by S. E. Amadis
He glared at me. Appeared to mull it over.
“You’re wasting my time,” he began.
Then all of a sudden, he seemed to change his mind. Plopping down into a chair, he reached out and scrawled an illegible, childlike scribble across my papers.
“Well. At least this way you’ll get paid for... whatever services you’re going to provide me with. Right?”
As he grinned, I noticed how crooked and yellow his teeth were...
At that time, his vulgar insinuations were lost on me.
I waited for him to issue instructions, but he didn’t give me any. Only stared at me with an expression as if examining ripe melons.
I glowered at the hardwood table uneasily. Hiding my hands underneath it, I began to fidget. My stiff wool blazer chafed against me in the overheated room. I wished I could take it off. Suddenly, Bruno reached forward and pulled my hands up, studying my fingers with an inscrutable expression.
“No ring?” he murmured.
“Excuse me?”
I felt self-conscious about my dusty rose nail lacquer which was starting to peel at the edges. Perhaps this small and, I thought, insignificant detail bothered him? Maybe it made me come across as slovenly?
But he only squeezed my hands effusively as if we were bosom buddies.
“You’re beautiful, Annasuya,” he said.
He cupped his hand around my ear, pushed back a wisp of hair that had fallen over my face.
“How old are you?”
This time I really gaped at him. I gulped.
“I beg your pardon?”
He stood up and locked the door of the conference room. I knew that wouldn’t retain me here, if I needed to run for it. I could simply unlock the door myself. But it would also slow me down.
Alarm bells were starting to ring in every part of my brain now. I grabbed the papers from the agency and stuffed them into my handbag any which way. Some small vestige of me well-trained in ethics and morality pointed out that it was really my duty to remain here and provide a full day of labour in order to earn my salary. But all I wanted was out.
I stumbled to my feet. My knees were shaking so hard I could barely stand.
“Um, Mr. Jarvas. Perhaps I could start working? I don’t suppose I’m going to be working in here, right? Perhaps you have a computer for me... In another office...”
Anything, I thought. Anything to get me out of this room, which suddenly felt so stuffy I could scarcely breathe, and closer to the office door.
Bruno took a step towards me. He was standing between me and the conference room door, blocking my way out. I tried to edge towards the door surreptitiously. Bruno’s hand shot out without warning, seizing me by the arm. He snaked his other hand around my neck, grasping me around the scruff of my neck as if I were a puppy. Pressing the fingers of his broad hand dangerously close to my windpipe.
“No,” he hissed in an oily voice. “This room’s just fine, for the job I need to have done.”
A mound of jello jiggled in my stomach. I took another trembling step towards the door. Suddenly, Bruno hurled himself against me and slammed me against the wall. I gaped at him, stunned. His forceful hand found its way against my windpipe again.
“You’re not a martial artist, are you?” he screeched into my face.
Terrified, I could only shake my head.
With one hand wedged firmly against my throat, his other hand travelled down my sides, groping at me first with aplomb, then growing clumsier as emotion overcame him. I tried to jerk myself away from him. That only inspired him to press even harder against my throat. I gulped, trying to force air down.
He reached for my skirt, bent over and started running his hand up my thighs. I would have whimpered or cried out if it hadn’t been for his firm grip against my trachea.
“So soft. So soft. So sweet and gentle.”
His grip on my throat loosened for an instant. I tried to make a beeline for it, but he hooked his foot around my ankles and sent me crashing towards the floor before I knew what was happening. I grasped for the back of a chair. He yanked it away from me, and I tumbled helplessly to the ground.
Before I could do anything his rough hands were all over me, snatching my skirt upwards, dragging at my pantyhose, like a savage mongrel on the street. I ogled at his face. The stiff executive demeanour had metamorphosed into the hideous concavities of a beast.
I battled against him, trying to pound my fists against any part of him I could reach. He pressed my arms down easily, with his superior strength. I tried to raise my legs to kick him with my two-inch stilettos and he smashed something hard and heavy down against my head.
