Freeing Lana (2 page)

Welcomed?

Yes, welcomed.

The razor hit the basin
with a light splash, sending several drops of cool water into the air and onto
her side. He was finished. She had wandered into a daydream and had not
realized it until she heard the splash. He removed the washcloth from her
forehead and leaned in close to her face. She could smell his cologne, Drakar,
and she could feel his breath as he hovered slightly above her.

“You did well,” he
whispered.

She felt a slight shift
on the bed again as he repositioned his weight and leaned away from her face.
Then, ever so lightly, more gently than any man had ever touched her before,
she felt his finger on her skin, just below her pussy lips, where they joined
together to form the opening to her soul. Slowly, torturously slowly, he slid
it gently upward, barely grazing each side, and eventually gliding just over
her clit.

Dear
God!

Then his touch was gone
and he got up from the bed. Leaning down toward her face again, he removed the
duct tape from her mouth and walked across the room. She had not realized it,
but she had been holding her breath, and only after she heard him leave the
room and close the door, did she release it.

The smell of his
cologne lingered in her nose and the wetness remained on her now cleanly shaven
skin, but there was something else. She didn’t want to admit it, even to
herself, but
a wetness
from another source was present
as well. She had begun to enjoy that somehow, and it pained her to accept it.
It wasn’t right, not even close. Hell, it was sexual assault to be perfectly
blunt, but when he had said she did
good
, when he had
let her know he was pleased, a part of her had been wanting, no needing to hear
it.

“Oh, Christ, where am
I?”

CHAPTER
TWO

Sergio was late for
work, again, but it mattered little to him. He could have been a few minutes
earlier, though still late enough, but he had stood at the time clock longer
than usual. She was not at work again and he was beginning to worry. It wasn’t
like Lana to miss work, especially without even calling. He had talked with the
night manager, Ron Allen, but that had been fruitless.

Ron was known
less-than-affectionately around the store as the Blue Lagoon, partly because he
always wore the same damn blue suit, not the attractive sort of blue as in the
waters of a remote lagoon, but a pale, almost sickening blue. They sold better
clothes even at Wholesale Warehouse where they worked, but no, he had
apparently picked this one up at an estate sale from someone who hadn’t worn it
since the 70’s. He probably didn’t even realize how bad he made the store look
with his attire.

The second reason for
his nickname was the stain, the big stain on the front of the suit, not the
back, not under an arm, but right in the goddamn front. Christ on a cracker,
anyone who bothered to look in a fucking mirror could have seen it, especially
with those coke bottle glasses Ron wore.

“She must have found
another job,” Ron had told him the night before, when Sergio had asked if Lana
had called in. “It happens all the time.”

Idiot.
Lana didn’t find another job; she would have told him. They had talked before
about leaving the Hoe Sale Whorehouse, as the employees called it when none of
the bosses were around, but neither had been able to find anything which paid
anything more than what they were making there. If either of them had, they would
have told the other; they were friends, and friends did not let friends stay in
hell. That would just be rude.

After eventually
swiping his own time card, content he had not missed something, anything on
hers which might tell him she had in fact come to work, Sergio walked across
the large room to the men’s department where he worked. Of course, he took the
long way, as he always did. He usually walked this way to see her, maybe even
chat for a minute or two, but he walked by the food testers’ table this time,
hoping she was there. He was getting worried.

Sergio Marsili had a
secret. He was in love with Lana Martin, and her absence was driving him almost
as insane as her presence usually did. She didn’t know, of course, but he woke
each morning with a need to see her, to hear her voice, her laugh. He had
almost told her once, but the fear of being rejected had stopped him. What if
she had freaked out and never talked to him again, or worse, what if she had
laughed? It would have killed him.

Then there was the
night at Simple Slim’s Saloon. A group of them from work had gone to have
drinks and he had gotten really drunk, too drunk. He had almost tried to kiss
her. A waitress had saved him from sure embarrassment. After ten minutes in the
men’s room, staring at the mirror trying to work up the courage, he had walked
back to the island bar in the middle of the room where they were all at.

Everyone else had been
on the dance floor, leaving her alone. It was as if the gods had held a meeting
and all agreed this was the night. He walked up behind her, intending to turn
her around and kiss her, never even giving her the opportunity to stop him. She
had no idea how beautiful she was, or how badly he wanted to run his fingers
through her curly hair look deeply into her eyes and taste her lips. This was
the night. The alcohol had convinced him it was ok, and that she would want him
too. Maybe she felt the same way and was just waiting for him to make a move.

But the waitress had
tripped just as he had walked up behind her, and Lana, his dear sweet Lana had
rushed over to help her up, and the moment passed. His courage disappeared
amidst the commotion and he had never found it again. And now, he was expected
to concern himself with a sale on butt-ugly ties? Not likely.

Of course, he rarely
gave the store the attention which might have been expected when she was there
anyway. Instead, he usually spent his shift trying to come up with reasons to
go by her department. He would even grab some of the wooden toothpicks she used
to give customers samples, even digging them out of the trash can when
necessary on occasions when she was busy with a customer, only to bring them
back later, making up some shit about he found them on the floor in his
department, anything to talk to her. But now, she wasn’t there, and it was
worse than anything he could imagine.

He had to get out of
there; he couldn’t think. Hell, he couldn’t
fucking
breathe. His Blueness would just have to find someone else to cover for him. He
was undoubtedly going to throw a fit about it, since they were already
shorthanded, but Sergio didn’t care about what Ron thought or said, not now
especially. If Ron was any kind of manager at all, he would have shut the store
down and made everyone spend their eight hours looking for Lana, but he was a
clown, a useless fucking clown. Sergio didn’t have time for clowns, not with
Lana gone, and he sure as hell didn’t have time for Goddamn ties.

