Emily Taylor - The Slave Girl

by Vi Grim

  Bob was kind of beautiful, he was sleek and powerful. After watching him crush a goat in his coils and swallow it whole, Emily moved her nest from the corner of the living room to under the kitchen table, door shut and bolted!

  Three of Abdullah’s wives were cuddly; the other two skinny. Each had her own bedroom; her space, decorated to her tastes. They watched tele all day. There were TVs everywhere, each one tuned in to a different Arabic soap opera and turned up to maximum volume, as each wife, fighting for supremacy, tried to drown out the others.

  They ignored Emily, like she didn’t exist. All except Fazilah, the biggest wobbliest one; she still bossed Emily around as if she was her personal slave, but at least she did it nicely.

  Abdullah ate, he soaked in his Jacuzzi, he curled up in bed with his wives and played shoot-em up video games with the guards; all while talking on his cell phone, sometimes talking on two at once. He was so horrible; he was almost likeable.

  His wives called him Bubs, short for Bubbles. They said he was an old softy but he seemed like a grizzly bear to Emily. She wanted to imagine him as a big magic genie that lived in a lamp, but the image of a grizzly bear guarding his cave just wouldn’t go away.

  Sometimes the wives cooked, but normally they ate takeaways, McDonalds and KFC being Abdullah’s favourites. They spread them out around the naked lady and ate in a frenzy. Emily had any scraps that were left then posted the boxes out the hole. Even after just a few weeks in Abdullah’s dark hole, her skin went all pale and she was getting cuddly again.

  As well as being charlady, she was laundry girl. The washing machine didn’t work so she filled the bath up with soapy water and washed the clothes there, stomping up and down until her toes went wrinkly. She wrung the clothes out and hung them around the airless apartment to dry. Everything got damp and before long there was mould growing on the walls and ceilings that she had scrubbed clean when she arrived.

  Abdullah was not the only colourful resident in Alton Towers. It was a right den of iniquity. There was yelling and screaming, shouting and gunfights and occasionally someone fired a rocket at the building, making it shake and dislodging chunks of plaster from the ceiling.

  7.

  Coo, coo.

  Coo, coo.

  Emily was posting pizza crusts out the hole in the kitchen wall when she heard the flapping of wings and gentle cooing.

  Coo, coo,

  Coo, coo.

  They were doves, like pigeons with a bit of style. They had grey-brown feathers with a hint of pink that glistened different colours in the sunlight. Little black eyes regarded Emily suspiciously as they moved their heads from side to side, sizing her up.

  Friend or foe, friend or foe?

  She put some pizza crumbs on her hand and held it out, stead as.

  When the doves pecked her, she jumped. They flapped away, then were back again, edging close. Soon the crumbs were all gone and they flew away. Emily named them George and Mildred, like on tele.

  It was nice to have contact with the outside world.

  We’ll become friends. Then they can carry messages for me and save me then I’ll give them all the pizza they want, with anchovies and extra capers.

  If I can get out the hole, I’ll be free like them; sitting on a ledge thirteen floors up, but free.

  Emily chipped away at the rough hole, digging into the crumbing concrete with the kitchen knife and bending the rusty reinforcing wires back and forth until they got hot and broke off. She threw them out and waited for them to hit the rubbish pile far below.

  Thunk!

  8.

  Abdullah loved his Jacuzzi. He often spent all day soaking in it with his wives, watching videos on a huge flat screen TV while bubbles overflowed across the floor and out the door. He went in stark bullock naked. Emily had a peek to see if she could see his dangly bits. Big mistake, she wouldn’t look again...they were lost somewhere in the rolls of fat.

  His wives competed to avoid getting stuck in the Jacuzzi with him. They claimed they had bedsores or that it was the wrong time of the month, and hid in their rooms watching TV.

