The floor of the trunk rumbled as the engine was ignited, and before I thought to brace myself the car accelerated backwards and to the left, then forward and to the right as she pulled out of the parking spot. My tiny body went tumbling to and fro opposite to the acceleration as she continued to veer side to side and change speed. Whether she was intentionally driving recklessly, or my tiny body couldn’t anticipate when or where it was coming, I was unable to avoid rolling around and slamming painfully into the sides of the trunk. Soon I realized my safest option was to lie flat with limbs outstretched, but even still the flat surface of the trunk gave little resistance as I continued to slide about, trapped in a pitch black hell with no way to guess which way my body would get thrown next.
We finally arrived at my house. A blinding light flashed in front of my eyes as an enormous arm opened the trunk and reached for me. I wasn’t given an option to get out myself, since the huge hand simply flipped my body over and grabbed the back of my shirt again, but this time I wasn’t let down once I was out of the trunk. All I could see were two legs the size of tree trunks whooshed forward then backward as my captor walked toward the front door. I lifted my head as far as I could and saw the bottom of the door frame; this wasn’t my house. It must be Ms. Adams’s.
In our two years as friends, she had never once invited me here; it probably felt too personal, like it would imply romance or something. But why would she have any reservations about bringing a child, right? She hauled my 15-pound body up to what must have been her kitchen counter and more-or-less dropped me onto the hard floor. I didn’t dare cry out in pain, though. Instead, I picked myself up and looked around. She had a nice pad: though it was small like a typical 1-bedroom apartment, it was well-furnished (and, who was I kidding, any room looked huge from my perspective).
Ms. Adams set her purse down on the counter and walked toward the kitchen. Instinctively, I began to follow her until she glanced over and said, “Stay still. I don’t want your piss all over my house.” Was this really the same woman I knew the last two years? I remained perfectly still, even keeping my head and arms motionless for good measure. I heard the faucet running and assumed she got herself a drink, though she was out of my vision. Then she left for a few minutes doing who-knows-what, but still I didn’t move a muscle, hoping to send the right message.
After a good bit of time, I heard the shower turn on, and a few seconds later she emerged into sight. I almost took a step toward her but reminded myself not to just in time. As if retrieving some dirty laundry, she carelessly bent down and grabbed me by the back of my shirt again, whisking me into the air towards the bathroom.
Setting me down roughly in the middle of the bathroom floor, she turned and closed the door then sat on the edge of the closed toilet seat and pulled me toward her, her calves looming like two mighty pillars on either side of my body.
With both hands she grabbed the bottom of my shirt and abruptly yanked it up over my head, causing my downturned arms to flail painfully up over my head as the shirt was removed. Tossing it on the floor, her hands immediately started untying the cord that served as a belt for my toddler’s shorts. “I can do this for you, Ms. Adams,” I told her, phrasing it as a generous offer instead of telling her I didn’t want to be undressed like a child.
“Keep quiet unless I say something to you,” she ordered flatly, briskly pulling my shorts down around my ankles. Instead of letting me step out of them, she found it more convenient to lift me into the air and shake me a bit until they fell off – after all, I weighed practically nothing to her. While I was in the air, she held my arms up with one hand then reached the other one down to undo my shoelaces and remove both my socks and shoes, saying, “Gross …” as they had received the lion’s share of my urine. Tossing them aside, she roughly plopped me down and reached for my underwear.
I desperately wanted to protest since, despite our recent, um, ‘disagreements,’ I still didn’t want my former best friend to see me naked; yes, I once had quite a crush on her and, admittedly, still had sexual thoughts when I looked at her, and recently she had even admitted she had had a crush on my too! But the way she was doing all of this was so completely non-sexual. After all, such concerns would never even remotely cross her mind if she were undressing and bathing a 2-year-old, and likewise she now viewed my child’s body in the same way.
But even though I still absolutely abhorred everything about this situation, I had received such a thorough lesson in obedience these last few weeks that I was able to remain silent as she yanked off my underwear, as carelessly as the other articles of clothing.
Then, as I stood inches from her massive form, she began to remove some of her own clothing – first her heels, then her pantyhose, and then her suit jacket, exposing the skimpy white tank top underneath. Damn, didn’t I tell you I still had sexual thoughts about her? Her firm, trim body was on full display before me, covered only by a short skirt and partially see-through undershirt. And now every one of her curves that I had admired over the last two years were blown up to ridiculous proportions. Her once average-sized breasts had become, from my perspective, absolutely massive, and nearly as big as Mommy’s.
