The Woman Trapped in the Dark

by J. D. Mason

  “Who lives here?” Nia asked, looking out the car window at the house he’d parked in front of.

  It was in Nelson, and a big old For Sale sign was planted in the front yard. He got out of the car and then hurried over to her side and held the door open for her. A dude wearing khakis and a button-down immediately opened the door as they walked up the sidewalk.

  “Whose house is this, baby?” she asked again.

  “DJ,” he said, holding out his hand for DJ to shake.

  “This is Nia,” he said proudly.

  “Very nice to meet you, Nia,” the dude said, grinning a little harder at her than DJ would’ve liked. “I’m Brian, and welcome.”

  DJ had found this place by accident a few days ago, just driving, trying to clear his head. It was perfect. Perfect for his family, and he was a day away from being able to drop cash on this joint and make all her dreams come true.

  “I’ll leave you two to look around,” old dude said. “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  DJ took hold of her hand and led her through the foyer into the living room that opened up with hardwood floors and a big-ass kitchen. A sliding glass door led to a massive backyard with a tall wooden fence around it. It’d be perfect for the kids to play.

  “What are we doing here?” she leaned in close and whispered.

  He squeezed her hand in his. “Planning our future, baby.” He looked at her and smiled.

  “We can’t afford this,” she said, worried.

  Nia grazed her fingers along the granite countertop of the center island. She didn’t have to tell him how much she wanted a place like this.

  “I promised you that I’d take care of you and my kids,” he said, turning her to face him. “I haven’t been doing such a good job lately.”

  “Don’t, baby,” she murmured, pressing her hand to his face. “It’s not your fault and we love you.”

  Jesus! He loved her. Loved everything about her. And there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. One more day. That’s it. Other than the first night, the night that they had to grab that woman and get her in the car, it had gone smoothly. DJ had been so careful, and he’d made sure that Nay and James were careful, too. In less than twenty-four hours it would all be over and he could be the man his woman dreamed he’d be.

  “Act like it’s yours already, Nia.” He smiled. “Your kitchen. Your living room. Your yard. Your two and a half baths,” he said, laughing.

  She laughed too, and it was like hearing his favorite song.

  “Because I’m gonna get this for you, and if this isn’t the one you want, I’ll find you another one, baby.”

  Nia wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. “You’re so crazy.”

  Nah, he wasn’t crazy. He was in love, though, with his wife and his life. And after tomorrow everything would be different, better.

  “A place like this would need some fancy furniture.” She smiled with tears shimmering in her eyes.

  He grinned back at her. “Of course it would. And I’ma get you that, too.”

  Both My Hands Are Tied

  “DAMN, CAN THIS DAY go any slower?” Naomi muttered loud enough for her coworker to laugh.

  “Sounds like somebody’s ready for the weekend,” she said to Naomi.

  “You have no idea,” she responded.

  One more day. Tomorrow, Naomi, DJ, and James would get that call they’d all been waiting for all week and this whole ordeal would be over. Naomi would have half a million dollars that Thomas would never know about, and hopefully, she and the boys would be long gone before the man came home from work.

  “Hey, Naomi,” one of the drivers said, coming over to the counter in front of her desk. “Got my manifest?”

  She pulled up a file, printed out a sheet of paper from it, and handed it to him. “There you go, Jack.”

  Naomi’s life was never supposed to be like this. She grew up in a good home, raised by loving parents with her brother and two sisters. In high school she was popular, homecoming queen and runner-up for prom queen. She’d enrolled in the junior college in Tyler and had planned on becoming a nurse. Maybe she still could become one. Naomi was only thirty-three years old. Still young enough to build a new life for herself and to help people doing what she loved.

  Helping people. It seemed like an odd notion considering her involvement in all of this. The woman they had locked in that room would be all right even if James was—had— She pushed the thought from her mind. She pushed aside the sounds of that woman begging her not to let James come back into that room. He hadn’t killed her. He hadn’t beaten on her. She was alive. It was all that mattered when this was all said and done; maybe she’d see it that way, too.

