The Belt Page 2

  As he was watching the news channel, he heard someone knocking on the door. John got up, opened it and saw the sushi restaurant deliveryman. He gave him the money, added a small tip and went to the living room to prepare everything for the celebration dinner. Once the plates and the candles were set up, John went out to a liquor store near the apartment block and bought a bottle of Chardonnay. He knew perfectly well Cindy didn’t like Chardonnay, but this was the best wine for sushi, as he was once told by a sushi master, so obviously, there was no option to drink anything else.

  He went home, ate one piece of a California roll, licked his fingers, and spotted Cindy parking her car outside the building. He poured some wine into the glasses, lit the candles and waited for his lover to walk into the apartment.

  A few seconds later, Cindy came in, looked around and spotted him sitting by the table. Very happy to see him, she took her coat and shoes off, and walked toward him.

  “Hi,” she said and smiled.

  “Hi, honey,” he replied softly, hugged her and kissed her lips. “How was your day?”

  “Tiring, but now it can only get better,” she replied. “What’s this?”

  He kissed her again and pulled her to him, “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “I am, but, I think I can wait a bit,” she whispered, closed her eyes and allowed him to caress her neck.

  “Well, it’s not like the food’s gonna go cold, right?” he replied and they both went to the bedroom.

  ***

  Two hours later, Cindy was putting the dishes into the dishwasher and throwing the leftovers away while John was reading a newspaper in the living room. As she opened one of the cabinets to take the garbage can out, she spotted the empty sachet bag on the top of other trash. John, you threw away the lavender bag?” she asked and walked into the living room. John looked at her from above the newspaper, not sure at first what she was talking about.

  “Oh, yeah, yes, I did,” he replied once he finally recalled throwing it out. “Sorry, I was going to tell you, but it slipped my mind.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “You know I hate the smell. And my clothes are in the wardrobe now, too.” John replied calmly, not having the slightest idea why Cindy would consider getting rid of the stinky bag a problem in the first place.

  “Well, yeah, but it did hang there for a reason, you know?” she said and walked back to the kitchen. John wondered if he should have replied, said anything further, but decided he didn’t have to bother. The bag was gone, the smell was less perceptible, which made him feel far more comfortable, and after all, he was a guest here, and his needs should be her priority.

  “Oh, John, one more thing, someone called you about fifteen minutes ago,” Cindy said from the kitchen as she was sweeping the floor.

  John felt his pulse rising. He had left his phone on the kitchen table. What an idiot! For a split second, he stopped breathing and was attentively listening to what Cindy was saying. The tone of her voice did not indicate any anger; perhaps there was nothing to worry about.

  “Why didn’t you give me the phone when it was ringing?” he asked and got up from the armchair. He put the newspaper on the coffee table and went into the kitchen.

  “I don’t know; you went out on the balcony to smoke, and I thought that they would call again. Or you would call him back.”

  “Him?” John frowned, “So, who was calling?” he asked and reached for his phone on the table. He touched the screen and saw a missed call from Mike Brown. He grinned.

  It was in fact Rhonda calling. Each of his ladies were hidden under different names on his phone, only he knew who was who. It was a pretty smart camouflage which, apparently, perfectly served its purpose. The only problem was he couldn’t allow letting the phone out of his sight again. Who knew, perhaps one day Cindy would decide to pick it up? For no other reason than only to inform the caller that John was busy. He needed to be more careful.

  “Who is this Mike?” Cindy asked as she finished cleaning the kitchen.

  “A client, and I better call him back,” John replied. “I can see you have a pretty empty fridge; maybe I will do some shopping and call Mike while doing it?”

  “We, honey, we have a pretty empty fridge,” she said and smiled, liking the sound of that on her lips. He reciprocated the smile and as he reached for his jacket hanging on an on-wall coat hanger, the metal and wood construction fell on the floor with a loud bang. Cindy looked out from the kitchen to see what happened and seeing John was all right, she went to the living room and sat in front of the TV.

  “Maybe you could fix it, when you come back?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he replied. He left the apartment, absolutely certain he wouldn’t be able to stand living like this. He had to look for some other place to stay or he would lose his mind.

  ***

  “Rhonda, you have got to stop calling me; it’s over,” John said when she picked up the phone. He was standing in front of the supermarket, smoking. It was late evening now, and only a few cars were there in the parking lot. The weather was cooler, too, and much more windy. John had to zip up his jacket.

  “No, baby, please don’t say that,” Rhonda kept on crying, which was only making him more annoyed.

  “Did you tell Margaret about us, Rhon, or did you not?” he asked and inhaled.

  “But—”

  “It’s a simple question, Rhonda, yes, or no?”

  “I did,” she replied quietly.

