by Riley Moreno
“Wow,” Carter said. “Maybe you should turn pro.”
“It’ll be a good game tomorrow.”
Come morning, Ethan would claim that the alcohol or whatever else lay in store was crippling his play.
When the waiter returned, Geoffrey had barely glanced at the menu, and he ordered three Porterhouse Steaks for the table. Ethan didn’t protest. He needed to eat, and he hoped for mashed potatoes as sides.
“So what’s your little blonde up to tonight, Ethan?”
Who?
He almost said as much when he recalled the initial lie and grabbed it like it was a life raft.
“Oh… her.”
The real girl was probably en route to one in a line of endless parties, and maybe it was just a matter of time before she found her way to a place like this. Ethan wanted to be back on the train and shake some sense into her before she sold herself short.
“Trying to sleep it off.”
And the lies just kept coming.
“Whoo! Awesome, Ethan!”
Geoffrey sliced his meat and nodded his approval.
“Let’s see what goes down tonight.”
Ethan finished his steak, and he was grateful for the potatoes. Geoffrey signaled for the server to put everything on his tab, and they made their way back to the car. Ethan glanced into the private room, but now it was occupied with diners in search of some seclusion. He could hear the wedding party in full swing on the terrace. As a rule, Ethan hated weddings. He had no intention of attending Donna’s. But at least with a wedding he would pretty much know what to expect. Not so with Carter and Geoffrey.
Carter’s his scotch-soaked breath reached Ethan’s eyes, and he told him to get ready. Ethan wanted to ask for what, but now he had other concerns as Geoffrey’s driver was nowhere to be seen and Troxel took the keys.
Ethan grabbed Carter’s arm.
“What?” Carter asked.
“Is he okay? I mean can he…?”
Carter laughed.
“He’s good, man. He knows the way in his sleep. Just be cool.”
Ethan tried to be that as Geoffrey rammed the car down the hill and took the second turn to a dirt road.
Everything was bumpy as trees grazed the windows. Geoffrey kept the car moving forward like a man possessed, and Carter opened a bottle of wine. He couldn’t find the corkscrew, so he settled on his teeth. The cork met his mouth and left just as quickly in an eager spit. Ethan kicked it from his toe and accepted the last drink he was going to consume. This was it. Or almost it. He had to try to stay sober.
Geoffrey guided the car to a small cabin with two lights in two windows. He parked and jumped out as he pressed his hands together. Ethan observed him carefully, and he was barely past the car when two blonde boys emerged from the house and shook Geoffrey’s hands.
“Mr. T!”
“Knew you’d be back.”
Geoffrey shrugged and smiled. Carter was at his side in less than an instant.
“Is she here?”
The blonde boys nodded, and one of them turned his head towards an illuminated window and whistled.
“You’ve got a caller here, Jules.”
Ethan felt as if he would sink into the ground as he took the expected steps forward.
The blonde boys regarded him curiously. Ethan nearly trembled at the mistrust, but Carter swooped in and put an arm around him.
“He’s cool. He’s into it.”
The blondes scanned Ethan up and down, and they didn’t seem convinced. Ethan fought the urge to vomit the ill-advised drinks all over the soil just beyond their feet, and his efforts seemed to pay off when they finally smiled and turned back to the cabin.
“Let’s do this then.”
Inside was dark and nondescript. The main room was barely furnished. But there was a bar. Ethan wasn’t surprised when Geoffrey made a beeline for another drink. He was taken aback when Geoffrey was out of his jacket and removing his tie in between sips. Ethan looked to Carter. He smiled as he spoke to the new guys.
“You got her locked and loaded?” he asked.
The boys smiled at each other.
“Pete?” one of them asked.
Pete pulled Carter a few doors down.
“She’s been busy,” Pete said. “Had a lot of visitors. So she’s a little sore, but no worse for the wear.”
Carter snapped his fingers as Pete formed a fist and pounded against the door.
“Better not be decent, Jules,” Carter said.
Pete lowered his head to Carter’s ear.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “She never is.”
They disappeared into the room. Ethan thought he heard a muffled cry, but it vanished under the sound of a foot slamming into the ground or the wall or some other surface that he couldn’t see. With nowhere else to turn, Ethan looked back to Geoffrey. He poured an entire glass of scotch down his throat, removed his shirt, and looked to the other guy.
“Is Red ready?” he asked, laughing at the pun that wasn’t.
“Only for you pal.”
Geoffrey didn’t need to hear anything else, and he started down the other hallway. Ethan was left alone with the other stranger. He raised one eyebrow and lit a cigarette. No. No it wasn’t a cigarette. It was a joint. Was there a way to ask for a hit without seeming pathetic? Ethan just wanted to relax.
“So you’re cool?” he asked, doubtfully.
He wasn’t sharing, and Ethan’s eyes floated back to the bar.
“I’m… I’m here aren’t I?”
The boy exhaled a steam of smoke and laughed.
“Yes you are. Well, they get first go. But don’t worry. We got all night. You’ll have your turn.”
