Imagine pain as a white ball of light inside your body. Things like cuts, scrapes, and bruises equal to about the size of a ping-pong ball. Sprained ankles and blows to the head equal to about the size of a baseball. Broken bones and torn ligaments equal the size of a basketball. Gunshot wounds and severe lacerations equal to the size of a beach ball. My little white ball of pain...equaled the size of a monster truck tire.

Tyler repeats his little montage about chemical burn hurting worse than any burn. Worse than a hundred cigarettes. I'm not really listening. My hand is shaking so bad but Tyler won't let go. I feel the little chemical termites gnawing away my hand centimeter by excruciating centimeter. Tears are pouring down my face and my cheeks are scrunched with the pain. My back is so rigid I think I could actually snap my spine.

"Your pain is your life," Tyler says. "Without it, you don't know if you really exist."

Okay, I say, my words coming out in rapid bursts. My eyes bulging and my body shaking with the pain. I feel every nerve ending in my body getting pricked by needle points. My hand is burning worse than the time I reached for the cookie pan without a heating pad when I was a kid.

"This is the greatest moment of your life," Tyler says.

It is, it is. I tell him. I shut my eyes and try to think of happy things like ice cream, and summer days, and trips to the beach. Tyler slaps me in the face shattering any illusions.

"No!" he shouts at me. "Don't block it out. Face it, realize it. Without pain, without sacrifice, we are nothing. Once you know, not fear, know that someday you are going to die you will be free."

I'm free, I'm free I shout at him. I keep trying to jerk my hand away and run toward the sink to get the lye off but he won't let go.

"You don't want to do that," Tyler says.

Why not?

"You can run to the sink and make it worse. Or, you can admit that yes, someday you will die. Someday no one will care if you die, and use vinegar to neutralize the burn."

I admit it. I admit it.

I feel the cool wave of relief and rank smell of vinegar as Tyler pours it over my hand. I fall to the floor clutching it, the stank of fried skin and piss and vinegar like a hospital emergency room. Tyler leans close to me, flashing his scar and smirking.

"It is only when we have lost everything, that we have the freedom to do anything."

He taps on my chest and tells me I did good. The lesson is over. My favor completed. I hear his footsteps walking away and my eyes close and the world goes black.

***

I wake up face down on the mattress in my room. I don't know how I got here, but I'm assuming Tyler dragged me. There's a white bandage around my hand and my back is feeling really itchy for some reason. I wander down the stairs in a daze, my body still in slight shock from the burn. The air feels different. My mind is focused but my eyes don't see what they usually see. I don't know what to make of it all. I call Tyler's name but I already know he's not here.

I get into the kitchen to see Faith sitting at the table in a tarnished black leather skirt and some form fitting halter-top. She smiles at me as she twirls a piece of hair between her fingers. She has a leg propped up on the table flashing me the panties she wasn't wearing.

"About time you got up," she says.

What are you doing here?

"Still playing that game huh?" she says throwing her leg down and walking over to me, whispering in my ear. "When did you turn into me?"

Her hands travel between my legs and she gives me a light tap. I wonder what Tyler would think about all her flirting with me but I can't ask her. I am bound to promise. Stab a knife into my chest and sacrifice me to the gods. I don't want to be here with her.

"I need my bag," she says rushing off somewhere inside the house.

Soon as she's out of the room Tyler appears. I ask him why he went back to her and he says why not. Faith comes back into the kitchen and poof, Tyler's gone. Just like a magic trick, a late night infomercial for a revolutionary new cleaning product, Insta-vanish. He's just gone.

I think you should go, I say.

"I know, I know," she says.

She has this odd catty look in her eyes as she walks toward me. Like a cat with a bird in it's sights. Her lips are curled in a smirk just before they crash into mine, her tongue roaming inside my mouth. Before I have the chance to push her away she breaks the kiss and tells me to call her. Then she's out the door and gone. Soon as she's out of sight, Tyler's back.

"You two," he says chuckling. "You didn't talk about me did you?"

You didn't come up.

I'm suddenly eight years old again running around my house trying to avoid the drunken wrath of my parents. Can't talk to mom about dad, can't tell dad mom's drunk too. Back and forth.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

It's a game I never liked to play then. I don't like playing it now.

I'm late for work I say.

***

It's in the paper today that some unknown vandal broke into Sunnydale Museum of Natural History and tampered with the wildlife exhibits. Setting up all the animals into gratuitous sexual positions. Imagine being in grade school and seeing the display.

A Siberian tiger sixty-nine.

Black bear blow-jobs.

Humping hyena's.

Tasmanian devil's doing it doggy-style.

You get the picture.

The police have no leads and museum officials are baffled that someone would do such a thing. I couldn't help laughing at the article. If you want to change people's point of views, it always takes something drastic. I knew who had done it. Tyler's name was draped across it with a velvet blanket. As funny as it is, I get to thinking.

What else is Tyler capable of?