She tested the cuffs of course. One side was tight around her wrist, there was no wriggling out of it, and the other was attached to the headboard. It was very dark in the room but she felt her way around and came to the conclusion that the cuff couldn't be taken off the headboard and the headboard couldn't be taken apart. It felt like solid iron and it was seamless. No screws. No weak points. She pulled at it with all her strength but that did nothing except hurt her already raw wrist.
She sank down on the bed, too tired to even cry. She was stuck here until he returned, whenever that would be. He was probably back in the cellar, doing whatever with the floor there. She held her breath for a few seconds to listen but couldn't hear anything. On a whim she reached towards the bedside table and pulled out the drawer there, feeling to see if there was anything she could use as a weapon, or to get the cuffs off. But the drawer was empty.
Her shirt was sweaty and dirty and she shrugged out of it, tore it up to get it past her cuffed hand. Clothes couldn't protect her anyway. As she moved she felt stickiness on the inside of her thighs and she teared up again. She wiped at it with the remains of the shirt and then threw the fabric across the room. Shivering, she moved the covers and crawled under them. While she waited for her body to warm up she closed her eyes and thought of Florida. The plane was leaving in a few hours and she wouldn't be on it. Burrowing into the pillow sleep hit her like a hammer.
Sometime later she jolted awake, her breathing ragged and panicky. There had been a nightmare. She sat up and looked around but she was still alone in the room. Even so, the real nightmare was here and now. Her left arm had gone completely numb and she moved it to take the pressure off, flexing her fingers to bring them back to life. She grimaced as her arm started tingling, tickling and stinging all at once.
A more trivial but escalading problem was her bladder. She really needed to go to the bathroom. She twisted and turned uncomfortably for a while, wondering if it would end in the humiliation of a wet bed. She certainly wouldn't shout for him to get here. He would come soon enough; of that she was sure. The question was, what would he do next? How many more times would he rape her before he let her go? Would he even let her go? She had seen his face, and she knew his name and although he hadn't really hurt her, yet, he seemed capable of anything. She remembered the feel of his hands around her throat, slowly squeezing the life out of her. What if he didn't stop next time?
She shifted on the bed and grimaced. God, she really needed to go to the bathroom. The door to the en suite was closed and she lay there looking at it, just being able to make out the shape in the dark. And then a thought formed. A thought about how some of the upstairs windows of this New England type house were connected to the gently sloping roof of the wrap-around porch. How simple it would be to get out the bathroom window, and then down on the ground to get her purse from the porch. Her purse with the car keys and her cell phone.
The sound of footsteps in the staircase interrupted her thoughts and her breath caught in her throat. How many hours ago since he left her? Would he be ready again now or was he going to sleep?
He entered the room, and turned the light on in the ceiling. She sat up blinking in the harsh light and looked at him. He was wearing a white, mud streaked t-shirt with his jeans now. He cocked his head and smiled at her, a very charming smile, and then sat down next to her on the bed.
"I see you've taken off your shirt," he said and pulled the cover down, exposing her breasts.
"Suits you," he added and leaned forward, putting his hands on her breasts and pushing her into the mattress.
"You smell really bad," she blurted out, and he did. There was a sharp tang of sweat to his scent, and something indescribable underneath it.
"Oh, do I?" he said and squeezed her breast harder, pinching the nipple between his thumb and index finger.
"Yes," she gasped, fighting not to fight, rage and scream at him. Not now.
"Well, I am a gentleman, so how about I take a shower first? Would the lady like that?" he enquired with a wry smile.
"Yes. Thank you," she said, thinking the forced gratitude in her voice must be obvious.
"No problem, Laura. We're gonna be spending some time together and it's only fair I do something for you, right?"
He let go and rose from the bed, stripped off all his clothes and discarded them on the floor by the bed. He opened the bathroom door and it glided shut behind him. As soon as she heard the sound of the shower coming on she turned her attention to his jeans. She stood up and stuck out her leg until she could reach them, and then moved them closer until she could pick them up. Sitting down she quickly went through the pockets. There was no key to the handcuffs but there was a phone. Shaking, she pressed the buttons alongside of it until she found the power button and the screen lit up.
There were fifteen missed calls from somebody named Sam. She tried to unlock the screen but failed, a password was required. She saw the emergency call icon and pressed it. The shower was turned off as she pressed 9-1-1. Realizing there was no time, she pressed 'call', jammed the phone under the mattress and threw his jeans back on the floor. The bathroom door opened and she looked up, wondering if he could see it all on her face.
He walked into the room with a towel in his hand, his hair slick and wet.
