All Stars Week Two: Transcend
This is a continuation from week one. WARNINGS: mention of raped and drug use and human trafficking/flesh trade. I wouldn't recommend reading this at work.
It didn’t stop after that first night. He came to me several times afterward, but never again in that room with its glass wall and spectators. I always knew when it was time. The door to my cell would open, the large man who had grabbed me would step in. The first few times, I fought him. I kicked and slapped, and once I even managed to bite him. He would only laugh as he picked me up, slung me over his shoulder, and carried me out of the cell.
After … I don’t know, perhaps a week, maybe longer, I gave up the fight and just let him collect me. What was the point? It didn’t stop what was being done to me. It didn’t even really prolong the inevitable conclusion. All it did was entertain the people holding me here.
I would be taken into another room, much different than the two previous. This room was small and devoid of anything even resembling homely comforts. There was no bed. There was no cot. The only thing in this room was a device, a rack of sorts. It was made of wood and a halfhearted attempt at padding. The wooden beams were fixed into an ‘I’ shape with a small circular portion just above the topmost piece. Straps were fixed to either end of the upper parallel section with another running around the middle.
The man would fasten me to this rack, arms braced against the upper beams, head resting on the circle at the top that stank of other people’s sweat. The middle strap was cinched around my waist, holding me in place. One wouldn’t realize it at first glance, but the lower beam - the one supporting my hips - was angled higher that the others. My toes barely managed to touch the ground, which is what they intended. It made gaining any leverage impossible.
And then the other man would enter. The one with the cold smile and the voice that made my spine want to crawl free from my body. He would always smooth his hands over my naked backside, sometimes allowing his fingers to slip between my legs. Always touching me just to the point where the loathing and pleasure began to blur. At this point, my body would start to take over. I knew what was coming next, almost relished the feel of sharpened metal against my inner arm. The drugs felt good inside me, made things better. I was starting to depend on them for an escape, which terrified me. Whenever they wore off, I would shiver and shake and try to cling to the lingering sparks it created. But it never lasted, and the only way I would get it again was to endure the violation of my body.
The man who took me that first time always entered after the drugs were in full effect. He would always touch me the same way: running his hands up my thighs, my buttocks, over my back. Soothing and massaging, stimulating nerves that were already falling prey to the drugs. Unlike that first night, he took his time. He would wait for my breath to hitch, wait for my hips to shift, wait for the moisture to pool between my legs. Sometimes he would press his fingers inside me, working them much like he did that other part of him. He would wait until I couldn’t hold back a moan, wait until I couldn’t fight my body any longer, and then he would take me.
I hated him for that. I hated him just as much for the act as I did for him bringing pleasure into it. I hated the sound of his moans, the hot press of his lips and breath to the back of my neck. I hated the way his fingers would press more tightly into my hips just as he peaked, filling me with himself. But most of all I hated myself for the fact that I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t stop myself from feeling the pleasure. I couldn’t keep my hips from rolling back into his, for pushing up higher on my toes to gain a better angle. I still think I might hate myself for that. Rationally, I know it wasn’t my fault, but that feeling of self loathing remains. It resurfaces every time I recall those days, with every nightmare that still haunts me.
Once he was done, he would leave and I’d be taken back to my cell. I’d be strapped down to my cot, my skin smelling of the man’s sweat and seed. I would be left there in the dark with the drugs slowly fading from my system and I would pray to God that He would just let me die. Make my heart stop, have them get tired of me and kill me. But He didn’t, and I soon came to realize that here, in this cyclic Hell, either God wasn’t listening or He wasn’t going to save me. No one was.
I was alone.
It is at the hour where late and early meld when she approaches him in his study about the concern that has been weighing on her mind since the moment they entered their agreement. She hesitates outside the open door, debating whether it was appropriate to cross the threshold into her husband’s domain, but then her shoulders straighten and she takes that final step.
