Friends: More Will and Magna Stories

Magna as the Good Woman

Key’s still in the lock, my hand still on the key when I’m grabbed from behind, his hand over my mouth same time he turns the doorknob, and pulls the key out, pushes me into the apartment and kicks the door shut.

“Don’t scream or I’ll kill you,” he says.

Light’s out. Normally I open the door, stick my hand past the jamb and turn the light on, first thing when I get home from school. So the room’s dark, both his arms around me now, hand still over my mouth, my lips hurting from the pressure of his grip, shoulder bag he took from me and now holds, his mouth even closer to my ear.

“I mean it. Don’t say a word. Do or try to get away from me or anything I don’t want you to and I’ll kill you. I’ve killed others. Women and men, I can kill you.”

I shake my head. My hair brushes his face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He takes his hand away from my mouth a little. He could clap it back on in a second if I screamed. I’m not going to. I believe what he says. The way he grabbed and now holds me and way he speaks.

“I’ll do what you say.”

“That’s a good woman. Now where’s the rest of your money? Lead me to it.”

He puts his hand back on my mouth and I start walking to the bedroom closet. I don’t want to go to the bedroom with him but that’s where the money is. If I said I didn’t have any money he’d probably say I was lying. Everyone has some money at home. A ten, a five, and all of mine except for what’s in the shoulder bag is in the closet in a box. Better to give it and maybe he’ll get right out. So I start for the closet with him holding me from behind, arm around my chest, other hand on my mouth, my shoulder bag he’s holding bouncing against my side.

“Don’t turn the light on till I tell you,” he says.

We’re in the bedroom. He walks me to the window and pulls down the shade. Walks me to the light switch and says “Turn it on,” and I turn on the light. Dumps what’s in my shoulder bag onto the floor, takes the money from it and puts it in his pocket and kicks the bag and the books that came out of it across the room. “Now the rest of your money.”

We go to the closet. He pulls the string and the closet light goes on. “I’m letting you go now only to get the money. Yell once and you are dead, dead,” and he takes his arm from around me, pulls a knife out of his pocket, though the blade’s still in the shaft. “You believe me, right?”

I nod.

“You can speak. I’m not preventing you.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes sir? What?”

“Do you believe what I’m saying?”

“I believe you, I believe you.”

“You’re not a beautiful girl.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sure most men think you’re gorgeous but to me you’re ugly. And that’s disappointing you are. Those are my odds though.”

“What can I say.”

“Get the money.”

I reach up and get the shoe box off the closet shelf and give it to him. He opens it and takes the money.

“Anything else of value around?”

“I’ve a television, stereo, speakers, jewelry, mostly antique and costume. Take it all. It’s all right.”

“I know it’s all right.”

“I’m sorry. I was just saying.”

“You’re scared.”

“Yes I’m scared.”

“You smelled scared. Do I smell scared?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because I’m not. I’m happy. This was so easy. In getting into your downstairs was so easy and easier still that you gave me a safe place to stay for you on the stairs to the roof. You want men to wait for you to take all your things?”

“No.”

“Sure you do.”

“I don’t. I’ve nothing to do with the design of the building. That was done fifty years ago and the old downstairs lock is the landlord’s. Now please go. You have all my money.”

“The jewelry, television, whatever else of value.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot. Jewelry’s in that case.”

He grabs my arm and we go over to the jewelry case on the dresser. He opens it, looks it over, selects what he wants from it and sticks the jewelry into his pockets.

“That’s the TV?”

“Only one.”

“Too big. It’d take two of us to carry. Stereo’s probably no good either. They’d see me a block away with it unless you have a suitcase I can fit it in. Where’s the stereo?”

“The other room.”

“I like this room.”

“I don’t have a stereo here.”

“But I like it. A bed. Get undressed.”

“Please, I don’t want to.”

‘“Please, I don’t want to.’” He takes the knife out of his pocket and opens it. “I’ve used this. But first show me the suitcase and stereo but suitcase first.”

