Willing Victim

by Carla Blake

  Rachel just had to be patient.

  In the lounge, Simon heard her groan and glancing towards the bedroom door, accurately surmised that Rachel was dreaming.

  His lip curled up in distaste. How typical, he thought, picking invisible fluff from the leg of his jogging bottoms. Here he was trying to figure out the best way to help her, and there she was snoring her head off and totally oblivious to what he was going through. The ungrateful little bitch.

  Disgruntled, he turned his attention back to the television and winced at the images on the silently, flickering screen. How could people do that, he swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. How could they debase themselves to that level and actually appear to enjoy it? It was disgusting! Nauseating! Offensive that he even had to watch such wretched stuff. Except there was no way he could stop now. He had to watch.

  It was imperative that he understood the enemy.

  Sighing and running a hand along the back of the sofa, Simon stared at the carpet and decided they would both have to go because he couldn’t live like this. The stench of vomit was still there, even after scrubbing until his hands were raw, and he couldn’t live in a place that smelt like a public lavatory, or the gents from the pub, and it simply wasn’t possible to clean anymore. His last bottle of disinfectant had been used on the bin Rachel had initially vomited in, shortly before he’d declared it unsalvageable and tossed it down the rubbish chute, but he could hardly do the same with the sofa and carpet. He’d have to get rid of them another way. Like setting fire to them.

  Reaching for the remote control, Simon froze the picture and then replaced the remote control in exactly the same spot he’d picked it up from. His hands shook as he did so - the programme had really upset his equilibrium - and he rubbed them together, his mind busy calculating the amount of fuel it would take to burn down an apartment. He imagined it wouldn’t be much. Whole houses burnt down with just the aid of a single cigarette and he had more than that sitting in the kitchen.

  It would be a cinch to set this place alight.

  Smiling, he turned his attention to the bedroom door and imagined he could see right through the wood.

  She was in there, he breathed. Tied to his bed. There was no escape and nowhere she could go.

  He wondered if it would be the smoke or the flames that got to her first?

  Rachel was still dreaming, except this time she wasn’t with Kate but down in the basement of the power company again, searching not for old and forgotten paperwork, but for an inflatable dingy. The water was coming, you see, Veronica had told her. Lots of water. Fat water, and they had to retrieve the dingy before the whole building flooded.

  Rachel had not been pleased. Let one of they guys get it, she’d protested. Someone with muscle, someone who wanted to be a hero. Except there were no guys, or anyone else come to that. Just her and Veronica and Veronica was too busy stuffing cats into filing cabinets to bother with fetching the dingy.

  And so she’d gone, the basement still cold and poorly lit, even in her dreams, and it had taken her no time at all to reach it. The transition from office to the double doors leading to the concrete corridor achieved in the blink of an eye, as pushing her way through them, Rachel suddenly found herself almost on top of the ‘squash court’. The wire netting, designed to stop the unwary from falling; torn away, leaving just a gaping hole, and at the bottom a single light fluttering like a candle.

  Her viewpoint then ‘shifted’ and suddenly she was standing at the bottom, looking up at a top that seemed impossibly far away. Someone called her name and she stiffened, afraid to look around in the semi darkness for fear of what she might see, but staring at the floor anyway, convinced that this was where the voice had come from.

  And there was Kate, looking dirty and disheveled and standing in a deep hole that had been dug in the middle. Her hands chained to the walls as she called Rachel’s name again and Rachel fell to her knees to try and reach her. Her own fingers suddenly clumsy and uncoordinated as she pulled uselessly at chains that held her lover whilst Kate pleaded with her to hurry and a deep rumble abruptly shook the building, shifting her dream perspective yet again and leaving her chained too, but not inside a well dug into the floor but upon a rocky shelf that enabled her to look directly down onto Kate, as water started to gush through the cracks in the walls and flow towards where Kate was trapped.