“Edgamund,” she calls, lifting her chin to an angle that states she will not be argued with.
Her husband recognizes the tilt and immediately sets his cigar down in the crystal tray. “Willisa, dearest,” he replies with a pleased smile, though all the while he is hoping she doesn’t wish to redecorate the main ballroom for the fourth time in six months.
“I do not want our child being born in that awful place,” the woman declares, her eyes challenging him to deny her.
It is not the request he had been expecting, and so the man is momentarily taken aback by it. He frowns, leans back in his overstuffed leather chair, and taps a finger against the edge of the desk. “Now, dearest,” he says slowly, carefully choosing his words so as to not provoke her ire. “We have an agreement. The child must be born in the facility. That is simple how it’s done.”
“For other people, perhaps, but this is our baby. How can I possibly look at it with affection knowing that it was birthed in such an unsavory location. Edgamund, you must not let that happen!”
Whether it is the pleading in her voice or simply a desire to placate her so that he might return to his cigar in peace, the man takes a deep breath and gives a decisive nod. “Very well, dearest. As soon as it is confirmed that the girl is with child I shall find a means of extracting her and bringing her here.”
The woman’s shoulder relax as relief floods across her features. A soft, grateful smile curves her lips. “Thank you, husband,” she murmurs before exiting his study and returning to bed, secure in the knowledge that he would see it done.
At some point while I was there, I started getting sick. My stomach would roil and churn, my skin would become clammy. Keeping down the food they forced upon me was nearly impossible. Almost as soon as it was in my stomach, it was coming back up again. Afterward, I would feel remarkably better … but the sickness worried me considerably.
I first thought perhaps it was due to the drugs they gave me. At the first sign of my illness, everything stopped. The man didn’t come for me. The drugs ceased completely. I wasn’t strapped to the rack and violated. I remember that during the sixth day of being sick the man with the pale eyes came in with another man, one I hadn’t seen yet. He was wearing a dark, sensible suit and carrying a black bag which he set on the edge of the cot.
“Confirm it,” the pale eyed man ordered, his gaze oddly fixated on my stomach rather than my naked breasts.
The second man nodded, opened his bag, and pulled out an instrument I had seen before around a doctor’s neck. He fit the ends in his ear and placed the disc at the other end against my stomach. I flinched at the touch of cold metal against my skin, but couldn’t move away from it due to the restraints. The instrument shifted marginally, moving with practiced ease across my belly.
“When was her last flow?” the doctor demanded.
The pale eyed man flicked his gaze to mine. “Answer the man.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because it was slowly starting to dawn on me why that question was important, why I’d been put through everything I had. Why those people had merely watched through the glass as I’d been desecrated. And that realization robbed the breath from me.
Scowling, the pale eyed man took an angry step around the side of my cot and slapped my face. Hard. So hard that my teeth cut a gash into my lower lip, spilling blood over the thin pillow beneath my head.
The doctor shot a disapproving frown up at his companion before shaking his head and reaching into his bag for a gauze pad. “Answer my question, girl,” he said, speaking a little more gently. “When was your last womanly cycle?”
I tried to do as he asked, but my mind was still reeling from both the stunning realization as well as the blow. “I don’t know,” I mumble, speaking around my swollen lip.
“How long before you were brought here?”
In answer, I shook my head. I didn’t even know how long I had been in this place. How could I possibly tell him?”
The doctor makes a tutting sound and looks up at the pale eyed man. “How long has she been here?”
“A little over a month, I believe,” the other man answered.
“And no signs of her flow during that time?”
“Not at all.”
The doctor nodded and returned his equipment to his bag. “It is my professional opinion this girl is with child,” he announced, confirming the fear that had been growing inside me since the pieces started shifting into place.
“I’ll send your regards to the happy couple,” the pale eyed man murmured as the doctor left the room. As soon as we were alone, his eyes met mine again and he gave me that horrible smile, the one that did nothing to soften his features. Then, he too turned and exited the room.
