Page 15 of Fear and Desire

“No.” There was no way she was going to reveal anything personal to these motherfuckers.

“Anymusic?”

“No.”

“Then what do you do in your spare time?”

She stared at him. “Well, over the last twelve hours I’ve been planning how to castrate you, once this is over.”

He got up abruptly and walked to the door of the small room, leaning his head out just enough that she couldn’t see it anymore. Bizarrely, though, the rest of his body quivered.

He’s laughing?

Eventually, he composed himself and came back. “Well, since apparently you can’t recall a single thing you’re good at, I’m going to give you some time and incentive to do so.” He propelled her out of the room and back down the hall to the open area in front of the cell. She regretted her reckless statement.

“Please, sir, I’m sorry! I’ll think of something! Please!”

He ignored her as he clipped her wrists together behind her back and stood her underneath a horizontal bar suspended from the ceiling, about six inches over her head. From his pocket, he fished out two shiny objects with rubber-coated teeth. She gasped as he applied a clamp to her left nipple, tightening it until a sharp pain radiated through her chest. Then he did the same to her right nipple. To the clamps, he clipped a length of chain that he tossed up and over the bar. It hit her back as it came down. He disappeared behind her, and suddenly her cuffed wrists were jerked high into the middle of her back. The chains went taut, pulling her nipples up.

One of his hands slipped around to her front and cupped her mound.

“Think, my dear. You’ll have a little while to come up with something a bit more respectful than your first idea.” A finger probed her folds and sought her clitoris. She tried to pull away, but his other hand held tight to her wrists and rendered her immobile.

He teased the sensitive button, rubbing it back and forth, and around in circles, until she was hyperventilating. Her head dropped back. The pain in her nipples faded. No, that wasn’t right. The pain became something…else. Something not entirely unpleasant.

He withdrew his fingers. She barely held back a moan of protest at the loss.

“Hopefully, I’ve given you something to take your mind off your predicament.”

His hand released her cuffed wrists and they dropped, which pulled the chains on her nipples. She shrieked, trying to lift her hands behind her to loosen the chains. For a minute, she held them up, but then she grew fatigued, and they fell back down, pulling her nipples and breasts up high once more.

He watched her struggle for a few minutes, then left, and she was alone, with only the blinking green light on the camera for company. She bent backwards, thrusting her breasts up as high as they could go, and that worked a little, but she couldn’t hold the position. She cried with frustration, moving constantly up and down, leaning back, trying to hold her arms up high. Time slowed down, every second an eternity to be endured. She thought of home, and her parents, and Dan, and prayed desperately that people were looking for her.

And, oddly enough, the notes of a piano drifted into the room.

10

Josh:

Thenotesofthepiano drifted down the concrete halls and through the steel bars. Strangely, almost everyone in the building felt the tension lift when the music filled the air around them.

When Dan had realized that Claire had a remarkable talent as a pianist, he located an old upright that needed a tuning, and ordered her to play, crossing his fingers that she wouldn’t refuse. DeLeo expressed his reservations, but Dan painted a picture of a slave who not only knew how to fuck, but could entertain her owner’s clients at the piano while dressed in a flowing, translucent dress. DeLeo saw dollar signs and agreed. Several clients had already made inquiries about Claire, but Dan insisted he was holding her back for the auction.

Josh looked forward to this time of day more than any other. He’d been fascinated by the willowy auburn-haired woman since the day she arrived, and was drawn to her music. It was as pure an antidote to the reprehensible things he was doing as he could expect to find in this place.

He tried to be in the room every day as she played, which had clearly bothered her at first. Now, she scarcely paid him any attention when he slipped through the door to sit and listen in silence.

She played as someone who loved music. When she’d run through the pieces she’d memorized, Josh drove into town to buy her a collection of classical tunes. It probably wasn’t wise to give a gift to someone he was keeping as a slave, but he didn’t care. He placed it on the piano before her practice time one day and then left her alone to pour through it. He never said anything to her about where it came from, and she never asked, but she played from it every day.

He slipped into the room and sat on the rickety metal folding chair. She played with her eyes half closed, she and the music sharing an intimacy that he found himself strangely jealous of. As she moved her hands up and down the piano, her rhythmic nodding reminded him of gentle ocean swells. Each note rang clearly on the old piano; each triplet rocked gently on the wind of the song.123 123 123 123… The notes were melancholy in the minor key, as though every tear she’d cried was emerging from her fingertips.

As the last chord sank into the stark concrete walls and died, he broke the stillness.

“What was the name of that piece?” he asked, his tone almost reverent.

She looked down at her hands, now lying motionless in her lap. “Nocturne in A Minor,” she replied. She named a composer he hadn’t heard of.

“It’s so sad.”

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