by West, Sam
When she felt herself coming too, she did everything she could to fight consciousness. She didn’t know how long she’d been out, all she knew was she wanted to stay there in the darkness and never have to face the grim reality of where she was.
Unfortunately for Pam, that wasn’t to be. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing unconsciousness to claim her, when she was hit full in the face with a torrent of cold water.
Some of the water went up her nose and she coughed and spluttered, convinced for a moment that she was going to drown. Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself gazing up into the handsome face of her captor.
“Did you sleep well?”
He emptied the rest of the washing up bowl filled with water over her head. She turned her face to one side and coughed some more.
“Bastard,” she sobbed, but of course it came out as an incoherent groan.
The smell of cooked meat hung in the air, albeit fainter than before.
My cooked flesh, she thought, her mind caving in on itself.
Then she thought of her Djinn and the tiniest spark of hope ignited within her. If she could just survive the night, then maybe she was in with a chance.
I don’t like you passing out,” James said. “Try and stay awake, it’s boring when you’re out cold.”
He sounded like a spoiled pubescent and in a moment of clarity Pam realised that was pretty much all he was. A rich boy who was used to getting anything and everything his little heart desired. Maybe this was what all rich kids did when they had run out of the regular kind of fun things to do. The desensitized little shit.
The pain in her foot came flooding back in all its glory as she awoke fully, blocking out all further thought. James switched on the blowtorch and lowered it over her sweat sheened, blood smeared stomach.
The heat prickled her skin, edging up her body to her breasts. The long blue flame hovered over her nipple, heating it up to the point that was just shy of a burn.
“Mmmmrrghhh,” she wailed into the gag, thrashing her head from side to side.
James chuckled.
“I want to see what happens to your nipple if I burn it off.”
Pam’s eyes were wild over the red rubber ball. Her chest heaved, and each rise of her ribcage brought her wobbling breast closer to the flame.
“Don’t close your eyes or I’ll cut off the lids.”
She opened her eyes, not disbelieving him for a second. Just when she thought it would be bye bye nipple, the flame disappeared completely. James lowered his hand.
“I don’t know, this just isn’t as fun as I’d thought it would be. It was so much better in my head. Maybe you’re just not pretty enough. There’s not one part of you that’s attractive, I should never have picked you.”
Through her haze of pain, she realised he was beginning to sound more and more like a petulant little boy.
“Oh, fuck it, let’s just see if it gets any more exciting.”
Without further warning the blowtorch sprang back into life and the tip of the blue flame bent sideways against her nipple. In a matter of seconds her nipple began to bubble then turn black. The pain was too much, it sent her careering into madness and tumbling back down into the blissful black.
When she came to for the second time, James was red faced and mad. Pam was having difficulty focusing on his face, nothing felt wired together properly, like her eyes were no longer part of her.
And the pain. It was different now though, it had morphed into something else, a dead weight that pressed down on her body and mind, suffocating and immobilising her more surely than the ropes could ever do. The pain was no longer confined to specific places, like her nipple or foot, but rather if felt as if she was wallowing in it. Or drowning in it.
She looked beyond James’ face, up at the ceiling, refusing to so much as glance at the blackened mess that used to be her nipple.
“Stop passing out. I want to see your eyes when I do things to you.”
She couldn’t hear him properly, it felt like her head was stuck in an invisible bucket and her ears were plugged with cotton wool.
His face continued to swim in and out of focus and she closed her eyes again, praying for unconscious to sweep her up once more.
But James was having none of it. She felt her double chin pressing into her neck and his fingers at the back of her head. She sucked in a great lungfull of air through her mouth and only then realised that he had removed the ball gag.
Her head dropped back down to the table with a resounding thump that made her teeth clash together.
“Stop passing out, it’s no fun. I’ll just fucking kill you and find a girl who will cooperate.”
That brought her round a fraction. She had to survive until morning and then the Djinn would save her.
“And don’t even think about screaming either. This house is totally sound proofed. World War 3 could break out in this kitchen and the neighbours would be completely oblivious. Here, drink this.”
He lifted up her head and shoved a glass of water to her cracked lips. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was until the water slipped down her neck. Despite her awkward position, she downed the glass.
But now she was more with it, the pain took hold with a vengeance.
“Drugs,” she managed to get out.
“Excuse me? Is a prostitute seriously lying on my kitchen table, asking me for drugs?”
All Pam knew was that she had to survive the night, by whatever means possible. It didn’t really matter what he did to her, so long as she was alive at the end of it. And if she could minimize the pain, so much the better.
“Pain killers. If you keep the pain down, I’ll stop passing out.”
He looked like her was considering what she was saying. His cocked to one side and he regarded her thoughtfully.
“That makes sense, sort of. It could work. If the pain was knocked back, we could have loads of fun with you watching and stuff. Yeah, OK, let’s do it, I’ll see what I’ve got.”
