You Own Me (Owned 1)

I laid my cheek against the cool floor, and squeezed my eyes closed dreading what I knew I would hear next: Dean’s voice.

“You came back to me,” he whisper-breathed into my ear.

I shuddered. His voice made my skin crawl; a million nasty little spiders were scurrying down my spine.

“Where’s Zoe?” I asked. I was wheezing for air; my chest was being pushed deep into the hardwood by his weight and he’d wrapped one arm around my neck.

No response.

His dick pushed against my thigh. I held back the urge to vomit and focused on looking for anything to use against him. The knife I’d brought with me flew out of my hand and across the apartment when he’d jumped on my back. The shards of broken lamp were too far away to reach.

I had to do something. My body was turning into mush beneath his weight. If I didn’t get him off of me soon, I’d become Lennox Pudding.

Dean was frantically rubbing himself against me. I could hear him grunting and panting. He was getting off on this!

The more I struggled to get out from under his weight, the faster Dean moved against me. I wasn’t getting enough air into my lungs, and my vision began to blur. I stopped trying to buck him off of me in the hopes that he’d loosen his grip around my throat so I could just take a full breath of air. It didn’t work; I started seeing spots before my eyes.

I was a dried up starfish on the beach and Dean was the little kid stepping on me.

As I lay there, trying to get the smallest sips of air into my lungs, I heard my inner voice berate me: You are always so rash and impulsive. A thought pops in your head, and you don’t think it through before acting. If you saw a snow sled barreling out of control down a ski slope, and it seemed like it might be a fun ride, what would you do? You’d hop on for a ride. Why don’t you ever stop to examine consider the repercussions of your actions until after you are bruised, bloody, beat down, grass in your teeth, and dirt in your wounds? Why, Moore? Why?

Like all the doctors, psychiatrists, psychics, gurus, and crazy homeless people I had ever talked with had said to me, I was going to be the death of me. But now, I finally understood what they’d been saying. This realization was made all the worse by Dean’s dick pressing in to my thigh like a hot poker.

My eyes popped open.

I needed to wound Dean. I needed him off me, I needed to call the police, I needed Dean institutionalized. He needed serious, Ted Bundy-level help.

Dean’s thrashing about had inched us away from where we’d first landed on the floor. The lamp shards were now tantalizingly close.

Like a zombie rising from the grave, I reached for the broken piece of lamp. In a last ditch effort to save myself, I slowly slid my hand toward the broken lamp pieces. My hand was halfway to the closest shard, when Dean gave a jerk on his arm that was around my neck. I froze, praying that his eyes were closed and he wasn’t seeing what I was doing.

Once upon a time, Dean had been a decent person. He’d opened doors for me, he’d called to tell me he was going to be late, and he’d even held my hair back when I’d thrown up because of the flu. Then something happened, he’d mentally snapped. It was horrible. He didn’t need to go to prison, he needed help.

I should know; I’d had enough help myself.

But right now, I need to get him the fuck off of me.

Dean continued his gyrations without pause. He must have his eyes closed. I stretched my arm out as far as the ligaments would allow, and then I stretched it even further. I was so close.

The crowd of spots before my eyes faded away and was replaced by a black curtain being pulled closed. All I could hear was Dean’s raspy, wet breathing.

I was able to brush the tips of my fingers against the sharp porcelain shard, but no more. All the blood in my body was cut off by Dean’s meaty arm on my neck. The curtain closed.

I’d failed.

The last thought I had was of Vic.

You know when you have a series of dreams, and it’s hard to distinguish between them and reality? Like, you’re not sure if what you’re recalling is a dream or memory? That’s what waking up was like. Images flashed in my head as if I was looking through a classic toy View-Master. I saw men and women, dressed in black clothing, talking fast like they were in an Aaron Sorkin movie rush about my apartment. They all had furious scowls on their faces. Occasionally they would look at me.

I couldn’t move. I’d had dreams like this before, but they aren’t called dreams—it’s called sleep paralysis. In the past, when I’d had sleep paralysis, I had been terrified. But, this was different; this time I wasn’t afraid. I was watching the dreams as an observer.

One dream faded to black, and another dream took its place. Vic appeared. He watched over me. He was huge and ethereal, like Zeus or God on the mountain talking to Moses. I knew I was safe under his watch, yet I still couldn’t move.

I could have sworn I was interacting with people, that I was awake. But I hadn’t been, because when I did wake I was able to feel my body, and boy, did I hurt. I felt like it had been run over by a steamroller and then put through an industrial sized washer.

When I saw no Men (or Women) in Black in my apartment, I concluded I’d been dreaming their presence.

I was still on the floor, in the exact spot where Dean had mounted me. Shit! Dean! It was like my finger had been stuck in an electric socket; I became hyper-alert. I couldn’t see him anywhere, but it hurt more to move my head to look for him than being punched in the head (and I actually could compare). For all I knew, he had finished up with me and was cleaning up in the bathroom.