by Davis, SJ
She was in the outbuilding on Odin’s property. He was not in love with her; he was a lunatic, and she, like Aurora Nixon, was his prisoner.
The gag in her mouth was dry. She was thirsty. She raised her free hand to her mouth but the cloth was locked into place with a steel band. She tugged at it unsuccessfully; it could not be removed. The pale light of a hanging lantern illuminated her prison. Across the room, Aurora lay motionless. Lena placed her feet on the floor and stood shakily. The chains made a peculiar clanking noise as she took the three steps to the other bed. Aurora was curled on her side. Lena put a finger to her neck. Her pulse was slow but strong.
She shivered as the cold penetrated her clothing. She was dressed in just her soiled jeans and sweatshirt. Clutching the blanket closer, she perused the room for something warmer. There was a dresser in the corner. She checked the first drawer and found underwear and socks, the second contained t-shirts and sweaters, the third, sweatpants. Because of the chains around her ankles, she could do nothing about the pants, but the sweaters were all button downs. She pulled a heavy wool sweater over the sweatshirt and donned a pair of mismatched socks before returning to Aurora’s side.
The woman’s face was peaceful in sleep, the stress lines around her mouth and eyes, gone. Lena counted the months she’d been missing. Seventeen and a half. She’d been Odin’s slave for a long time. Interminable. Gently, Lena brushed the tangled hair from her forehead, wondering how she could have endured the torture for so long.
The night outside was quiet. There was no sound from the cabin, no smell of food cooking, no light creeping under the bunkhouse door, no splashing of water against a paddle, no Madame Butterfly. It was dead still. She stroked Aurora’s hair and waited for her to open her eyes. The Forerunner’s motor reached her first.
Scrambling back to her bed, Lena wrapped herself tightly in the blanket. Curling up like Aurora, she steadied her breathing as Odin’s key turned in the lock. The beam from his flashlight flickered across her face as he stood above her. He checked her pulse. She relaxed as his footsteps rang across the quiet room and watched through slit-eyes as he played the light across Aurora. He checked her pulse as well.
Apparently satisfied that his prisoners were intact, he returned to the doorway and picked up a large flat object. Lena could smell the familiar odor as it wafted through the cold night air. Pizza. Her stomach growled. He placed the box in the middle of the room and returned to her, freeing her hands and removing her gag. Lena lay still.
“Get up,” he said. “I know you’re awake.”
She sat up slowly, rubbing her chafed wrists.
“You’ll have to work on your acting, Selene. You’re completely unconvincing.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
Odin laughed and ran a perfectly manicured finger down her cheek. “Sullen, tonight, are we? Perhaps a trip inside will cure that.”
She shrank away and rolled onto her side, facing the wall.
“Funny how much things can change within the course of one day, eh, Lena? Twenty-four hours ago, one touch from me would have had you throwing your clothes off and begging for more. Now, all you’ve got is a bad attitude.”
Abruptly, he left her side and moved to Aurora, releasing her from her bonds. While Lena watched, he checked her pulse again and held a slice of pizza before her nose. Aurora sat up suddenly. The glow from the lantern illuminated her pale face.
“You must be hungry,” Odin said.
Aurora nodded. Lena’s stomach growled again.
“Come, then. Eat.”
Like something wild, the red-haired woman slipped from the bed to the floor. On her hands and knees, she crawled forward and waited, panting slightly, her eyes fixed on the box at his feet.
Watching her, Lena felt sick.
“Come on. I won’t hurt you,” Odin said, coaxing her forward. His voice was soft and gentle. He reached toward her and Lena saw Aurora quiver. She moved another foot forward and stopped. Odin crouched, removed a slice, and dangled it before her. “Come.”
Like a whipped dog, the woman crawled forward, took the pizza, and retreated to the corner, chains clanking around her ankles. She devoured it in three bites and licked the grease from her hands. Her eyes never left the box. Odin turned his flashlight back to Lena.
