Free Hell To Pay by Jenny Thomson

color when we last met."
    I've changed into my jeans and ditched the wig. My long red hair tumbles down my shoulders.
    By his reaction the dumb bastard clearly has no idea what I'm talking about.
    Shaking my head in exaggerated disappointment, I say, “You don’t even remember me and the time we spent together? There was three of us.”
    Tutting, I stroll over to where he’s trussed up, naked apart from his pee stained boxer shorts, his curses drowned out by the gag I’d stuffed into his gob (well, I don’t want the neighbors to hear) and I lean over so he gets a good view of the breasts he’d mutilated with a knife. The skin graft didn’t take and now I'm left with marks from where he tried to cut off my nipples: the sick fuck clearly has mommy issues.
    "You don’t recognize your own handiwork, Paul?"
    I spit the words into his face. I’m rewarded when he flinches. For the first time I can smell something other than B.O: the heady stench of fear. The stink should repulse me, but I feel something else: gratification.
    "You know who I am now, don’t you?"
    For a brief moment, I remove the gag so he can speak.
    "Fuck you, bitch."
    His speech is slurring, and in spite of the defiance in his voice, I can tell the reality of his situation is hitting home. His erection's gone. 
    "That's not very nice."
    I march over and punch him in the balls. His roar of pain is cut off by me putting the gag back in place.
    'If you can't say anything nice, then maybe you shouldn't say anything at all. Capice?'
    He glares at me.
    "25 William Wallace Road, ring any bells?"
    No recognition. Maybe he’s raped so many women and murdered their families that they all fade into one. Better give him a wee reminder.
    "Maybe I should tattoo 'Rapist' across your stomach like Lisbeth Salander?"
    There's a lack of understanding on his face. He's not a reader, which comes as no surprise.
    A wide grin spreads across my face and I make a big show of looking round the room.
    I whistle through my teeth. "Damn, I don’t have a tattoo kit. What’s a girl to do?"
    I tell him to wait there, which makes me chuckle because it’s not like he can go anywhere.
    Marching over to the kitchen, I pull a knife from the block I bought especially for our little games. Gripping the knife makes me feel strangely powerful. Is that how it starts, the desire to hurt someone? The thrill of having someone at your mercy? Do you get drunk on the power you wield?
    Maybe this is how Conlan felt when he used a blade to carve crisscrosses into my breasts as I howled behind my gag, before passing out with the pain. But, I’m not a monster like him; I’m getting revenge for what he did to me. We are different.
    Holding up the knife, I make sure the glint catches in his startled eyes.
    The memory of what he did to me makes the bile rise in my throat and I have to leave the room until the nausea goes. Flopping down on the couch, I picture my parents as I last saw them and in an instant my self-pity is swept away in a torrent of hatred for this pathetic excuse for a man.
    I stand up and almost skip into the room where my prey awaits. This is my place, my rules. I get to decide what happens here. I'm in control.
    There's a frown on my chops as I eye the bloated monster before me. He’s not such a big man now, tied to the bed, in his pee-stained pants.
    "Honey, I’m home," I chirp.
    As I watch him struggling against his binds, I remember how I struggled to get away, but all my attempts were futile. I remember the helplessness I felt; the complete loss of control. One thought overtaking all others: I'm going to die here in the one place I’ve always felt safe.
    Seeing the pitiful state he’s in, maybe I should pity him, but, he showed me no pity. When I stared into his eyes as he abused me, there was nothing there but cold, hard stone. I was a nothing to him and he got off on my pain.
    "You killed my parents."
    I say it in a matter of fact way as if I'm talking about the weather.