"Ready for another dose of Dean, baby?" he said and grabbed her jaw, forcing her head up. Her jaw still hurt from his treatment a few hours ago. She looked up into his eyes and then down again, afraid he would be able to read her.
"Can I please use the bathroom," she said, trying to appear as innocent and meek as possible. "I really need to go."
"I'm gonna let you go do your thing. You might wanna wash up too, I'm not the only one who smells a bit... funky," he said, his smile bright and warm but his eyes dead cold.
She blushed and he tightened his grip on her jaw, forced her mouth open and then bent down to kiss her, sticking his tongue in and probing her mouth with it. She kept her free hand still on the bed even though she wanted to beat him away. Eventually he withdrew and let go of her jaw.
"Next time, you're gonna kiss me back," he said matter-of-factly.
Then he bent over her and unlocked the cuffs. He must have had the keys with him into the bathroom. She rubbed her wrist and got to her feet slowly. He nodded towards the bathroom door.
"Lock it and I'll kick it down."
She only nodded and then walked into the bathroom. Hands shaking, she shut the door behind her and then immediately relieved herself on the toilet. She flushed and washed her hands, looking at herself in the mirror. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes puffy and red. Around her throat were red marks from the pressure of his fingers. She swallowed and hardened herself, willing the fear away. It was time to act now.
A grey bathrobe hung on a peg on the wall and she put it on. She had advised the owners to leave behind things to make the place look lived-in and the robe was one of those items. It smelled a little stale. She turned on the shower, opened the bathroom window as quietly as possible, heaved herself up on the windowsill and climbed out onto the roof of the wrap-around porch. It was cold outside. There was a first quarter moon but clouds moved in front of it and it smelled like snow. A thin layer of frost covered the tiles and she moved quickly but carefully towards the front of the house, away from the bedroom window.
When she reached the corner of the porch she got down on her hands and knees and crept toward the edge of the roof to look down. The porch light shone on the lawn below. She wasn't very high up, only eight feet but she didn't dare jump and risk hurting herself. So she scooted over the edge, wrapped her legs around one of the rounded stone pillars and slid down. Getting onto the porch she wondered briefly how many minutes had passed since she had closed the bathroom door, and when he would be coming after her. She hoped the 911 call had resulted in something. Maybe the police were on their way already.
She padded quietly across the porch to where her bag was, grabbed it, moved off the porch and started running towards her car, three hundred feet away. She ran on the lawn as far as she could but eventually had to get onto the pathway. The sound of her feet on the gravel seemed suddenly loud in the otherwise quiet night. She glanced back towards the porch but there was no sign of him. Still running she pulled the phone from her bag and tried to turn it on. The screen remained black. Fuck. It had been low on battery before and it must have drained completely now. She tossed it back in the bag and grabbed the car key.
She clicked the unlock button just as she reached the car and almost slammed into the side. She pulled the door open, threw her bag inside, slid in and looked up for a second towards the house. Nothing. She pushed down the clutch and the break and then pressed the start button, waiting for the sound of the engine coming on. There was nothing. She pressed it again but still nothing happened. She tried to remember if she was missing something; she had only had this car for a couple of weeks and it was her most modern car yet. She pressed the button a few more times but no change. Cursing she glanced up and froze. He was standing on the porch, face turned towards the car. As she was watching, he stepped off the porch.
She threw the door open, scrambled out and started running for the woods. The gravelled road would be the quickest way to the main road but she didn't think she could outrun him. In the woods she might be able to hide. She glanced back and saw that he had broken into a run too. She passed some sparse trees where the lawn merged into the woods and then grass made way for more trees, tall bushes and a thick underbrush. If it wasn't for the moon she wouldn't have been able to see anything, but now it at least helped her avoid crashing headfirst into trees. She stumbled over rocks and roots, wondering if he would be able to see her. In the cellar he had acted like he could see in the dark.
If he could, she needed a good hiding place, now. Branches whipped at her face and tore at the robe as she ran on in what she thought was the direction of the main road. On her left she spotted a huge tree, a spruce with a base fifteen feet wide, and she instinctively broke off and ran towards it. She crawled under the bottommost branches and in towards the stem. She wrapped her arms around it to stabilize herself and tried to be as still and quiet as possible.
As some of the adrenaline wore off she realised she couldn't feel her feet. Her lower legs and face burned and so did her lungs. She slowly got her breathing under control. For a few seconds all was quiet and then she heard the small sounds of somebody moving quietly towards her; a twig breaking off, a small rock skittering on the ground. He wasn't running and she feared it was because he knew where she was hiding. She relaxed her body and felt her heartbeat slow down.
