"Is this going to be it for me?" I ask my faceless captor.
I, Naomi Spencer, a young rich girl confined in a dark cellar for two weeks, have fallen in love with the man who kidnapped me while I was sunbathing on a summer afternoon next to my pool. My greatest hope is that the man who intends to extort a ten million dollar ransom for me shares my sentiments.
At the age of twenty-six, I am an orphan. My father, a scion of the family through whom I inherited my wealth, died of alcoholism when I was a young child. My mother was killed in traffic accident three years ago. The beneficiary of a trust fund, I have nonetheless decided to be a productive member of society, having gone to law school, and now work as a public defender.
My uncle, who controls the family finances, has refused to pay the sum that will earn my freedom. He and the rest of the old monied New Englanders who are slowly draining the fortune of nineteenth century shipping magnate, looked askance when my daddy took as his bride the daughter of poor Roman Catholic Filipino immigrants, a waitress at the yacht club where they dined and rubbed shoulders with other idle heirs.
The rules of the trust fund entitled me to a comfortable monthly stipend to spend however I so chose at the age of eighteen. That I am an activist for the underprivileged has estranged me from the rest of my family.
I worry that my uncle, with whom I have had a tempestuous relationship, would prefer that my captor restore the family honor by ending the life of the maverick, conceived out of wedlock, and restore the family honor. So the faceless individual who holds me in captivity has decided that witnessing him torture me will stir up whatever feelings of empathy exist in the cold hearts of my relatives and bring my ransom payment.
"No, you're still worth more alive than dead," Faceless replies.
From the tiny cell encloses me, through the iron bars I am staring at a noose dangling from a hook in the ceiling. I count thirteen turns in the three-quarter inch thick hemp rope. Beneath the noose, a footstool is in place on which for me to stand before I am suspended. If things go according to his plan, I will dangle at the end of the rope, strangling under my own weight.
I was clad in a white bikini when I was taken. My captor tosses the flimsy little number through the bars and I am able to catch it before it hits the concrete floor.
"Put it on," he commands me.
Every time he visits me his face is hidden by a black ski mask, which reveals only his dark brown eyes and luscious lips. He dwarfs me at six feet. Through the tight knit turtleneck and jeans, the only clothing I have seen him wear, I can tell that he is trim and muscular.
I am naked except for a long sleeve white men's shirt, which I unbutton and let fall off my shoulders to the floor.
"Why don't you let me hang naked?"
He raises his right hand and scratches his chin, pausing momentarily in thought.
"No, what the video needs to convey is that every day they don't pay, you're that much closer to being dead, not that you're being violated."
"But if I'm dead, there'll be a few million more dollars for them to split between them, since I don't have any heirs. My family will probably break out the champagne when you kill me."
He unlocks the door to my cell and steps inside. I plant a kiss on his lips, wrap my arms around him, and bury my head in his chest. The manacle clamped around my right ankle attached to the fetter leading to a concrete block prevents any possibility of my escape
"I don't want to kill you. I just to make them hurt, just like they did to my family."
My captor had related the saga of how our attorneys had been able to weasel out of compensating his mother after the death of his father, who had died of cancer related to his years of asbestos exposure during the cleanup of toxic waste generated by the family firm.
"Then you picked the wrong Spencer to kidnap. They would have paid top dollar for one of the debutantes."
"If your uncle is heartless enough to let you go to the next world, your cousins will start wondering just how good it is to be one those rich Spencers. I suspect his days in charge of the trust will be numbered if you meet a bad end."
"Or they might decide no one else will think we're worth the trouble of kidnapping if I end up dead because of this."
I feel his tumescence as I press against him, reassuring me that the love growing between us will be enough to save me.
"Put the suit on. It's time."
I point to the shackle around my ankle that will prevent me from slipping into the tiny panty that will hide my pudenda. He kneels down, turns the key in the lock, and the shackle flies open. The metal no longer pressing into my skin, I sigh with relief.
With a coquettish smile on my visage, I step into the flimsy piece of swimwear that will compose half of my costume as I play the victim of a sadist who will inflict any amount of pain to exact his price from her loved ones. But my only loved one is an orange tomcat, whose well being in my absence I pray for.
My captor's eyes are fixed on me as I drag the bikini bottom over my thighs, wriggling to goad the tiny piece of cloth into place. I place my arms through the spaghetti straps of the top, guide my breasts into the cups that barely hide my nipples, and watch the ersatz sadist in whose hands my life rests enjoy the site of my ample breasts nearly hanging out of the cups. I then turn and let him tie me up in the back.
