𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙣
⊱ ─────────── ⊰

I wake up the next morning, my stomach growling fiercely.

I'm still tied up to the bed posts, though, it's no point in trying to free myself.

In walks Tate, scratching his balls.

"Ugh." I grouse, closing my eyes.

"Oh good, you're up." He beams brightly.

"What?" He asks about my disgusted facial expression.

"Don't act like you haven't seen a dick before. You weren't complaining last night, enjoy the show?"

"I've seen better." I return to strike his ego.

"Hm," he intones.

"How did you like Chris to fuck you? He spank you and tell you you're his little whore, or does be make love to you?"

I can see that Tate wants to get a rise out of me so I don't give him the satisfaction.

Instead, I tear my eyes away from him.

As I suspected, he doesn't bother to taunt me anymore, backing away from my body.

Tate goes and puts on a pair of boxers.

My stomach grumbles again, this time, louder than before.

"I guess you do gotta eat, huh?" He supposes, lighting a cigarette.

"What do you want?"

I scoff. "As if you're actually going to feed me."

"Anything, you name it." He insists.

"Belgian waffles, turkey sausage links, and scrambled eggs." I order.

"Of course," he charms.

"You can hold the drugs." I suggest.

Tate laughs through his nose before exiting the bedroom.

✕

It seems like forever before Tatum comes back. Finally, though, he does.

"Breakfast will be ready shortly, Darling." He lets me know.

Tate sits beside me in bed and turns on a game of golf.

It's funny, the way Tate offers me to hit his joint as if he is some sort of gentleman for asking.

My eyes roam the walls of the red bedroom.

The room is like any other: bed, a rug, a ceiling. Nothing stands out except for one family photo.
It's Tate, his father, and some woman I've never seen before - his mother, I assume.

"She's pretty." I whisper.

Tate blows smoke away from the bed and looks down at me in my restraints.

"What?" He asks me to repeat myself.

"Is that your mom, she's beautiful? What happened to her?"

Tate starts to laugh. "No. No, we're not doing that."

"What, you can tie me up and ejaculate two centimeters away from my face but you can't share a story about your mommy?"

There's a long silence before Tate says anything.
"She was like you," he speaks up. "pretty, smart, blonde, outgoing. Her smile could light up a whole stadium, and it did, she was a professional football cheerleader when my father met her."

"What's her name?" I whisper softly.

"Connie."

"Where is she now?"

Tate's eyes look empty and dark. He is unblinking as he goes on.
"Why do you wanna know? So you can use it against me?" Tate scoffs.

"You have me tied to your bed; the least you can do is entertain me with a story."

"My father was doing business with someone. It went bad. The guy pulled a gun. My mother ran to help my father-"

"She got in the way?"

Tate nods. "Bullet hit her right in between the eyes. I was thirteen."

"I thought your Dad—" Tate cuts me off.

He interjects, "He was sleeping with other women at the time, yes, but my mother was the love of his life. She was better than all this, trying to get him to leave it alone. He couldn't. After she died, he didn't see a point; it only made him worse - greedier."

"So why do you want to be just like him?" I wonder.

His whole demeanor changes.
"You and Chris act innocent and humble, but I know how you made your money, so you know just as well as I do that you need it to get ahead, and you have to do anything to get it."

"But—"

"That's enough questions," he says, tone darkened.

He stands from the bed to go to the couch and do a line.

Rising from the sofa, Tate yells for Jake.

"Jake, uh," he pauses to wipe the drugs from his nose. "Jake's gonna take you to get cleaned up after breakfast."

"No," I panic. "Why not Ben? Where's Ben?"

Tate rolls his eyes. "As if I'd trust you with Ben."

"He works for you, not me." I try to convince Tate. It doesn't work.

"Hmm. Last I checked he was getting his balls licked." Tate tells me, smirking.

My face falls.

No. Not Ben, I think in my head.

"Aw," Tate mocks me, seeing my downturned facial expression.

"Don't believe me? Look for yourself..."

Tate turns his television to a monitor displaying pixelated footage of what appears to be Ben doing exactly what Tate said.

I couldn't believe it.

Having seen enough, I look away.

"I know you thought he was the sensitive type and he actually was gonna save you," Tate ridicules, "but it's just like you said: he works for me."

"Yeah, Tate?" Jake answers his bosses call, entering the room in a rushed fashion.

Tate tosses Jake a set of keys.

"Unlock her," he orders, walking towards the door.

"Then what, boss?" Asks Jake.

Tate looks at me and then answers. "Make sure she eats breakfast and have her cleaned up. Then, take her to the country club. Daddy has something for her."

"—Now Tate's really gonna be upset." Jake scolds me.

He drags me down a dark hallway, pulling me by the arm like I'm a child in trouble.

"I didn't mean to throw up." I mumble, hardly cooperating to carry myself wherever he's taking me.

I look over my shoulder, plotting to make a run for it despite my deteriorating health, and see The Ogre, Marco. I hate Marco.

He shoots me a grimacing look and then cracks his knuckles like it would be his pleasure to chase me down if I made a run for it.
Not now, I tell myself in my head.

