Nothing—
Nothing—
Nothing—
***
Silence.
Perfect, utter silence.
A drowning quiet.
A longing, deep and unfulfilled, a need, bone-deep, soul-deep for something I cannot have; the first sensation.
Pang of loss, bite of guilt, acid bite of shame, burning heat of lust, a deep delicious soreness in all the right places—all of these roiling and coiled and wedded and mingled together; the second sensation.
I open my eyes; the third sensation.
I’m in the room of black doors.
There is a white cot under me. A small square black table sits to my left and on it a thick white candle, flickering merrily, rivulets of melted wax dripping down the sides to pool and harden on the silver candlestick.
Around me are six pools of orange-yellow light. Six doors. Four black, one green, one silver.
I lay still, feel my heart beating. My breath soughing in and out slowly, my heart thumping in my ear; these are the only things that exist, within and without.
How long do I lay, thus, in the warmth of that candlelit room, not thinking, not feeling, barely even existing? I do not know.
Time out of time.
No, that isn’t right either. There is no time. If you cannot measure the passage of time, then there is no time. The only measure of anything is the candle, the pool of hardening wax around the silver candlestick, the infinitesimal shortening of the candle.
I feel a tiredness in my bones, a lethargy in my muscles, an unwillingness to get up.
I close my eyes once more, feeling the heaviness of sleep pulling me under, and then I’m floating as I drift under the meniscus of consciousness into that place of not sleeping and not quite being awake.
I remember.
Wishing I could be his. Knowing I’m not.
Nearly kissing him. A tease, an almost-kiss.
I remember a different version of him. But there is confusion, even there. Despite the rushing chaotic bliss of lust, acquiescing to the hunger within, even then…
Questions unanswered.
Unasked, even.
Questions without form, without substance. Just the knowledge of them, the idea of them.
Was there a fighter? Him, still.
Sleep pulls me down, drowns me.
Drowns the memories.
Drowns time.
Everything fades. Memory, knowledge of anything. Knowledge of myself, my body, my mind.
Only darkness remains, only the vague point of I, floating in eternal nothingness.
Floating away.
Drifting.
That infinitesimal point of I, that dot that is me, it brightens. Resolves.
Hardens. Expands.
The darkness is not my friend. Don’t let it swallow me.
I.
I am.
I am.
The point of I becomes a pinprick of light.
And then it grows.
Flickers.
Dances, wavering and jumping, twisting and leaping, guttering, flaring.
A candle flame.
It calls to me.
Breathes upon me, and into me.
I cling to that life, that light, that breath. Let it push through me. Let it diminish the darkness, until I can feel myself once again. Feel the fullness of my body, the expanse of my mind, the presence of my sense of self.
The darkness wants to pull me down, it desires me. Seeks me. Hunts me.
But I sense there is something alive in the darkness of unseeing.
My eyes flick open, and I sit up and look around.
I see six doors.
The first door…
The boxer. Big. Rough. Dominant. Possessive. Virile and primal. The ropes. His violent refusal to kiss me. It doesn’t come rushing back; no, it flits and meanders, out of sequence. The way he fucked me, there at the end. As if it was the last time he’d ever see me, hold me, touch me, fuck me.
The second door…
The second door is gone, and my memory, fuzzy and hazy and vague tells me little. I focus, think, strain to remember.
It only just happened, but it feels like a thousand years ago. Memory, hard to grasp, slippery. The blond man and my man, light and dark, lean and lithe versus broad and massive. A flurrying glut of sensation. A reveling in debauchery. Slipping and sliding down into delicious, all-consuming sin, two men fucking me into delirium. Then her, the scarlet goddess, her mouth on my core, the hunger for her burning inside me, secret at first but then wild and undeniable. Then just him, just us, being filled, taken. A connection, deep and dark and fraught, and ever so briefly felt.
Almost kissing him, but not quite.
Not quite.
I scan the room, the remaining doors. Skip over the cutting pain of the green door, the revulsion of the silver.
Number three, then.
The handle is a delicate glass knob. The faceted glass, and the rattling knob are familiar.