  She’d been covertly packing things this last week, things that she hoped Thomas or the boys wouldn’t know were missing, clothes and shoes. She’d also packed important papers like birth certificates and shot records.

  If everything went as planned, they’d be gone tomorrow. DJ said that he would call as soon as the money was wired into accounts set up for them by that woman he’d been speaking to who’d arranged all of this. She’d given them money up front to prove that she was telling the truth. Naomi had thirty thousand dollars put away in an account that Thomas didn’t know about. She’d hid her bankbook in her locker here at work.

  She was so excited at the prospect of finally getting away, but she had to be careful. Thomas paid close attention to everything about her, and if her mood changed or her routine changed, even if it was subtle, he questioned her about it. So she had to quell how anxious she really was. Naomi had to force herself to get home on time, make dinner, small talk, and love if that’s what he wanted. She had to pretend to care about how his day had gone and to be prepared to provide details of hers down to what she’d eaten for lunch, and whom she’d spoken to at work.

  “Crown Distributors dispatch,” she said, answering her phone.

  “Aren’t you glad I didn’t call you on your cell?” It was James.

  She took an unexpected deep breath. “What can I do for you?”

  People were always buzzing around the dispatch office. Some of those people knew Thomas.

  “You can tell me where the key is. It ain’t on the shelf.”

  The familiar wave of anxiety that she’d felt every time Thomas confronted her about something washed over her.

  “It’s not time yet,” she explained, choosing her words carefully, reminding him that it was too early to take food to her. “Besides, I can take care of it today. In fact, it’s probably best.”

  He was silent for several seconds before finally responding. “Nah, now that ain’t the deal we made. I’d rather it be me.”

  “I said don’t worry about it,” she said, forcing herself not to sound uptight. “It’s no problem. In fact, it’s my pleasure.”

  She knew. Naomi didn’t want to know it, but she did. James was crossing a line with the woman, one that could cost all of them everything, and they’d come too far for this pervert to ruin it.

  “Do I need to come in there?” he threatened.

  “That’s probably not a good idea,” she said, forcing herself to steady her voice.

  “Then bring me the gotdamn key,” he demanded. “I’m in the parking lot on the east side. You’ve got five minutes, Nay.”

  Naomi didn’t know this woman and she didn’t want to know her. But this wasn’t about the woman. As selfish as it was, Nay’s reasons for wanting to keep him from that lady, especially now, were about everything she stood to lose if James went too damn far. And maybe he already had, but Naomi had to stand her ground this time. Tonight was the last night that woman would be kept in that room. James had no business going back there.

  “Cassie,” she said to the woman in the cubicle behind her, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get something out of my car.”

  “No problem, Naomi.”

  Naomi made it a point to make sure she didn’t see anybody and that she wasn�
�t seen climbing into James’s car.

  “All I want is the key.”

  She glared at him. “Do you understand how close we are to finishing this?” she asked angrily. “Do you understand what’s at stake, James?”

  Her heart pounded so hard it was a wonder it didn’t shake that car.

  “I look dumb to you?”

  “They said she wasn’t supposed to be hurt.”

  “And she hasn’t been.”

  “Raping a woman is hurting a woman, James.”

  He stared back unemotionally at her like she was speaking a foreign language. “Give me the key and you can get back inside.”

  “DJ has it,” she lied.

  “DJ doesn’t have the damn key, Nay,” he shot back.

  “He went with me this morning so that he could take a picture of her and send it to that woman we’re working for. He kept it when we left.”

  James immediately pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  “Who’re you calling?”

  “DJ,” he casually responded.

  “No.”

  He looked at her. “Then you give me that damn key or I stop by your place tonight on my way to take her something to eat.”

  “You’re about to make half a million dollars, James,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief at this ignorant man. “All you have to do from this point on is nothing.”