Either she didn’t notice or didn’t care about my reaction, because she didn’t respond to it at all and instead stood up over me. Literally over me, as for a brief second with her legs on either side of me I looked straight up and saw the underside of her silken underwear with the outline of her cameltoe hanging well over my head. But that moment quickly passed as she stepped forward, simply walking over me like I was nothing. Then, before I could react, I went hurling through the air as she carried me to the bathtub and stood me in the middle of the stream from the already-running shower. I shrieked in surprise and pain at the scalding, boiling hot water. “It might be hotter than you’d like, but that’s to kill any germs on your filthy body.” The entire 5-minute shower was absolute hell, thanks to the scalding water and the equally brutal way in which every inch of my body was scrubbed down and thoroughly cleaned. Though she used a luffa, which would normally be soft and soothing, the rough, workmanlike treatment of her incredibly strong muscles (compared to mine, anyway) against my tiny body left my skin raw and probably bruised, though it was hard to tell if those bruises were more from the car ride or the shower.
It was such a stark contrast to the one or two pleasurable showers I had had with Mommy – there was no pleasure in this one; it was brutal. And the drying process after the shower was almost as rough, but soon enough she had me cleaned and dried, standing bare naked before her towering form. But apparently even though I was clean she still didn’t want me walking around her house; her two hands locked around my chest, her fingers easily overlapping, and she swiftly transported me to her bedroom and sat down on the corner of the bed with my naked body in her lap.
“Let’s see, it’s … 3:15,” she said, looking at the clock. “Almost 4 hours until we have to leave.” Seeing my frightened expression, she told me, “Don’t worry; your punishment won’t take that long. Your mother wants me to soften you up, not break you.” I guess that was somewhat comforting …
“Well, let’s get started.”
Before she began, though, I wanted to convey to her how deeply sorry I was for all the hurt I had caused her. As I was thinking about since we left the office, I realized it didn’t make any damned difference whether I was ‘innocent’ or whatever; I could only think about the horrible change I had caused in her and, though I knew it was certainly too late to make amends, I wanted to at least tell her how sorry I was. “Ms. Adams, I just wanted to—“
“No, Jimmy. I told you not to speak unless spoken to. That’s going to cost you a few extra spanks.”
I grimaced at the mention of spanks, but nodded submissively. Then, she calmly turned me over her lap and delivered a fairly routine spanking compared to what I had received in the past weeks, except with one major difference: her hand, which a week ago had seemed like a couple of 2-by-4s slamming into my ass, now was more like a whole goddamned sheet of iron being dropped again and again on not only my buttocks but my upper thigh and lower back as well, so huge was her hand now. Some blows were harder than others, ranging from holy-shit-my-ass-will-be-sore-for-a-whole-goddamned-week hard to dear-god-I-will-never-walk-again hard.
I have no freakin’ idea how long it lasted; I only know when the coccyx-shattering blows ceased and the intense ache from the accumulated force of all the blows took over, keeping me in agony for quite some time afterwards. Needless to say, the entire time I was bawling my eyes out, creating a puddle on the floor below my downturned face.
“OK, all done,” Ms. Adams said lightly, as if relieved that this minor inconvenience for her was out of her way, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She rotated me until I faced her, my ass landing on her thigh with a brutal reminder of what had just happened to it.
I didn’t answer, still wiping the tears from my eyes. It was almost as if I had been spanked too hard; my mind wasn’t able to cope with the pain and therefore unable to convert it into delirious submission and pathetic supplications. Instead, I was left sullen and dazed, only glad that that ordeal was over.
It was a damned good thing that Ms. Adams wasn’t at all emotionally invested in the procedure herself, since I hadn’t directly wronged her this time and she was well used to my naughty antics. “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t too bad, since I made sure to be quite a bit gentler this time.” My eyes went wide for a flash, realizing that the inconceivable pain I had just experienced wasn’t nearly all she could give. I could only wonder what could have happened if she wasn’t feeling so … lenient.
“I only gave a light spanking since, well, frankly, what you did today wasn’t nearly the worst thing you’ve done.” No, in her mind that distinction would go to the babysitter incident. “Besides, we both know you never really learn anything from your spankings, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, ma’am, absolutely.” I would say yes to literally anything she said at this point. All I could think was: No. More. Spanking.
