Messy and Shattered

by Mercy Cortez

  Rahul looked over my body with a dirty grin on his face and I looked down to the ground, disgusted and terrified. Draco pulled me closer.

  “Draco, what the hell is she doing out here? Ugh, never mind. The Lights, nice work. Jay, Kavok’s assistant, called me. He wants to meet our little Aimee. Kavok, as you know, is one of the most influential men in the industry, and I did some research. His last slave was just sold to a brothel and he needs a new one. I think this little bitch would be perfect.”

  I watched his vile lips move as he spoke, trying to take in the information. Draco held firm and didn’t move back into the house which surprised me. Draco smiled at Rahul and shook his hand in a congratulatory manor. Why did I feel betrayed? This was who Draco was. I was one of many.

  “One thing though, Draco. I need to be the one to train her.” He said it so dominantly that it held no realm for any objection. It just was. Draco held his facial expression stern and cold. He was pretty pissed about the whole idea and you needed no psych degree to see it.

  “She is mine, Rahul. I train her. We made a deal.” Rahul chuckled at Draco and then punched him square in the face, knocking him back a little. I stared in shock and waited for Draco to hit back but he didn’t.

  “You killed mine, so now I have yours. Tit for tat, Draco” I felt as tears burnt in my eyes and I searched Draco’s eyes for any hope, but none came. I wanted Draco. I needed him. I felt Rahul’s clammy hand grab the rope holding Draco and I together and he pulled it away. He took me by the arm and marched me back inside and straight to my cell.

  I screamed out to Draco and he smiled at me in what was supposed to be encouragement, but his eyes looked full of sadness and hopelessness. I felt my throat retch from screaming out, his name scratching my mouth like knives and the feeling spreading to the rest of my body. My mind spun to a different place. I was going insane, I could feel it, his name left my lips one last time and I gave in. I looked into Rahul’s evil, dead eyes and closed my own in what felt like slow motion. I pinched them shut and remembered Erin’s face. Her favorite song, Lana Del Rey’s Summertime Sadness, flooded my memory while I was laughing with her at home, our mother watching as I tickled her in bed, our laughter echoing through my lavender-coloured bedroom. The line in the song, ‘nothing scares me anymore,’ repeats in my mind, and I see Erin so clearly, like a gift of her presence, in my mind’s eye. I feel as a punch hits my face and I block it out with my eyes firmly shut and I ignore the tear dripping down my cheeks as I listen to Erin sing along with Lana, reminding me over and over that nothing scares me anymore. I feel his hands wandering over my naked flesh, Erin whispers into my ear in my thoughts, he can have your body, but he can’t have your soul. I hear his demands and I comply while not really caring what he is asking. He is behind me. I can feel his hands on my behind. I adjust my thoughts. I am not here, this girl is not me. His finger is inside another girl, she isn’t me. I feel as my confidence rises; as my fear yields to my epiphany of acceptance. I was no longer Aimee, I was whatever these men had made me. Erin wasn’t the only one to die that night and now I was molded into what they needed; I am a slave, I am a product.

  “I am nothing.”

  I fluttered my eyes open and smiled at the camera where Draco would be watching. I was a fighter. Even in this new world and this new mind, I would fight. I kicked behind me as I had been crouched on the floor and knocked Rahul to the ground. He wasn’t badly hurt, just surprised and winded. I knew Draco would have to stop me if I carried on. I crawled fast along the floor like an animal and savagely sunk my teeth fast into Rahul’s dirty index finger; I felt the flesh and blood in my mouth and the crunch of some bone; the practice with Draco had come in handy and I knew how much pressure was too much. Rahul tried to swipe at me with his hand but my adrenaline was kicking in strong and I needed to get his finger so I could use it on the scanner, then I could escape. If not Draco would have to stop me before that point. I tasted blood trickling down my throat and suddenly felt hands grabbing my shoulders and rip me away. My teeth clenched over Rahul’s skin, taking a layer of it off as Draco ripped me away with force. I could still taste his blood in my mouth and I looked up at Draco as I lay naked and vulnerable on the floor. His eyes couldn’t hide emotion, or maybe they couldn’t hide my warped delusions as I saw them sparkle with pride as he moved over to me and quickly injected me with something that made me drowsy and disorientated.

