Sin and Swoon

by Tara Brown

  “Where are we?” My throat is dry and coarse.

  “I don’t know. It’s underground—I know that. But there is nothing else. No water dripping, no traffic, no noise whatsoever. It’s just us and silence and him. But he’s not here all the time.” Her voice is so familiar, like it’s been inside of my head.

  I immediately know where we are. We’re at his cabin. The dank air doesn’t smell the same in here as the crisp air outside, but I know that’s where we are. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. “Has anyone ever escaped?” I whisper back into the corner, feeling my own breath landing back on me.

  “I don’t know. A couple of the girls have been here longer than me. Some have left, but not ’cause they escaped.”

  I don’t want to talk anymore. I need to find a way out. I rifle my pockets for my phone, but it’s gone, so I lift my hands and run them along the walls the whole way around. I am truly in a dugout. It’s a room surrounded by dirt and wood, and the floor is straw the entire way. My brain tries to whisper things about bugs and the stuff I can’t see, but I don’t let it. I sit back on the bed and wait. He will come, and I will kill him.

  “You have food in the corner at the end of the bed. It’s in a bar fridge next to the toilet. There is food and water there.” The girl, Jane, whispers, “The light can be a friend in the dark.”

  I scramble to the end of the bed, feeling for the fridge. I had noticed the toilet on my circle around.

  And there it is. I fling the door open, flooding the dark space with light. As my eyes adjust I am surprised by what I find. It’s much nicer than I anticipated. Much.

  It’s cleaner and less like a dug hole in the ground. More like a cellar. The ceiling is cement, perhaps the oddest part of the room, and the floors are cement with straw covering them. Some of the walls are wooden, and others are old cement that’s broken down and looks a bit like dirt. The bed is stacks of hay with blankets over the top, and the small white bar fridge is my only company. The crack where Jane whispers from is in one of the cement-and-dirt walls. The cracks are decay. In the dim light I can see her dark eyes in the shadows. I might not have seen the color if not for the ghastly state of her pale skin. She is white like I have never seen. Gray almost. When she leans in I can see she has different-colored eyes. One is dark blue and the other pale. She blinks and backs up, making them both appear dark again. Her face changes in the shadows, making me think I have seen her before, and then maybe not.

  “The food gets refilled when he comes, so it’s feast or famine, but he always comes.” Her puffy lips are cracked and sore. She looks exhausted and hollow. Her oddly colored eyes reflect only blankness.

  “Do I know you?” I ask, thinking I can’t help but feel like this Jane has crawled around inside of my head.

  She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think we have ever met. I’d remember.”

  I shrug. “What does he do with us here?”

  A single tear slips down her cheek, washing away filth and leaving an even whiter streak of skin that glows in the muted light. “He will bathe you, show you how much he loves you.” She cringes. “Then he bathes you again and puts you back in the cell. Sometimes he makes us put on dresses and dance with him. Other times, when he thinks one of us has misbehaved or we’ve talked too much, he beats one of the girls, and we all have to hear it.” Her expression tightens a slight bit. “Try not to be that girl.”

  I close the fridge and let the darkness rush back in. I don’t want her to see me lose my self-control. Even if it is a useless cry for help, I make it as silent as I can.

  9. Handsome Prince Nutbag

  I am still sore and frightened I have a UTI. I had one when I was a young teenager, and now it feels as though I have another. Being locked away and abused randomly has damaged more than my spirit. We sit in the dark and wait for him to pick us, frightened by either outcome. The suspense of possibly being chosen each time he enters the dungeon is horrifying, but it is nothing compared to the moment his fingers clasp the lock on your door. In the silent suspense, the sound of your lock clicking can drive you to madness.

  Today it was my lock, my madness.

  I blink away the remains of the drugs he filled me with. He does it every time he takes us out of our cage. I sit up and find my way to the fridge. It helps metabolize the drugs if we eat straight away.