  Emily hated cleaning the Jacuzzi. The hot water leached fat out of Abdullah’s wobbly body. It floated in a greasy scum on the surface before gluing itself to the vomit-green sides. Nothing would move it, not even cream cleaner and scratchy pads; it just smeared around the place

  The wives gave Emily lessons in massage then she got to massage Abdullah’s hairy back. He demanded that she push harder so she made her fingers pointy and dug them in until he begged for mercy. He had a bad back and laid on his belly on one of the zebra skin rugs and she walked around on top of him while he groaned in pain and ecstasy. When she hit the spot that hurt, she gave it a little extra tweak with her heel and felt him squirm.

  She deflead the beds and spent hours delousing the wives, picking nits from their thick black hair, then painted their long fingernails bright red and their toenails orange and green.

  Emily wished she could wear her tent and scarf. In the desert they protected her from the sun’s rays and wind blown sand; here they would protect her from the grizzly.

  He was always putting a hand on her leg or pinching her bottom. Even when she was looking the other way, she could feel his eyes cutting through the thin fabric of her dress, like she wasn’t wearing anything. She tried to avoid him, taking the long way around the room or sidling along the wall to stay out of his reach.

  She had nightmares of him chasing her, around and around the apartment. She jumped over the sofas and ducked under the tables. She threw chairs and lamps at him, but he just kept coming and coming, like a robot. When he caught her, she woke up. She didn’t want to know what came next.

  9.

  There was always stuff coming and going from Abdullah’s apartment, usually at odd hours of the night. Often Emily woke up in the morning to find the living room piled high with cages full of snakes and lizards, heavy metal boxes of guns and ammunition, bags of flour, bales of sweet smelling herbs, or stacks of elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns.

  Usually the boxes were gone in a day or two, disappearing as quietly and mysteriously as they arrived. Not the TV sets. They blocked up the living room for days. Abdullah became grizzlier and grizzlier, yelling and screaming down his telephone, threatening to stick those TV sets where the sun didn’t shine. Then something happened and they had to get rid of them quickly. Suddenly everyone in Alton Towers had new 60” high definition TVs.

  Smash! Crash!

  Old TVs rained down on the rubbish heap.

  The guards smashed the old ones up but the bits wouldn’t fit through the rocket hole. They bashed and chipped at the concrete until they could post the mangled circuit boards and shattered plastic out through the gap.

  I’ll be able to squeeze through soon!

  10.

  Abdullah tossed Emily a book and grumbled, ‘Learn this, you need it.’

  It was Lady Penelope’s Book of Social Graces, from 1950. The pages were yellow and smelled musty.

  She made herself read it; she might just learn something that would give her the chance of a better life.

  Penelope and Emily didn’t get off to a good start.

  ‘Manners must govern the rigid rules of etiquette.’

  What is she on about?

  Reading on, Penelope said some sensible things:

  If you open it, close it.

  If you turn it on, turn it off.

  If you move it, put it back.

  If you borrow it, return it.

  If you break it, replace it.

  If you make a mess, clean it up.

  Don’t stick your nose in to other people’s business.

  Say ‘excuse me.’

  Hold doors open for people.

  No pointing.

  No talking loudly.

  Cover your nose and mouth when sneezing.

  Listen to what people have to say before putting your two-pence in. I should take note.

 
Use the Queen’s English. No vulgar language. I guess she means, speak proper and no swearing.

  No wearing vulgar clothes. My dress is a bit skimpy but there’s nothing vulgar about it.

  Penelope gave pointers on how to become a proper lady. Emily had to eat her takeaways with Penelope balanced on her head and no one could understand a word she said because she had got a mango stone in her mouth. Penelope used a plum but they only had bananas and mangos.

  After a few days Emily had had enough of Penelope and her etiquette. She wrote Help! Damsel in distress! Please rescue me! Emily Taylor, 13th Floor, Alton Towers, on the pages, carefully tore them out, folded them into darts and launched them out of the rocket hole. Some flew back and crashed into the building, others went for miles, playing in eddies and up drafts until Emily lost sight of them.

  If I’m going to be a sex slave, I need to learn about sex as well.

