AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the ninth chapter of a multi-part story. Please read the first eight chapters before this one to understand the whole story. Please enjoy.
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After a long time, he stirred.
'Where am I?' he thought. Then a more pertinent question came to him. 'WHEN am I?'
How long had he been asleep? Days? Weeks? Months? 'Rip Van Winkle's got nothing on me' he thought.
He opened his eyes. His brain couldn't keep up with the flood of sensory data. He was so dizzy he nearly vomited. He waited a few more minutes and took several deep breaths to steady himself before trying again. At first the surroundings still swam before him, but eventually he was able to focus his sights.
Only then did Paul Ryback realize where he was. He was at home, in his living room, lying down on the couch at a very strange angle.
Paul tried to sit up. "Oh FUCK!" he yelled out loud. His neck was killing him, screaming in pain after being subjected to such an awkward position for so long. He went to reach one arm up to his neck to start working out the kinks.
Both arms moved together. It was as if they were... connected.
Curious at the unnatural reaction, Paul looked down at his hands. The sight startled him. A set of police-issue handcuffs were clamped on to his wrists. He panicked and struggled for a moment before his higher reasoning kicked in and reminded him how useless those efforts would be.
He struggled to get up, took one step, tripped on something and crashed down to the floor. He bellowed and swore repeatedly at the pain now racking his body. He took stock of himself and felt relief when he concluded he hadn't seriously damaged anything. He thought it was only because his legs were asleep that he was clumsy enough to fall.
He soon saw that was partly true... but only partly.
Paul's living room was a disaster area. The rest of the furniture was overturned, and items were strewn all over the place, including where he took his first step. That provided another part of the explanation of why he tripped... but it sure didn't explain the set of leg irons attached to his ankles.
'What the fuck is going on here?!' he asked himself, now fully alert after his long strange slumber. 'What kind of shit did I get myself into?!"
He racked his brain, trying to remember what he was doing before... whatever this was. It finally came to him.
Paul recalled he was about to fuck Anita.
Everything was all set. All the preparations that would tie her to him completely were made. Her little punk kid was asleep. No one was going to interrupt him. He was going to have what was denied to him for so long... and he was going to have her again, and again, and again.
The last he remembered, he had her stripped down to her skimpy lingerie and he was feeling up her exquisitely tight body, until, inexplicably, he became drowsy. She started to sensually massage his neck and shoulders.
Then... nothing. Until he woke up.
"Anita?" he called out. No response. "ANITA?!" he tried again, louder this time. Still no answer.
Paul grunted, fought again to stand up, and shuffled towards the guest bedroom. It was empty and, moreover, looked to have been completely cleaned out. Confused, he searched the rest of the house. It was a laborious process, shackled as he was, but he eventually completed it.
There was no sign of Anita or her son anywhere.
Even worse, the rest of his house was like his living room: completely trashed. It looked like a tornado had blown through it, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. The only room not subjected to ruin, strangely enough, was the guest bedroom.
Where Anita and her son stayed.
Was this a sign? A coincidence? Paul shook his head in frustration. He couldn't figure any of this out, and thinking about it made his head hurt.
Anita couldn't be capable of such behaviour, could she? Certainly she couldn't have done this alone. Where would a fearful single mother, a woman he so easily had under his thumb, find the courage, strength, and resources to do what was done to him?
So the question then became: Who did this? Or, who helped Anita to do this? He had no idea. Paul didn't scare easily, but this situation definitely unnerved him.
It angered him, too. The gall, the very nerve of these people... how dare they?! How dare someone steal Anita, his rightful property, right from his grasp, while violating him and his home in the process?! Paul vowed that whoever was responsible would pay for this, and they would pay dearly.
He stumbled to his phone and called his friend Derrick, a cop on the city's police force. Several minutes later Derrick showed up and saw Paul and the house, and his eyes went wide.
"Holy fuck, dude, what the hell happened to you?" he asked.
"The fuck if I know! Just get me out of these damn things!" Paul angrily replied.
A universal key for all types of cuffs and shackles that Derrick had with him did the trick. Paul sighed in relief and rubbed his sore wrists and ankles.
"Derrick, I need you to help me find out who did this to me," Paul said.
"I'll radio in for a crime scene team to go through the place and look for evidence," replied Derrick. "Don't touch anything in the meantime. One... other thing..."
Paul frowned at Derrick's hesitation. "Go on."
"I assume you haven't been outside yet?"
"Of course not! Why?"
Derrick made a motion to Paul that he needed to go and check it out. When he did he saw a crowd of his neighbours looking at his house with curious and suspicious looks on their faces. He turned around to get his own look and shouted in shock and outrage.
The word "RAPIST" was spray-painted in large, ugly red letters on the garage door.
"Derrick, get these fucking people away from my house!" he growled through gritted teeth. Derrick noted the obvious rage his friend was barely containing and dispersed the crowd, saying "Go home folks, nothing to see here, show's over!"
When everyone left Derrick said, "I'm calling in for that team now."