If I lived on the second floor I’d run to the window, throw it open and jump out and maybe even jump through it without opening it. I’d risk the stitches and broken leg, two of them, broken hips, a broken head, to avoid getting raped and maybe knifed and killed. But I’m four flights up. He’d beat me to the door. Or if I beat him to it, by the time I opened it he could knife me. Would he? How much is bluff? He seems he would. And knife me after he raped me? Seems there’d be less chance of that than hi s doing it if I tried to escape, just because I did what he asked and didn’t anger him. I don’t know. I’ll give him what he wants, even suggest things I have he didn’t think of — the blender, an antique figurine — and then plead with him to leave. If he doesn’t, if he insists, if I see there’s no way I can convince him otherwise or escape without getting knifed, I’ll give in.

I get the suitcase out of the bedroom closet. He takes me to the livingroom, pulls down the shade, turns on the lights, says to sit right beside him on the floor next to the stereo.

“I don’t think it’ll fit,” I say.

He turns it on, listens to it, unplugs and fits it into the suitcase by a couple of inches on all sides, closes the case and lifts it by the handle, testing its weight.

“It’s so light I can even run with it.”

“Now please go.”

“First undress for me. Later I go.”

“I don’t want to undress. I want you to go. You got what you wanted. All this must sound trite. But you got what you wanted. You want a blender — a little valuable statue also, but the blender almost brand-new, take them. I’m not feeling well anyway.”

“Blenders and toasters you get nothing for and statues can be traced. And you look fine.”

“I’ve the flu. That’s what my hacking’s all about, maybe if not here then when I was coming upstairs. I’m also having my period. Besides that I’ve this terrible yeast infection down there that will end up in anybody’s body — the genital area — that I come in contact with. It won’t be worth it. You’ll have to go to a doctor. It’s quite crummy looking and will itch like mad for you when you get it. Just go. I won’t report you.”

“I’ll see if you have infections and periods. Get undressed or I’ll stick this in you now.”

He puts the knife to my throat and motions me to stand. We stand and I take off my jacket and start taking off my blouse. He rips the blouse down when I get some of the buttons undone. He squeezes my nipples and steps back to observe them. “How come they don’t get erect? Usually when I play with them like that they get erect. But I like a woman without a bra. Easy street door and roof stairs and no bunkmate or bra, you made it simple for me. Now the rest of you. Make it quick and I’ll get out of here quick.”

“Get out of here now. Please. I’m serious that I’m not well. And I swear I won’t report you. But if you hurt me in any way I’ll have to report you as I’ll have to go to the hospital and they’ll ask me and they’ll call the police and I’ll have to tell them about you. If they have your picture, I could recognize it without even wanting to.”

“They don’t have my picture. But if they did and even if I didn’t hurt you, you’ll go the police and look through a million pictures to find me. I’ve nothing to lose, whether I do anything more to you or not, that’s what I’m saying, so take off the damn rest of your clothes.”

I shut my eyes and just stand there. He pulls my belt out, unzips the skirt and pulls it down to the floor, pulls the panties down to my ankles, slaps my calf, I pick each of my feet up and step out of the panties and skirt and then he tugs on my sleeve and I take off what’s left of the blouse.

“You’re so hairy,” he says. “Not that I’m complaining. You’ve nice legs and tits though. Turn halfway around.” I do. “So-so. Now into the other room.”

He sticks the knife into my arm and I feel the sharp end of it. I go into the bedroom with him beside me. He takes off his pants. He doesn’t have on underpants. He’s already erect. He motions me and I sit on the bed. He gets on the bed, lays the knife on the floor and says “Everything I want you do for me and don’t even get a little mean.” He grabs my head from behind and pushes it down till my cheek touches his penis and forces my mouth to the tip of it and says “Open your teeth and pull them back,” and jerks my head up and down on it so I have to open my throat all the way or choke while at the same time he puts his finger in my vagina and says “Wet…get wet…I want to go in easy.”

He does this with my head and his finger for a few minutes. At one point I start gagging and feel I have to vomit and he hears me and releases my head but not his finger.

“Don’t throw up on me, I warn you. I’d kill you just for that.”

“I won’t.”

