The Apartment 17

Reluctance/Non Consent

Don't read if this sort of thing bothers you. Trem wasn't feeling well. Trem has to be in control all the time. Trem takes a lot of shit for that, which isn't fair. I just tried to imagine a character who would take control and not judge her for where she's at.

*****

Trem was hiding out in a two bedroom apartment just outside the city proper. There wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the apartment or the apartment building. Everything about it was newish. She liked it that way. If she'd had to describe it she would have said it was beige, beige with brown trim.

Earlier in the day she'd gone to a nursery and bought the lushest fern she could find, some soil, and a large shiny black pot that reminded her for some reason of a Nagel print. It was maybe a little too shiny, a little too slick, a little out of character for her.

The day was cold and threatening to rain so she worked quickly in the little space just outside her front door. Using just her hands she urged the fern from its plastic container into the new pot. Then she swept up the bit of dirt that had fallen on the bridge that separated her from her neighbor, paused, and leaned up against the wall to her left so she could look out the cut out at a smattering of buildings just like hers laid out on a stretch of low grass land. She was one floor up.

"Pretty," she thought.

She put the broom, the leftover soil and the plastic pot, away in a closet on the balcony at the other side of her apartment. At the moment, those things and what she was wearing were her only belongings. She reckoned she should feel some sort of loss. But the plant and the quality of the light throughout her new surroundings was almost too much.

Reaching into the inside pocket of her light jacket, she pulled out a coin purse that was stuffed full with the many bills that she had packed hastily into it, counted her money and figured it would last about three weeks. "They'll have found us by then," she worried as she walked through the empty apartment, setting the money and the purse down on the counter between the kitchen and the living area.

The old familiar ache of knowing her loved ones were close by but not yet reachable returned. But since there was nothing she could do about it she pushed the feeling down deep as far as it would go and went back to pretending she was a single woman just starting over. It was Valentine's Day and there wasn't a paper heart in sight, not that she minded.

She sat down on the carpeted floor and wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn't even plan as there were too many unknowns. There was nothing to do for the next few days but just be.

"If I wanted you to be doing something you'd be doing it" the memory of him offered her. Still fresh and sensual.

"I'm not that person anymore" she answered, getting up.

She took some money from the counter and swept the rest into a drawer in the kitchen. Then went back out the front door to survey her work. The door to her place had been unlocked when she'd arrived and her instructions had not said anything about a key. They'd just told her what to buy and where to go. No contact number. She wasn't supposed to reach out and her phone had been left behind.

She went back inside and opened every drawer, cabinet and closet to no avail. There was nothing here but what she'd brought. She'd assumed that there would be more instructions.

"I can't even lock up." She laughed incredulously.

That would be difficult for her, the habit of locking the door so long ingrained. She was afraid she'd lock herself out or that someone else might. That thought was terrifying. She went back out took the steps down and walked around to the back of her building where the balcony was reasoning that she could lock the front door and leave the sliding glass door to the balcony unlocked and get back in that way. The downstairs apartment had a wood fence that she knew she could scale in a pinch but probably not without detection and she really didn't want to climb a fence.

"I could just sit and wait for whatever's next but how long might that be?" She asked herself. Then feeling ridiculous she went back out without locking anything. Walking to her car she took her car keys out of her pocket and outlined to herself her situation.

"I have an unfurnished apartment with the utilities paid. I have transportation. I have the clothes on my back and a little bit of money. I can't call anyone and nobody can call me and as far as I know only one person knows where I am. I have a task to complete a week from today and I don't know what it is."

There were a few other cars in the lot besides her own and she'd seen a few young men going into an apartment in another building when she arrived. Everything here seemed normal.

She put the what if's out of her mind and drove back to a large book store she'd seen earlier in the day. The store was busy, the coffee shop it contained had a long line of people. She sat as was her custom on the floor with her back against the wall watching them for a while. There was a willowy man whose age was hard to determine. He was wearing loose knit fingerless gloves which made him stand out in this crowd.

As a whole the people struck her as "neat" like her apartment. Clean and neat, deliberate. That last part worried her. Why does that one thrust back the chair? Why do they pass the receipt across the counter like that, just so? Why does that one hold the money just out of that other one's reach? Why does everyone talk when that one talks? Why does that one who everyone looks at the most half-smile? Why does that one's voice travel, and that one's not? Why is everyone so self-conscious?

She got up and wandered around a bit. Picking up things and putting them back down. This is how it starts she thought forward abstractly. Objects and equations equaling some version of comfort. Eventually she bought a book of botanical prints, a blanket with some quoted text from Edgar Allen Poe, a bar of natural looking and lightly fragrant soap, notable for its lack of packaging. She deliberated the longest over which notebook to buy. The watercolor pad, half her height was what she wanted most but the size was too extravagant. Eventually she settled on a slim spiral sketch pad. It would require economy and looked useful.

