Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 513

"Take her," said Emerson.

The two men took my arms and lifted me. I screamed. I fought them both, and they held me flat between them like water held by a gate. I screamed Emerson's name, I begged him, I told him I would be good, that I had learned, that I would do anything he asked. He did not turn. The men carried me past the door and down the corridor, and I fought with everything I had until one of them hit the side of my head, clean and painless, and the dark folded over me like a curtain.

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I woke up and found myself on a bed, on my back, hands no longer bound, feet no longer tied, and I could still feel the ghost of the ropes where they had bitten into my skin.

I sat up slowly, bracing myself against the mattress until the room stopped spinning.

The room was a little big. The bed was a medium bed dressed in white. At the far wall sat a couch, cracked at the arms. On the wall hung a small mirror, just wide enough for one face when it had to look at itself. Up in the corner an air conditioner hummed, keeping the room chilled. And high up, where the wall met the ceiling, there was a little window that my hand could barely reach even stretched to its longest, and even from the top of the bed. It was a window, but it was not an opening for a body. It was an eye, not a mouth.

I crossed to the door and turned the handle. Locked. The door moved against the frame with hardly a rattle. I beat on it with my fist and the heel of my palm, "Open this door, let me out," until I thought the wood would break, but no one answered, and the silence closed back over me like water over a stone.

I walked to the mirror to look at my situation.

The only window in the bathroom was as small as the one in the room, near the ceiling on the high wall. Both windows were the same.

I did not care about much right now. I needed to get clean. I liked being clean. So I went to the shelf, picked a toothbrush, stripped off the wrapper, squeezed the paste onto the bristles, and stood over the sink scraping my teeth until my gums sang. I brushed twice, rinsed and spat, rinsed again, until the taste of that white room was washed out of me.

Then I stepped into the shower and turned the water hot. I wanted the water to take me apart. I washed my hair, soaping my scalp until it tingled, and scrubbed my body hard, working the whole bar into my arms, my chest, beneath my breasts, between my shoulder skin, along my thighs, everywhere a hand or a mouth or a cock had been, until my skin was pink and raw and clean.