Twisting.
Pushing.
A door that creaked and squealed on protesting hinges.
Eventually, when the soreness and languidness has faded, I rise off the cot.
I touch the floor with my feet. Stand up. Pivot in place, scanning the pools of light and the blackness between.
My legs move, my feet carry me across the empty space. I halt in front of a door. Black, with a large silver numeral 4 at the center. Lower down, on the right side of the door, is a handle.
****
Into darkness. Heat. Humidity. The scent of bodies, but not unwashed. Soap. Oils. Perfume. The commingling scents and heat is cloying.
I can see nothing.
Something presses against me on one side: a body. Soft, warm. The flesh gives in a way that only a woman’s flesh does. Another jostling bump in front of me. Behind me. To my left, my right.
The sound of breathing.
Hoarse, fearful breaths.
A whimper.
And then—sudden light. Brilliant, blinding. A pair of doors opening.
A man’s voice, rough, slurred, and accented. “C’mon, c’mon, girlies! Step on out here, now! Don’t be shy, ya’ll. Step out, step out.” Motion, as those around me begin to shuffle forward, bumping into each other, jostling, holding onto whatever is near for balance; a hand grabs my shoulder, another my arm, someone pushes at my spine, small hands, trembling fingers. “Now ya’ll make a line, right here. Right here. Stand still, now. No fidgeting, no talking.”
I blink in the blinding light, squint, close one eye. The sun is glaring through a window, beaming directly at me, flaring across my vision. I can see only shapes, forms. An arm, a hand clutching a cane. A hat, broad-brimmed, low-crowned. A swirling drape of a coattail. A boot. Spurs jingle. I smell sweat, now. Leather. Dust. There’s a hint of swirling cold, as if a door had just been shut, and the cold still lingers. I’m shuffling, bare feet on smooth wooden flooring. A hand grabs my arm, roughly jerking me to one side and then stopping me in a precise spot, squeezing my arm. Stay put, that squeeze said. He strides away; a shotgun tucked under one arm.
I’m still blinking, but I can see a bit more clearly, now, as my eyes adjust. A line of men stand abreast, opposite me, with a bank of windows behind them. They’re all dressed warmly. Fine leather gloves, one clutching a crystal-topped walking stick, another a riding crop, a third a lever-action rifle. Thick wool coats swirl around boot heels. Snow clings to the soles and heels of the boots. Cravats are tied under necks. Gold chains arc across chests and disappear into watch pockets of vests.
I count seven men, ranging from white-haired and weathered to barely old enough to shave, most in between somewhere, but the quality of each man’s dress speaks of wealth. Their demeanor and posture shout power, dominance, and utter surety of their place in life. Eyes gleam arrogant, all.
To my left and my right are women standing abreast in a line. The women, unlike the men, are all of an age: young, nubile, beautiful, none
over twenty-five. There are twenty of us, and I stand directly in the middle. We are each of us clad identically in a thin cotton robe. Not even a robe, really, so much as a knee-length bolt of thin, rough-spun cotton with holes for the arms, tied closed with a length of rope. It obscures our bodies, but yet does little to cover us, or keep us warm.
Fear hammers at my heart. No one is speaking, but the silence is fiercely thick with anticipation, ripe with fear from the women beside me. Lust burns in the eyes of the men. Boots scuff as weights shift, hands in gloves curl into fists and release, or are tucked into trouser pockets. We women only shiver and tremble.
Boot heels click sharply on the wood floor, calling everyone’s attention. A man enters the room from my left, striding with focus and arrogance between the lines of men and women. A woman follows behind him but she stops just inside the door and stands, waiting. The man has a burlap sack in his hands, which clacks and clatters as it swings with his swift stride. He stops at the far right end of the line, then reaches into the sack. He withdraws a small square of slate. Shoves it into the hands of the first woman in line, reaches into his trouser pocket and comes up with a chunk of chalk. Scrapes a single vertical line on the slate. Steps to the side, reaches into the sack for another piece of slate, hands it to the next woman. Inscribes a 2 with a quick flick of his wrist. And so on down the line. I am number ten.