I didn’t conk out completely. In a daze, as if watching a movie while drifting off to sleep, I saw him loosen his cargo pants and lower himself down over me. His steely hands clawed at my fragile pantyhose, ripping it until it disintegrated into bits and pieces on the floor around me. His scaly arms snaked up my thighs, snagging my skimpy pinstriped skirt upwards, sliding my lace panties down.
The pain that followed was so immense, so unbearable and indescribable, that I came to in an instant. An unending howl wrenched itself irrepressibly from my throat and I began to scream and shriek at the top of my lungs without stopping. I flayed and battled with my legs, helplessly, but Bruno avoided them with dexterity. When my legs got too close to him, he simply slapped out with his palms and pressed my knees down harshly towards the ground beside me, forcing my legs into impossible splits. Pain shot up my hips.
Bruno only sighed with pleasure.
“Scream all you want, my lovely. We’re all alone on this top floor. No one can hear you.”
He thrust himself into me a few more times, then lay back on the ground beside me, utterly spent.
I wanted to grab this instant to escape, but I felt like a rag doll. I had no strength left. Red hot fire continued to slash through me in agonizing waves. Mustering all my forces, I pushed myself up onto my elbows. Bruno made no move to stop me and haltingly, gawkily, as if I were a wooden marionette being handled by a novice puppeteer, I dragged myself away from him.
Thankfully, for whatever reason, he continued to ignore me. I slid my panties up and grappled my way towards the table, some tiny, survival-oriented portion of my brain still alert enough to remind me to grab my handbag before making my escape. I reached the door, wrestled with the lock with fumbling fingers, managed to stagger out into the corridor. There was no sound from inside the conference room.
I tried to run, but my ankles kept twisting in my moderately high heels. Somehow I made it to the office door and managed to wrench the lock open. Blood coursed down my legs, sluiced over my shoes and dribbled into patterned footprints on the floor. A vague part of me wondered inanely how Bruno Jarvas would explain those marks on the ground later on, or if he planned to mop them up.
I pounded against the elevator buttons, but terror and panic spurred me to flee down the stairway. I crumpled down a few flights, then realized I couldn’t keep going like this. There was no way I would make it down fifty floors on foot in the state I was in.
I struggled with the safety bar on the nearest fire escape door and collapsed into a corridor. I had no idea which floor I was on. My legs gave way and I smashed against the ground, grinding my cheekbone painfully against the hard porcelain tiles. Blood continued to stream down my legs. I wondered what Bruno had done to me. Obviously I was no virgin, and I currently enjoyed a happy and active sex life with Calvin. So I couldn’t understand how Bruno could have hurt me so badly.
I heard footsteps on the stairway behind me. Bruno’s voice, sneaky and prideful.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are. Papa Bruno’s coming for you,” I thought I made out. Although, of course, I could also have been delirious.
I decided not to hang around to find out. I had to search for someplace to hide. That was hard, because I was leaving a trail of blood on the floor. I reasoned, in the dazed-out, rather irrational state I was in, that the firs
t thing I had to do was to somehow wash myself clean.
I began to crawl along the hallway. I felt lightheaded. I passed a row of shiny elevator doors, gleaming silver beckoning enticingly at me. I pulled myself towards them. The safety bar on the fire escape door rattled. There was no time to wait for an elevator.
Casting about in desperation for anything, anyplace at all I could curl myself into, I caught a glimpse of a restroom. I didn’t stop to decipher whether it was a ladies’ or a gents’. I barrelled through the door like a lump of clay, slammed it shut, barred it from within with a broom handle. Thankfully, there was a lock as well, and I turned it. I prayed I hadn’t left any tell-tale traces of blood outside the door.