  My eyes grew heavy as I watched Draco and Rahul argue.

  “See why I’m training her now? She is a handful, you can’t just think you can beat her into submission, you know that doesn’t work, not for how we want to portray her at the show. Forget about Erin, she is gone.”

  “Erin now…” I kept feeling myself lose consciousness, missing information as my brain tried to recover “…You need to be harsher Draco….Okay, fine….She is worth too much Rahul, you can’t leave scars on…Two weeks then…at the show I will deal with her, Draco.”

  Chapter Twenty - Draco

  I hated watching this. He was so still when he touched her, her eyes closed tightly. I knew all this was my fault. I had gotten her mixed up in this and as much as I could say that if it wasn’t her it would be someone else, it didn’t matter to me, because when I saw him push his finger inside her arse I prayed it was anyone but her. I prayed, I pleaded, I wished. I should have gone in there, but I didn’t. When will this stop being just a job? I remember Jethro always said that as soon as it stops being a job you can’t complete the task. Was I reaching my limit?

  I was so glad when she gave me a reason to pull them apart.

  I looked at Aimee as Rahul ranted at me for letting her get so out of control. She slept so peacefully. It was only because I had drugged her, but I appreciated her innocent posture and her delicate features as her body rose and fell with her breath. She was so petite and beautiful. She had dozens of bruises on her body, yet underneath them you could still see her beauty. I had blocked Rahul out at this point and I watched my Aimee sleeping soundly. I knew I was in danger, I knew because I just wanted to snuggle beside her and hold her fragile body and put it all back together again. I had to stop; I had to make this feeling go away. I couldn’t care about her, it was unprofessional and she was a means to an end. She would be sold for the greater good. Things happen, bad things, and I had witnessed many of them. I had seen things much worse than what Aimee had suffered, but none of it made me feel this same emotion, maybe I was growing a conscience or maybe she had tricked me somehow but I knew that I couldn’t let anything happen to her. I had to protect her.

  “I will train her. You obviously can’t handle her so let me” Rahul looked at me and I knew he wanted to have his ‘go’ with her but it proved fruitless and she was strong and tough.

  “I have a rapport with her already. You did me a favor, really, because now she trusts me and she will easily succumb to me with the threat of you in the balance.” Rahul smiled at me a little and I knew I was winning my argument.

  “Okay, two weeks then. You train her up, then at the show I will deal with her, Draco. I will get her sold and off of our hands, understood?” I didn’t like this plan much but I was formulating my own and it was the worst plan and the least thought out I had ever had but I needed to do it, I needed to try. This wasn't just a job anymore.

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Twenty-One - Aimee - The Beginning of the End

  I opened my eyes as I heard a car door slam shut, confused as the wind from it hit my face. I was lying down in the back of a vehicle. I pushed my stinging eyes closed and opened them again to confirm that this wasn't a dream.

  I felt the pain of new bruises forming on my skin. I pulled myself up slightly to look at the driver; I saw shaggy blond hair and shades over the driver’s eyes. I knew it was Draco, and for some reason, I knew I was safe.

  "Draco, what's going on?" I asked while my mind was in a conscious limbo.

  "Nothing. You just rest. It’ll be okay"

  I heard nothin
g but the engine until music filled the car. He glanced from the road to look at me.

  "The only CD you had in your luggage. I hope you don't mind. Now rest, we have a long drive." He sounded different, at ease.

  I listened to The Pretty Reckless - Hit me like a Man while I fell back into a drug-induced sleep.

  **

  I woke to a theory that last night had been a dream that I would be in my white cell, waiting for more vile food and trying to work out why Draco had abandoned me and used me like he had made me believe he wouldn’t.

  Instead I woke up in a bed, a comfy, amazing bed. It had been about three weeks since I had been in a proper bed and felt a mattress pressed against my back. The one I had been given in my cell was old and uncomfortable.