  It was probably what all the grunting and screaming was that came from Abdullah’s bedroom. Emily wasn’t sure if it sounded like they were enjoying themselves or not but when the grizzly came out looking all contended and wasn’t grumpy for the next five minutes she decided that it must be good.

  Emily wondered if Penelope had written a book about sex as well.

  11.

  Emily hated Abdullah’s penthouse but took pleasure in little things. She sneakily posted festering plates out through the rocket hole in the wall and heard them smash far below. She threw out Abdullah’s stinking leopard skin briefs and watched the dogs fight over them. It was so naughty!

  She left crumbs for the creature that lived in the sofa and spent hours waiting, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. He was much too sneaky, the crumbs went, but she never saw him.

  Horrible as the apartment was, Emily had memories of the desert and her family, and she had the stars. With steel shutters covering all the windows, the only glimpse she got of the outside world was through the rocket hole in the kitchen. Every night before she curled up in her nest under the table, she looked up at the stars and thought of her mum and dad, the little ones and Annie, and of Saleem and Zula, Ijju, Yuba and Sam and vowed to escape.

  Escape was not going to be easy. The door was bullet proof and bomb proof, and had three large locks to keep her in, and Abdullah’s enemies out. Two heavily armed guards guarded it day and night. There had to be another way out. She toyed with the idea of parachuting. A parachute was no problem; one of roly-poly wives’ dresses would do just fine. She decided to give it a go when the gap was big enough for her to squeeze out.

  12.

  The wives had been sent shopping. Something big was going down.

  All the guards were on duty, uniforms straight, standing alert and ready by the door.

  Sarge had stripes on his shoulders; that made him the boss. He was big and jolly. Emily could just picture him with babies bouncing on his tummy while he did big rumbling belly laughs. Then there was Clutch, the white one that looked like he’d been cut out of an army recruiting poster, tall with a crew cut, a straight nose and a strong chin with a dimple in the middle. Egghead was bald with gold rings in his ears, and there was a good looking one, with the shy smile. She didn’t know his name and couldn’t get up courage to ask. The guards lived downstairs on the twelfth floor. She wished she lived there too. Living on the thirteenth floor, she had a feeling that something bad was going to happen; probably her dying.

  A loud rap on the door sent Abdullah waddling off to the safety of his room.

  Thickset soldiers with black beanies and bushy beards were frisked down and their weapons taken off them before they could enter.

  Abdullah came out of hiding. ‘My friends from Kazakhstan welcome. Welcome to Sudan,’ he said, kissing them on each cheek and giving them a hug. Only a grizzly would be daft enough to kiss gorillas. They squirmed uncomfortably like Emily used to when her dad’s Great Aunt Dorothy hugged her. She was all camphor wood and mothballs, this lot smelled of death, doom and cheap aftershave.

  The gorillas were here for the missile. While Emily was busy in the kitchen making coffee, she could hear them running a click-o-meter over it and talking ranges and kilotons. She put a couple of extra spoons of sugar in; they looked like they needed sweetening.

  They had their coffee with the missile lying in front of them on the table. Their dirty fingerprints were all over it. Emily wanted to tell them off; she had spent ages polishing it until it gleamed! She didn’t; they looked too mean. No sense of humour this lot, none at all!

  One of them flicked open an attaché case full of bank notes.

  ‘How much is there?’ asked Abdullah.

  ‘Two million,’ grunted one of the Kazakhstanis.

  Abdullah laughed, then said, ‘Don’t waste my time. It’s worth ten times that.’

  ‘The cash is on the table. Take it or leave it.’

  Nodding his head towards Emily, Abdullah said, ‘It’ll buy you the girl but not the missile.’

  These guys are animals. They’ll make a snuff movie of some weirdo killing me.

  It was one of the things Emily had read about on the Internet when she looked up child slavery. She wished she hadn’t.

  ‘Emily Taylor,’ said Abdullah. ‘E-M-I-L-Y--T-A-Y-L-O-R.’

