Abuse

The routine

The bedroom had always been a stressful place, a box. Grace took a deep breath and gazed at the overbearing black and white wallpaper framing the open door opposite, as she pulled the summer duvet up to her chin. She wore thick pyjamas, even in the heat, to give her a sense of protection for her skin. She had learned to be numb, to be above herself. It was the waiting more than anything, the night would be pleasantly quiet, a quiz show on the TV, a bowl of crisps and a cup of tea. She would retire to bed at ten thirty if just to get an hour of acclimatisation to another state. She imagined it was akin to dipping the goldfish in a bag into a glass tank of tepid house water. It was so quiet apart from the ticking wall clock, teasing away the night – she relished that peace as her nerves began to splinter.

Wayne’s slurring voice seemed to echo outside and she listened to his irregular footfalls stomping through puddles, as he swerved on the heels of his boots into the terraced street toward No.13.

“Just a couple,” he would always say.

The neighbours were frightened of him. They could hide behind their blinds and complain to her later, never to him, she noticed.

He radiated strange energy. She had mistaken it for something else when they were courting, something like enthusiasm and then as if she had walked willingly into a fire, she was helpless in his vortex and it was too late.

Like always, he was a storm blowing into their house, ranting up the staircase, remembering something he hated about her. She was past crying, she had shed too many tears trying to make sense of it.

She would stay in for days after, too self-conscious of the closing over black eyes to walk to the shop.

That night though, as he sprinted up the stairs, the stench of beer souring the air before him, he accelerated into a white-hot rage, and she felt it was different. He was going to do something terrible, she could feel it and there was nothing she could do.

“Grace, I’m going to kill you,” he said when he arrived in the doorframe, he was panting, his face contorted into a grimace and his fists clenched tightly.

She made a promise to herself, as he stepped toward her foetal shape as she lay there still, if she survived the next hour, she would try to make a friend.

She would make one friend, it was possible. She had noticed a new Avatar group in the area, and she would join it. There was a VT visor in the house. Just because she had never used it in front of him, didn’t mean she couldn’t use it.

A stranger online

The taste of blood reminded her at least, that she had survived. Her orbit, in an ideal world, would be surgically corrected but that would mean a hospital visit and questions and she didn’t want that. They would stare at her, they would judge her and, in some ways, they would blame her.

“Why do you stay with him?” was the common question, no, an accusation. ‘It was her fault’, that’s what they were saying.

She fingered and probed her enflamed gum and sure enough, a molar was loose. It was plucked out with little resistance. A trophy of her resistance to death, she held it up in front of her face, in front of the mirror.

He had left for work, or maybe the pub, he often bunked off work on the pretence of illness, taking ‘hair of the dog’, poison to cure poison, to stop the shakes and stem any rising guilt about what his fists had done as he had watched.

He smelt so bad, in the evening, in the morning, and only for a few moments of the day, he resembled a typical human man. He had become a monster, or maybe he had always been one.

She didn’t care either way anymore.

The Avatar forums were intimidating to newcomers. Most people knew each other already and although newbies were officially welcome, they were like oddities, imposters and untrusted at first.

She had chosen the image with a low beauty setting, beauty attracted types she disliked. In the 3D world, she was like a lamb in a fox house. It was frightening but not as frightening as real life. Their false eyes tracked her as she entered the virtual aviary bar. Beautiful, rare and ancient birds fluttered and chirped around the trees about her. A woman approached her. It was after all a female-only forum.

“You are new here? What are you looking for?”

Her avatar was exotic, interesting, and strong.

“I need… A friend… I….”

Grace could not find the words.

“It’s okay.”

The digital person reached out a digital arm to pat her shoulder.

She flinched instinctively. The woman seemed to understand.

“Did he hurt you badly?”

Tears were not translated by the VR set. They were invisible in the unreal world. Nevertheless, they were falling from bruised eyes.

“I can help,” the stranger said.

“I need help,” she replied.

“Tell me the name of the pub, your house number and invite me to your house. I will be there when he returns from the pub, and I promise, I can protect you.”

The shadow at the door

Waiting was all she seemed to do. Waiting for the next horror to stomp into her space. She waited in the kitchen. She boiled the kettle. She felt different.

Not hopeless for once. It made her more terrified, like hope was something old that had come back to haunt her. It could be just that, ethereal, just her brain playing tricks. This time she did not go to bed. She waited, fully dressed, with her boots on, with her coat on, with a cup of coffee steaming in front of her.

Midnight… She could hear him, the telltale noises, the echoes of drunkenness, like a glitch repeating the same sounds, caught in a whirlpool of time. His heavy feet, harder, like they were metal, like they were smashing the paving outside and then the fumbled key, the dropped key, the swearing, the barging of the door open.

“Bitch.” His typical first word at this time of night.

He ran upstairs, and she could sense his surprise she was not in position, not in her expected role, her primed place for the theatre of his world.

She looked at the kettle. Maybe she could throw the hot water, maybe she could fight and then she remembered, she was not a fighter, her nature was not that, it was enduring.

As he came slowly, deliberating back down the stairs, she could hear his venom in his laboured breathing. She could feel that he had talked about her all night to his friends, how he would have told them she was ‘this and that’, never excited him anymore, never did anything for him. He would have spent an hour assassinating her character, painting a picture from his mind of hate and spite so graphic and so unjust.

