She wondered if Stephen was going to keep his promise about not having sex with her. Not real sex, anyway. If he’d be able to do that.
He’d better.
“How long you going to leave it on?”
“Well, I’ve got to get her out of the cuffs in about an hour or she’s going to have problems with circulation. But by then she’ll be hurting and compliant enough so that she won’t be hard to handle. I figure we’ll just tie her to the chair here and you can hold her head still for me while I take off the box and blindfold her from behind. I don’t want her to see us yet. I want us to stay anonymous. We’ll turn off the lights and leave her an hour or so and then I want to come back and try to feed her. I’m betting she refuses. So then we put her up on the rack again and I’ll give her her first beating. Show her what things are going to be like from now on. She’ll get the idea.”
“What if she doesn’t? Refuse I mean.”
He grinned. “If you were in her shoes, would you accept food from us right now? But even if she does, fine. Establishes dependency. Either way we can’t lose.”
She collected his empty plate off his lap. The cat tried to nuzzle her leg but she stepped away.
“Are you going to stay down here a while?”
He nodded. “I want to make sure she’s basically okay, that she doesn’t throw up inside the box or anything. I’ll hang around. But you go on ahead. I’ll give you a yell when I need you. If Sandy calls let me know.”
“Okay.”
She walked upstairs through the doorway that led to the dining room and kitchen and put the plates in the sink and rinsed them and stacked them in the dishwasher. Outside the window over the sink a pair of jays were harassing a small flock of sparrows attempting to feed by the cherry tree next to the garage, diving at them from the white birch on the opposite side of the lawn. Scattering them but making no real effort to feed. Just flying back to the birch and perching there until the sparrows returned and then diving back down to scatter them again. Seemingly just for the hell of it. Or maybe it was the sparrows themselves the jays were after.
Were bluejays predatory? She didn’t know.
Nowadays, who wasn’t?
In the basement he thought of all the things — the things he would do to her before she broke, all those things which would make her break in the course of time. It would take time he knew and that was fine because the good part was in the breaking. Once the will to resist had disappeared they were like herd animals, like cattle, without motivation other than to go on living with a minimum of pain. The pleasure was in the taming of the will and the mastery of the spirit and he was only in the second true hour of that, the second true hour of all that lay ahead yet already h hard-on was irresistible so he grasped it in his warm calloused hand and looked at her breathing flesh just a few feet away and stroked and stroked.
The cat sat watching him. The cat made him uncomfortable.
He wished it would go away.
When he was finished he went to the sink to wash the scum off his hand and remove the smell of his body and sat down and gazed at her again.
Screw HBO. He had his own Original Movie. Right in front of him.
It was going to go on and on.
FIVE
5:25 p.m.
“I don’t want it,” she said. “How many times do I have to tell you? Please. Just let me out of here. Why can’t you just leave the blindfold, let me get dressed and drive me back where you found me? Or anywhere. My god, I’m not going to tell anybody. How can I? I don’t even know who you are or where I am!”
“Eat your sandwich,” he said.
“Please. I can’t. Just the smell of it’s making me sick!”
“When I tell you to do something you do it. I don’t care what it is. You understand?”
“You want me to throw up? Is that what you want?”
“I don’t care what you do as long as you do what I say and eat the sandwich. Now take a bite.”
He held it under her nose.
Tuna salad.
She wasn’t lying about vomiting. She felt like a drunk at the end of a long night on sweet cheap wine. Waves of nausea rolled through her, making her sweat. It was worse than being inside the box. She shook her head side to side, trying to escape the reek of it. It was all she could do. The leather manacles were attached tight to the arms and legs of the chair. There was a rope around her shoulders and another around her waist.
“Please!”
She began to cry again beneath the blindfold. The blindfold her only garment now. How long and how often could you cry before it was impossible to cry anymore? Did tears have a physical limit? She hoped they did. Like her nudity the tears shamed her.
He shoved the sandwich roughly to her closed lips. It crumbled. Cold clammy bits of bread and tuna falling across her chest and thighs. Some of it clung to her lips. She sputtered it away.
He sighed. She heard a plate set down on a table. He walked around behind her.
She felt the rope around her waist fall free and then the one around her shoulders. He drew them off her.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “I guess this isn’t working. I thought maybe you’d sort of get into all this. Some people do, you know.” He sighed again. “I guess we’ll just take you back like you say. You sure you won’t tell? I mean, you promise?”
Some people get into this? Was he crazy?
“I won’t. I swear.”
“You remember what we look like?”
“No. I mean, it was so fast. How could I?”
He seemed to think about it.
“Good. Okay. I guess we’ll do it then. Too bad though.”
One by one the manacles fell free from the chair legs. She felt a sudden surge of hope. Maybe if he was crazy, he was also crazy enough to take her out of here. Let her go. Give her up. Or even if he had something else in mind, something she didn’t even like to think about, there still might be a chance to get free. Everything, every hope, began with getting out of here. Beyond that she’d take her chances. It occurred to her that he could kill her just as easily here as anywhere. Easier in fact.
She was healthy and strong. Anything but this she might possibly deal with.
She felt something brush her ankle. Suddenly wet then smooth and soft. She jumped.
“What’s that?”
“The damn cat. Don’t worry. Hey! Outa here!”
He released the manacles from the chair arms. She moved her wrists and jangled the rings.
“Aren’t you going to take these off?”
“In a minute. First I have to go upstairs and get you some clothes. I sort of ruined the ones you were wearing, you know?” He laughed. “Got to make sure you don’t try to run away on me in the meantime. Stand up.”
He took her hand. His was hard and calloused. Not a big hand but definitely a laborer’s hand.
“Come with me. Over here. Nice and slow. Be careful.”
He led her blind across the room. Then he stopped her and raised her hand and snapped it to a ring on the X frame. Suddenly she was scared again.
“No, wait. You said…”
