Chained Down

Chapter One

Sweat pouring out of his chunky body and his out of shape lungs feeling like they will explode, he slows down his pace and replaces the setting on the stationary bike back to zero. He looks around the gym at all the people trying their best to get in shape. What a waste of time he thinks to himself, over half of these people don’t want to be here. He can see it on their faces, pain mixed with misery drowning in sweat. Most are here only to be thin so they can fit in with the pretty people, the other half are here because someone in there boring lives said they were fat and need to take better care of themselves.

His none muscular legs start to burn again so he slows the bike down even more, he focuses on the music in his ears, playing a soundtrack for his workout, reminding himself not to stare at her. She is one row in front of him and four bikes to his right, the same one she has used for the past three weeks.

Her name is Michelle and she is 5’8” with brown hair down past her shoulders. Her tight spandex shorts show off sexy tanned and toned legs. Her black sports bra highlights her breasts above a tight six-pack stomach. The well defined muscles in her arms flex as she reaches up for her water bottle. She is built more like an iron man athlete than a body builder but her muscles show themselves plainly through her skin. She shows off the most beautiful smile he has ever seen, laughing at the sitcom that plays silently on the flat screen hanging from the ceiling. He is not obsessed with her; she just fits perfectly into his plan. His well thought out plan, he is very proud of his patience and research with this one. No mistakes or nerves getting in the way like the last two times. This time he is ready and can’t stop staring at her or the clock on his phone.

It’s 5:45 pm; she will continue her bike ride to nowhere for another five minutes, then shower, leave the gym by 6:25 and head to the grocery store three minutes down the street. He must finish his shower in time to follow her out to her car but not too soon where he is just wondering around the front of the gym when she walks by, can’t draw attention from anyone, especially Michelle.

He showers, dries himself off, gets dressed in shorts and a nice shirt, which for guys his age is a t-shirt that has been washed earlier in the week. He ties the strings on his new cross trainer shoes, grabs his bag, checks his watch and calmly walks out of the men’s locker room. He stops at the water fountain to get a quick drink and stall for Michelle to come out from the women’s locker room.

She struts out, freshly showered, wearing a blue t-shirt and faded jeans that highlight her legs and butt, showing the world she lives in the gym and takes care of herself. He stares at her butt as she glides away from him. He switches his eyes to his watch.

He walks up to the drink machine sitting across from the membership counter, opens the glass door, grabs a low carb high protein drink concoction that he can’t stand the taste of but he needs to play out his part of just an average guy at the gym. He sees Michelle through the glass door walking towards the exit. He begins to get nervous because she always gets her own carb drink before going to the grocery store. He starts to put his drink back in the cooler when she suddenly turns around and quickly heads right towards him.

“Hi,” she says to him.

“Hello,” he says nervously back to her.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” his heart in his throat. The woman he has been following for three weeks is about to make a big scene right here at the gym, in front of everyone. He will have to try and explain that he wasn’t following her to the gym or the grocery store. Did she see him at the grocery store too? He stands nervous in front of this hot girl just waiting for her to begin yelling at him.

“You are standing in front of the cooler blocking the whole thing; some of us would like to get our drinks so we can get out of here.”

“Oh, right, sorry. I couldn’t decide what flavor I wanted. Which do you like?”

“I like the blueberry and I’m married, so you don’t have a chance,” she says while getting her drink off the shelf, not looking at him.

“I wasn’t hitting on you,” he says to her back as she walks to the counter to pay for her drink. “You’re not my type anyway.”

I don’t date liars he thinks to himself. She isn’t married; she lives alone in a one bedroom apartment on the first floor, just eighteen minutes from here.

Jeremy pays for his drink, that he will throw in the trash, and walks to his car. He watches her across the parking lot getting into her little red Dodge dart. She bought it brand new a week ago.

“That went well,” he says to the steering wheel. “I wasn’t planning on her talking to me just yet, time for plan B.”

