LIKED - A Dark Romance Novel (Story of Dangerous Obsession and Lust) (8 page)

She heard a door slam against a wall in front of her. The cricket sound
changed as Jack led her inside and she felt the hard, slippery floor under her
feet. The air inside smelled stale and laced with dust. As her nose burned and
she fought the urge to sneeze with her mouth taped, she smelled an undertone of
oil which reminded her of the shed where her father stored the tractor mower
and the edgers along with other equipment. It did not have the pungent hint of
mowed grass she was used to smelling with the dirty oil.

The door gave a hollow slam behind her and the crickets were muffled
although their shrill twitters could still be heard through the walls of wherever
Jack had her. She suspected the crickets would be able to hear her screams, but
she wasn’t sure anyone else would.

He shuffled her sideways and her shoulder met the wall. Her bicep just
under the sleeve of her black tee shirt rested against the rough seam two
strips of fake wood paneling on the wall. The material buckled in about a half
inch and back out again from her weight. It reminded her of the finish work
done in basements that were completed in the seventies and then never updated
again.

A stiff light switch gave a loud crack and a light blazed on outlining
the shape of a doorway in front of her through the bag. Jack pulled her along.
She saw the shape of two figures enter the light in shadowy silhouette ahead of
her. Susan was with them.

One of the shapes dropped down to the floor in the bright room. Gia
started to let her knees bend, but Jack pulled her back. She could not feel his
breath through the bag, but she heard his voice close and low next to her ear.

“This is how it works, Gia,” he said. “Nothing is going to happen to you
as long as you do everything I say exactly as I say. Nod your head, if you
understand.”

The ends of his sentences echoed like they were in a room with hard tile.

It took her a beat to remember how to work her neck. She bobbed her head
up and down enough for him to see the motion even with the bag over her head.
The motion made her head throb and spin once she stopped. She hoped he did not
make her do it much more.

She could tell where his head was by the sound of his voice. She wanted
to drive her skull into the bridge of his nose. One of the stuntmen on one of
Gia’s early movies had told her about the physics of headbutts when he was
teaching her how to fake one for the camera. Both heads would hurt from the
impact, but the head that was stationary would hurt more and take more damage
than the head in motion. The ideal point of impact for the attacker was where
the side of the head began to curve up toward the scalp. That spot would
deliver the most result and damage to all sorts of vulnerable spots on the
opponent’s head and face. It was sort of throwing the head sideways and using
the weight of the body to drive into and through the target. Gia would not jerk
the impact back at the last moment the way she had for the camera.

Gia wanted to help get Susan free and she wanted to hurt Jack, but she
didn’t want to change Jack’s mind about hurting her now instead of later. She
was broken and exhausted. He had used a knife to cut the tape on her ankles and
probably still had it. She couldn’t see what was going on and did not know what
situation Susan was in on the floor either.

Now wasn’t the time.

Jack said, “Good. You are going to take a shower and wash the stink and
filth off of you. After you are done, Susan is going to shower. You are not
going to be left alone, but I’m not going to try anything because
you
are not going to try anything. If you decide to get sneaky or fighty, I hurt
Susan while you watch. If she tries anything stupid, you get hurt. So, you are
both going to be smart, you are going to take your turns taking showers, you
are going to take five minutes each, and then we are going to settle in for the
night since it is after midnight. I’m cutting the tape on your hands and then
I’m uncovering you face. Nothing stupid, remember. Susan is counting on you to
be smart.”

Gia waited in the silence that followed his last echoing word. The
crickets tried their best to scream through the walls at them. Gia wondered if
she should nod again even though he hadn’t asked her to. What if nodding when
he didn’t ask actually made him angry?

The knife blade felt cold up between the backs of her wrists in her
bonds. She sucked air in through her nose. He pulled the edge and snapped the
tape. She tried to work her hands free of the tape, but her arms would not
cooperate.

He peeled the tape away from her skin and she whimpered at the pain. Her
arms came around at her sides and her shoulders ached with a blistering
arthritic pain. She let out a long, deep groan inside her throat.

He pulled the bag off in one motion and the light stabbed into her eyes
and skull. She squeezed them shut, but then forced them back open watering no
longer wanting to be in the darkness.

***

The walls of the bathroom were grimy and scared through the aqua tile to
the plaster underneath. The mirror was smeared with white streaks and spots. The
sink was stained with what looked like three shades of beige paint.

Susan sat on the floor with her mouth taped and her hands behind her
back. Her ankles weren’t taped anymore. She had a strip of tape over her mouth
still. She was leaning against the wall between a toilet bowl full of blue
water and a bathtub with no curtain. The rings for the shower curtain still
hung from the rod above in clumps.

Jack took hold of the tape on Gia’s mouth and ripped it off. One side
pulled up easily, but the other side hurt her cheek. She worked her jaw open
and closed.

“I’m sorry about this, Susan,” Gia croaked.

