The performative act was so ridiculous that it seemed to straighten out my thoughts. I wiped the snot from my nose with my sleeve, while managing to calm myself down, because Shabby hadn’t actually pushed the button. After similarly clearing the tears from my eyes, and after a few hefty sniffs, I stumbled to my feet, before scooping up the bucket and bringing it over to her. It was still half-filled with soapy water and an old rag.
“Look at the state on you,” she said, without any hint of self-awareness. She was the one named Shabby after all, a less than affectionate name and more a commentary on her lack of hygiene and care towards her physical appearance. Her dungarees were the real state, and though it wasn’t dirty, her skin just had this off-putting thing about it, almost like it was naturally shaded. It wasn’t surprising that she kept her hair so short, and I would have imagined it was difficult to keep clean if there wasn’t any running water in her squat. She looked down towards the bucket. “Wash yourself off, will you?” She then dramatically sniffed the air. “You smell like filth.”
I, too, looked down towards the bucket. “With this?”
“Are you stupid or something?” she asked. “Yes, with this, or do you want me to let the lions out? I’m sure they’ll give you a good lick to see if you’re tasty enough.”
Without saying another word, I crouched and scooped up the rag. The water had already turned a slight grey after I’d cleaned off a number of the bars earlier. Thankfully, I hadn’t yet cleaned the mop of any of the blood from the lions earlier feeding, so though the water was dirty, at least it wasn’t contaminated. While it was drizzling down my arm, I looked towards Shabby. “What should I do?”
“Wipe your face,” she said. “Your cheeks look disgusting. We can’t have any children coming here and seeing you like this. People will think the animals are neglected and they’ll close this place down.”
I glanced between her and the rag a few times while I tried to comprehend the position I was in. When she made no move to stop me, I tentatively pressed the rag to each cheek, giving them a symbolic wipe as I blushed and cleared my tears. “Happy?” I asked.
Shabby shrugged. “It’s still there.” I gave my cheek another wipe. “You’re still missing it,” she said with a sigh, before she held her hand out, just out of reach outside the bars. “Throw me the cloth,” she said. “I guess the water isn’t up to much. It must already be dirty.”
I was confused by the whole thing, but I felt so powerless and trapped, that I just went along with whatever she was saying. It was the first time I’d ever felt completely out of control in her presence, and the whole experience was so unsettling that I just wanted it over with as soon as possible. I’d always had the authority within our confrontations, but there wasn’t anything authoritative about being locked in a cage. Obviously, I usually wouldn’t have done anything she said, but while stuck behind bars; it did a real number on my spine and resistance. So, I tossed the rag to her through the cage
Shabby deliberately let it slip from her fingers. “Oops,” she said, and then she stepped on it with one of those platform heel sandals. While I looked on, she made a real point of scraping her foot back and forth, ensuring that the rag was suitably ground into the dusty floor. “I’m so clumsy,” she said with a snicker. “Always have been. I’m all knees and elbows.”
I was just looking on glumly, accepting that she was being childish in tormenting me. From behind the bars though there wasn’t a lot I could do other than stand there and take it. So, that’s what I did, while Shabby leaned to one side and grabbed the cloth. She looked at it, grimacing at all of the filth clinging to the old, weathered material, before she looked over and grinned at me. We were staring into each other’s eyes as she hocked up a mouthful of saliva, and then while I cringed, she spat it right into the rag. “There you go,” she said. “Maybe that will help get the muck off your face.” She chuckled to herself. “You got me in trouble for spitting on the floor, so how’s this as a comeuppance for you?”
I scrunched my nose up while staring at the balled rag. “I’m not using that,” I said.
“Yes, you will,” she said. “If you want to get out of that cage any time soon, then you’ll do exactly what you’re told.”
“What if I don’t?” I was standing with my legs slightly parted, trying to fake that I had some kind of control over the situation, even though it was becoming increasingly evident that I had none at all.
Shabby scoffed, then with her eyes, she signalled towards the red light that was still lit up above the button. “Then something else will be getting in there with you.”
I let out a deep sigh, before I held my hand out. I was already tired of the stupid way she kept leaning on my resistance with that bloody button. “Fine, whatever,” I said, already fatigued by all of the childish games. “Just give me the damn rag.”
