Carried Away

by Whitney Williams

  His hand was on me, bringing me quickly back to the desperate lust I had felt in the car. His other hand pulled the makeshift cord that drew my feet to my neck, opening me to him and locking my face into position because my outstretched arms let them go no further.

  The circumstances of a woman’s first sexual encounter can permanently color her feelings about sex and men in general for the rest of her life. The things that happened next might explain some of my more dangerous proclivities. I knew it would hurt, and it did, but somehow everything fit together. That pain was just the natural climax of the whole experience. I started writing because I want to share with you, truly I do, but this was different.

  I can’t tell you the details of that night. I won’t. The way it was, that is how I will always remember him. It is a gift he gave to me, and it is my very favorite thing. I’m keeping it all to myself.

  --Gretchen--

  Dear Diary,

  Everything is awful. I feel terrible. He refused. When someone uses the word “but” in telling you how he feels about you, it really doesn’t matter what he says before or after it. That was when I knew he wouldn’t, no matter what I did or said. I felt so helpless, and that only made me want him more! It isn’t fair!

  I don’t blame Henry for it. I want to, but it isn’t his fault. Maybe it is, but I still love him. He just doesn’t believe me. Maybe he does, but he won’t love me back. He says he does, but it’s not the same.

  Everything had gone so well! I wore the emerald pendant he gave me for my birthday and the dress I bought with the cash I had squirreled away. If he had seen the dress he would not have gone with me, even though I told him I couldn’t get a date. I didn’t even show it to Peggy because I couldn’t risk her telling him about it. She would have known. I thought it was soooo sexy, emerald green satin, completely backless and perfectly fit so it followed my figure from where it hung off the edges of my shoulders. I wore my hair up. Should I have worn it down? It wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing I do matters to him.

  I invited him in when we got home, but he politely declined. I wasn’t ready to give up. He never locks his door to the terrace, so I came around and looked in his window. He was standing still, right inside his door, looking down at his keys in his hand. I waited and waited, but he just stood there with his head bowed. I opened the terrace door silently, but even from so high up, the sounds of the city called his attention to me. His eyes snapped up to look at me, but his body remained still as a statue.

  I quietly stepped in through the door, closing it behind me, then out of my shoes. I couldn’t look him in the eye while I walked across the room to stand in front of him. He just stood there, immobile. I pushed the dress off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor. I felt scared, much more so than I thought I might. I was covering myself with my hands. I didn’t want him to think I was nervous so I brought my hands up behind my neck to undo the pendant, the only thing I still wore. As I reached over to set it on the credenza by the door, he dropped his keys.

  When they hit the floor he twitched like he was startled, like the sound had woken him up. His feet moved toward me, so I looked up at him. His face hadn’t changed, but his eyes stared straight into mine. I put my arms around his neck while his slid around my waist. He kissed me. I tried to follow his lead, but he drew away before I knew what was happening. Then he stooped and brought one arm up under my knees to lift me off the ground. I tugged apart his bowtie and kissed his neck while he carried me to his bed.

  He gently laid me down and pulled the covers over me. I looked up at him, my head and hands fallen back against his pillow, above his soft sheets. I wanted to reach out, to pull him to me, but he rested one hand on my chest, pinning me in place while he knelt at the bedside. He unlocked my eyes and cast his downward.

  After breathing deeply, he said my name and raised his eyes to mine again. The way he looked at me, the way he spoke, I felt like he was swearing an oath of honesty, that he was testifying to me. It made me want to say “I would never doubt you; I would never judge you,” but I said nothing. It made no sense. All I could do was listen helplessly while he condemned me.

  His first words were, “I have had this for myself, and so will you.” I knew from the way he drew his breath that it was too late. “I will not take it from you,” he said. He tried to tell me he loved me, I guess, but that he wanted me to figure things out on my own. Or something. I don’t really remember what he said other than “but.” It was terrible. I think I was crying while he spoke.

  When he stopped, I tried to tell him that I loved him, that I was certain, that I knew I wanted him and only him, that I was ready. All I could say was “Please.”

