CHAPTER SEVEN
HOPE
After Mark leaves me, he returns a while later, throwing pieces of bread on the floor like I’m an animal. I scramble to get the little pieces of food and eat them like I have never eaten before. I have no idea how long I have been here, but I feel so hungry and at this point food is food and I eat the crumbs. Shame soon fills me up and I can’t believe I’m giving him what he wants but I acted before I could really think, the hunger ruled my actions. I was so hungry, and it did nothing to stop the pains that reside in my stomach but at least it is something even if I acted like an animal to get it. He pours water into a bowl and kicks it towards me, most of it spilling on the floor but I am grateful for the little bit of liquid that touches my dry tongue. As soon as I find the bowl he leaves me in the dark again. When I am alone, my sight gone. I can’t hear anything either, the only thing to touch is cold and I can do nothing but fall into the pit of despair.
I am on my own.
I have no idea of the fate of my own life.
I cry. I cry so much I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark could hear me through the locked door.
What am I going to do?
How can I get myself out of this? My body is roped down with my emotions, with the drugs they gave me when they took me, and I fall into the realms of sleep. Too tired and drained to do anything else, just hoping that I can still wake up from this nightmare.
****
I awake sometime later to more blackness.
So much blackness that it coat’s me in its cloak of misery and despair. My hands are free, and I claw and scratch at the collar around my neck as it takes away all my happy memories. I want the man I loved to come back and rescue me. Tell me he’s sorry and he didn’t mean all the things he said and did to me. I think back through the last few hours, days, I have no idea, time no longer exists to me. After everything he has done to me, though, I don’t think the man I loved even existed, he hid behind his good looks and the right words and I was stupid enough to fall for it. I was a ploy in the game he decided he was the leader in.
I want to go home and right now I would give anything to feel my mum’s embrace as she kisses my head and makes everything better again. So many times, in the past I would ask her not to do it, I found it embarrassing with a world full of macho men but as I sit within this prison all I want is to be back in my mother’s arms. I want to be back with my family. I hear nothing around me, there is no noise, no light, no companionship in this tiny cell they’ve imprisoned me within and I can feel myself going crazy.
I want to scream.
I want to shout and hit the walls that are closing in around me.
I need light, I need noise, I need something to make me feel human. Anything to make me feel like I’m not just an empty shell trying to survive but that is what I sense myself becoming, that’s what Mark wants me to become at the end of this game he is playing with me. I just don’t know what this game is, I don’t know why he is doing this and what he expects to happen.
What he expects from me. I can’t stand this, I don’t know how long it has been since they left me here. It could be an hour, it could be a day or two, but I feel the madness creep into every cell of my body. I have no sense of time. Thirst and hunger pains erupt from deep in my stomach and I try to think of anything to keep the pains at bay, but I can feel the dizziness try to claim me with its vice-like grip around my whole body. My mouth feels too dry, like sand paper that lines the inside of my mouth, and I can feel the need to urinate from my bladder. I can only hope Mark hasn’t left me like this for days, he wouldn’t be that cruel would he?
But I don’t know. I have no idea.
I don’t know the man he really is. The man I thought I loved is long gone, I don’t think I even knew him at all, it was all an act. I was stupid. I was so stupid to think he could love someone like me, to think anyone could love me. I need answers, I need something to stop my brain from going into overdrive. I crawl to the door, the collar tries to pull me back, cutting into my neck and with whatever strength I have left I start to bang on the door.
“M..Mark.”
It comes out low and croaky as the sand paper coats my voice box, but I’ll keep trying until he opens the door. I’ll keep trying. I’ll keep trying.
“M..Mark.” Bang, bang, bang.
“M..Mark.” Bang, bang, bang.
“Let me out.” Bang.
“Let me out.”
Bang. Bang.
“Mark please. Please.”
Nothing happens, more silence is all that greets me as I fall back on the floor and I cry until I hear a loud creak coming from the locked door. Before I can even look up shards of cold glass are rained over me. It’s like a million needles are attacking every part of me with their pin prick dance.
“Get up.”
I hear Mark say and I slowly look and see him holding a hose pipe at me. White water keeps covering me with its cold spray. Something cold and hard hits me on my head and as I look down I see it’s a piece of soap.
“Wash, you fucking stink.”
