I awoke violently, feeling a harsh bite in my wrists and below my chest. Frantic, I saw I was bound to a plain but sturdy wooden chair, my arms pinned closely to the chair's arms, my legs to its legs, and my chest to its frame.
I was wearing comfortable athletic shorts and a loose t-shirt, my clothes, but not what I went to sleep in. The last thing I remembered, I went to bed at home, after staying up late to finish a few drafts for work.
I now found myself in what looked like an abandoned warehouse, huge and sparse with old-looking crates and a few duffel bags settled nearby. Most out of place, was a brand new mattress, still wrapped in store plastic, that would have been set on the dusty and dirty ground had it not been for the wide, new tarp that lay underneath.
In looking at the bed away to my side, I finally noticed that there was a figure some distance perfectly behind me, seated in a chair similar to mine. I craned my neck to see a woman, in a fitted black suit watching me silently. She was not what I was expecting on top of everything else. She had blonde hair in a long pixie cut and a serious face. She was just watching me, the corners of her mouth pulling upward when I realized she was there.
"Not going to call for help?" She asked. She almost sounded curious.
I must have still been in shock, numb from the strangeness and fear of everything. I hadn't said a word since I woke up, and I couldn't find anything to say now. Her voice was too smooth, it spilled over me, running down my sides. Her tone was worse. It made me feel stuck, like wax. I forgot I was bound.
She gently lifted out of her chair, and approached me, her face completely unchanged. The sound of heels against concrete jabbed at me. My neck strained trying to see her. She slowly circled me in a wide arc, soaking in my attention. We never once broke eye contact. I didn't even blink. She stood a few feet away still, but all I could see was the icy white in her blue eyes.
"Normally," She said, shattering me, "you call out, hoping someone will hear and come save you." She had crossed the distance between us and now stood above me, regarding me with her head still slightly cocked.
I couldn't tell if she was talking to herself or to me, but it felt like I should say something. "Where am I?" I managed.
Her face finally opened into a full smile. It was surprising, but it felt like it shouldn't have been.
"Somewhere safe, isolated." Her eyebrows raised slightly. "I can't tell you any more than that."
"How long have I been...here?" I felt pathetic, shriveling up before her.
She looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes still not leaving me. "A matter of days. You will be here for a few more. Not likely more than a week."
The certainty that came with her statements shook me. It was impossible that they were false.
I did manage to maintain some of my own logic, even as this woman was pulling it out and replacing it with her own. "I don't know why I ask, you could be lying." I spoke, passionless.
She almost seemed to take it personally, her face showing a touch of hurt or concern. She leaned down and reached out one hand to the back of my chair, bending so her face hovered just above mine.
"I've admitted when I cannot tell you the truth. I only lie by omission." She gently touched my chin with an upturned hand, asking me to look at her.
She smelled faintly of something hot and spicy. Cinnamon or cloves. I felt physically pulled toward her when I inhaled, and left gasping on exhale, like I had been choked. Her deep v-neck suit jacket framed an unbuttoned white button up, which was in no way attempting to conceal her. A short necklace, strung with a simple gold ring, swayed in front of my eyes. I wanted to touch her, to be wrapped up and held by this utterly powerful being.
My mind was no longer my own. I looked up toward her face and tried to kiss her. She artfully caught my lips with her cheek, and I felt her smile.
"Hm, definitely no more than a few days." I felt her gently push me away. I was swimming in want. She continued, "But first, we speak."
She walked away to retrieve her chair and planted it a short distance in front of mine. She sank back into it, and looked unchanged from the first I saw of her. Maybe she moved magically from behind me to before me and I had only imagined the rest.
She felt just barely out of reach, by only inches. I felt drawn to her, and agonized over what became miles between us. It wasn't the kind of torment I was expecting when I first woke up. She watched me for a few moments, and I was happy to be looked at.
"Would you like to know why you are here?" She spoke, reigniting something in me. I wanted to please her.
"Yes, maam." I felt stupid saying maam; she couldn't have been more than a few years older than me, if she was older at all. If she thought it was strange she didn't show it.
"This is all happening because of something you wrote."
"Something I wrote?" I was a freelance writer, mostly with opinion pieces and reviews; people liked how I wrote about things. Usually people read my work because they liked how I thought, not because they agreed with me, but I couldn't imagine anything of mine making someone angry enough to pay for a...whatever this was.
She nodded. "Something you wrote has threatened some of the asset value of a particular-"
"What was it?" I asked, suddenly realizing a lot more freedom than I had felt at any point since I awoke. "What did I write?"
She looked surprised and, just under the surface, irritated at the interruption. "We'll discuss the details at the end of our time together. For now-"
"Who did I offend? Who could I have pissed off so deeply they would...would-"
Her irritation was no longer hidden. Her body language changed completely. This no longer felt like a conversation, but an interrogation. At some point her voice had changed. It was still firm, but before it was firm like being held. Now it was firm like stone.
"Much will remain anonymous to you. You will only know what is relevant to your time with me. After you write a retraction of your work-"
"I'm not writing a retraction! I won't take back my word because I was threatened by some...sexy...dominatrix on behalf of a shadow...person..." I was flustered, but I finally felt in control of myself. I wanted to keep that moment, and not be sucked back into her. Self-control felt intoxicating.
Her irritation vanished under an utterly neutral face and she was quiet for what felt like an eerily long time. I started to feel uncomfortable again and remembered that I was still tied to a chair.
She stood up, unbuttoned her jacket and let it slide off one arm, taking it into the other, revealing that her button-up was sleeveless. As she lay her jacket over the back of the chair, I saw muscular arms she had taken some care to hide away. She continued to button up her blouse and again regard me fully.
"This is for the best. You've seen that this can be kind and gentle, now you'll see that this will hurt, too." She walked toward me, and I felt a fear more primal than I could understand. Some part of me was expecting her to kill me.
Instead, she walked around my chair as I flinched, gripped the back and side of my chair, and flipped all of me forward. For the briefest moment that I was falling, I was only in awe of the person who could literally throw my life upside down. Then I hit the ground. My knees and face scraped deeply against the harsh concrete, and I cried out in an intense pain. I was sobbing, but I could still see her calmly return to her chair and sit, cross-legged, watching me.
We stayed like that, it felt like hours. My knees were bleeding and crying out from the weight of me. My face was scratched and I could feel the ground digging into my skin. She seemed perfectly composed, ambivalent as I lay there helpless at her feet.
She eventually decided that I had taken enough. She stood and, just as effortlessly as before, picked me up by the chair I was bound to, and righted me, setting me down just in front of her. Without saying a word, she walked over to one of a few duffle bags, rummaged for a moment, and returned with some bandages and a small bottle. She knelt down and applied both to my knees.
The pain was sharp, but most of what I felt was exhaustion. It had all been so much. She finished with my knees and sat down in the chair now directly in front of me. Bending forward, she supported my chin with one hand and gently brushed my battered face with a damp cloth in the other. It smelled chemical, but felt soothing.
"This will numb the wounds and help them heal. We have to finish our conversation, but for now you need to rest."
Her voice was lighter than ever, like falling asleep when you're trying not to.
"Who...are you? Why are you doing this?"
My head sagged as I gently fell asleep. I didn't even remember her drugging me.
***