She drives off quickly; normally he would follow her to the grocery store and walk around pretending to shop as he watched her pick up things for her dinner. She is very predictable with her schedule, leaves the gym by 6:30; leaves the grocery store by 7:30; then home by 8:00. She will make dinner, watch some TV and then go to bed around 10:30. She reads to relax until 11:15 then its lights out until 6:30 in the morning and then she’s out the door by 7:45.





Chapter Two

Michelle pushes the basket around the store, she picked a good one this time, the wheels almost go straight with very little squeaking. She strolls down the produce aisle carefully picking the right things she needs for her grilled chicken salad. Lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, carrots, celery, which she likes to call water shaped like a stick because that’s basically what celery is, isn’t it? She wonders down the meat section. In no hurry at all, she has nowhere to be so what’s the rush? She picks up some fat free cheese and some Blue Cheese dressing, everybody picks Ranch and she doesn’t do what everybody does.

She walks down the magazine and book aisle looking for that one good book to jump out at her. Something good this time, not that predictable stuff she picked last time. She picks up the new Stephen King, reads the back, then picks up the new Lee Child and does the same. She holds both in her hands, deciding which story would be better tonight.

“I love me some Jack Reacher, Mr. Child, but I’m going with the King tonight. I’ll get yours next time, I promise,” she says to her semi-squeaky basket.

She stands in the checkout line with her eyes rolling at the stories featured on the front covers of the tabloid magazines. This celebrity divorced this one, this one’s cheating, she’s too fat, she’s too thin and he’s too much of a drunk. It’s all a bunch of made up garbage that the public can’t get enough of.

She puts the groceries and her new book in the trunk; gets in, closes the door and starts her new car. She puts in a CD and cranks the music to eleven with the peaceful sounds of Korn, her favorite band on the planet. She reaches in to her purse, pulls out the pack of cigarettes and lights one. She only has one a day, on her drive home from the grocery store. She’s proud that she kicked her pack a day habit.

Driving home she taps the steering wheel along to the beat, singing every word, “Scream at me again if you like; throw your hate at me with all your mite.” It’s as though Jonathan Davis, the lead singer, wrote the song ‘Clown’ just for her.

She carefully pulls her car into her reserved parking garage and shuts off the engine but the music is still rapidly thumping along. She gathers her things and pops the trunk. She opens the door, killing the music and her favorite song. With her cigarette of the day hanging from her lips she leans in to get her phone, can’t be without that damn phone more than two feet away or the world might stop spinning.

As she stands back up she feels the sharpest pain across the back of her head. Her body freezes. She watches helplessly as her cigarette falls slowly to the ground. She drops her purse and phone and reaches out with her right hand to hold the back of her head while her knees begin to buckle. She can feel herself falling to the ground but can’t make her hands go out in front of her to break her fall. Her eyes fix on the cigarette resting on the ground, still burning. Her first thought is that it’s a shame she can’t smoke the whole thing. She feels herself hit the ground, her head hitting the hardest on the polished concrete. She falls facing her car, she can see the tires and the cigarette is only inches from her face. She looks down towards her feet and sees someone standing behind her. She sees them from the knees down. Hairy legs so it must be a man. She focuses on his shoes, walking shoes or cross trainers. They look brand new, maybe worn a time or two. They are white with red stripes; she has seen them before, just recently actually. She remembers thinking that the person must be new to the gym or only wearing them to make people think he works out. As her eyes start to close and her head pounds with pain she keeps staring at those shoes.

“What did I do?” she mumbles to Mr. new shoes.





Chapter Three

Michelle quickly opens her eye, only the right one, the left is swollen shut. She stares at the ceiling, studying it, trying to figure out where she is and if she is still alive and dreaming or if this is real. She can taste blood in her mouth; the pain in her face is almost unbearable. Her lips feel swollen and she runs her tongue along them, tasting more blood and feels the cut across her bottom lip. She starts to gather her senses and feels an almost unbearable pain between her legs. She tries to move and sit up but her hands and feet are tied down, she is completely immobile. She turns her head to the right and sees that her wrist is secured with metal handcuffs attached to a chain that runs off the bed and down to the floor. She turns to her left and sees her left wrist is chained as well. She carefully picks up her head; she sees that both here feet are bound the same way. She sees that she is only wearing panties, lays her head back down on the bare mattress and stares at the ceiling once again.