Ethan was startled as another cry emerged from where Geoffrey had vanished. Then there was an unmistakable sound that could only be a hand crashing into skin. He couldn’t drive back his nerves, and the boy noticed his unease. He got in Ethan’s face and inhaled again. More smoke left his lungs, and Ethan tried not to blink, just tried to hold the ground that felt like it would crack open and envelop him. All the way out here, there would be no evidence, and who would really care if he never came back? Possibly Donna. And not just because his absence would screw up her seating charts.
“You got a name?” the boy asked.
It took him a moment to remember it.
“Ethan.”
He smoked again. This time, Ethan had to cough as the secondhand weed flew into his mouth.
“Matt.”
Matt.
“No! No don’t! Stop!”
Who was screaming? Why? Ethan turned to Matt for an answer.
“Want a preview?”
Ethan trembled as Matt took his arm and returned him to Geoffrey.
And the redhead.
She was naked. Her hair was matted about her head, and a few stray strands fell about her shoulders. She was suspended from a wooden beam in the ceiling by a thick rope, and she turned her head as the door creaked open. Her eyes briefly fell on Matt, but they passed over him quickly. He was obviously the devil she knew, and all of her stare moved to Ethan. Her glare sliced him to his core. It was worse when she spit at him.
Geoffrey seized her face and turned the redhead’s eyes back to his.
“You better be good. Don’t make me angry.”
Even bound, her body seemed to collapse. She hung her head and wept quietly.
“Please.”
Geoffrey pulled off his sock and stuffed it into her open mouth. The redhead tried to dislodge the makeshift gag, but Geoffrey simply removed his belt and buckled it tightly around her quivering chin. She kept moaning as his pants fell to his feet. Geoffrey’s hands encircled her thighs. Ethan watched in horror as he pried open her squirming legs and started to bash himself into her unwilling body.
This wasn’t a whorehouse. This was hell.
Ethan started to make a move to pull Geoffrey away from the girl when a slew of curses emerged from the hallway. He nervously turned his h
ead to see Carter rushing forward. He was wiping blood from his face, and Pete hurried behind him.
“What’s the problem?” Pete asked.
Carter whirled around and pressed Pete against the wall.
“Not the face, dude. Thought you said she was like broken in.”
“Thought you did that.”
They were locked in mutual contempt. Ethan tried to hear what or who they had left behind, but it was drowned out when Carter returned to Ethan’s side. His shirt was unbuttoned, and he smiled again when he saw the man that would be his father-in-law raping the redhead.
Totally tied up.
“Like it?” Carter asked. The question could have come out in the same way on the previous night. To him, the taste of Beef Wellington was on the same plain with a violated female. To him, both were just pieces of meat.
Again he tried to move the help the girl, but Carter and Pete dragged him away from the redhead. Before he knew what was happening, Ethan was face to face with another door.
“Look,” Carter said. “She’s jumpy. You warm her up for me. I’ll party with Geoff. Then we’ll compare notes.”
And he was gone. Ethan was left with Pete, and he turned the knob in his hand.
The door opened on a naked girl, no older, maybe even younger than the redhead. She wasn’t strung up, but her hair was just as tangled. One ankle was tied to a bedpost. Her left eye was black, her neck was covered with burns, and when she turned away from them, Ethan saw her shoulders scarred by lashes that had to have come from a whip. Pete moved into the room. He crouched beside her and forced her face to his.
He slapped her face.
“You know the rules. You can struggle. That’s allowed.”
He roughly took her into his arms. Ethan grasped the doorframe to keep from falling. She paid him no notice as Pete’s tongue played around her ear.
“But blood, Jules? You’ve been bad.”
He hit her again.
The girl continued to sob, but she managed a whisper as Pete rose to his feet.
“I’ll be good,” she whispered. “I promise. I’m… sorry.”
Pete kicked her side. She winced but didn’t cry out as his eyes flashed back to Ethan.
“It’s your lucky day. Carter says you’ll know what to do with her.”
Pete pushed Ethan towards the girl. His fingers slithered around the door as he drew it closed.
“Have fun!”
And he was gone.
Ethan was now alone with battered girl. He was breathing hard as she looked up at him in desperate disgust.
“What… what’s your pleasure?”
He couldn’t speak.
10
Ethan approached the girl and studied her carefully. Every part of him ached. She had been beautiful. She was beautiful, but now she was black and blue, skinny and shaking. Whoever she was, she didn’t want to be here. Neither did he. The difference was that Ethan could still find a way out if he just played the game of men who should be nobody’s friends and hit the golf course come first light. She didn’t have that choice. Ethan wanted to rip her from the house and everything that had happened, that was still happening if the laughter and the obscenities from the other room were to be believed. He believed it. He had seen it.
At the very least, he could untie her ankle. He picked at the rope and set her free.
Ethan reached for her arm. She didn’t pull away. Pete’s blows had obviously weakened her resolve. Still, she didn’t want his hands, any hands, on her. Ethan backed away and lowered his voice.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”
She scoffed as blood trickled from her nose.
“I… I won’t do anything else to hurt you. Okay?”