“If I’m too big, I won’t push you that far on me again — that’s my one consolation.”

“Okay.”

What I’m feeling is I can’t stand this. My eyes are shut when he brings me down on him again. I’m trying to imagine I’m someone else. Or that thing is something else but it can’t be. Or I’m someplace else. Not with another man. At the moment I hate all men. I’m trying to think this isn’t happening to me. I’m trying to think this can’t be happening to me, it’s a dream. And I’m a machine. Someone has turned me on, put a coin in the slot, put a plug in the socket, something, a battery in my head and me the machine I’m just performing as a machine would, top half of me going up and down on some other machine, doing a machine function but not with a man. I’m made of metal, solid, cold, disposable or with some crazy man, because my mind can’t seem to change him into a machine, who likes doing it with a machine, but I can’t feel it or him or even be thinking of that now because a machine can’t feel or think.

But his finger’s still in me and hurting my vagina. I don’t want to get wet nor can I get wet at will. I try pulling out his finger. He keeps it in. I tap his hand holding my head. He keeps doing what he’s been doing. I slap his hand. He lets go of my head and I sit up.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to slap you but your finger’s hurting me a lot. I told you I have a serious infection.”

“You also said you were bleeding and have the flu.”

“I do have the flu. I wasn’t lying. And my bleeding stopped this morning but sometimes I can bleed more than a day after I think I’ve stopped. But the infection’s real. I can’t have sex. It’s going to stay dry because of the infection. You’re hurting me a lot down there, still hurting me, please let me alone and go.”

He takes his finger out. “You’re lying. And you have to have something. Every woman has something like Vaseline. Baby oil. Even regular cooking oil. Get any of those. Now which is it going to be?”

“I have some baby oil.”

He goes with me to the bathroom, gets the baby oil out of the medicine chest and tells me to sit halfway off the seat and I do and he squirts oil into his palm and smears it in me. He grabs my wrist and leads me back to the bed. He shoves me into the bed. I’m on my back. I try to turn on my side but he slaps my chest and I stay on my back. He gets on top of me and sticks his penis next to my mouth.

“Open.”

“Please.”

He forces my lips apart by stretching the corners of my mouth till they hurt. He does the same thing he did before with my head. My neck aches this time and for the first time he’s making groaning sounds. I look. He’s staring straight down at me. I close my eyes. I wish he’d just come and then go. Maybe I should help him, jerk his penis a little to get it over with. I touch him there.

“No tricks. I want to do it fast but slow, my own speed. Hold it if you want.”

I take my hand away. He does it the same way with me for minutes. My entire head hurts. I feel like choking but open my mouth wider so I won’t. I can’t get used to it or block it out. I even try to think he’s someone I like doing it with, but nothing in my imagination works. I hate it, hate him. I want to bite him, kill him. I should do something. Biting him, he’d kill me or come close. Biting him off, I don’t think I could do all the way through or even near to it and I have to do something I know for sure will incapacitate him completely and for minutes and that I know I also can do. Because I now think there’s as much chance of him killing me as not. Before I thought there was more of a chance he’d just rape me and go. Now I think he’ll rape me and then wait around taunting me and rape me again and maybe even a third time and then he’ll hate me so much for having been raped by him or for whatever I am or have become to him or for any such reason that he’ll kill me or knife me badly. Just to stop me from identifying him he could kill me. So I have to do something to him. All this while he’s pushing my head back and forth on him and using his finger.

Then he stops both, takes a big breath, pulls on my earlobe almost tenderly and bends over and starts kissing me. Sticks his tongue in. He’s very wet around the mouth. His spit pours through, dribbles down his chin onto mine. He nips my lips with his teeth. Nips them harder and my tongue and I shriek and jerk my head away because he bit through my lip and I can taste my blood.

“I get overexcited,” he says.

“Don’t bite. You want to kiss, I’ll kiss.”

We start kissing. He puts his arms around me and I put mine around him and rub my hands up and down his back like he’s doing to me. I want to get him involved with the kissing while I think of something to end all this. It takes a lot of concentration to kiss as if I mean it while same time trying to think hard about something to save my life. The knife. At the end of the bed on the floor. Not that I could get to it as he’s much stronger than I and with one blow if I lunged for it he could knock me off the bed.

