Tangled Rose

by Abby Weeks

  Rose knew as soon as she laid eyes on him that at least some of the stories she’d heard must have been true. He had the look of a killer, a predator.

  “I’m Serge Gauthier,” he said to her. “I’m VP here in Val-d’Or. I’m the reason you’re being held captive.”

  Rose didn’t know what to say. She was terrified of the man who was standing in front of her. He took off his jacket and she could see the tattoos on his muscular arms and neck. He was a real piece of work.

  “You’re wrong,” she said.

  She knew she wasn’t supposed to antagonize Serge but she couldn’t help it. She’d been through too much.

  “What did you say?”

  “You’re not the reason I’m here. Rex Savage is. And one day I’ll slit his throat.”

  Serge looked at her for a moment, and then laughed.

  “Those are some big words from a girl who’s tied to a bed.”

  Rose shrugged. She meant it.

  “Well,” Serge continued. “I’ve never been a man to stand between someone and the revenge they seek. If you say you’ll get Rex back for what he’s done to you, I can respect that. And maybe one day you’ll even do it. But right now you’ve got more pressing obligations.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The reason I’m holding you here is because you’re going to work for me.”

  “I’ll never work for the DRMC. My father was a Sioux Ranger. He was one of the men you guys wiped out on Bloody Sunday, ten years ago.”

  Serge was nodding. He must have known all this already. He probably didn’t care. The Sioux Rangers was just one of the rival MCs that the DRMC had wiped out back then.

  “I’ve got a string of strip clubs along the highways up here. All the roads north out of the city, 117, 111, the Trans-Canada, they’re my strip clubs that the truckers stop at.”

  “I’ve heard about them,” Rose said.

  “Oh yeah, what have you heard?”

  “I’ve heard that you make girls dance against their will.”

  “That’s correct,” Serge said. “That’s the appeal of them. We force the girls.”

  “Where’s the appeal in that?”

  Serge raised his eyebrows and thought about it for a second. “I don’t really know,” he said and winked at her.

  She could tell he was being sarcastic.

  “I guess some guys get a thrill out of it,” he continued. “It’s one thing to have a girl dance for you. It’s quite another to know she has no choice in it, that she’s there because she has to be, because she’s being forced. That’s the thrill my clubs offer.”

  “That’s sick.”

  Serge smiled. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “I suppose it is.”

  He came over to the bed and looked down at her. She was frightened but she was also angry. She’d reached a point where she was beginning to care less and less about what happened to her. After what Fat Boy had done, she knew that anything was possible, that Serge might do anything to her, he might rape her, but she also knew that she’d already been through it. What new thing could he do to her that she hadn’t already experienced?

  He was looking at her breasts.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

  Serge looked at her. He reached out to the zipper on her suit.

  “It’s my job,” he said. “I have to see the goods before I can put you to work.”

  She looked away. Was this really going to happen again? She held her breath as Serge opened the zip on the front of her suit. He pulled it down half way, just enough to open it over her chest and look at her ripe, exposed breasts.

  He let out a whistle.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  Rose said nothing.

  He pulled the zipper down farther, down to her panties, and then pulled the string of the panty to the side so that he could see her vagina. He nodded as he looked at it.

  “I need you to know that there are certain rules while you work for me.”

  Rose refused to look at him. What did she care about his rules? She was a slave. She was being forced to work for him.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She just couldn’t. She’d had enough of being told what to do.

  He reached down and grabbed her face and made her look at him. At the same time he inserted a finger into her pussy.

  “You better listen up,” Serge said. “You’re going to be working for me for a very long time. You’re young right now, you’re pretty, but that won’t last forever. I’m going to put you in the most desolate, forlorn strip club in the entire world. You’re going to be at the very last stop on the highway to nowhere. The only men that are going to see you dance are loggers and miners and truck-drivers. You’re going to forget what it’s like to be in a city. You’re going to forget what it’s like to be in civilization. You’re going to waste away, year after year, in my club and no one is ever going to come and save you. Do you hear me?”

  She looked into his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. There was a wild, fiery temper to Serge Gauthier and it frightened her. She couldn’t speak.

  He slid his finger deeper into her pussy and curled it.

  “You’re going to get older and less beautiful every year. Winter lasts a long time up here, and when each spring finally arrives, you’re going to be less valuable. You’re beauty will fade. You’ll age. You’ll become an old woman, tired and cold and bitter and loveless, and still you’ll work for me. Still you’ll belong to me. Do you hear me?”

  He was still holding her face in his strong hand and he squeezed her till it hurt. He pressed his finger even farther into her pussy and wriggled it. She breathed out and closed her eyes and tried to repress a moan. Then she opened them and looked at him.

  “I hear you,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.