When he reaches the end of the line, he tosses the sack aside, shoves the chalk back into his pocket, and brushes his hands together.
He is tall, immensely tall, six foot six, perhaps. But thin and wiry. Elegant. Sharply dressed in a three-piece suit, pocket watch, and a bowler hat on his head. He wears a graying brown beard trimmed in the Van Dyke style, the ends waxed and twisted into points. His eyes are cold, hard, and emotionless. Diamond blue and diamond sharp. Calculating.
He stands at the leftmost end of the line, between the men and the women. He withdraws his pocket watch, flips it open, consults it, and replaces it. “Let us begin.” His voice is cultured, smooth. “You have all put in your thousand just to be here. The first to put in another five hundred gets first pick.”
“Here.” The oldest man, white haired, white goatee, craggy features, weathered skin. “Five hundred.” He withdraws a stack of bills from an inner pocket and extends it.
It’s clearly pre-counted and accepted as such, for the man with the Van Dyke doesn’t count it, but pockets it immediately.
“Very well.” A hand sweeps to gesture at us women. “Take your pick, sir, and place your offer.”
The older man steps forward, crystal-topped walking stick thumping. He’s on the far right of the line of men, two from the end. His step is spry, strong, and quick, despite his obvious age; the walking stick is an affectation. A foot away from the woman at that end, number one, he stops. Eyes her up and down. Blinks once, as if in dismissal. Moves to the next, another dismissal, on to the next without pause; the same silent disregard.
At the third woman, he stops, nods to himself. Reaches a large, gnarled hand for her robe tie. Pauses with the end of the rope in his fingers, glances at the other man, as if for permission. He receives a nod; a single sharp tug and the rope is untied; her robe falls open, baring her naked torso. His eyes narrow flit up, down, perusing. He drops the end of the rope, takes the slate from her, steps back one pace. I cannot look away, dare not speak, can only watch in numb, disbelieving horror.
Crooks his finger. “Step forward.”
The girl hesitates, and then steps forward. Her hands are at her sides, clenched into fists. White-knuckled. She has straight black hair, hanging down to mid-spine.
She stands, shaking, waiting.
He flicks his finger again. “Off with that. Lemme see you, girl.”
She ducks her head, and her shoulders lift as she breathes in deeply then lets it out through pursed lips. Lifting her chin, vying for courage, she shrugs the rough cotton away, and it droops, billows to pool on the floor at her feet. She is thin. Narrow hips. Strong, though. High, round buttocks. Long legs.
He twirls his index finger at her. “Turn.”
She pivots in a slow circle. Small breasts, tips upturned. Pale, pale skin. Her ribs show, but not from malnutrition, rather simply due to her lithe, svelte frame. As she pauses facing us, her eyes scan ours, left to right. A tear trickles down her cheek.
“Back around,” comes the gruff order.
She crosses her hands in front of her groin, and the man steps forward. Grabs her wrists, shoves them aside effortlessly. He reaches, curls his fingers between her thighs, roughly shoving them inside her, right here in front of everyone. She cringes away, whimpering.
Click-click. The sound is unmistakable, loud in the silence—a gun being cocked. “No touching until you have made your payment, if you please, sir. And you, girl—I believe you were informed of the rules before you were brought in.” His gaze rakes to include all of us. “I shall repeat the instructions, so there can be no misunderstandings. You will not speak. You will not move. That means no covering up. No cowering. Do as you’re told immediately. The buyers are not allowed to touch you until they have bought you, but if they do, you will allow it until such time as I see fit to stop them. Is that clear?”
He glares at us, and a few girls mutter responses: yes; yes, sir.
He cuts his glare to each of us in turn. “I did not hear all of you. Do you understand the rules?”
There’s a louder chorus of agreement. I feel apart, separate, numb, disoriented, and do not speak. Immediately, that unnerving diamond gaze fixes on me. He steps toward me, sharp quick steps. Lifts his hand, in which is now a small revolver. He touches the barrel to the underside of my chin; the mouth is a cold round o digging into the soft flesh just back of my jawbone.