The room is silent; her breathing is the only noise she can hear. She remembers getting out of her car and dropping her cigarette but after that it’s blank. The pain between her legs makes her think she was raped and the pain in her face tells her she was beaten during or before or after, she’s not sure what order things happened. She raises her head again and looks around the room. It’s large, one window to her right, a door to her left, probably to a small bathroom and another door leading out to a hallway, she guesses she is in the back bedroom of some ones house, but who’s? She looks to her left and sees white shoes with red stripes thrown on the floor. Mr. New shoes. Newspapers cover the wall above the shoes, not randomly put there but arranged like decoration, the way one would put up pictures in their living room to show off family and friends or a trip to exotic places around the world. She can barely see out of her right eye and can only read blurred words. Killer, Killing spree, Murder and Strikes Again are the only words printed in bold black letters she can read.

“Who in the hell has me and where the hell am I?” she says.

“I’ll explain it all in a little bit.”

She jumps at the voice and looks down past her feet to see a figure standing in the doorway.

“Who the hell are you? Why am I here? Unchain me asshole!” she screams.

“How rude of you, you don’t know me well enough to call me an asshole.” He says walking towards the bed.

“You, I saw you at the gym, you’re the asshole blocking the drink machine.”

“Sorry about that, I didn’t mean for us to meet before I got you here. I really just wanted to know what flavor you liked, I wasn’t hitting on you like you thought,” he says running his finger up her leg past her knee and stops at her panties.

“My face feels like you did some hitting on me.”

“That wasn’t me; it was the concrete when you fell, face first onto the ground. I hope it heals well, you’re very pretty Michelle.”

“How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“Look at the wall again, I’m famous. Newspapers, local news, they all talk about me and what I’ve been up too, don’t you keep up with the news Michelle?”

Her body tightens with disgust as he traces his index and middle fingers around her panties on the inside of her left leg. She tries to close them and keep her private part private but the chains are too tight, leaving her legs open and helpless to stop his fingers from intruding onto her body. She sees a smile creep onto his face as he watches her squirm around vulnerable to his touch. She looks back at the ceiling not wanting to watch this monster enjoy himself at her expense. She has no power in this situation and that makes her blood boil with anger but she decides that lashing out at him might excite him even more than the small bulge she saw in his red boxer briefs. She relaxes and decides to play his game.

“No and how do you know my name?”

“Your driver’s license was in your purse, sorry, I know that’s a sin a man should never commit but I went through it. I know you don’t like watching the news, you are more of a Discovery Channel kind of girl aren’t you?”

“What?”

“The Discovery Channel, you watch a lot of it, along with the History Channel and National Geographic as well. Good choices, I like those too, they have some killer shows.”

“You’ve been stalking me? You’re a crazy fucker, let me go or I’ll start screaming so the neighbors can hear me.”

“Scream all you want no one will hear you, we are on twenty acres of land in the middle of nowhere,” he says walking to the window opening the curtains letting the afternoon sunlight fill the bedroom.

Michelle picks up her head and looks through the glass of the window. She is on the first floor of this house and her window looks out across a field. As far as she can see there is nothing but green grass spotted with the occasional tree.

“What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?”

“Fun.”

“What.”

“Fun, I like bringing women here, have my way with them, until I get bored and then I dump them off so the police can find their bodies.”

“If you’re going to kill me then get it over with.”

“Slow down Michelle, you just got here. We have a lot to talk about and tons more games to play. Last night was just a warm up, something to break you in to what you will be dealing with over the next several days.”

“Several days, how long are you going to keep me chained up in here?”

“Until I say you can go but I don’t think you want to leave me Michelle.”

“You got that wrong asshole. I am going to leave here and you will be chained to the bed.”

“No Michelle, you got it wrong. When I decide the girls can leave it’s them who are dead, not me,” he says with a smile, runs his fingers across her panties, turns and leaves the room.