  “You’re never going to get out of here, Rose. You’re going to do what I say, when I say it, and you’re not going to survive if you don’t. You’ll dance around a filthy pole, in a filthy club, for the filthy men that come in. I’m going to take your tips. I’m going to take your money. You will have nothing. You will be nothing. And you will never escape. I own the police in this town. I own the police in the next town. It’s hundreds of miles to get back to civilization and you’d never make it if you ran, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Serge nodded. “Good. Now I’ve heard that you’ve been behaving. You haven’t tried to escape. You haven’t given any of your guards any trouble. That’s good. If I hear otherwise, you’re going to wish you were never born, do you understand.”

  She nodded again. Serge let go of her face and pulled his finger out of her pussy. He put his finger in his mouth and sucked it. Then he zipped her up and turned to leave the room. When he got to the door he turned back to her.

  “Oh,” he said, “one more thing. Even after you’ve been dancing for all those years, even after all the love has left your eyes, and all the beauty has left your face, and all the life has left your frail, old body, you’ll still dance for me. You’ll dance for me till I kill you.”

  And he was gone. Rose was stunned. She’d known her situation was bad, but until that moment she hadn’t realized just how bad it was. Serge Gauthier seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do to her. Not only did he want her to suffer, not only did he want to break her spirit and make sure she didn’t try to escape, but he wanted to make sure that she had absolutely no hope. He wanted to own her in every sense of the word.

  He wanted to break her.

  VI

  ROSE SLEPT FITFULLY. SHE HAD nightmares all night. She kept seeing Serge Gauthier’s face glaring at her. His words had cut her deep. She’d been scared before, terrified even, but since speaking to him she felt almost as if her spirit was broken. He’d purposely set out to crush her. If she’d felt hopeless before, she felt doubly so now.

  In the morning there was a light rap
on the door and in walked Patrice. Rose almost cried when she saw him. She knew she was letting herself get attached to him, get dependent, and that was dangerous. But she was so desperate she couldn’t help it.

  “Patrice!” she said.

  “Rose, gosh, you look awful.”

  She felt awful. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Did Serge put the fear in you?”

  Rose nodded. He’d done more than that. He’d terrified her.

  “He said I’d be dancing in his bars for the rest of my life. He said I’d never escape and no one would ever come to rescue me. He said I’d be old and ugly and worn out, and still I’d be dancing for him.”

  She looked at Patrice. She was hoping he’d tell her that Serge had just been trying to scare her, but Patrice said nothing.

  “Is it true?” she said.

  Patrice looked at her. He reached over and started untying the cords around her wrists. It felt so good to have the painful ties removed from her raw skin.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Serge said we could remove the ties.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Patrice said.

  After he’d removed the wrist ties he opened the cords on her ankles too. Rose sat up and began to rub her thighs and arms and let the sensation flow back into them.

  “That should be better,” Patrice said.

  Rose nodded. It was better. She was so relieved to be untied that she thought she might cry.

  “Can I take a shower?” she said.

  Patrice nodded. “Serge said you can shower and that we should get you some clothes and things.”

  “That would be nice,” she said quietly.

  Patrice nodded. She left him and went into the washroom. It felt so good to be under the shower, the hot water flowing down over her body. She felt like it was washing away some of the trauma she’d suffered over the past few days. She got out of the shower and dried off. She couldn’t face putting the leather suit back on, not after all those days of having it against her skin. She wrapped herself in the towel and went back out to the bedroom.

  Patrice was sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room, smoking a cigarette. His eyes grew when he saw her wrapped in the towel. He could see her legs from the thighs down and his eyes lingered on her. She’d carefully washed the cuts on her wrists and ankles and knew it wouldn’t take long for them to heal. She went straight to the bed and for the first time got under the covers.

  It was amazing what a difference it made not to be tied up. For three days that bed had been like a torture rack. She’d thought she would die lying on it. Now, untied, under the covers, it actually felt like a sanctuary. She lay wrapped in her towel under the sheets and curled up in a position that felt so comfortable.

  “Are you alright?” Patrice said to her.

  She looked at him before answering. What could she say? Was she alright? It was a ludicrous question given the situation.

  “Is it true?” she said.

  “Is what true?”

  “What Serge said about me being forced to dance for the MC for the rest of my life?”

  Patrice looked sad as he nodded. “There have been others like you,” he said. “Many of them. It’s the way the DRMC works. They capture the daughters of the bikers they killed in the past. It’s sort of a way they have of spreading fear to their enemies. Your father was a Sioux Ranger, right?”

  Rose nodded sadly. Her father would turn in his grave if he could have known what was happening to her because of his being a Ranger.

  “So, they take girls like you and force them to dance, to strip.”

  “And they never let us go?”

  “As far as I’ve seen.”

  “How can they keep girls forever?”

  Patrice seemed genuinely sad as he spoke to her. “They can do whatever they like. They own the police in Val-d’Or. I’m pretty sure they control the police in other towns too. We’re a long ways from civilization up here, but even down in Montreal they’ve got their nails into the mayor and police chief. They really can do whatever they like.”

  “So they kidnap girls who are the daughters of the bikers they killed in the wars?”