  She watched her drown. Helpless to do anything. The water filling the hole far too quickly as it soaked Kate’s legs, then chest and finally, her head. Her beautiful, brown eyes the last thing she saw as Kate went under, still begging with her not to let her drown.

  She screamed then, in her dream. Her mouth opening wide, one hand pulling frantically at the chain, the other scratching at the air as she woke to darkness in Simon’s bedroom, gasping and covered in sweat, her heart beating a frantic tattoo in her chest.

  “Bloody hell.” She whispered and ran a hand down her face, noticing for the first time how clammy and cold her skin was and reaching for the duvet that had fallen on the floor. Dismayed, she grabbed a pillow instead and clutched it to her breasts. Her eyes drawn instinctively to the window and to the safe haven of life outside. A life she was beginning to think she might never see again.

  “So when do you suggest we go?”

  Kate was on her tenth cup of coffee. A huge amount of caffeine that on any other day would have seen her so spaced out she would happily have agreed to any crack-pot scheme Polly was likely to come up with. Except today was different. Today she was still stone cold compos mentis and currently chewing her nails. Something she seemed to be doing more and more often these days.

  Watching her Polly felt grateful she’d decided to switch from coffee to tea, although to be fair, that hadn’t been without its pitfalls. The diuretic qualities of the tea had meant she’d been diving to the toilet every five minutes. A constant interruption that had severely hindered her ability to hang onto a decent thought long enough to formulate it into a plan.

  Now she picked up her tea cup again. Examining the last half inch of pale brown liquid inside before putting it down again and sighing. “Okay.” She said at last. “If you’re feeling the same way as me then I reckon you want to go right now..”

  “Too right I do!”

  “Except I don’t think that’s such a grand idea. If Simon does have Rachel, and it’s a big ‘if’, then I reckon he’s going to be looking out for us – or whoever - to turn up and try and rescue her. But if we wait till morning, then it’s more likely he’s going to think we’re not going to bother or that we haven’t twigged it’s him, and with a bit of luck we’ll be able to catch him on the hop.”

  “But what if he does have Rachel?” Kate argued. “He could be doing anything to her whilst we sit here doing nothing. We have to go now!”

  “No, Kate, we don’t. And it’s not because I don’t care about Rachel or don’t feel the need to go over there and rip his bloody head off, it’s just that we can’t take the risk. If we go round there now, banging on his door and shouting our mouths off he’s never going to let us in, and we might ruin the one and only chance we have of rescuing her.”

  “But we have to do something! What if we just go round there and take a look outside? We could see if his car is there. See if he’s at home.”

  “And what’s that going to achieve? No, Kate, we wait. Till he’s not expecting us.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake! I can’t stand this!”

  “I know sweetie. I’m not exactly enjoying it either. But you can see my point?”

  “I suppose. And alright! We’ll wait.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But only because you’ve finally admitted that you think Simon does have her?”

  Polly nodded. “Don’t you?” She asked.

  Rachel needed to pee. She’d felt this way for a while now, although she’d tried her best to ignore
it. Distracting herself with how she could escape and what she would wear at Simon’s trial as he was sent down for life and she and Kate waved at him as he was led away. And he had worked for a while. But now she couldn’t ignore the small, sharp needles of urgency that were stabbing at her bladder any longer and certain that if she didn’t go soon she would end up wetting the bed, she gritted her teeth and called for her tormentor.

  Simon didn’t appear. The bedroom door didn’t open and light did not spill in. Nor could she hear him pottering about in the lounge pretending to ignore her, and trying not to think that he may have fallen asleep on the sofa or wandered into the kitchen to fix himself a tasty, midnight snack or God forbid, gone out, she clasped her free hand between her legs and yelled his name at the top of her voice, glaring at the bedroom door as if the weight of her gaze would seer through the wood and drag him in. “Simon!” She yelled for a third time when he still didn’t respond. “I’m not kiddin! I’m desperate for a pee and unless you get in here right now I promise you I’m going to piss all over your fucking bed!”

