by Lily White
However, despite my inability, I was dragged regardless, my toes scraping over the floor as Ethan clamped his hands over my shoulders and forced me forward. My feet had no choice at that point. I was going up the steps whether I wanted to or not.
Ethan's fingers were tight across my skin, bruising and punishing as we scaled the three small steps, the wood creaking beneath our combined weight. Once on stage, he released me only to have to reach out again to keep me from tipping forward. My entire body had joined the rebellion of my feet and now my legs and abdomen refused to hold up the rest of me.
On a hiss of sound against my ear, Ethan scolded me. "This is not how you prepare yourself to fight. Grow a fucking spine and stand up."
I wasn't sure why it mattered to him whether I lived or died. From what I'd seen yesterday, he was neutral in the matter, ready and willing to allow a woman to choose one horrible fate over the other. They could live and suffer their abuse day after day while he created his art, or they could choose the less fortunate way out and be tortured into an early grave. He had no soul, this man who was now holding me up because my body refused to respond to what my brain was telling it.
Understanding must have crept in to Ethan's thoughts that my body was currently fighting a war against itself. Rather than letting me sink to the floor in a mess of panic, mortification and pathetic weakness, he directed me over the bed, sat me down on the side and knelt down to look me in the face. Silence surrounded us, the production crew undoubtedly standing there slack jawed over the amount of attention and coddling Ethan was giving me. I didn't understand it myself, but there wasn't much I could do either way.
His gaze was piercing in its focus, the steel grey shimmering beneath the lights of the stage. Mine, in contrast, was hazy and blurred, every part of me now rebelling as I sat in stunned disbelief. Ethan shaking my shoulders didn't wake me up, but when his hand released me to slap across my cheek, the burning pain brought me back to the present, brought me to life and set me aflame. I narrowed my eyes on him and he smiled, ignoring the blistering red mark that was no doubt blooming over my cheek.
"Focus, Ms. Hart. In one minute a man who violated you in the most intimate of ways is about to walk across stage left to do it to you all over again. Except, this time, he'll take every part of you. This time, he'll wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze until you can't breathe. He'll watch your mouth open to drag in air. He'll smile down at you while capillaries burst in your eyes and over your skin. He'll laugh as your lips turn blue and your body convulses beneath him. And while you're dying, he'll most likely rape you again. You will leave this world in the most brutal of ways and once you're dead, he'll grow excited to do it to another woman on my stage. I've promoted him in this organization all because of you. It's your choice whether he enjoys that promotion or dies as a result of it. You. Nobody else. Just you."
"I'm not a killer," I managed to whisper, the truth engrained so deep in those words that my voice didn't shake while speaking them, their meaning slicing across my skin until I felt shredded and incompetent. I am not a killer - a truth repeating over and over until I wanted to spit it out again just to free myself of it.
"You are."
"I'm not," I repeated, my voice more forceful, tears bursting out from my eyes. Locking my gaze to his, I silently begged for him to stop this. I begged the universe to shift back to my normal life. I begged whatever nightmare this was to end so I could wake up in my bed, in my home, and seek counseling for my mind having conjured up this twisted scenario in the first place.
"You are now. You weren't an actress before I had you stolen away so I could turn you into one. And look at you. In wardrobe, with your hair styled and makeup all over your face. You're beautiful and sitting on a stage with all the lights and cameras waiting to highlight and record you. You can be anything I want you to be, which at this moment is a killer. Survive this, Emma. That's what I want you to do. Survive and you can be a hero to every other woman trapped in this place because your lack of fear killed the man who would have killed them. Keep that in mind when you see him. Wrap your fingers around the knife I have hidden beneath this mattress. And when the time comes, you sink it deep down inside him until you're shredding his heart."
EMMA
Time is a cruel bastard.
Although it is something that should be measurable and exact, time has a way of choosing how long every second actually lasts, every minute, every hour, every day. It doesn't simply tick along at regular intervals, like clockwork as many would say. It's more irregular than that, more fluid, at least in my perception, anyway.
Moments come and go in our lives, there for a brief burst before dying and attaching to your thoughts as a ghost of memory. You can't hold those moments, can't cling on to them, can't push them away if they were too terrifying for you to endure. They are there, whether you like it or not, and gone even when you hoped they could last for eternity. And that's where time comes in to cackle its evil laugh, choosing just how much of the moment it will grant you.
It's in happy moments that time chooses to speed forward, to rush along like a tiger having finally targeted and set off to catch its prey. What feels like a second is actually longer. You could be taking a much needed nap, celebrating a birthday, seeing a friend you haven't been able to talk to for a long time. It could be a moment where a man you've crushed on for many years of your life finally notices you and takes your hand. It could be after, when he leans over to kiss you for the first time. What felt like just a second is actually three thousand, six hundred seconds - or sixty minutes - an hour. Then the moment is gone, gunned down, killed off, and rolled over the cliff of the present into the memory of the past.
Not for moments like this one, however, where time drags, where it slow downs to the point of crawling so that I can study every small movement of the man walking away from me, descending the stairs, and taking his place among the cameras and production crew staring back while I sat numbly awaiting my fate. What should have been an hour was only a second, and time sat back, with its feet kicked up, raising an eyebrow in challenge. Take that.
