The Lighter and the Scissors

My heart rate accelerated in an instant. I was gripped with fear as I realized that I was in grave danger. The allusion to Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" was a veiled threat made to terrify me. In the chilling short story, the victim was chained to a wall before being entombed alive. This woman, who had enchanted me the entire evening, was drawing a comparison to my situation. I was now at the mercy of a psychotic who had lured me into a trap. I felt an iciness, a sickening in my soul, as the consequences of my submission set in.

"Ahh... the Cat's got your tongue again! Or maybe it's just too difficult for you to do delicate wine tasting in these circumstances. I understand. We'll deal with it later. But for now, let us proceed to the second attempt. Ahh... yes, look at that, it lit. Two down. Good."

She placed a large pair of scissors on the dresser.

"You might remember, Richie, that when you showed me the lighter, I told you I had something with some history behind it too. Here it is. Tell me, have you ever heard of Bedzin?"

"No."

"I'm not surprised. There's really no reason you should have. Bedzin is in Poland near Auschwitz. My great-grandmother was a seamstress in the village, at least she was until the Germans came and took her away to the camp for the crime of being Jewish. Most inmates arrived at Auschwitz by train, but because Bedzin was so close, they took the prisoners there in cattle trucks. She was never seen again. My grandmother, who was thirteen, ran away, taking very few things with her. One of them was this pair of fabric shears that my great granny used in her work. They're mine now. I used them when making the Catwoman costume. I take good care of them, even had them gold plated. And I keep them razor-sharp."

She was speaking in a monotone, staring blankly at me as she related these awful details. Her sparkling green eyes now seemed grey and lifeless. My heart was pumping wildly from the ratcheting terror as I tried to figure out what she was leading to. I kept hoping that she would turn this off by saying it was just a test of nerves designed to raise my awareness, but that rainbow was fading.

"Why are you telling me this? Why are you showing me these scissors?" the questions came out in a quivering voice. I could no longer hide my fear.

"Because you asked me the question."

"What question?"

"For the love of God, Richie, are you not paying attention? You asked me what happens if you lose."

"I don't understand what you're saying." I was pleading with her to tell me what she was doing.

"It's simple. If the lighter fails to ignite one time, I'm going to cut your penis off with the scissors and watch you bleed to death."

She raised the lighter high as she pressed the igniter down. "Three."

A stunned silence filled the room as the horror of her words sank in. A moment later, an explosion of energy erupted within my body. I strained against the ropes with all the strength I was capable of mustering, tapping into reserves that had never been called on before. It was fruitless, as the ropes were much stronger than I. There was no possibility of breaking free. I started to scream in a terrifying high pitch that reverberated off the mirrors, sending the ear-splitting sound back to me.

I was sure that I was going to die in the most gruesome manner possible. My life literally passed before my eyes. I saw my family, friends, pets, teachers, enemies, and hordes of others flash through my brain in scenes that lasted milliseconds. I wanted to scream goodbyes to them, but they could not see or hear me. I began to hallucinate. I saw mountains caving in and tidal waves washing over large cities, destroying them in seconds. I had visions of suicidal horses galloping off cliffs, slithering snakes, and vile hissing cockroaches coming out of the walls. I was transported to the gates of Hell, where Lucifer came to greet me wearing a black cape, his eyes aglow with blinding green light. And then I saw myself as a child, playing in a puddle, crying in sadness as I launched a paper boat, fragile as a butterfly in spring, across the murky water.

I was pulled away from these phantasmic dreams by Cleo standing before me, flicking the lighter to produce a flame: "Four."

I screamed: "Help! Help! Help!" over and over at the top of my lungs. The pleas were deafening in the room, reaching the rest of the house with sufficient volume but dying out before piercing the outside walls. My tormenter made this clear by pitching in with her own screams for help, doubling the decibels. My efforts ceased.

Again, she lit the lighter in front of me: "Five. You're right, Richie; this is a quality lighter. You may win the bet."

