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~~~
The night fell under a blanket of suffocating heat, leaving my prison feeling more like an oven as I tried to sleep sprawled out against my cot. The days were getting hotter, and it felt even more-so being stuck inside a room with only one window to allow a breeze in. I had taken off my long dress and replaced it with a nightgown. It hung from my shoulders by tiny straps, and dropped to the middle of my thighs; I felt naked because it was so thin. But it helped with the heat that slowly baked me, and I found myself not caring much if I was exposed in the darkness. It was only Petra in the room with me, and she cared even less that the parts of her that made her womanly were on display—she flaunted it.
“I’ve been hoping for a place like this,” Petra said from her cot. She was lying on her back, looking up at the tall ceiling, her legs splayed. “It could be much worse. We could’ve been abducted by crazy people and carted off to only God knows where.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God.”
Petra shrugged her shoulders against the mattress. “I don’t.” She raised her back and sat upright. “Think about it,” she said. “How many places like this do you think are left? We have everything we need here: food, shelter, protection, even luxuries like shaving cream and beautiful clothes and the freedom to walk around the streets.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t freedom,” I said, and then stood up and walked to the window, my arms crossed over my chest, and I looked down at the quiet city below. “We aren’t down there walking the streets with everybody else—we’re up here, stuck in this room with a soldier guarding the door. I think our definitions of freedom are a bit different.”
“But the freedom will be given to us,” Petra insisted. “As long as we show them we’re not a threat, or that we won’t try to run away, and that we can be productive members of their way of life, we’ll have our freedom.”
With my back to Petra, and my eyes still on the city under a shroud of night, I said, “Freedom is the right to choose where you want to live and what you want to do with your life and your body. I for one don’t want to be here, nor do I want to be made someone’s wife. That’s not freedom—that’s slavery.” I glanced back at her.
Petra gave up and laid back down against her cot, legs splayed as usual. “Well, I like it here,” she said. “It sure as hell beats pissing behind a tree, or not knowing if you’re going to eat for another week. I’m going to do whatever I have to, even if it means I’m destined to marry a polygamist—who cares? Women have been pretending with men forever; I can do it a few nights a week while this guy makes his rounds if it means I get to stay here.”
Leaning forward, I let the windowsill hold up my weight, propping my arms against it, my hands dangling over the edge. A warm breeze blew through my hair. I wondered which of the many buildings Sosie could be in.
After a long time, after the voices in the streets dwindled as the night wore on, and after Petra had fallen asleep with her legs spread-eagle on her cot, I grabbed a book from the sloppy stack next to my bed without looking at the title and took it with me to the window. I read for hours, sitting underneath the windowsill with my back pressed against the wall, having only the light of the moon to allow me to see the words on the pages. And I read until my eyelids felt like one-pound weights on my face, and I fell fast asleep on my cot, also with my legs spread-eagle, because it was much cooler that way and Petra had the right idea.
Three more days passed, three more days of hot baths and three square meals and more time with Naomi who continued to tend to my feet. Three more days of not knowing where Sosie was and no one willing to tell me; not Naomi or the other wives of Rafe who took turns escorting me places, and not the soldiers who guarded the room by day when the Overseer was somewhere else; and certainly not the green-eyed soldier who guarded the room like clockwork every night while the Overseer slept. Nothing much had changed. But one thing had changed, and I was immensely uncomfortable with it. Petra and the green-eyed soldier interacted with one another secretly. I would hear them whispering at the door late in the night when they thought I was asleep.
My eyes opened a crack as I listened and watched from the shadow cast over my corner of the room. Petra was knelt against the door with her face pressed to the opening. She would giggle and sometimes laugh out loud, only to cover it up with the palm of her hand and say: “That’s disgusting; don’t say things like that to me!” but it was not a demand.
I never let Petra know about the things I’d overheard. And Petra never spoke of it.
The Overseer was a rare sight in the days that followed, and also the one person in the city I wanted to talk to so I could ask about my sister. So it was all very frustrating. Sometimes he would come to the eighth floor and I could hear him talking to the guard on duty outside the door, but it was always a brief encounter. And sometimes the Overseer would look in on me and Petra himself, but he never spoke to us, and he would disappear as quickly as he had come.
I read three books in five days, including The Count of Monte Cristo for the fourth time in my life—I loved that book.
On the sixth night, the summer heat had relented and gave way to a brief rain, which only added to the humidity. But I was getting used to the heat, and it became easier for me to fall asleep.
But something soundless woke me from a deep sleep on this night, which was strange —Why would that wake me but not the rain that moved through, or the echo of horses’ hooves on the sidewalk beneath my window? It had been the door to our room opening soundlessly that woke me. No sound, only intuition.
I was afraid to move, even held my breath for a long time, worried that the rising and falling of my shoulder as I lay on my side facing the wall might give me away. The rustling of Petra’s knit blanket moving against her bed was faint; the sound of breath getting heavier, followed by little whimpers and panting noises that made me uneasy. But it was the sound of someone spitting—I was certain that’s what it was—that left me bewildered. And then Petra let out a noise as if she’d just stumped her toe. Is he hurting Petra? If so, what can I do to stop it?
“Fucking be still,” the green-eyed soldier whispered.
My eyes grew wide. A slapping noise ensued, and the sound of Petra’s whimpers intensified. But she never cried out, and she never said “no”, or “get off of me”, or “please don’t”, and for that I remained facing the wall on the other side of the room, barely breathing, not moving a single muscle in my body.
The slapping sound got louder and I could swear that the floor was shaking my cot beneath me. And Petra’s cries became more unrestrained with every thrust to her backside, eventually to the point of threatening to wake the Overseer in the room across the hall. But instead of quieting down, Petra and the green-eyed soldier went on and on with shameless abandon, slaves to lust who, in the heat of the moment, did not care about consequences.
Petra’s moans of pain were reduced to moans of pleasure, and her sobbing voice sounded muffled as though a hand was in her mouth.
The green-eyed soldier grunted, and pushed a moan up from his lungs, and the rapid slapping sound became much slower and more concentrated, and Petra’s cries subsided, replaced by heavy, spent breathing.
Seconds later, the light from the candles in the hallway blinked on and off as the door to the room opened and closed again without making a sound.
I lay in the darkness, my bones locked stiffly—desperately I wanted to move. Will it seem unnatural if I pretend to shuffle in my sleep? Finally, I couldn’t hold the position any longer and I let out my breath, felt my muscles soften. But I continued to face the wall; after what I’d just heard, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to look Petra in the face again.
I heard Petra’s voice:
“I know you’re awake.”
Her footsteps padded against the tile as she moved across the dark room. My cot shifted beneath me as she laid down, the front of her body pressed to my back. I shook, but I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t afraid of Petra, and didn’t think I had any reason to be, but I shook, nonetheless.
A tingling sensation traveled down the back of my neck when her fingers brushed through my hair. I swallowed hard and stiffened again.