The door was shut and locked and I was once again in the darkness. This time, however, I wasn’t alone.
It takes some careful negotiations, several pulled strings, a few favors, and more lies than he cared to count before the plan met his satisfaction. If it proceeds as he hopes, and there is no reason to suspect it won’t, then by nine this evening his wife will be the happiest woman in Christendom.
He admits, if only to himself, that it is better like this anyway. That girl will have a much better life than she would in that facility. With them, she would be protected. She would be fed the best of foods, dressed comfortably, and once the baby was born they would of course establish her as a servant somewhere. Preferably on a country estate far from their own where she cannot cause any trouble.
The man checks his pocket watch, following the second hand around its circuit. In less than twenty seconds, the plan will be in motion. He takes a deep breath, releases it slowly, and closes his watch with a decisive snap. Yes. This is most assuredly for the best.
I was woken up not by the cell door being open but by a crash so loud it shook dirt from the ceiling down over my head. I could hear voices overhead, men shouting orders, and heavy boots pounding across floorboards. Doors were being kicked open, followed by the shrieks of women. A gun went off, sudden and so startling I jerked against my restraints. Two more followed in quick order before something large fell to the floor.
Not since being snatched had I felt so scared. I could almost taste the fear on my tongue, sharp and metallic, and the only thought I had was that this was it. God was finally answering my prayers. At any moment, someone was going to kick through the door and put a bullet in my head. I can’t recall whether I wept out of joy or despair, but tears were streaming down my cheeks when my door finally exploded inward.
Three men rushed in, all dressed in dark uniforms and carrying torches. One of them had a gun in his hand. I made eye contact with him and waited for him to press it to my head, to pull the trigger and end the nightmare I was caught in.
But my salvation never came. Instead, the two without guns rushed toward me, one of them drawing a knife from his belt. My breath caught at the flash of metal, and I steeled myself for the cut. There was a snap and suddenly my arms were free. I stared at the cording around my wrists, particularly the frayed ends that had been tied to the cot. I was so distracted by this unexpected happening that I didn’t notice when the man’s comrade did the same to the ones on my ankles.
Before I knew it, I was being wrapped in a heavy cloak, the hood pulled low over my face, and carried swiftly from the cell. Around me I could hear the sounds of fighting. More shots were fired, but not once did the arms carrying me falter.
The feel of cold, night air hit me like a punch. I tensed, leaning instinctively into the shoulder of the man carrying me, at the brush of freshness against my bare calves. It felt so strange, so alien against my skin. I started to push the hood of the cloak back so as to feel the wind in my hair, but then I was being shoved inside a coach, which took off even before the door had completely closed.
I was the only passenger inside the cab. The windows had been blackened out, preventing me from seeing where we were going. Outside, the driver was laying the whip heavy across the horses flanks, striking them into a frenzied dash. I had no idea what was going on, who those people had been, where I was going … but I told myself it couldn’t possibly be worse than where I had been.
It was a long while before the coach finally slowed and then, eventually, stopped altogether. There was a moment’s pause where I sat in the cab, wondering what was going to happen next, and then the door was flung open and a woman wearing a maid’s uniform was pulling me out. Three more women in a similar uniform were waiting and quickly ushered me inside. I caught only a fleeting impression of a lofty house with tall windows and a fountain surrounded by flowerless shrubs, but nothing to tell me who the property belonged to.
I was taken upstairs by the maids, none of whom spoke a word to me. They remained silent as I was shoved into a tub of steaming water, scrubbed, and clothed. The dress I was put into was made of fine, softly brushed wool, but it still made my skin itch. After all that time spent undressed, wearing anything at all felt odd. My hair was pulled back, braided, and pinned on top of my head, and then I was being ushered down a flight of marble stairs and into a room.