I could scream. He’ll kill me. Fight back. Overpower me. Jab him in the eyes. I might not hit them right and then he could tie my hands up or something and I couldn’t do anything more. His balls. I know they can hurt. I know how delicate they are for sure. Some of my men friends. Several times over the years I just touched their testicles a little more than a little and each one of them said it hurt. Don’t even pat them one of them once said. One man’s I just squeezed affectionately I thought and it gave him one of the worst jolts of anyone I ever saw. His stomach pain and being doubled up lasted half a minute or more and if a ball had hit it as happened a few times in his life, he said, he’d have dropped right to the floor. How in the service, he or another man said, one soldier was being strangled by another on top of him and when the top one wouldn’t stop or get off, the bottom one smashed his testicles between his hand and the man on top was knocked unconscious by the blow and had to be hospitalized and almost died.

He stops kissing me. “Now spread your legs.”

“Let me do it once more to you down there with my mouth.”

“Don’t tell me you’re suddenly beginning to like it.”

“As long as you’re going to do it with me, I might as well enjoy it — I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“The truth. Just lick it a little. I’ll see how much you like it. You can be sure I’ll get into it more if you do. Try anything funny though, you’re finished.”

“Lie back comfortably.”

“I’m fine where I am.”

He’s sitting up. I bend over his penis and hold it with both hands and start to lick it. Then with one hand I stroke his testicles and then squeeze them real hard and he jumps and he’s screaming but stops and starts coughing and choking and falls back on his back and bounces up and down on his shoulders and then I release them a little and shout “Don’t move, stop bouncing, don’t touch me, stay there or I’ll squeeze them so hard they’ll break and you’ll die right here on the bed or else never move again — I know, I’ve worked in hospitals, so don’t even try and get up, you hear? Say yes, say yes.”

“Yes, yes.”

I maneuver my knees to the floor while he’s crying and saying “No, no, oh stop, please, oh,” and I say “I’m going to let you go. But I’m first going to crawl you to the door while I squeeze your balls. I won’t scream for anyone. I’ll talk softly as I am now. You’ll have to put up with the pain. I just want you out of here. You carry your pants while I crawl you to the door and put them on in the hall. What you do once you get out there is your business but I’ll give you five minutes to get dressed and out of the building and then I call the police. That’s a promise. But make one bad move, don’t fool with me — try and hit me or get away, anything, whatever you try and do before you get to that outside hall and by the time your arm swings around or anything, I’ll smash your balls in with my hands, okay?”

“Yes.”

All this time I’m squeezing them just enough to keep plenty of pain coming in and he is in great pain. He’s practically screaming. He probably would be screaming if he let himself make loud sounds. I say “Now turn around on the bed on your stomach and get off the bed backwards and slowly till you’re on your knees in front of me and don’t let me lose my grip on your balls. I’ll be right behind holding on to them and you’re to crawl very slowly to the door. I will kill your balls if you try anything but what I want you to, understand?”

“Yes.”

He turns over on the bed and gets on his knees on the floor in the direction of the front door. I stand bent over behind him and keep squeezing them just so there’s enough pressure to keep him in great pain. “Now move,” I say, “crawl,” and he starts crawling to the door while dragging his pants, all the time making noises how he hurts, “can’t take it, go any more, the pain, oh, stop, please,” hair and face full of sweat, tears coming out too. I don’t say anything and it takes about five minutes to get to the front door.

I say “Now get up in a slight crouching position but with your rear end facing me.” He does. I keep a tight grip on his balls with one hand and with the other unlock the door. “Now down,” I say, “on your knees, rear end up,” and I get on my knees too.

“Now I’m going to open the door by turning the doorknob and when the door’s open enough for you to fit through, you start crawling through. When you’re far enough out of the door I’ll let go of you and slam the door, so bring in your foot or you’ll lose that foot that’s sticking out too.”

“Neighbors.”

“What about them?”

“See me. They. I’m caught.”