  The girl in the room next to mine stands at the crack in the corner of our shared wall that we have picked at, making it a little bigger day by day. Her face is odd, almost like she’s Asian, but I can tell she isn’t. She’s pretty, though I suspect we are all pretty in one way or another. I swear I have seen her before, though—as if she’s been my best friend or something so close I can’t help but know her better than I know myself.

  “So he gave you the spiel about being a cop or whatever? That you were in danger?”

  I nod, eating the packet of cheese I’ve just grabbed from the fridge. It’s not the best cheese, but after a while you get used to it. The fridge is loaded with healthy food. Sometimes I just want a piece of chocolate.

  “The worst part for me is I nearly got away. He tried his bullshit, and I tried to run, but he caught me and knocked me out. A lady saw me trying to get away. I just remember how wide her eyes went when she saw him hit me. It was the last thing I saw.”

  I pick at the cheese with my newly cleaned hands and nod. “I was an idiotic fool. I fell for his story right away. I liked him.” It makes me feel dirty now. The feel of his breath is like poisonous vapors. His skin is sandpaper against mine, stripping and sanding away the layers of dignity and respect. Even boundaries I worked my whole life putting up are knocked down.

  “We were all idiots. And we are paying for our sins now.”

  I give her a look. “I don’t think any of us ever did a single thing to deserve this. I know we didn’t.”

  She shrugs, leaning against the wall. I can barely make out her shoulders through the thin crack. “One day we will be out of here, and it will all be a bad dream. A nightmare we share.”

  A slow and bitter grin slides across my lips. “We can all do a talk show about how we’re survivors.”

  She parts her lips to speak, but there is a noise we don’t expect, not so soon. He has only just left me. My insides twist and turn. Jane reaches a hand out to me. I close the door to the fridge so the light dies. I jump up and grip her fingers. “It’s okay, Ash. Be strong and remember the smell of your mother and the feel of rain on your face.” She says the thing I have told her that I miss the most. I was so tired of the rain that never seemed to end this year, and yet I would die happy if I felt it on my face again.

  Tears stream on my cheeks as we hear the outer door open followed by his footsteps, bold and purposeful footsteps. They stomp across the gravel floor of the main hallway, taunting us as they pass the horse stalls, each filled with girls of every flavor.

  We have discussed it once. Calling out what we look like in turn. Some are blonde and others are brunettes and one girl is a redhead. All Caucasian, which we know is most likely because Rory is a Caucasian. We all weigh around 120 pounds and are all about five foot five. Here in the dark we are all unnaturally pale.

  He has a type, and we are it.

  Now we sit in the darkness, each waiting for the sound of our doorknob and lock to click, each silently praying it is not our turn. We betray those girls closest to us, wishing horrors upon them instead of ourselves. When it comes down to it, human nature means we will all betray one another to survive. It’s the basest instinct we have, survival.

  The echo of his footsteps could drive you mad in the dark, if you weren’t already there. But the sound of a doorknob being manipulated is worse than a blade slicing through the air.

  When a lock rattles and it isn’t mine, I exhale my hurried breath, realizing how desperate I am for air, even this dank air.

  The girl in that cell, I think the redhead, starts to sob. She’s newer, like me. She still cries every time, like me.


  “Princess, are ya so happy to see me rescue ya from the evil prison that ya weep?” he asks in his full Irish accent, no longer hiding it from us. He closes and locks the door behind him until he gets his needle and injects her with the tranquilizer.

  She weeps louder, stuttering the thing we are to say: “M-m-my p-p-prince, y-y-you f-f-found me.”

  “Aye, I found ya, and now I will free ya from this hell, my love.” I grimace, knowing exactly what is happening at this point. He’s kissing her cheeks and dragging his hands up her arms.

  I know he scoops her up, carrying her weak and slowly relaxing body from the cell and up a set of stairs to the washroom. He carries her up and pours a bath, cleaning her and singing his fucking songs. The words of one still haunt me.

