Queen of Nothing

The days kept ticking away painfully slow like watching the dripping of pitch before it was shattered with a hammer. It was always the CLANG-CLANG of the metal rod Mateo beat against the metal bars that woke me up from the illusion of a night’s sleep. Out of the three of them, he was the morning guy. He was the only one who was ever awake early enough to come down here after the longest sleep ended. I couldn’t call it night anymore, there was no essence of time down here, and the lights were always on. The slamming metal rang out loudly to announce his presence and the three girls rose to their feet on his command, “Just the black sheep today ladies, take a seat,” he said, waving them down and they all dropped to their respective beds like dogs waiting for a bone.

Mateo’s visits were always unpredictable, there was a wildness to him that I couldn’t understand. He was full of uncontrollable impulses, but there was a softness to him that I could see was trying to break through the surface. He put on a show of indifference, but I could see there was a deeper pain fighting against his currents. I had known that he enlisted with Ronan in the Navy, and if I were to put my money on anything, I’d say that maybe he didn’t come home completely whole.

His torture sessions were pretty mild though, it almost seemed like a test instead of punishment when he was the one calling the shots. It was like he wanted to see how much I could endure, instead of hoping that I would break. The last time, Fletcher blindfolded me before they came to get me out of the room but it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see. I could already smell the difference between Mateo’s trademark pine and leather scent, to the peppery cedar of Ronan’s Bleu de Chanel. What I did know for certain was that Santo never came down here with them, because Santo smelled like gunpowder and smoke. Like his hands were either busy shooting a weapon or holding a lit cigarette.

It had been Mateo’s heady pine scent that engulfed my senses, almost invading my throat. He chained me to the wall and sprayed me down as usual before pulling out what I could only have assumed was a defibrillator before pressing them to the wet soles of my feet. That shit fucking hurt, but there was no way it was turned up enough to even jump start a heart let alone leave a mark.

My torture standards were apparently much higher than theirs, but I played along. I would let out a scream or two and earn their pity and get my ass back on that dry cot again.

Today was a new day though, and I was somehow always intrigued to see what they could come up with as they tried to force me to crack. He unlocked the kennel door and with a single finger he beckoned me over.

“You’re a tough cookie to crack Sunshine,” he said, forcing a bubble of laughter out of me.

“Sunshine? What part of my personality made you think that was an appropriate nickname?” I challenged him with a laugh.

“It’s not your personality,” he said as he looked me up and down shamelessly, even though I was wearing the same gray sweatpants and white t-shirt the others were in. “Your skin reminds me of sunshine,” he said tilting his chin up to the ceiling, the smile on his lip fading as he looked up and didn’t find the Sun.

To say Mateo Kane was attractive was an understatement, to be honest I didn’t know what factory they were building these guys in, but they perfected them. He was almost as tall as Ronan, but where Ronan’s dark blonde hair constantly fell to his eyes, Mateo’s was an inky black that he kept perfectly slicked back with shine.

His skin was a beautiful light olive hue that complimented the rest of his features like his strong jaw and full eyebrows that made his eyes burn with a deeper intensity than I thought was possible. In another life, I would have daydreamed of him and let my fantasies carry me away, but these bars were a constant reminder of my reality and who put me here. The truth was it had been even longer since I thought about being with a man let alone acted on those urges. I’d been una muerta for so long, and dead women didn’t need sex.

I had a pretty good success rate with my own hands, probably six out of ten times if we were calculating for data purposes. Sometimes the anxiety would keep me from getting out of my own head and I could never reach that sweet spot, eventually, I would just give up, wipe my fingers, and go to sleep. Not here in this prison though, not with three roommates just a few feet away. It had been so long at this point that the only material I had was when Ronan made me come on that first day I stupidly came here. I shuddered the memory away and clenched my thighs together. Stupid bitch.

I decided to try and regain some sort of control over my situation, and I offered up a half-smile at his attempt at a compliment. He returned the same with a dimpled cheek and I all but stumbled over my own knees from it. Fuck. Are they doing this shit to me? Panic fluttered through my belly and as Mateo closed the door to the kennels behind us.

I hit him with the side of my hand in the throat.

I made a run for the direction I thought the entrance was but before I could even get to what looks like a hotel lobby. I was hit by an arm in the chest that sent me flying back and gasping for the wind that was knocked out from inside of me. The cool of the concrete almost burned my back from the friction of being pulled, as someone dragged me by the ankle taking me back to where I just came from. I heard a laugh, “This one is extra feisty, you okay boss?” coming from Fletcher and I made a mental note to remember to pay him back for that one eventually.

“Fuck,” Mateo rasped as he stood over me clutching his throat. “You’ve got a lot of spice to you Sunshine. I’m not going to take pleasure in washing out some of your flavor.” He chuckled darkly and took my ankle from Fletcher as he started dragging me past the kennels.

“Where are you taking me?” I yelled at him as I realized we weren’t going to either kennel, and fear began to take hold of me. I was thrashing as he dragged me along the floor down the hall to where two doors stood side by side.