I leaned back against the door, panting, still on all fours, and glanced about me. It was a standard public bathroom, sterile white linoleum and rows of bleach containers against the back wall of a nearby closet. I felt blood seep through my skirt and spread out in a puddle around my legs. Before I could react, someone began to bang at the door and rattle the door handle. I almost leapt backwards as if struck by an electric shock, would have leapt backwards for real if I’d been standing up. As it was, all I could do was slide myself away from the door, whimpering. My hands splashed into the blood on the ground and I left crimson handprints on the floor as I moved.
Whoever it was continued to bang insistently on the door. I prayed it was only some lady with an urgent need to use the toilet. But the banging was too loud, too violent. No one pounded so aggressively when all they wanted was to have a pee. Besides which, there were restrooms on every floor. Whoever it was shook the door handle without respite, slammed himself against the door over and over again, plastered his fists and knuckles against the sturdy wood with a dry, rapping noise.
I backed up against the far wall of the room and curled my knees up against my chin. My teeth were chattering and my hands shook uncontrollably. I clasped my knees. It felt as if less blood was trickling out now, and I grasped my ankles gratefully, shivering against the frigid floor. The person on the other side of the door continued to batter away. I didn’t dare imagine what would happen if the lock caved in or the door splintered.
I heard voices in the corridor then. People approaching. I hoped they weren’t planning on giving Bruno the key to the bathroom. It wasn’t likely, but the wild idea plopped into my head illogically.
“Sir,” I heard on the other side. The voices were muffled, but I could understand them. “Sir, you have to stop banging on the door. That’s the ladies’. You want the gents’. Here, come this way. The gents’ is over here...”
The voices moved away and the banging stopped. I expected that as soon as my saviours left, Bruno would be back. But then other voices joined the first, and soon a whole bevy of people were gaggling in the corridor.
The voices persisted for a while. To my relief, when silence finally fell again, no one returned to the bathroom door.
I waited with bated breath, not daring to hope that it was possible that Bruno had actually left for good. I don’t know how long I huddled there, cramped into that uncomfortable posture. I could see, from the arc the faint sunlight was tracing through the frosted windows, that some time had passed, but I didn’t know how much.
At last I relaxed enough to let go of my ankles and stretch out my stiff, ungainly legs. The sharp pain between my legs had settled into a dull throb, and it felt like the bleeding had stopped.
My numbed-out brain began to react and sort itself out. The first hint of some sort of logical plan began to form against the back wall of my grey cells. I had to get out of here somehow, without bumping into Bruno. Had to get away from Bruno forever. Had to run to the nearby temp agency as fast as I could, let them know what had happened.
I didn’t know exactly why I had to go there. Perhaps it was so they would believe me, and I would get paid. Otherwise Bruno could simply put in a complaint. Make it seem like I was the one found wanting, and then they wouldn’t pay me. Money was tight right now, I could never forget that.
I could phone them, but I didn’t think they would believe me that way. They had to see me with their own eyes to understand.
I wanted to stand, but my legs still refused to hold my weight and my knees wobbled like jelly. I wondered if I would ever be all right again.
I began to drag myself towards the door, my heart in my throat. I glanced down and saw myself encrusted with blood from my waist to my feet. I looked like a zombie. I was sure there must be blood on my face as well. There was no way I could show myself like this at the agency. I felt violated, dirty, degraded. I could still sense his slimy hands all over me. If they saw me this way they’d know what had happened to me. They’d be able to see how I felt. They’d see my pain in my eyes and pity me.
I thought I could wait until night and slip home under cover of the darkness. But then I’d be like a sitting duck here, just waiting for Bruno to find me. I had no doubt he’d be back to scout me out, after all the building was empty. No. I had to get away now, while I still had the chance. In the bright light of day.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to face the world looking like this. Maybe I could phone Calvin, ask him to come for me. Maybe he could bring me a long skirt to cover my bloodied legs. Besides which, Bruno wouldn’t dare to approach me if Calvin was with me.
With shaking hands, I pulled out my mobile.
It was dead.
I’d forgotten to charge it last night.
