Trapped In My Husband’s Golden Cage
I had been at this for four minutes, which was three minutes longer than it should have taken, and the ceiling was right there, twelve inches above the surface of the water, and that gap was closing.
I sucked in a breath and pushed up off the floor, fingers working the lock above the waterline, eyes stinging, lungs already complaining. The sequence was 7, 2, 11, 5. I had gotten seven and two. The third wheel kept slipping back to nine, and I did not understand why until my fingers found a groove in the mechanism on the underside, damage, old damage, something that had bent the wheel slightly so that eleven required extra pressure from the left to seat properly.
I pressed left and turned.