This Won't Hurt

Kelly Zhertva was hiding in a bathroom stall as girls from her 3rd period class walked in. She could tell who they were by their perfume, which mixed together was almost nauseating. She’d been dodging them all day because Cleo, leader of this trio of malignant narcissists, wanted to give Kelly a piece of her mind. Kelly knew most people couldn’t understand why she was with Shane, whom everyone at Small Haven High knew as Vulcan.

“See you guys in class, gotta fix my mascara,” said Cleo.

“Bye bitch” replied her friends in unison as they left the bathroom. Kelly looked as Cleo’s feet went from facing the sink to facing Kelly’s stall.

“I knew I would find you here,” said Cleo.

“I don’t wanna hear it Cleo,” said Kelly as she stood up and picked up her backpack. Cleo walked over and leaned on the door of the stall, putting her whole weight onto it. Kelly unlocked the stall and tried to push herself out, but Cleo wouldn’t budge.

“I may be 95, but I am dense when I need to be,” said Cleo.

“I said I don’t wanna fucking hear it Cleo,” said Kelly, struggling to get the door open.

“Bitch, I don’t even care that you like getting tied up and whipped,” said Cleo, “what bothers me is you did it with him.”

“Who I fuck is none of your business,”

“It is when that person is bragging about it to everyone,”

“I know that Shane has been acting differently lately, but I know he wouldn’t actually hurt me, he loves me,” said Kelly, desperately trying to escape the stall.

“His dick must’ve made you forget how he’s been openly spanking you in front of everyone,” said Cleo “not to mention he’s Vulcan, Mr. Aggression Equals Passion. We’ve all seen the bruises and welts on your body when we shower after gym class. It’s only a matter of time before one ends up on your face.”

***

Cleo left the bathroom, having said everything on her mind. Kelly sat back down on the toilet seat as tears trickled slowly down her face. Could Shane end up really hurting me? Kelly asked herself. She really was in love with him, and she knew he loved her too. Sure, he was prone to outbursts, but he always apologized and would always make it up to her somehow. His aggressive personality is what drew her to him in the first place. She loved that barbaric side of him that other girls seemed to turn their nose at.

She loved how he would get aggressive in her defense, shouting and threatening to fight guys who disrespected her, even if it meant he’d get detention. But things were different now, especially after their Heavenly Saturday as he called it. He’d been asking to try BDSM for three whole months, becoming obsessed with it after watching a few too many videos. He showed her some of his favorite tapes and she did admit that it turned her on.

While she left that side of herself in his bedroom, the master mentality stuck in Shane’s head permanently. He’d been ordering her around a lot, and he also had been referring to himself as her Master around his friends. She was also mad at him because he told everyone about what happened that Saturday. That shit stays in the bedroom Shane! she remembers saying to him. Every day to him since that Saturday, but he just brushed it off. Kelly continued to run circles in her head all day until eventually the end of school bell rang and she went off to meet up with Shane.

***

“I can’t decide what I want to do after I graduate,” said Shane as he and Kelly walked home.

“We don’t have to know right away,” said Kelly as she got out a piece of gum, “there’s still a lot of time between now and graduation,”

“I mean I’d like to go to a tech school, but I also wanna be a lumberjack like my Dad,” said Shane, smiling as he spoke.

“You’ve always liked working with your hands,” said Kelly, smiling back at him.

“Speaking of my Dad, this weekend he’s out of town, I got the whole house to myself” said Shane excitedly.

“That sounds nice” said Kelly before she threw the gum wrapper down a storm drain.

“We could drink some more of my Dad’s whiskey and try this new thing I saw,” said Shane “you see you’d put on a rubber glove, and when you go down on me you’d--”

“Shane, I don’t think I wanna do that,”

“C’mon, you have to, I’m your master,”

“Dammit Shane, you’ve been treating me like a fuck doll ever since last Saturday,”

“Yeah but, you are my slave, you said you’d be my sub forever,”

“Yeah, in the bedroom, but not out here,” said Kelly, “you didn’t have to tell everyone what we did either.”

Shane looked at Kelly in shock, with a wave of rage starting to show on his face.

“Did that bitch Cleo corner you today?” asked Shane.

“She confronted me in the bathroom and fucking unloaded on me,” said Kelly as she started to cry.

“That fucking bitch, who gives a fuck what she thinks, fuck her” said Shane angrily.

“She wouldn’t have confronted me if you had kept your fucking mouth shut!” yelled Kelly. Shane stepped back before taking another verbal swing.

“Why are you so angry about it? You told me you were into it, especially because of your lame ass mom,” said Shane, smiling deviously.

“Please don’t bring up my mom right now,” said Kelly as more tears rolled down her face.

“I can say what the fuck I want fucking slut,” said Shane as he leaned toward Kelly’s face.

“At least my mom didn’t try to kill me! At least my dad isn’t so afraid of her that he keeps a gun under his FUCKING PILLOW!” shouted Kelly, getting right into Shane’s face.