I take my brush off the little vanity he has allowed me to have and run it through my wavy brown hair, examining my face in the mirror hanging just out of my reach outside of my cell. That lines of worry do not mar my countenance is surprising to me, until I realize that I have begun to feel safe with my captor. Despite the gulf between our respective backgrounds, we understand each other.
I reach for the tube of lipstick that was in the purse I had automatically grabbed as I was led away at gunpoint from my home.
"No makeup," he says gruffly.
I put the lipstick down and turn to him and pout.
"Just a little for self confidence!" I plead, fearing that I may look mousy in the last image taken of me while alive.
"Afraid not."
He pulls my arms behind my back. My heart pounds as he wraps a white cord around my wrists, cinches it, and secures the tie with a square knot. I wonder what it will feel like as I am suspended by the neck, hungering for air.
I try to free my hands, but the cord holds. My eyes shift to the door at the top of the steps. I see that it is closed, certainly locked by my captor, and I without a means to wrest the key from him. am helpless, completely in his power; my only hope his mercy.
I turn to him, pleading with my eyes not to be choked to death at the end of the rope. He says nothing. I feel his meaty right hand wrap around my left arm, the hand that had caressed me so gently as we made love the night before.
He nudges me forward, and I step across the threshold of the cell. I have not seen the sun for two weeks and wonder if I will ever breathe fresh air or see daylight again.
******
Did what we shared last night mean anything to him, I wonder. It had started as we were talking face to face, the bars of my cell separating us by inches; I naked, except for the men's dress shirt he had given me, and he clad in the black turtleneck, ski mask, and tight jeans.
Sharing a six pack of Heineken had loosened our tongues, and we found that both of us had a liking for the same foods, the same sports teams, the same movies, and even had learned the same foreign language in high school.
I began feeling wet between my legs as my mind created an image of the face behind the mask. What a brave and foolish creature he was to challenge the wealth and power of my kin!
A hundred years ago one of our goons would have finished off such a fool and walked the streets fearlessly the next day. But this generation of Spencers only had an armada of attorneys to protect the treasure they lived off. A brave fool such as my faceless captor could put a dent in the fortune.
It was his impetuousness that had seduced me, and I lusted after the power he held. Not the power of old money with a network of stooges to do its bidding in the legislature or the courts, but the dynamic of one who would throw away his life to right a wrong, a man who would die or go to prison satisfied that he did what must be done.
When I noticed the eruption between his legs, I made my move. I reached through the bars and drew Faceless close to me. Our lips met and we kissed. Our kiss was more than romantic; it was the union of two souls who had been fighting alone but were ready to make common cause.
He unlocked my cell door and threw me on the cot. I willingly received his rigid member and his ardor for me sent me over the brink. We reached orgasm simultaneously and he slept with me on the cot, not fearing harm from his captive.
Had it all been a lie? Doubt races through my mind as the noose looms larger. Am I the fool for having fallen in love with my captor, the one who is trying to sell me like a piece of meat? Were the pleasantries we had exchanged a sham to seduce me? Or was he just being decent by fooling me into believing that my demise was not imminent? But why should he bother with subterfuge, when with me in his power, he could force himself on me anytime he wanted?
I finally conclude that no man could make love to a woman as he did last night and not want to perform the act once more. But why must I endure the inglory of being hanged by the neck?
*******
We have reached the footstool. I look through the noose and then at the video camera mounted on a tripod ten feet away, ready to record my agony.
"Please, no!" I tell him.
"Once I pull the stool from beneath your feet, you'll only be conscious for a few seconds."
"And then what?"
"And then your Uncle Jack will pay your ransom."
"Will I be around for that?"
I wonder what will become of my body if my fate is to die today. Will he throw me into a dumpster? Will I be dumped on the roadside? Or will my corpse be hidden so masterfully that I will rot alone, never visited by the few people who are dear to me?
"I will take you down before it is too late."
There is no reason to delay the inevitable. I step up onto the footstool, reaching eye level with Faceless. He places the noose around my neck and pulls it tight. The knot is on my left, next to the angle of my mandible The hemp strands dig into my skin. I fight back an urge to try to free my hands and claw at my neck.
My body will only fall a few inches after he has made me airborne. The shorter the drop, the less chance that my neck will break. But I may rue that shards of my cervical vertebrae haven't been driven into my brain stem to cause my instant demise if I instead end up strangling under my own weight.
