The scream began as a tickle on the roof of her mouth, rose from her lungs, crashed out of her throat like a wave, and reached a crescendo so loud it deafened her. And then she screamed again. The sound was sharp, like shards of glass in her heart. Even when she stopped screaming, an inward, droning cry made her want to crawl out of her skin. The knowledge that he was there, that this was real, and worse than the most horrifying nightmare she’d ever had, gave her a violent kick of adrenaline that drove her out of her mind. A light came on, blinding her; she had to screw her eyes shut. For a brief instant she was looking at everything from above – her body curled up on a bed, his form in front of her, the way he sat down on a chair. But almost immediately she was drawn back into her brain, a thousand shattered thoughts.
Her first impulse was to scream again. Get up and punch him in the face. Bellow that he would never get away with this. But she couldn’t get her body to move.
She forced herself to take control of her brain, to stifle the panic; she took back control of her body and gave life to her muscles until she managed to turn her head away. She stared at the spiders’ webs hanging from the wall behind the bed.
‘Sofia, you’ve been awfully naughty,’ came his voice. ‘I hope you have something to say in your own defence.’
She closed her eyes and refused to speak.
‘You must answer when addressed. I suppose it’s best we lay out some rules for this little hovel.’
Suddenly she knew where she was. The mouldy smell and the draught – familiar impressions from the cellar of the manor house. She felt the bed sag as he sat down beside her. His thigh against her side. His cold hand closing around her wrist. He was so close now that the scent of his aftershave made her want to throw up.
He cupped her face in his hand and turned her head towards him. She squeezed her eyes shut like a disobedient child refusing to comply.
‘Look at me!’
She squeezed harder. Her body began to shake; her heart was pounding on her ribs. She had to regain control, but her whole nervous system seemed to be running on autopilot.
‘I want you to listen closely now, Sofia, because what I’m about to say is vital, whether you believe it or not. You are completely at my mercy. Perhaps you think someone will miss you, but that’s not the case. Mattias is travelling around Europe with a girl who is an exact copy of you. He’s using your email account to send plucky little messages to your family and friends now and then. Pictures of the Eiffel Tower and so forth. There is not a single bastard in the whole wide world who will miss you. If you want to get out of here, you will have to submit. You and I have a couple of things to work out.’
She opened her eyes but cast her eyes upward to stare at the ceiling. She did not want to allow him into her field of vision, to admit to herself that he was real.
His hand wandered up her arm, stopped at her shoulder, slid under her shirt, and grabbed her breast. He squeezed hard. The pain was unbearable. She opened her mouth but refused to scream. Slowly he let go. Her breast throbbed. His hands appeared around her throat like claws and suddenly there was no air. She grabbed the bedstead, trying to yank herself backwards, get away from him, but he leaned forward and pressed harder. A rattling sound came from her throat. Just then, he loosened his grip just enough that she could gasp for breath. But no more. She thought she was going to pass out and tried to twist away from him, but it was like she was caught in a vice. Tears sprang to her eyes. Her lungs were almost out of air. An explosion of light blinded her, but at the same instant he allowed her to draw another breath.
‘First you will tell me about when we first met,’ he said. ‘How horny it made you when I touched you. All your dirty fantasies about me. How wet you got when I pressed my hard cock against your back in the office. Do you remember that? And don’t think I don’t know. Mattias told me all about it. It’s all you think about, sex, isn’t it?’
‘You perverted bastard!’
She wanted to spit in his face, but the hand dug into her throat. In the weak light, his eyes were black as a coal mine.
‘Then you will submit, Sofia. Fully and completely. You will let me extinguish that brazen spark in your eyes with a good old leather strap. Just like all the other women I’ve ever wanted. And then, perhaps, we can discuss your conditions here. Because you will soon come to realize that this is where you belong. Maybe we’ll even work together again. Wouldn’t that be fun? Although you’ll have to work your way back up in the hierarchy again, of course. Start with the scut work until you beg and plead for me to take you back. And don’t bother screaming when the staff get back. No one will come down here.’