Susan blinked several times and looked away.

Jack said, “Turn on the water and let it run. The pipes are old, so it
will take a moment to get all the muck and rust out of the shower water.”

Gia swallowed. “Where are we?”

Jack closed the toilet seat and sat down on it with his knee next to
Susan’s head. She turned her head away from Jack. He was still holding the
black handle of a dangerous looking silver bladed knife in both hands.

Gia turned and looked through the doorway toward the rest of the
building. The pitted concrete floor was painted burgundy-red. There were
streaks of old, dry carpet glue over the surface, but she could not make out
anything else from the light spilling out of the bathroom.

This is where I’m going to die, Gia thought. Maybe I can just make him do
it to me now instead of letting him enjoy torturing me first.

“I know what you are thinking,” Jack said. “If you run, Susan pays first
and then I will chase you down. Don’t do that to her, Gia. It’s your fault we
are all here.”

“Fuck you, Jack.”

“Maybe, but now it is time for a shower. Do as you are told, so that
Susan doesn’t have to pay for your stupidity.”

You don’t know what I’m thinking at all, Jack, she thought. When I run,
it will be right at you and I will hurt you as much as I can.

She held onto the wall to keep her balance and leaned in over the tub to
turn the water on. The handle screeched louder than the crickets. The pipes
knocked like a hammer inside the walls. The water dribbled from the corroded
showerhead at first and then sprayed out into the tub looking like mud. The pipes
whistled in an uneven, tuneless note. Despite the appearance of the water, she
felt the mist of it bouncing up off the base of the tub and she closed her
eyes.

“Get your clothes off,” he said. “We’re throwing those out and getting
clean ones.”

Gia hesitated.

“This is what I’m telling you to do, Gia, and this is what is going to
happen either the easy way or the hard way.”

Gia took a deep breath and fought her shirt up over head despite the
screaming pain in her shoulders from the crime of lifting her arms that high.
She dropped the shirt on the floor and whimpered. Gia had to hold the corner of
the wall to keep her balance through the weakness from the pain and the
dizziness as she stared down.

“Keep going,” Jack said. “I don’t want to be up all night.”

Gia gritted her teeth and saw red spots in the corner of her vision. “I’m
going as fast as I fucking can. You had me taped up in the back of a van for
two days. I barely have eaten anything. I’m sure I’m dehydrated. I’m covered in
my own half-dried piss. If you don’t want to be up all night, don’t kidnap women
and drive them all the way across the country, asshole.”

Jack whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Gia cut her eyes at Jack as she still held the wall in her jeans and bra.
“Then let us go.”

Jack looked down at Susan who glared up at him. He blinked and nodded to
himself before looking back at Gia. “I’m not letting you go. Get undressed as
fast as you are able and hose off for five minutes. The covered in piss problem
is the only one you get to solve tonight.”

Gia’s voice shook more than she wanted for the level of resolve she was
hoping to portray. She was frayed on every nerve from her journey. “If you are
going to kill me anyway, maybe we just get that over with instead of all this
nonsense.”

There was a pause as the water in the shower sputtered and sprayed out
steady and clear.

Susan shook her head and grunted as she stared up at Gia with eyes wide.
Gia felt a wave of guilt. Jack had warned her that if one of them misbehaved,
the other would suffer. She thought he might stab Susan to teach Gia to behave.
Her blood would be on Gia’s hands.

Jack licked his lips and said, “You don’t have to die, Gia, but you are
going to shower. Now.”

Gia looked away and unbuttoned her jeans. The skin around her waist was
sore and marked purple from the pressure of the denim. She felt like she was
peeling herself. The material pulled away slowly from her skin as she pushed
them down and had to force them past her thighs. She nearly fell as she bent
over, but held the wall and stepped out of the uncooperative jeans. Her shoes
and socks came off with them as she pulled her feet through.

She felt dirty not because she was being watched, but because stripping
down to her underwear reminded her of how dirty she really was. She had not wet
herself since before she was five and her father had yelled at her about it.
That had not helped her stop, but she had nearly dehydrated herself trying to.
She had ended up in the hospital for it and wet the bed in the hospital too.

Since her father left, she had not thought about him in much detail since
then. Her mother worked nights when Gia was still Gina and was a teen. So Gina
spent more time sneaking out and skipping school than she did sleeping at
night. Her mother caught her, but didn’t do much to her. She didn’t even yell
like dad used to do. She did warn Gina that something exactly like this would
happen to her, if she kept running out at night.

One night Gina had run out and kept going until she got to California.
She got word her mother had died in a car accident while Gia was working on her
first movie. She had not come back for the funeral. Neither had her father, she
heard. No one much called her about news from home after that as it was clear
she didn’t care. Gia was acting and Gina was dead along with her mother.

Gia hooked her thumbs in her dirty panties and pulled them down to her
ankles. She put her arms back behind her back and all she could think about was
being taped in the van. Her shoulders hurt until she shook.