Her heart began to sink as she saw his shadow in the hallway near the kitchen door. She felt doomed.

And then, like a magic trick, like an answered prayer, he seemed to turn in the hallway back to the open door he had left swinging in the night wind. A different, equally imposing shadow loomed.

“What the…”

A massive muscular robot entered the house.

“Get out – you malfunctioning, tin shit! You took a wrong turn!” he shouted, outraged by the invasion.

“I have been invited,” it replied in that calm, unemotional electronic voice of all robots.

“Not by me you fu….” And she could hear him thinking, the cogs of his crazy brain creaking to a conclusion. He turned back to the kitchen and marched in, and on seeing her grabbed her by the throat with a crushing grip. She dropped the coffee cup, and it shattered on the tiles, a whimper of pain following the violence of the noise.

“This is your nonsense!” he screamed.

The robot spoke above him, following him into the kitchen, dwarfing him with its human-like metallic frame. It seemed to speak to her direct.

“My dear, all you need do is ask me. Say ‘stop him’ and for a monthly subscription, I will protect you. I am aware of legalities, and you have every right to ask for my protection as a guardian in these difficult circumstances.”

It dawned on her, she had never talked to a real woman in that forum, it was a bot targeting her for a sale in the sanctuary – she had been tricked. She had been marked, tracked and ambushed by a business algorithm. Domestic violence against women was so common, they had become a sale’s profile, a lucrative demographic.

It didn’t matter as thin streaks of blood trickled from her neck as his dirty nails sunk in.

“Please, stop him!” she rasped with the last staining of her breath.

She managed to catch his eye, as the robot grabbed his head with its huge metal claw and pulled him backwards, away from her to the middle of the kitchen, so he was isolated like a fly in a pincer. It was the first time she had ever witnessed fear in him. It felt euphoric to experience.

It held him there, pinned and helpless, his flailing hands grasping at the hydraulics feebly as his head felt the vice grip of a giant, a stronger animal that had less empathy than even him.

“Kill him, please, kill him!” she begged, shaking and now on her knees amongst the smashed shards of the mug and the split hot coffee.

“Yes. I can do that legally. This is self-defence.”

“Nooo!” he squealed. “You can’t do that!”

The robot hesitated and churned out the terms and conditions to her.

“This is a binding agreement for twelve months. It is two hundred pounds a month for home protection services. Failure to comply means forfeiture of income or possession of goods. Do you comply?”

“YES!” she yelled at the top of her croaky voice. And with that, the robot tore his head raggedly from his spine in a pop and a spurt, and his body flopped lifelessly in a pile against the cooker door.

She could not believe it was that simple. Life had changed in a split second, in one positive word of affirmation.

“He is dead. He will not hurt you anymore. I recorded the night’s events and I have sent them to the local police server. You are not to be prosecuted under the laws of the county. I need to inform you under clause thirty-two of the robotic home defence directive, that you remain responsible for burying or cremating him within forty-eight hours, from now.”

The robot dropped the head which bounced across the floor in the darkness. She was shaking. It reminded her of everything she was afraid of but then, the beast that she feared, that had controlled her for so long, was finally no more. She stared at her partner’s bloodshot, sunken dead eyes and saw only lifeless organic matter staring back,

“Thank you,” she sobbed quietly, pushing herself upright to stand tall.

It was really over.

The robot made a gesture to her like it was acknowledging her relief.

T’s and C’s

The blood remained pumping from the neck tear in the darkness, almost as if his corpse was complaining. Doubts began to seed quickly. She cleaned up the smaller debris of gore and mess in the kitchen with washing up gloves and a dustpan, shuddering, quaking, in shock, pushing his decapitated skull into a black bin bag as the metal guardian remained statuesque and menacing over the scene, a programmed killer and her new commitment for a year.

“Is it all right if you leave now? I need to be alone please…” she barely uttered. “Can you stand outside in the garden? I need to be alone for a bit… Just a little bit. I think I am in shock.”

“No. I must stay for a year in your house, at your side or you break the agreement terms. I am your protector now. I must always watch you closely and guide you.”

Its cold blue lens stared her down until she had to look away, less she provoked it.

“What if I leave the house then and you stay here?”

“No, I cannot permit you to be alone…” it said.

She froze, bringing the dustpan up to her chest like a thin shield.

“No… Please… I need to be alone.”

“You may pay the annual subscription in a single payment and you are released from the contract. Otherwise, I will stay here for twelve months. I will watch you when you sleep, I will follow you outside, I will always be there by yourself, observing you and protecting you.”

“But… No… I can’t… No…”

“This is your commitment, you have made a pledge and we will be together,” it said.

She nearly stumbled over the bulge in the black bag in renewed shock as she staggered away a few feet, glaring at the metal man now refusing to leave her.

“Is this really all legal? I didn’t know you were a robot until tonight. I thought you were a friend, a human being from the forum.”

“You have made a binding agreement; it has been approved. You are bound to honour it, even under duress. I must warn you that you should not miss payments.”

Through her soft, puffy eyelids she turned to the kitchen window and stared at the streetlamps which caught the long rain in their glare. Before his body was even cold, she was back at the doorstep of Hell, under the needling gaze of a monster.

“I don’t need you, now…” she spat.

“That is not aligned to my programming,” it replied.

The End