“I’ll look out first to see they’re not there. I shouldn’t be so kind to you.”

“Have to. Or else. Else I try get you. Or away. But please, quick, hurry, no talk, to release me.”

“Okay. Get in a crouch again. Rear up.” He does and I stand, hold on to his balls with one hand and open the door. “Come closer to me.” He moves towards me backwards. I can look down the hallway now. “Someone’s coming up the stairs,” and I duck back in and shut the door.

“Christ,” he says. “Someone would. Let go. I won’t run.”

“No. You’re a sonofabitch and I hate your guts and wish I could squeeze these to sawdust now but I can’t because if I did you wouldn’t keep your part of the bargain you’re doing now, right?”

“Shh. They hear. I won’t touch you. Too in pain. I’m. Can’t even stand. Please. Let go. Killing me.”

“Shut up. Step a step backwards.” He does. I open the door, look down the hall. “Don’t stop. Just crawl out slowly.”

He starts crawling into the hallway. When his foot’s just past the threshold I slam the door, lock and latch it and scream “Help, police, rapist, in the hallway, someone call the police, for the fifth floor, everybody call,” when I really had thought I’d give him a few minutes to get away. I can’t call as I want to be right here to snap the lock back if he somehow gets it unlocked or the latch back in or just to keep my shoulder against the door and myself screaming if he tries to get back in.

He doesn’t. I look through the peephole and see him struggling to get his pants on. He’s on the floor, having trouble getting the first trouser leg over the shoe. He’s still crying, face in great pain. He stands with the pants, falls to the floor. He beats the floor with his fist, but lightly, as he doesn’t seem to have the strength for anything more. I want to open the door and with the lamp near me smash him over the head. But he might suddenly revive by then. So I keep screaming and looking at him and his eyes are almost closed as he tries to get the same trouser leg over the shoe. Then he stands, holds his testicles and sort of drags himself with the pants in his hand to the stairs and down them.

Three days later I get a phone call. I’d seen the police here and went to the station and wasn’t able to pick his picture out of the thousands they showed me. The man on the phone says “Remember me?”

“The police have a tap on all my phones.”

“Bullshit. Think they can afford it every time some woman meets a new man? But you remember me.”

“All right. Talk at your own risk. Longer the better I was told.”

“You almost killed me with that hold.”

“I wanted to, so feel lucky I let you go.”

“You let me go because you had to. I wish I’d killed you when I had the chance from the start. I’m all better now. Took a couple of days to recover. You want to try it again?”

“Oh sure.”

“I know your name.”

“Get lost.”

“Of course you don’t and I wouldn’t trust you if you said you did. You’d call the police and they’d be there in a minute. And that nutcracker grip of yours. Where’d you learn it? I want to know if it was in the newspapers before I met you and so how widespread it’s known.”

“Why the call?”

“You were a bastard for shouting like that when I was in the hall. You broke your promise.”

“I didn’t think. It was all my emotion unleashing or something. But you have to expect that when you treat someone as you did me.”

“What did I do to you, Magna? Come on, just what did I do that’s so bad to you?”

“You’re so stupid. Anyway, you got away.”

“You didn’t see any photos of me at the police, did you?”

“No I didn’t.”

“There aren’t any. But I have killed women. Nicer women than you too and I’m going to kill you. That’s why I called. In the next week I’m going to get you on the street, force you into your apartment or a car or just be in your apartment or on the stairs again waiting for you. If you go to your friends I’ll get you there and kill them too. First I’m going to rape you though till you hurt as much as you made me hurt. No more baby oil. I’m going to make you suffer real hard. And no chance of your hands stopping me because they’ll be tied from the start.”

“Finished?”

“No, I got much more to say.”

“Well I don’t.” I hang up.

He calls right back. “I meant everything I said.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I mean and what I swear you made me be. If you ever come here or any place I am or whatever next time you say you’ll try anything with me, I’ll bite or slice but cut both your balls and your penis off — now take your choice, and you’re right, I don’t need any fucking police tap, but take your choice but that’s what’s going to happen to you, now do you hear me good?” There’s silence at the other end and then he hangs up.