*Squeamish alert*
I could do this, if it weren't for the pain. Not mine - his. The screaming, the hollering when I clamp the pins down into the sensitive skin between his fingers; it's intolerable, truly. I'd like to think that if I were the torturee I wouldn't cry out as easily, as pitifully as this; I'd like to think that I wouldn't wail and shriek and sob and beg and plead as he does. His blue, bloodshot eyes, glazed from the unrelenting torment, roll limply in his head, like a Magic 8-ball answer in search of a question. I'm waiting for the Stockholm Syndrome to kick in so I can break his heart; I've already claimed his body; that's when his mind will really go.
When I'd first met him it didn't take long for me to realize there was something about him I didn't like. There was a kind of smugness about him, an assumed superiority which he conveyed subtly, timidly, with every word he spoke. His vaguely condescending humor and his quick and vocal irritation with others, always phrased sardonically to assuage his meanness, grated on me something fierce. It was truly revolting. I was sure of it: I didn't like him. I could tell, too, that he didn't like me. I knew it by the way he looked at me, trying to sum me up, searching for faults to exploit; ways to take advantage of my disadvantage. I wondered what about me had threatened him so, but thought perhaps he was the kind of person meant to menace, to instigate and antagonize all of those around him, regardless of their character. It brings me all the more pleasure then, to see him reduced so.
As I look at him now, his face all mottled with pain, a sickly sweat dribbling from his pale skin - which I seem to have exhausted to the point that it is losing some of its elasticity - I can see him for the wretched, pathetic, insectile creature that he is. Yesterday, I had taken an old bicycle chain that I'd found bent and rusted in a neighboring backyard, and I wrapped it tightly around his neck as though it were a collar. I fastened the chain around a cylindrical pipe attached to a metal radiator so that I could grab the chain from behind him and pull it and turn it, spinning it slowly, so that the links caught the loose skin of his neck - which now looked less like a neck and more like a gizzard -producing painful friction burns and tears. Now though, when I turn the chain it rips his skin raw, and little flakes of rust have imbedded themselves inside the creases of his neck; I fear he may have contracted tetanus. He is all puffy and swollen around the throat, and twitching. With his pallor, black chain grease, and his neck all bloodied and crusted and exposed, I can't help look at him and see a maimed zebra.
It repulses me when he opens his mouth. Partly because of the sounds he makes - the hideous exasperated sighs and coughing, all wet and full of tissue - but also because of how unrecognizably swollen his face has become, like an aborted Gerber Baby. I wonder if he's coughing up pieces of his throat right now. No, it's probably coming from his mouth, I think...I'm not sure. Earlier today, I'd kindly asked him to stop speaking to me, I even said please, but his ill-mannered degenerate disposition caused him to continue interrupting my thoughts with pleas and incessant inquiries, asking what I wanted, what he could do to make it stop. I warned him once, telling him that if he made another sound I'd do something he would find most undesirable. Which is why I was shocked when he stammered and slurred the word "don't." A contraction. Do not? He looked up at me, breathing heavily, and his sweat-stained shirt, all yellowed and bloodied, reminded me of an old rag one might use to wipe a condiment bar at a roadside gas station. His eyes constantly lost focus, his neck was terribly, terribly irritated, barely able to support the weight of his head, and he repeated the word: don't. He was weak, spasming, and his breathing was strained. He didn't like the cat food I'd been feeding him. I even chewed it up for him before putting it in his mouth. He is so ungrateful, it maddens me!
It was at this moment I'd realized that I could fix all of these things, quite simply, with a philips head screwdriver; my father always said all you needed was a screwdriver and some elbow-grease. With my left hand I took the chain and pulled it firmly against the pipe, to prevent his head from moving. He didn't like this, I could tell. I'd left the radiator on and it was scorching - I nearly burned my hand. He yelped piteously when the back of his neck touched it. I took the screwdriver in my right hand and began jabbing it against his mouth to quiet him. At first he tried defiantly to keep his mouth shut tight, using his lips to shield his teeth. This frustrated me. So, I used more force and managed to rip past his upper lip, straight through to his teeth. I felt that satisfying crack as I chiseled away at his central incisors. I felt so artsy, like a sculptor. That's when I realized a hammer could be useful; how could I have forgotten? As I grabbed a small rubber mallet, he began to cry out, his warm tears making their way to my hand as I forced his jaw down toward his chest. I didn't want to keep puncturing his lips because he was beginning to lose a considerable amount of blood. He'd lost consciousness a few minutes after I'd started working, thank god, so I didn't have to hear his infernal ruckus. When I finished, it looked like he had a mouth full of baby teeth, some of them barely poking up through his gums.
Maybe now he'll appreciate that I chew his food for him, damned animal.
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