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‘Next meal you eat you will have to beg for,’ she said, and pushing the cage closer to the stove, switched off the lights and shuffled to her bedroom. When she closed the door the place was in darkness except for the red glow from the stove. I was shivering and frightened—not of her, but of the future. It stretched dark and terrible. I bit my fist and stared at the cracks in the cement floor.
I waited until I heard her snoring and then I clapped my hand tightly over my mouth and let the sobs that were deep inside me flow out. They came like a river until my tongue felt stiff, my throat was painful, and my eyes were burning. But there was relief.
When the sobs stopped I hugged myself tightly and thought of the comforting feel of Nikolai’s fair head close to mine. I remembered the clean smell of his hair, his sweet breath. The familiar soothing feel of his skin against mine. How I missed him. I wondered what he would be doing. He would be in bed by now. In Father’s bed.
My resolve hardened and I knew then that I would survive. I would survive this cage and anything else they threw at me. I swore to myself that I would do whatever was necessary to get back. To rescue him from my father’s clutches.
Slowly I comforted myself.
For two days I hung on, and refused to eat, but hunger coupled with the sight of a pig’s ears boiling under a cloud of steam is a cruel master. I did not turn to watch her raise the pig’s ear in a slotted spoon, and settle it on a plate, but some part of me saw it. I did not stare while she sat at the table and sliced into it with her knife only a few feet away from me, but my mouth ran with saliva all the same. The smell of horseradish cucumber relish and sour pickles made my chest heave with hunger. I heard her gulp her beer noisily and knew as she did that I was not going to win this war. It was not worth winning. I caved in.
‘Please can I have some food?’
She turned to me. ‘Did you say something? My hearing is not good.’
‘Please, can I have some food?’
She nodded and put the pig’s ear into the bowl and pushed it through the little hole in the cage. No spoon, no cutlery. Just me, cramming the pig’s ear into my mouth with my filthy fingers. She looked at me and laughed. I didn’t care anymore. So she had reduced me to the status of a naked wild animal. And so fucking what? I must survive and find a way to rescue my brother.
*****
Two days, maybe three passed. She came and stood by the cage.
‘Push your nipples through the cage bars,’ she ordered.
‘I won’t,’ I said. And I meant it. I hated her and what she had done to me. What I had become.
‘Then you will stay in that cage until you learn to obey me.’
I stood no chance while I was in the cage. I had to get out of the cage. I pushed my breasts through the bars.
‘Good,’ she praised, and put her mouth on one of my nipples and sucked it.
I was so shocked I reared back. For some seconds we stared at each other. Then slowly I put my breasts back between the cold steel bars. I closed my eyes and endured while she sucked them until they felt quite raw.
She wanted to humiliate me to show me that all the things I thought were disgusting and beneath me could be done to me, against my will and with impunity. And there was not a damn thing I could do to stop it. She laughed softly and deliberately grabbed my breasts in her rough hands and squeezed them painfully.
‘What would you do for a nice hot towel?’ she sneered.
I didn’t answer her, but I felt so soiled and dirty, the thought of a hot towel was like a flash of something delicious from the past.
That night I was fed properly: a large piece of roasted reindeer meat. It’s true, I fell on it and ate it like an animal.
‘When can I get out of the cage?’ I asked.
‘Soon. Show me good behavior.’
I became a cowering submissive creature. When she asked me to, I pressed my breasts through the bars and endured her noisy cruel mouth. This time she gave me meat jelly. I knew what she was doing but what could I do? In a cage, naked, hungry, unwashed… With no opportunity for escape.
That night she must have drugged me again, because I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up I was still naked, but I was lying on the floor. An iron leg shackle was on my right leg. A three foot chain to keep me shackled to the main post of the house.
‘The key is hidden somewhere safe outside this house. So if anything happens to me you’ll starve to death in here.’
‘I pray nothing happens to you then,’ I replied.
‘Here,’ she said and gave me a tomato. I bit into it. The smell and the taste of the juice on my tongue were incredible.
She watched me. ‘I grew it myself. I had a good harvest this year.’
I pushed the last bit into my mouth and wiped my lips with the back of my hand.
‘Would you like another?’
I nodded. Even then I knew there would be a price to pay. It was not the price of the tomato, it was the price of being out of the cage.
Chapter 7
My pain became alive and tangled with hers. She taught me to use my fingers and my mouth. I did everything she asked. She stroked my hair gently and crooned encouragingly while I did it. Then she twitched and convulsed and pulled my hair when she climaxed. The sounds that tore past her open mouth were animal-like. She reminded me of a suffering animal. I stared at her bleakly; I felt dead inside. My mind had become so detached I couldn’t think anymore. I fell away from her sticky skin back to the cold floor and I vomited. She cradled my head in her lap and I hated the smell of her skirt.
‘Do you still have my mother’s lace?’
She didn’t pretend not to understand. I had guessed right. She had stolen it from my sister. She narrowed her eyes.
‘Do you want it?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it is the last thing I have of my mother.’
‘What will you do for it?’
I felt cold and numb. My mouth had twisted open like the lid of a jar and words had dropped out. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘How will you keep it, though? The men will take it off you.’
‘I will sew it into the petticoat of my dress.’
The floor creaked underneath her weight as she slowly went into her bedroom. The lace was still wrapped in the same tissue my mother had wrapped it in. A lump came in my throat. I wanted to scream at her not to touch the tissue, not to unwrap it, not to soil it, not to change its perfume. It was my mother’s. It was the only thing left of her. She put it on the floor next to me and ran her hands down my hips and between my legs. I did nothing. I was in pieces. The pieces were all mute. I didn’t think I could ever be fused together again.
*****
‘Would you like to sit at the table and eat with me tonight?’ she offered when she came back.
‘The chain does not reach the table,’ I said looking at her innocently.
She nodded and started cooking. It was getting dark outside when she unlocked my shackles.
‘There are clothes laid out on the bed for you. Wear them.’
I went into her bedroom. There was a wooden bed, a cupboard and an old dresser. Her bedroom was cold. I closed the door behind me. There was only a small window and it was locked. I put on the clothes. They smelt musty and they were too big for me, but I was grateful for them. The feel of clothes after you have been naked for so long cannot be explained, only experienced. It was as if she had given me back my dignity. I was once again a human being.
I had a plan. Tonight I would escape. I would get her drunk and snoring and then I would slip out.
There were lit candles on the table. It looked like the kind of thing a wife might do for her husband on their anniversary. It angered me. I stood by the door and she looked up, bunched her hands into fists, and let out a trembling sigh.
‘Come to eat,’ she said gruffly.
I walked to the table laden with food.
She sipped at her glass of wine and reached for some bread. It was a strange meal. Outsid
e it had begun to snow. White flakes dropped from a black sky. Inside it was warm. The woman in front of me was quiet and wrapped in a blanket of some inner sorrow.
‘Aye, it will be very cold tonight. A person could freeze to death and no one would know until the snow melted again in spring, that is, if the animals don’t find their corpse first.’
I cut a small piece of potato. ‘Yes, it would be foolhardy to go out walking in this weather.’
‘Do you like this wine?’ she asked softly.
I took a sip. ‘Yes, it is good.’
She smiled. ‘I prefer beer or vodka myself.’
‘So why did you serve wine?’