“Come, Selene. It’s time to stop the pretense. I know you’re hungry. If you want to eat, it’s now or never.” He broke off another piece and threw it to Aurora who ate it as quickly as the first. “Feeding times are erratic around here, eh, Aura? Tell her. She should take what she can get when it’s offered.”
“Eat.” Aurora spoke softly. Lena could barely hear the word when she repeated it. “Eat.”
Odin nodded. “That’s right, Selene. Eat.” He took another slice and stepped to the side of her bed. Eyes narrowed, he reached down and yanked the blanket away. “Yes, I thought so,” he said, fingering the sweater. “You were awake for a while before I returned, weren’t you? How long, Lena? One hour? Two?”
Lena shook her head.
Slowly and deliberately, Odin raised his hand. The sound of the slap rang through the quiet night. She gazed at him in stunned disbelief as her hand rose to touch her burning cheek.
“You should listen to Aurora, you know,” he said as he threw the slice of pizza onto the blanket. “First of all, she’ll tell you that I don’t care for insubordination. Second, she’ll tell you how it feels to go without food for a few days.”
Lena looked away, her hand clamped tightly against her mouth. The mangled piece of dough and cheese lay before her on the bed, tantalizingly close. “I’m not hungry,” she said.
“You’re lying, Selene. You haven’t eaten in 36 hours. Not only are you hungry, you’re starving.”
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her legs as she placed her head on her knees.
“Not hungry,” she repeated.
Odin shrugged. “That’s too bad.” He picked a piece of pepperoni off the slice and popped it in his mouth. “I had a piece on my way home. It’s quite good.”
Lena’s stomach betrayed her, growling loudly. She willed it to be silent. Odin held out a second piece of pepperoni. She ignored him.
“Suit yourself,” he said, and threw it to Aurora. Turning away, he retrieved the box and opened the door, pausing to issue instructions. “I expect total silence from both of you. If you choose to scream, I will come back and replace the gags. After that, you will be punished. Ask Aurora about punishment, Lena... she’ll tell you that I’m not prone to idle threats.”
The flashlight played across her face. She squinted and looked away, blinking fast.
“If you scream you’ll be punished,” he repeated. “If you behave, you’ll be rewarded. It’s that simple.” He reached outside and placed a bucket on the floor between them. “There’s enough water here for both of you. Drink it sparingly. It should be enough to hold you until I come back.” Reaching up, he removed the lantern from its hook and turned it off. The door swung shut and the lock clicked closed. They were alone.
Lena held her breath and listened; there was no sound of him outside. Inside the room, without the light of the lantern, it was pitch black. There was the soft clank of chains across the room and her bed creaked as Aurora sat down. She reached for Lena and found her hand. The slice of pizza passed between them.
“Eat,” Aurora whispered again, her voice hoarse. “It’s the only way you’ll stay alive.”
Dutifully, Lena pulled off a piece and placed it in her mouth. It was cold and oily; she gagged.
“I don’t want it,” she said, tears threatening again.
“You have to eat it,” Aurora said, urgently. “He might not return for days. You’ll starve to death if you don’t.”
Lena took another bite, chewed, and swallowed.
“That’s it. Again.”
She repeated the action, taking tiny bites until the pizza was gone. When her stomach heaved, she stumbled to the bucket and drank, fighting the u
rge to vomit. Aurora was right…she wanted to live, so she had to eat.
“He’ll be back at some point,” Aurora said, quietly.
Lena groped her way back to the bed, chains clanking. “He has to sleep. He’s human.”
“He doesn’t sleep much,” Aurora replied. “Two or three hours, tops.” She reached out to help guide Lena back. The bed groaned again as she shook the blanket and settled into the corner.
“Where do you think he was all day?”
Aurora took her hand and squeezed her fingers. “I’d guess he was busy arranging your disappearance.” She paused. “Or maybe he went on a recruiting trip.”
“Recruiting?” Lena shook her head. “That’s what he calls it?”
“He likes to have one on the outside to balance the ones he’s imprisoned,” she said. “You were the recruit until this morning. You were the outsider.”