  James stared out across the parking lot.

  “It’s so easy,” she continued. “And after tomorrow, you can have any woman you want, go anywhere and do anything. Just—go home. Go home, and tomorrow will be here before you know it and this will be all over.”

  If James did come by her house tonight, Thomas would kill her. Naomi wasn’t afraid of dying anymore. Death wouldn’t bring her escape, but freedom. It wasn’t her life she was fighting for, though. It was the lives of her boys. This idiot just had to leave that woman alone and go home. But it became obvious that James relished his role of fool.

  James looked at her and held out his hand. It was as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

  “You’re going to mess this up for all of us,” she said dismally.

  “Trust me, Nay. I ain’t messing up nothing because we’re not letting her go. That woman DJ’s been talking to, she ain’t stupid. If we set her free, somehow, someway, somebody will follow that trail back to us, back to whoever put all this together, and whoever he’s been talking to don’t want that.”

  “DJ won’t kill her,” she said softly.

  James sighed. “DJ won’t have to.”

  Reluctantly, Naomi reached into the front pocket of her jeans, pulled out the key, and placed it in his palm and held it there with her finger. “You can’t—not until tomorrow. They might want to know that she’s alive.”

  He nodded slowly; she let go of the key, then left him in the car.

  Only a special kind of desperation or fear would compel a woman to allow any kind of abuse of another woman without at least trying to intervene. Self-preservation was Naomi’s excuse. Naomi hated the woman she’d become. Half a million dollars and the chance to buy her way out of her own hell was worth sacrificing someone else to hers.

  “Thomas called,” her coworker told her when she made it back to her work area. “Wants you to call him back as soon as you get in.”

  Dread washed over her. Thomas had a sixth sense about things. Did he know? Could he know?

  “Hey, baby,” she said when he answered. “I’ve been here. I just thought I left my sweater in the car. No. No, I didn’t. You know how forgetful I can be sometimes. Yeah, I was hoping we could grill some burgers and hot dogs for dinner. I’ve got the potato salad made already. Okay. Sounds good. Love you, too.”

  Sickness over You

  YOU CAN’T BE A DECENT HUMAN being if you have no qualms about snatching a woman out of her bed in the middle of the night for money. DJ might’ve been cool with thinking he was better than James, but James knew better. They were the same, except James had no problem owning up to who he was or things he’d done.

  James sat on the sofa in his small apartment, surveying the shabby-ass shit of his, disgusted and like he was just now seeing the place that represented his life for the very first time. It never dawned on him that he could have more or be better in his life. He was closing in on forty, an ex-felon, having spent fifteen years in prison for robbery and assault.

  Half a million fuckin’ dollars. How many different ways had he spent that money in his head? And not on the things DJ or Naomi probably thought he’d spend it on, either. James was the thug. James loved to fuck and get high. But money like that didn’t come around every day, and he’d figured out that if he was going to make something of his life, then this was his chance to do it.

  He leaned back on the sofa and sighed.

  “Kill that bitch, start a business, reinvent myself,” he muttered sarcastically.

  But that was how it was going to go down. Money like that could buy him a new him. So it was only fitting for James to spend this last day celebrating the old him. Gin and juice. James had been drinking since he left Naomi. He wasn’t drunk, but booze flowed through his veins like blood, settling him into the truth of what he’d have to do, to the fact that tomorrow he’d be a different kind of James, one with blood on his hands and a bright future.

  He took a long, slow drag of his cigarette. Nay called it rape, but that’s not how James saw the dynamics of this relationship with that woman locked in that room. He couldn’t see it that way, wouldn’t. Because that’d make him as dumb as DJ and Naomi.

