There was a small window in the back of the decaying room that Sherry was held in. Even so, only a splash of daylight made it inside, and it died before it reached close enough for her to see her surroundings.
The eyes blank, she had been staring at the dancing dust motes in the single shaft of light that sliced through the grime-coated window for hours, maybe days. In the silent hope that, if she only kept on looking at it long enough, the light might get stuck to her eyes, and move with them, the next time she would look away, so she could illuminate the darkness, as thick as oil, that was in front of her.
The concrete floor bit into her cheek, when she heard a rummaging key in the safety lock of the basement door that was nestled in the dark void before her. The light situation changed for only a second. Before she could take it in, and move, she heard the heavy footsteps of the monster who took her. The door slammed shut behind him, and his low voice crept towards her, like a leech that was determined to suck her dry.
"You think you're better than everyone else, don't you?" He sneered, casting a shadow on her cage.
She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to face what was coming, even though she could feel it.
What you don't see, cannot harm you, she had been taught and taught it on with an uncountable number of reports that had been published in her magazine, unaware how much harm she´d cause with it. Only now she was slowly starting to understand. Despite it, she followed her first instinct and closed her eyes, when she heard him coming closer.
His footsteps were next to her. She could smell his salty aftershave, and her foot chain started rattling when he dragged her off the ground. With her heart pounding in her throat, she felt his warm breath with a hint of spirits on her face.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you," he barked at her, and his hand forced her eyelids open.
Trembling with fear, she tried to catch a glimpse of him, but only saw the shadows that he was hiding in as he stepped back to survey her.
"Now we will see how perfect you really are, won´t we?"
His hand reached into his pocket, and Sherry flinched.
What was he doing?
Jittering, she watched him as he pulled a hunting knife out of his pocket; the very few grains of daylight that made it into the basement were reflecting on its blade.
This was the end, Sherry was sure of it.
Silently crying, she closed her eyes again, and tried to pull away from him, but the more she was struggling, the rougher his hands grew.
There was no escaping; no getting away.
Shivering, she clung to the thought of her children. To the happy faces of their baby days that were stored in her brain. Briefly before what she presumed would be her death, she put them on replay.
Forgive me, she silently begged on the inside, addressing it to the both of them. Forgive me for everything.
When she heard the air that surrounded her swooshing, she silently bid farewell to her pretense of a life. Holding her breath, she felt her dress ripping apart, and afterwards, a short, but sharp pain bit into her as the blade touched her skin. Then it was silent.
Was she dead?
Blinking through her still closed eyelids, she could see that she was not. The blade had not hit her. It had only graced her skin, when his determined hand had used it to cut her out of her stained glamour-dress.
Despite the relief that was washing over her for the next few seconds, the tension and fear couldn't quite leave her body. Her heart escaped her, and wasn't beating in her chest anymore, as he loomed closer and closer, his silhouette embedded in shadows. He had this look on his face, that hunger in his eyes that told her what he was planning on doing next.
"Please, don't...," she tried to whisper, but the duct-tape forced her own words down her throat.
She started coughing, so she wouldn't choke.
No, she wasn't going to make it this easy for him.
Devoid of empathy, he cut her whining and bibbering off with a sharp laugh.
"You don't get to say anything at all anymore. The only voice that matters down here is mine."
Half a sob, half a hysteric, a laugh gurgled in her throat.
So this was going to be it. The grand finale to her perfectly curated, and perfectly empty life. Kidnapped, tortured, and soon to be... Something worse, she felt it coming, and for the first time in her life she fought her innate instinct to look away.
"What's so funny?" The gravelly rasp that was his voice scraped against her ears.
He was right behind her. She felt the weight of his body pressing against her, when she twisted her head and forced herself to meet his gaze. With dark eyes , he put his finger upon her lips to cut off her attempts to speak.
"You know what?" He scoffed, relishing the flicker of horror in her glance. "You should be thanking me. Just think about how boring your life was before I came along. I would deserve a thank you for spicing things up."
A chuckle from down low and deep in his throat, before he ran his rough hand through her hair, and destroyed the perfect look of her curls by a hard tug.
"You aren't special anymore , isn't that relieving? Down here, you are just like everyone else. Just like the ones before you, trying to scream and beg."
She bit her tongue. There wouldn't be much screaming anymore, that was how unwilling she was to give him gratification. As a child, she used to like being challenged. Mentally, she used to be strong, once upon a time, before the pressure that were the expectations of other people had pushed her down.
Who could have blamed her for having chosen the easy way? She had built a shell to fight the crushing pressure off; a pretense of a life that would satisfy what they expected of her? She did. She blamed herself for it, and even though every single touch of her torturer made her sick to her stomach and flinch back from his eager fingers, she felt challenged. For the first time in years.
In her shell of a life that hadn't felt alive, the bold and rebellious, challenge-seeking-out child that she used to be had started to suffocate, before he had taken her. As disgusted as she was by his hands on her, they broke the shell that she had built for herself, and there she was, the former version of herself that had been trapped inside it. Still sleepy, weak and overwhelmed by the freedom that she was gaining back, but she was deliberated, and ready to wake up.
She would get Sherry out of here, and once she would make it out, Sherry would finally have something that she would have achieved herself. Something that mattered which she would have made happen on her own account and with no one´s help.
