Jayne sped down the interstate with the long and winding road unraveling in the old BMW's rearview. Chilly night air crept in through the half-open window, pulling strands of crimson hair loose from her messy ponytail. She gnawed at her bottom lip until it bled, chewing through cheap drugstore lipstick that had dried hours ago.
As Jayne moved faster through the ink colored expanse, she couldn't help but notice that the night sky was as dark and empty as she felt inside - only cleaner. Eager hands gripped the wheel as the interstate faded away, and Jayne felt the once smooth road turn bumpy and rough. The rural back road spilled out ahead like a dirt-covered red carpet welcoming her home. Street lights turned into twisted oak trees and a sudden rush of familiarity caused a nostalgic pang in her gut. Jayne loved this place and she hated it, and when she left, she knew deep inside that she would someday be back.
That feeling stayed with her through the failed relationships and dead-end jobs that plagued her young adult life. She left New Salem to become something - whatever
something
meant - knowing damn well she didn't have any follow through. She left the small town an eager nineteen year old and it was no surprise she was returning a career nobody on the wrong side of thirty. But she never could shake that feeling of knowing. So when Jayne made the decision two weeks earlier to take her own life, she knew she had to make her final trip home.
With her size six pressed hard into the accelerator, eyes squeezed shut and breath suspended, Jayne steered the speeding BMW smack into a tree.
****
Jayne woke to sharp pain gnawing at her skull. Unconsciousness started to fade as she peered through coin-slot eyes into the dimly lit darkness that surrounded her. She tried to decipher the shadows that spilled down the walls, cast by unknown objects and candles that had been scattered about.
Am I dead
? Jayne thought, mind still weary and bleak.
Am I fucking trapped in purgatory?
The only thing she was sure of was that she was someplace unfamiliar and cold. The last thing she could remember was her suicide mission and crashing head-on into a tree before fading into glittering blackness.
Panic crept through Jayne's body like a disease as she reviled in the possibilities. The sleepy haze that had held her body hostage for hours, maybe days - she did not know for how long - turned into an urgency to know where she was -- to know whether she was dead or alive. Tiny bursts of regret, fear, confusion and relief consumer her, and she wanted to leap to her aching feet and run away to a place more familiar; a place without regret.
But Jayne could not move.
She was bound to a bed in the middle of the strange, dark room. To her surprise, this realization exhilarated her, but it also frightened her to the core. With senses now fully intact, Jayne tried to make sense of what was happening. She could feel the soft flesh of her wrists shift between hard leather cuffs. Her full figure lay stretched and helpless as she strained her neck to gaze down the landscape of her body, over the little mountains formed by her C-cup breasts and down her round, heaving stomach. She had been stripped nude and covered only by a sheath of black satin, which was draped over her breasts and torso. Her ankles had been crossed and bound with the same leather cuff - only a larger version - that bound her wrists. One meaty thigh crossed over the other, heavy and still and hiding her pink delta like a secret. Only a furrow of amber bush was exposed.
The moments slowly passed by and Jayne lay still in the bed. She did not struggle because it only made the pain of her outstretched limbs unbearable. She did not scream because she knew better, and did not want to summon whoever - or whatever - was holding her captive.
Suddenly, Jayne heard footsteps stir outside of a door that was hidden on the other side of the room. Until this noise echoed through the silence and broke the ringing in her ears caused by her fast-beating heart, she did not know the door was there. But now its presence was known, and the dastardly door filled the room and it felt as if it was right in front of her. Frightened by what was about to enter, Jayne closed her eyes and wished the noise away.
The door creaked as it slid open, and the sound of footsteps became louder as they drew closer to the bed. Although she was awake and trembling, she clenched shut her eyes like a child trying to fake-out its mother. In what felt like an instant, Jayne felt the mattress sink beside her. She listened to the deep steady breath of a man and her nostrils became filled with the aromas of cinnamon and musk.
"I know you're awake," whispered the man as he ran a delicate finger through Jayne's crimson hair, which had been brushed smooth.
"Open your eyes, there is no reason to be afraid," he said, gently.
But she was afraid. In fact, Jayne was terrified of who was waiting for her on the other side of her quivering eyelids. A hundred different thoughts raced through her mind as if she was about to come face-to-face with death, and the one that stung the most was that she wanted to live.
Jayne couldn't stomach the suspense and she knew there was no escape, so she opened her eyes to face reality. But the man beside her was not the ghoul she had envisioned. He did not look like the monster or villain or murderer that had transpired in her head only moments before. Overcome with relief, she involuntarily let go of the fear and regret that wrestled in her gut like a rabid animal.
Maybe this is a dream,
she thought as she lifted her head to speak. Before she could mutter a single word, the man touched a finger to her dry, parted lips.
