by Amy Cross
***
No matter how tightly I try to close the curtains in the motel room, bright mid-morning light still finds a way to break through. I guess it's never possible to shut the world out entirely.
At first, I try to keep Mark's naked body on the plastic sheets I laid out on the bed, but I quickly stop bothering too much. I head to the bathroom and fill a bowl with lukewarm water, before grabbing some towels and heading back to the bed. After getting Mark away from the warehouse, I spotted the motel in the distance and headed straight here. I hid Mark around the back while I rented a room, and then I managed to sneak him in here without anyone spotting us. Now I just have to try to get him into some kind of decent shape.
Dipping one of the towels into the water, I sit next to Mark and try to decide where to start. Finally I start wiping his firm, sculpted chest, trying to get rid of as much of the dried blood as possible. When the towel runs across a bare section of torn skin, I flinch at the thought of how it must hurt, but Mark doesn't respond at all. He's still unconscious, but I figure it might be better that way, at least while I try to fix him up. I dip the towel into the bowel again, causing wispy clouds of blood to form in the warm water, before resuming my work, wiping his chest and torso clean before moving down to his crotch and legs. Slowly, as I continue working and as the bowl of water becomes redder and redder, I feel a strange kind of calm fill my body.
Finally, once most of his body is done, I start cleaning his head. There's a thick, knotted scar on the side of his neck, which I guess is from one of the gunshot wounds he received in the penthouse suite that night. From what I can tell, the wound was simply dressed and allowed to heal, with no attempt made to tidy the damaged skin. Ridges of flesh twist over one another, like competing tree roots, but the wound seems firm enough. I run my fingertips against the ridges, momentarily mesmerized by them and by the memories of that night:
“You have to get out of here," I remember him whispering as he slipped into unconsciousness. "You have to run. There'll be others. They won't stop until they've got you too...”
“Not without you,” I whisper, almost involuntarily, as I run the wet towel across the scars on his neck and then up onto his face, where stubble has been allowed to grow unchecked for some time, with blood caked into the hairs. His eyes are still closed, so I gently wipe blood from his eyelids, taking care not to press too hard. On the side of his forehead, there's a spot where flesh has been completely stripped away, exposing bloody pink meat beneath. I'm hesitant to touch this section, so I simply wet another part of the towel and then place it gently against the wound, hoping to soak up as much blood as possible.
Turning him over, I start working on the other side of his body, cleaning first his back, then his buttocks, and finally his legs. Several times, my fingers brush against crooked skin, as if there are broken sections of bone beneath. Once I'm done, I roll him back onto his front and pause for a moment, feeling as if my mind is going completely blank, but then I remember the antiseptic wash I bought at the pharmacy after I reached the motel, so I turn to head back into the bathroom.
Suddenly Mark reaches out and grabs my wrist.
“Jesus!” I shout, before I realize that this is a good sign. His eyes are open now, about halfway, and he's looking up at me.
I wait.
His grip tightens a little.
“It's me,” I tell him, my voice trembling a little with fear. What if he doesn't remember me? What if he doesn't care? What if I'm the last person he ever wants to see again? “It's me,” I say again, as if those are the only two words left in the whole world.
His eyes open more fully.
“I found you,” I continue, hoping that somehow I'll get through to him. “I don't know what happened to you, but you were tied up naked in a warehouse, hanging from chains and a hook on the ceiling. Do you remember any of that?” I watch his face for some flicker of recognition, but there's nothing so far. “Maybe it's better if you don't remember,” I continue. “I brought you here and I started to clean you up, I think...” My voice trails off for a moment. “I don't know, it was all I could think to do. You seem pretty badly hurt, and I'm definitely no doctor, but I'm doing the best I can.”
Again, I wait for him to reply.
Again, there's nothing but silence.
Finally, realizing that I need to keep working, I slip free from his grasp and head to the bathroom. Finding the antiseptic wash, I carry it to the bed and squeeze some onto my hands.
“This might hurt,” I tell him, “but I think it's pretty important. You can't risk getting an infection, and I don't know if it's safe to call an ambulance yet, so...”
I take a seat next to him and start wiping the wash onto his chest, trying to avoid the rawest areas for a moment before realizing that they're the areas that need to be cleaned the most. I squeeze some more of the clear gel onto his flesh and then start spreading it over one of the sections on his abdomen where the skin has been ripped away. He immediately lets out an agonized gasp, tilting his head back as if he's in extreme pain, but I keep going, making sure to cover every inch.
“I'm sorry,” I continue, as he tenses his body, “but I have to do this.”
He doesn't try to push me away. Maybe he could, maybe he couldn't, I don't know, but he seems to be withstanding the pain, as if he understands that this is necessary. To be honest, so far he's given no indication that he even remembers who he is, let alone that he recognize me. All I can do is keep working and hope that somewhere in his mind, the old Mark Douglas is still alive, still floating, still able to remember everything.
“Elly,” he whispers suddenly.
I freeze, looking back along at his face.
“Yeah,” I reply, with a faint smile. “It's me.”