Unlike the big job that she had only gotten due to her great contacts, unlike the money that she had only earned through compromising her family and friends, and unlike her marriage that she had only agreed to out of convenience, it would be something to be proud of. At least, that's what she chose to believe so she wouldn't break underneath his greedy, groping hands.
As if he could feel her growing resilience, his grip around her wrists tightened. He pushed her against the bars of her cage. She could feel them pressing into her bare back, but she didn't flinch. Not even when leaned closer, his thin and rough lips brushing her ear.
Let him think he has the upper hand, she thought.
If he were to underestimate her, she would use it to her advantage.
"Are you scared yet?" He whispered into her ear. "I can see you know what's coming. And I see your eyes wandering. Don't believe that I don't notice when you are checking out the room for an escape."
A harsh and grating laugh, before he went on, "Look around you, honey. You aren't going to go anywhere. I suggest that you play along and be the good girl that you have been pretending to be, instead of wasting your energy on planning to break free."
Her eyes scanned the room. In the shadows, she saw the outlines of expensive Persian rugs, rolled up in a corner, where they were gathering dust. Beside them, a gleaming weight bench that was incongruously bordering a stack of decaying cardboard boxes. He was right. She was trapped.
The security door, thick and steel-plated, was the only exit. The tiny window on the opposite wall wouldn't even be big enough for one of her legs to fit through.
All at once, he pressed himself against her. Oh, his stench! Aggressive and overpowering, the note of his aftershave bit in her eyes. Every bit of her felt repulsed by his presence, and with her mind racing, she was looking for an opportunity to get away from him.
The weight bench. The window. The security door. She was scanning her surroundings for potential weapons, or an escape route. She needed a chance.
With all his strength, he threw her to the ground. Her world was spinning, when she felt his weight on top of her, about to crush her bones. When he started kissing her neck, his wet lips on her skin felt like acid.
Her first reaction was to start kicking, start punching, pushing, and pulling away, but none of it helped. Like that of a rock which had come down on her in an avalanche, his weight didn´t lift off her, and his demeanor didn't change. That she was struggling and trying to fight him off seemed to only encourage him.
Her body tensed when she saw him reaching for his belt and pulling it loose, a slow, and cruel smile across his face. Then, suddenly, with a mixture of revulsion and cold calculation, an idea lit up her watering eyes.
She had to give in to him. She had to pretend that she was surrendering.
If I stop fighting him, she thought, it might discourage him.
She knew men like him, so she was convinced. Men who couldn't live with the thought that anyone was out of their reach. Those who couldn't bear the idea that a woman was stronger or better than they were. Those who felt like they had to take their power back, after they had been dominated and humiliated by a mother, a sister, or wife.
These days it wasn´t an occasional situation that, inspired by misinterpreted calls for feminism, women would keep themselves men who they could control, and subjugate. To whom they would prove every day that they were better, and that was even at all the things that used to be exclusively men-controlled domains.
Sherry tried hard to let him think he had succeeded in breaking her spirit, but he opened his pants, either way. The moment she felt him forcefully intrude her, stomach acid shot into her mouth. As much as she wanted to spit it into his face, her lips still sealed with duct-tape, she couldn´t. It was the most disempowering moment that she had ever lived through, when she had to silently wallow it back down, while he kept on moving inside her.,
His pushes were so aggressive; that she felt them painfully pinch her tense abdominal wall. The only glimmer of hope was that she had been right about his motives. The less she fought him, the less hard he became. By trying her best to make him believe that she had surrendered to him, she cut his pleasure short.
Before he could come inside her, he went limp, and lost every interest in her. He had chosen her, a seemingly perfect woman who appeared to be an entire universe above him, to prove her wrong. By breaking her spirit and subjecting her. Out of all people, Sherry Jones, the co-founder of a magazine, in which reports would frequently encourage women to detach themselves from men in all the wrong ways.
As a member of the board and the editor in chief, she had given the go to pieces of advice that she had known would not lead to an even treatment of men and women, but to the subjugation of men, abd she had given her blessing to thousands of storiesthat she had known were lies, including unfounded rape accusations.
When he pulled out, a warm and sweet metallic stench started misting her. She felt a gush of blood leaving her as his member did. As soon as he turned his back on her and slipped into his pants without a single word, she could finally let her body react to the violation
Uncontrollably, she started shivering, a pounding pain in her lower stomach. Despite it and regardless of the humiliation that she was feeling, the sight of the blood that he left her in, when he got up and slammed the safety-door shut behind him, gave her a faint flickering shimmer of hope.
She wouldn't let him do it again. Before he would even try, she would long be gone.
Her hand still trembling, she crawled through the darkness, until her fingers could reach the white fabric of the dress that he had cut off her body. When she drenched her quivering pinkie finger in the blood that was running down her thigh and dripping on the ground where it gathered in a small puddle, it took her all her strength to control her motions.
Fully concentrated, she spread out a scrap of her dress. It used to be her favorite one.
Now its tatters were her only chance.
Even though the darkness made it hard for her to see, her pinkie finger, started moving up and down the fabric.
"My name is Sherry Jones," she wrote with her own blood. "Someone kidnapped me. I don't know who he is, or where he brought me, but this is his cat. Please, help me!"