by I.B. Holder
Chapter 9 Blue
A raven’s hair nest moved slightly on the overstuffed pillow on the bed in the center of a perfectly rectangular room. Her head was throbbing like her brain was trying to pound its way out of her skull. “Mitch?” Her voice grumbled, dark and yet playful “Mitch, I think I melted my head.”
In the echo of her voice back to her, bouncing off of the tin walls, soaking into the carpet, something was wrong. This wasn’t her room, she could tell by the way her voice traveled through it. Laura knew that she wasn’t at home. Her eyes snapped open. She decided in the darkness that she’d overreacted. She was on a bed, in a comfortable position. A voice in her head chastised herself for acting like a child. She moved her hair out of her eyes and peeked out at her surroundings. Danger.
“Not in Kansas anymore,” she muttered. The bed creaked. Her legs folded into a crouched position underneath her. This was a dangerous place suddenly. Her training kicked in and she “cased” her environment like a thief planning to rob something from it, steal herself away.
Walking from end to end, she felt the uneven floor shift slightly as if it were on springs. There was no foundation. The walls were thin, a tap from her nails brought the sound of a metallic snare. A cool breeze circulated from an evaporative cooler in the ceiling. Her fingers skidded along one of the narrow metal ridges that reinforced the structure halfway up the wall. A slot wide enough for videotape interrupted the journey of her fingers. The odor around the opening was stale, like the kitchen in a nursing home. She would be fed through this slot. Laura knew that she now that she was on a mobile platform, a boxcar, or cargo trailer, converted to house laboratory animals. What exactly was the experiment?
Close by, Blue was carefully methodically sponge bathing an unconscious Tracy Bell. His hands messaged the glistening tan skin, skimming the curves. As the warm sudsy water poured over her body, she began to stir. Blue moved to her feet and began messaging them.
There was something giddy about Blue’s movements. It was like he was watching himself from some kind of distant perspective and trying to make a good impression. Or maybe it was just an active mind spilling out into spastic, over-thought physical expression. Either way, when he spoke, his tone was measured and assured.
“Rise and shine.” He dusted her legs with golden glitter. “Somebody has ninety percentage points to be happy with this morning.”
Tracy perked up, but found her hands and legs shackled to the floor and spread in a depiction resembling triumph and helplessness all in one. “How long do I have?”
“They’re cutting you loose after initiation – about twenty hours from now.”
“What if I don’t get to one hundred percent? What will they do to me?”
“You will,” Blue began painting her quivering lips with fire engine red lipstick. “give it all you got, and the money will come flying in.” He jingled the lock on the chain while pulling up the fishnet stockings through the cuff of the restraint. “They should give me keys to these things. Don’t know why they don’t -”
“You told me once that they didn’t trust you.”
Blue gave a bashful look to the floor, as if he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes. “I never told you that.”
“What do they think you’d do if you had the keys Blue?” Tracy’s eyes shone through a satin mask that Blue tied gently behind her head. She leaned her head forward and kissed his palm. “I’m worried, Blue.”
Blue pulled away “There, you look like a – a fallen angel. You are going to pile up the money today.”
Tears began to run down Tracy’s freshly rouged cheeks, the smears looked like war paint. Blue tisk tisked with a sugary fatherly tone. He cupped her face with his hands and gently tilted her eyes to meet his sky blue pupils.
“I’m only letting them send in two today. You need a break.” He added in a pleading tone “ I want to take care of you.”
He blinked and his colored contacts shifted just enough for Tracy to notice them. She could not have known that if the contact seats itself quickly after a blink, the pupils are in rest state and the speaker is telling the truth. An active pupil, one that is engaged in generating a story, will cause the contact to seat in a two-stage triangular fashion. If she had known what to look for, she might have known that she was being lied to.
“No.” Her voice caught in her throat in a rushed panic. “I need ten percent, right? And I only have one day left. You told me that the cash flows best – you said – “ She couldn’t make herself voice the request. A glint in Blue’s eye meant that he knew what she was asking for.
His work was almost done with this one. He had bent her around his will. Now she was asking, begging for the opportunity to multiply her troubles. He was sure the other Vinyl Men would oblige her. Blue remembered the defiance of her first days; it had been turned around completely. It was good that the room had no mirrors because Tracy would not even recognize the person she had become.
She was now willing to do anything for the opportunity to leave. The boundaries would be tested today. Blue shook his head, imitating pity before leaving the room would strengthen her resolve – make her justify her actions as purely self-preservation. He’d wound up the tail of a wildcat, and whatever rules, whatever roles they made up today would be played by this actress with reckless abandon. It was too easy really, and he might have actually mimicked the final words she said in parting. Words spoken exactly as he expected, right down to the cadence.
“Don’t let them kill me.” She was unable to turn her head far enough to see him. Tracy strained against her restraints but Blue stayed just out of sight.
Outside the room he answered her in a quiet, overly pleasant tone. “I won’t.” He said, and began to hum “Singing in the Rain.” Blue scuffed his feet and thought about how much like sickly sweet sunshine it would be to kill her himself. Not this time, he thought, not this time.