“Foook, heee eeels foook.”

I rose a brow at the woman and reached forward to undo the ball gag impeding her speech. “You may try that again.”

“She feels stuck.”

I leaned on the table and was mildly impressed with Karen.

“You may be right. I suppose that he could’ve already dug his claws into her psyche and made it feel impossible for her to leave. Kind of like you right now.” My lip curled up as I tormented her. She looked frozen in place, her eyes wide as they focused on mine.

“What, you have nothing to say?” She reminded me of a wind-up toy.

“Please don’t do this. Please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die, please. I’m begging you,” she blubbered like a broken record. “I have a husband and a daughter, and I need to get back to them and….”

“Karen, stop.”

I leaned over her body and brought my face closer to hers as I analyzed her with an artist’s eye. Her features were nondescript, nothing that stood out as being unique, but I could picture what she looked like in her youth before the years of self-abuse. I poked at her cheekbones that had some promise with the right makeup.

“Why do you think I’m doing this to you?”

“Please,” she cried. “I’m begging you.”

“I said stop.” I smacked the table with the palm of my hand again, and she sucked in her lower lip and closed her eyes. “Now answer the question.”

“I…I…I don’t know,” she blurted out, and I shook my head at her.

“You don’t know what? You don’t understand the question, or you don’t know the answer?”

Tears poured out of her eyes and fell on the table below, the moisture now smearing her blush and the foundation she’d haphazardly caked onto her face was now a rainbow of colorful streaks. I liked the look, an idea coming to me.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

Karen broke down into yet another round of blubbering, which was quite the contrast to her earlier attitude. She had been screaming at an elderly man in the convenience store about ‘being in her way.’ She used a few racial slurs about him being black and practically shoved him down an aisle. If I hadn’t been standing behind him and caught him as he fell, he surely would’ve broken something or worse. He could’ve died if he’d cracked his head.

I didn’t like people. I found them to be useless and a waste of good air, but I really didn’t like those who thought they were at the top of the food chain when in reality, they were nothing more than bullies.