"Please let me go!"

"Richie, I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair. You made this bet. The dice have been rolled. It's out of our hands now. Fate will decide. Luck, good or bad, will determine whether I use these scissors next to cut the ropes or your cock."

She again raised the lighter. I heard the wheel grind against the flint. "Six. How about that?"

"Please, Cleo, stop this! For Christ's sake, stop this!"

"No! We must play this out. You, Richie, who came out tonight seeking thrills, should appreciate the beauty of your situation. You're putting it all up, risking everything on the cross, to either make the ultimate sacrifice or achieve the ultimate redemption. I have raised you to the status of Jesus, the Son of God. You should be grateful."

"You're insane, Cleo."

"Perhaps. Sometimes I'm not sure I'm human. I've already told you that. Luck can kill you; luck can drive you insane. I know what it's like to be held down, Richie, I know well. Five men and one unlucky girl. Luck may bring me the retribution I need to continue with my life."

She put the white bucket directly under my crotch on the rug. I felt like I might lose consciousness as she again displayed the lighter.

"Seven's a good number in craps. Let's see if it's a good number for you." She pressed down on the trigger, producing a flame. "Seven." A second later: "Eight. You're almost there. Maybe in a few minutes, we'll be making love on this bed."

"Stop it! Stop it, Cleo! You won't let me go; stop it!"

"Richard! How dare you doubt my word? What have I done to earn your mistrust? I would never deny you the good fortune you've earned. Of course, I will let you go. I have nothing to fear from it. What are you going to do, go to the Police? Tell them some crazy story about lighters and scissors? Maybe they'll come out here where I can report how you forced me into your car at knifepoint. I can recount how I was ready to get out when the cops tried to pull you over, and you floored it. I can show them the bite marks on my shoulder you made when you forced yourself on me. Oh, and before you send them out here, you might let them see the scratches on your chest from when I tried to fend you off. And what will Daddy say? I don't think you're going to say anything to anybody. No, we can have one more good screw to end the night before you leave. And we'll be done. Our paths will never cross again. Fate brought us together, and Fate will keep us apart. If we get that far."

"Please stop this. Cut me down."

"A rather poor choice of words in your circumstances, don't you think, Richie? But yes, shortly, one way or another, I will cut you down. Now, ahh,... Nine."

"You don't have to do this, Cleo."

"Why does everybody always say that? I'm only playing my part. Everything is fixed, and I can't change that. But the odds are in your favor now, so let us continue." Her thumb pressed the lever: "Look at that pretty flame. Ten."

I felt the energy for resistance draining out of me. I swooned as my head drooped down. I was empty, without hope. There was no argument I could make, no persuasive speech I could give. I was powerless.

"Only three to go. Right now, I would say the odds are firmly in your favor. And you're still hard. I told you that cock ring would keep you up. What kind of love should we make when we finish here: angry love or make-up love? Love is a lot like luck, don't you agree? Some people have it, and some people never know it. This lighter: made for a man who tied himself to hate, passed down to a man who says he's lucky to have it. These scissors were owned by a woman full of love, who had the bad luck to fall under the rule of men who hate. And now, here they are together in this room after all these years. And the man who says he's lucky is dependant on the luck of the lighter. Now you know what it was like to be in Auschwitz, hoping for luck to keep you alive. There were many flames there. Let's see if there's another one here."

I saw the spark ignite the wick, seemingly in slow motion. "Eleven. Just two more, and you're free."

I could say nothing more. My only ray of hope was the lighter working and this emotionally crippled woman keeping her word.

"I'll tell you what, Richie, let's turn out the lights for the final two. That will put things in a different light. Yes, let's do that." She went over to turn off the black and red lights, leaving the room in total darkness. I could hear her stepping carefully to find her way back to the stool.

"Sometimes, I come in here and sit in the darkness for days, hiding away. I am safe here. Five men. They can't find me in here, the unlucky girl, safe in the darkness. Nobody can see her. In the darkness, she is too small to be seen. She is safe. They can't find her in here. They are the ones in danger when they come in here."