  Listen, listen to the sound that bullets make of blood and bone.

  Those words are haunting me, and yet I don’t know where I have ever heard them.

  Then he takes her, trembling and cold, to the bedroom off the bathroom. When he gets her there he will make sweet passionate love to her, slow and soft. He will make her orgasm again and again, even if she doesn’t want to. She can’t help it. Her body will be relaxed and calm, and only her mind will be screaming as he thrusts in and out, rocking and swaying until she’s certain he knows every inch of her body and soul.

  The whole event will be nothing at all like what he did with me when we were in the real world. It will involve cuddling and a condom, and him telling her he’s going to protect her and keep her safe from evil in the world. Then he will bathe her again, singing and loving and rubbing places that are sore and overstimulated. He will tell her that he will take her back to his kingdom and marry her. They will live happily ever after. It’s a fantasy like no other, and it will last the whole afternoon.

  Until he realizes he must put her back into the cell, but he will be back. And she should never doubt his love, because it is eternal.

  Eventually he will close the door, leaving her there. She’ll be sore from hours of sex, not to mention exhausted and confused from the tranquilizer.

  Jane and I clasp each other’s fingertips in the dark, the only part of us that can really touch through the thin gap. We always do it when a cell opens that doesn’t belong to either of us, we sigh simultaneously with relief. He has chosen someone besides one of us, which means we will enjoy another day of safety and peace.

  When he closes the door to the stairs, carrying the girl away from us, the cells reanimate as girls begin to breathe and softly whisper to one another. Jane’s breath is upon my face when she speaks softly: “Just once I want one of us to fight back, to attack him and free the rest of us.”

  I nod, thinking how it would all be impossible. “That bathroom and bedroom aren’t above the ground. I don’t know that it would be easy to find your way out of here. And the daylight would blind you upon leaving. We’ve gotten so used to the dark. He would have the advantage. You would have to attack and lock him in the cell, but before the fucking needle.” I need to stop cussing so much.

  She sighs. “But if you could knock him out, you might stand a chance of escaping—and freeing everyone else. What’s in that room that could knock him out?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. I’ve only been in it a few times. The bathroom has that massive claw-foot tub and the toilet and the sink. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything but a towel and some soap, the French lavender soap. If I ever smell it after we get out of here, I’ll kill the person holding it.”

  She chuckles softly into the crack. “You know it. Same for basements. I will never own a house with a basement. I want a house made of glass so I can see the whole world around me, every nook and cranny, from my window. There will be no shadows.”

  We sit in the corner, holding hands and waiting for the sound of her cries when he puts her back into the cell. She cries a lot, that redhead. Her name is Jenny, Jenny Rutledge, and she cries more than any girl here. But for some sick reason, he likes it. He likes it when we cry.

  Her screams wake me up and I think Jane too. She jumps and grips my hand. The door slams, and the redhead screams violently. I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep, but I clearly have, and the afternoon has gone by. He has entertained himself, and now the redhead is back in her cell and screaming.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Jane whispers so softly I can barely hear her. “He’s pissed. She’s done something bad.” I blink, trying to wake up.

  The girl screams again, and in the mix of her screams and raging words, he speaks in a low tone. I can’t hear anything he says, but her sobs quit for a moment, and I hear the thing that makes her scream. He strikes her. It’s the sound of a lash. Like whipping a person with a belt. She screams again, and every inch of my body feels her pain. I am so tight and trembling that my muscles are spasming from the exertion of holding myself this way.

  He strikes again, and again she screams but I think a little less. At the next strike, she doesn’t scream at all. He shouts something muddled, something I don’t understand, and the door slams again. The lock clicks in anger. His movements are rough and overly done, making more noise than is necessary. He’s snorting and spitting when he leaves the area, again crashing and slamming doors. His footsteps find their way back in; he rattles a lock. The door slams open and shut, and his grunting is obvious. One of the girls, maybe the fallen redhead, getting this violation is silent. She takes the grunting and the savagery without a sound. He’s done in seconds, and the door opens and closes again roughly.

