Escalating Humiliation

I tried to tackle Nikki to the ground. I couldn’t afford to let her build up any motivation. Nikki threw my trench coat back in my face. I couldn’t react quickly enough. Like a giant vampire bat, my coat enveloped my face.

Nikki countered and threw a wicked right. It caught me right on the button and I fell backwards, sprawled on the pavement. I was seeing stars and Nikki could do whatever she wanted to me. I was completely defenceless.

She yanked my hair and forced me to crawl along the pavement like a dog. I was so dazed that I was running on instinct now. I didn’t know where she was taking me.

Nikki kicked me in the side. I winced as my ribs throbbed, but I didn’t have any time to shake off the cobwebs as she pulled my head up again. She made me crawl a couple more feet and I found myself looking down at a brown, muddy puddle. It didn’t register what I was looking at until she plunged my head directly into it.

She kept my head underneath for a painfully long time. I struggled but it was useless as she pressed my head into the depths of the puddle.

Nikki pulled my head out of the puddle. I took in deep, grasping breaths. I felt Laura’s carefully applied makeup sliding down my face in ugly, dark streaks.

“Enjoying your bath, Hannah?” asked Nikki.

She drove my head back into the puddle. This time I managed to hold my breath, but she lifted me out after just a few seconds. I coughed and spluttered.

“You thought you were going to win this?” Nikki said through ground teeth. “You thought you were going to humiliate me?”

Nikki plunged her hand into the mud surrounding the puddle. She scythed out an enormous handful of gloopy, sticky dirt.

I opened my mouth to scream, but quickly closed it as she pie-faced me with the mud. She ran her hand all over my face and my pink and blue hair, muffling my cries of protest.

“Oh, look, you’re all dirty.” Nikki dropped to her knees. “Let me help you with that.”

She drove my muddy face back into the puddle one last time, before lifting me out again. Mercifully, she left me alone to lick my wounds for a moment.

I coughed and took gasping breaths as I tried to get myself back in the fight.