She found a set of four perfectly cylindrical water glasses almost like beakers that looked expensive but weren't and added those to her cache along with a multi-colored candle. The young woman at the counter read the blanket out loud in a mock creepy voice. Trem longed then for a friend like that who would get her joke and give it a voice. Her utter lack of malice making the words more beautiful than they were intended.

She rung everything up and put it in a cloth giveaway away bag branded with the name of the bookstore. Trem took the pen from the counter also branded with the name of the bookstore, knowing she'd make it up later. She walked to the grocery store in the same mall, bought a fashion magazine, a honeycrisp, crackers, a few other essentials, a bottle of wine with a twist off, a package of lighters, then went back to her new home.

In the lot she passed a young couple holding hands and heading down a path through the trees on the horizon that led to some open space and then the street. Taking the stairs back to her place she had the sense that someone had been in and out across the way but couldn't say why. Her plant was still there, the door opened, she was in.

She took the small scrap of brown paper and raffia from the soap and put it in a drawer, washed her hands, rinsed out one of the new glasses then poured herself a glass of wine which she took along with the blanket the pen, the sketchbook, and the book, to the floor right near the sliding door to the balcony. It was slightly warmer there because the sun had filtered through the clouds for awhile and warmed the glass. She set her wine down on the book walked to the second bedroom and unbuttoned her soft light blue cardigan, folded it and left it atop the single long shelf in the closet. She took off her low slung jeans rolled them up into a makeshift pillow and wrapped herself in the blanket. Then she just sat for a long time sipping her wine and looking out the window.

When it started to get dark Trem got up and locked the front door. She lit the candle and put it in the fireplace in the room with the balcony. She was warm from the wine and tired from everything. She put her head down on her jeans and fell asleep.

Trem woke to Ridgeway just there. He had some keys which he threw fiercely at the wall. Dragged her up from the floor and slapped her hard. He was telling her something that she wouldn't hear until later because of how he told her and he was telling her what to do and she did it because if she didn't he would hit her again and that would cost him. It really would, and she knew it. And he did it this way because it was the only sure way he could have the upper hand in this situation. Any other way and she would have fought him. And though Trem might occasionally look delicate, she wasn't.

Trem knew that Ridgeway was the only one who knew everything and so he had to be the one in control. It was too late for her to unaccept this. His eyes blazed with something that made her obey. It was fury but not at her. Her face throbbed and she felt like she might be sick but she laid down on the floor face down like he told her.

He had some sort of cord that he bound her with that took an agonizingly long time until the end when it all just snapped her up like a rubber band. It was agonizing because her instinct was to resist. Her hands were behind her head and her feet were bound. He brought them together behind her closer than she would have thought possible. He stood and kicked her knees apart. She complained with groans despite herself. Then he did something that made her pass out. She'd never know what.

The next time Trem came to, she heard them talking over her, felt a warm hand on her back. She came in and out of consciousness a few times. She wasn't bound anymore. When she started to struggle because everything felt too clinical he took her hand and put it on his cock which strained under his clothing.

"Everything's going to be okay Trem. It's going to be better." The sweet conflicting mortification of being helpless and being taken care of washing over her.

"My pervert." She said pervert like hero.

In the dream they were in a hallway kissing, garden in the background. He had his hand in her hair gently preventing her from pulling away. They were in the back of a car, he was insistent. Some mysterious back alley gig during his break. Behind the stage just a curtain between them and a rowdy audience. She was on top. Waking in his arms, coupling in the sky.

"Good Morning." He said brightly. He was holding her up in front of the mirror in the bathroom. She looked terrible. Really terrible. She came to enough to help him help her into the shower.

"Ridgeway?" she asked?

He did kiss her then for real. The shower water like pins and needles waking her up. She was thinking about his character. She was in awe of him.

"Truth or Dare?" He was distracting her. Trying to revive her. He knew she hated that game.

"Truth!" She tried to say. Always truth.

She took care of him then with her hands and then he turned the shower off and took her again on the floor. Face to face.

Afterwards they dried each other awkwardly with the blanket. Ridgeway had clothes for her. She could have dressed herself but he helped her. Held her in front of him between his legs. Rubbing her between hers. She was aware she hadn't been allowed to have an orgasm.

"I love you this way." He said.

The conditional not lost on her. She relaxed into him. Trem didn't even know how much time had passed. Ridgeway's conditional. He stayed awhile longer, showing her some things he'd brought. They listened to music. He never had anything she knew. They drank the rest of the wine with the crackers and the apple that he cut into pieces for them with his pocket knife.

If she'd had more one of them would have cooked for the other. Not like a contest but just because that's how it had always been when they were together. A kind of polite that didn't say please and thank you. They took turns at things.

"You know, you can do anything you want" * continued. "Travel, do nothing, get a job."

Trem blinked hard because it wasn't true.

"There's a lot more..." he told her and repeated it before he left. He took her hand and kissed her fingers. That was enough until next time. Just enough.

After he left she started to touch herself. It was so quiet she could hear the phone ringing in the kitchen drawer. He must have left it. She put in her code and it worked. The caller i.d. unavailable.

"Don't" he said softly and hung up.