Chapter 3: The Shadow Man
They gagged us and tied our wrists up to a bar in the warehouse wall. Our voices came back to us but all you could hear were the muffled sobs against cloth. Once the men came from underground, they injected us with a sedative and we were hosed down. Little did they know, no amount of washing could rinse the dirty feeling from my skin
My body felt lethargic, like it had been fighting a world war on its own. The sedative took longer on me, and the bruises and cuts on my body showed the result of fighting back. I held my breath when I felt rough hands travel my skin. They blindfolded me and a couple other girls so that we had no resort to any senses. It was a form of punishment.
When I woke from the daze they put me under, I saw that a couple other girls were kicking and screaming. Hitting anything that came in front of them, demanding release by force. Except with the masked men surrounding each girl and the ratio being five to one. It was outnumbered. My vision was blurred but I could see that they strapped her against the ground and kicked her ribs with just the right amount of pressure so that a bruise bloomed, but one that would heal within the week.
I screamed and got up from my position in the floor. I yelled at the men to let her go and when their faces turned to me, I was momentarily grateful that their attention was away from her. It felt like I was on another dimension, with fatigue wracking my muscles and every nerve in my body telling me to sleep.
I went forward and a man caught my arms and shoved me upright. I threw a fist at his neck and pushed when I felt skin. I dug my nails into his neck and screamed. More men came toward me and threw me off the man. I fell to the ground only to get up a second later, combatting the sedative. I kicked another man with all my might and once they had me held down, I knew I lost.
I closed my eyes when they kicked me and blocked the air from my windpipe. I focused on the pain, thriving off it. Knowing that this would be my fate if I wasn't smarter. In a fight against power, the only thing you can do is outsmart the source. I wouldn't fight unnecessarily anymore.
So that's where I stood, when they took my limp body and hung me by my wrists with my toes touching the ground - I stopped any movement against. Never had I been more exposed in my life, my sight taken away but everything left to whoever wanted to see.
I heard a distant clashing sound and then a handful of light female voices crowded into the room. At first, my blood stilled at the thought of more women being brought in to be put in the situation I was. But then I heard the male voices instruct them to clean us and groom us.
My stomach turned over on itself. I couldn't stand to think that women would willingly keep quiet of the torture chamber and corruption that was under this roof... all for a job? My thoughts came to a head when I felt gentle hands touch my hipbone and trail down to my pubic hair. I silently prayed that this would be over soon, whatever comes next.
I heard water slosh and something being poured before feeling the cool sensation of sponge hit my naked body. Goosebumps travelled after the sponge and whoever was cleaning me tried soothing me by rubbing circles on my outer thighs. I wanted to grab her fingers and hold them to her heart, and scream. Heavens above, I wanted nothing more but to scream. Tell her that what she's doing is wrong and if women can't look out for other women - then the world would be flaming in riot.
The sponge left my skin and something light was put on my underarms. Feeling the foamy cream, I knew what was happening. As if it were called upon, the sharp metallic edge of a straight knife followed the cream and cut the hair underneath it.
I had always groomed myself at home, in the bath in a place of privacy. I cut my silver hair with a sharper knife and Locky would always get the back for me. It would end up being a chopped mess but she'd always tell me everything suited me. My sister had a heart made of gold in a city where everything was charcoal in comparison. Tears stained the blindfold as I grieved her and my mother. They would be worried sick by now, not knowing where I went or why I wasn't with them.
I would never run away like my father did. I prayed to every spirit out there that they would not think that low of me. A bittersweet feeling ran through me when I replayed the little memory I had of the man that seeded my mother and made up half of me. He left before any real love could settle in my heart, but the fondness of a father's touch was something snatched away from me when I was turning three years old. Hemlock had just been born, sometimes I envy her lack of recollection. It meant that she didn't know what she was missing. Couldn't possibly crave it.
I heard the soft voice whisper something about this being over soon enough before she spread the foam cream on my pubic hair and surrounding my sex. I thought how the first person to touch me down there besides me, is a complete stranger woman. One I would never know the name of, let alone the sight of.
I felt the sting of the blade as it cut along my skin, heard the blade dip against the water as she rinsed off my hair and the cream. Soon enough, there was no warmth left and I was even more bare than initially. I heard the women leave the warehouse and that familiar metal door stayed close for a while.
My arms turned numb, pins and needles spreading like wildfire across my body. I ached for the hard wood and stiff mattress of my bed. Never knowing comfort before it was taken away from me. I couldn't hear much of the other women, they kept as quiet as me. Perhaps, we all had the same idea. I thought about the she-boy and wished that he was doing well. He knew that something bad would happen, he knew as soon as we woke in the glass cage. He tried telling me with his eyes but I was too stubborn to face it.
I patterned the shuffling of the mens boots and my body stilled after hours of hearing the same rhythmic walking, the arrangement of steps stopped and shifted. The door was being opened and I felt the small warmth of sunlight hit my skin and lighten the darkness of my blindfold. A sharper staccato beat of footfalls entered, followed by a scuffling of feet.
This was a different type of walk, I thought. You could immediately tell a person of authority was in the room by the sound of how they walked.
I heard the exchange between what I assumed was the captain of the masked men and the new stranger that crossed the threshold into their captivity. The deep rumble of a laugh came from straight ahead and my heartbeat grew faster. Something was wrong, it was nearly palpable in the air. Wronger than it should be.
I heard the voice travel across the room and felt a singe of relief when the stranger started for the other end of the bar. As selfish as it was a thought, I was glad that he decided to start with the women farthest from me. My mind started working faster and faster as my body connected the feeling of fear to the recent voice. Recognizability oozed from the man's sighs of content as he made his way across the throng of women all lined up and exposed completely.
"You'll do well with this batch, Egerton," the voice hummed "Send note to Crogsworth to clear up some empty rooms. I can already foresee some of these beauties at the pleasure houses"
"Certainly, sir" the second voice rang, distinctly higher in pitch.
As he picked out some of the women, I could hear the clinks of the shackles coming loose. The women were being pulled to the side. "This one, how exotic," he whispered to who I assumed was Egerton.
"Perhaps to the Molly Houses, Sir?" Egerton replied "A cross dresser perhaps. Or a male impersonator..." I knew they were now talking about the she-boy. I'd like to think of him as a friend, and I hoped they chose nothing short of something that he could easily escape.
"No, unshackle this one... He might be useful yet"
That voice. There was something that I couldn't quite place, something known. Almost, familiar. I felt the voice trickle closer to where I was hung and like clockwork, my body tensed sending signal to my brain that there was danger close by.
A hot breath touched my skin when I knew he was standing in front of me. I felt him touch the ends of my hair and heard his calloused fingers scrape against it. My chest rose with unease as his finger slowly travelled down to my breast and his thumb lightly met my nipple. I flinched back and into the wall.
"This one," the voice rung like hard liquor and harder destruction. "Put this one in my carriage. I'll see that she goes straight with me."
"Master Henley, this one is volatile," the commanders voice came out. "Let me show you a more docile pet."
He tutted against the roof of his mouth and it felt like I was being doused in oil and grease. Something that couldn't rub off me unless I dug underneath my flesh and ripped out skin. That's when the realization hit me, and hell froze over.
A soft gasp escaped my mouth but couldn't make it out as the memory stirred back.
"Sleep now, little mouse"
The shadow man. It was him.
Comments (0)
See all