  I felt the covers, soft and warm. I pulled myself up and noticed my hand cuffed to the nightstand.

  Nice to know I still wasn't exactly free.

  The last week Draco had been training me under the ever-watchful eye of Rahul. He would shout various commands through the speaker which Draco followed.

  I was made to call him ‘Sir’ at all times and never allowed to call him Draco while in training, which, after the night I bit Rahul’s thumb, was basically the only time I wasn't alone. I had become a shell of nothingness, my mind eroded by constant fighting for survival. Draco would use different things on me all the time and only when Rahul would disappear for a few hours would Draco give me any comfort.

  I cried so hard one night, I felt a warm presence behind me and holding me still, stopping my sobs shaking me. I was having a nightmare, I suppose. Is it still a nightmare if it actually happened, or is it just a memory?

  He had stroked my hair to soothe me and I felt close, I felt touched. I felt something. When I was with him, it was the only time I felt anything, and although I knew I should feel disgust, a lot of the time all I felt was need. A need to be comforted, a need to be held, a need to feel anything that resembled love. So I let this man who had singlehandedly ruined my life hold me while I cried myself to sleep, because I had no one else in the world anymore. I woke up on and off that night. He never left me. I finally got up, giving in to my lack of sleep.

  "Why are you doing this, Draco?"

  "Doing what?" I hated his eyes. I felt possessed when he looked at me. I was so drained and empty, but his eyes dilated and his mouth smiled and, and that made me feel too much.

  "Here, holding me, being nice." He looked to the floor, contemplating what he should say, or maybe what he shouldn't.

  "You shouldn't cry. I don't like seeing you cry." He shrugged and went to get up, to walk away and leave me all alone again.

  "Please, stay."

  The words left my mouth before I realised they were in my mind. Stay? Yes Aimee, let’s have the murderer and your captor who regularly beats you stay a while, shall we?

  "I can't Aimee, this - you realise what's happening here?" I stared at him, confused. His body was fairly bare as he only had tracksuit bottoms on. He started shaking his head and turned to leave again.

  "What? What's happening?" I said it just as he reached the door.

  "...I'm breaking the rules." And he left, left me alone again. I knew what was happening to me and it was becoming harder to ignore, I hated being so cliché. I felt such depths of depression when he left. It made no real sense at all and yet I couldn't help it. I had read some fictional books on kidnap and abduction, I always felt it was a little far fetched, to fall for someone like that and in such a short expanse of time. I even pitied them and yet here I was, crouched against a wall, wishing my captor would come and hold me and lie to me, a sweet little lie that everything would be okay.

  Rahul had gotten stricter after that day. Maybe he sensed something in us, but I knew it was different. The beatings became more brutal. The pleasure Draco was allowed to sometimes inflict, rubbing my body or kissing my neck, became less frequent. He expected things of me, I had to kneel when he entered a room, he would then tap me on the head to let me stand. If he didn't do that it meant I should crawl. It was a bit tedious and if I wasn’t terrified beyond reason I would have laughed.

  Last night Draco had come into my cell, and I knelt fast before him, I was to look down. I heard Rahul’s voice through the speaker.

  "As we discussed, Draco" I had a knot in my stomach so tight I wanted to vomit. I heard as a zip slide down. I kept my eyes to the floor, I learnt the hard way that if you look you get hit. I felt his slender fingers grip my chin making me look up. I saw him, he had his hardening length in his hand as he stroked it. I was scared, and ashamed because unfortunately I wasn't a fool, I knew what was coming. I felt as he pushed his length around my lips.

  "If you bite me, Aimee, I will kill you."

  I was thinking how my death would be a blessing, then my body told me to die after all this would be ironic. I tasted him as he pushed himself inside my mouth. I felt so used and dirty. I was a product, I was nothing.

  He held my head gently and glided himself inside my mouth, I had only done this once before and I wasn't exactly good. I just opened my mouth; I wasn't going to get that fucker off. I heard Rahul direct him.

