Mabel Shot

"People are going out for a beer, don’t you want to come with us?"
Boris, the administrative assistant of the gallery, smiles at me as he puts on his suit blazer, and I punch my card, finishing my shift.
"I have some plans for today, but maybe I'll join you next Friday." I give him a polite smile and come up with a random excuse to avoid going to the bar with the gallery crew at the end of the day.
"That's a shame! It would be nice if you came with us."
I slowly tap the card in my hand and shrug, feeling awkward with the number of excuses I’ve made up to avoid hanging out with them.
"Well, I have to go." I point behind me and give him a forced smile. "Goodnight, Boris!"
I’m already crossing the back door of the gallery, practically running into the street before he can say anything else. I have nothing against Boris or going out with the team after work, but I know what Boris wants with these invitations. It’s pretty obvious on his face every time he shamelessly stares at the neckline of my uniform dress, ogling my breasts. And the fact that he’s the nephew of the gallery’s curator, the man who hired me, practically makes it impossible for me to tell him to go to hell. I overheard some girls in the bathroom talking about him, and I think that I and the middle-aged receptionist are the only ones whose legs his dick hasn’t gotten between, and I have no intention of changing that score.
I slow down my pace and put my time card inside my bag. I grab my beanie and adjust it on my head. I shove my hands into my coat pockets as I walk towards the building where I live. It’s not far, but it’s not close either. Actually, I walk twelve blocks to get home. To be honest, I prefer walking rather than taking the train or a cab. I like walking; it helps me think, regroup my thoughts, and organize my mind. But this week, nothing, absolutely nothing I do helps me escape the mess in my head since that fateful day when I walked into that slaughterhouse disguised as a nightclub. That man in the goat mask has invaded my thoughts every night, as my imagination constantly replays the emotions I felt when he touched me. Five years, five damn years of fighting to return to my safe little world, only for it to be ripped away in a matter of hours. I realized something was wrong with me in the first few months after I left Nate. The sessions with my therapist helped me understand that at first, I was experiencing some kind of post-traumatic stress, but I knew it wasn’t just that. Something inside me had changed, as if it had broken, become ugly.
I didn’t understand my thoughts or the strange rushes I felt just by looking at a rope. The first time my body responded involuntarily, getting aroused, was a year after that damn weekend with Nate. During a class at university, we were studying "The Garden of Earthly Delights." I remember spending some time analyzing a replica of the original painting, feeling sweat on my skin, my heartbeat quickening, and my breathing becoming erratic. And the longer I looked at the painting, the more aroused I became. My throat was dry, my fingers tingled, and flashes of what happened in that apartment hit me. I remembered my body tied up on the floor, the tears streaming down my cheeks, the gag in my mouth, and the more I recalled the details of the fear and panic, the pain, the more aroused I became. It was disgusting and terrifying at the same time, and it made my stomach churn, filling me with self-loathing.
I left the classroom like a rocket, running out. Aware that my underwear was damp, I rushed to the bathroom to vomit. I sought out my therapist, the one helping me with stress treatment, and told her how I felt, how I got turned on by the memories. At first, she said it could just be a response from my brain, given that it had been a year since the incident. But it wasn’t normal, nothing about me was normal. I was masturbating twice as much, in a pure frenzy. My phone was filthy with heavy porn: sadism, BDSM, domination. I tried watching other things, something normal, but my body didn’t respond. It didn’t feel anything, not even a spark of pleasure.
I went from porn to real life, paying a man I met on the internet, in a chat room, to hit me. I went home and masturbated practically all day. When night came, I cried, uncontrollably, lying on the bathroom floor, hugging myself, feeling like a horrible creature. I sought out another therapist, one specialized in sexual disorders, because I needed to understand why I found pleasure in reliving all that shit that happened to me. I felt ashamed, dirty because my body couldn’t control my uncontrollable and destructive impulses. The psychologist suspected I had developed some kind of paraphilic disorder. That intensive torture session, let’s call it, that I suffered during that weekend in Nate’s apartment—being humiliated, beaten, raped countless times—had unleashed my inner masochist, which was out of control.
Macro was the only one who knew what was happening to me and how I was dying inside, feeling like an abominable woman for seeking pleasure in pain. I suffered a lot before I could regain control. I stopped going out, I had no social life, I threw all my vibrators in the trash. I followed the therapist's advice, who suggested I attend meetings with other people who suffered from more disturbing paraphilias than mine. I repressed myself, controlled the sick agonies of my soul, only talked to my adoptive parents on the phone, didn’t visit them anymore, nor did I accept visits from them. I tried to forget everything that had happened to me, and I thought I was doing well, which is why I accepted the move to Moscow. I nurtured the fragile idea that I had overcome all the crap I went through. That was until last week when Macro took me to that place. It was like opening the door to the hell of my soul.
I walk with my head down, nearing my building, smoking a cigarette when the low sound of "Somebody to Love" catches my attention. I lift my head and spot the smiling redhead, arms wide open, holding a beer bottle in each hand, leaning against the hood of his car, humming Queen, playing on the car radio.
"No!" I say firmly to Macro, shaking my head, blowing out the cigarette smoke and throwing it to the ground.
I walk towards the building entrance, passing by him, not stopping to greet him.
"Mabel, please, wait!" He pushes off the car and walks after me. "I've been trying to talk to you all week. I’m so sorry."
I turn my head over my shoulder, glaring at him angrily. His face looks melancholic, and he gives me a sad look.
"I swear I didn’t think you’d react like that, Bel." He lowers his arms and shakes his head.
"You messed up! Don’t think you’re going to win my forgiveness with two beers," I mutter, upset, facing him. "You shouldn’t have taken me to that place!"