Hold On

I set my phone down and head toward the bathroom. As I step away, I remember I haven’t texted Marshall to let him know we’re here and promise myself I will—just as soon as I deal with the three cups of coffee I drank before I left the house.

After I pee and get my pants zipped up, I grab the garbage can and open the medicine chest. It’s still full of so many prescription bottles. It makes me sad to remember the last year of my grandparents’ lives, so filled with pain and the inevitable realization they were very close to the last days they would have here in this life.

On the back of the closed bathroom door hang their robes and my throat tightens.

As I empty the pill bottles from the cabinet, I throw them harder and harder into the trash can. The warm memories of them raising me, then me having to take over in the last few years, bring a fresh wave of grief. But there’s joy, too, knowing this place will be something new and reinvigorated, washing away some of the gray and staleness that lingers here now. A place for my new family and me to enjoy and create new memories.

My eyes burn and my cheeks are wet when I finally emerge from the tiny bathroom into the hall.

I swipe my sleeve over my eyes as I turn toward the kitchen, thinking I should deal with whatever food is left in the refrigerator the same way I dealt with the pill bottles.

I squeeze my nose and sniff, catching a scent of something rancid, like tobacco and coffee. It makes me screw up my face in disgust, and I can’t quite place the smell.

It’s familiar, but neither of my grandparents ever smoked. I snap my fingers, remembering I still haven’t texted Marshall and I turn on my heel to go get my phone only to feel a hand clasp around my throat, dragging me backward, my heart screaming and my blood turning cold.

And I hear the voice in my ear.

“Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

Carver’s voice seeps into my ear, and I twist and fight, but he’s got me pinned with my face against the wall, pulling my arms behind me, and I feel cold metal then hear the click of the cuffs before he spins me around, shoves me into my bedroom, and slams me face down onto my bed.

“Don’t touch me,” I yell as he picks me up and throws me down again onto the center of the bed.

“I’m going to touch you. I’m going to do many things to you. Do you know why?”

“Just because I didn’t go out with you? What a self-absorbed ass you are.”

He laughs. “That, then your shiny new rich boyfriend fires me. No, not only fires me, but has also me escorted out in front of everyone. He wants to humiliate me? Fine. But, what is he going to think when he sees you on a porn channel having fun with a masked man? Don’t think he’ll want you after the show I’m going to give him.”

Carver clicks something onto the cuffs behind my back, then I hear metal and look up to see him wrapping a chain around the headboard, winching my arms up, stretching the tendons in my shoulders until they ache.

He drops a backpack from his shoulders as heat covers me, and I struggle against the handcuffs, but whenever I do, sharp pain stabs me in the shoulders. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing I’d have to dislocate them to gain even a few inches, which wouldn’t do me any good.

He’s disheveled looking like he’s been sleeping in his clothes.

“Don’t do this,” I try, realizing how contrived and dumb it sounds.

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” He reaches into the backpack and brings out a black rubber mask, setting it on the dresser, followed by a white frilly dress that looks like one a toddler would wear to one of those horrible baby beauty pageants.

My mind is racing, trying to figure my way out, but if I can’t even get off the bed, there’s not much hope of making a break for it.

He lays the dress on the floor, then pulls out something metal and starts to unfold it. After a few seconds, I realize it’s a light, like one of those they advertise on Facebook for people that do video blogs and video shoots, but this one is huge. When he plugs it into the outlet and clicks it on, there’s a low hum and it nearly blinds me.

“Good lighting is the key to a good video, you know.”

I blink and see the silhouette of him stripping off his shirt from behind the light, his body unnaturally smooth and shiny. When he steps to the side, and I get a better look, I realize his body is completely shaved. Then he drops his pants, and the scream I’ve been holding back explodes, seeing the black latex thong with an enormous erection straining at the top elastic.