“I didn’t hear you, darling.” In that low voice, razor sharp, the term of endearment becomes an epithet, a threat. “Do…you…understand?”
I wobble my chin up and down. “Yes—yes, sir.” The hammer is cocked, and I can see bullets in the chamber.
He steps away, turns, gestures with his empty hand at the woman still standing at the door: she’s dressed in a voluminous gown of jade silk, the bodice cut indecently low, propping up a broad expanse of cleavage, the skirts belling out from her waist and trailing behind her. Her blond hair is pulled back from her temples and over her scalp and is tied behind her head, the rest is loose around her bare shoulders; her eyes are precisely as blue and hard and calculating as the man running this sale of human flesh, making her his sister, despite the difference in hair color.
“If anyone sees fit to break these rules, you shall be sent with my sister here. She runs a brothel, you should know. And the clientele that visits that establishment, well, let us merely say they are not quite as…savory…as the men standing before you. I shall leave the details to your imaginations. Suffice to say, silence and cooperation is, by far, the better option of the two choices left to you.” He holsters the gun beneath his left breast. Gestures at the white-haired buyer. “My apologies for the distraction. Have you decided, sir?”
The other man nods, stroking his white beard. “I have. Two thousand for the shy little thing here.” He holds up the slate. “Two thousand for Number Three.”
A quick nod, the pointed Van Dyke beard dipping. “Accepted and agreed.”
A bundle of cash is counted by one, then handed over and counted by the other.
The girl, bought and sold, kneels shakily to retrieve her robe. That gnarled hand grabs her by the bicep, lifting her to her feet. “Oh, you won’t be needing that.” The leer in his voice makes my flesh crawl.
“But…” her voice is quiet, achingly delicate, tremulous. “It’s—it’s cold outside.”
He doffs his coat, draping it over her thin shoulders. “Wouldn’t want you to be cold, now, would we?” He pinches her nipple, twists it viciously, until she whimpers in pain and tries to curl away. “That wouldn’t do at all.” He tugs the edges of the coat closed, and buttons it up.
He prods her into motion, guides her to a doorway leading outside. She picks her way on bare feet across the threshold onto hard-packed snow. The door closes behind them, sending with it a gust of icy air.
My nipples pebble in the sudden blast of cold, nearly poking through the thin muslin.
Opposite me, in the middle of the line, a pair of eyes drift down, fixing on my prominently visible nipples. Brown eyes. Hard, not quite cold, but…blank, perhaps. Studiously so, maybe. Familiar eyes, in some strange way. Black hair swept back beneath a black, wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat. Full beard cropped close to his jaw.
His eyes slide back up to find mine.
I cannot look away. Don’t dare.
Around me, one after another, women are sold. Purchased, hustled outside. Some naked, some with their robes on, others with a provided cloak or coat. All weep piteously, but quietly, as they’re sent with their new masters. Their owners.
Finally, there is one man left.
The seller moves to stand beside me. “Quite a prize, this one. Minimum bid of two thousand. If you cannot or will not meet that, then I’m afraid you, my boy, are out of luck. Entry fee is non-refundable, remember.” His fingers twitch, and the rope knot flies apart. A sweep of his hand, and the robe drifts to my feet, baring me completely. My knees shake. Nipples throb, ache. I wish desperately to cover my core, to cower, to hide. But I do not. I stand, shoulders back, fists clenched shaking at my sides, my eyes on the man who, I am positive, is about to purchase me.
Opposite me, brown eyes rake down my body. Slowly, so slowly.
Beside me, a hand grips my shoulder, forces me to turn in a slow circle. “I chose this one myself. The high bid, I freely admit, is meant to deter you, that I might claim her for myself.” His voice is in my ear, a low murmur, boiling with lewd promise, a provocative threat. He inhales deeply, and his palm slides across my hip, dares close to my core. “Lots of curve to this one. Imagine the delights to be found in all this—” he cups my breast, and I cannot suppress a shudder of revulsion— “sweet, lush, firm flesh. Imagine the fun you could—“
The Black Room: The Deleted Door Page 7
