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Shit. The floor at my feet got my attention, fast.
That had sounded like policeman but was it? Surely they wouldn’t dare?
Around noon, I couldn’t be sure of the time as they fed me only breakfast and dinner, Gregor returned.
He was the one person who could send my mind into mouse space. I went blank when he stepped in, his shaved blond scalp had come round the edge of the door about when his boot did, but his fingers had wrapped round the door first. I recognized him even then, I think, just by his fingertips.
My heart thumped erratic beats. My whole body seemed to squeeze down tight – like one of my worst times when someone touched me uninvited.
The excessive reaction was explainable. Gregor didn’t just touch.
“Here.” He clicked his fingers.
As I stepped quickly over and bent to go to my knees his lips parted and his tongue flicked out. So fast, but I saw it. Did seeing me kneel give him pleasure?
I wanted to hide under the bed.
“Very good, little Jazmine, and how is your back?”
Little. Again that condescension.
My throat didn’t work. Answer. I had to answer. His gray eyes dissected me. I forced the word out. “Sir. It’s fine.” I didn’t want him looking.
“Really? Show me, please. Turn.” He did a circle with his hand.
I shuffled about on my knees, and faced away, lowered my head before he could think to make me.
“Hmm. I need your dress out of the way. Pull it up then press your forehead to the floor.”
Blushing, I did so. I waited with my bottom up higher than my head. A moment later his bug-like hand crept its way down my back, slow and meandering, as if it were tasting me. Spider hands, I should call him, or maybe tarantula, considering the hair on the back of them.
“Nice, but I think you need more ointment. We don’t want you looking bad for the next time. A pristine canvas is best.”
I swallowed. He could make even art supplies sound evil.
After he’d made me lie on his lap to have more ointment applied, Gregor placed the bag over my head and attached my wrist cuffs to each other. Then he drew me outside and along to somewhere else in the house. I had a moment of panic, as he pulled the bag off. Was I back in that other room?
But no.
I stared at the red, dripping mess, unable to decipher what my eyes beheld.
He clicked his fingers and I knelt on the dark stained concrete. A man. This was a man.
Strips of bloody bandage lay at his feet. They had him standing and fastened to an upside down Y shape of timber. His entire naked body seemed to be weeping blood.
I looked at the bandages again. Not bandages. Skin. These were strips of skin. With the stench and this savagery before me, I had to fight the urge to vomit.
His moans were the only noise in this bare room. His body, skin, and blood, a scalpel and a few knives, lying on a table, were the only decoration.
“I am a precise man, Jazmine. I like the mathematics of dividing a man or woman into pieces. This.” He took a handful of my hair and tipped back my head, gestured with the other hand at his victim. “This is why you must always obey us. The House is not to be trifled with. This man was about to betray us despite being paid off. Obey and this won’t happen to you. Yes? Nod.”
I nodded, eyes watering, in his grip.
Oh yes, I understood this terrible threat. Only I knew Gregor by now, enough that I could see this was more than a warning of punishment. This was a demonstration of what he might do. He’d do this to anyone on a whim, if his superiors or his clients didn’t stop him. I guess being worth money would be enough to rein him in.
This could happen to me on the day my client grew tired of me.
Blood dripped from the man’s big toe and splattered into the small pool on the floor.
