“Who are you?” He asks, his eyes pinning me to my spot.
“What?”
He sighs loudly and fists his hands by his side, “It’s a simple fucking question. Who are you?”
It feels like this is a fucking trick, like if I tell him who I really am that I'd be saying the wrong answer. Who am I to him?
“I'm your whore, Savage. Your filthy whore.”
His eyes light up again and I swear I see the shadow of a smile try to cross his lips before he shakes his head and stares me down again.
“No, your real name, on your birth certificate. What do your parents call you?”
My eyebrows furrow and I look around once again just to make sure this isn't a joke. “Genesys La Rue. That's my real name.”
“Genesys, yes, that's what I have here.” He walks back to the small table where he had dropped the papers he was once holding. “Do you know the test you took in order to be matched with me was forwarded? I even have a copy of your oral exam, and the contract you signed.”
He waits for me to say something, but I had figured that they'd do something like that. What I can't understand is why he thinks this is something I don't know or would be surprised at?
“Yes, Savage, I suspected they would do that.” I keep my words slow trying not to offend him.
“Who did you sub for in the past?”
“What?” I ask again and this time instead of a sigh he pulls out something from his pocket. It's long and heavy looking with two prongs at the end. It looks like an electric BBQ fork. I don't know what it's for.
“Tell me what again and you'll regret it, Whore.”
“I don't understand the question.” I retort, this time I can feel my own impatience rising. He's asking me about shit that I don't know anything about and expects me not to ask, ‘What?’.
“Are you really going to stand there and pretend that you don't know what I'm asking you. You come into my home and you think that by playing this fucking game with me that I won't realize what you've done. Did someone send you in here? Is that what this is?” He squints at me and I fumble with the new rags he's given me to wear.
He has the tests, maybe he knows what I did to get picked. Maybe he knows I had cheated on the test and he wants me to admit it. I can't admit it, because he’ll send me away if I do. I also need that money. I may have started dancing, because it was what I was supposed to do. Though now it's a part of who I am. If I can't dance, I can't do anything else.
“I don't know what you're talking about Savage. Just let me go back to the room.”
“You don't know what I'm talking about? Really?” He walks over to me and I see in his hand the small BBQ fork looking thing start to crackle with electricity.
No, it can't be.
“Please, please, please.” I beg and cower further against the wall.
“Liar! Fucking, whore liar!” He yells and presses the metal against my skin. My head pops back hard as my eyes fight to squeeze shut, but the nerve endings in my eyelids are frozen. My jaw clenches tighter than ever and it feels like my joints are all going to pop in the opposite direction they're so extended.
He pulls the small yet powerful device away from me and I crumble to the ground like a bag of potatoes.
The second my lungs are able to inhale, I suck in a deep breath and let it out on a wail. The pain hits after the electric shock is over. Almost as if my body can't understand which feelings to attribute to the lightning racing through my body.
“I'm going to ask you again. Who sent you?”
“No one! I swear, no one.”
“You're lying. There's no way that you just ended up in my lap. It takes rounds of testing usually and you just show up on the first try. Not possible. You're trying to trick me.” He shakes his head and I continue to scream and cry.
“No one sent me. I swear it. I swear I just took the test like they told me to.”
He growls, but doesn't say a word. Instead he jams the taser to my side right under my ribs. It feels like several of them break not because of the impact, but because of the jolts slamming into my body.
When he moves away this time I suck in another deep breath, but he doesn't let up.