“This isn’t a punishment for that stunt you just pulled. Just so you know,” he croaked at me, but I was too busy trying to hide my panic from surfacing.

“What do you care what I think?” I spat at him, and he lowered down and squeezed my cheeks in forcing my mouth to part.

“Because if I was the one ruining you, I’d go about it in different ways,” he threw my head to the side with one hand as he let go, while sliding his other hand against my pussy through my sweatpants, leaving my mouth parted in shock. He pulled away just as quickly and cleared his throat before continuing.

“One of these were made especially for you.” He knocked on one of the doors, “The other…has always been here, it’s where they go,” he said as he pointed his chin in the direction of the kennels. “Which one do you think you want?” He looked down at me as he asked me with actual sincerity and for a moment, I actually believed him when he said this wasn’t a punishment he was doling out. There was nothing but softness in his eyes.

“Neither?” I asked, my breathing heavy and labored as my ability to hide my panic was deteriorating the more, I tried to imagine what was behind each door. I thought about how mindless, and desperate for Ronan those women looked when they would come out of here and I narrowed my eyes in anger, realizing I didn’t want anything that was meant for them.

He shook his head at me, “I told you, I don’t want to wash out your flavor, but I have to.” He reached down as if to touch me but pulled back.

“Because he’s making you?” I asked him, peeling my upper lip back at his dog-like behavior, and his jaw ticked – clearly catching what I was implying.

“Because you signed,” he said, crouching down brushing the hair out of my eyes, and my anger was redirected at him when I remembered the only reason I signed was him. He was pacing around me like a lunatic, making me overly anxious at that moment. I couldn’t have passed a clear thought in mind with the annoying thumping of my heart, and the berating noise of the clock ticking along with his nervous pacing.

“I signed because of you,” I said dryly and he tsk-ed at me, his thumb brushing down the side of my face until my chin was between his thumb and forefinger.

“No, you signed because of you,” he said in his quirky playful tone, but I knew he was telling a closer truth than I was.

I’d been basically walking around with explosives strapped to my own chest for as long as I could remember because I didn’t have anything else to lose anymore, I hadn’t for a while.

“I’m letting you choose,” he barely whispered it as if it was the greatest kindness he could offer me.

“The one for me?” I asked, unsure of myself.

He took a long look at the door and turned back to me to say, “I think that was the wrong choice, Sunshine.” He mourned as he opened the door to the left and pushed me inside with one motion before shutting the door on me and surrounding me in pitch black darkness. I could barely hear the muffled sound of his voice and I could only assume I was in some soundproof box because it was mostly vibrations and not words, I could make out. Before I even had time to piece together any thoughts, I was overwhelmed by the deafening sound of what seemed like hundreds of guns going off at the same time.

Panic gripped me and I was thrown back to that moment half a lifetime ago where everything changed, and I realized as I tried to get up and move that I wasn’t sure I was in a room at all. The walls and the ceiling, it was all right above me, right behind me and in front of me. It felt like I was inside a fucking coffin. I was in a fucking coffin! What the fuck! I slapped the padded walls surrounding me as I screamed and begged Mateo to let me out, but the temperature started to rise inside. My head was completely spinning as the guns continued to go off over and over again without a second of silence in between to let me relax.

The one person I loved more than anything in this world created a chamber to echo my trauma and my losses. I took a long breath and channeled a deep place inside of myself where all that was left were my Papá’s wisdom, and his calculated rage. I thought about the moment where the dominos had first been set.

“How old are you Ronan?” My Papá asked without lifting his eyes from his plate, as if the food in front of him was far more important than this conversation could ever be.

“I just turned seventeen, sir.” A fire in his eyes as he lifted his chin up bravely to match my Papá.

“Almost a man then. So, you will be a senior next year, yes? Hopefully moving on to a good school after that maybe. Do you have any interests?” My Papá interrogated him, finally shifting his eyes toward his prey.

“I’ll be trying to stay as close to home as possible so I can stay near Céci, she is really my only interest, so maybe if I get lucky, UCLA will take me. I don’t know what I plan on doing there yet though.” He scratched the back of his head nervously and looked down at his plate then back at me. I squeezed his free hand from my place next to him and smiled at him to assure him that he was doing okay.

My Papá lifted his eyebrow, my gut churned at the reaction and my grip on Ronan’s hand loosened. The correct answer was the one that got him as far away from me as possible, by his own choice.

Papá sucked some imaginary food from his teeth and said in his thick accent, “I will entertain this little romance the two of you have fostered, for now. But there will be a time when my daughter will break your heart because duty binds her to do so. You will not cry, you will not pout, you will not moan. You will not come groveling at this door, you will simply accept this like a man and move on. Do you understand me?”

No sounds of silverware clinking could be heard anymore and my Tia and Mamá went silent and made eyes at each other. I could feel Ronan’s eyes burning through me and my heart was physically breaking at that very moment, but I couldn’t meet his gaze if my life depended on it.