Mr. Boots

I know them by the sound of their feet. Clicking boot heels. Slapping sandals. The muffled thud of rubber soles. Each sound is tied to a man. Each man is tied to a particular form of pain.

The man in the sandals smells sweetly of chewing tobacco when his sandpaper cheek rubs against mine, and he's guttural and heavy. My ribs compress beneath his mass. The man with rubber soles is strong and clean. A runner, perhaps, or a gym rat. His arms are at least twice the size of mine and he's tall. He lasts longer than any of them, which is its own form of punishment, but he doesn't go out of his way to hurt me. Not like the man in the boots.

Mr. Boots talks. In a smooth, polished voice, he calls me names. He sounds like a teacher, but the names he spits at me are foul and dirty. He rips blonde strands out of my head by the roots, sometimes taking entire chunks between his fingers. And when he goes, he doesn't leave. He stays on me for days, or even weeks, afterward, imprinted on my arms and legs and hips. He is a scar on my forehead. He's been stitched into my thigh. He's a line in my right wrist bone, the memory of a break. Even in his absence, his boots stamp on my skin, cool and crumbly with dried mud. People with lost limbs say they feel them there still, long after they're gone, tickling or burning or aching. That's how I feel his boots, late at night, when I should be sleeping.

If I knew his face, no doubt I would dream of it, but I can't look at faces. I keep my eyes trained on feet, because that's where my eyes are allowed. I'm new to this, but not so new as to ignore instructions.

There's a fourth pair of feet I know. They shuffle grandmother-like down the hall. These feet come with a name: Quinn. Quinn brings food and toiletries, and he plays medic with stitches and bandages.

Quinn's feet are slippered and sore. He's a servant, too, but a high servant. He can look at faces. In fact, he studies them. He told me so as he put me back together again after a visit with Mr. Boots. He watches faces as a cat watches a mouse, waiting for the right time, he said. When he sees it, he leaps, his claws extended.

"I'll help you," he said. "I'm old, and done with this world."

Quinn sneaks in books with meals. Dune. Wuthering Heights. Hamlet. Today, it's Dr. Seuss. Oh, The Places You'll Go! along with cold broth and stale bread.

He touches my shoulder. Wishes me luck. And he leaves.

I open the book: Today is your day.

A letter opener, thin and slick and sharp, is taped to the opposite page. I touch the blade.

Boot heels sound on the stairs.

Quinn has given me claws.