Day One.
The first thing I coherently remember him saying was “You will be keeping a journal.” At that moment, laying naked on a bare mattress, my back bleeding from the hundreds of lashes I’d just been given, I could not even remember what a journal was. I had to fight to keep my eyes open, to keep from losing consciousness again. But my eyelids were so heavy… and the mattress, while not as comfy as my one back home, was extremely inviting, and I felt like it was sending out talking vibrations, telling me to close my eyes, drop my head on the mattress, and sleep for a long, long time.
“Julia.” I heard him say my name, but I didn’t know why, or what I was supposed to do or say in response. I heard him sigh, then say, “Fuck. Gonna have to clean you up first…” he muttered some more, but I couldn’t decipher it. I heard him leave and enter the room numerous times, and then all of a sudden, his hand was on my shoulder.
I let out a soundless scream, my throat completely raw and my voice completely gone from all the screaming I did when he was beating me.
“It’s okay, Julia. I’m just going to get you cleaned up, okay?” I only had the strength to hold my head about two inches above the mattress, and zero strength to look at anything but the white fabric. “Julia. Look at me, Julia. I know you are in pain, but if you do not look at me this instant you are going to be in one hell of a lot more.” I knew he would absolutely make good on his threat, so I gritted my teeth and turned my head slightly, just enough to make eye contact with him. He gaze darted towards what was sitting next to him, so mine did, too: there were two buckets, one filled with warm and the other with cold water, a very, very large bottle of hydrogen peroxide, gauze pads and bandages. I looked back at him. “I am going to clean up your back, bottom, legs and feet. Then I’ll get you something to cover up with, and then we are going to have a little chat. Do you understand, little girl?”
During the beating, he told me I was to always address him as “Sir,” and he would call me “whatever the fuck I feel like, depending on how you’re acting.” But I had no voice, and holding my head up and keeping eye contact with him was draining strength from me that I didn’t even have. The only thing I could think to do was give him a thumbs-up with my hand that was closest to him.
“Alright, I suppose that’s fine for now,” he said. “Alright. This is going to hurt. A lot. But it will get better, I promise,” he said, as he wetted a gauze pad with hydrogen peroxide. He started with my feet, and when the gauze hit the tender under-side of my left foot, my head bucked back and my whole upper body arched in painful protest, another silent scream emitting from my throat.
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