“That’s right, Jimmy,” she said, as if teaching a child. “Now, I’m going to go relax for a while. Hmm, maybe watch some TV.”
“That sounds good, ma’am.”
“…Yeah, I think that’s what I’ll do.” With that, she stood and carried my still-nude body toward the living room. Wow, I thought, though the spanking was brutal, at least I was actually going to be able to lay back and relax for a while, a luxury I practically never had now, unless you count sitting in a 4-foot enclosure with nothing to do all day. Considering my ass still stinging with pain, I would probably be lying on my stomach, but still.
“What are we watching, ma’am?” I said as sweetly as possible. Honestly I would watch anything, but I just thought I’d make a little chit-chat since things seemed to be going well.
“We?” she asked sardonically. After a pause, she laughed and said, “Oh, you thought I was offering to let YOU watch TV. Oh, dear …”
“But I just assumed, since my punishment time is over …”
“Oh, is it?” she asked, raising her eyebrow at me. In a questioning tone, she asked, “Tell me honestly. Do you think you’ve been punished enough for today’s incident? A little boy drinking beer, AND wetting himself – and all because he disobeyed his guardians and left his play pen. Have you received enough punishment for all that?” It didn’t sound like a leading question, more like a genuine inquiry as to my opinion.
I wasn’t sure how to proceed; would she really let me off the hook if I said yes? I thought about risking it, but then my mind returned to what had been troubling me all afternoon: my heavy guilt from what I did to her last week. Again, whether or not I was truly ‘guilty’, I felt I owed it to her to at least apologize.
“Um, Ms. Adams …” I started, trying to find my words.
“Yes, Jimmy, is there something you would like to say to me?” she was holding me again with both hands around my chest, suspending me in midair a few inches from her body.
“Yes, ma’am, um … I just wanted to say that … well, I know I can never, ever make it up to you, I’m really, really sorry about what horrible things I did to you last week. I was foolish and naughty, and I betrayed your trust and I know you might never be the same again.”
Her face wasn’t stern, nor soft – that would imply that I still had any emotional sway over her. But I didn’t. Her face remained purely emotionless, showing no feeling either way towards me. “So …?” she said expectantly.
“Huh?” I asked, taken aback by her bizarre response.
“What’s your answer to the question?” she said, still staring at me blankly.
It was as if my apology hadn’t even registered for her, so little did she value it. “Oh … uh, no ma’am, I deserve to be punished more for what I did today … and last week.” I said this, because I had a feeling my punishment would only be worse otherwise.
“Oh good – I agree,” she replied dispassionately.
Still bewildered, I had to ask, “Um … can I ask why you’re so … emotionless?”
She shrugged. “Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I can’t trust anything you say, even after a beating. So your apology is irrelevant to me. But I will go ahead and fulfill your wish to be punished, since you do at least seem more obedient for a short while after, and that will serve us nicely this evening – it’ll be important then. So, whether you take it personal or not, I really don’t care – but just know that your next punishment will be serving a very specific purpose.
“Now, let’s see … it should be something that I don’t have to actively participate in, since I do want to relax, but also something worthwhile, something that will make you focus on your punishment and not let your mind wander … hmm.” She thought about how to torture me as if it were as harmless as what to have for dinner that night. Speaking of dinner, I hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast and I was absolutely starving …
“Ah, I think I have just the thing. Stay here,” she told me, setting my naked body on the floor next to her. Opening the nearby hallway closet, she began clearing it out by moving its contents out into the hall. “There, all clear. Now if I can just get this board off … Aha! Got it.” She pulled down the board that was resting horizontally above the coat hooks, meant for storing things up high.
She opened up a ladder that was already in the closet and climbed up to the ceiling inside the closet. “Hmm … this light fixture should do just fine,” she commented. I had a bad feeling about this …
“OK, all set. Come here please,” she told me as she went back down the ladder and picked up an empty coat hanger that had been in the closet. Twirling it absentmindedly in her hands, she asked, “So, Jimmy, this is your last chance. Are you sure you deserve be punished?”
I gulped, not knowing what good could come from this punishment. “Uhh …”
“Just know that, if you say no, I’m going to expect a good explanation as to why you changed your mind.” I gulped, even louder this time. Of course, there was no good explanation, other than being scared shitless of what her corrupted mind had devised for me. It only made me more afraid of her that she was pretending to give me an ‘option’ in my punishment, just to see what I would say.