He reaches out, brushing his fingertips against my bare arm before I take his hand and interlink our fingers. I squeeze him tight, hoping to encourage him, but he lets out a gasp of pain so I quickly let go.
“It's been a long time,” I tell him, since I'm not sure whether he's been aware of the passage of time. “Eighteen months.”
“Where...” He pauses, as if the effort of getting out more than a couple of words at a time is too much. “Where... did you go?”
“Away,” I reply, keeping my voice low as I heard some laughing, chatting people making their way past the door. I pause, listening as they head off into the distance. “I ran. I thought you were...” I pause again, trying to find the right words. “I thought you were gone. I thought you were dead. It was only later that I started to think that maybe...”
“Why...”
“Why what?”
“Why did you... come back?”
“I had to.”
He flinches a little as he shakes his head, as if the pain is almost too much.
“I did,” I say firmly. “I thought the game was over, I saw Mr. White was gone and I thought... I wanted to come back and see if you were still here.”
“You should have kept running,” he whispers.
“No-one can run forever.”
“I did,” he replies. “Or I tried.”
“And you failed,” I continue, “which kind of proves my point, don't you think?”
A faint smile reaches his lips.
“How much pain are you in?” I ask.
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
“How much?”
He pauses. “A lot.”
“Should I call a doctor? I wasn't sure if it was safe. I mean...” I glance at the door for a moment. “What if they've tapped all the phones? What if they find us?”
“They let you find me,” he whispers. “I think it's safe to say that they know where we are.”
I turn back to him.
“I have a private doctor,” he continues. “His number's in my wallet.”
“I don't have your wallet.”
Another faint smile. “Figures.”
“So what's his -”
“Later,” he adds.
“I don't know if I can do this,” I continue, looking down at my trembling hands. “I'm not a doctor, Mark, I don't know if I can look after you properly. We can't stay here, not forever.”
“We don't need forever,” he whispers.
“I...” Pausing, I feel as if I've hit a brick wall. “I don't know what to do.”
Gasping with pain, he tries to sit up, but the effort is clearly too much.
“Don't strain yourself,” I tell him, trying to ease him back down onto the bed.
“What...” He reaches down and pulls the plastic sheeting away, dropping it onto the floor. “What the hell was that stuff?”
“I was trying to keep you clean.”
“I'm sorry I dragged you into all this,” he replies.
“It's not your fault.”
“I could have warned you.”
“I wouldn't have listened,” I tell him. “I was too caught up in everything.” For a moment, I think back to the very first time I met Mark, when I opened the door at my mother's house and found him waiting outside:
Sighing, I pull the door open, expecting to find some middle-aged friend of the family standing on the doorstep. Instead, I come face to face with the most handsome guy I've ever seen in my life. Smiling awkwardly, as if he's not quite sure what he's seeing, he opens his mouth to say something, but the words seem to be stuck in his throat. Reaching up, I pull the raincoat closed just in time, as the towel drops around my ankles.
“Everything seems so long ago,” I continue finally, as a shiver passes through my body. “When I think about those days, it's almost as if it was someone else...” I pause, before realizing that there's no time to focus on the past. “We need to work out what we're going to do,” I tell him. “I don't know what they want, but they're going to come after us, aren't they?”
“Come here,” he whispers.
“Mark, we -”
“Come closer.”
Leaning down, I spot a patch of blood on his forehead that I somehow missed earlier. Grabbing a wet towel, I wipe the blood away, before dropping the towel and staring into Mark's eyes.
“I have flashes of the last eighteen months,” he whispers. “I was in a hospital for a while. Mr. White came to see me, my wrists were chained to the bed...” He pauses, as if he's reliving the whole ordeal. “Later I was moved. I kept asking about you, but they told me not to worry. There was another guy, it took a while before I realize he was my replacement, the new Mr. Blue... I kept wondering where Lady Red was, before I realized she must be gone, and that you...” He reaches up and puts a trembling hand on the side of my neck. “There are so many blank spots, times when my memory is gone. Eventually I ended up in a room, and there was another voice telling me about the game...”
“Mr. Raven,” I reply.
“You know about him?”
“I met him. Briefly.”
“But do you know who he is?”
I shake my head.
“Oh, Elly...” He pauses. “When you find out...”
I wait for him to continue, but something seems to be holding him back.
“When I find out,” I say eventually, “what'll happen? Will the game be over? How do we end this?”
“Mr. Raven is supposed to be the adjudicator,” he tells me, “but Alice... I mean, the former Lady Red... She was worried about him.”
“Worried? In what way?”
“That he might not want the game to end. That he might have become sick and twisted. You can't trust him, Elly. He might not be -” Before he can finish, he lets out a gasp of pain. “The game might be corrupted,” he adds finally.
“How can that happen?” I ask.
“I don't know,” he replies, “but Alice, she was convinced that something wasn't right. She was playing for time...”
“You're in pain,” I tell him. “Maybe we could run?”
He shakes his head.
“Mark, we -”
“Almost every part of my body is in agony,” he whispers, interrupting me. He pulls me a little closer. “It was only recently, maybe a day or two ago, that they chained me up and started torturing me. I guess that was in anticipation of your return.”
“Who did it?” I ask. “Who tortured you?”