The room was enormous, or perhaps it only seemed that way after being kept in that cell. Three of the four walls housed more books than I thought could possibly exist while the fourth had large windows that looked out into darkness. A woven rug covered most of the wooden floor, and to one side there was a fireplace with four overstuffed leather chairs. I didn’t know what to do, so I remained standing where the maids had left me, frightened yet at the same time curious.
I was only alone for a few minutes when the door opened and a couple entered.
They were older than me, about the same age as my parents, and were the exact opposite of each other. The woman was tall, thin, and very pale, while the man was shorter, broader in the middle, and had a ruddy complexion. He was smoking a cigar and wore an expression of self-pleasure while she was staring at me with an eager, anticipatory smile.
“Oh, Edgamund,” she breathed, her blue eyes taking me in from head to toe. “I simply cannot believe it! She’s here! You managed to get her!”
“Naturally, dearest,” the man, Edgamund, replied with a smug chortle. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Well, yes, but I can hardly believe it!” The woman clapped her hands together excitedly before hurrying over to me. My back stiffened as she pulled me into an embrace and pressed her thin lips to my cheek. “Welcome, most blessed girl! Oh, I cannot begin to say how happy I am to see you! Are you hungry? You weren’t too terribly rattled by the travel, were you?” He features rearranged themselves from excited to concerned as her gaze dropped to my belly. “Oh, dear! Darling, why didn’t we think to call the doctor here? Oh, I do so hope everything is alright!”
“Never fret, dearest Willisa,” her husband replied. “I shall send for him as soon as it is light out. Now, why don’t you take our young guest to the kitchen for a decent meal, hmm? She must be very hungry, seeing as she is now supporting two stomachs.”
“Yes, yes. You’re correct, of course. Come along, my dear girl! We must give you a proper supper.”
She looped her arm through mine as if we were the closest of companions and steered me out of the room. As we left, I looked back over my shoulder to find the man eying my backside in such a way as to send a shudder down my spine. My mind flashed back to that first night, in the room with the mirror and the people on the other side. I pushed it aside though as the woman guided me into a kitchen that was larger than my room and my sister’s combined.
“Now then,” she said as she sat me down at one of the counters. “How are you feeling, dear? Are you at all nauseous? Headache?”
It took me a couple tries before I mumbled, “I’m well enough, madam. I… I’d like to go home. Please.”
Her eyes softened in sympathy and she paused in ladling soup into a bowl to give my hand a squeeze. “Yes, of course, dear. Why, I simply cannot imagine what it must have been like there. Don’t worry though. Edgamund and I will see to it that you are taken care of.”
For the first time since all of this began, my heart lifted and hope blossomed in my chest. “You will?”
She smiled, and it brought a much needed sparkle to her eyes. She placed the bowl of soup in front of me and I eagerly accepted it. “Yes, dear. Naturally we will. Just as soon as the baby is born, of course.”
And just as quickly as it came, the hope gave way to a heavy, sickening feeling in my gut. Unconsciously, I smoothed a hand over my stomach. The soup which had smelled beyond delicious now had a sour tang to it. “The baby?” I repeated, sensing that yet another piece was being put into the puzzle.
The woman nodded, and under different circumstances her enthusiasm would have been contagious. “Yes, dear. Once the baby is born, we shall make very certain that you are happy and well taken care of for the rest of your life. Now, eat up! We mustn’t let such a precious little soul go hungry!”
Numbness began to fill me as everything came crashing into place. This woman, and her husband, were the reason I had been taken. They were the reason I had been raped, repeatedly, and drugged and treated without a shred of human compassion or concern. They were the reason I was now pregnant with a child I didn’t want. All of this was because of them and their desire for something they couldn’t have.
And I knew deep down that they had no intention of reuniting me with my family. They couldn’t risk it. I would probably be sent to some far off estate where no one would think to look for me, a prisoner for the rest of my life.
There was nothing left inside me, not even enough to shed a tear over the fact that I had been rescued from one hell only to be put into another. Obediently, I picked up the spoon and ate. I didn’t taste the food as I swallowed. All I saw was the pleased look on her face as she stared at my stomach.
