by A. Zavarelli
The end result, and the only result that matters, is that I will not be chained to Katya for the rest of my life. Franco knows this. And yet, I indulge his worries out of respect. He always has my best intentions at heart, so he deserves to be heard, even though it will not change my mind.
“Tell me what has you so concerned,” I suggest.
“She is likely to be highly unpredictable. It is impossible to say what state she will be in when you first meet her. The things she has been through. She will be damaged.”
I glance at the photograph of the girl on my desk. The one her friend Mack gave me in the hopes that I could find her. That I could save her. It is the photo I have studied night and day for the last three weeks. I know everything about her. I have read all her files. Uncovered all of her history up until the point she was sold. And the things Franco says are true. She is broken. She is damaged. I know this better than anyone.
I pour myself another cognac and raise my glass in agreement.
“And that is why she will be perfect.”
2
Talia
Death.
The word has such a sense of finality to it. But it’s more than just an ending. People die long before they ever make it to the grave.
They die in little ways, every single day.
A loss of feeling. A lack of caring. Sometimes it is slow. Sometimes it has the subtlety of a hurricane.
Death can inhabit the body long before the soul ever leaves.
In my case, this is true. It is the only truth I know.
And I am ready to embrace the death of this life with open arms. I am ready to fly. To find peace.
One more week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight more hours.
Then I will have enough. Enough remnants of the white pills to set me free. If tonight goes as planned, I might even shave a day off that number. Arman is always generous with the pills when he is entertaining guests. To keep me placid. To keep me in line.
After he fucks me.
Because he never fucks me when I’m high. He doesn’t grant me such courtesies. For him, I’m always stone cold sober.
He’s inside of me right now. Fucking me like the filthy pig he is. The same as he always does before a party. This is so I don’t forget who owns me when all of his friends are inside of me tonight. He finishes with a grunt and then tosses me aside onto the stained mattress that I spend my days on.
I don’t look at him when he speaks. I already know what he’ll say. The same warning I always receive. His accent is heavy and his breath is too. Only the words are different this time. I almost miss it through the haze of my despondency, but there’s something in his voice that captures my attention.
It’s difficult to identify exactly what it is. Something sounds off. I’ve never heard Arman nervous before, but right now, that’s exactly how he sounds.
“Tonight is important,” he says. “These men must be satisfied. You must put in effort.”
I don’t respond to him because I never do. He doesn’t deserve my words. My words abandoned me long ago, around the same time my sanity slipped out the door. But the question is there in my eyes when I look up at him, and he answers.
“If you embarrass me tonight, I will flay you alive for all to see.”
Nothing. I feel nothing when he says that. Because his promises of death, no matter how brutal, are always false. He treasures his ownership over me too much to let me go.
His trophy. His prized slave. The American with the pretty blonde hair and vacant eyes. Nothing else matters in this wasteland.
“Karolina!” he snaps his fingers and she appears a moment later, her hands folded in front and her head bowed in submission.
Karolina loves Arman. And she hates me. He always makes her wait outside the door while he fucks me. So she knows her place. She may have her freedom to roam the mansion and his trust, but she will never have Arman’s heart. Because the man doesn’t have one.
He jerks his head at her, and she steps forward without any further instruction. Her hand moves to the locket around her neck, and Arman holds up a finger, speaking to her in a language I still haven’t figured out. Arman is not Russian. This much I know. And he told me once that we were in Bulgaria, but this is not his native land. The rest are just details that elude me.
I may not understand the words that Arman speaks, but I’ve come to understand his mannerisms well. And when Karolina takes one pill from the locket, panic takes hold of me. I need two. Two pills to equal seven days. I hold up two fingers in a plea, and Arman slams his foot into my stomach. My body curls into itself as I launch into a coughing fit and fight for air.
I have to resist the urge to squeeze my eyes shut and block everything out as he finishes his instructions to Karolina. There is still a part of me that hopes he will be merciful, but that part is foolish. He leaves the room without any further regard to me. It’s for the best, I realize. Because I might be able to fool Karolina, but I can’t fool him.
And there is still one pill.
One pill is better than nothing. She hands it to me and I slip it into my mouth and under my tongue. And then she shackles my legs to the hooks along the wall, leaving just enough leeway for varied positions. I want her to leave now, but she doesn’t. Instead, she glances back over her shoulder, and a cruel smile takes over her features when she turns back. She kicks me in the stomach twice more and then leans down to spit on my face.
“Dog,” she mutters in a heavy accent. “Enjoy your evening.”
She sashays from the room and I’m left gasping for air, horrified as I realize that I swallowed the pill whole in my coughing fit. Seven. It was only supposed to be seven days. Now it’s eight.
Tears blur my vision, and I collapse onto the fluid stained mattress in a heap. My eyes land on the familiar lines etched into the wall by my nail, and I retrace the line from this morning with my finger. Repeating the same word over and over in my head.
Seven. Seven. Seven.
At some point, the music upstairs begins to vibrate through the ceiling. I know it won’t be long now. Drinks first. They’ll all be drunk when they come down here. Sometimes that’s better. Other times, it’s worse.