  He closed his eyes, shook his head, kissed me on the forehead and left. When I stopped crying, I went and peeked out the bedroom door to find him. The lights were still on in the living room. He stood right up in front of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the terrace with his hands in his pockets and his forehead pressed against the glass.

  I wanted more than anything to go to him. Instead I went back to his bed and tried to dream about him. If I did, I don’t remember it.

  -gg

  Chapter Three – An Artist and a Prop

  --Sally--

  I could tell through my eyelids that there was daylight leaking into the room. Had I slept through my alarm? With my slightest initial twitch, I discovered two more things wrong: I was nude, and the bed was way too soft. Those startled me enough that I began to rouse.

  It had been days since I slept, since I left home—no, not home. I didn’t belong there. I wouldn’t. Even with unexpected sensations that required investigation, it took me some time to emerge fully from that still and dreamless slumber normally reserved for the righteous and the dead. Things might have made more sense if it were all a dream, but I was sore enough to know immediately that it was not.

  I smelled French toast. How long had it been since I had eaten? It was not a time for counting.

  I sat up, folding back the covers to conceal the mess of the duvet. Seeing a used towel on the bathroom counter from my vantage, I went for it, a stocking still dangling loose from each wrist, my little souvenirs of the night before. I folded the towel around myself and held it while I sought that delicious smell. I liked the cold, damp towel. Sex does strange things to one’s mind. I found a large tray on the dining table in the other room, covered dishes, two carafes, a slender glass vase with a single long-stem rose in full bloom. I liked the rose more than the towel and reached out to it with both hands, gently lifting it to meet my nose halfway. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply. Right. Moving on. Food.

  I won the shell game on my first guess. I chewed as fast as I could, one hand hovering in front of my mouth with a half-eaten triangle of French toast, another triangle on approach in the hand that had moved aside the dish’s cover. Chew, chew, chew, swallow.

  While processing my second oversized bite, I noticed I was leaning over my breakfast, naked (save the stockings tied to my wrists), with food in each hand. Chew, chew, chew, calm down.

  I moved a chair approximately into position with my feet and descended toward it. I was unwilling to alter the flight plan of either morsel, but I finished off the first and licked my fingers. At least then I was half civilized, almost, sort of. My free hand began an inventory of the covered dishes, which proceeded slowly since I had to weave it around so as not to waste any powdered sugar on its dangling nylon. I had pastries, fruit, a little pitcher of syrup and another of cream. The latter probably went with the sugar cubes and one of the carafes. The other carafe was orange juice.

  My stomach intended for me to eat the entire spread, but that would not be possible, not by a wide margin. Polishing off my second piece of French toast, I sat down. OK.

  I picked at the knots on my wrists and then pulled them apart with my teeth, then I properly wrapped myself in my new favorite towel. Smoothing the towel like a ball gown, I sat again, disassembled the cute little napkin-s
wan, and took up utensils. Flicking a couple of locks from in front of my face to rest behind my ears, I felt I had achieved minimal composure.

  I was alone in the suite. The sky remained mostly overcast, but last night’s rain had stopped. I gently finished a reasonable (if perhaps generous) breakfast, mentally threatening the rest of the food that I would be back for it later. Then I explored the suite.

  It was all new to me, but if you’ve stayed at a luxury hotel, you know the drill. The advertising book told me I was in Hong Kong and wanted me to see the sights. His suits hung in a wardrobe in the bedroom with his suitcase stowed beneath them. I didn’t remember traveling with that many. I found my suitcase next, but it was empty, which explained where the suits came from but not where my things had gone.

  From that observation, I noticed I had been smuggled into a foreign country without a passport, without any identification at all for that matter. Things had worked out well so far, so hopefully that would not become a problem.

  My skirt was a total loss. I thought I could mend my blouse, but it looked like it had been fired from a pneumatic t-shirt launcher. I suppose it had accomplished its mission, earning itself a Purple Heart and a flag. So I had no clothes. I figured I could take one of his shirts, but it would fit me like a parachute.

