86

Portia
We drive out of the city, mostly taking backroads to wherever we’re going. The three of us in the backseat are quiet while Felix alternates between taking calls and singing along with the radio, like we’re on some bazaar family road trip. It must be at least two hours later that we reach our destination, a hulking house in the middle of nowhere, guarded heavily at the gates and beyond.
There must be two dozen cars parked out front and that many more soldiers loitering around the vehicles.
“This is the end of the line, ladies,” Felix says as the car pulls to a stop around back.
The girl, no, not the girl. I know her name. Her real name. Mara looks both curiously and fearfully up at the house.
Felix focuses his attention on me. “That’s turned ugly. Don’t make me hit you again.”
The doors open and we’re escorted out. Mara isn’t handcuffed and she walks a few steps behind the woman, a soldier at her heels.
My soldier takes me by the arm and keeps shoving me toward the back door which is opened before we get to the stairs that lead up to it.
“This way,” someone says, ushering us inside. “Two?” she asks Felix when she sees us. “I was expecting one.”
“Change of plans. I’m sure you can accommodate us.”
“Of course.”
“Put them together. That one is a sly one,” he tells her, pointing to me.
“Keep your best guards on her.” He turns to the woman who strapped Mara’s hands in the SUV. “She needs to be bathed. Badly.”
“Asshole,” I can’t help but mutter.
The woman raises her eyebrows and gives me a look.
Felix glances at me. “One more word and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
I keep my mouth shut.
“Shall I take care of it, sir?” the woman we drove with asks.
“Do. Without leaving marks.”
She nods.
He turns to me. “She’s got a talent for not leaving marks. Isn’t that right, Lizzie?”
Lizzie-Mara-doesn’t answer.
He shifts his attention back to the woman who let us in. I wonder to myself how women work with men like this, knowing what they’re doing. Selling other women and girls.
“And this one, well, I don’t need to tell you what will happen if this one isn’t delivered in pristine condition. No one lays a finger on her. Helga will remain with her at all times. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he here?” I hear Felix ask as we’re ushered upstairs by Helga.
“Not yet but we’ve had word his envoy is on its way.”
I momentarily hear a harp as a server pushes a door open carrying an empty tray into the large kitchen. He doesn’t spare us a glance as we’re led up two flights of stairs to a luxurious hallway with gold and pink wallpaper and plush carpet. The patterns are dizzying. There are a dozen doors on this floor. As we walk past them, I hear some sound, but not a lot. What I can hear reminds me of the boat with those women. This must be the auction. This must be where they were brought.
Mara and I are taken to the room at the far end of the corridor. It’s a bedroom more luxurious than any I’ve seen. The huge bed is the centerpiece, the fabric draping it like something out of a princess movie. Pink all around, as far as the eye can see. I wonder if a five-year-old decorated this place.
Three men accompany us inside and Helga starts right away. “You, sit.” She points to a chair in the far corner as if Mara is a dog.
Mara spares me a glance before walking to the chair and taking a seat.
Helga turns to me, looks me over, eyes scornful. I can’t tell how old she is. She could be thirty or sixty with her gray-streaked hair drawn back into a tight bun, face pudgy, the lipstick she has on strangely out of place, too pink, too smudged. She’s sturdy, built big.
She unhooks the same strap she’d used to strike Mara from her belt.
“Strip her. Get her on the bed on her back.”
The men obey without a word, my struggles not hindering their efforts in the least, my curses doing nothing but earning a clucking of the tongue from Helga.
Once I’m naked, I’m lifted and hauled to the bed, my arms still behind my back, wrists still bound.
The metal of the handcuffs digs into my lower back.
“Open her legs and keep her down.”
“No!” Again, it’s senseless to fight. I know it. There are too many of them and I’m bound. One of the men takes hold of my shoulders to pin me to the bed. The others move to either side of me each taking a leg, spreading me wide.
Helga’s gaze shifts to my exposed sex then to my eyes. “Wider.” She runs the strap through the palm of her left hand, and I realize what she means to do. She’ll strap me there. It’ll leave a mark, won’t it?
“Good,” she says once my legs are at the point they’d break if they were spread any wider. “Hold her still.”
She shifts her position slightly, I guess to get at me at a better angle, raises her arm and brings the strap down over my sex.
For a split second, all I hear is the sound of the strap, then nothing. Just nothing. And then the white-hot pain.
“You’re a fucking sadist!” I shout when I can speak again.
She straps me again, not bothering to comment as she lashes me six more times. My crotch is on fire and I’m wriggling to get out of the way but can’t. She’s precise. She’s done this before.
“It’s enough,” Mara says from a few feet away.
I see she’s gotten off her chair, but she stops the instant Helga turns her attention to her. I see the girl’s throat work as she swallows in fear of the woman.
“Did I tell you to get up?”
“He’ll get less if she has marks. She’s swollen,” Mara tries.
Helga walks toward her. “Did I tell you to get up?”
“No, Ma’am.” She lowers her gaze to the floor.
“You’ve just bought her six more lashes. Unless you’d like to take them in her place.”
Mara looks up at her, then at me, tears in her wide eyes. Her lip trembles. This is what they’ve done to her these years? This child?
“Do you get off on this?” I call out to Helga. “Does it turn you on to look at helpless girls, Helga?” she turns her attention back to me, rage boiling inside her making her cheeks burn an angry red. “Are you going to fuck yourself when you’re done? Come thinking of how my pussy looked when you strapped it?”
She walks back to me. If the first six were painful, I know the next will be hell. But it’s worth it. I can’t let her touch Mara. I would rather die than let her do that.
So, I take it. I take the lashes and I clench my jaw so as not to cry out, but I can’t help my tears.
When it’s over, I’m lifted up off the bed and carried into the bathroom. It’s a good thing, I guess. My legs won’t quite work as I process the still-throbbing pain.
There, I’m submerged into a tub of too-hot water, doubling the sting.
“Bind her hands in front of her. I’m certainly not paid to clean that filth.”
One of the guards does as she says, taking off the cuffs and re-cuffing them with my arms in front.
It feels better at least. Easier on my shoulders.
Helga stands over me and grins, hooking the strap back on her belt. She leans toward me.
“Give me any trouble and your next punishment will make this one look like a walk in the park.”
I don’t answer with words. It’d be stupid to. But I tell myself I’m going to kill her if I get the chance.
Even if it’s the last thing I do, because this is looking more and more hopeless the longer I’m here.
Callahan is dead. No one is coming for me and there are enough soldiers out there to hunt me down or outright kill me. Even if I managed to get out of the house, I’m not valuable to them anymore.
Maybe I’d be better off dead if I think about the alternative Felix has in store for me.
No. Dead is never better. Isn’t that what Callahan always says?
Said.
Not says.
Not anymore.
She straightens, gestures to one of the men to give her the shower gel and shampoo.
“Now get out,” she snaps at the men.
The men look at each other like they’re confused.
She looks up at them as she sets the things on the ledge along the tub. “I said get out. Are you as stupid as you are ugly or just hard of hearing?”
“We’re to stay – ”
“You can wait outside. I don’t want you near Lizzie and you’ve certainly had your eyeful of this one.” She turns her attention to me, looking like she’s disgusted as the men clear out. “Come back in fifteen minutes to take her to the waxing room.”
Waxing room?
She turns back to me. “Get to work.”
I pick up the loofah.