It didn’t stop after that first night. He came to me several times afterward, but never again in that room with its glass wall and spectators. I always knew when it was time. The door to my cell would open, the large man who had grabbed me would step in. The first few times, I fought him. I kicked and slapped, and once I even managed to bite him. He would only laugh as he picked me up, slung me over his shoulder, and carried me out of the cell.
After … I don’t know, perhaps a week, maybe longer, I gave up the fight and just let him collect me. What was the point? It didn’t stop what was being done to me. It didn’t even really prolong the inevitable conclusion. All it did was entertain the people holding me here.
I would be taken into another room, much different than the two previous. This room was small and devoid of anything even resembling homely comforts. There was no bed. There was no cot. The only thing in this room was a device, a rack of sorts. It was made of wood and a halfhearted attempt at padding. The wooden beams were fixed into an ‘I’ shape with a small circular portion just above the topmost piece. Straps were fixed to either end of the upper parallel section with another running around the middle.
The man would fasten me to this rack, arms braced against the upper beams, head resting on the circle at the top that stank of other people’s sweat. The middle strap was cinched around my waist, holding me in place. One wouldn’t realize it at first glance, but the lower beam - the one supporting my hips - was angled higher that the others. My toes barely managed to touch the ground, which is what they intended. It made gaining any leverage impossible.
And then the other man would enter. The one with the cold smile and the voice that made my spine want to crawl free from my body. He would always smooth his hands over my naked backside, sometimes allowing his fingers to slip between my legs. Always touching me just to the point where the loathing and pleasure began to blur. At this point, my body would start to take over. I knew what was coming next, almost relished the feel of sharpened metal against my inner arm. The drugs felt good inside me, made things better. I was starting to depend on them for an escape, which terrified me. Whenever they wore off, I would shiver and shake and try to cling to the lingering sparks it created. But it never lasted, and the only way I would get it again was to endure the violation of my body.
The man who took me that first time always entered after the drugs were in full effect. He would always touch me the same way: running his hands up my thighs, my buttocks, over my back. Soothing and massaging, stimulating nerves that were already falling prey to the drugs. Unlike that first night, he took his time. He would wait for my breath to hitch, wait for my hips to shift, wait for the moisture to pool between my legs. Sometimes he would press his fingers inside me, working them much like he did that other part of him. He would wait until I couldn’t hold back a moan, wait until I couldn’t fight my body any longer, and then he would take me.
I hated him for that. I hated him just as much for the act as I did for him bringing pleasure into it. I hated the sound of his moans, the hot press of his lips and breath to the back of my neck. I hated the way his fingers would press more tightly into my hips just as he peaked, filling me with himself. But most of all I hated myself for the fact that I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t stop myself from feeling the pleasure. I couldn’t keep my hips from rolling back into his, for pushing up higher on my toes to gain a better angle. I still think I might hate myself for that. Rationally, I know it wasn’t my fault, but that feeling of self loathing remains. It resurfaces every time I recall those days, with every nightmare that still haunts me.
Once he was done, he would leave and I’d be taken back to my cell. I’d be strapped down to my cot, my skin smelling of the man’s sweat and seed. I would be left there in the dark with the drugs slowly fading from my system and I would pray to God that He would just let me die. Make my heart stop, have them get tired of me and kill me. But He didn’t, and I soon came to realize that here, in this cyclic Hell, either God wasn’t listening or He wasn’t going to save me. No one was.
I was alone.
It is at the hour where late and early meld when she approaches him in his study about the concern that has been weighing on her mind since the moment they entered their agreement. She hesitates outside the open door, debating whether it was appropriate to cross the threshold into her husband’s domain, but then her shoulders straighten and she takes that final step.
“Edgamund,” she calls, lifting her chin to an angle that states she will not be argued with.