  “Yes, all those clubs they decimated ten years ago, when they were rising to power, they killed a lot of the old ladies.”

  “Yes they did,” Rose said. She’d lived through that period and knew only too well what had happened.

  “But they didn’t go after the children. They would have liked to. They did kill some children.”

  “I know it,” Rose said.

  “But others they left. They couldn’t risk creating a public backlash. They let the children grow up but now they’re picking them off. The boys they kill, if they can find them and if they look like they’re going to get involved in the biker scene.”

  “And the girls?”

  “They make them dance. They make them strip. And Rose, they don’t ever let them go. They believe in humiliating their enemies, and humiliating the memory of their enemies. Making you and the other daughters dance in their clubs is the ultimate humiliation they can put on the men they killed.”

  Rose shuddered. It was even worse than she’d expected. The DRMC wasn’t just a bad MC, it seemed to be actually evil.

  “And has any girl ever escaped?” Rose said.

  Patrice looked over at the door before answering. It was as if he was afraid someone might come in and see them talking. He shook his head. Rose knew what he was going to say before he even said it.

  “It’s the surest way to get yourself killed,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen girls try. Some of them can’t handle the humiliation, they make a run for it, or they talk to someone and try and get help. It never works out. The MC always finds them, always finds out their plan, and punishes them brutally.”

  “Do they kill them?”

  “You can usually expect a warning or two. A brutal beating. But after that, if a girl keeps trying to escape, they’ll put a bullet in her and drop her in a ditch somewhere along the highway. That’s just the way they like to handle people.”

  Rose nodded. “They actually shoot the girls?”

  “That’s if they’re lucky,” Patrice said. “You don’t ever want to get on the wrong side of Serge and Deuce. I’ve seen them do a lot worse than kill a girl. Sometimes they feel like they need to make an example of someone, and then, well, it’s hell. It’s nasty. It’s very ugly. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  VII

  ROSE LAY QUIETLY IN THE bed trying to process all that Patrice had told her. It was clear that her position was desperate. It was desperate and it didn’t look like it would be ending anytime soon. If the DRMC’s plan was to humiliate the memory of her father, they’d found the perfect way to do it. She couldn’t think of a more vicious way for one MC to treat the memory of the clubs it had defeated.

  “You want me to go get you a few things?” Patrice said.

  Rose had been so lost in her thoughts she’d forgotten he was there.

  “Oh,” she said, “yes, definitely.”

  “There’s a drug mart nearby. I can get you some clothes and things.”

  “And a toothbrush?”

  Patrice nodded. “Leave it to me,” he said. “You rest up.”

  He got up from the chair and was making his way for the door when Rose stopped him.

  “Wait. You’re just going to leave me here? Without a guard?”

  Patrice looked at her.

  “I know this is hard to understand right now, Rose, but you really have to listen to me. There’s no point in trying to escape. You’re in Val-d’Or. The DRMC owns this town. They run everything. Everyone knows about them. Even if someone didn’t agree with the club they’d never help you. They know too well what would happen to them. You’re hundreds of miles from the next town. Don’t try anything stupid.”

  She looked at him and could sense that he meant well by what he was saying. He was warning her tha
t any attempt at escape was completely futile.

  “How can I just wait here and let them do this to me?” she said.

  “Don’t think about it like that,” Patrice said.

  “What do you mean? How can I think about it any differently?”

  “Just try,” he said. There was a pleading in his voice. “Just try and see this as your life now. Don’t think about escape. Don’t think about resistance. Just try and live with it.”

  “Live with it?”

  “I know it’s difficult, Rose. I know it’s unbearable.”

  “It is unbearable. How can I accept this? What about my father? His memory?”

  Patrice opened the door. “Rose,” he said more sternly than before, “your father’s dead, and if you don’t want to join him yet, just do you best to accept this. It’s the reality of your life now.”

  *

  PATRICE LEFT THE ROOM. Rose remained in the bed. The cuts on her wrists and ankles were burning and she hoped he would bring her back something to put on them.

  She took deep breaths. What he’d said was true. This was her life. If she was going to survive, she’d have to come up with some way of accepting the situation. She couldn’t fight these guys. They would destroy her.

  *

  WHEN PATRICE RETURNED HE WAS carrying a couple of plastic drugstore bags and two cups of takeout coffee. It was only when she smelled the coffee that Rose realized how hungry she was. She hadn’t been fed anything at all since her capture. That was three whole days. All she’d had was a little water. No wonder she felt so weak. No wonder her mind was racing so incoherently.

  The stress of everything that had happened, the trauma of the night with Fat Boy and the discussion with Serge, it had all made her forget that she hadn’t eaten in so long. When Patrice handed her the paper coffee cup she realized that her hand was visibly shaking.

  “Thank you,” she said, and she meant it with all her heart.

  He also had a box of donuts and Rose was embarrassed by the fact that she couldn’t stop looking at them when he put them on the table.