Still sitting exactly where Ethan had left me, I flinched when the woman announced the title of this film, called out the scene and slapped down the top of the clapboard.
A door opened behind me. And in Ethan's voice I heard two words in my head: "Show time."
Time slowed more, the footsteps approaching, stretching from one to the next so slowly that I could count every shallow inhalation of my breath, could feel the individual drops of sticky sweat drip down my temple towards my chin. I could hear the whir of the cameras, feel the warmth of the lights, could smell the faint scent of cologne left behind from where Ethan had been kneeling in front of me. I felt my burning throat fight to swallow down the acrid fear churning up from my gut. I could count the irregular beats in my pulse as my heart battled to keep pumping despite the marathon it was running.
One footstep, the list of sensations repeats, another footstep, and another. Yet, I sat frozen, as pretty as a doll, unable to scream or flee.
I turned my head slowly, movement apparent in my peripheral vision while my direct gaze focused on Ethan. His face was shadowed, his brows pulled together in thought, his mouth thinned and stretched into a taut line that screamed with concern and disapproval.
Shifting my eyes just slightly, I caught the small reflection of the stage in the lenses of the cameras. I could see myself sitting there as a tiny dot, could watch another dot approach me on steps that time had slowed to a crawling, threatening beat. I could feel the vibration of those steps, the initial slap against the stage and the crescendo of movement that exploded out in waves around them.
I watched that dot move closer, stiffened when it was within arm's reach, closed my eyes and blinked away tears when, instead of jumping at me from behind, it moved around the bed to stand in front of me.
His anxious breath was a discernible hiss of sound, replacing the beat of his shoes with that of
his lungs. As he inhaled, held the breath and exhaled, my breath was caught, my lungs failing to release, my heart racing so hard I swore it would pop.
Opening my eyes didn't help, it only turned the knob, pushed the door of memory from its frame, and allowed the past to come rushing in to smother me. I recognized that face, the broadness of his shoulders, the leering eyes and twisted mouth - the body of a seventeen year old man that had already tasted me. He stared down at me with a snide sneer, his fingers clenching and relaxing in time with his breath, the promise of violation and violence rolling behind his gaze.
I was surprised he wasn't hooded like the men I'd seen in the films I'd had the poor luck to witness. Had that been an intentional change on Ethan's part, or was he so sure I'd kill the man to save myself that he didn't bother with the disguise? Did this kid know he was being used as a pawn? Or was he ecstatic for the chance to rape and kill women as a paid job?
His tongue peeked out to lick along his lips, his brown beady eyes searching me hungrily. Everything came back to me in that frozen moment in time when I looked up at a man who had every intention to kill me.
My walk down the sidewalk. The anger I was feeling at my date. The crisp fall air slapping my cheeks. The way I'd been jerked to the side, dragged into an alley, and given only a few rushing seconds to take a look at my abductor's face.
The slam of the van door, the crispy, crusty carpet, the feeling of his hand sliding up my leg while his voice was raised in argument. The pain of his entrance, the grunts from his mouth, the way his chest pressed against my body as his hips thrust forward and back.
The sticky slow drip of his orgasm down my leg, the cold that rushed in to brush my intimate parts when he was done taking what wasn't his...
Fuck this guy.
Fuck Ethan.
Fuck this entire twisted nightmare from which I couldn't wake.
Springing forward, he caught me off guard. I didn't even have time to recognize that the piercing scream filling the room had torn from my lungs. His hands were on me, calloused and rough, sliding down my arms as I attempted to move, to break away, to run.
He was too strong.
Even without the blindfold, gag and bindings he'd used on me in the van, he easily overpowered me. His hands clenched my wrists to pin them above my head, his body pressing down on me over the bed until he was everywhere at once. The whir of cameras was replaced by the sound of his rapid breathing, his hands shifting so he could hold my arms with one, freeing the other to travel down my body. Groping and petting, he explored down my arm, over my shoulder, tracing his fingers over my neck in a gentle threat. Lower still, his palm found my breast, his fingers squeezing until I cried out in pain and bucked up with my body to attempt to shake him free.
Hips pressing down harder, he showed me just how excited my struggle made him. Tears burst from my eyes, but not from sorrow - from fury. Teeth clenched, I tried again, my arms pinned and useless, so all I had were my hips. Bucking and turning, twisting and practically growling, I struggled to throw his weight from my body, to gain some kind of traction, find an advantage, get away. Despite my best effort, I was stuck in place, and he didn't waste the opportunity to grip the neckline of my negligee and tear it down the middle.
Pushing up, he held my arms in place, placing a knee over my stomach, and pressed down hard to hold me to the bed. Time was on his side, the pain and pressure keeping me still, his free hand pulling the silk apart to expose me fully.
As if his eyes taking me in with great greedy sweeps wasn't bad enough, a small camera was suddenly beside us, stealing the rest of my modesty. My attacker took his time enjoying the view, as did the camera, the man behind it, Ethan from his safe little space among the larger cameras. Meanwhile, I was made the helpless victim, the girl who allowed shock to help her forget how dire the situation was. The girl who took for granted the danger she was in.