"Well if you can't keep your food down, you might pass out and we don't need you embarrassing us tonight."

"Then let me go, I feel awful." I try to sell my illness.

Truly, I don't know what's wrong with me. In the middle of breakfast, I vomited. The food wasn't nasty or undercooked, I just had a bad feeling in my stomach and next thing I knew, I spit out everything I had just chewed and swallowed.

It doesn't help that it's as hot as a sauna down here, or that the red velvet room and loud music giving me headaches.
I feel like I could collapse, and I just might.

If they need me looking me best and as healthy as a horse for this event, then I'll do whatever it takes to be the exact opposite of that.

I try to make myself throw up but nothing will come out anymore, the dry heaving just makes me feel worse.

Jake kicks open a door and pushes me inside.

Weakly, I fall to the floor.

"Oh, get up." He nags me as if he's not the reason I'm down here.

"Careful. If she gets a bruise, that takes her value down, and we lose about five hundred." Marco warns the careless henchman.

A woman appears from the dark corner of the washroom.

She's wide-hipped and looks unimpressed by me.

"Who do we have here?" She asks casually.

She hovers over my body in all black with a towel and brush in her hands.

"Darling," Jake tells her. "Tate's girl."

"What does she need: Narcan, some tampons, blemish fix?"

Narcan? Who is this lady and what does she do?

"He just wants you to clean her up good and get her ready for the night. Put her in something reasonable, too, he's taking her to the country club after."

The woman takes a long look at me, her eyebrow popping.

"She's in better shape than the rest of 'em." She observes.

The rest of them?

"That's 'cause she ain't a prostitute, Mim."

"Hm," Mim remarks.

"Darling, get up, let me see your nails. Got any scabs, where are your injection sites? You got AIDS—"

I fight her off as she examines me like some zoo animal.

Jake just laughs as the woman, named Mim, looks at him, taken aback.

"She's not a druggie," he explains. "Give her VIP treatment."

"Mhm." She grumbles, switching over to run the water in the bathtub.

✕

After the tub fills with soap and lavender bubbles, the black-haired women tells me to take my clothes off and get in.

I hold myself, shaking my head.

She stomps her foot in a pair of purple Doc Marten boots.

"I don't got all day," she says, smacking her mauve-painted lips.

I look all around to make sure Jake and Marco are long gone and won't see me naked.
As much as I don't want to bathe in front of this large woman, I do need to freshen up. Badly.

"What are you gonna do to me?" I ask her, seeing the caddy in her hands.

"Give you the VIP like I was told. Now you getting in or what, the water's getting cold?" She huffs impatiently.

I step out of my shorts and tank top and then carefully step towards the tub.

The water is the perfect temperature but the lavender bath bomb is triggering.

Glaring at this stranger, I sink into bath.

She sits on a stool and scoots over to the tub.

"You don't need to bathe me, I'm not a child, or a crackhead." I tell her, snatching the rag from her lap.

She scoffs. "It's my job."

"Why? Who are you?"

She shakes the bang out of her face and sighs. "I was a cosmetologist. I met the wrong people, got into some trouble, and owe Raymond money. I actually help the girls that come through here, okay?"

"Is that what you have to tell yourself to feel better?"

She shuts her eyes tight and hesitates to answer. "All I know is I rather be doing this than what you're about to go do."

"I'm not about to do anything." I insist.

She throws a bar of soap into the water and scoffs.
"I know what happens at the country club with girls like you, and I know why Tate wants you all dolled up. What I don't know is why you're different than the rest of them..."

"Surely, you're prettier, clean, look like you got a good head on your shoulders," she adds, eyeballing me.

I pause scrubbing my legs to ask, "What do you mean the rest of them?"

She shakes her head. "A lot of girls come in here; some never leave. I've seen a lot. First, every girl gets a bath and thrown in some lingerie, then they go to the party. Some come back, some don't, but they're treating you like Marilyn Monroe."

"I don't feel like Marilyn." I grumble, putting my chin on my knee cap.

The woman goes behind me and says, "here," taking the rag from me.
She runs water along my back and then begins scrubbing it for me.

"Look," she sighs deeply, "I don't know exactly what happens out there or what they do, I just know the girls — escorts— that come see me, are usually worse off than you: bruised, traumatized, high, or pissed and shit on..."

"Help me get out of here! My fiancé is rich, we can—"

"Shh, shh, shh," Mim whispers, combing my hair.

"I don't even know where we are, they bring me here blindfolded and pay me in cash, and text me from a burner phone. Plus if I help you, I might be next."

I reach back and snatch the comb from her hands.

She makes a lot of noise as she lifts her weight from the stool.

Walking towards the door, she sniffles, "I'm sorry," and then exits, leaving me in the dimly lit bathroom.

"Hello?" I call for her. For anyone.

No answer, only my echo.

There's a pain in my chest as I slide down the tub and submerge my body up to my chin.

Tears stream from my eyes.

"I need to get out of here," I croak, hugging my knees as I cry into them.

"...I don't want to die like this."