“Yes, ma’am, I deserve to be punished,” I replied, lowering my head dejectedly.
“Excellent. Now, how tall are you exactly?” All her questions sounded so innocent, but I knew there must be a sinister plot beneath.
“Um, 2 foot 8 inches, ma’am. I think.”
“Mmhmm,” she said pensively. “And how high do you think this ceiling is?”
“I-I don’t know, ma’am.” All I knew is it was way the hell up there. “Most ceilings are about 8 feet, I think,” I replied, recalling that I used to be able to touch my ceiling at home when I was 6’6”.
“OK, but I know these are higher than normal, so I’m gonna say 10 feet. So, you were always better at math. What’s 78 divided by 32?”
What a weird-ass question. “Umm…” I thought for a long minute, my mind out of practice after not performing any math for so long.
But finally, I replied, “About … 2.5 I think?”
“Yep, now multiply that by 10, will you.”
I blinked in confusion, but replied simply, “25.”
“Good, good … now try to imagine what a 25-foot drop would be like at your old height – about like falling from a 3rd story window, right?”
A sinking feeling gripped my chest as the realization of what she was talking about began to sink in. 78 inches was my old height; 32 inches was my current height – and multiplying by 10 would convert a 10 foot drop to how it would be at my old height …
“Grab on to the bar, little guy,” she said, not without excitement in her voice, holding out the hanger for me to reach. I shook my head no, out of pure fear – but she immediately nipped my resistance in the bud by saying simply, “I’ll count to three, then another spanking – full force, this time.”
I yelped in terror and grabbed the bar with both hands even before she finished saying ‘One.’ My heart was pounding as I felt the bar in my hands. It was a nice wooden hanger used for coats and suits, and the bar was basically a wooden dowel, normally quite thin but now providing a substantial width for me to wrap my fingers around. I began to tremble in fear as she happily said, “Don’t let go!” and lifted the hanger up, carrying me with it. I was in the air now, literally holding on by nothing but my two hands around the bar.
It wasn’t long before the veracity of my mental math was confirmed – the sheer distance being put between me and the floor was quickly becoming truly, utterly terrifying, just like hanging from a pole two or three stories in the air with nothing below me. Could a human being survive such a long fall? I wasn’t sure, but I had very serious doubts …
As I clung desperately to the wooden dowel supporting my entire weight, I felt one last bounce and then the hanger was still. Looking up, I saw that she had tucked the hook over the top edge of the base of the light fixture; this particular fixture was not made to look pretty and had an exposed circuit box, the metal frame that holds all the wires and plugs. There was a nice nook in the top for the hook of the hanger to rest in, allowing it to hang freely from the ceiling.
“There we go,” she said, satisfied with her handiwork, removing her hand and watching me at eye level as I kept a death grip on the bar to keep from plummeting from my height of 25 (effective) feet. I figured MAYBE I would limp away with only a few broken bones – if I was very lucky.
Surely she couldn’t be serious about letting me hang here – surely this was just a scare tactic, just to scare some ‘sense’ into me … right!?? She would let me down soon, wouldn’t she? Or catch me if I started to fall???
But if that was her intention, she sure as hell didn’t look like it. She started down the ladder, all the way to the bottom, pulling the ladder out of the closet along with her – HOLY FUCKING SHIT, I think she was really going through with this … Jesus, didn’t she know I could die – LITERALLY DIE here, if she left now??
All that Kyra had done to me in the past weeks had paled in comparison to this – because my life had never been in danger. Certainly, plenty of serious, irreparable damage had been done to my psyche from the endless slew of dehumanizing trials I had had to endure – but I never in my life felt so gripped with terror as right at this particular moment …
She was leaving – she was closing the door!!! “WAIT, PLEASE!!” I exclaimed. She paused and looked up at me with disconnected curiosity. “You can’t just leave me here, I could get seriously hurt, o-or DIE!!”
She cocked her head in mild confusion and said, “Well yeah, that’s the point. You need to think that; you need to feel the seriousness of it, or else you’ll never learn your lesson well enough. But the human mind can do amazing things when it’s really put to the test – I’m sure you’ll be fine, just keep your hands on the bar.”
“WHAT!!?” I practically screamed. “I can’t hold on forever!!!”
“Jiiimmmy,” she warned, stepping back up so that her face was even with mine. “That’s no way to speak to an adult.”
Christ – was she really lecturing me at a time like this? It was like she just didn’t ‘get’ the peril I was in.