“Hey, come back here! I’m not done talking to you! Let me Go damn it! Let…Me…Go!” says Michelle shaking her whole body trying to free herself from the chains.







Chapter Four

Michelle stares senseless out the window, at the scene so far from her reach. She can only imagine the warmth of the sun, the smell of the grass, the trees and the clean air of country life. She has watched the sun fall and rise two times since she dropped her cigarette on the garage floor, she’d kill to finish that smoke right now.

She can see Mr. New shoes out of the corner of her eye. The swelling has gone down and the left one finally opened up. She can see the top of his head, going up and down, up and down. She tries to be still and not to make a sound. She doesn’t want him to think she enjoys any of the sex they have. He’ll be done in less than a minute; she begins to count backwards in her head. He is only good for a couple minutes, gets too excited with a chained up girl under his control she guesses. She finds that fact a little strange.

Mr. New shoes props himself up on his elbows, looks down at her and says, “You need to start making some noise sweetheart or I’m going to start thinking I’m no good.”

“You aren’t good asshole and I don’t enjoy any of it,” she says still looking at the cracked walls coming together in the corner of the room.

He grabs her chin and turns her face towards him, “Look at me bitch, you will start making some noise and at least act like you enjoy it or I will let you leave and you know what I mean by let you leave.”

“The sun has come up twice since you brought me here, it’s about to go down right now. That means tomorrow will be day three and all you have done is rape me three times a day and slap me around a little bit. I’m starting to think you’re all talk and don’t have the balls to kill me.”

“Don’t push me bitch, I like to take things slow, like a cat playing with a frightened mouse. Why rush this? I don’t have anywhere to be,” he says getting off the bed and walking out of the room.

She turns her head and watches him walk out of the room. He will be back in about an hour with a turkey sandwich and water, her only meal since she’s been chained to her bed of sexual deviance. She started thinking of it as her bed so she feels like she has some power or control in this room. She lets him come in and have sex with her, that’s how she must think of it to keep her sanity and self worth. He lets her up to use the bathroom when she asks but he chains her up like a prisoner on death row. Her feet chained together connected to a chain around her waist then chained to her wrists. Her chains allow her only baby steps to and from the bathroom, more humiliation for her and more fun for him.

She watches the sun set through her only portal to the outside world. She wonders what time it is exactly, probably around 8:30 or so, that’s the time the sun goes down in the summer months. The trees gently sway back and forth in the summer breeze. She imagines the temperature being around seventy five or so, her favorite, but she’s positive the breeze feels like a blow dryer on the skin and the temperature is closer to a hundred, at least Mr. New shoes keeps it cold in her room. This is her room not his.

As the sun fades away and the window turns dark she focuses on the ceiling again. The cracks and peeling white paint have become her friends. Someone she talks to letting them know her thoughts and fears about the monster that has her chained to her bed. The cracks run through the plaster like dry rivers through the desert. Branching off from one another leading this way and that way. Some end suddenly and some continue on all the across her room down to the bare walls. The empty walls with old style plaster, probably built in the ‘70’s. The room stays naked except one wall, just like her, naked except her panties which he has let her change into new ones every time she gets up to go to the bathroom. He doesn’t take them off when he has sex with her, he just moves them aside when he forces his way between her legs. That seems strange to her just like him lasting only minutes during sex. Why would he care if she is completely naked? Why let her keep panties on?

She says to the cracks in her ceiling, “I need to get the hell out of here and back to my life.”

Her life, what a wonderful ride that has been, growing up poor and standing quietly by as the rich spoiled brats rub it in her face that she has nothing. Teenage girls can be cruel, especially rich teenage girls who think they rule the world because their daddy buys them anything they want. What she realized at an early age is that the rich daddies bought their little angels all that crap just to keep them quiet and out of his way. Rich men have no time for children; they only father them to keep their trophy wives quiet while he screws around with his mistress of the month. Trophy wives turn a blind eye as long as the money keeps rolling in to provide them with the oversized house and the country club membership along with the occasional trip out of the country.