Her husband recognizes the tilt and immediately sets his cigar down in the crystal tray. “Willisa, dearest,” he replies with a pleased smile, though all the while he is hoping she doesn’t wish to redecorate the main ballroom for the fourth time in six months.
“I do not want our child being born in that awful place,” the woman declares, her eyes challenging him to deny her.
It is not the request he had been expecting, and so the man is momentarily taken aback by it. He frowns, leans back in his overstuffed leather chair, and taps a finger against the edge of the desk. “Now, dearest,” he says slowly, carefully choosing his words so as to not provoke her ire. “We have an agreement. The child must be born in the facility. That is simple how it’s done.”
“For other people, perhaps, but this is our baby. How can I possibly look at it with affection knowing that it was birthed in such an unsavory location. Edgamund, you must not let that happen!”
Whether it is the pleading in her voice or simply a desire to placate her so that he might return to his cigar in peace, the man takes a deep breath and gives a decisive nod. “Very well, dearest. As soon as it is confirmed that the girl is with child I shall find a means of extracting her and bringing her here.”
The woman’s shoulder relax as relief floods across her features. A soft, grateful smile curves her lips. “Thank you, husband,” she murmurs before exiting his study and returning to bed, secure in the knowledge that he would see it done.
At some point while I was there, I started getting sick. My stomach would roil and churn, my skin would become clammy. Keeping down the food they forced upon me was nearly impossible. Almost as soon as it was in my stomach, it was coming back up again. Afterward, I would feel remarkably better … but the sickness worried me considerably.
I first thought perhaps it was due to the drugs they gave me. At the first sign of my illness, everything stopped. The man didn’t come for me. The drugs ceased completely. I wasn’t strapped to the rack and violated. I remember that during the sixth day of being sick the man with the pale eyes came in with another man, one I hadn’t seen yet. He was wearing a dark, sensible suit and carrying a black bag which he set on the edge of the cot.
“Confirm it,” the pale eyed man ordered, his gaze oddly fixated on my stomach rather than my naked breasts.
The second man nodded, opened his bag, and pulled out an instrument I had seen before around a doctor’s neck. He fit the ends in his ear and placed the disc at the other end against my stomach. I flinched at the touch of cold metal against my skin, but couldn’t move away from it due to the restraints. The instrument shifted marginally, moving with practiced ease across my belly.
“When was her last flow?” the doctor demanded.
The pale eyed man flicked his gaze to mine. “Answer the man.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because it was slowly starting to dawn on me why that question was important, why I’d been put through everything I had. Why those people had merely watched through the glass as I’d been desecrated. And that realization robbed the breath from me.
Scowling, the pale eyed man took an angry step around the side of my cot and slapped my face. Hard. So hard that my teeth cut a gash into my lower lip, spilling blood over the thin pillow beneath my head.
The doctor shot a disapproving frown up at his companion before shaking his head and reaching into his bag for a gauze pad. “Answer my question, girl,” he said, speaking a little more gently. “When was your last womanly cycle?”
I tried to do as he asked, but my mind was still reeling from both the stunning realization as well as the blow. “I don’t know,” I mumble, speaking around my swollen lip.
“How long before you were brought here?”
In answer, I shook my head. I didn’t even know how long I had been in this place. How could I possibly tell him?”
The doctor makes a tutting sound and looks up at the pale eyed man. “How long has she been here?”
“A little over a month, I believe,” the other man answered.
“And no signs of her flow during that time?”
“Not at all.”
The doctor nodded and returned his equipment to his bag. “It is my professional opinion this girl is with child,” he announced, confirming the fear that had been growing inside me since the pieces started shifting into place.
“I’ll send your regards to the happy couple,” the pale eyed man murmured as the doctor left the room. As soon as we were alone, his eyes met mine again and he gave me that horrible smile, the one that did nothing to soften his features. Then, he too turned and exited the room.
The door was shut and locked and I was once again in the darkness. This time, however, I wasn’t alone.