  Simon flew into the room and back lit by a strange blue light that Rachel took a little while to recognize was coming from the television, he glared at her, then at the sheets, searching for the tell tale sign of urine.

  “Finally!” Rachel sighed, crossing her legs and pretending she was mere seconds away from reverting back to childhood. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Somewhere else.” Simon said coldly. “Got a problem with that?” And leaning over the bed he leant hard on her bladder.

  Rachel almost wet herself. Gasping with shock and clamping her legs together, she prevented her pee from seeping down her leg by sheer willpower alone as she bit on her lip and groaned with the effort. “Bastard!” She cried when finally she could speak. “You fucking’ bastard!”

  Simon smiled. “Just making sure you really wanted to go.” He sneered. “I can’t be running in here every five minutes just because you think you need the bathroom.”

  “Well, now you know. Soddin’ untie me !”

  Simon un-cuffed her and then pulling her to her feet, shoved her towards the en- suite bathroom.

  “And don’t think you’re gonna find anything in there to attack me with.” He added as she walked stiff legged towards the door. “Because you won’t. There’s nothing in there but empty shelves and a bath mat. All the sharp objects have been removed.”

  “I bet they have.” Rachel muttered, deciding then and there that if there was anything, anything in there that she could clobber Simon with, then she was damn well going to take it. “You think of everything.”

  The door closed behind her, but it didn’t lock. Simon had removed the bolt and now she was left with just a simple twist of the handle to protect her modesty.

  It didn’t seem enough. Not when she knew he was standing just outside and not when she was feeling vulnerable and exposed and incredibly self conscious as she squatted over the toilet and relieved herself, cringing at the amount of time it was taking her to go and at the amount of noise she was making.

  He also hadn’t been kidding about clearing out the bathroom. Everything was gone. The bathroom cabinet was empty of everything save a tube of toothpaste and a spare roll of toilet paper, and he’d left the door open to prove it. He’d also removed all the towels, preventing her from rolling one up and pistol whipping him with it, and just to make doubly sure she got the message, he’d even sellotaped the pull that snapped the light on and off to the ceiling, meaning it was well out of her reach.

  In fact all that was left was a bar of soap, which unless she intended to scrub him to death, was pretty darn useless.

  Simon knocked on the door. “Have you finished yet?” He asked in a snide voice. “ Or is there another mini Niagara to come?”

  Rachel blushed. Bastard, she thought. Why couldn’t you have just fucked off and left me to piss in peace instead of standing outside listening? I wasn’t bloody going anywhere. You’ve made sure of that!

  Flushing, Rachel then washed her hands, using plenty of soap. Simon’s obsession with cleanliness would ensure he checked her hands for possible germs and she know that if she was anything other than scrupulously clean, he would make her do it again and again until he was satisfied.

  Wiping her hands down her legs, she checked the bathroom cabinet, finding, just as she’d expected, that the toothpaste wasn’t hiding a secret razor blade and nor was the loo roll. There wasn’t even anything she could use to cover herself with, unless she fancied wrapping herself up like the Andrex puppy and feeling even more exposed than before, knowing that Simon had listened to her pee, she pushed open the door and with her hands still feeling damp stepped into the bedroom.

  Simon grabbed her arm the moment she emerged and ignoring her request for a towel to properly dry her hands with, he frog marched her into the lounge and forcing her to sit in her usual place on the sofa, produced a length of thick twine that he looped through the handcuff, secured to her wrist and then tied the other end to the leg of the sofa.

  That done, he finally threw her a towel to cover herself with.

  “Now we’re going to watch a bit of tele.” He said, as Rachel awkwardly wrapped the toweling rectangle around herself. “Won’t that be nice?”

  “Lovely.” Rachel replied caustically. “Will it be your usual channel or have we moved on from Children’s TV?”

  Simon smiled thinly. “Very funny.” He said without a trace of humour in his voice. “ But I guarantee you won’t be laughing after you’ve watched this. It’s positively disgusting!”

