Charlotte
Cold…
Pain…
Thirst…
…
I’m thirsty…
My eyes open to… an unfocussed fog… And droop closed again…
…
…
… and open once more…
The fog swirls… then clears. A blur of grey and brown and black resolves into detail…
And the detail means nothing…
Where am I?
Master?
I’m hurting…
Master?
Michael?
I want to speak, but my mouth is dry and puffy, lips gummy, sticking together… My jaws won’t work… like some nightmare where I want to scream but the sound won’t come out…
Sucking at my tongue and cheeks, to work up saliva, I try again to speak, but all that emerges is a whimper.
I’m so cold…
The fog clears some more and slowly it comes to me that I’m lying on my side on some hard surface. Pressed against it at shoulder and hip and cheek, the chill strikes up into flesh and bone. When I try to move, nothing happens. I’m stiff, my muscles unresponsive.
Woozy, my thinking is tattered…
What happened?
Master?
Michael?
I try to move again, to drag myself upright, but still, my body doesn’t respond.
What’s wrong with me?
From some dark tunnel, the memory crawls out…
The attack…
Two men…
One hit me…
My cheek pulses… The only heat I can feel…
The needle…
They drugged me…
…
Oh, God… They drugged me…
Cara.
Have they hurt her?
Damaged her?
Panic rises, threatening to overwhelm. Shock and terror galvanise me. Pulse racing, my breath rasping, finally my listless body responds as I lever myself up into a sitting position, running hands over my bulging abdomen.
Is she moving?
Let her be alright. Oh, please, let her be alright…
And there inside, the flutter of movement. The second life inside the single body.
I rub over my belly some more, massaging muscle and skin, feeling for the life within.
Talk to me, Baby.
And under my hand, a bulge, then a push… a bang. It knocks out what little breath I have, and gasping, I’ve never been so glad of anything in my life.
Long seconds pass as the hammering in my chest subsides. And now, looking around me I see my prison.
The room is enclosed: no windows… The air dank, that musty-damp smell to the air… Moisture clings to bare brickwork.
A cellar then… Or a basement…
Think…
I could grow to hate cellars…
….
….
My Master’s playroom…
His demesnes…
In the basement of our home, yes, it’s a cellar, but…
The fire roaring… Glimmering candles… their light casting amber and copper over the blond hair of my Golden Lover…
My Master… Dark… Forbidding…
The Love-Passion-Mastery in his eyes as he approaches me, the pommel gripped in his hand, soft leather tails trailing over the stone flags before they kiss my flesh as he gifts me with his pain
leasure…
Pain…
Pain in my face where they hit me…
Pain in my leg… and something dragging at me…
Looking down, a steel cuff bites into my ankle, the flesh already swollen and red. A length of chain connects it to a metal hoop. Embedded in the wall maybe six inches from the ground, the hoop is shiny and new, the cement fixing it in place fresh and clean.
Experimentally I scrape at it with a fingernail. No grain of sand works free. The surface remains smooth and unblemished.
No working that loose with a hairpin…
What else?
I’m still wearing the hospital gown, the white fabric creased and stained…
Then it dawns…
No panties…
Breathe…
Breathe…
Did they…?
Nothing feels out-of-kilter down there… There’s no scent of sex, a stranger’s semen… No swelling or soreness.
If they’d raped me while I was unconscious, would I know?
I think so.
Then why take my underclothes?
?
?
Why?
My prison seems to be a storeroom: rusted steel shelving piled with boxes and paraphernalia lines one wall. Another is stacked with dusty chairs, some up-side-down, teetering one atop another, a table with a broken leg, ancient computers, doubtless long-since defunct…
To one side of me, cardboard crates are stacked haphazardly on top of one another, some old, some new. Some look unopened. Others are semi-rotted, the card peeling apart to display the corrugations inside
To the other side, some feet away: an old-fashioned stone sink, square, stacked with cheap detergent and bleach, a mop and bucket to one side. The faucet drips, drizzling a green trail down the side to drip onto the concrete then trickle away into a central drain.
At least it isn’t dark…
Of course not.
A camera; merciless, indifferent, it stares down, squarely on my corner; a black cyclops eye aimed at me, a small red indicator blinking:
On… Off… On… Off… On… Off…
A single naked bulb dangles from a wire in the centre of the ceiling. If it were dark, they couldn’t watch me.
Are they really watching me?
All the time?
*****