“Mr. White at first,” he continues.
“He's dead.”
“They got him?”
“They got him.”
“The new Mr. Blue was there too,” he whispers, “but it was... Raven was the one...”
“Mark, we have to get out of here.”
“Wait,” he whispers, pulling me closer, until I realize that he's trying to kiss me. I lean toward him and let our lips touch, and then I lean closer still and let the kiss run on, until I close my eyes and feel his tongue against mine, sending a shiver down my spine. I know I should pull away, I know I should tell him that we have to get moving, but the feel of his lips against mine is so good, it seems to transport me back to a time when everything was so much simpler.
As the kiss continues, I run my hands down onto his chest, but as my fingertips brush against one of his many wounds, he lets out a gasp of pain.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper, “I'll -”
“No,” he replies, kissing the side of my face, “don't stop.”
“But you're in pain.”
“I'm in agony,” he tells me, as his fingers starts unbuttoning the top of my shirt, “but I don't care.” He moves down to the next button, and then the next, and then the others until finally his shaking hands pull my shirt open and he reaches up to touch my bra and clutch my left breast. After a moment, he slips the fabric down to expose the nipple, running his fingers over the hard tip and instantly reminding me of the pleasure of his touch.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” I whisper.
“There is nowhere else,” he replies, pulling the cup of my bra down a little further until he can touch the small mole on the underside of my left breast. Gasping with pain, he leans up and gently kisses the underside, before running his lips up to the edge of the nipple and kissing me again.
“We can't stay here,” I tell him, as I feel his battered, torn hands on my waist. “Mark, we -”
“For a few minutes, we can,” he replies, running his hands up my sides until his thumbs reach the edge of my breasts. “We can worry about everything else later.”
I want to argue with him, to tell him that he's inside, but instead I lean a little closer and wait as I feel his tongue on my nipple. A moment later he bites, not hard enough to really hurt but hard enough to send a sudden shock through my body. I almost pull away, but instead I lower my body and settle next to him, as he reaches down and starts to unbuckle the front of my jeans. His hand are trembling as he pulls the zip down and then takes hold of my underwear, and I have to help him when I realize that he can't undress me properly. Slipping out of my trousers and the last of my underwear, I press my naked body against him, feeling the cuts and tears of his skin against my flesh. I reach over and put a hand on his crotch, and I instantly feel that his penis is swelling, filling with blood and getting harder by the second.
“You can't do this,” I whisper, opening my legs a little and pressing my crotch against him. “You're too weak.”
“Liar,” he replies.
I run my hand down his shaft and realize that no matter how weak he might seem, it's clear that he's managed to summon the energy and strength for this. Lifting myself up, I swing my left leg over his body and climb on top. I reach down and touch myself for a moment, feeling the wetness that is already threatening to overflow, before I let the lips of my vagina brush against the bulbous tip of his penis. I start to invite him inside, slowly lowering myself onto him and feeling his hardness push deeper into my body, while I lean forward and run my hands across his chest. At the same time, he reaches up and starts to press against my breasts.
“I'm worried I'll hurt you,” I whisper.
“I'm worried you won't.”
I start to ge
ntly, softly press myself against him, testing the limits to see how much he can take. I'm convinced that at any moment he'll tell me to stop, that the pain will become too much, but finally I start riding him properly, working slowly but starting to build up a steady rhythm. Every time I want to go faster, or push harder, I hold back in case I hurt him, and I find myself analyzing his every gasp in an attempt to determine whether he's experiencing pain or pleasure. Eventually he takes hold of my waist and grips me firmly, as if he's encouraging me to make love with more urgency, but when I speed up a little I instantly see a hint of pain in his eyes.
“Don't hold back,” he whispers.
“I'm not.”
“You are. I want you to cum.”
“I don't know if I can,” I tell him.
“You can.”
I open my mouth to argue with him, but I know he's right. I am holding back, trying not to go too fast or too hard and hurt him, but I can feel the pleasure building in my body, waiting for the moment when I allow it to be released. I'm keeping the rhythm steady, slowly rising and falling on top of him, and I feel as if I could push myself over the edge at any moment. At the same time, I need to stay in control, to keep from hurting him, so I close my eyes and try to focus on the pleasure I'm already feeling rather than anything I'm chasing. I don't know how much time passes, but after several minutes I realize that even this slow, gentle movement is starting to become too much, and I start holding my breath in an attempt to keep the orgasm at bay. If I let it happen, I might hurt him.
And then he thrusts up into me a little, and I cum. It's as if he's been studying me and he knew exactly what to do. I open my eyes and lean forward, letting out a loud cry that shocks me with its intensity. Even as the orgasm shudders through my body, I'm trying to force it back, trying to plug the dam, but it's too late: I lean back, with Mark's hands still on my breasts, and I feel wave after wave of ecstasy flooding my body, as if the more I fight back, the more the pleasure is able to take hold. I cry out again, making a kind of gasping sound I've never made before during sex, and just when the orgasm seems to be ending I feel one final wave. I cry out, sounding more like some kind of porn star than the person I am, and then suddenly I remember Mark's injuries.