My blood was boiling in a combination of vitriol and dread, but somehow I managed to overcome my debilitating emotions for the sake of pure survival, and say to her in as nice a voice as I could manage, “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ve changed my mind; I don’t want to be punished anymore.”
She simply gave a condescending smile and told me, “I already gave you your last chance to back out, remember?”
I was unable to contain all of my emotions any longer as I kicked my legs in frustration and said, still trying to sound nice but my voice clearly strained, “Please, Ms. Adams, please just spank me again, or humiliate me, or whatever you want, just NOT THIS.”
“Are you listening to me?” she asked, slightly peeved at my ‘unwarranted’ resistance. “I told you there’s no backing out now. Seriously, Jimmy, you only weight 15 pounds, how hard can it be? You’re just being melodramatic.” I opened my mouth to give one last desperate plea, but she put a finger to my mouth and said, “Uh-uh, Jimmy. Time to be quiet, OK? I’m going to go watch TV, and I do NOT want to hear anything from this closet while I’m gone. Got it?”
I didn’t answer, my mind overrun with bitter insults I wanted to hurl at her. “Alright??” she repeated, more forcefully this time. I manage to control my temper and nod slowly in the affirmative. “Good boy,” she replied, playfully wiggling my nose with her finger. As she descended, though, she paused and looked back up to ask, off-the-cuff, “Oh yeah – would you like the light on or off?”
Why the hell would I want the light on? It would be bright as hell, plus I didn’t really want to be able to look down and see how close – or rather, far—my impending doom was. But I remembered her interdiction against speaking and kept quiet.
Ms. Adams gave a short laugh and said, “It’s OK, Jimmy. I’ll let you speak, just this once.”
“Light off, please,” I replied curtly.
“OK. I’ll be back at some point to check on you,” she told me with complete indifference, flipping the switch and then shutting the door. I was in complete darkness, except for a sliver of light from beneath the door, 25 feet below, as if it were a landing strip to guide my death-plunge. Oh good, I thought bitterly, now when I fall I’ll be able to watch the floor approaching …
Honestly, I didn’t believe that she would leave me hanging her for long. I still held out hope that she would not be too serious about this and would return in 5 minutes, maybe 10, and ask if I had learned my lesson, to which I would obediently and urgently reply in the affirmative.
But at least 20 minutes must have gone by, with no sign of Ms. Adams. My hands were already very sore from the nonstop grip I had to put on the bar. I wasn’t in too much danger of my hands slipping –at least, not yet –but I remained in a constant state of fear and anxiety, knowing how perilous my situation was, and how much more perilous it would become if she left me in here much longer. After all, I wouldn’t even have to try in order to fall off – I would simply have to STOP trying, effectively; simply give up for just one single moment, just let go, and gravity would do the rest for me. My breaths were short and my pulse quick as I listened hopefully for any sign of Ms. Adams and an end to my torture.
After I had been hanging there for probably 30 minutes, give or take, I heard the sound I had been praying for: the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching my closet. My heart was pounding a mile a minute as I saw the shadows of her feet underneath the door, and then the closet was flooded with light as she opened it and stepped in. Without speaking, she stared up at me for a few moments, and since she had faced my body towards the doorway I was able to tilt my head down and look at her from my lofty height. Why is she just standing there? She’s going to put an end to this, right?
No. She stepped back and began to close the door. “Wait!” I exclaimed frantically. “Please, Ms. Adams, I can’t hold on much longer!” She peered up at me and paused for a moment, considering what to do with me. She then walked away but left the door open. What could that mean?
I soon found out she was just retrieving something for me, and when she returned she brought the ladder with her so she could climb up to me. This was it – she was going to save me! I almost felt gratitude for her, though of course she was the one who did this to me in the first place. But I was just so damned glad to be over this awful episode …
She reached the top of the ladder and told me haughtily, “Well, I was thinking about helping you out a bit by taping your hands to the hanger.” I saw what she held in her hand: a roll of packing tape. “But,” she continued, with disappointment in her voice, “it really doesn’t seem like you’ve learned your lesson yet.”
Oh God. “I have!” I whined.
“No, you haven’t,” she told me matter-of-factly.
“But … I know I deserve to be punished, but this is just insane!”
She shook her head at me tragically and sighed, “You deserve way worse than this, and you know it.”