‘Then just strangle me,’ she rasped. ‘Get it over with.’
He laughed and let go of her neck. ‘Oh sweetie, you’ve always lived life in too big a hurry. This is going to be an important lesson for you, you’ll see.’
‘You will never get away with this, I’m going to fucking kill you…’ Her voice broke as a rattle came from her lungs.
‘Go ahead and try,’ he said. ‘It could be amusing.’
The bed creaked as he stood up. His steps echoed across the floor. There was a long moment of silence, but then his voice returned.
‘Now you’ve got something to think about. There’s food on the table over here.’
He turned out the light again.
The last thing she heard was a key turning in a lock.
She fell into a fit of coughing that made her gasp for breath. She filled her lungs with air, trying to breathe normally again. Her heart was pounding in her chest and thundering in her ears. For a long time, she lay on her back, still. Looking around the tiny room and running her fingers across the stiff, brand-new sheets and the knobbly blanket. She found it strange that she wasn’t paralysed with fear. But her brain was frantically searching for solutions.
Even in all her misery, she felt a faint sense of relief. He wouldn’t kill her right away. She had time. And if she could make use of this temporary clarity of mind, she would find a way to get out of there.
She sat up, realized she was barefoot, and put her feet on the cold concrete floor. Her legs held her as she stood up. She took in the room – it had served as a quarantine zone for those in the cult who got sick. The bunk beds had been crammed in so tight that they blocked out the light from the ceiling. It had smelled horrific, like sweaty feet and rotten herbs. But now the room was empty aside from the bed, a wardrobe, and a small table with a plastic-wrapped sandwich on top.
She walked over and opened the wardrobe. Hangers with dresses on them. Small. Her size. A drawer of underthings, all silk and lace. A pair of ballerina flats.
The bathroom on the other side of the room was clean, freshly scrubbed. A pair of towels, soap, shampoo, and a toothbrush. Beyond the bathroom was a small closet full of cleaning supplies and yard implements, but that was it. The door out was massive – and locked.
Something smelled sour. She sniffed her armpit and felt ill at the whiff of sweat. She went into the bathroom and found that there was no lock but decided to risk it. She pulled off her T-shirt and panties and tossed them in a pile on the floor. Turned on the shower and shivered until the water got warm. Then she turned it up as hot as she could stand and sank to the floor of the stall, still freezing despite the heat. Afterwards she wrapped herself in a towel and went back out to the room, wolfed down the sandwich, and drank a bottle of mineral water.
Have to make it through this.
The light of the setting sun stole through the cellar window. She sat on the bed and tried to stave off the panic that crept over her as darkness engulfed the room. Soon she walked over to the door and turned on the lights.
The staff’s voices were audible from out in the courtyard. She wanted to peer out, but the window was too high. She cried for help a few times, until her shouts unleashed another coughing fit.
Then it was quiet outside once more. She didn’t know what time it was; she’d taken off her watch back at Mattias’s, before her bath. Mattias. How the hell could I have been so stupid? The shame was so painful that she let out a whimper. It wasn’t as much the fact that she’d been so gullible, as that she hadn’t had even the slightest suspicion. Surely she should have noticed? But she hadn’t. And that could only mean that she was a dense, worthless loser. She thought of the emails he’d wanted to send from her computer, and felt so powerless and miserable that she wrapped her arms around her body and howled as she rocked herself.
Scenes from her life on the outside kept coming back to her. Each time she even got close to a memory of Benjamin, she felt a stab in the heart. Although she recalled every detail of his face, the crow’s feet around his eyes, his always half-open mouth, the way his freckles clustered, she couldn’t remember how all those details fit together. She couldn’t picture his face.
She lay there sleepless for a long time; although she was exhausted, she was wound up with fear. Her terror ripped and tore at her. The room seemed to shrink and blood began to thunder in her ears. Loneliness brooded in the corner of the cave-like space. Whispering to her, mocking her. She was sure she wouldn’t survive the night there, and tried to picture how it would all end.
He’s going to kill me. This is where I will die.