  In the bathroom, I found enough travel accouterments to conduct my ablutions as well as a robe and slippers. I decided to clean myself up before upgrading to the robe.

  The bathroom had a huge claw-foot tub along its long wall with a small stool at one end and the best and second best seats in the house at the other. I had never seen a bidet before and thought it was funny to have two toilets right next to each other. There was no shower, rather the rise of brass plumbing on the far side of the tub included a sprayer. It hung like an antique telephone earpiece on a brass switch-hook, but I was pretty sure if you held it to your ear, you would only hear the ocean. It fit with the decor and the two sinks that rose like porcelain washbasins on top of the vanity, brass gooseneck faucets rising behind them. I like those, but you never see them in the States.

  I climbed into the tub, sat on its edge by the faucet and started dialing in a reasonable water temperature, setting my hotel soap on a little tray hung from the plumbing riser. The water pressure was ludicrous. I supposed it would need to be to fill that tub. Fortunately the mixing valves were separate from the faucet and sprayer cutoffs. I achieved quite a nice shower seated at the bottom of the tub. Finally, I stood up, bent down and ran the water through my hair to comb it out. That always relaxes me.

  “Good. You’re here,” I heard in a woman’s voice from the bathroom door. “I have three hours to make you presentable.”

  Quite startled, I crouched and turned my head sideways to look without reversing the progress I had made in organizing my hair. I assumed she was Chinese since we were in Hong Kong and I hadn’t met enough Japanese people at that point in my life to be able to tell the difference. She wore sensible shoes, comfortable jeans, a long-sleeved knit shirt, a low ponytail and the mildly annoying face of a woman who doesn’t even have to work at being beautiful. Her voice betrayed her own annoyance. She clearly did not expect three hours to be enough time.

  I quickly finished with my hair while she perched her briefcase on one of the sinks and pulled out a small cosmetics bag. I had turned off the water but had not climbed out of the tub when she stepped up with a bottle of acetone and some pads and said, “Hands.”

  I had put on a thick layer of red nail polish before I left, and it held up well. She quickly and un-gently removed it all, throwing pads aside as they were used. After it was all gone, she did the same thing again, pulling even harder on my fingernails. “Feet.”

  I put one foot up on the edge of the tub, steadying myself with one arm and holding the other across my chest instinctively. I had spent a lot of time on that nail polish. I suppose it had served its purpose too.

  After finishing my other foot, the woman turned back toward the vanity and pulled off her shirt. She folded it and set it neatly on top of her briefcase in such a smooth, fast motion that I only had one foot out of the tub when she turned around and pointed back into the tub. “No.”

  She sounded perfectly like a CNN anchor when she spoke her first words to me, so these monosyllabic commands were clearly born only of her impatience. She grabbed my head with handfuls of shampoo and started scrubbing. I’m kind of defensive about my hair, but I decided it best not to make her any angrier.

  I began working down the length of my hair, gently washing it. I could tell she did not approve of the way I was doing it but didn’t have time to educate me. Instead, she pulled down and wetted a washcloth, loaded it with my barely-used bar of soap, and kneaded it rapidly into a thick lather. Then she attacked. She scoured my skin fast and hard, sometimes painfully hard, knocking me down against the sides of the tub instead of steadying me with a hand. She worked so quickly and violently that I abandoned my hair washing and held both sides of the tub to try to stay upright.

  She was only slightly taller than me, with a more natural, slender build. Her breasts were smaller than mine, but they filled her plain, utilitarian brazier, trying to jiggle themselves free with the rapid movements of her arms. She didn’t look strong, but she was. She didn’t look angry either. Her face was perfectly blank, as if she were wearing a mask. She scrubbed everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE: behind ears, under chin, bridge of nose, eyelids, nape of neck, armpits, elbows, between fingers, sternum, ribcage… Ouch! So hard they ached and remained tender after she moved on. Navel, pelvis, cleft of thigh—I was sore from the night before and thankful that it seemed she would give my pubis a pass.