Something must have snapped in her mind, back when I had ‘betrayed’ her initially – because surely this punishment now was far beyond anything I had really done to her, but she seemed completely incapable of seeing otherwise. I began to protest, “But—“
“It’s time for you to shut up, now, Jimmy. I told you not to speak.” She tore off a piece of tape.
“B-But I HAVE learned my lesson!” I pleaded again, in desperation.
“You’re joking, right?” she replied with utter condescension. “If you had really learned your lesson, you wouldn’t be yelling at me and carrying on like this – you would have learned to behave by now. But you haven’t.”
I couldn’t contain my pent-up rage and frustration any longer. “You can’t do this to me! Let me down n—“ My words were cut off by the large piece of tape being slapped across my face, completely cutting off all air to my mouth.
“You had better cool your jets by the time I return,” she threatened. Then she angrily descended, pulled out the ladder again, but left the light on this time as she slammed the door behind her.
Meanwhile, I had continued to shout at the top of my lungs, but this only produced a quiet mumbling noise from my covered mouth. I kicked my legs in frustration as she closed the door, but I immediately stopped as I felt my hand slip a bit due to my flailing. In a moment of sheer, utter, unreasoning panic, I forgot my anger and focused all my efforts on regaining my grip and securing it as best as I could.
The light above my head was blindingly bright, only a few inches from my hair and even closer to my hands stretched above me. I had to keep my head down to cope with the intensity of the light, and as I looked down I saw in perfect detail the deep chasm stretching far below my feet. I gulped at the very visible reminder of my peril, and my terror was only accentuated by my keen fear of heights that, unfortunately, I had always had.
When I wasn’t thinking about falling, my mind focused on Ms. Adams, that mean, horrible bitch who truly didn’t give a damn about my well-being. Perhaps she actually didn’t comprehend the danger she had put me in, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew exactly how terrified and imperiled I was, and I was sure she was LOVING every second of it, relaxing on the couch and knowing she had me inches from brutal injury or death. My rage began to boil to such a degree that I unconsciously squeezed the bar far too strongly with my hands, causing a jolt of pain which almost caused me to involuntarily release my grip. Again, my anger was immediately washed away as I was forced to concentrate solely on my survival and the repositioning of my hands. My fingers were truly aching at this point, but my resolve was strong enough to maintain my steady grip for now.
After a few minutes, though, a new problem slowly began cropping up. For the first half hour, the relatively cool air of the closet had kept my hands from sweating much at all, but the heat of the 100 W incandescent bulb mere inches from my hands was starting to have a dramatic effect on the temperature of my hands. I could feel a thin layer of sweat begin to coat the skin of my hands, causing them to become slippery –EXACTLY the last thing I wanted to happen …
My body began to tremble in fear as I was forced to increase the strength of my grip to prevent slippage. I didn’t know how long I could have held on otherwise, but this new hazard certainly reduced my chances of surviving much longer. I probably would have even risked calling out to Ms. Adams and plead desperately, in hopes that she would at the very least turn the light off. But, of course, the tape stuck securely to my mouth gave no chance of her hearing my muffled cries. It was sickening, being tortured like this and not even having the privilege of begging or apologizing. There was simply nothing I could do to summon her back in, for any reason – not until SHE wanted to come back.
An untold length of time elapsed as I continued to struggle, with each passing minute having to summon all my strength and concentration just to survive for a minute longer, only to have to begin my struggles anew, now just that much more tired and sore and that much more likely to have my hands fail. It was incredible, really, that I had been able to go on so long; I knew I couldn’t keep this up, yet somehow deep within me my animal survival instincts kept me going, allowing me to hold on well after my mind held any hope of surviving this ordeal. At least Ms. Adams had been right – so far – about the mind being capable of incredible things when put to the test. But I also knew that everyone had their breaking point …
How long had I been hanging now, without reprieve, having to constantly readjust my slippery hands? An hour? Two? Maybe even longer?? Or maybe it was less, but just felt longer – I had no idea. All conception of time faded away as my entire being was focused on one thought: Hold.
I heard a noise. In bewilderment, I opened my eyes and saw the door opening and the huge form of Ms. Adams stepping forward. I was unsure what to make of this: either she was an angel, sent from heaven to save my life in my last hour of need, or the devil herself, coming to speed my descent down, down, so far down. It was long since I had felt any anger towards her, my mind being completely overrun with the fear of mortality, not a single other thought entering my mind but that.
