“Is there anything else?”
“I want to go home!” She stomped her foot, the words tumbling out of her as rage shoved aside fear for the moment. “Let me go!” She yanked at the chain securing one wrist to the steel barre. It clanked in rhythm with her shouts. “Take me home! Take me home now, you fucking freak!” The demand ended on a shriek.
“I’m afraid you’ve made your situation worse.” The voice was mild, but disapproval threaded through it. “Now you’ve broken rules four and five, as well. I can only assume that you’re willfully disobeying.”
The fury that had welled up inside her vanished as if it had been sucked away by a vacuum. Fear did a fast sprint up her spine. “I didn’t mean to.” What would he do now? Would he come up here? Would he touch her? Would he make her do disgusting things with him? Her mind scrambled away from that thought. Please, no. Please, God, no.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are, dear. But with every choice comes a consequence. However, I’ve always felt that each misbehavior is an opportunity for reteaching. So let’s go over those rules again.”
“I have them memorized! I just got tired.” Consequences? At home, a consequence was being grounded. Having to do Ryan’s chores when she was mean to him. One time she had to make dinner all by herself because her mom had gotten tired of her complaining about what they were having, but that hadn’t been bad. She could make spaghetti and garlic bread just as well as her mom. And afterward it’d even been sort of fun, with her dad making a big deal out of being scared to taste it, and Ryan pretending he was choking. Her mom had eaten three bites and smiled at her, calling her my little chef. Whitney’s eyes filled with tears. She’d make dinner every night. She’d do all of Ryan’s chores forever, if she could just go home again.
“I’m waiting.”
The voice had gone stern. She wet her lips. “Rule number one: I may use the bed from nine p.m. to seven fifteen a.m. Rule number two: shower from seven fifteen to seven twenty. Brush teeth, comb hair, and get dressed from seven twenty to seven thirty. Breakfast from seven thirty to seven fifty-five. Practice begins sharply at eight.” She was alerted to each of the times by a loud buzz from the computer. And she’d already discovered what happened when she slept through the morning alarm. The water ran only during that time, so she’d had to go without a shower or water to brush her teeth. Food for the daily meals was waiting on the opposite side of the stage when she woke up each morning. A couple of pieces of fruit, two small plastic bottles of milk, a pair of wrapped peanut-butter sandwiches, granola bars, and a small box of dry cereal. The thought of him sneaking the food in here without her being aware, maybe watching her sleep, made her want to puke.
She’d even tried to stay awake so she could see him putting it there. It seemed important that she knew what he looked like. When she got out of here, she might have to give a description so the police could arrest him and let him rot in prison. She hoped bad things happened to him there. She hoped someone killed him in prison.
“Rule number three . . .” Whitney paused, wondered if he’d hear the hatred in her voice. “Toilet use at seven fifteen a.m. and every four hours precisely until bedtime.” She’d almost peed her pants that first night, waiting for morning. But she hadn’t dared to break one of his stupid rules until just now. And had been busted for it.
“Number four: no shouting, arguing, or pouting. Five: no rudeness, name-calling, profanity, or vulgarity of any sort.” It was a good thing he couldn’t read her mind. A really good thing. Because he was a fucking asshole, and she wished he was dead!
She started then, backed an inch closer to the wall. She still couldn’t see him. But he felt closer. The bravado left her, and she began to tremble like a leaf in a windstorm. “Rule number . . . number . . .”
“Six.”
Dread snaked and twisted nastily in her stomach. His voice did sound nearer. Why was it so dark in here? She strained to see even as her mind grappled for the next rule. “Never give less than my best effort at practice.” God, he was worse than her dance instructor had ever been, and she’d taken lessons from Tami Jae for ten years before she’d finally quit a few months ago.
“You may skip number seven since you already repeated it. Rule number eight?”
Yeah, she’d like to skip number seven. She had to follow the routine on the same film every day. Hour after hour of warming up, practicing the positions, one through five. Then barre exercises. The metal barre on the stone wall behind her ran three-quarters of the way across the stage. Her chain was attached to a sliding mechanism on it that let her move its length. Lucky her. Then it was demi-pliés and arabesques until her muscles were like Jell-O. Tendu and rond de jambe until she wanted to scream. It was all beginner stuff she’d learned when she was a little kid. And always at the end, there was a simple dance routine that combined all the movements. Mind-numbing monotony that gave her way too much time to think.
Was that the scrape of a shoe? Was he coming up here? Whitney stumbled backward until she felt the barre at her back. “Rule number eight: privileges are earned for good behavior and punishment for bad.” Like being lied to, kidnapped in the middle of the night, and kept in a dungeon wasn’t punishment enough? “Rule number nine: never try to escape.” Fat chance. She spent every waking moment trying to figure a way out of here. But so far she’d come up with nothing. She repeated the rest of the damned rules like an automaton, hating the unseen man more with every word.
“Excellent. Let’s go back to rule number eight, shall we?”
Fear fisted in her belly. She wanted to go home. Oh, God, why couldn’t she go home? “I said I was sorry.”
It was like she hadn’t spoken. “Strip naked, folding your clothes neatly. As I told you before, if you refuse, I’ll come up and do it for you.”
No, no, no, no, NO! A silent scream of protest howled through her. He’d given her the leotard and tights to put on and taken her clothes that first day. Only the threat that he’d change her himself had had her stripping before him then, awkward with haste, wanting to bare as little as possible. One sleeve of the leotard unfastened at the seam with Velcro, which allowed for the chain. How long had he been planning this?
The thought of his hands on her made her body convulse in revulsion. Slowly, fingers stiff with resistance, she took off the clothes, piece by piece. Ballet slippers, scuffed and barely white anymore. Leotard. Tights. Everything in her size, or close enough. Her body racked with trembling as she hesitated on her bra.