‘This way.’ Den gripped my upper arms and we walked, his pace too fast for my tentative steps. Impossible not to believe the unseen ground was littered with dangers. I flinched, stalling, when an object flicked from my path with a wooden thunk. A little further on, glass crunched underfoot. I froze, shaking my head, protesting behind the ball gag, my shoulders hunching. Jeez, I was wearing sandals. Couldn’t he pay a little more attention?
‘Sorry, missed that,’ he said. ‘It’s OK, I’ve got you. Clear ahead. Good girl. Left here. Nearly there. Nearly. Perfect, now stand still.’
I stood shivering, cool air under my skirt reminding me I was without underwear. I listened to keys jangling, heard a door creak open. Den led me forward. The door closed behind us with a dull thump. Even through my blindness, I could tell we were in a trapped, dark place, a bad place that stank of mouldering wood, dust and sadness. I heard bolts being shot. Ah, fuck. What was this? A castle? A dungeon?
‘This part’s tricky,’ said Den, ‘so I’m going to remove your wrist cuffs. Don’t do anything stupid.’
Yeah right, like what? Try and beat you up while ripping off my blindfold and gag?
He removed the cuffs. I flexed my fingers, arching my back to stretch out the muscles.
‘I’m going to pick you up,’ he said. ‘So work with me.’
Suddenly my feet were off the floor and my head was where my stomach had been. I squealed within my mouth and reached for him, accidentally clouting him on the jaw. I found his shoulder and clung on. I was in his arms, scooped up as if he were carrying me over the threshold like a new bride. Some bride. Some groom.
We moved forward, slow and effortful. I heard him kick away debris, sensed him edge around obstacles. Once, my feet brushed against a wall. I grew nervous of stuff touching my face, cobwebs and fallen things, so I nuzzled into his chest to shield myself. He was broad and solid, and I felt safe. He bumped a door open and took us through. I breathed him in, eager to have the smell of his body masking the smell of mildew and age. I strained for the sound of his slightly laboured breath. Jesus, who was he? Whose arms was I trusting? Where on earth had he brought me?
When he set me down, the sounds around us were different, the dankness less offensive to my nose. Our movements echoed in a cavernous space. High above, I heard pigeons cooing and I caught a drift of healthier air.
‘We’re going down some steps now,’ he said. ‘Take my hand.’
Blindly, I reached out. He hooked his arm in mine, linking fingers and locking our forearms together in a supportive hold. Our hands were tacky as if we were equally nervous.
‘Shallow steps,’ he said, as I faltered on the first.
We took the steps one at a time, me shuffling like an old woman. He gave me tender rewards: That’s right, good girl. Low in my body, every word turned to a voluptuous throb. After an eternity, we paused. Den released my hand. Without his touch, I felt isolated and unsteady, half-fearful I might fall over on my own two feet.
‘You want to see your new home?’ he asked.
I nodded, thinking, Actually, I want to see you.
He fiddled with my blindfold then swept it from my eyes. I blinked, my ball gag trapping a gasp, my visual cortex overwhelmed by a spectacle of crumbling decadence. We were in a dark, derelict fairytale, monsters lurking in the shadows. No, in a tilting, gothic amphitheatre of chipped gilt and torn velvet. I turned, scanning wildly. No, no, this was an old Victorian theatre, fallen into ruin.
We stood among a high tier of seats, curving rows of scruffy, crimson chairs sloping towards a balcony edge. What would you call it? The dress circle? In the drop below would have been the stalls but now it was a chairless arena, the flooring stripped back to scarred concrete. The stage, flanked by ornate gold columns and romping cherubs, was bisected by a scalloped, bottle-green canopy hanging at forty-five degrees. One green velvet curtain pooled on the bare boards, tassels of gold floating on its surface like strange, precious water lilies. Below the stage, the barrier of the orchestra pit echoed the richness elsewhere, invisible musicians penned in by a fence resembling decorative brocade.
Although the auditorium was empty, it seemed as if rows of skeletal ghosts were gazing at that stage, vintage programmes flaking in their laps, everyone frozen by a play without end.