  There is no sound once he’s gone. The redhead is either dead or passed out from the pain.

  We sit in the dark, waiting for something to change, something to bring us back to life.

  Jane whispers to me, soothingly, “When I was a girl, I had a sister named Andrea. We were twins, she and I. She was the better child; my parents were always angry with me over small things. But Andrea was perfect. I rarely remember details of the life I had before the accident. I think I locked them away so I could make my parents perfect in my mind. But they were flawed in a few ways. When they died in the accident and I had lost my memories, I made certain I created new ones of them. I took pictures of my parents and told myself lies about them. Lies that made my life before the accident perfect. But then I went to the orphanage and I learned there were kids with stories so bad, mine seemed a bit sad, really. My parents had loved me, my sister was my best friend, and my house was clean and beautiful inside. The other kids from the orphanage had terrible lives. They’d been taken from their parents. Or they’d been left at the orphanage. I realized then that nothing about my life was as hard as theirs, and that I needed to be positive about my past and my limited memories. The nuns taught us that rarely is the truth of the matter the truth of the matter. Rarely do we see what’s behind the story. They taught me not to pity the children left there, because they were safe and loved, in a way. And perhaps their lives were better than what they might have been.” She lowers her face to my fingers and kisses softly. “This place and this life and this hell are the same. We cannot see the driving force behind what is wrong with him. We cannot pity the other people here, because we do not know the whole story. We can only be positive and hope for the best. That’s what survivors do. We don’t take on the shit we see and hear and suffer. It isn’t ours. It’s being done to us, but it doesn’t define us.”

  I feel a tear slip from her cheek to my fingers, and nod. She can’t see me or know that I have agreed with her, but I can’t speak. My heart is aching, and my stomach is on fire.

  We sit in silence and wait for a noise from the room. Part of me hopes the redhead is dead, freed from this terrible fate.

  “Do you believe in God?” I whisper to Jane.

  “I don’t know. I believe in miracles. I believe in science. I believe there is something else. The nuns taught us to believe in God, and taught about the goodness of him, but in this place it is hard to see the light. One of my favorite sayings is that only when it’s dark enough can
you see the stars. And so we should be able—there is no darker place on earth. But I dare say the view from here is rather bleak and the outcome is rather hopeless. If I see the stars once more in my life, I will count myself lucky.” Her positivity talk doesn’t seem to have lasted long on her. I think it’s a weak moment, made entirely from the fear we both feel for the girl named Jenny.

  So I do the thing she does. “We will see the stars again, Jane. We will see justice for the things that have happened here.”

  She answers with a squeeze of my fingertips.

  It is a long time, filled with tense silence, before we hear a noise. It starts with a whimper and then a shaky moan. Jenny cries out to us, “M-m-my b-b-back, m-m-my skin is t-t-torn.” She heaves her words. I’m certain each face of the other seven girls is the same as mine. Scrunched and wincing in desperate empathy. “P-p-please help me.” She starts to sob, and my need to help her worsens. I grip Jane for dear life, not sure what a single one of us can do.

  One of the girls, one of the older girls, Lacey, speaks in a soft tone, “Jenny, you need to get the water from the fridge. One of the bottles of water, and pour it on the wound. Then lie on your stomach and let the air get at it. No shirt or anything touching it. You need to do this now. Don’t touch it with your hands at all. It will be fine so long as it doesn’t get infected.”

  “Okay.” She sniffles and moves, making small noises.

  Stumbled steps.

  A groan.

  The fridge—first she bumps into it and then opens it.

  Water bottles and food are moved.

  The fridge door closes.

  The water bottle lid is unscrewed.

  Water pours.

  A cry fills the air, shaky and weak.

  More water drops to the ground.

  Actual sobbing.

  A gasp as the water bottle falls to the ground.

  Stumbled footsteps.