She nodded. He could see from her quaking that she was cold. More than that, she was scared to be so vulnerable in the presence of a stranger. He could do something about that, and he started to remove his jacket.
The girl whined, and her sounds quickly morphed into a horrible, hopeless laugh.
“You won’t hurt me? Right.”
She seemed resigned to another awful night, and as she gritted her teeth against too much pain to bear, she sat up on the edge of the bed and hung her head.
“I don’t care,” she said. “At least you’re not him.”
Ethan stopped moving and pressed her for answers.
“Tell me,” he said.
She met his eyes. For a second, she seemed to understand him. This wasn’t him. It could never be him. He shouldn’t even be here. But… but now he was.
“Tell you what?” she said. There was no hiding her anger.
Carter’s voice reached them from the other room. The girl trembled when she heard it. So did Ethan. For him, for her, this was an unspeakable place that should remain in the realm of nightmares. For the Carter and Geoffrey, it was a happy haunt where they could bring dark fantasies to life. How long had this been going on? How many times? How many other girls had suffered their visits?
He looked back to the girl.
“Why… why is it better that I’m not him?”
She closed her eyes but stayed silent. Even without words, Ethan could see the lines of anxiety forming across her brow. He remembered the sight of Geoffrey with the redhead. Carter was younger, stronger, and capable of inflicting even more harm on a victim. What had he done to this poor girl?
She slowly opened her eyes. Her face was awash in crimson and sweat. With a sigh, she pressed her hands behind her back.
“It doesn’t matter.”
But it did. At least to him. Of course to her. He started to speak when she wiped her eyes with the back of her small hand. She shivered again.
“You’re cold,” he stated plainly.
The girl nodded as she fell back against the bed and kept crying. Ethan stood and pulled his arms out of his jacket. She blinked up in resignation, but her expression changed when he tossed it to her and stepped back. She just stared at the jacket resting against her thigh. Slowly, she sat up.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“Here.”
He started towards her and saw a new wave of fear flash across her face. Ethan wanted it gone
“No. It’s okay.”
Ethan shushed her as he lifted the jacket from her legs and folded it around her body. She seemed both stunned and relieved to be concealed from his view. He tried to smooth some of the knots from her hair, but she twisted her head away at his touch.
“The belt next. Right?”
He realized that his hands were at his waist, and he rushed back to the far wall and sat. She gratefully pressed the jacket closer to her even as she kept her eyes on his hands.
“Better?” he asked.
She buttoned the jacket and sat up straighter.
“I guess. I…”
As her voice trailed off, her face contorted into agony that she just wanted to forget. But he knew she couldn’t. There was never any way to really leave it behind. She was crying, and he wanted to hold her.
Ethan started at the sounds of cruel laughter and muffled screams from the other room. He shuddered and turned back to see the girl crying harder. Somehow she summoned the courage to stand, and as she kept Ethan’s jacket around her body, she pressed her ear to the closed door.
“How many?” she quietly asked.
“How many what?”
The girl looked down at him. Despite his best efforts to put her at ease, she was still scared. And yet, she looked like she would make the attempt to beat him at whatever game he was playing. But there was no game, and he needed to convince her of that.
“How many are there of you tonight?”
No. No he wouldn’t be lumped into the same equation with the others.
“I’m not with them.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it was still far from the truth. As a high-pitched scream rang through the cabin, she slid down the door and cast her eyes on the floor. Desperate to offer some kind of comfort,
he slowly reached for her arm. She winced at his hand on her body, but Ethan still helped her off the floor and sat her on the bed. She struggled weakly under his arms. Ethan let go and knelt at her bare feet.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She blinked furiously and slowly settled into something she could remember without regret.
“I’m… Julie.”
Julie. Okay. He could work with that. The redhead was being tortured, and he wanted all of it to go away. But he had to take what was offered and work towards the next chance.
“Julie. I’m Ethan.”
His name obviously meant nothing to her, and he could tell that his closeness was causing her even more distress. He slipped back towards the door and kept his hands where she could see them. It was all he had in the way of a peace offering.
“Julie, can I ask you something?”
She appeared stunned by the request. It was as if she’d forgotten what it was like to hear someone request permission.
“Okay.”
She made eye contact again. Good. It was a start.
“Julie.”
He wondered how long it had been since anyone had used her name without derision, and he decided on the spot that he had to keep speaking it at every chance to assure her that she was still human despite all that had obviously been done to her without consent.
“Julie, what the hell is going on here?”
She snorted and folded a single strand of gnarled hair behind her ear.
“Like you don’t know.”
“No. I don’t. I swear to God I don’t.”
“Yeah right.”
“Julie…”
He wanted to tell her the entire story. Who he was, why he never slept, why he would never even want to know that a place this horrible actually existed. He wanted to admit to being the coward that had just tried to fit in with these men whose names he now wanted to disremember. But there wasn’t enough time.
He settled on another approach.
“Julie, how long have you been here?”
Her eyes drifted towards the ceiling, and he could see her trying to assign a start date to what must seem like a sentence worse than death.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
That long. She folded her legs underneath her body and hugged herself close.