It takes some careful negotiations, several pulled strings, a few favors, and more lies than he cared to count before the plan met his satisfaction. If it proceeds as he hopes, and there is no reason to suspect it won’t, then by nine this evening his wife will be the happiest woman in Christendom.
He admits, if only to himself, that it is better like this anyway. That girl will have a much better life than she would in that facility. With them, she would be protected. She would be fed the best of foods, dressed comfortably, and once the baby was born they would of course establish her as a servant somewhere. Preferably on a country estate far from their own where she cannot cause any trouble.
The man checks his pocket watch, following the second hand around its circuit. In less than twenty seconds, the plan will be in motion. He takes a deep breath, releases it slowly, and closes his watch with a decisive snap. Yes. This is most assuredly for the best.
I was woken up not by the cell door being open but by a crash so loud it shook dirt from the ceiling down over my head. I could hear voices overhead, men shouting orders, and heavy boots pounding across floorboards. Doors were being kicked open, followed by the shrieks of women. A gun went off, sudden and so startling I jerked against my restraints. Two more followed in quick order before something large fell to the floor.
Not since being snatched had I felt so scared. I could almost taste the fear on my tongue, sharp and metallic, and the only thought I had was that this was it. God was finally answering my prayers. At any moment, someone was going to kick through the door and put a bullet in my head. I can’t recall whether I wept out of joy or despair, but tears were streaming down my cheeks when my door finally exploded inward.
Three men rushed in, all dressed in dark uniforms and carrying torches. One of them had a gun in his hand. I made eye contact with him and waited for him to press it to my head, to pull the trigger and end the nightmare I was caught in.
But my salvation never came. Instead, the two without guns rushed toward me, one of them drawing a knife from his belt. My breath caught at the flash of metal, and I steeled myself for the cut. There was a snap and suddenly my arms were free. I stared at the cording around my wrists, particularly the frayed ends that had been tied to the cot. I was so distracted by this unexpected happening that I didn’t notice when the man’s comrade did the same to the ones on my ankles.
Before I knew it, I was being wrapped in a heavy cloak, the hood pulled low over my face, and carried swiftly from the cell. Around me I could hear the sounds of fighting. More shots were fired, but not once did the arms carrying me falter.
The feel of cold, night air hit me like a punch. I tensed, leaning instinctively into the shoulder of the man carrying me, at the brush of freshness against my bare calves. It felt so strange, so alien against my skin. I started to push the hood of the cloak back so as to feel the wind in my hair, but then I was being shoved inside a coach, which took off even before the door had completely closed.
I was the only passenger inside the cab. The windows had been blackened out, preventing me from seeing where we were going. Outside, the driver was laying the whip heavy across the horses flanks, striking them into a frenzied dash. I had no idea what was going on, who those people had been, where I was going … but I told myself it couldn’t possibly be worse than where I had been.
It was a long while before the coach finally slowed and then, eventually, stopped altogether. There was a moment’s pause where I sat in the cab, wondering what was going to happen next, and then the door was flung open and a woman wearing a maid’s uniform was pulling me out. Three more women in a similar uniform were waiting and quickly ushered me inside. I caught only a fleeting impression of a lofty house with tall windows and a fountain surrounded by flowerless shrubs, but nothing to tell me who the property belonged to.
I was taken upstairs by the maids, none of whom spoke a word to me. They remained silent as I was shoved into a tub of steaming water, scrubbed, and clothed. The dress I was put into was made of fine, softly brushed wool, but it still made my skin itch. After all that time spent undressed, wearing anything at all felt odd. My hair was pulled back, braided, and pinned on top of my head, and then I was being ushered down a flight of marble stairs and into a room.
The room was enormous, or perhaps it only seemed that way after being kept in that cell. Three of the four walls housed more books than I thought could possibly exist while the fourth had large windows that looked out into darkness. A woven rug covered most of the wooden floor, and to one side there was a fireplace with four overstuffed leather chairs. I didn’t know what to do, so I remained standing where the maids had left me, frightened yet at the same time curious.