  "Harder – faster"

  He firmly grabbed my hair and fucked my mouth like I was a whore and my mouth was just an instrument. He pulled out and came on the floor. He let go and I crawled away, holding myself with my knees to my chest and rocking in the corner of my cell. My corner.

  That was last night and now I was in a motel room in a luxury bed, with a shower running somewhere.

  I was so confused as to how to feel. I was a logical person. Logic always won and logic told me that he had really fucking broken the rules this time.

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Draco

  I let the water spray my face and I wondered what the hell my plan was. I shouldn't have taken her, I was risking too much by doing this. My life was over. The moment I walked out of The Shell with her passed out in my arms, I knew I was a dead man walking. I couldn't do what Rahul needed me to do, and if I refused I knew he would do it a lot worse than I ever would.

  Rahul was such an arsehole. He told me I had to make Aimee comply sexually for her own good. He told me that she had not been completely explored and if she won’t do it for me, then she wont do it for the purchaser at The Lights show. I had thought about it, and I knew that if he did it instead, he would hurt her, so I ended up raping her mouth. I hated myself in that moment. I had never had to do anything on that scale before, and I felt too much for Aimee as it was. I didn't know why I felt more than I should for her, but I almost felt responsible for her, I felt like I had lead her here and I had to protect her like I had promised her sister. So when he made me do that to her, I reached a new low.

  After I sexually assaulted Aimee, I had to act calm and casual with Rahul. He patted me on the back and told me he was proud of me. We had less than a week and then she would be sold and the days screamed in my head like a countdown, Rahul asked too much of me...

  "Good work, although I did order you to cum down her throat, which you did not do. How was she?" His voice had sounded slimy and dirty.

  "Yeah I thought my cum should be a treat, not a punishment. She was okay. Nothing special." I lied through my teeth. I knew she wasn't even trying but her tentative licks were actually pretty mind-blowing, that's what made it harder to feel guilty.

  "Well, we take it up a notch tomorrow. Tomorrow night, my friend, you will finally be like me. Tomorrow night, you're going to hold our little Aimee down and fuck her until she begs you to stop. I know you'll love it. She will be completely yours."

  I remember his eyes in that moment, if he had licked his lips as he said it, I wouldn't have been surprised. He was hungry for it and his dark eyes made me twitch. I knew she would end up worse off if I refused, but watching her sob on the monitor that night made it impossible to do what he had asked. I thought for all of five minutes and suddenly she was in my car and I had her mixed CD playing, driving miles with a mix of Michael Jacks
on's Man in the Mirror and Queen’s Somebody to Love mixed with modern songs, and reaching some dingy motel.

  So now what? I have no idea. In about two hours Rahul would realise we were gone and he would come looking for us. Where do I take her? I've defied Jethro too, I had no ideas and no plans. I just had a girl who I had to save from myself.

  I got out the shower and heard her moving the cuffs that confined her to the bed. This place was pretty tragic, the shower was mostly cold with mold on the tiles, the flooring was half-missing and the main room consisted of a bed and a TV. I walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. I looked over at her, her bruises were slowly healing and her face looked a lot better. Despite all that had happened to her, she really was stunning. Her hair was greasy and disheveled her skin dry and cracked, her body wasn't clean, but underneath the dirt and the old ripped t-shirt that I had thrown on her when I escaped; she was beautiful. Her eyes sparkled so bright and her lips were a lush pink. I had noticed that a woman's lips were usually a similar color to her nipples and this was definitely the case with my fair skinned Aimee. Her complexion was so unusual for her dark hair colour. She pulled on the cuff and looked at me, I watched her eyes wander over my pecks and my subtle abs, her pupils dilated and I smiled at her. She didn't smile back.

  "What the fuck is going on?" she asked, pulling her cuff again.

  "I really don't know. Look Aimee, you're away from Rahul. For a while, at least. Be happy" I sat on the end of the bed and she still pulled on the cuff.

  "So we are going back then, I thought, maybe... maybe you had saved me." Her voice broke a little and I turned to look at her.

  "I am protecting you right now. Please, Aimee, just don't ask me any goddamn questions because I really don't have any fucking answers right now."