She watched him walk over to the sink and open a cupboard to the left of it. Everything was blurry and she was having great difficulty in focusing. She watched the back of his broad shouldered figure and for a moment she couldn’t tell which one of them was lying down.
Come on Pam, focus. You have to stay with it.
She concentrated on his back. He was still wearing the dark suit pants and the blood streaked, white shirt.
“I have Tramadol here from when I put my back out last summer. Oh, and we could do a line of coke each too, that could be fun.”
Fun. Fun, fun, fuckety fun.
He came back over to her and palmed a couple of pills into mouth like he was feeding a horse a polo mint.
She forced herself to swallow and the pills got jammed for a second in her dry, fear constricted throat.
Oh God, please let the painkillers work. Please let me get through the night.
He reached into the back pocket of his suit pants and pulled out a small, clear bag filled with white powder. He dabbed a little on his finger, stuck it to a nostril, and snorted. The remaining powder he rubbed around his gums.
“Here,” he said, dipping his finger back inside the bag and shoving it under her nose.
“No,” she said reflexively.
Pam didn’t do drugs. She didn’t like them and she didn’t see the point in them. But then she caught herself just in time. She would stick anything up her nose if it meant surviving.
The cocaine felt like sandpaper scraping her nasal passage and ordinarily she would have been deeply disturbed by the sensation. But right now she welcomed it. The effect was instantaneous. Warmth spread her, going some way to numbing the terrible pain.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
The question struck her as entirely moronic.
“Just dandy.”
Her sarcasm was not lost on him.
“Good. Then you’re going to enjoy this next part.”
He went over to a kitchen drawer and came
back with a corkscrew. When Pam saw it, something inside of her shrivelled up and died.
“No,” she whispered when he placed the point of the metal spiral directly over her pupil.
“This may sting a bit.”
The corkscrew drove home. Pam screamed hard, the pain exploding in her eye socket all-consuming and terrible.
She felt her eyeball pop as the point drove in. Horrible squelching sounds filled her ears, inexorably loud as it was coming from inside her own head.
She couldn’t stop screaming. She had never before even dreamt that something could feel so fucking awful. A tugging sensation followed, and then with a wet pop the eyeball was wrenched from her head.
Blood and fluid sprayed from the empty eye socket. Her face was soaked, and the bitter tasting fluid ran into her gaping mouth, turning her screams into miserable retching.
Pam was out of her mind with her pain. Or simply out of her mind. She felt herself slipping back into unconsciousness, and gladly welcomed it.
“Your eye looks like a jellyfish,” he said jovially.
The eyeball, skewered on the corkscrew with the optic nerves dangling did indeed look like a jelly flesh. She glimpsed it through her rapidly dimming good eye in the seconds before she passed out for the second time.
“Wake up Pam, wake up, wake up.”
Pam opened her eyes. Or rather, her eye. She remembered what he had done and she opened her mouth to scream. All the pain, all the madness fell out of her mouth.
She felt hands at her neck, choking off the scream.
“Shut up bitch, you’re giving me a headache.”
The screams turned into choking sounds and her head grew tighter and tighter. She felt herself slipping into the blissful dark again and he seemed to know this, for he let up strangling her.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her shallow breathing, she just couldn’t catch her breath. She was a mess of agony, both physical and mental.
When she had sufficiently collected herself to focus her eye on her captor, she saw that he was naked. The sight of him defied comprehension. He was tanned and without an ounce of fat on him. His body was sculpted in the way only hours of gym time could produce. In short, he had the body of a God. His magnificent cock was erect and pointing right at her.
But it wasn’t his nudity that had her shrinking in a fresh bout of fear. It was the fact that he held a chainsaw in his hands.
And that the rounded edge of the circular saw was positioned at the top of her left thigh.
“No, please don’t, please, please, please…”
The gabbled pleading gave way to screams when the chainsaw jerked into life in a cloud of petrol fumes. His biceps rippled when he revved up the engine and he smiled down at her.
The rotating teeth tore into her skin, easily cutting through flesh, muscle and bone.
She tilted back her head and screamed up at the ceiling. It took mere seconds for her leg to be severed from her body.
The pain was there, but Pam had a feeling that the concoction of drugs had gone some way to dimming it. By rights, she didn’t think she should still be conscious.
She knew she had to ask him the most important question of her life so far, if only she could find the words and she could stop making those horrible sounds that she had no control over, sounds that were wrenched up from deep down in her tortured soul.
“What’s the time?” she managed to get out through the horrible wailing sounds she made.
He looked at her blankly, like he hadn’t understood the question. She noticed that he was sprayed in blood. Her blood. It looked as though he had been hosed down in the stuff and his eyes were a piercing blue amidst the red.
He shrugged, as if deciding to humour her.
“Just gone eleven.”
Just gone eleven. All I have to do is survive less than one hour…
Now the blowtorch was out again, and the smell of her cooking flesh filled the air when he seared the stump. That was too much, and she slipped into the blackness once more.