  It’s like you then, Rachel thought, rolling her eyes and wondering just how much disinfectant Simon had used in here. The room stank to high Heaven. The sharp odour easily overpowering the softer aroma of freshly laundered shirts or sea breeze or whatever artificial pong he usually had going in here and he’d moved the TV as well! A revelation that truly did startle her, because Simon never moved his furniture. Once a piece was in, it was in for life and on the single occasion when she had tried to move the coffee table three inches to the right in order to maximize the space around it, Simon had thrown a purple fit, demanding she never, ever do such a thing again and furiously pointing out the four little round dents in the carpet that the movement of the coffee table had left behind. Yet there they were. Four square indents where the tele had previously stood.

  She sincerely hoped it was driving him mad.

  In front of her, Simon pressed the ‘play’ button on the remote control and the TV flickered into life, the picture which up until now, had been reduced to a tiny, square screen saver, suddenly disappearing to show two women making love.

  A blonde and a brunette. The blonde busy kissing the brunette’s nipples, her lips full and soft looking as she sucked and nibbled, whilst the brunette squirming beneath her to the sounds of dire background music, raked her perfectly painted red fingernails up and down the blonde’s back.

  The blonde’s response was to kiss the brunette’s stomach. Her tongue flicking in and out of her naval as she traveled down to her almost non existent fluff and kissed her there. Then moving her fingers down to the brunette’s pussy, she parted her lips, affording the viewer an explicit look of pink, moist flesh, before dipping her finger into the juices and licking them clean.

  Tethered to the sofa, Rachel couldn’t believe what she was seeing, or at least, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing on Simon’s tele, because he never watched stuff like this! Documentaries were more his style. Serious, self contained programmes with no hint of surprise or, to her mind, entertainment. What he didn’t watch was x-rated filth like this and glancing over she noticed he was sitting bolt upright with a hand clasped over his mouth, looking as though he was about to undo all his good work with the disinfectant.

  “Christ!” He grumbled, when he caught her looking. “How can you do that to each other? It’s horrible.!”
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  “You think?” Rachel smiled. “I don’t think those two would agree. They look like they’re really enjoying it.”

  The brunette certainly was. The blonde now had her finger firmly wedged in the brunette’s vagina and was screwing her forcefully, her other hand playing with the brunette’s nipples whilst the brunette played with her own clit and rubbed herself off, repeatedly moaning as the blonde fucked her hard and encouraged her to come.

  Simon nearly threw up. In fact he went so far as to search for the bin until he remembered he’d thrown it out, and then he sat with his arms folded over his stomach, his face set rigid and his nostrils flaring.

  Rachel shook her head. “For fuck’s sake!” She said, scornfully, watching him swallowing hard. “What is it with you? They’re only fucking for God’s sake! If that was a bloke with his finger inside her cunt you’d be yelling at him to give it to her hard.”

  Simon grabbed her by the throat.

  “It’s filth!” He cried, spitting into her face. “Disgusting filth! You lot! You think you’re too good for the likes of us don’t you? You think what you’ve got down there is so bloody precious no bloke deserves to have it! Well let me tell you this, by the time I’ve finished with you no one will want it. Not me, not your precious, fuckin’ Kate. No one!”

  Shaking her, he then let go of her throat and whilst Rachel struggled to catch her breath, Simon rolled her over and then sat with his hand clamped to the back of her head. “ Move.” He said, “ and I’ll break your fuckin’ legs.”

  Rachel whimpered. “Please Simon.” She gasped, her face buried in the cushions. “ You don’t have to do this. I know you don’t like gays and I’m sorry if I offended you, or.. or made you feel ill, but you have to stop. Hurting me isn’t going to make things better. You’ll only…”

  “What? Make things worse?”

  Rachel nodded, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

  “And how exactly could I possibly make things any worse?” Simon sneered. “When everything I own feels like its been contaminated?”