I stay where I am, the water hurts as it blasts colder water on top of me and all I can do is shiver as my body tries to adjust to the new temperature.
“Wash.” I shake my head, there is no way I will make this easy on him.
“Wash.” No. No I won’t do it. I will not do what he wants.
“Wash, Hope, now.” I look up at him and he stands in the middle of the doorway looking like a king in his clothes and proud stature and all I do is continue with shaking my head at him. His hands lie on his hips and I can just tell that I’m getting to him.
“No.” I shout with all I’m worth.
Mark points to something to the left of him just as the water stops and I try to hug myself to bring a little warmth. A shadow emerges and as it enters my little cell I can see he’s big, muscles are bulging through the top he wears, and he looks at me with disgust just before he bends down to my level.
“We always get what we want.” He whispers in my ear before giving me a sinister smile and standing tall above me and then stepping around. Warm but firm hands take a grip of my arm and pull me up on my shaky legs. He takes my other arm as well and Mark makes eye contact with me as he steps towards us. He’s a step away from me and he reeks of the power he thinks he holds over me and without warning one of his hands comes flying at me, slapping me in the process. My left cheek feels like it’s on fire, my eye pumps away with an intense throbbing as he just looks at me and reaches for something above his head. A chain comes down and before I can even try and stop the man behind me he has both my arms raised and Mark quickly shackles my wrists. There’s no escape, they have me secured. Mark grabs hold of my chin with his thumb and forefinger, his stare as he looks into my eyes is so intense that I try to turn away, but I have no choice. My eyes are shackled as much as the rest of me, exactly where this monster wants me. He’s a monster that’s the only way I can think of describing him.
“You should have done as you were told my love.”
He picks up the soap from where it lies on the floor and starts rubbing it between his hands building up a lather.
“I can’t say I never thought about what you would look like naked. Seeing you like this you look better than I would have thought.” He steps closer, his eyes focused only on my breasts.
“Your breasts are just the right handful. And so perky. We’ll have lots of potential customers bidding on you my love.”
“B..B.Bidding?”
I can hardly get the words out, the thought of what they mean slithers up my body like a boa constrictor threatening to squeeze the life out of me. Bidding? There is only one thing that means and panic races through me. I can feel my airway tighten as pure panic takes over and I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, my lungs rattle as they struggle to take in any air and the only thing I want to do is be sick. His hands are suddenly on my breasts, moving and squeezing them firmly until he gets to my nipples and pulls them. I can only yelp in pain as he squeezes and pulls them, his eyes stay on mine waiting for a reaction from me.
“You’re mine now my love, until you have your new owner.”
His hands work over my chest and around my shoulders and under my arms. He rubs in the lather his hands have built up with the soap and it feels like I’m being scratched. My skin is being scratched away, it feels too painful under his touch and I’m sure it’s turning a deep red as he breaks the skin.
“And it’s my job to get you prepared.” He takes a breath and he goes down my stomach before stopping at my hips and looking at me again.
“So you better listen and do as you’re told.” He says as he crouches down, making sure not to rest on the wet floor. Suddenly he forces what feels like his whole wrist into my core, the intrusion feels foreign and so sore I think he’s trying to rip me in two and I don’t recognise my own voice as it tells of my pain.
“You won’t like what happens if you don’t.” He says as I try to move myself away from him, but he just keeps moving with me. He pushes further in and moving his fingers deep inside me and I cry out and he only laughs at me. It feels like razor blades are inside me shredding my inner muscles to pieces with each strike of his fingers. Tears fall down my cheeks as I watch him laugh at my pain, this monster, he has me right where he wants me, and I have no chance of escape.
“P..Please Mark. J..J.Just let me go.”
He removes his fingers and I can see they are covered in my blood, he looks at them as if he is proud of himself.
“Did that hurt my love?” I don’t do anything, I just look at him.
“Did that hurt?” I remain silent and as the minutes go by I can feel his anger building; his eyes turn red with anger.
“Answer me, Hope.”
“Answer me.” This time the slap happens so fast I have no choice but to let my body flow with the direction, my cheek feels like it’s doubled in size within that moment. I stay looking at the wall, the slap forcing me backwards but Mark’s fingers are soon on my chin forcing me back to him again.
“That’s fine, don’t speak, but you’re only making it worse for yourself.” With my chin still imprisoned by his fingers he plants a kiss on the cheek that he has just slapped. From the bottom of my eye I can see Mark pick up the soap and rub it between his fingers again.