  “There you go. You have no idea what I’ve had to deal with today, what my morning looked like. If you wanted to turn my life into a living hell, you aced it,” John said, puffing the smoke out of his mouth through the corner of his lips. He had mixed feelings about all this. He had had an off and on relationship with Rhonda for over three years and, from his perspective, it worked just fine. He had never promised her he would leave his wife for her, never assured her the whole thing they had was going anywhere. It was supposed to be fun. Getting laid once in a while, nothing more, but during the very last year, Rhonda started asking him to make up his mind, to choose her over Margaret, to be with her. For John, it was unacceptable. He made the commitment mistake once, when he got married, and it turned into a total disaster. There was no chance he’d do it again. And not with Rhonda, for Christ’s sake, she was simply too dumb. Rarely did they have anything to actually talk about. Their meetings centered around sex, which was great, he had to admit that, but apart from sex, there was nothing from his point of view, that would keep them together for any longer time than, say, a weekend.

  And now this whole mess. Paul kept telling him to stop seeing Rhonda, that he had had a feeling she was going to be trouble, but the perspective of a once-in-a-while careless banging with a woman that looked like one of the Playmates, seemed so wonderfully non-problematic, that he simply couldn’t, didn’t want to stop. And then Rhonda went nuts and started demanding a normal relationship, commitment, sacrifice, and so on, and so forth. Once he finally told her he had absolutely no such intentions, she called Margaret and told her everything. Everything! She confessed that for the past three years she was his alibi for most cases when he came back home late or had to go for a business trip.

  It happened last night after he came home late and he went to sleep in the guest room, not wanting to wake up his wife. In the morning, it turned out, Margaret knew everything. He was so taken aback, that he couldn’t make up anything, couldn’t figure out what to say. And she threw him out. Although, the official version was he left, the truth was she kicked him out, metaphorically speaking, he could still feel her feet on his butt. Many thanks, Rhonda, you stupid bitch. Although it did give him the needed pretext to finally end both his marriage and the more and more inconvenient relationship with Rhonda.

  “But I understand my mistake, I know what I did wrong, John, please, allow me to fix everything.”

  He scratched his forehead and lifted his eyebrows.

  “Rhonda, there’s nothing to fix. She ki
cked me out of the house,” he said and, that very moment, he bit his tongue.

  “You mean you don’t live with her anymore?!” Rhonda asked loudly.

  “That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

  “Oh my God, John, this is wonderful news!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Of course! Now you can finally live with me! We can be together!” Rhonda was screaming with joy.

  “No, no, no; I have other plans, sorry.”

  “Oh, come on, Johnny. This is perfect!”

  “No, it isn’t. You’ve ruined my life once. I will not allow you to mess it up again. I mean it, Rhonda, it’s over.” He threw the almost-finished cigarette into the garbage can in front of the supermarket.

  “Baby, I did it for us. And look, it worked. You’re free, we can start our life now. We can officially be together!” She was so excited that she didn’t understand a thing of what he was telling her. John sighed and looked up in the sky. What a mess.

  “Rhonda, damn it, shut up!” he said very firmly. She became quiet. “There’s no us. There never will be. It’s done, it’s over. You finished it yesterday. I don’t want to be with someone who stuck a knife in my back, do you hear me?!” John continued and looked around to make sure nobody heard him; he didn’t need anyone’s interest. “This conversation is pointless. I won’t be answering your calls, I won’t be reading your texts, or emails. It. Is. Over. Rhonda. Leave me alone.” He hung up, took a deep breath and felt a great relief.

  His phone blinked and vibrated. A text. John sighed and, unwillingly, he looked at the screen. Molly. He smiled.

  “Hey, baby, miss you XO”.

  John looked at the message for a few seconds and wrote back:

  “Miss you, too, XOXO”.

  He put the phone into his pocket and was on his way to the store, when he felt someone touching his elbow. John turned around and saw a scruffy looking man, wearing a very old-looking jacket and some dirty jeans. His shoes looked as if they were at least a decade old and there was a specific scent around the man; it wasn’t alcohol, nor dirt, it rather smelled like mold. Oh, Jesus, John thought and looked at the man’s face.

  “What is it?” John asked, irritated.

  “I’m sorry, I was wondering if you could spare some change?” the man said in such a quiet voice that John barely heard him.

  “No, I don’t. I have no spare change, no spare needles, nor spare cans of beer. Sorry,” he replied, turned around and went inside the store.

  “I just need food, I don’t drink,” John heard the man outside the store say, but decided not to waste his time anymore talking to some junkie who had clearly fucked up his life. It wasn’t John’s problem.

  Half an hour later, as he was walking out of the store, John checked his cart and realized he had forgotten to buy pasta and tomato sauce, which was too bad as he was planning to make lasagna the next day. He stopped before the exit, looked at the almost empty shop, checked his watch, sighed and thought he really didn’t feel like going back amongst the aisles, when he spotted a cart with food left inside of it by the customers. The cart had stickers of a certain charity organization on it and the information written on a piece of paper hanging from its front stated that the food was being gathered for the poorest people living in the neighborhood. John looked over his shoulder, made sure nobody was around, walked towards the charity cart, looked inside of it and spotted both pasta and the needed tomato sauce. He hesitated for a second, but finally reached out and took the donated products he needed.

  About two months later, he woke to find a belt lying on his bed for the very first time.