Illogically, the thought of a shower popped into my mind. And then, as if it were a mirage, suddenly a shower really did materialize before me. All I could do was stare at it in a stupor, wondering if I had only dreamt it up. Dropping my handbag with its precious papers onto the floor, I crept up onto the shower tray. Plunked my hands around the taps, still expecting it to disappear at any moment. The taps twisted in my hands and blessed warm water poured out all over me.
I curled into a ball on the floor of the shower, gratefully letting the water wash every trace and vestige of blood and violation from me. All of a sudden, as I lay there, the tears just welled up inside me, unexpected, filling my chest to bursting with sharp-edged pain and cramming out of me.
It was just the physical violence. The feeling of his hands against me, hard, cruel, implacable. The feeling that someone hated me so much that they wanted to hurt me this badly. I began to cry with broken sobs. Deep, wracking sobs that shook all the way through me and felt as if they would have no end, letting the tears pour down my cheeks and mingle with the water from the shower.
I don’t know how long I lay there this way. I felt like I would never be clean or whole again. But time was ticking by and before I knew it, long shadows were arching through the frosted glass, painting ominous figures across the bathroom floor. The day was almost over. Before long, all the offices would be closed, and Bruno would be back.
I jumped to my feet in a panic, nerves and muscles much steadier and stronger now. I didn’t know what time it was, since the mobile was dead. But I knew I had to hurry.
I spun the shower taps, scrambled out and rushed to the door. I knew I was a sorry sight, streaming water in puddles at my feet. But at least I wasn’t bloody anymore. I glanced down at my legs. Not a spot of blood remained on them or on my shoes to betray the ordeal I’d just been through. I could still make out the dark stains on my skirt, but they were barely noticeable against the blackened fabric.
I eased the bathroom door open, my heart pounding so hard it seemed my chest would explode. The corridor was empty. I made a dash for the elevators and clawed at the buttons. I must have pounded against them literally a thousand times at least.
Suddenly, too late, I realized from the little numbers above the door that the nearest elevator had paused on the uppermost floor, the penthouse suite, where Bruno had his office. And now it was on its way down towards me.
I felt rooted to the spot, petrified with terror. Before I could make a single move, the elevator dinged in front of me.
The
doors began to open.
Chapter 3
I didn’t hang around to see who would pop out the elevator doors. Terror jolted me into action, and I bolted for the stairway with fire at my heels. I charged through the emergency escape door and crashed down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. My heart thudded in my chest and I didn’t stop until I’d put several floors between me and whoever I imagined was after me.
At last, hearing muffled voices on one of the landings, I stopped and barged through the emergency door into the hallway. A small group of businessmen stood chatting in low voices near the elevator, and I approached them. They glanced up at me without much interest, but then a few of them did a double take at the sight of me. I pulled back, suddenly feeling self-conscious with my stringy hair dripping pathetically all around my face.
No one said anything to me, but I noticed them sneaking surreptitious glances at me. I was relieved when the elevator arrived.
The tower where the temp agency was located was only a few hundred feet away from Bruno’s office building. Out on the street I mingled with the crowd, trying to blend in inconspicuously. Fortunately, most people were too absorbed with their own troubles and thoughts to pay much mind to me.
I wound my way into the lobby of the TD Tower. The floor gleamed, and smartly dressed executives passed beside me in shoes with clicking heels, many carrying impeccable briefcases. I pulled my hair back and pushed the straggling locks behind my ears. Clouds in the sky flashed gold and crimson in the setting sun, the light reflecting tenuous on the sparkling porcelain floor of the lobby. I hurried towards the elevators. I didn’t know what time it was but it seemed that large numbers of workers were starting to leave.
I pushed my way into the temp agency on the twenty-third floor, grateful to find the office still full. The receptionist gave me a queer look, but didn’t say anything when I asked for Geri, my agent. Soon Geri rushed out with a smile, her smile fading into puzzlement when she caught sight of me.