“How does he pick us?” Lena asked. “His recruits?”
Aurora sighed. “It’s a combination of looks and names. He’ll only take a woman with the name of a legend, preferably a goddess. In Roman Mythology, my name, Aurora, is the Goddess of the dawn. That’s what sparked his interest in me. I guess my looks and absentee boyfriend appealed to him as well. Your name’s Selene,” she continued. “You’re named for the Goddess of the moon. If you’d been a Susie or Johanna, he wouldn’t have looked twice.”
Lena shook her head. “Is that really all it took for him to choose me?”
“That coupled with the facts that you’re pretty and you’re available.”
“But I’m not available,” Lena protested. “I’m married.”
“No you’re not,” Aurora said. “You left your husband. You’re as single as I am.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“Odin did? He told you about me?”
“He prefers to be called God,” Aurora said.
Lena shook her head. “He’s crazy.”
“He might be crazy, but he’s clever. By now, I’ll bet you a thousand dollars he’s got your husband and the police convinced that you’ve run away. Either that or you’re dead.”
“Like you,” Lena said slowly. “Everyone thinks you ran away…even your closest friends. Everyone but your parents.”
“And what do they think, Lena?” Aurora asked softly, her voice husky with emotion. “What do my parents think?”
“They think…”
“Go ahead. I can take it.” Aurora squeezed her fingers again.
“They think you’re dead.”
“And they’re right,” she said.
The room fell into silence. Lena closed her eyes and tried to make sense of it all. “What really happened to you?” she finally asked.
Aurora sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“What else do we have besides time?”
Lena lay back against the pillows. She wrapped the blanket around herself more tightly. Her watch said five o’clock. She waited while Aurora gathered her thoughts and listened closely when she began to speak.
“I met him when I was working in Portland. It was my first job as a licensed pharmacist at a small mom and pop place downtown. It was the kind of pharmacy that’s hard to find these days…most of them have been swallowed up by the national chains. Anyway, he came in to fill a prescription. It was late in the evening and I was the only one left on duty. Since there was no one else in the store, we got to talking. I closed up at nine and he asked me if I’d like to join him for a drink.”
Aurora lay down beside her and Lena adjusted the blankets to cover them both. It was warmer immediately. “Odin’s a charmer,” she said. “Did you go?”
“Yes. But not with Odin. His name was Ares. Ares Andrews.”
“Andrews, Anderson, Andreassen…all variations of the same name,” Lena murmured.
Aurora was quiet for a moment. “I had a boyfriend at the time, my old high school boyfriend, Mark, from Corinna. I didn’t see the harm in one drink, but one drink led to another, and before I knew it, I’d said yes to a date later in the week. One date led to two, and pretty soon I was seeing him on a regular basis. I really liked him… I thought we were friends.”
The story sounded familiar. “Did you tell Mark?”
“No.” Aurora sighed. “I guess I knew from that first night that I’d be open to pursuing a relationship with him, but I didn’t want to lose Mark if it didn’t work out. Ares was so much older than me, so sophisticated. I couldn’t picture him wanting anything more than friendship.”
“So what happened?”
“Like I said, we began to spend a lot of time together. I was working every day, but Ares seemed to have all the time in the world. Whenever I could manage to take an afternoon off, he was around.” She sighed again. Lena could hear the deep regret in her next words.
“The first time I blew Mark off was on a Friday afternoon about a month after Ares and I met. I called him up and gave him some lame excuse about having to work so that I wouldn’t have to see him. The next week, I did the same thing. All I wanted to do was spend time with Ares. We started sleeping together that second weekend.” Lena felt Aurora’s body quiver. “The only other guy I’d ever had sex with was Mark, and I was confused about my feelings for him. I thought, maybe, that I was in love.”
“When you disappeared, the media never mentioned the fact that you were seeing another man,” Lena said.