How could that have slipped my mind? Why hadn't I screamed and wailed, fought and flailed, slapped Ethan across his smug face while I'd had the opportunity? Why couldn't I have just been shot like the crying woman in line? If we would all die regardless, her histrionics had saved her this violation, this pain, this horrendous agony. Why couldn't I have been as smart?
The camera moved back as my attacker leaned down and bared his teeth. Taking his time now that he had me pinned at the wrists and stomach, he opened his wide mouth, laughed in my face, and bent down to grip the nipple of my right breast between his teeth.
The scream that slipped from my lips was grating and unholy, tearing apart the tissue of my throat as it shot from my lungs, stretched my mouth and burst out.
"Fuck," the bastard said, his voice gritty and low, "I didn't think you could be so much fun the last time I had you."
Bile followed my scream, painting my tongue with its acrid flavor. My head fell back against the mattress, the anger crashing through me in such vicious waves that all I could do was sob.
It was impossible to watch what he was doing, impossible to ignore his hand pressing down on my chest between my breasts to slide down my body and around the knee still holding me in place. Once his rough, punishing fingers slipped further down between my legs, I couldn't stand to keep my eyes on the asshole as he explored between the skin, found the opening and shoved his fingers inside.
My chest beat with deep sobs, my teeth slamming together and clenching tight. I turned my head to keep from watching him violate my body. Pulling his hand away, he kept me pinned and I knew - I just knew - he was unbuttoning his pants, freeing his erection and readying himself for the first vicious assault against me.
Struggling again, I only hurt myself more by pushing up against his knee where it was jammed over my stomach and just beneath my ribs. The pain blistered through me, spreading out like a spider's web, fracturing and twisting until it consumed me. My eyes popped open, the tears dropping away, the hazy focus becoming clearer until my gaze locked and held on the director standing there staring back.
Time was a bastard again, speeding up, slowing down, volleying between one extreme and the other until I was dizzy and sick. The head of his cock pressed against me, rubbing up and down to work itself between the dry skin. Blood burst in my mouth as I bit the inside of my cheek. The metallic taste helped ease the flavor of bile.
Arms crossed over his broad chest, expression stern and feet planted on the ground at shoulder width, Ethan didn't move, didn't open his mouth, didn't bother meeting my accusatory gaze as my attacker forced himself inside me.
He pushed inside, each agonizing inch met with my whimper of pain, each whimper I was sure being picked up by a microphone so that Ethan's film would be real. I died a little inside, broke apart, watched my life being shredded into nothing, and as the bastard drove himself fully inside, he stilled before pulling out to drive in again. My eyes stayed on Ethan, begging for something he wouldn't give: help maybe, sympathy, acknowledgment of what he was allowing be done to me - anything. He gave me nothing, his eyes transfixed to the scene and not my face, his forefinger cupping his chin as a thumb rubbed over the stubble along his jaw.
When he finally moved from his studious perch, it was only to direct a camera to the other side of the stage, for the lights to be centered on my expression.
They burned against my retinas, but still I held my eyes open wide, my body moving over the mattress as my attacker was fucking me.
He grunted out his pleasure, calling me slut, dirty whore and cunt. His hand tightened over my wrist until I thought the bones would break, his knee no longer against my stomach, but that damage had already been done.
Catching the calf of my right leg in his free hand, he lifted my leg, bent the knee and spread me open. That's when the worst part came, the part Ethan had warned me about when I'd been too shocked to pay attention. My body responded as the man kept pumping, growing wet, finding pleasure.
That's what Ethan had meant by betrayal, the moment where nature takes over and your own body reacts to the forced mati
ng like I was some kind of animal. A groan rolled over my lips, my eyes still wide and pleading, and as that sound left my mouth, as my muscles rippled over my rapist's cock, Ethan looked over with the steel focus of his emotionless eyes and locked them to mine. He smirked - the bastard SMIRKED - because he recognized the expression on my face, knew I was being forced toward an orgasm despite the screaming rage in my brain.
More fucked up than what was being done to me, the horrible degradation I was being made to suffer, was the stark, painful truth that Ethan watching me made me come harder.
It was an explosion inside me, a spark lighting a rolling inferno, and with my eyes locked to Ethan's, I opened my mouth on a guttural moan, the orgasm a tidal wave crashing until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.
How? How could my body betray me so thoroughly? Where could pleasure come from while being violated so completely.
"Oh, hell yes," the bastard inside me growled out, "fuck, baby, now I know you're liking this." His hips pumped harder, his breath beating faster, and as my orgasm slipped away into memory, tears trickled down my cheeks hot and hard.
I can't.
I can't live like this.
I can't go through this over and over.
But then I remembered what Ethan had told me before forcing me up those three rickety steps: I wasn't meant to walk away from this stage. My cold, dead body was intended to be carried.
Life or death. Pain and humiliation. I had a choice to make before my end finally came.
"Let's try this another way."
He ripped himself free of me, leaving me soaking and sore, and before I could react to the bit of freedom his movement had granted me, he flipped me over, bent me over the mattress and pressed the head of his cock to my ass.
