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My heart aches with the depressing knowledge I’ll likely die here. Salvatore will likely die where he is, trapped inside the prison cell, from the cruel torture Lucius subjects him to.
It’s the end. All hope is lost.
I fade into sleep with these morbid thoughts. If I were never to wake, I’d be fine with it. How can I not be when reality is bleaker than dying?
On my third and fourth days, I’m tasked with menial jobs like many others. I’m placed on the crew whose job it is to clean the floors. For hours I’m bent on hands and knees polishing the floorboards under the constant threats issued by the guards who are assigned to watch us.
By the time I’m thrown back into my cage, I have blisters on the palm of my hands and my knees have been rubbed raw.
On the fifth day is the big showcase that’s been talked about. I’m wrenched from my cage and escorted to a level I’ve never been on before—the floor where the product prep happens. Even the mention of ‘product prep’ evokes deep nausea in me.
“Sit down,” snarls Theresa. She jams me into a salon-style chair and then grabs a hold of my chin. “That bruise hasn’t faded all the way. If it prevents you being profitable there’ll be hell to pay. We might have to discount you. Maybe come up with a special. Two customers for the price of one.”
My brows connect and I open my mouth, about to question how that possibly makes sense—how I can possibly be punished by being put on ‘sale’ for a bruise I didn’t ask for. Digging my fingernails into my thighs, I resist the urge, tamping down on my backtalk with the knowledge it’ll only cost me more than it’s worth.
There’s no reasoning with these people. There’s no appealing to their humanity.
They have no humanity or sense of reason or decency. They’re evil; every last one of them.
For the next hour and a half, I’m cleaned up. A stylist flat irons my hair into straight sheets along my shoulders and a full-face of make up is applied. I catch a quick glimpse of myself in the mirror. Not only has the bruise been covered by heavy foundation, but I’ve been done up in make up I’d never wear myself—a bold red lip, heavy smoky eye shadow and a severe contour and highlight.
It’s too much. It’s too garish. Too… unlike me.
The dark reality sinks that it’s intentional. It’s nothing like me, because I no longer have any personhood. I’m no longer someone in their eyes. Just something to be sold.
The stylist turns her back to fish in her make up case for more products. I snap out of my depressing reverie and glance again at the woman in the mirror. I barely recognize her, already feel as though I’m losing touch with myself, and what I’ll be forced to do tonight…
Then I notice a pair of beauty scissors on the vanity countertop. My eyes flit up to check on the stylist. Her back’s still turned on me. The scissors are an arm-reach away. They’re not sharp enough to truly use as a weapon of escape, but they are enough to escape in other ways…
By the time she turns back around, they’re no longer on the counter top. I sit obediently with my hands in my lap, and wait out the rest of her styling.
The Handler comes to collect me. His sickening grip clenches shut on my upper arm and he yanks me out of the chair without giving me time to set a proper stance.
“C’mon,” he says. “We’ve got to get you dressed and ready for the stage.”
By ‘dressed’, I discover he means lingerie. A short, tiny scrap of lace that barely covers my most intimate parts up. I try to do so with my arms, but he smacks them out of the way, his lecherous gaze sliding up and down my body.
“Who knows?” he grunts. “I just might buy you myself. No rules against employees partaking in the showcase auction.”
I give no reaction, though on the inside, I’m sick enough to feel faint. He barks at me to put on my shoes—a pair of uncomfortable, too small five-inch stilettos—and he checks the time.
“Starts in ten minutes. Your first up. Our big opener. Former Northam Assistant District Attorney turned whore. We expect you to beverybusy tonight. Andverysore tomorrow.”
His twisted laugh is the final nail in the coffin. I can’t stand it. I can’t do it. I can’t—
“I need to use the restroom,” I blurt out. “May I please be taken?”
He grits his teeth, his hideous, jagged scar more pronounced along his cheek. My request is granted, only because he mumbles something about a former product pissing herself on stage, and how it affected sales.
“I’ll be outside and this door has no lock. You have sixty seconds. Make it quick.”
The door slams shut.
The instant I’m alone, I pull out the beauty scissors I’ve swiped. My heart booms in my chest in a toxic cocktail of feverish anticipation, anxiety and fear. I’d been so sure only seconds ago, but as I wrap my fingers around the scissors and hold out my wrist, I freeze up.
My mind goes to Salvatore and what horrors he’s enduring. How he’s preserved and still hasn’t allowed himself to be broken.
Even when he gave in and let Lucius humiliate him, it wasn’t for himself. It was for me.
