To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

A sudden, loud click near the bedroom door woke Katie from a light sleep. What she called her “friendly lights” had blinked out, leaving her bedroom in total darkness. The red, power lights on her television and DVD player plus the green glow of her bedside alarm clock always made her feel comforted, and now they all had disappeared.

Also gone was the soothing classical music that played throughout the night on the small stereo next to her bed. The only sound she heard was her nervous breathing. “Don’t be silly,” she whispered in the dark, trying to calm herself down. “It’s only another power failure.” She gasped at hearing another click, this one even closer to the bed. “Who’s there?” Her voice shaking in fright, she lied, “I’ve got a gun, so…” The rest of what she said became muffled when a damp, sweet-smelling cloth covered her nose and mouth.

* * *

Katie regained consciousness and tried to sit up, without success. Her body refused to obey, and she quickly discovered she no longer was lying in her own bed. With some effort, Katie was able to move her head from side to side. Instead of her warm and colorful bedroom, the 32-year-old woman found herself in the middle of a small, unadorned room. It appeared empty except for the long, steel slab she was lying on. The walls were a dull, gunmetal-gray with only a plain door a few feet away to her left. A fluorescent light hung down from the low ceiling. It cast its feeble light onto the slab, but left the rest of the room in darkness.

“Please, where am I?” she yelled, yet the question only came out as a faint whisper. Still unable to move, she began to notice the chill from the slab entering her body. Even her cotton pajamas did nothing to ward off the numbing cold that was leaching out her body heat. She slowly forced her head back toward her right. Another door she had not noticed at first was now wide open through which she caught a glimpse of a second room. Noises she could not recognize came through the doorway, and she watched a person cross back and forth in front of a light at the back of the room. All she saw was a dark shape and didn’t know if it belonged to a man or woman.

“Hello there!” she again called out, still unable to raise her voice above a whisper. By now the cold steel underneath her was making her shiver uncontrollably. When she began to cry, she automatically tried to move her hand up to brush away her tears. Surprised when she was able to lift her arm an inch off the table, she moved her other arm with the same, small success. Since she was concentrating on doing this, she failed to hear the person leave the second room. She froze in panic when she sensed someone standing behind her.

“My tasty bit, you really must lie still and be quiet.” Terrified, Katie heard the hoarse voice continue, “Silence will increase the pleasure for both of us.” She watched a large man slowly walk into view and stop by the left side of the slab, which was at the level of just below his waist. He held a pair of long, pinking shears that dripped something onto the floor. When he repeatedly opened and closed the blades, Katie heard the distinct clicking sound over and over.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Even as she asked these questions, she couldn’t stop staring in horror at her kidnapper. A thick belt went through wide loops of his grimy, brown trousers over which bulged his protruding stomach. From the waist up, he was naked with wiry, black hair covering his wide chest. Bringing her gaze up further, Katie immediately clamped her eyes shut tight. In that quick look, she had seen the unhealthy appearing face of a grossly overweight man who appeared to be in his late 50s. His shaggy hair hung around protruding ears, and Katie swore a bug peeked out of the filthy mat.

“I know I ain’t pretty, so you just keep them shut ‘til I tell you not to.” Katie decided to follow his instruction and wished she could also hold her nose. The rancid odor of his unwashed body came off the man in waves when he stepped closer to her, and Katie struggled to keep down the bile that threatened to fill her mouth.

She flinched when he leaned over her to push her long, blonde hair away from her face. When she felt his fingers tracing a path down her cheek, she couldn’t help herself and opened her eyes. She tried to pull back when she saw the expression on the man’s face. It reminded Katie of her younger sister when, at the age of six, she was given a kitten for Christmas. The man was grinning at her with the same look of excited anticipation.

Feeling his fingers getting close to her mouth, she tried to move her head away from them, but not fast enough. He roughly tangled one of his hands in her hair to hold her head still. With his other hand rapidly working the shears, Katie’s long hair fell in clumps down to the floor. He next leaned down and captured her lips with his before forcing his tongue into her mouth. For what seemed like hours to Katie and was probably only minutes, the man’s heavy chest held her pinned to the slab. The taste of whiskey and stale cigarettes along with his foul body odor made her unbearably nauseous. It took all her will power to keep from vomiting.

I can get through this, repeatedly went through her mind. She could hear the man grunting in pleasure as he orally ravaged her. Just pretend you’re somewhere else. This mantra failed to help, and Katie could only lie there and hope it would all be over soon. Between his chest weighing heavily on her body and the man’s thick tongue brutalizing the tender skin inside her mouth, she found it increasingly difficult to catch her breath.

She sobbed in relief when he eventually raised his head, but immediately realized her captor was just beginning. Her pajama top, which had a row of mother-of-pearl buttons down the front, proved no challenge to the man. After the sides of the opened top were spread apart, Katie felt the room’s cold air on her naked chest.

The man eagerly massaged and prodded first one breast and then the other until he saw the nipples harden. Satisfied, he moved further down the slab, all the while ignoring Katie’s frantic struggle to move her unresponsive body. Crying out in terror, she felt his hands yanking on the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms. When he pulled the cloth down to expose her down to her upper thighs, she unknowingly screamed out the sentence she had started in her bedroom so long ago. “…leave me alone.”

* * *

Katie found herself back in her bedroom lying fully clothed in her soft, warm bed. She heard a composition by Bach playing on the stereo and saw her “friendly lights” throughout the dark room. “It was all a nightmare,” she whispered. “A terrible dream, nothing more.” She gave a shaky laugh and decided to watch television since she no longer was sleepy.

As she reached to turn on the lamp next to her bed, her hand paused in midair at the sound of a loud click coming from across the room. The classical music stopped, and all her “friendly lights” blinked out at the same time.