***

When his fist collided with the right side of her face she was immediately reminded of her childhood. When she was six she did little league softball, where she was always in the outfield. One day she was at practice, this girl hit the ball as hard as a kid could. She thought she had her glove lined up just right, but the sun caused her to be off by a few inches. The ball left her with a bruised cheek, but his hit left her with that and more. As she looked at Shane deliriously she felt what seemed like gravel in her mouth.

She spit out the chunks in a glob of bloody spit. Shane looked at the splatter in horror and quickly counted to four with his fingers. Kelly had spat out two incisors, a canine, and a premolar, as well as the green spearmint gum. Kelly could barely think, let alone see clearly, but she was able to kind of make out what Shane was saying. Something about how the hit was her fault, how she was out of line, and that she’d tell her parents this happened because she fell off her skateboard. And that’s exactly what she told her parents when she got home, avoiding the topic of Shane all together.

Kelly sat in her room for the rest of the evening, thinking about how Shane had assaulted her. A thousand questions ponged around her head, making the pain she already felt even worse. Did I go overboard? Did I deserve to get hit? Was Cleo right? Kelly thought that the answer to all of these was yes, but the rage, hate, and sadness she felt towards Shane kept her from feeling blame. Cleo was absolutely right, like she saw the future before it even happened. She could feel no love for Shane anymore, and felt even less love for herself. She knew that if she didn’t get Shane out of her life then moments like these would happen weekly, daily even. But then she thought that if she left Shane, then some other girl after her and more girls later on would feel his wrath. Some words of her father echoed in her head, words with the weight of 20 years of serving justice and the people.

“All it takes is one act, one punch, one bullet to turn someone evil, and it takes people like us to take care of these evil men.”

She used to think these were the boastful words of a police lieutenant who had busted five meth labs in one month, but now they really resonated with her. How would she do it? she asked herself. How would she stop this evil man? When she decided what she would do she immediately called Shane, apologizing to him for making him mad and excitedly telling him that she couldn’t wait to see him tomorrow.

***

Shane was already drunk when Kelly went to his house.

“You want some of this?” asked Shane as he offered Kelly a bottle of Seagrams 7.

“You know I don’t like that one,” said Kelly as she pushed away the bottle.

“Didn’t I say yah had to fuckin do what I told you,” said Shane as he stumbled back into the house. It was definitely a challenge for him to walk, especially since he had downed half of the bottle.

“Tell ya what, you finish up my share while I get some condoms from your Dad’s bathroom and a pair of rubber gloves from the kitchen,” said Kelly as she helped him keep steady.

“You bet I can do tha-,” said Shane as he plopped down in the middle of the living room. Kelly went to grab the stuff as loud gulps echoed from the living room. The bottle was empty by the time she got back to the living room. “That took a minute, but it gave me plenty of time to knock out this bottle,”

“Sorry, your dad moved stuff around and I couldn’t find the shit as easily,” said Kelly.

“Well you go get comfortable on my bed, I’m gonna go see if my dad has some more whiskey,” said Shane, who got up and stumbled toward the basement stairs. Kelly went into Shane’s room, put on the rubber gloves, and quickly opened an Appleworks document on Shane’s purple iMac G3. She typed faster than she’d ever typed before, but what she typed wasn’t very long. Afterwards she stripped to her underwear, put her clothes in a plastic bag and hid them behind an armchair next to his closet, and sat down on his creaky bed. I look like the step-sister from the shitty porn he showed me, Kelly thought to herself. A few moments later Shane stumbled into his room and sat down at his desk.

“Watch what I can do,” said Shane before he downed a shooter of Jack Daniels with one gulp, “you ready to have some fun?"

“You know I am, but first I want you to read what’s on the screen there,” replied Kelly. Shane sat down in his swivel chair and turned it toward his computer. He got his head real close to the computer’s screen and began to slowly read the sentences Kelly had written.

“Well Mom and Dad----the, uh, time has come? Sorry----I couldn’t be the man---I should’ve---been. This---won’t---hurt.”

***

A bullet whizzed through Shane’s head and into the globe on the other side of him by his desk. Kelly had put his dad’s gun up next to his right temple, and since he was so drunk he didn’t feel a thing. Tears came out of Kelly’s eye’s, just as fast as the bullet came out of the gun.

“I’m so sorry Shane! I’m so sorry!” wailed Kelly, but her wails eventually ceased as she remembered her cause. She couldn’t stop thinking about how happy she was that she and countless other women would be spared from his wrath. “The new millennium is safe from your rage, Vulcan,” said Kelly as she wiped away tears before she put the Browning Hi-Power into his hand. Her plan was successful and she knew she was free, and she was even more satisfied knowing she had ended an evil man. Kelly did make one mistake as she left Shane’s house, leaving Shane’s body for his father. The mistake Kelly made was she assumed this would be the last time she would kill, the last time she would end a life.