Page 9 of Death By Chocolate

I especially hate it when it’s stained with my blood. This is yet another thing that Oscar disagrees with me on. The white silk wrap jacket and matching pants are one of his gifts. It’s my prison uniform. For the death of me, I fail to understand men’s preoccupation with symbols of purity and innocence when they use their pathetic cocks to corrupt both.

“You are listening, Daniella?” The blow explodes against my cheek. My head careens in the opposite direction, trying to outrun familiar fists, even though his fist grips my hair, keeping me in my place. I cut it off‚ once. I woke up in an Alaskan hospital three days later. It had been worth it to rob him of one hold he had over me.

“Yes, Oscar. I can hear.” I spit the blood pooling in my mouth on the white carpet. Fuck this sterile torture chamber he calls a bedroom. Everything that’s happened to me at the hands of this man who claimed to love me is tainted and used. I know why women choose to be alone Compared to this impotent example of manhood with his filthy-ass hand clawing my arm, I’d ratherstand in pig shit and starve than sleep with another beside this monster.

“You claim to hear but still act like a simple-minded bitch who can’t do what’s she’s told. Did I give you permission to touch my fucking food, Daniella? You’re a bitch who needs to be taught the same lesson over and over.”

“You weren’t here. I thought it was for me.” A lie. The man I married deprives me of any possible weapons, even my physical strength. My food, if and when it’s delivered, arrives on paper, with plastic utensils. I hoped, prayed, and cursed Oscar’s soul that he would tire of toying with me after the first six months. I begged him to kill me. But no, the bastard I married is loyal…and I’m the dog, abused and bound, at his feet. His whore wife…waiting to be fucked over, literally.

My food—controlled.

My water-controlled.

My body-controlled.

My thoughts-unhinged. Vengeful. Murderous. Confounded.

Javier Hernandez-Dominguez had trained his sons, Oscar and Omar, to destroy, conquer, and humiliate. Especially, on those entrusted to their care. The first time Oscar slapped me happened on my sweet sixteenth birthday. He took my virginity with pride, my tears with disdain. He told me how grateful I should feel, he’d made me his wife. I balked, railed, cursed. Told him my family would rain down retribution for his cruelty.

He laughed.

No one came for me. Not my father. None of his soldiers. Not Mom. Oscar’s men look away when I’m allowed outside of his frozen stronghold. Fuck Alaska’s beauty and wildlife. Save yourself, a voice echoes above the hurt and betrayal. The snow and ice taunt me, with an impossible escape. Till death do us part is yet another vow under his control.

“What did I tell you about thinking, bitch?” He yells in my ear. I say nothing in response to his question. Five years of marriage teaches many lessons. The first being married doesn’t make me a wife. Oscar’s ring on my finger doesn’t make him my husband. “Daniella, you hear me talking to you?”

I turn to look him in the eye. “Yes. I hear you.”

“Then why the fuck you make me repeat myself?”

The next words rise like raw sewage crawling with maggots in my throat. “It won’t happen again, Oscar.”

He nods, his handsome face made cruel by the beatings I’ve endured as his prisoner. “You’re a fucking liar, good little wife.”

An involuntary shiver momentarily seizes my limbs at the level of his depravity. Oscar narrows his eyes. “What the fuck? You shaking and shit cause I call you my wife?”

“No, Oscar.” I say in a rush, praying to a God who never ghosted into these four walls to save my soul.

“Did you say no, to me, you stupid bitch? You saying I’m wrong?”

Shit, this no good bastard doesn’t need an excuse to beat my ass crimson and purple, ‘cause we way past black and blue in this dungeon he calls our master bedroom.

“Oscar, I don’t want to fight.” Once upon a time, a foolish schoolgirl, I’d told this man I’d ride and die for him, that I wanted to belong to him. How come those fucked up fairy tales that are read to girls never teach them to ask for some shit for themselves?

The next blow, intended to punish, exceeds its goal. My stomach caves in until it touches my spine. Disoriented with pain, my eyes water.

“I don’t give a fuck what you want, Daniella.”

Like me, my lungs are gripped with anger, revulsion, and fear. It churns like a storm, picking up speed and strength. I know I am locked in this maelstrom of emotion that could getme killed, but I’m unable to breathe in or out. My chest folds as a limp banana peel, the floor crashes into my knees. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

“Get up, you lazy bitch. I give you a gourmet meal and fresh water. Put platinum and ice on your finger.”

“Take it back,” I rasp, pushing past the pain cramping my insides, to hold my head high.

The very air stills. It’s the first time I’ve heard the voice that screams in my mind day and night, aloud. Now that my secret is out–that I hate the smell, the sight, the fucking taste of him in my mouth—I own that shit. Fuck his ring. Fuck this marriage. Fuck my life.

He yanks me up by my hair. Strands rip from my scalp.

“OOOW,” I scream, paralyzed in his grip.

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