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“Or bathe.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I mumble, shivering against the pillow. Likely from fear, exhaustion and cold, but I can’t tell anymore. All of my emotions and feelings are blurring into one.
He scans me up and down and then his eyes fall to something beside my hip. I look down and want to sob as he assesses the black and gold pen that I had planned to use against him.
Coming closer, he lifts it from the ground. “Planning to send a message in a bottle?”
I don’t reply, I wait, still trembling, for my punishment.
He uses the pen to move a strand of my hair from my face. I whimper and when my eyes flutter closed, they push tears down my cheeks.
“Even if you could kill me…” He moves the tip down my arm and goose bumps break out across my creamy skin. I shift away and close my eyes but it doesn’t deter him. “What then?”
Again, I remain mute.
“Think about that,” he whispers, standing and taking the pen with him. “Shower. You’ll feel better. I’ll send you food at lunch.”
He does send food and I do try to eat it but it just comes straight back up into the toilet.
I’m awoken by rough hands grabbing me and lifting me to my feet. I wobble and shake as I try to balance.
“You stink,” he barks at me.
“Get the fuck off me,” I yell, weak from lack of food, sleep, energy and fucking everything.
I fight, struggling against his hold as he starts to half carry me to the bathroom.
I had this theory that he definitely wouldn’t touch me if I didn’t smell good. I was right, until now. Yesterday was much of the same as the day before. Me slowly getting smellier, but also getting weaker because of how ill I feel.
I should have asked to see a doctor but I haven’t seen the captain much and when I have he’s had that fucking smirk on his face, I’ll be damned and dead before I ask him for anything.
I scream but it is swallowed by hot water as I’m dropped into a deep tub and left to fend for myself the moment my head goes under.
“You absolute PSYCHOPATH!” I shriek at him once I resurface, ignoring the way the hot water soothes my aching joints. I’ve spent too many nights in that corner with books I can’t focus on. Three days without food, two nights without a blanket or a soft space.
“This silent protest has to stop. Do you think I’m going to send you back because of this little suffragette move you’re pulling?” he yells as he squeezes way too much shampoo onto my wet hair and starts rubbing it in despite my efforts to push him away. “You’re here, fucking deal with it. Stop whining. Eat. Learn some new shit. I haven’t confined you. You can free roam wherever the fuck you like so long as you’ve got one of my boys with you. Shit, you can even watch me sail the pretty boat. Just stop starving yourself!”
He pushes me underwater, holding my head as he rinses the suds out. Water goes up my nose, burning a path to my mouth. I claw at his hand and lurch over the side when he releases me.
“You’ve got no meat on you as it is, and I loathe force-feeding people but I will. I have the equipment to do so.” He drags conditioner through my hair and I’m so weak I resign myself to my fate, hanging onto the edge of the bath as his movements soften. The sweet smell of coconuts makes my mouth water. “Do you want to be force-fed?”
I shake my head, no, because I really do not want to be force-fed.
“Then will you eat?”
“I can’t keep it down,” I admit quietly and he crouches beside the bath, moving so his eyes catch mine. They’re sparkling with determination, annoyance and anger. “I can’t keep anything down.”
“Are you pregnant?” he asks and a muscle ticks in his jaw.
“No.” The word spills from my mouth before I can stop it. I should have said yes, played on it, used it to manipulate the situation. “Seasick maybe. In shock. Depressed. You name it.”
He sighs heavily and grumbles under his breath, “More fucking trouble than she’s worth.” Then he pulls on my head until I’m sitting up, still fully clothed in his bath. “Wash yourself, brush your teeth. I’ll fetch you something you can hopefully consume.”
I nod, hoping the tears I’m crying blend in with the water on my face.
He leaves and I do as I’m told because I don’t have the energy to do anything else. I’m genuinely ill.
Stripping out of my clothes, I bathe, cringing at the hair growing under my arms and around my groin. It’s still short but it’s degrading for a woman who has always shaved and likes it that way. I feel unclean and unkempt and so ridiculously unsexy.