As she roughly dragged the ladder under me and climbed, I could tell she was very upset. Somehow, probably through sheer adrenaline, my mind managed to refocus on the world and on her, able to hear her words. Once she was at eye level, she squinted her eyes at me and said viciously, “So you don’t think you deserve this punishment, do you? Don’t think this is appropriate for what you did to me? Well, why don’t you take a step back from your own selfish worldview and consider for once how I felt. You were my BEST FRIEND, you son of a bitch, and despite the endless slew of naughty things you did, I still believed in you, I still HUNG ON to our friendship.” As she said this, she rattled the top of the hanger to make sure I got the analogy; of course, this sudden jostling almost gave me a heart attack as I felt my fingers begin to slide off, a burst of adrenaline being the only thing that gave me the strength to keep from plummeting to my demise – and I knew she wouldn’t even attempt to catch me if I fell.
She continued acrimoniously, “How the hell do you think I felt, hearing you spew lie after lie but trusting in your goodness, CLINGING ON desperately to my hope that you still cared about my feelings and still had some common decency.” Her hand reached up over my head. “My faith in you would be RATTLED from time to time”—she shook my hanger forcefully, causing me to scream in terror through my closed mouth and grip my fingers around the bar as if my life depended on it – because it did. I didn’t even have time to cringe at the terrible puns she was making …
She continued, “But I wouldn’t let go, not for anything, cherishing our bond of friendship above everything else. And then, finally” –to my horror, she lifted the hanger off the light fixture and dangled it high in her hand, intentionally dipping me slightly up and down in the air as she spoke –“I discovered the truth, unmistakable and undeniable, that you were lying. About EVERYTHING.” In my delirium, I fancied I saw her eyes light up in flames; yes, she was indeed the Devil incarnate, and the last remnant of hope escaped me as I accepted death as certain. “So, now you are going to experience something of the pain I felt, the incredible AGONY as I was ripped from my supports”—A violent shake of my hanger jarred my left hand loose, now leaving me only the very tips of the fingers on my right hand to cling feebly to the bar in the last few seconds of my pitiful existence –“the pain of knowing I could no longer truly trust another human being, the despair of falling helplessly with no one to save me …”
With one last yank of the hanger, my fingertips slipped off the bar leaving nothing but air to hold on to as I began to fall. In that split second, I was almost glad it was finally happening –No, I was overjoyed, at the prospect of leaving behind my miserable life, which over the last few weeks had become nothing but endless torment and humiliation. I released myself from the world …
My freefall was suddenly brought to a halt, far sooner than I had expected. In fact, what was underneath me was far too soft and warm to be the hardwood floor down below. I thought I had closed my eyes for the last time, yet I opened them again, and my vision was filled with the enraged visage of Ms. Adams, only a foot above me. She had caught me in midair. I was wrong – she had actually caught me.
My body went slack as I passed out for a few brief moments. By the time I came to, she had descended the ladder and was bending down to pick up a few lengths of rope she had brought over, anticipating her need for them. She dumped me onto the ground – though from a height that didn’t kill me –and tightly bound my arms together, then my feet, and then brought all four limbs together and secured them in a hog tie. With her massive foot, she slid my body across the floor back into the closet and slammed the door, leaving my arms and legs painfully immobilized in front of me.
For a long time I was left there to wallow in misery, unable to adjust my position in the slightest and unable to put together a complete thought in my agony. Over the next couple hours, though, my psyche had recovered just enough that I was able to think back in disbelief to the horrors I had just been put through and reflect that this punishment had been by far the worst I had ever experienced.
The only sound I could hear, apart from my shallow breaths, was a faint mumble from the TV as she watched her shows. It sounded like Wheel of Fortune; I recalled from our years as friends that she loved game shows. Oh, Amy, she was so wonderful back then, so full of joy and compassion; she was everything good with the world. And I had just experienced first-hand how deranged and corrupted Ms. Adams had become, a far cry from the woman I used to know. My mind was broken down and beaten, until finally I began to accept that I was 100% responsible for everything that had been done to her. And all the horrible things I did to her could never have been done if I were a grown man, able to make moral decisions on my own. She was absolutely right: I could not be trusted to make my own decisions anymore; I had to be told what to do.
Just before 7:00, Ms. Adams came and collected the sad heap laying on the floor of the closet, tossing me into a duffel bag, carrying me out the front door, and dropping me like a 15-pound sack of potatoes into the trunk of her car, her mission having been thoroughly accomplished indeed.