Michelle grinds her teeth at the thought of those girls, those little rich bitches that made her feel as worthless as scum on a forgotten pond, at the mercy of the wind and the waves pushing her helplessly across the water without a care as to which shore she is washed upon and left to die. She lies helplessly chained to her pond now but she won’t allow him to treat her like those bitches did, he will not break her and she will get her revenge just like she did to all those popular girls. Picking them off one by one and breaking them down, forcing them to feel the pain they caused her just because they got bored with their rich meaningless lives. They picked on her because it made them feel better about the attention their daddies didn’t give them.  She knew the rich teenage girls figured out pretty quickly that they didn’t mean all that much to their parents, just props to make them look like the all American family, the family that never spent time together and didn’t really know each other all that well.







Chapter Five

Without a sound, Michelle aims her eyes to the corner of her room while the sun inches down through the window. Another day closes as Mr. New shoes finishes his two minute marathon of sex, gets up off the bed and walks towards the door.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she says looking down her naked body past her spread legs.

“Ok, just a minute while I put some close on.”

This should be the last sex they have tonight, he’s only good for three a day then he gets really tired and wonders off to his part of the house and falls asleep. She must use this time to get what she wants out of him.

He comes back in dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, no new shoes this time, they haven’t moved from their spot against the wall. He methodically goes through the routine of locking one arm at a time with the new handcuffs and unlocking the chains that run under the bed. She lies still throughout this process, it only takes about six minutes, she’s had nothing better to do than count off in her head the time it takes him to accomplish things. He unlocks both legs and slowly slips off her panties and replaces them with new ones. The fresh cut on her lip and the bruises on her stomach remind her not to kick this time.

“Why do you do that? Why is it important that I wear new panties?”

He doesn’t acknowledge that she has said anything and finishes up switching out the chains. He helps her sit up and she stands up on her own, careful not to move to fast, laying down all day makes your balance hard to navigate the first few steps. She slowly baby steps into the bathroom while he sits silently on her bed and waits for her to finish up.

“I put a toothbrush and toothpaste on the counter for you,” he says gazing at the floor.

She looks at the counter at the toothbrush still in the package and the toothpaste still in the box. She recklessly opens them up and feverishly brushes away at her teeth. The coolness of the mint flavored toothpaste is refreshing to her dry mouth. She hadn’t brushed or bathed since he chained her down to her bed in her room. She spits the paste out in the sink, rinses with water from the tap and repeats the process one more time, trying to escape into something normal people do.

“What did I do to deserve this?” she says spitting the paste out in the sink then washing her mouth out with water and drinking a few gulps out of her hand.

“I just thought you needed it,” he says not taking his eyes off the concrete floor.

Her chains rattle as she baby steps out of her bathroom and into her bedroom. She stops at his trophy wall and starts to read the stories about her mystery capture. She quickly scans each one absorbing as much information as she can; she’s certain he will throw her down on her bed any second and chain her up for the night. She sees out of the corner of her eye that he is just sitting there with his hands folded in his lap, staring at the floor, like he’s embarrassed to look at her.

“So this is your ‘I love me’ wall?” she says turning towards him.

“My what?”

“I love me wall, it’s something military people call their wall of awards. They designate one wall in their home to brag to the world all the awards they have received. That’s about all the bragging they allow themselves, one wall, because when they look at it all they think about is all the people that didn’t come back to put up their own I love me wall”

“I didn’t know they did that, I haven’t been in too many military people’s houses. Have you?”

“No, not really, it’s just something I read about.” She says facing him. “Could I get something to eat, other than a turkey sandwich and water?”

“Sure, I guess that would be fine. My dinner is in the oven, it would be nice to have you join me.” He gets up and walks out of her room, leaving her standing their half naked with chains on.

She stands silently for a few seconds not sure exactly what to do, he’s never left her alone when she’s out of her bed. She slowly walks towards the door, one rattling chain baby step at a time. She keeps walking expecting him to run back in and put her back on her bed. She makes it past the door to her room and he hasn’t come back yet, she can hear him in the other part of the house. It sounds like he is in the kitchen getting pots and pans out of the cabinet.