  She was already dead. James had reached that conclusion even before he and his brother dragged her out of that house. James had gotten caught up in a fantasy with Abby, and he looked forward to letting it play itself out because he deserved it. He’d never taken a life before, and he wasn’t looking forward to taking hers. The animal in him couldn’t help himself. She was prey and that excited him in ways he hadn’t believed possible. He had a crush on her. The first time he’d met her, he dug her, but she made it clear that she wasn’t interested. Now it wasn’t up to her.

  * * *

  “Doesn’t that smell good?” he asked, placing the bag of food and an ice-cold soda on the floor in front of her. “Fried chicken. Fries.” He grinned, moving back across the room and kneeling in the corner to watch her eat.

  That smooth, pretty dark skin of hers made him lick his lips. He suspected that she tasted every bit as good as that chicken. His dick kicked at the thought of being inside her. Tonight, it would be.

  “I guess you could call this a date.” He winked flirtatiously. He snapped his fingers. “Damn! I should’ve bought some candles.”

  The thought of fucking her had become such an obsession for James. It was the whole scene that turned him on, like some elaborate porn movie. A woman held captive and at his mercy. She was within his grasp, but not quite. Something always seemed to stop him just as shit was about to go down, and James would be forced to leave with a vicious boner, making him even hornier for her little black ass.

  Nipples pressed against her shirt, teasing him. She saw him staring and used that dirty blanket to cover herself. She was so fucking vulnerable and that shit was erotic. He felt like a lion stalking a sheep, a sheep that he knew he could have whenever he wanted. And the sheep knew it, too. That was the best part.

  “Go and eat, baby,” he gently coaxed. “I’ll wait.”

  Sweet, fearful tears glistened in her pretty eyes. “I’m not hungry,” she said meekly.

  Was she trembling?

  “Don’t be afraid, baby girl,” he told her, caught up in the magic that she was. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered.

  Had she heard him? Did she believe him? He wanted her to believe him.

  James stood up and walked over to her as if he were being pulled. He felt like a fish on a hook and couldn’t help himself. She stood up too, and backed into the corner.

  “Don’t touch me!” she yelled, putting
up her fists. “I fucking mean it.”

  The tears fell. Nostrils flared.

  “Aw, baby,” he murmured, taking a step toward her.

  She braced her little self, lowering slightly into her knees as if she truly meant to fight him.

  Without thinking, James grabbed his throbbing cock through his pants and tried to rub the ache from it. And then he reached for her.

  “No!” she yelled, punching at him, landing a solid little blow on his chin.

  He laughed, lunged at her, and pinned her back against the wall, kicking, scratching, and punching.

  “Let me go!” she screamed hysterically. “Let me—!”

  “It’s going to be all right,” he promised her. “I swear it is.”

  Small fists pummeled against his back, face, and arms as he jammed a thigh between her knees and effortlessly lifted her off the ground.

  “Hold on, baby girl. I got you. I got you, Abby.”

  And he did. James had all of her.

  Some of Us Cannibals

  HITTING HIM WAS LIKE punching brick.

  “Ffffuck!” he growled, laughing and grabbing hold of her wrists.

  He pressed her tight enough against the wall to keep her suspended, pulling her arms down at her sides and pinning them against her.

  Disbelief and shock shrouded the sounds of her screams. Her muscles burned with adrenaline.

  Fight, Abby! These words echoing in her mind took on a whole new meaning. Fight! Not just for her body or for her right to herself. Fight for her dignity. Fight to save her life.

  “It’s all right, baby girl. We gone do this. It’s ’bout damn time. ’Bout damn time.”

  Somehow, he managed to free himself from his pants while keeping her arms pinned.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, pushing himself between her leg and the material of her shorts, groaning disgustingly in her ear and thrusting his hips against her.

  The thought of him inside her made her want to vomit, and somehow, before he could enter her, Abby managed to place one hand between them as a barrier between her legs, and grabbed his penis before he could penetrate her. He stopped and started to jerk away until she started to slowly massage him. The tip of him grazed against her, but he wasn’t inside her. Not yet. God! She didn’t want this monster inside her body!