The Courting Ritual
By Dan Dillard
Pa-chunk. Pa-chunk.
Then a pause.
The world was coming into view...slow... blurry.
Pa-chunk. That stung. His whole body stung, almost numb, but pinched as he tried to take a deep breath. He felt drunk, but didn’t remember drinking. He remembered going through the door, paying the cover, and ordering a bottle of water. Then he coughed and everything was white and sparkly. He felt faint, then he slipped into darkness until...
Pa-chunk.
He lifted his head, ever so slowly. Ever so little. Pain. It was dull, but it was there. Where was the pain coming from? It was everywhere.
Was I drugged? he thought.
Pa-chunk.
He opened one sticky eyelid and saw the silhouette of a person come gradually into focus. A dark shape, that moved, then stopped, then, Pa-chunk. His knee screamed and he sat up straight. A huge mistake. He howled. His body felt as if it was on fire when he did. His eyes were wide open, burning in the seemingly bright light. As his heartbeat pounded, he found clarity in his vision. A bedroom. There was a closet door open, clothes and shoes inside. Women’s shoes. She was to his right, sitting on her knees with her legs tucked underneath, smiling and admiring her work. Dina. He remembered the lovely, dark-haired Dina. She was at the club last week. He’d admired her, approached her, almost sealed the deal that night, but...
“Beautiful,” she said.
He couldn’t move. So many pains, pinching, burning, some of them grinding. His mind wanted to wander, but the pain kept him present, kept him from forming a plan of escape, attack, anything. He wanted to lie back down, but the pain was becoming sharper, more encompassing. He wanted to sit forward, but the pain was there as well. As his eyes finally cleared, he saw his legs were bleeding, covered in something he couldn’t comprehend. Pa-chunk, he thought. Dear God.
He saw cardboard boxes, a stack of them next to where she was seated. Several were open, empty, discarded. In heavy print, gold and white and burgundy, they each read: Arrow 250, ½” Heavy Duty Staples. There were four empty that he could see. Four more in the stack. Dina set the staple gun down and stood up. She closed the closet door behind her. A full length mirror hung on the door, and in it, he saw himself. He glittered, silver bars and red trickles.
“See? Beautiful,” she said.
He could only guess by her voice and her small grin that her pulse was steady and slow as a marathon runner at rest. From his navel up to his shoulders, he was covered in the tiny fasteners. They moved across his thighs to his left knee, where she had stopped.
“You said you’d call,” she said just before he passed out.
END.
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