She continues down the hall passing another bedroom door to her left. She stops and slowly looks around the door jam, half expecting to see another girl tied to her own bed. There is a bed but its empty and perfectly made, no one has slept in it for months. A window is across the bed from her and she scans the dresser that sits at the opposite side of the room. The dresser is dusty and she notices cob webs around the ceiling fan and the light. This room hasn’t been used in quite some time.

It would be too much of a cliché if this is his dead mother’s room.

She continues to baby step her way down the short hallway. She passes a bathroom on her right but no shower or bath tub in this one just a sink and a toilet, which looks to be unused as well.

She reaches the end of the hallway that connects to the living room on her left and a formal dining room on her right that is divided be a half wall, maybe four feet high. She turns more to her right, her eyes widen like saucers as she sees it, just standing there, taunting her like a kid in a candy store that just had four fillings installed in their swollen mouth and can’t eat anything.

The cream colored wooden front door is just a few feet away, the only thing between her and the outside world. Her heart races like she’s at the gym on her bike ride to nowhere. She turns her whole body to face it. Freedom is just on the other side and she is frozen like a marble statue. She can’t breathe; her muscles start to tighten in her stomach. She takes a few deep breathes to calm her nerves and take in what she is looking at. Freedom, but how can she make a run for it? She can’t run in her chains, she’d run for twenty minutes and only be a few yards away from the door. He would come after her and drag her back to her bedroom, never to let her out again. She can’t let her lust for freedom corrupt her mind; she must stay calm and continue to play the game. She’s sure it’s just a game, just to see what she will do wondering around his house. Her chains rattle as she jumps from the sound of his voice.

“Are you coming to dinner or are you just going to stand there looking at the front door?”

She turns her body towards the living room letting her eyes slowly lose sight of the door to freedom.

“I’m coming; it takes a little while to move around in my chains.”

She baby steps to the couch that sits with its back against the divider wall between the living room and the dining room; she puts her hand on the arm rest of the couch and takes in the view. This room looks well lived in; a flat screen sits on its stand next to the reddish brown brick fireplace. A dull black coffee table sits in front of the beige with blue strips couch, covered in newspapers covered by video game boxes. She sees the controller sitting on the couch; he must be in his twenties to be a gamer. Empty plastic bottles and cans fill the table as well; Dr. Pepper, Coke and different brands of energy drinks seem to be his beverage of choice. She expected to see beer bottles and cans litter the floor but none so far. A couple dirty plates surrounded by more discarded energy drinks sit on the floor in front of the couch.

Boys, they are too damn lazy to pick up after themselves, looks like I’m the only girl in this house of horrors.

On the other side of the fire place is a sliding glass door, more freedom out through the back as well. The sliding glass door is late ‘70’s style, like the plaster design in her bedroom. The walls are bare and the only furniture is the ugly couch, dull coffee table and the TV on its stand, even the dining room is empty.

Through the glass door she sees the unruly backyard, it’s fenced in with a falling down four foot high chain link, maybe a quarter acre, she’s not sure and she’s never been able to figure out the size of land. A few tall mature trees shade the yard from the brutal summer heat, she looks past them and through the heat waves that rise off the long greenish yellowish grass to the field beyond the fence. It seems to stretch to the ends of the earth with no civilization between her and the edge. She might make it to the fence before he calmly walks up and drags her back to her room in the house, filled with chains, sore muscles and no dinner.

She rattles her way through the living room and into the kitchen while Mr. New shoes is standing at the stove watching food cook in a pot on the stove.

“Have a seat,” he says pointing to the small table against the wall.

She baby steps over to the table, pulls a chair out and sits down. The cold chair makes her jump a little bit, her thin panties providing no comfort. She tries to rest her hands on the table but her chains are to short so she sets them in her lap. She finds herself thankful to him for allowing her to sit in a real chair and eat real food. She hopes it’s real food and not poison, is this the way he lets the girls leave? Act nice to them, feed them food laced with poison then dump their body in a ditch somewhere, free to start the games with a new toy.

“What are we having?” she nervously asks, trying to distract herself from the embarrassing sight of her sitting at the dinner table with nothing on but panties and chains.