Pam opened her eye and saw she was alone. She had no idea how long she’d been out. Truth be told, she didn’t know much of anything anymore. The bright lights of the kitchen pierced her retina and sent shards of pain into her fevered brain. The blinds to the kitchen were pulled down tight and there was no clock in the room. She had no idea what time it was. She didn’t know where James had gone. She didn’t know anything.
The room was spinning so she closed her eye. She figured that the drugs had definitely done their job because she could tell that the pain had been knocked back. Her spine felt warm and fuzzy and the pain was suitably shrouded by a numbness that left her floppy.
“Hello Pam.”
Her eye snapped open. The Djinn was here. She sobbed in relief. He stood to her right, and she twisted her head to look at the faceless face.
“Are you going to let me die?” she asked him.
“Why would I do that?”
“You know I didn’t finish my task today.”
“Indeed. You were two blowjobs short. And your client didn’t fuck you.”
“I would say he fucked me over pretty good. Doesn’t that count?”
“It would seem you didn’t lose your sense of humour along with your leg and your eye.”
“Yeah. Only because you’re here now,” she said. “Where is he?”
His shimmering face was hurting her eye and she had to stare up at the ceiling.
“He’s in the shower. Your blood was making him feel sticky.”
“Do I still get my wish?”
“Technically, you did fail the task. But I’m feeling generous, which is why I’ve come to you extra early. I couldn’t leave it much longer because he’s pretty close killing you.”
“You don’t say.”
“I can’t say I appreciate your sarcastic tone, Pam.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not really feeling myself here.”
“I can see that. I’ll grant you your fourth wish, providing you carry over your failed tasks into the next task. So that means two blowjobs and still having to pick up a client. Your fourth task is to kill Wayne.”
“Kill Wayne? My boyfriend Wayne?”
“You don’t love him. He treats you like shit. I know for a fact you haven’t spared him more than a second’s though since you’ve met me. Well, apart from when the dog was licking your cunt that is.”
If Pam hadn’t been in such unspeakable pain, she might have blushed.
“How do you know these things?”
“I know everything about you Pam. I am you and you are me.”
Pam didn’t understand what he meant and she didn’t think about it too deeply either.
“Why must I kill Wayne? That’s just sick.”
She could hear herself speaking but it was like her voice wasn’t coming from inside of her. It seemed to float all around her, as disconnected as her own feelings were about murdering her boyfriend.
“It is just the way it has to be, Pam. In order to begin your new life you must do away with the old. Lucky for you that you have no family or friends, otherwise you would have to dispatch all of them.”
“Yes, fine. God, I’ll do anything, I’ll kill Wayne, just please, make the pain go away.”
Pam sobbed, a new thought occurring to her. What good would being better be if she was still stuck here, tied to the table? But then she figured she would have a fighting chance. It would be easy to wiggle free from the ropes if she was in one piece and she could probably escape before the bastard got out of the shower.
“Can I wish myself away from here?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The Djinn cannot move you through time and space.”
Great.
“But I can do better than that, Pam. How would you like to be better and beautiful?”
Normally, that would have been music to her ears. But right then she could not give a shit. All she wanted was to be pain free. And to have
her leg and eye back.
“I don’t care, I just want to not hurt. Please hurry, he’ll be back soon.”
“Don’t you want to be beautiful?”
“I want to be alive.”
“I am offering you a double wish, Pam. I’ll make you better if you kill Wayne. Your pain for his. And I can make you beautiful too. If you set yourself on fire Pam, you will be reborn into beauty. That can be your fifth task and wish.”
Set myself on fire? What is this shit?
“I can’t do that. And I don’t care, just make me well.”
“It is the specification of the inevitable, I want to be beautiful wish. In order to become so, one must set themselves alight. Burn themselves to the ground in order to be reassembled as a thing of beauty. It is just the way of the Djinn, an idiosyncrasy, if you will.”
She felt him place something small in the palm of her hand and she lifted up her trembling head to see what it was.
“I can’t set myself on fire with a lighter, that’s just stupid.”
“It shows you’re willing. The rest is down to the magic of the Djinn.”
The magic of the Djinn, she repeated numbly in her mind.
Through the haze of pain and drugs, his words resonated within her. She was going to ask for beauty at some point. Of course she was.
Fuck it, what have I got to lose? I’ll be beautiful and in full health again.
Without further thought, she thumbed the lighter into life. She held the meagre flame to her hip and her flesh instantly heated, then burnt.
“That’s my girl,” the Djinn said with a hefty dose of warmth injected into his voice.
She screamed. Despite the pickle she was in, it still hurt like merry fuck, and her natural instinct was to drop the offending lighter.
The moment of weakness was short lived, for within seconds her entire self was a roaring inferno. She could feel the skin melting off her body, her blood heating and boiling in her veins. The agony of it was as bright and as sudden as the fire that consumed her. The experience was short lived because the intense heat caused her to lose consciousness almost instantaneously. As she passed out she felt her remaining eyeball fizzle and pop and her brain catch fire.