  Chapter 2

  John woke up because the reek was unbearable. The stench was irritating his nostrils and, as it moved down his throat, he felt like it was suffocating him. The odor seemed to be a mixture of sulfur and rotten meat; it was so intense, it was penetrating his brain, making him feel nauseous. He opened his eyes and realized he was surrounded by complete darkness. John blinked a few times to make his eyes adjust to the conditions a bit faster, but it didn’t help; he still wasn’t able to see anything. How was it possible? He did wake up, after all, didn’t he? At that moment, he spotted a slight movement on the ceiling. John squinted his eyes and focused on it. The ceiling looked damp and very dirty and his first thought was that perhaps Cindy had mold in the apartment, which wouldn’t even be very surprising, but he thought he would have spotted it by now. Just then he felt a slight bump as his body gently swayed because of it, and it occurred to him that he was, somehow, moving. John nervously moved his head from left to right and realized he was in a cage.

  “What the fuck?” he thought and slowly sat up. It wasn’t until then that he felt his arms were heavy. He looked down at them and saw them cuffed with thick chains. The bracelets were tightly surrounding his wrists and every move he made with his hands was accompanied by an unpleasant and disturbing metallic clink. As he was sitting and doing his best to comprehend what was happening, he saw his legs were also chained.

  “Holy Christ, what is happening,” he whispered, terrified, completely awoken. His eyes finally got used to the darkness, and he realized that the ceiling, and the walls, were, in fact, still, their movement was an illusion, because, to put it more accurately, it was actually him moving along them.

  John got up, and looked around with alarm; he was in a cage and there were bars around him! The top of the cage was open, but the bar-walls were too high to even try to jump over, not to mention the fact that the shackles were firmly attached to the floor. He couldn’t go anywhere, there was no chance to flee. He turned around to see what he was lying on. It looked like a pallet filled with straw and some feathers, covered by a blanket with holes.

  The smell became more intense, and even though John covered his mouth, he started coughing and felt like he was about to throw up. He leaned against the bars and realized he was being transported through a long, dark tunnel, built of damp walls, lit with only single torches attached to them. Very weak flames flickered lazily on the top of each of them, but they were so far apart and the light was so ineffective their presence made little difference.

  The cage was wobbling precariously and John could hear the squeaking sound of wheels below him, which, desperately needed some oiling. He was petrified, and his breath was becoming shallower due to the stress, as his eyes were moving nervously, trying to spot as many details as possible.

  “It’s a dream, it has to be; oh God,” he cried out, his eyes filled with tears. John was able to feel drops of sweat dancing on his skin, falling down his spine, irritating his eyes, making his lips salty. At one moment, he heard the sound of something in the distance. What was it? Chants? He looked down his legs and it occurred to him he was wearing his winter pajamas, the flannel ones, which Margaret had bought him one Christmas. He liked them, they were warm, cozy, soft. For one, absolutely crazy split second, he thought he was glad he was wearing that particular pair of pajamas as the long sleeves and legs were preventing the shackles from irritating, perhaps even cutting his skin. He was even wearing his leather skin slippers on his feet!

  “What the fuck is happening?” he thought, feeling his mind was consequently heading towards a panic attack. His pulse was so insane he had a feeling his heart was about to jump out of his chest. At the same time, most probably due to the adrenalin flowing through his veins, he realized he was able to see and hear everything clearer. Someone else was there.

  Someone was breathing. In front of him. It was a heavy breath, the kind that is characteristic of long-time cigarette addicts. And that someone was walking. Yes, he was now able to hear the steady steps. He stood and took a few clumsy steps forward, to see who or what was operating the cage and because it was approaching one of the torches, John squinted his eyes to sharpen his vision and bent his head a bit to make sure it was on more or less the same level as the mysterious breather. He stopped his own breathing to focus entirely on gazing into the blackness ahead of him, when the slight glow
started casting a bit of light on…

  “Oh! Jesus!” John shouted and jumped back immediately, as swiftly as the chains allowed him, bumping into the bed. He saw a creature about five feet tall, hairy, dirty, its face was covered in weeping sores and pus-filled sags of skin. He was pulling the cage alone! His muscles visible under black robes, and, as the torch cast some light on the cage, it turned its head 180 degrees and looked straight back at John. The view was horrifying, John covered his mouth as he keened in terror, and swiftly stepped back. The creature smiled, revealing his rotten teeth which must have been very sharp back in the olden days and, as its whole body was moving ahead, it was looking at John, staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and hostility. Finally, when the tunnel became dark again, it turned its head forward. Before passing out, John had a feeling he heard a crowd cheering somewhere ahead. It was then that he vomited, and lost consciousness.

  John woke up sweaty, breathing heavily, and paralyzed with fear. He sat on the bed, looked at his wrists, and made sure that there were no chains on them and turned the night lamp on. The chains, obviously, weren’t there, but he spotted the goosebumps that covered his forearms. Petrified, he looked around and saw Cindy sleeping peacefully right next to him. He took a deep breath, and felt himself calming down. An unnaturally strong thirst seared his mouth, so he quickly drank water from the glass on his nightstand, and dried his lips with his hand. Then, after a few minutes he went back to sleep.