CHAPTER
THREE

The constant grinding
of metal on metal had been annoying, but at least she knew she did not have to
worry about him coming into the room and catching her, but then it stopped. She
stopped moving and lay there quietly, listening. If he had heard her moving
around from the other room, he would be in there quickly. It still surprised
her she hadn’t seen him sooner, but he was cooking; she could hear the pans
rattling occasionally and even behind her locked door, she could smell bacon.
Goddamn it smelled good. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.

It had been pure torture
as she had waited earlier, but she didn’t want to risk getting started and have
him walk in at a bad time, while she was trying to get free. That would be a
shit storm she didn’t want to get caught out in.

And me without my umbrella.

Shut up.

She had waited until
she had heard him making all the noise in the kitchen, and had convinced
herself she might be able to get free in time to… well, to do something,
anything. If she could get free, she might be able to surprise him enough when
he came in to get away. And once she was able to get the blindfold off, she
might even be able to find something in the room which would pass as a weapon
of some sort.

But when she heard the
footsteps coming toward the door, she knew she was in trouble, but the point of
no return had already been breached. She couldn’t stop, not now. She pulled
feverishly at the restraints binding her hands but they wouldn’t budge. With
one leg loose, she was able to twist her body somewhat, allowing more leverage,
so she pulled with everything she had against whatever held her remaining foot
and thought she felt it giving. It hurt like hell, but she still held no doubt
she would feel much worse if she was unable to escape. Had she really allowed
herself to see kindness in his voice the day before? Perhaps, but she still was
not going to make the mistake of trusting her life to that moment of weakness.

When she heard the lock
on the door release, she was at a most pivotal point, her hips twisted against
the binding on her ankle and her hands grasping the edges of the bed. Goddamn
it, why hadn’t he tied her hands behind her head, to the headboard like a
normal fucker. It would have allowed more leverage, as she could have pulled
with her arms as well as her hips. But no, he had them tied beside her, and if
anything, it was working against her as she tried to free her other foot.

She had first tried to
free her hands, but had found nothing remotely resembling any sort of success.
Whatever held her was wrapped around her wrist in a way that when she pulled on
it, it tightened, like a noose, or a slip knot. The way she saw it, her only
hope had been to free her legs first, then she would be able to pull her feet
up under her body, allowing her to possibly reach one of the restraints with
her mouth. It didn’t feel like leather or metal, so her thinking was that it
was a cloth of some sort. A secondary hope had been if she could get her feet
free, perhaps she could get one of them between her hand and the place the
restraint was tied. It would hurt like hell, might even break her wrist, but
with enough leverage, she might be able to free a hand, and that meant
everything; it meant freedom. She had to try; she had to get out of…

“What the fuck!”

She had forgotten the
door in her hysterical attempt to free her other foot, and never heard it open.
She jumped when he shouted, but all she could do was continue her efforts. The
way she saw it, she would never be allowed to get this close to freedom again,
so it was now or never. She felt a sharp pain in her ankle and felt what she
believed to be the restraint giving. She pulled harder, twisting her hips at
the same time, jerking violently against what held her.

“What the fuck are you
doing?!”

This too went
unanswered as she continued her struggle more ferociously than before. She had
heard him, she knew he was already in the room, but she was not about to give
up now, not so close to freedom. The wetness on her ankle told her she was
bleeding, and this allowed even more hope to seep in as she reasoned it would help
her efforts, making her ankle slide through more easily. So, she pulled harder.
So focused were her efforts, she never heard him crossing the floor. Somewhere
in her mind, she knew he had to be near by now, but nothing mattered but
getting her foot free.

The glass shattered on
the wall above her head and rained down her, mixed with something hot and wet.
She froze as she realized he had thrown something at her, but her paralysis
would not be permanent. When she felt his hands on her hip, pulling her fully
back onto her back, she grabbed the momentum and used it, swinging her free
foot blindly above her hip and connecting solidly against the side of what felt
like his ribs.

“You fucking bitch,” he
growled, stepping far enough away from her that her continued kicks found
nothing but air. But she kicked just the same. If he got close enough, she
wanted him to pay. But he had moved up the bed closer to her head and she was
not even close to him as she continued to kick wildly.

He might have expected
her to stop when he slapped her hard across the face, but it only infuriated
her more, and she kicked harder still. A second slap was enough to snap her
back into a more subdued state, causing the tears which had begun to flow out
of anger to flow harder as pain was added to the mix. But she stopped kicking
now, her efforts switched from escape to retreat, as she did the best she could
to curl up in defense. She sobbed openly, too spent to struggle with any
conviction, as he returned her foot to its formerly unmoving place and secured
it tighter than before.

“What do you want from
me?” she managed, though it was barely discernable through her weeping.

“What do I want?” His
voice had lowered, and though she could hear he was trying to mask his anger,
it was still there. “For starters, it would be nice if you would show just the
slightest appreciation.”

“What?” she managed.

Had she heard him
right?
Appreciation?
She was about to say more but was
unable, as he shoved something forcefully over, and into her mouth. She tried
to turn her head, but he grabbed her hair tightly and forced the back of her
head deep into the pillow below her, holding it in place, all the while hitting
her mouth painfully with handfuls of what she was certain was what had been on
the plate he had thrown at her earlier. Little was making its way into her
mouth, but the force of his hand hitting her hurt like hell. She could feel her
lips swelling and was completely convinced they were bleeding. She struggled to
speak, to plead with him, but was unable to get any words out between the
attacks.