Page 106 of Homebound
“What the hell? Let me go!” she screamed.
The man holding her laughed, a mean, evil sound. “Just wait a bloody minute.”
When the other attacker appeared in front of her, she saw a dark coat sleek with rain and a hat pulled low. His hands, when they reached for her, were gloved up.
“No, don’t touch me!” Gemma thrashed and tried to kick him in the stomach.
He caught her foot and gave it a good yank. Her bad foot. She whimpered and sagged, supported by the strong hold of whoever was at her back.
Gloved hands fumbled with the buttons of the coat at her chest. She wiggled, but the man holding her from behind twisted her arms tighter, stretching her tendons to the breaking point, making her cry out.
“Stand still. Nice titties, but maybe next time.” A fat mouth leered close showing a missing tooth. He palmed her breast and squeezed once before letting his hands roam. He was checking her pockets.
Gemma went insane, bucking like a stung bronco. “Get your hands off! Let me… ”
The man groping her gave a soft exclamation of success and pulled the money out of her pocket. She was shoved down roughly, and they took off, leaving her on the wet dirty ground with a hole in her knee where her pants caught on the rocks.
She flopped to her back and stared at the leaden evening sky, feeling the misty rain on her face. She thought of the Perali whose body had ended up near her grotto the other night. They had both been robbed, except he had also been killed. Was it insensitive of her to envy him? His suffering, at least, was over.
Gemma didn’t know how long she lay there, wet, hurt, and numb. Finally, she got up cursing the pain in her arms and a consistent throb in her newly injured ankle. She picked up the dropped cheese from the ground and made a weak effort to wipe the dirt off before stuffing the whole piece in her mouth. The bread, flattened into a mushy patty by her attackers’ boots, could not be saved.
???
Another week passed and brought about no change in Gemma’s luck. Or was it a month? She could no longer be sure. Days blended into one long string of hunger pangs and despair. She kept going ‘round town looking for employment, but the action had become more of a useless habit on her part than a proactive search with goals. Potential employers gave her appearance one look and shook their heads, taking in her sunken cheeks and dirty clothes. She didn’t need a mirror to know she looked like a starving homeless woman she was. She smelled.
Sometime recently - two days ago? three? - she had woken up in the morning and had given in to the heavy lethargy permeating her body and spirit. She wouldn’t find any work. She wouldn’t beableto work in her present condition. Even lifting her hands had become an effort.
The cold front had moved in and the temperature outside dropped. The chill shrouded the City like a stiff prickly blanket. All the slush on the streets turned to solid ice, and the air was crisp and thin, glacial. Gemma stayed holed up in her little cavern huddled under all the clothes she possessed, venturing out only to pick up small chips of ice to suck on.
She slept most of the time. There were no dreams. In her short periods of wakefulness, a feeble will to live forced her mind to run through possibilities. Could she return to the McKinleys? They wouldn't accept her. She knew with absolute certainty that had she gone to them for help, they would turn her down and feel she deserved her fate.
And the prison? If she approached OO, would he take her back in exchange for you-know-what? Gemma laughed silently. Not looking like this, he wouldn’t come near. The last few weeks had cost her all the residual attractiveness she might have possessed. The greasy hair and the musty smell of her unwashed body were far from what OO was looking for. And deep down, Gemma knew she wouldn’t be able to go through fucking him. She just didn’t have it in her to whore herself out for food.
She took a shuddering breath that filled her lungs with piercing cold air and drifted off.
???
It was cold. So cold that the very blood seemed congealed in her veins. Thick, it flowed slowly, and her heart had difficulties pushing it through her body. Every beat felt forced. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. A pause. Gemma mulled it over. The pauses weren’t good.
Ice crystals formed on the hair that escaped her hat. She could see the whitened tendrils that lay along her cheeks out of the corner of her eye. Pretty. She wiggled her toes to get some feeling back in them. Her head pounded, had been for days. Her stomach felt light and dry on the inside, but she no longer suffered from hunger, a relief after weeks of battling it.
The grotto’s walls pressed on Gemma, cold, hard, and unwelcoming, as far from being a home as could possibly be. Even the prison seemed more inviting. Suddenly, she felt suffocated by her cave. Crypt. It was going to become her crypt.
She stirred, fighting the layers of the musty rags under which she’d been nesting. Sticking her feet out, she slid off the ledge and stood up. Her head spun sickeningly, and her legs threatened to buckle. Fighting the weakness, Gemma grasped the roughness of the old brick wall and forced her body to obey, to move. She started walking.
She wandered the streets without direction. Shapes of the buildings looked hazy. She bumped into fellow pedestrians. Coming across a large group of migrants clustered around the fire, she stopped in indecision. They blocked her path. Should she go around them? The fire threw off a delicious warmth; it drew Gemma like a magnet and held her in place. She stood there until a voice called out, “Hey, come over and sit down! You look tired.”
Gemma turned to the voice but couldn't discern who invited her.
“Excuse me,” Gemma stepped on someone’s limbs in her stagger to get to the fire.
People rippled and shifted making room for her. A woman smiled, and Gemma wanted to cry from gratitude. She gingerly lowered to the ground and made herself comfortable. The orange glow danced in front of her eyes, and the fire’s heat reached out to Gemma in caressing licks of warmth. To be warm, she’d almost forgotten what it felt like. Soothed by the unusual sensations of coziness and comfort, Gemma let her eyes close and her mind drift…
The familiar cold woke her up.
At first, Gemma didn’t know where she was and couldn’t remember how she got there. Everything looked different. The fire was no longer burning, and the coals afforded no more protection from the chill. The dense crowd of migrants had dispersed with only a few people still lingering, huddled together. The day had gone by, and the early winter dusk was gathering force.
A man was sitting across from Gemma, and his eyes were glued to her over the dying embers. Sharp, watchful eyes, like the City’s harsh winter, they made Gemma uneasy. She staggered to her feet, her body weightless and all but numb from the lack of nourishment. Sweepers would be out soon, and she needed to go hide.
