Free All of Her Men by Lourdes Bernabe Page A

existent window. Now I was terrified.
     
    Chapter 14

The man, whom I’d never seen before, bent down right in front of my face and stared deep into my eyes. "Hello Clarice."
Had he really just said that? It was fleeting moments like this that often made me wonder if I was secretly living on a reality show where weird shit happens just to get a reaction from me. Somewhere on the opposite side of the world, rooms full of people were watching my life unravel. If they did exist, I sure hoped they were getting more of a kick out of this than I was.
He laughed uncontrollably. Apparently something was hilarious. I stared back at him trembling.
"Sorry. I always wanted to say that," he said.
Fear subsided as anger took it's rightful place at my core. My eyes had to be fooling me somehow. I felt like I was losing my sense of reality. Yes. Yes that was it. I'm losing my grip on reality.
I was really back in my living room asleep on the couch having another dark and twisted nightmare. I wasn’t all alone in this room with this man who just quoted a line from "The Silence of the Lambs" while strapped down to this disgusting chair.
"Ok. I know you're really pissed. And...you're probably wondering what the hell you're doing here. I promise that I won't hurt you and neither will anyone else. It was just the only way. Ok?" He said shrugging his shoulders. As if this was a perfectly normal everyday situation.
He didn’t look like he planned to hurt me. But looks only went so far. What was I supposed to make of this? Was this some sick game? Was I supposed to believe this guy kidnapped me so we could bake a nice homemade pumpkin pie as we sat by the fire and told ghost stories? Highly unlikely.
"Who the fuck are you?" I spat in his direction. "What do you want?" Were those the questions you asked when you'd been taken? He just kept staring at me with a blank expression on his face. Did I have a glitter stick coming out of my ass or something? Anger always did bring about a certain vulgarity in me.
“Why the fuck are you just staring at me? What's going on?" I asked taking my volume and kicking it up a few notches. Was he amused? Did he find this to be funny?
"I gotta say I don't quite get the joke..." I spewed at him. I couldn't figure out if maybe I knew this guy from somewhere. My tired eyes peered on and I couldn't place him anywhere familiar.
He was white, about 6 foot with a medium build with fairly shaped muscles. He wore a scruffy looking face but I could still tell that he wasn't that old. He was fairly young, maybe 30 or so.
"You really need to start telling me what the fuck is going on right now!" I’d lost all patience.
"I know," he responded. "Look. Just relax. I know who you are...I mean…I know what you are."
The notes. The packages. 09 07 13. This is what that was all about. Finally. Oh finally.
    "I got your notes...and the knife," I said. "But I gotta say, I still don't get it. What is it that you want?"
"We only want one thing," he stated point blank.
"You."
Me? I don't get it. What could they possibly want me for? They had the wrong girl. Maybe they've confused me with some other Jolene Hedon. They've got the wrong girl! The screaming in my head wouldn't stop.
"Why me? What is this about?"
"You're who we call THE QUEEN," he said rather seriously. His shoulders relaxed and he looked back at me in earnest admiration.
What the fuck was he talking about? I was no queen. I suppose in my own narcissistic way of thinking, I was a queen. In my own little world, I was the queen. The world, in which, I killed men mercilessly for no other reason than my own pleasure and satisfaction.
But this man said Queen as if he were referring to the Queen of England. I was fairly certain that I was not the fucking Queen of England. There wasn’t much I could be certain of in my life, but as to the question of being a Queen no less the Queen of England, I was pretty damn sure.
"Ok. I see from the look on your face that