I looked left, right and above. Curlicues of gold licked at elegant pillars, at balconies and boxes that might have been crafted from sugar-frosting. Bald patches of plaster gaped through the splendour. Higher still, in a domed ceiling swirling with reds and golds, hung an enormous chandelier, tiers of glass pendants grey with dust, supporting wires twisting like vines around its stems. Chunky lights in the dome cast a diffuse milky haze, rendering the theatre vaporous, on the verge of disappearance.
Ozymandias, I thought. My name is Ozymandias, look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’
His voice startled me, so close and yet so small in the theatre’s desolation. I swung around, shocked by his presence, shocked I’d been too stunned to give him my immediate attention.
As if my struggle to absorb my surroundings wasn’t enough, there he was, my captor, my tormentor, standing on a step behind me. My heart leaped into my mouth. I recoiled, tottering dangerously, hands raised in defence. I screamed but the noise was locked in my throat.
I’d been cheated, betrayed.
He was there and yet he wasn’t.
Once again, he was masked. He had no face, no eyes.
Athletic build: check.
6'2": check.
Face: no check; no fucking check!
Instead, I gazed at stark, white features too smooth to be human. At a scuffed, fibreglass mask patterned with grids of small black holes. I thought of Munch’s The Scream, that elongated face melting into terror. But the mask was hard and nasty too, a warrior’s mask. Two sharp red triangles slashed the cheekbones while between the eyes, a third red mark suggested a vicious frown. The marks sparkled with red glitter. He was a cyborg, an alien.
An old ice-hockey mask. Of course. Friday the 13th came to mind and I screamed again.
Deep inside the eyeholes, something flickered. Him.
I heard him laugh, the sound muffled by that mouthless false face. The light behind the eyeholes flared brighter, relishing my reaction.
I reached for my gag, wanting to tear it from my mouth, wanting to be ordinary and free and far, far away from him. Why had I trusted him? Who was he? Quick as a flash, Den grabbed my wrist, stilling me with harsh fingers.
I stared at the blankness, aghast.
‘I knew you’d like it,’ said the mask.
Eight
‘You have a choice,’ he said, his words dulled by his disguise. ‘Either I’m masked or you’re blindfolded.’
I made a noise of protest, shaking my head.
‘What?’ he said. ‘You want a voice as well?’
I nodded, making more urgent noises.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.
I rolled my eyes and harrumphed as best I could. I was inches away from stamping my foot.
‘OK, here’s the deal,’ he said. ‘I’m going to remove your gag and I want you to tell me if you’re hungry or not. I hear anything else and the gag goes back. Got that?’
I nodded again, more subdued this time.
He unfastened the strap and freed my mouth. I wiggled my jaw and licked my gums, glaring at him. The mask glared back, a dirty cream facade speckled with holes and twinkling with those three red, glittery slash marks.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Absolutely ravenous,’ I said. ‘I haven’t thought about anything else since you shoved me into the back of that van. Why? Is there a café in here?’
With deliberate exaggeration, I surveyed the decrepit glory. Obviously, I was being sarcastic. My stomach was in knots. Food was the last thing on my mind.
‘OK, then. Are you horny?’
Truth to tell, I wasn’t. Fear and
anxiety had obliterated my earlier excitement. Everything was unreal. This masked man in this spectacular ruin might have been a creature in a dream I was having; or he was an actor who’d slipped from an on-stage drama to confront me, the sole member of his audience.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t do horny right now. This is too freaky, too fast.’
‘Then we’ll eat.’
‘But I’m not hungry.’
‘Tough,’ he said. ‘If you don’t eat when I feed you, there’s no second chance. I’m not here to wait on you hand and foot.’
‘Yeah, and I’m not here for a sodding lunch date.’
He laughed from behind the mask. The grille of holes covering his mouth distorted the sound, making his amusement seem further away than his body. ‘No, you’re right. You’re here to be turned into a pitiful creature I can mould to my own will. Here to be beaten and broken, used and abused until you’re entirely mine, no desire but to do my bidding.’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’
Another muffled laugh. ‘I need to fetch some stuff from the van.’