Gia gave up and dropped her hands taking deep breaths. She was aware of
Jack and Susan watching over on and beside the toilet, but she wouldn’t look at
them. Gia reached up and slid the straps off her shoulders. She was going to
slide the bra down off her breasts and twist it around her ribs to unhook it in
the front, but Jack stood up.

Gia froze.

He walked away from Susan and stood behind Gia. She stared at the water
spraying into the tub and waited for whatever he was going to do. Jack reached
up behind her without saying anything and unhooked her bra. She let it fall off
her arms to the floor.

She almost said thank you, but then fought that urge back down. She
wasn’t going to thank him for any of this.

She waited for him to go back to sit down by Susan, but he stayed behind
her.

Gia stuck her hand in the water and felt the room temperature cold wash
over her skin. She started to adjust the heat up, but then she decided that the
cold was more refreshing. She had been hot in the van for days and she wanted
to wash away that feeling with cold.

She stepped in with her back to the water and braced one hand against the
tile wall as the cold water poured over her and splattered out onto the floor
for the lack of a curtain. The cold water burned her ass as it washed between
her cheeks and down her legs. She had started to get the equivalent of diaper
rash from the sweat and everything else apparently. She let the water wash
through and clear her despite the sting. Even though Jack was watching and she
felt exposed, Gia reached back with one hand and spread herself tilting her ass
directly into the spray.

She felt the pain and fatigue draining out of her muscles. Or maybe it
was settling in. Her body tried to revolt against the exquisite cold by
shivering. Goose flesh prickled up over her unshaved legs and across her body
with the raw sting of pain.

She stayed in the cold flow of water, but turned around to face it adding
a fresh shock to her body. Her nipples grew rock hard and she forced her face
into the water. It ran through her hair and blasted away the dry, crisp
stiffness. It washed over her nose and mouth giving her a couple seconds of
irrational panic as she felt like she was drowning.

She forced her face to stay in it. As she tilted her head from side to side,
she smelled the alkaline taint to the water from the old pipes. It rushed over
her lips and a little seeped into her mouth. She knew she should spit it out to
avoid whatever industrial poison might be resting in the pipes, but her
dehydrated body forced her to swallow. It tasted like dirt and metal.

The flavor was wildly familiar. It struck old memory so deeply that she
almost felt dizzy from it. It reminded her of home. At first she tried to think
of being in the shower back at the crappy apartment in Onion Town in LA, but it
was deeper back than that. She thought about drinking from the hose outside the
old house before her father left. She wondered if she was tasting Kentucky
water or what water that sat in a hose or pipes for too long tasted like everywhere.

She ran her hands over her skin front and back turning around in a
circle. She scratched at her hair under the water for a few seconds. Gia wanted
soap and shampoo, but Jack hadn’t offered it. With other smells washed away,
Gia was aware of the smell of her pits again. Water alone wasn’t taking care of
all of that. She wasn’t going to ask though.

Gia stepped one foot out of the tub.

Jack said, “You still have two minutes.”

Gia opened her eyes with one foot in the tub and one out. Jack was staring
at her from where he leaned against the sink. Susan was watching intently with
her mouth taped beside the toilet.

“I’m done,” Gia said.

“You are done when I say.” Jack shook his head. “In two minutes.”

She pulled her foot back into the tub and stood for a few more seconds.
Gia turned around and sat in the bottom of the tub with the water spraying over
her front and washing down under her toward the drain where it made profane
gurgling noises.

She felt herself drifting down into sleep despite it all and maybe
because of it.

Jack said, “Time’s up.”

Gia blinked her eyes open fighting against exhaustion and water splashing
her eyes. She fought to get to her feet. Jack reached out a hand to help, but
she refused it as she stepped out dripping onto the tile.

“Sit down,” Jack said. “The towels and new clothes are in the other room.
We will get to all of that when we are done in here.”

As Gia sat down naked on the tile, Jack pulled Susan to her feet. He
pulled the tape off Susan’s mouth and she groaned. Jack was holding the knife,
but Gia did not hear him cut any of her bonds.

Susan began stripping off her clothes and dropping them into the wet
floor beside Gia. Gia just stared down at the puddling water as she hugged her
knees into her chest.

“It is your fault we are here.” Susan spoke in a harsh whisper.

Gia agreed, but she did not like hearing in from Susan any more than she
liked hearing it from Jack. On this, they seemed to be of a like mind.

Jack stood over Gia and she stared at his black shoes.

Susan adjusted the water and Gia felt the warmth from the steam wafting
past her. It made her wish that she had gotten a hot shower instead. She felt a
temptation to ask if she could get in again with Susan. Gia couldn’t imagine
Jack or any guy saying no to that. She wasn’t sure how Susan would feel about
it after what she had said as soon as the tape came off.

Gia stared at Jack’s shoes with her back to Susan waiting for the five
minute shower to end.

***