a valid excuse to touch you, to disguise violation as care. Or worse. He can let you writhe in your own piss long enough until you beg him to clean you up, until you plead for his hands all over you.
The threat dies in my throat.
Thirty-nine minutes.
I close my eyes and go inside my head where it’s warmer, where I can build walls between my mind and my body’s screaming needs.
It doesn’t work. The cold is relentless. The pins anchor me to the present, to the pain, to the reality that I’m trapped and alone and he’s not coming.
What if he’s not coming at all? What if this is it? The endgame. Leave me here until hypothermia takes me, until my body shuts down one system at a time. A slow death. A cold one. Not the violent, passionate end I’d write for a dark romance, but the pathetic, whimpering finale of evil with no context.
No. Stop. He wants you alive. He needs you alive for whatever twisted fantasy he’s playing out.
Forty-three minutes.
“Please,” I whisper. Then louder. “Please. I’m freezing. Just come back.”
Forty-five minutes.
The scrape of a lock turning thuds in my chest. Keys jangle. Footsteps on stairs.
Relief floods through me so fast it makes me dizzy. I hate myself for it. I hate that his presence feels like salvation when it should feel like hell itself.
The door opens. His silhouette fills the frame. The butterfly mask catches the weak light as he descends, unhurried, each step deliberate.
“You left me in the cold.” The accusation tears out of me before I can stop it. “You said two hours. It’s been almost three.”
“Has it?” The distorted voice carries false surprise. “Time moves differently when you’re waiting, doesn’t it? When you’re afraid.”
Motherfucker. He’s enjoying this way too much.
He crosses to the bench and sets something down. When he turns back, he’s holding a bottle of water. Clear plastic, the kind you buy at gas stations. No condensation on the outside. The water is warm.
My mouth floods with saliva. I don’t realize how thirsty I really am until I see the bottle.
“You must be thirsty.” He moves closer, unscrewing the cap with a soft crack of breaking plastic.
“Yes,” I force out. “And freezing, and I need to pee.”