Shabby was about to toss it inside, but then she paused, and another grin came to her annoying face. She walked right up to the edge of the cage, and I suddenly spied my chance. Clearly, she had become all arrogant with the situation she’d trapped me in, and as she was loitering next to the bars, I kept my eyes firmly on her arm. She held the rag out into the cage tauntingly, and already I was planning my next move.
“Okay,” I said, while slowly approaching, weighing up the possibility of anything going wrong. I reached a hand out, teasing that I was going to take the rag, when in actuality I was fully intent on grabbing her and pulling her close enough so I could pin her against the bars. As my fingers brushed the rag, I looked her in the eye, then, I clamped my hand around her wrist and yanked her in close.
“Urgh,” Shabby grunted as her cheek smacked against the bars, and she twisted her body, trying to wriggle free as I worked my forearm around her throat. I don’t know what the hell I was trying to do. Choke her out? I don’t know, but I was so frustrated that I just wanted her to feel as helpless as I was.
“Let me out,” I said, as I increased the pressure around her neck. Despite my arm being leveraged around her, she’d turned enough so her forehead was braced against the gate and I was left applying pressure to the back of her neck, instead of her throat. I pushed my other hand against her cheek, trying to spin her around, when I heard Shabby hocking again, then, my face was suddenly smeared in liquid. I looked down into Shabby’s face to see that her lips were still puckered having just expelled their contents right into my face. There was another hock, and I flinched as my forehead was splattered. When the third ball of saliva hit me in the eye, I was so taken by surprise that she would do such a thing, that I let go of her neck, my arms becoming limp as the humiliation of it all eroded right through my confidence. Never in my life had anyone done such a thing to me before, and as a result, I was completely shaken. It was just such a grave insult and I felt completely dehumanised by it all. My fingers were trembling as I dabbed at my forehead and cheek, all while my one eye remained closed. I held my hand out and stared at the bubbly saliva on my fingertips, and then I tried to wipe the spittle out of my eye, but it had got right inside and I could barely see. I grimaced in disgust as I felt Shabby’s thick saliva dripping down my face. It had been bad enough that she’d spat into the rag, but for her to do it straight into my face too: that was an astonishing act of disrespect. It cut right through me, and I was just standing there in the middle of the cage, looking at her completely distraught. My one eye could barely open, and there was just this smell paralysing me; like the staleness of teeth that hadn’t been brushed.
Shabby too seemed surprised by her own behaviour, almost as if it had been an instinctual reaction on her part. Even if it had, the effect was indisputable, and after seeing my sheepish posture, she sneered. “That’s for touching me without permission,” she said. “You deserve that. Have I ever laid a hand upon you?” She tossed the rag at me through the bars, and it bounced against my chest and landed next to my boots. “Now, wipe your face,” she said, while nodding towards the rag on the floor. “With that. Right where I can see you.”
It was like something had changed at the moment she’d spat in my face, and any authority I may have previously had in the past was deemed irrelevant. It was such a classless and primal action on her part, the kind of which was saved for the animal kingdom, and as a result, it had the suitable effect of making me feel like I was the caged animal she’d reduced me to. I could barely look her in the eye as I hunkered down, clumsily patting my hand in search of the rag. When I found it, I touched it lightly against my cheek, then forehead, wiping off her saliva, but only succeeding by replacing it with the combined stickiness of her spit and dirt.
“Good,” she said. “See how a caged animal can be trained and taught tricks?”
“I already told you, we don’t do that here,” I said sadly as I used my fingers to clear my one eye. “This is a zoo.” As the rag wiped over my cheeks, I could sense how hot and filled with blood they were. I mumbled, and stuttered some nonsense, not wanting to talk about what she’d just done to me, almost as if that would make it worse. “It’s…it’s not a zoo, I mean, it’s not a circus.”
“Pick the bucket up,” she said, and I immediately did so. “Lift it up,” came the next command, and I held the bucket so it was around my shoulder height. My arms trembled from its weight, but I was just mindlessly following her instructions, as if her spittle dripping down my face had somehow claimed me as her own. As if her DNA had somehow seeped into my pores and turned me into her drone. “Pour it over your head,” she said, and then she couldn’t resist sniggering.
“What?” I asked in confusion. “Why?”
Leave a Reply