He bends his head down and pins his ear to Stan’s chest, then waits for a second to see if anything happens. I know that this is my moment and as he starts to talk about how you can tell if a person is really dead, I visualise the best place on his body to drive this knife into. I settle on his neck, hoping that it will sever an artery or perhaps enter his head and slice through his corrupted brain. I move quickly, turning the knife in my hand until it’s at the right angle to do as much damage as possible, and then I lunge towards him.
Everything seems to move slowly. He moves his body back, forcing me to thrust forward. I lunge quickly, stretching over Stan’s cold corpse. The knife stays on course until the last moment, puncturing the skin and penetrating his shoulder, but I know this alone is unlikely to kill him. I imagine that he must have been almost hoping that this would happen – my assault upon him ending any truce that might have existed between us and now justifying any attack he will now make upon me.
He screams out in pain as I feel the blade hit a bone, my determination driving it onwards. He falls back onto the floor and I think about leaping over the bed and continuing my assault. But then I remember his strength, and the possibility that this wounded bear still has a good deal of fight left in him, and so I decide to drop the knife and make my way towards the door.
As he shouts and screams, I try to get the coffee table out of the way. I pull at the top of the sofa, but my blood-soaked hands are not able to get a firm grip on it, then I manage to get hold of the bottom and start dragging it away from the door, knowing that more obstacles still stand between me and my freedom.
I look over to see he is getting up from the floor, his hands pulling at Stan’s legs in order to help himself up.
‘Clever, Gloria, very clever. Your punishment will now be even greater – your pain now prolonged.’
His words are enough to give my body strength I didn’t know I had. The sofa moves a little, enough for me to get to the small dresser. I pull at it and with one shove it lands on the floor. I can see the door and my freedom but then I see the lock and the handle that has been broken off.
I turn around to see him standing up, the knife now in his hand, blood running down his shoulder. He looks at the door, to where the handle should be, and he laughs. ‘Your judgement and death in this place was always inevitable.’
As he starts to make his way towards me I give in and run to the bathroom. He staggers in the same direction, but just in time, I push the door closed and manage to lock it, just as he gets hold of the handle.
I stagger backwards, sitting down on the toilet seat, all the time watching the handle move up and down. His screaming is drowned out by his banging on the door and I don’t know how long it will hold. I look around for a better weapon than the last one, but in this moment of darkness I see nothing but Antonio’s sweet face.
I pull out my phone and dial his number, knowing that it will never work. I wait as the network decides what it will do; I seem to remain in that limbo between a ringing tone and a voicemail that seems to last for an eternity. When it starts ringing I feel a rush of hope, even when I think about the impossible odds. All I know that he has gone to his family in the south of Spain. When he got the message a week ago, he left immediately; he didn’t know what had happened, but his family had said it was urgent. Now I need him here, far more than they ever will.
‘Hello?’ the voice says. It is obviously Antonio, but he sounds different somehow. I can barely hear his voice over the background noise of shouting and cars beeping.
‘Antonio! Oh, God, Antonio! Where are you? I desperately need you.’
‘Gloria?’ he says, sounding doubtful. ‘This is a difficult time for me, for all of us. I cannot talk now and I must go.’
‘Please don’t… please don’t do that,’ I shout, trying to force my desperation down the phone line and into the mind of my only real lover. ‘I really need you. Listen, I’m still in London. I have so much to tell you, but someone is attacking me.’
He doesn’t say anything in return. The noise in his background is deafening and sounds like many sirens are all around him.
‘Did you hear me, Antonio? Someone is attacking me and I need you!’
‘People are being attacked everywhere. You see what is happening? You must see it?’
I don’t answer, seeing the handle stop moving and the door start shaking as my personal devil bashes against it.
I don’t know what else I can do, what else I can say and so I start to cry. ‘Antonio, I’m so scared. Please help me.’
‘I cannot help you because I must get home to my family before it’s too late. You must realise that this is goodbye, Gloria.’
‘No, please!’ I scream, competing with the sounds of crashing fists against thin wood, as I look up to see his angry face appear through the hole he has just created. ‘I love you Antonio, I love you so much.’
But he doesn’t say anything back. I hear the line go dead, and the next thing I see is the hand of my attacker reaching through the hole and unlocking the door.
I look around one more time for a weapon, realising I have wasted my precious time on a youth who would never have stayed with me, never have protected me in my darkest hour. I was only ever a limited something for him; some company for one small part of his long life. I realise that now; at this end I finally accept that I have never found what I really wanted. I have never experienced true and mutual love, and for that I can only judge myself.
The man I only know as Robert bursts through the broken door and I don’t even try to stop him. He takes hold of me, spitting blood and sweat all over my face, shouting all manner of graphic threats about what will happen now that he has me.
‘The money,’ I say, my one last attempt. ‘I’ll give it all to you.’
‘Your money means nothing,’ he says, as he drives that bloody and well-used dagger into my lonely heart.
3. Beg, buy but never borrow
Tuesday 16th August – Arabian Peninsula
I look into the mirror and something looks back at me. It’s an absent stare; a look without a cause. I’m not sure what it says, not really clear about what I actually am. Even laid bare I don’t know what I’m supposed to be other than skin and a scattering of hairs. I tap my stomach – it’s firm and toned; what was once slim and scant is now properly sculpted. My stubble is trimmed as close to my skin as possible, utterly refusing to be bent into any kind of beard. Those black eyes stare back at me, dark and empty, giving nothing away – not sure what I have to give.
An Arabian prince is what she called me. I’ll always remember the first time I stripped for her on webcam, how her eyes were wide as I teased every part of my body. It was all for her, however she wanted it. I was pleased with my work – my hours of gym and endless running had given both of us what we wanted.
‘Do it gently,’ she would say, as if she was with me, caressing my body with those small, feathery fingers. She moaned as I moaned; our distance climaxes were as real to me as if she had my manhood in both her hands, which she assured me would be needed. I always did as she told me, angling the camera and working my body as she demanded, her entire mind seeming to be mesmerised by me. And in return, she was the only woman I had ever obeyed, let alone talked to on any sort of equal level. I wondered if all Western girls would feel the same about me – whether my body and name would be as exotic to them as I hoped, and whether I would allow others of her kind to command me, as she had done.