Jon Athan - Am I Beautiful?

“Tasukete! Ta… Tasukete!” Miki shrieked.

Adam pulled away from her grip, then he thrust his elbow at her face. She was instantly dazed. He elbowed her three more times, breaking her jaw and cutting her chin open down the middle vertically—a homemade cleft chin.

Miki mumbled, “Ta… Tasukete…. Help… Someone… Ta…”

“Why’d you make me do this?” Adam hissed through his clenched teeth.

Like Miki’s, his face was wet with tears, sweat, and blood. Miki’s face, however, was also lacerated and swollen.

She cried, “Tasukete…”

Adam hit her stomach with an uppercut, knocking the wind out of her. She crossed her arms over her abdomen, dropped to her knees, then fell forward. Adam teetered back before her face could touch his crotch. He watched her hit the floor face-first. She curled into the fetal position and gasped for air.

Words tumbling out of his mouth at a breakneck pace, Adam said, “You–You–You lied. Sa–Say you lied. Say you’re not pregnant. Say it, you fucking bitch, say it.”

Miki continued gasping. Adam growled as he kicked her arms. Her forearms were beaten until they bruised and her bones cracked. His foot slid past her arms and hit her abdomen. Miki coughed violently. Out of breath and out of hope, debilitated and defeated, she had already stopped crying. She felt like her pregnancy had already been terminated—her baby killed before it even had a chance to live.

“Liar! Liar!” Adam shouted. He stopped to catch his breath. He said, “Look at you… You’re not beautiful. You’re disgusting. You’re evil. Look at what you’re making me do…”

The broken whiskey bottle caught his attention. He picked it up from the floor, then he punted Miki’s stomach again. As she groaned, he rolled her onto her back and straddled her chest, his knees under her armpits.

“Look at what you’re making me do,” he repeated.

He hooked his fingers under her lower teeth and pried her mouth open, then he sawed into her right cheek with the broken bottle. Her cheek tore with a moist crackling sound. Miki tried to close her mouth, she swung her arms at him, but she couldn’t overpower him. The glass scraped her teeth as he cut her. It sounded like a fork being dragged across a ceramic plate.

Some pieces of the bottle snapped off. Slivers of glass stuck out from the cut while smaller fragments landed inside her mouth. The bottle broke down to its neck by the time he reached her ear.

Adam threw it aside and gazed at the wound—a jagged Glasgow smile. But he wasn’t done yet. He searched for another weapon—another glass bottle, a steak knife, a butter knife, anything . He eyed the desk near the foot of the bed. He crawled off Miki and got up to his feet. He found her dressmaker’s shears on the table.

He opened the shears and whispered, “You should have left me alone.”

Miki whined as Adam mounted her chest. Her eyes were closed. She didn’t want to see the love of her life in that light. She didn’t want to see anything at all. But she didn’t want to feel the pain, either. She knew what was coming, so she clenched her jaw and swung her head from side to side while squirming under him.

Adam forced one of the blades into her oral vestibule—the gap between her teeth and cheek. Then he squeezed the handles and cut into her face.

It was as easy as cutting paper.

While cutting her, he saw her eyes shaking under her sealed eyelids from the periphery of his vision. Blood spilled in every direction, down to her jawline and up to her cheekbones. Some blood even flooded one of her ear canals, muffling her hearing. The long laceration curved up to her right ear. He could see her teeth, glazed with blood, through the nasty wounds.

He laughed deliriously as he examined her butchered, bloated face. Although it wasn’t perfect, he had cut a wide, permanent grin across her cheeks—a bloody smile from ear to ear.

He stuttered, “You–You’re not so beautiful anymore, a–are you? You–You’re ugly. You’re… a monster.”

Miki was conscious but unable to speak. She breathed in short gasps through her mouth, one every few seconds. But, although she couldn’t say a word, she heard everything. Drops of tears mixed with blood rolled down her temples. ‘ You’re ugly. You’re a monster. ’ Somehow, those insults cut worse than the glass and the shears.

Words were indeed very powerful.

Adam struggled to his feet. He pointed at her and said, “If you follow me again… If you come near my house or my family… If–If you even send my wife a message, even a fucking emoji… You won’t have to worry about finding me because I’ll hunt you down. I’ll kill you, you understand?” He laughed feverishly again. He asked, “Do you know how easy it would be? Look at yourself now. Can you see yourself? Huh? You’re almost dead already. I could kill you right now. I could hire someone to kill you. I have the money to…”

His voice trailed off into an unintelligible ramble. It was as if he had finally realized what he was saying— what he had done. His face twisted into an ugly knot of pain.

“Oh my God,” he whimpered. He covered his mouth one hand at a time, then he slid his hands up into his hair, smearing her blood on his face. His back hit the dining table behind him. Bug-eyed, he watched as the blood spumed out of Miki’s extended mouth. He yelled, “Oh my God! No, no, no!”

He thought about calling 119—Japan’s fire, ambulance, and emergency rescue phone number. He reached for his pockets, but he stopped before he could stain his pants with her blood. He hurried to the kitchen sink and washed his hands and face with dish soap, then he splashed the soapy water on the faucet handle to try to get rid of his fingerprints. He pushed the handle down with his elbow to stop the water.

“I–I–I’ll get help,” he stammered. “D–Don’t die. D–Don’t… Pl–Please don’t die.”

He dug his hands into his pockets. He had his wallet, but he didn’t have his cell phone. Miki’s cell phone lay on her nightstand. He stumbled towards it before sliding to a stop next to her bed. I can’t put my fingerprints on everything, he thought. I wouldn’t be able to unlock it anyway. He looked back at Miki as he stepped away from the bed. Like Jesus Christ on the cross, she lay there with her arms outstretched. She was breathing, but she didn’t open her eyes or move an inch. There was nothing he could do to help her without getting himself arrested.

Adam clasped his hands in front of his mouth and, in a quavering voice, he said, “I–I’m sorry. I can–can’t be here right now. I can’t… I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

He lurched back to the entryway. He put on his shoes without tying them, then he tucked his hand into his hoodie’s sleeve to unlock the door without touching it directly. He ran out of the apartment. He slowed to a jog in the narrow street outside, then he walked briskly on the sidewalk around the corner so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself. Hood over his head, he headed back to the subway station.

Miki’s head lay in a puddle of her own blood, her hair soggy and heavy like a wet mop. Her eyes opened to slits. Bloody tears turned her blurred vision red. A smile was carved onto her face, but the bruises and bumps and mutilations gave her an expression of enormous, unforgettable agony. And the silence in the room—the silence of true loneliness—was just as painful.

She felt like she was dying because of the pain. Yet, at the same time, she felt like she was just starting to live. In many ways, the pain of death was similar to the pain of birth.

Adam had taken everything from her.

But he also gave her a purpose.