“It’s a surprise, my specialty,” he says not looking at her.

She wrinkles her forehead trying to figure out why he’s being nice all the sudden and why he hasn’t looked her in the face all day. Even while he was having sex with her he didn’t look at her. She studies the bare wall trying to concentrate on counting down and he usually grabs her hair or face and makes her look at him but not today.

Is he bored with me and now he’s throwing me away?

“I’m sure it will be great. Anything is better than another turkey sandwich and water,” she says looking around the room, studying everything and putting it to memory as to where things are located in the house, like the door at the opposite end of the kitchen, leading to a pantry and another door she thinks leads to the garage and maybe his car, more freedom out that way.

“I’m sure you’re tired of those,” he smiles while stirring the food.

“Thanks for letting me brush my teeth, it’s been days and I’m sure my breath could gag a maggot.”

She sees his teeth as he smiles big at her joke. She sits and watches him pour the food from the pot into a bowl. She watches as he clumsily wonders around the kitchen, like he hasn’t cooked in here very much. He opens cabinet doors, looks inside then moves to another one until he finds what he’s looking for. He grabs two plates, walks over to the table and sets them out; he puts a fork next to each one on top of the napkins. He brings two glasses over to the table and sets them down.

“What do you want to drink?”

“Honestly, anything but water, maybe a coke.”

“What kind?”

“A Dr. Pepper would be great,” she answers, realizing that only people native to Texas ask what kind of Coke you want, he must be a local boy, therefore he would know his way around if she tried to run and hide, he would also know where to go, to hide out from the cops, if she ever made it to them.





Chapter Six

Michelle looks up at him with her best puppy dog eyes as he holds her chin with his thumb and index finger. He runs his fingers gently along her cheek and brushes her hair behind her shoulders. She looks down as he reaches into the pocket of his shorts and pulls out a key ring. He kneels down in front of her and unlocks the chain that keeps her hands close to her waist. He stands back up, returns the key ring to his pocket then sits in his chair. She raises her cuffed wrists above the table for the first time and turns to face the table and the spread of food displayed in front of them. She watches as he serves the food on her plate first, then his own.

“Chicken enchiladas with rice and beans,” he says.

“It looks amazing,” she replies, defiantly a native Texan. They love their Tex-Mex food.

They sit in silence as they both eat; he eats much slower than she does. She can’t help shovel the food in like a first phase recruit at Marine Corps boot camp; the flavors explode on her tongue like fire works on the Fourth of July and New Years Day all rolled into one.

“Thanks for letting me eat in here…” she trails off and quickly looks down at her plate.

“Letting me eat in here…what?”

“I was going to say your name but I realized I don’t know it.”

“What do you call me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You must have some name you call me, Asshole, Mother Fucker, Monster, something along those lines.”

She stares at him then looks down at her food and says, “Mr. New shoes.”

He leans back in his chair and lifts the glass of Dr. Pepper towards his mouth. “Why is that? I mean, I just figured it would be more demeaning to help you hate me.”

“That’s what I remember about you when I was laying on my garage floor about to pass out from the pain in my head.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Why, did all the other girls call you something else?”

“How’s the food?” he asks setting his glass back down on the table.

“It’s great, I love Tex-Mex, I could eat it all day every day,” she says not wanting to press the issue that he dodged the last question.

“I thought that after we eat you would like to take a shower then maybe watch a movie or something on the Discovery Channel.”

“I’d love a shower, some TV or a movie would be nice too. It gets pretty boring watching the ceiling in my bedroom, nothing but repeats,” she manages a little smile, for his benefit only. She isn’t letting her guard down or getting comfortable sharing a meal with the asshole that has raped her repeatedly for days. Just play the game.

“You think of it as your bedroom?”

She puts her fork down, tries not to appear nervous and says, “Well, yes, it just helps me get through everything I guess. I was just trying to cling to some sort of normalcy.”

“I find that interesting as well.”

“Why is that? I think it’s a normal thing for people to do in my situation, I’m sure the other girls did something similar.”

“Let’s get you into that hot shower.”