‘Where are we?’ I asked.
The mask turned left and right, red glitter sparkling in the theatre’s murky light. ‘Den’s den,’ he replied.
I heard the implication he was always dragging women here, trapping them in his ravaged, abundant lair. ‘You sound like a psychopath,’ I said.
He reached to position my hands behind my back. ‘Maybe I am.’ He buckled the cuffs around my wrists again, linking them together with a snap and oh, the smell of him when he was close. My knees softened and my groin did likewise, softening, pulsing and swelling. Ah, Hell. Such a small thing, the tug and click of being bound. Yet it got me right there, so hard and swift my arousal felt like an assault rather than something originating within me.
I heard the cold rattle of a chain and felt him attach its length to my restraints. ‘This way.’ He tugged the chain as if it were a leash.
‘I brought a bag with me,’ I said. ‘It’s in the van. Could you –’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring it, don’t worry.’
He led me down more of the steps that formed an aisle between the dusty chairs, some seats flipped up, others flat as if a theatre-goer were sitting there. I trooped obediently after him, the chain sagging between us. I began to feel smaller and sub-human, already turning into his little thing, his obedient, ever-ready fucktoy. Near the balcony edge, he had me stand by a slender black column that rose to the tier above us, its flared tip merging into rococo edging sculpted like beribboned curtsies.
I peered over my shoulder to watch as Den looped the chain around the column, fixing one link to another with a small padlock. His ears were neat and well-proportioned, his hair close-cropped, his neck strong and shadowed with stubble. His shoulders were wide under a black hoodie, his torso tapering to narrow hips. The hockey mask fastened around the back of his head, three brown leather straps meeting in a T-shape. The straps looked to be joined by nothing but a couple of studs. Easy to pop open, I thought. Then, no. Don’t even consider it, Nats. Besides, you’re not exactly in a position to launch an attack.
When Den released the chain, the loop slid down the pillar, hitting the ground with a clank. I was tethered like an animal, room to roam but no means of escape.
With ostentatious precision, Den placed the padlock key on the balcony’s crimson lip. It glinted on the dusty velvet, out of reach but not out of sight. I read his gesture as a signifier of how precarious my freedom was.
‘I won’t be long,’ he said.
‘Don’t go!’ Panic gripped me. ‘Don’t! Don’t leave me. Please …’
The white mask looked at me, hollow-eyed and impassive. I struggled to articulate my fear. It was no longer of him but of something else, something irrational and gloomy. ‘I don’t want to be left alone,’ I said. ‘Please. I’m scared. This place …’
‘I won’t be long,’ he repeated, stern and formidable. And with that he departed, taking the shallow steps two at a time, the sound of him receding as he disappeared from view.
‘Think of nice things,’ my mother used to say when I was restless in bed, nightmares on the periphery of my consciousness. ‘Think of holidays, of playing in the sea at Devon. Think of Aunty Marjory’s new kittens and all the balloons at Gregory Markham’s party last week.’
But this nightmare was too real and no amount of remembered balloons, kittens and Devonshire surf could counter the dark thoughts corrupting my reason. The ossified theatre held the strange reality of a play being enacted, but it was a sick, twisted play, teasing my imagination while showing nothing of itself. Alone, I performed the drama in my mind, conjuring up ghouls, squatters and litters of feral cats nesting in squalid corners. I half-fancied a phantom cast was waiting in the wings below; that the lights would dim, the silence would hush itself; and unseen stagehands would winch those slumped, green curtains high, revealing Hamlet in breeches, Yorrick’s skull in his hand.
Stupid, stupid thoughts.
Then more thoughts came, worse ones. Supposing Den didn’t return and I was left to rot among the architecture? Which would decay faster, it or me? Time moved so slowly here. My friends. When would they notice I was gone? If I failed to turn up for work on Monday, would they call the cops? This time next week, would I be registered as a missing person?
A clatter in the domed rooftop made me shriek. My voice sounded tiny. Above, a pigeon flapped across cloudy shafts of light, the beat of its wings lingering in the silence, dust stirring.