“That’s because they didn’t know. No one did. Ares was living outside of the city in a house that he’d rented from a guy from Boston. That’s where we spent most of our time together.” Aurora yawned. “He was very private and didn’t like to socialize and I was new in town and hadn’t made any friends. It never struck me as strange that we didn’t have a more public relationship.”
“Did he ask you to model for him?”
“Yes,” Aurora said. “I was flattered. Actually, the first time I modeled for him was also the first time we made love.”
Lena was surprised to find herself jealous. Odin – Ares - had loved Aurora too. She closed her eyes. “Did he ask you to be his goddess?” she asked.
It was light enough now for her to see Aurora’s smile. “Not the first time. The first time he painted me as a mortal woman. I was Psyche, and he was Eros.”
“Eros?” Lena frowned, trying to remember. “Do you mean Cupid? The God of love?”
“Yes. Eros and Cupid are the same god, they’re just known by different names, the Greek and the Roman. Anyway, Ares bought hundreds of flowers and placed them in vases around his bedroom. He asked me to strip and painted me naked as I picked up the petals. Then he fucked me on the floor. I thought it romantic at the time.”
The room went silent again. Lena could feel her heart beat, fast and strong. Jealousy peaked and ebbed, peaked again.
“Is that how it went for you, Lena?” Aurora said bitterly, her voice breaking. “A painting for a fuck?”
Lena nodded slowly. Twenty-four hours before, her time with Odin had been unique and precious. She’d never dreamed she’d be confessing it to a virtual stranger. Aurora’s fingers rested in her hand. Lena swallowed hard and answered her question. “He took me to a special place in the middle of Blackwater Pond. I posed for him as the Lorelei.”
“Did he take you then as well?” Aurora asked. There was no hint of jealousy in her voice, only curiosity.
Lena shook her head. “He took me as the Norse Goddess Freya. It was later that same afternoon.”
“Did you want him?”
Lena hesitated. She was glad the light was too dim to reveal her blush. “Yes,” she whispered finally. “God help me…yes.”
Aurora nodded. “So did I. I wanted him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life. I would have done anything for him.”
“Me too,” Lena admitted.
“Did you tell him that you loved him?”
“Just days ago.”
“That’s when he took me, too,” Aurora said. “Right after
I told him how I felt.”
“Is that part of his game?” Lena asked. “Woo the goddess until she falls in love and then possess her until death?”
“I think so.” Aurora’s voice became a whisper. “You know, he actually thinks he is God, Lena. He’s a handsome man, rich, intelligent, and charming. He’s got it all, but he’s sick. Crazy, sick.”
“He’d have to be to hold two women captive in his shed. How long do you think he plans to keep us here?”
“Until we die or he kills us…whichever comes first.” Aurora’s voice broke; Lena knew she was crying. “I felt that there was a glimmer of hope when you moved in across the pond. But then you started seeing him so I tried to escape on my own.” She pointed to the ceiling where the chains hung, suspended from heavy rings screwed into the beams. “I climbed the chains and opened the skylight, then I twisted the rings until they were loose and jumped from the roof.”
“Skylight?” Lena said, puzzled. “What skylight?”
“It’s gone, now. He removed it and boarded over the hole.”
“I think I may have seen you that day. Were you on the dock?”
Aurora nodded. “I was going to take the big kayak, but he’d locked the paddles inside of the cabin, so I had to go on foot.”
“How far did you get?”
“Not very. He must have seen me from your cabin. I managed to hide in the woods for a couple of hours, but he tracked me down. Afterward, he didn’t feed me for four days.”
“Four days?”
Aurora nodded.
Lena closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s hopeless, then.”
“Maybe not. At least now there’re two of us again.” She placed her hand against Lena’s cheek. Lena could feel her bones through skin as thin and dry as parchment.
“So what do we do now?”
“We do what he tells us to and try not to make him mad,” Aurora said. “Eat what he provides when he provides it, sleep when he tells us to, and most importantly, be the goddess whenever he asks.”
“What?”
“Be the goddess,” Aurora whispered, “whenever and however he wants it.”