  Pictures of Emily, with her big innocent eyes popped up on their cell phones. They made a few phone calls, arguing in a funny language, then one of them counted money out of the suitcase onto the table.

  ‘One million,’ he said.

  Abdullah looked Emily up and down slowly then said, ‘She’s worth one and a half.’

  The Kazakhstani threw a few more bundles of notes on the table. ‘One point two. We’ll pay the rest when we get some return on our investment.’

  Abdullah laughed, ‘No deal!’

  The guards cocked their guns and showed the gorillas to the door.

  Emily heaved a sigh of relief.

  13.

  Abdullah was in a foul mood. He’d been arguing with his wives and they’d retreated to their rooms and locked the doors.

  ‘Massage me,’ he shouted, grabbing Emily’s ear and pulling her into his room. He locked the door and pulling off the sheet he was wearing, threw a bottle of massage oil at her.

  She sat on his wobbly bum rubbing the oil into his back.

  ‘Lower, lower,’ he demanded.

  She rubbed oil into his bottom.

  Gross!

  Suddenly he flipped her on her back and rubbed his rough hands up her legs.

  ‘Stop!’ she yelled, panicking.

  He didn’t. He pushed his hand under her dress.

  Ouch!

  Emily wriggled and squirmed but he was on top of her trying to force himself on her.

  ‘Stop it, stop it,’ she plead then there was burning pain and warm blood. She screamed. He pushed her head down. His willy poked her in the eye then it was in her mouth.

  Gross!

  She bit hard. He bellowed and jumped up. She rolled off the bed, found her feet and ran around the room screaming.

  There was a smash and the door flew open. The young guard, the smiley one, charged in and dived on the grizzly’s back. He hung on as Abdullah spun around, smashing into the wardrobe and shattering the mirror then there was a huge splash they tumbled into the Jacuzzi, smashing each other about like cave men.

  Emily ran out the door, dodging between the legs of the wives.

  Running into the kitchen, she slammed the door, locked it with the bolt and pushed the table up against it. There was yelling and shouting and gunfire. Bullet’s ripped through the wall and shattered the plates drying above the sink, sending shards of china raining down.

  That was horrible. I am out of here. One way or another, I’m gone!

  Using the kitchen stool, Emily smashed at the hole in the wall; a chunk of concrete fell away, then another. She squirmed through the hole and was out on the ledge.

  George and Mildred cooed and flew away.

  Emily scampered along the ledge to the co
rner, grabbed hold of some dangling wires and looked down. She was going to jump. She shuffled forward until she was teetering on the edge.

  Warm blood ran down her leg.

  Bastard!

  I’ll jump. I’ll be done with this world and he won’t get this million and a half.

  Win, win, for me!

  Come on girl. Be brave. Jump!

  She stood there savouring the moment. She was going to splatter herself all over the old fridges and cookers, thirteen floors down.

  She imagined she was jumping off the rocks with Annie, like she did in Spain

  She heard sirens. An ambulance pulled up in front of the building.

  If I jump hard enough, I can land on them. That’ll keep ‘em busy, patching me up!

  Bzzzzzzz...

  Ouch!

  She’d been stung! Again and again they stung her: on her leg, her arm, her face. Wasps were all over her, a swarm of them, buzzing in her eyes and ears and stinging her!

  She jumped about like a mad thing; swing her arms to chase them away. She fell over and was half over the edge hanging onto the wires. She wriggled and twisted but there was no escape, they were still there, stinging her; chasing her like the bullies, trying to push her over the edge.

  I’ll never give in to bullies. Never!

  No, I’m not going to jump! That’s taking the easy route. I’m going to escape and be back home with Mum and Dad, eating fish and chips in the rain.

  She was back on the ledge. She couldn’t see. She crawled back along until she found the rough edges of the hole, and wriggled through, landing face first on the kitchen floor.

  14.

  When she came to, her face was swollen and her body numb from stings and scratches. She had a splitting headache and couldn’t see properly. She tried to move but firm hands held her still. She hoped it wasn’t the grizzly. ‘What happened?’ she asked.