The door opens. I don’t look. But I hear Arman’s voice. And feel the eyes of his guests as they inspect me. This is Arman’s version of a dinner party, his slaves offered up as dessert. They talk amongst themselves, deciding who gets to go first. Sometimes they share. Sometimes there are so many on me at once I can’t breathe. And I like that sensation. The air slipping from my lungs. I want them to empty completely and steal everything away. But it never happens.
Because Arman would kill them if they killed me.
The door closes behind me, and I’m left with only one man. I can tell by his breathing. One breath, one man. It doesn’t matter what he looks like. I rarely see their faces anymore. I rarely see anything, other than the lines on the wall and the numbers in my head. Seven. Seven. Seven.
A zipper comes down. And then the sound of foil tearing. Arman makes them wear a condom when they take me. And they don’t get to hit me either. I wish they would. I wish they’d hit me so hard I could fade into the blackness. But that special privilege is reserved for Arman only. And he’ll never let me go.
He’s inside of me now. This faceless man. And everything is one dimensional. The pill has entered my bloodstream and I feel nothing. I only hear him. Grunting and cursing.
I count the lines on the wall. And the lyrics to Angel of the Morning by Skeeter Davis play through my mind like an old record. My mother’s voice. I sing along with her. And see their faces. Three empty, vacant faces of my brother and sisters. Lying on the bathroom floor.
Water in my lungs. Air slipping away. Clawing, thrashing. And the soothing song my mother sings while she holds me under.
My eyes flicker open and shut, everything distorted and sharp all at once. Seven lines. Seven days. Angels in the morning. Mother’s hand on my cheek. Gasping for breath
as I cough up water and see the halo of her hair surrounding her in the bathtub.
They are all gone. All but me.
Four angels. Seven days.
A grunt. The man behind me finishes. I collapse. Another takes his place soon after.
Flickers of my foster dad swarm my vision. This man smells like him. Like tobacco and stale sweat. The song plays through my mind again and I sing along, trying to block it out. I need another pill. I need the whole bottle.
“So very sweet.”
It isn’t this man’s voice. It’s my foster dad. Number one. He was the first. He won’t be the last.
I count the lines and time holds me captive. I don’t know time anymore. It’s distorted. Days, months, years, minutes. They are equal to me. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I never know how long it goes on for.
The only thing I know for certain, is that at some point, the sweaty pile of human garbage behind me changes. This one tries to get rough with me because he can’t get his whiskey dick to cooperate. I don’t make it any easier on him, and after throwing me against the wall, he leaves the room, unsatisfied.
The next one murmurs in my ear as he fucks me. He is gentle, fucking me like a lover would. Halfway through he reaches down and touches me, trying to get me off. It makes me want to puke and it’s completely pointless. I feel nothing. Nothing but the void.
He leaves the room and I lie in a puddle of sweat and semen, wondering where the next man is. There’s always a next one and this one is taking forever. I want it to be over so Karolina will give me another pill. The door opens again, and I wait.
But he doesn’t approach me. He watches me. I feel his eyes on me and I don’t know why. Why is he dragging this out? A prickling sensation crawls along my spine and time suspends in the long stretch of silence. There is an unfamiliar urge inside of me to cover myself. To hide my body in his presence. I don’t like his eyes on me. I don’t like anyone’s eyes on me.
Not like this.
Finally, there is movement. And my heart-rate calms as his shoes clip across the cement floor in my direction. I think he’s going to fuck me now. And then he will go, like the rest of them.
Only he doesn’t. He stops just above me. And it’s the scent that always hits me first. That’s the one thing I notice about these men I don’t look at. This one smells good. Earthy like warm oak and spicy like cloves. He is too clean to be in this filthy room. I know it right away.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpse his shoes beside me. Black leather oxfords. Polished and well cared for. Knots tied with precision, peeking out from beneath gray twill trousers. Expensive.
I’m curious. And yet my eyes resist the urge to travel further. Until he commands it. It’s not the command itself, but the deep accented voice that I recognize. The voice with the hard consonants and soft melody. A contradiction.
That voice, I’m certain, is the same one I heard two nights ago. When Arman was eating dinner and the doorbell rang out. Arman never greets company in the middle of dinner. But that night, when one of his men came barging in, he did. Whoever had arrived that evening was important. This man had power over Arman, which made me curious. In this castle, Arman is King. And I’d never seen him bow to any other.
But on that evening, he did. He graciously allowed for the interruption and even offered for the stranger to dine with him while I sat on the floor. The man declined and chose to stand for the few brief moments he was there. I wanted to glance up at him even then. But that was breaking my own rules. I never look at them. So instead, I focused on his shoes. Black oxfords. And listened to the voice. Deep and melodic. Unmistakably Russian and laced with warning. A warning that Arman didn’t seem to like.
He left, and I pushed the whole incident from my mind.
But now my resolve has abandoned me. So my eyes travel up. And up, and up, and up. He’s tall, this man. Taller than most. Much larger than Arman. And that pleases me.
I wonder if he’ll kill him. I wonder if he’ll let me watch.