  That relief didn’t last long. After finishing the bottoms of my toes, she turned on the sprayer and pulled me toward her, bending me over the side of the tub. The water blasted so hard that it stung against my calves as she swung the nozzle around. She started with the most painful part, and I failed to stifle a scream.

  “Please, I…” I started but didn’t continue. I was certain she didn’t care. At least I had adjusted the water temperature already. I was certain she didn’t care about that either. I believe in personal hygiene, and I do take it to excess, but even I thought the fast and painful enema that followed went far overboard. She continued to hose me down, rinsing with that moving sting just as excessively as she had scrubbed. The water splattered everywhere: walls, ceiling, her torso, even the mirror across the room.

  After rinsing my hair, she cut the water and came up with a brush and towel. I expected that, so I was prepared. Mimicking her voice of command, I firmly said, “No; like this.” I stood up, bent down, reactivated the water cannon and held it at the base of my neck, blasting my hair forward, down into the tub. After only a slight pause, she snatched the sprayer and set about watering my hair to her own satisfaction. That was a relief. At least it wasn’t personal.

  I backed out of the tub, behind its long, sloping end, dragging my hair with me as she groomed down its length. As soon as I had enough balance to do so, I windmilled my torso around, putting a full turn in my hair to keep the column of it together.

  “Stop,” she barked. She was up at my head with the blaster again, working details, unconcerned not to be completely over the tub. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but she was holding my hair when she said, “Turn.”

  I did. She sprayed. “Turn.” I wheeled around again. I kept spinning on command while she wound my hair up onto my head.

  Finally, with a hand on my head, she dropped the sprayer into the tub, letting it thrash around like a decapitated snake, and stood, reaching around to her briefcase, which she somehow opened with one hand. I saw what looked like knitting needles as her hand flashed through my field of vision. My hair pulled hard from my scalp, then relaxed, and she released me. As I stood up, I could see in runs on the foggy mirror that she had tied my hair in an enormous, tight bun. I could never make it all stay up like that. I would need to ask her to teach me how she did
it, but not right then.

  Closing her briefcase, she said, “Come with me,” and walked out, briefcase chasing behind her.

  I didn’t expect we were headed to the sitting room for tea, so I hurriedly put on the hotel slippers, cut the water, snatched the robe and ran after her. Putting on the robe while running down the hall slowed me down, and she had already called an elevator when I caught up. She was standing in front of one of them as if she knew which would come first. Tying my terrycloth belt, I walked up next to her. She turned slightly to look at me, then looked back at the doors. Knowing what was good for them, they opened immediately.

  She moved fast. I would have called her walk unhurried but for the fact that I had to half-jog to keep up. Her driver opened the door for her, but she vectored around the car to the other side. She was in and had her door closed before he had closed mine. She spoke to the driver in the same tone she used for me but a different language. One of the wheels chirped as the car lurched suddenly into motion. The professional driver and luxury sedan both earned their pay. Sitting in the back seat, I would have called the drive unhurried but for occasional blurred flashes of passing scenery blinking in the windows as I glanced around. We moved fast.

  She sat back, determined to placidly wait out her impatience with our break-neck pace. Then she started speaking. To me, the word ‘talking’ implies some connection or interchange between two people. She was speaking, staring straight ahead.

  “Listen very carefully and follow my instructions. You have two responsibilities: stand still and look pretty. You will not speak unless I address you directly. If I do, you will address me as ‘Onee-san’ and answer as briefly as possible. When I give you a command, you will answer ‘Yes, Onee-san.’ You will not ask questions. Can you touch your toes?”

  “Easily, Onee-san.”

  “Good.” Question, answer, and response abutted flush together as if we were cross-articulating a single, uninterrupted voice. “I will show you how to bow, and you will bow every time I do, twice as low as I do. If someone hands you something, you will turn fully to face it before taking hold. You will stare at it intently and hold it exactly where you receive it until I take it from you. You will not move from where you stand without my instructions. If someone other than me speaks to you, bow as low as you can and stay down until you see his feet move away.”