I was only alone for a few minutes when the door opened and a couple entered.
They were older than me, about the same age as my parents, and were the exact opposite of each other. The woman was tall, thin, and very pale, while the man was shorter, broader in the middle, and had a ruddy complexion. He was smoking a cigar and wore an expression of self-pleasure while she was staring at me with an eager, anticipatory smile.
“Oh, Edgamund,” she breathed, her blue eyes taking me in from head to toe. “I simply cannot believe it! She’s here! You managed to get her!”
“Naturally, dearest,” the man, Edgamund, replied with a smug chortle. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Well, yes, but I can hardly believe it!” The woman clapped her hands together excitedly before hurrying over to me. My back stiffened as she pulled me into an embrace and pressed her thin lips to my cheek. “Welcome, most blessed girl! Oh, I cannot begin to say how happy I am to see you! Are you hungry? You weren’t too terribly rattled by the travel, were you?” He features rearranged themselves from excited to concerned as her gaze dropped to my belly. “Oh, dear! Darling, why didn’t we think to call the doctor here? Oh, I do so hope everything is alright!”
“Never fret, dearest Willisa,” her husband replied. “I shall send for him as soon as it is light out. Now, why don’t you take our young guest to the kitchen for a decent meal, hmm? She must be very hungry, seeing as she is now supporting two stomachs.”
“Yes, yes. You’re correct, of course. Come along, my dear girl! We must give you a proper supper.”
She looped her arm through mine as if we were the closest of companions and steered me out of the room. As we left, I looked back over my shoulder to find the man eying my backside in such a way as to send a shudder down my spine. My mind flashed back to that first night, in the room with the mirror and the people on the other side. I pushed it aside though as the woman guided me into a kitchen that was larger than my room and my sister’s combined.
“Now then,” she said as she sat me down at one of the counters. “How are you feeling, dear? Are you at all nauseous? Headache?”
It took me a couple tries before I mumbled, “I’m well enough, madam. I… I’d like to go home. Please.”
Her eyes softened in sympathy and she paused in ladling soup into a bowl to give my hand a squeeze. “Yes, of course, dear. Why, I simply cannot imagine what it must have been like there. Don’t worry though. Edgamund and I will see to it that you are taken care of.”
For the first time since all of this began, my heart lifted and hope blossomed in my chest. “You will?”
She smiled, and it brought a much needed sparkle to her eyes. She placed the bowl of soup in front of me and I eagerly accepted it. “Yes, dear. Naturally we will. Just as soon as the baby is born, of course.”
And just as quickly as it came, the hope gave way to a heavy, sickening feeling in my gut. Unconsciously, I smoothed a hand over my stomach. The soup which had smelled beyond delicious now had a sour tang to it. “The baby?” I repeated, sensing that yet another piece was being put into the puzzle.
The woman nodded, and under different circumstances her enthusiasm would have been contagious. “Yes, dear. Once the baby is born, we shall make very certain that you are happy and well taken care of for the rest of your life. Now, eat up! We mustn’t let such a precious little soul go hungry!”
Numbness began to fill me as everything came crashing into place. This woman, and her husband, were the reason I had been taken. They were the reason I had been raped, repeatedly, and drugged and treated without a shred of human compassion or concern. They were the reason I was now pregnant with a child I didn’t want. All of this was because of them and their desire for something they couldn’t have.
And I knew deep down that they had no intention of reuniting me with my family. They couldn’t risk it. I would probably be sent to some far off estate where no one would think to look for me, a prisoner for the rest of my life.
There was nothing left inside me, not even enough to shed a tear over the fact that I had been rescued from one hell only to be put into another. Obediently, I picked up the spoon and ate. I didn’t taste the food as I swallowed. All I saw was the pleased look on her face as she stared at my stomach.