I drew deep breaths, willing my heart to calm. After an age, I heard the thump of a distant door followed by approaching footsteps. He was back. At least, I hoped it was him.
‘You OK?’ he called, his voice devoid of concern.
‘Yes.’ My voice was hoarse, my throat tense.
Den jogged down the steps, depositing my bag and a holdall across the arms of a seat. He moved with a springy athleticism, decision in every action. The red glitter on his hockey mask winked in the half-light.
Hell, I needed to get a grip, think clearer. Something was wrong here. Why the mask? Was he scarred? Burned? Deformed like the Phantom of the Opera?
All I knew about this man were the elements that mattered to me: his preference for sex on the dark side; his guilt-free ownership of that; his personality as expressed via email; and his commitment to the two of us making sweet music together. He’d used that phrase himself then taken it up a notch to a ‘mind-blowing opera’.
But scratch the sweet. Fuck the opera. I’d invested a great deal of trust in this guy and he wasn’t giving much in return. Again, I thought how easy it would be to pop apart the straps of his mask, once I’d regained the use of my hands, that was. But unethical to do so if he were disfigured in some way. Then again, unethical not to let me know if he was.
He faced me, if ‘face’ is the word. Instinctively, I retreated, chains rattling until I bumped against the column. I pressed my hands to its cold, gritty curve, its solidity providing a security of sorts. My breathing quickened, my throat twisting in on itself.
Den followed me. ‘Your fear is so delectable.’ He reached for my shirt and briskly undid the top two buttons.
‘Hey!’ I backed harder against the pillar.
‘Your eyes,’ he said. ‘I wish you could see them.’ He continued to unbutton my shirt, his pale fingers moving efficiently between my breasts. There was no seduction, no tease. I might have been undressing myself before getting into bed on a regular midweek night. He fumbled with a button at the mid-point, gave up, and rammed the loosened garment over my shoulders. The stitching gave with a tiny rip.
‘Oi, my top!’ I shook my head, wriggling. My arms were trapped by my side, my bra thrust out in a flagrant display of delicate, lacy intimacy. I tugged at my cuffs, wanting to cover myself. This was too direct.
‘The more you struggle, the harder my cock gets,’ said Den. ‘And the harder I get, the more I want to
see you struggle.’
He pushed my bra straps aside and lifted my breasts from their cups. No one was here but I blushed as if we had an audience.
‘Please,’ I whimpered.
He massaged with moist, crushing hands. Every nerve in my body sparked up, lust zinging in my veins. The mask looked at me, dead except for the brightness of his eyes behind the holes and the crust of glitter on those red slash marks. The heels of his hands rippled over my ribs as he pummelled, the underwire of my bra digging uncomfortably.
‘Do you like nipple torture?’ he asked matter-of-factly. He pinched my nipples between thumb and forefinger then pulled, stretching my breasts to points.
Oh jeez. I tipped back my head, gasping, not knowing the right answer.
He held me like that, squeezing harder. ‘Well?’
I could feel my flesh tenderising in his grip. He released me fractionally, twisting my nipples this way and that until I was yelping in pain.
‘A bit,’ I gasped.
‘What?’ he said, continuing to hurt me. ‘You like it a bit or you only like a bit of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Please. Don’t know what you have in mind. I don’t … ouch!’
He yanked my bra further down, creating an awkward belt below my ribs. I flinched as he raised a hand, fearing he was going to slap my face. He laughed, paused, hand still in the air. ‘You think I’m going to hit you?’ He feigned a slap, his hand stopping short of my cheek. Instinctively, I shrank back and he laughed again. ‘Look at me,’ he ordered.
I faced the mask. He tapped me on the cheek. It wasn’t a slap, it was worse, a patronising, humiliating tap. He did it again, gently knocking my face off-centre. ‘Look at me,’ he repeated.
When I did, he tapped me again. A strand of hair got caught in my mouth. I blew it away. He swiped my cheek again, harder this time. ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘You like that?’
Every time, I looked at him, he hit me, forcing me to turn aside and fail his instruction. ‘Look at me!’ My face began to glow and my senses grew fogged, the theatre jumping in my vision.
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