“Such a little bitch.” And he starts to wash me again with the lather concentrating on my core and breasts. I close my eyes, just hoping that maybe if I shut him out then he won’t really be there. Hopefully when I open my eyes I’ll be back in my bed and this would have been just a bad dream. Please let this all be a bad dream. His fingers feel too real though for this to be a dream, as soon as I open my eyes Mark will be all I see. He will be my only reality. I can’t believe I could have been so stupid. I’ve been so stupid and now I am paying for that stupidity with my life and I have no one to blame but myself.
His fingers seem to linger over my body for far too long, my naked body is on show for him to ridicule and I want to shy away. I don’t want to do this. I want to just disappear. I want this all to be over and not to be strung up like a piece of meat. I’m being forced to bare my body like I’m nothing, this man can look at me even though the thought of his eyes on me makes me want to scream and shout, even though it’s the last thing I want when only a few weeks earlier I would have jumped at the chance. I desperately wanted Mark to see me, I wanted to feel his fingers, his eyes on me and now it’s happening, and I want to run away to the hills. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here with him. I watch silently as he steps back to the door and gets the hose again, aiming it right at me.
“Mark no....P...Please.”
“You stink.” Cold water attacks every inch of me once again with its sharp pinprick points and I can only scream in pain as it penetrates my sensitive skin as he washes me. It attacks my face and my thirst for anything to help my mouth, to feel hydrated and not drowning in a desert overcomes me. I slowly open my mouth and let the first drops coat my dry tongue, dryness quickly becoming a sea and as more water keeps attacking me I gulp down as much of the liquid as I can. The relief is immense, the thirst being destroyed with each swallow I take. It seems to end too fast, my body shivers from the unwanted coldness and I can only stand here and take it. The water turns off and Mark and his friend just watch as I shake and shiver in my bonds, my head remaining down. I can see the drips of water as they work themselves down my body and to the floor where they meet with their brothers and the bubbles from the soap and then go to the drain. Working their way through the drain and disappearing from this hell, I wish I could go down a drain and disappear from this nightmare, but I think I’m stuck here but I have to have my faith. I have to believe that this is just a nightmare I still haven’t awoken from or there’s a way out of this hell. The two of them just stand there watching me naked and cold, I want to shout at them both to let me go but I know it will do nothing to help me. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I know that truth to be true.
The friend goes off to only come back a few minutes later with something that looks like a trolley. He leaves it by Mark’s side and then comes back to me and my heart goes back into panic mode. What are they going to do now? He pulls two chains down and then takes a hold of each of my ankles one at a time before securing them both in the chains. He steps back to Mark where he presses a button and my legs are taken up from the floor and stretched open. I’m in perfect view of them both. I want to be sick. Mark steps towards me with the trolley and as it gets closer I can see a pot and some strips. Oh God, what is he going to do to me? He picks up a spatula that I must have missed resting in the inside of the pot and it gleams with a yellow sticky-looking liquid. He steps in between my legs and my core is just at the right level for his eyes. Why do I feel that while I’m like this he can look right into me, that I have nothing else to hide? Because I don’t, because while he has me like this I have nothing left. That’s not right. I have my strength and I have my hope and no matter what Mark does to me I have to cling on to the only things of myself he has left me with. I have to believe that. I have to, for myself and my sanity because without it I don’t think I’ll survive.
“Lesson one, my love. All customers will want their new toys to be bare. That means no hair. I won’t lie, it will hurt.” I feel like he’s just burnt me, boiling heat lands on my special skin and is smeared as far as it can go and I feel the skin blistering into millions of little protective bubbles. He stabs me with a strip and without any notice he just rips it off with one swipe, like it’s merely a Band Aid. My skin feels like it’s on fire, every layer of skin is being yanked off, but Mark keeps going, he covers every inch of me until there is no hair left on my poor body except on my head and eyebrows. By the time he’s done I just want to curl up in the foetal position and hideaway for ever.
Mark removes the trolley and then comes back with his friend, one works on my ankles the other my wrists and they seem to work together because I feel the release at the exact same time and then I’m falling on the floor in an exhausted heap. They begin to laugh, they both laugh as they leave me lying on the floor shivering and red hot at the same time, encasing me within the darkness yet again.