He sat for a long time on the side of his luxurious bed. His weight sank into his spot of sheets and mattress and invited him to indulge in more. He could rest his back, then his head and drift far away from this room, awake in a place where things made sense. He told himself, no, that's not for now; the shower is where he needed to be. He didn't feel dirty, at least physically, but there was a film of some alien accretion about him nonetheless. That voice had directed his actions and, he vaguely suspected, his thoughts and feelings too. He wanted to wash away those invisible strings that had bored in to his flesh and deep in to his mind. More than freedom, he wanted agency.
But still he sat, patiently at hand for her call. It hadn't come for a worrying length of time, although for just how long he couldn't tell. Everything in his room stood perfectly static. He inspected the four walls for some way to divine the passage of time, felt irritated that he wasn't able to internally count the seconds and minutes. Hours? How long had he been here, exactly?
His eyes rested on the painting that hung beside that cushioned, once again locked door. An apple tree, portrait framed in the uniform of the room's aesthetic, large and prominent. It looked lush and full with its fruit. A window into some idyllic garden in Summer. He wondered what it would feel like to step into that scene, to feel the sun caress his face and taste something pure and sweet.
A knocking came meekly from the wall of the adjoining rooms. He sprang from his seat on the bed and brought himself close to the wall, resting his forehead against it. Eyes closed, he said, 'I'm here. I'm here.'
'I'm scared.'
Her words came clearly from close by, but they sounded lost and somehow distant. He cringed, as if a headache had suddenly hit him. 'Look... what happened out there...'
'Don't.' Her interruption stopped his thoughts in their tracks. He really didn't know what there was he could say to make things right.
Her voice suddenly filled with defiance. 'It's not our fault. We're being toyed with. What they told us to do...'
A pregnant pause filled his head with thoughts and events, some real and some imagined. Despite his disturbance, he felt the familiar swell of his penis growing autonomously toward erection. Guilt halfheartedly lurched through his mind, but he hadn't the energy to entertain it.
'I wasn't myself out there,' she said. 'I felt like I was in a dream I didn't know how to control. I thought things. Felt things...'
At this, he lifted his head from the wall, opened his eyes and soberly admitted, 'I wanted to fuck you.'
There was silence and then he continued, 'I didn't want to hurt you, I knew how afraid you must have been, but I couldn't help the thoughts. I wanted to take you in my arms and feel you – all of you. I was desperate for your scent, I felt crazy for it. I wanted that fucking voice to tell me to lay you down and screw you till you screamed.'
His heart skipped a beat and in a moment he thought, what have I done? He felt like her suspicions had been justified. He was part of her torment, just a tool for their captor to humiliate her with. To abuse her, and God knows what else. He considered heading to the bathroom and vomiting.
Her tone didn't offer forgiveness or reassurance, it simply stated the truth: 'I felt like I'd collapse with how hot I was for you. I couldn't take it. I didn't want you to see...' She seemed to ebb away for a moment, but then came a frustrated, angry moan. 'I wanted you in me! I wanted your cock so bad, just... pounding me! And I wanted to kiss you and feel your breath in my mouth and your spit and just bite in to you.'
He had no words.
'OK?' She sounded indignant.
The guilt made another pass through his mind, this time begging a question: did he feel guilty for what he wanted to do to her, or for what he hadn't done? It had not occurred to him that the one wrong thing he could have done is deprive her of a good fuck.
***
Her face flush and her eyes wide, she was suddenly consumed with shame. Why did she do that? Why did she tell him those things? She retreated to the untouched bathroom and turned the ivory tap for cold water, stuck her hand under the heavy stream until it began to turn numb, then lifted a handful to her face, practically slapping herself in the process. The area above the sink was nothing but bare tiles. There was no mirror and nothing offered any useful reflection for her to see the state she was in.
If the shower had had a glass casing, she would have had no reservations with shattering it and using the shards, but for what purpose she wasn't sure. She had no one to attack but herself, no binds to cut, and defacing the offensive grandeur of her room wouldn't have brought her any closer to what she wanted.
What did she want? Freedom, yes. A return to whatever life she once lived, her memory restored and a parent, friend, husband, whoever, to comfort her. She knew that's what she wanted, what she needed, but it felt strangely distant in her mind. Did she have a boyfriend? A lover? Did he miss her? Did he long for her, desire her all the more in her absence?
She leaned over the sink and with her wet hand reached under her dress. She felt her heat bring keen feeling back to her hand and kneaded her panties into the space between her lips. The lack of a mirror was a welcome feature now; seeing her reflection would have only inspired deeper shame. She slipped her fingers through to the flesh underneath and immediately found her hot, tumescent clit. There was no sudden escalation of intensity; she rubbed hard, angrily, but felt nothing to match all that had been burning her within.
She felt hopelessly empty and needed to be filled. She tensed stressfully, held her breath and massaged herself until stars began to dance across the grid of white tiles. With little warning, the muscles in her legs weakened and she instinctively grasped at the cold porcelain with both hands.
A tear escaped from her eye and gently tickled her cheek with its descent. It came to rest in the corner of her mouth and she tasted its frail bitterness.
The man was calling her. She didn't quite catch the words until she had returned to the bedroom. From beyond the wall, he was asking her name.
'I don't know what my name is. I don't know anything.' She suddenly sounded young and brooding. Privately, she gave a sardonic laugh. She didn't know who she had been exactly as a teenager, but she suspected she was channeling that girl now. To deflect the attention she returned his question.
'I have no idea who I am. I mean, I can't even remember if I had a wife or kids. My job. Nothing.'
Her prior defiance seemed to have left some impression on him as his voice became more animated. 'We can decide our own names! How are they going to stop that? Fuck that bitch!'
She sniffed through her running nose and grinned shyly with amusement. 'So,' she said, 'who am I talking to?'
'Adam.'