He looms over me, his shadow eclipsing my much smaller body on the mattress. He’s broad shouldered and powerful. The type of man with a presence that can’t be ignored. Athletic and toned. A fighter, I think… maybe. Most of Arman’s friends are fat and old, and stink of cigars and vodka. But this one is sharp, both in dress and manner.
He wears a black suede jacket and a gray flat cap atop his head, which casts his face in shadow. I can’t see him, but he can see me. The weight of his examination is heavy, and my pulse responds. I don’t know why. Only that I’m anxious, and I want him to leave.
He doesn’t.
Because he’s here to fuck me. Only, he’s drawing it out. Taking too long. My dissociative fortress is caving in on me. Emotion seeping in. One I haven’t felt since Dmitri’s betrayal.
Anger.
It’s roiling around inside of me, catching my breath and stealing my peace.
I lift my chin and try to meet his gaze. I don’t know this man. But I want him gone. I have rules. I don’t talk. Because I’m afraid what might spill out if I do. The truth I won’t be able to contain. The space inside of my head is the only sanctuary I have. And he’s ruining that. I turn my focus back to the lines on the wall, but I don’t want him to see. I don’t want him to see me counting. Because that’s private. That’s mine.
“Get on with it, will you?” the words snap from my tongue in a harsh cadence, a shock to my ears.
My voice is rusty and foreign. Demented. I sound like an animal. Because I am.
The intruder remains silent. Nothing but silence, for a full minute. I know, because I count every second. And then his deep voice reverberates off the walls, surrounding me.
“Look at me when you speak,” he demands.
I turn my head back towards him slowly, only to find him kneeling in front of me now. Breathing my air, taking up my space. The shadow is gone, and his face is unmasked. Harsh and serious, with the type of blue eyes that can only come from Slavic genes. Ice cold and shocking in their intensity.
It has been many months since fear has held a place in my head or my heart. But the presence of this man stirs it to life again. Pulling me even further from my dissociative state than I’m willing to venture. Not a single one of these men have ever had the audacity to get intimate with me. To get right up in my face and look me in the eyes. I am merely a body with three holes to them, and they make their choice and cause me several minutes of discomfort before it’s all over. But not this one. I don’t know what it is he wants from me. I don’t want to find out either.
The way he is staring at me disturbs me on a different level. He isn’t just looking. He’s seeing. All of my darkest secrets. The part of me that nobody ever gets to see. But he does. My armor means nothing to him.
He is different than Arman. This man scares me more than Arman. He’s too well put together. Too calm. His emotions do not show on his face for all to see. And his hands… they are huge. Heavily tattooed.
I imagine one of those hands around my throat, crushing my windpipe. It would only take one.
“Do not worry.” He brushes the matted hair away from my face in a surprisingly gentle manner. “I’m not going to fuck you.”
There’s a haunted sadness in his eyes. And something else too. A flicker of guilt. It’s a rare emotion in the men who come to visit me. It sets off all of the alarm bells in my head. If he’s not going to fuck me, then I don’t know what he has to be guilty for.
The confusion must be written all over my face, but he doesn’t explain further. Instead, he holds up a packet in his hand and shows it to me. Pain killers. He releases them from the foil and signals for me to open my mouth.
For just a split second, my eyes dart to the left. In the direction of my stash. Where I have every intention of putting these two pills when he leaves the room. So that I can make my seven days a reality, and not eight.
But this stranger is watching me carefully. Too carefully.
My lungs
cease to function when he stands up and walks to the other side of the mattress.
I flop over onto my side, pressing it down with my weight. As if that would stop him. The man is a tank. He could toss my entire body into the wall with one hand, should he so choose. But I can’t let him win. Not this battle. The only battle I have left. My hands claw at his arms when he reaches down, but he’s too strong. And I am too weak. And now I’m merely a spectator as my peace is snatched away from me in horrifying slow motion.
He finds the pills easily. Some half and some whole, and some only a fine powder. For sixty days I have saved those pills. I have planned so meticulously. And in five seconds, he has uncovered my secret. He has destroyed everything.
“Please,” I find my rusty voice again. “Leave them.”
His eyes meet mine, and now… now they are even colder than before. Frozen over with a disturbing level of hatred.
His fingers pinch my face and his lips part. But the words he means to speak don’t come. Instead, he takes a breath. And then another. Calming himself. His brows draw together and his eyes search mine. I am a whore. A slave. A subhuman piece of merchandise that Arman will use until he finally tires of me. It should not matter to this man if I die.
He flicks the painkillers in his hand onto my tongue and then retrieves a flask from his jacket. He holds it to my lips and the liquid sloshes into my mouth, strong and rich. Cognac. It is not the thing Arman drinks, and I am grateful. This man doesn’t let up. He forces me to drink what’s left in the container. I know why. I know what comes next. But I don’t want to accept it.
When the flask is empty, he pulls it away and pinches my jaw between his fingers, prying my mouth open. He looks inside, and without an ounce of finesse, he seizes my tongue and searches beneath it.
But the pills are not there. He ensured that with the amount of liquid he made me consume. When he eases me back down onto the mattress, I can only hope the combination will usher me off into oblivion. His fingers sweep over my cheek. Gentle again.