She pressed down on the igniter for the twelfth time. In the darkness, I could see the spark jumping across, igniting the wick in a brilliant flash. Cleo kept her thumb in place. The light illuminated her face in a pale yellow glow. She stared into the flame with eyes that had no soul left in them. I could not recognize her as the woman I had been with before entering this hellish room. She was broken in spirit, a shattered human being, lost in the pain of traumas so great; that her only relief was in the disintegration of her psyche.

"Twelve, Richard, twelve. Only one more to go for you. I will release you if you win. You will be the first. Yes. Luck is going to run out for one of us. It's either you or me, baby. Let's have a moment of silence to contemplate why we are here before I press the trigger for the last time."

I don't know how long the moment of silence in the darkness lasted. It may have been the eternity of a few seconds, a minute, or an hour. It was broken abruptly by a loud crash from the front of the house. The state police had broken the front door down with a battering ram. I heard several voices yelling: "Police! Police! Police!" I screamed as loud as I could until they burst through the door of the bedroom.

In the havoc that ensued, Cleo was tackled and dragged out of the room. A female cop grabbed the scissors and cut the ropes holding me to the cross. I collapsed on the floor, crying uncontrollably. I had been rescued from hellish torture more horrible than any I could ever have imagined.

After being helped to my feet, I picked up my lighter before going out to the living room with two cops. There were now eight of them in the house. I could hear them questioning Cleo in the kitchen, but her only replies were: "I can make myself so small that no one can see me."

Sitting on the couch, I found my pack of Marlboros on the coffee table, quickly pulling one out. I had never felt a greater need for a cigarette. Perhaps it was my shaking hands, or maybe it was the sweat on my thumb that caused it to slide down too quickly, but whatever the cause, the lighter failed to light when I pressed down on the igniter. I have never used it again.

Epilogue

On October 15, 2016, Patricia Anne Cleopatra Kilgore was found not guilty by reason of insanity of four counts of first-degree murder. She had killed four men on the cross in that hell hole in her house after torturing them in various games of chance. The police had dug up the bodies in her backyard. In her freezer, hidden beneath packages of deer meat, investigators found four frozen penises encased in ice and sealed in plastic containers. The courts remanded her into the custody of the Maine State Mental Hospital, where she has been receiving psychiatric care. It is unlikely she will ever be released.

I testified at her trial. It was a difficult thing for me to do. Cleo sat in her chair in what seemed to be a catatonic state, often sucking her thumb, rocking back and forth. I felt no anger, no hatred toward her for what she had done to me. I only felt sorrow for this intelligent and beautiful woman who had collapsed under the weight of the horror of her inner demons.

A bartender at the Tentacles had noticed Cleo and me out on the patio. He remembered seeing her there about six months prior with a man who turned up missing. The bartender called the cops, who came out to the club. When we left, they followed us, turning on the lights to pull us over to do an exploratory check-up. There was no way they could catch us in my car, but they got the plate number. They traced the registration back to the Mercedes dealership, where they got the tracking signal to the GPS unit I didn't even know it had. A DNA test on the glass Cleo left on the table matched the saliva found on a lipstick-stained cigarette in the missing man's car. Thankfully they treated the situation as an emergency.

My life changed. The trauma made me stronger. Dr. Wildare likened it to shock therapy resetting my brain. I no longer felt fear over situations that now felt trivial compared to what I had experienced. I learned what was most important to me. I finished law school and moved away from my family to take a job with the ACLU in a big city on the West Coast. I thrive in relative obscurity devoting myself to helping others. I have found my place in a world that once seemed so foreign to me.

A year after the trial, I received an envelope in the mail from my sister. It contained a postcard sent to me, addressed to the family compound on Cape Cod, with a Bangor postmark. The handprinted message was in a child's scrawl:

I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, "Come and see." And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and her name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with her. Revelation 6:7-8