‘Damn it!’ he cursed under his breath. Jessica hung on the hook undoubtedly as uncomfortable as she’d been all day in the corner of the living room, yet she didn’t look the least bit sorry. In fact she seemed her usual smug self.
Riley lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was mostly his fault, he supposed. It’d been his idea to abuse her sexually, and yet, he couldn’t do it. He knew Angus was following the plan… he wasn’t sure about the others.
But they were decent men. Too decent for this kind of behavior.
Maybe he should’ve been happy to know that at least in this respect, he was decent also. But he wasn’t happy. Not at all.
For the past year they’d gotten nowhere with her and he was no longer sure what the goal was.
They had started out to humiliate her, to use that humiliation to cause suffering for her parents, somewhere in the afterlife. But for every bit of humiliation she was supposed to feel, she had caused them a humiliation.
He had never seen anything like that before.
He couldn’t help but wonder if they should just kill her and be done with it. But somehow that didn’t seem a satisfying end to the situation.
Riley exhaled.
For the first time he allowed himself to ponder the thought that had been in the back of his mind for the past few months. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about it … but it was there and now he was willing to acknowledge it because it spoke to this situation.
He wondered how much of the dissatisfaction that would come from killing her would be due to the fact that they had not got their way, and how much of it came from the fact that Jessica was … Jessica?
She was stubborn, tough, brave, and … female.
For a group of men that very fact was appealing. She was female and she was their prisoner. She had no rights. No choice to leave them. She was theirs. And that’s what bothered Riley.
The oldest of the men, at 25 years old, Riley wanted her. Not sexually so much, but … he hated to admit it, emotionally. And, although not old enough to be her father in years, emotionally he felt twice his age. And therefore, old enough to be her father.
Riley had dated before. Had had a few relationships, but nothing that could have been considered serious. There were too many variables, to many unknowns in relationships to make it worth the emotional effort. He saw what Angus’ relationship with Beth had done to him. He could hardly consider his parents’ relationship as a model of what he strove for. They had stayed together until the end, but it was not clear to Riley whether they had truly loved on another.
Riley shook his head. His parents had to have loved one another. His father always watched out for his mother’s best interests. Making sure she didn’t step out of line, behaved herself. And he still remembered the grumbling his father did about Jimmy’s sister and the ways Jimmy’s father was handling her. His father had made it clear that she was being given too much leeway, not being put in her place. And then she’d killed herself, so Riley supposed his father had been right.
From that time on, it had seemed easier to deal with dogs. Dogs obeyed. Even the most difficult ones did eventually. They rarely tried to exert free will. So why couldn’t females do the same thing? Every woman he’d had contact with had some level of free will, but when tamed they eventually fell in line. Except, it seemed, Jessica.
Riley slid his eyes over to watch her hanging, stoic expression on her face, in the corner. He used to want to break her so that it could be a strike against his enemies. So he could feel the pleasure of victory. But now he wanted to make her conform to the role of a potential mate. He still felt too old for her. Right now. But in a few years … she’d be good for him and the men. But how to get there? Everything he’d thought of so far had failed.
“Riley!” Jimmy’s voice was behind his door, accompanied by an urgent knock. “Open up!”
“What is it?” Riley asked, instinctively reaching for the handgun tucked in the waist of his pants at the small of his back. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as the possibilities ran through his mind. Were the cops here? Was what he dreaded the most finally going to happen? Relief flooded over him when he saw that Jim did not have his gun.
“We’ve had contact … you and Angus need to go meet the others. Something has happened.”
“Now?” Riley asked, poking his head into the hall and looking for Angus, or any of the other men who could offer an explanation. But the hallway was empty.
“Yes.” Jim replied. “I won the draw. I’ll take Jessica to my room.”
“Right, okay.” Riley said moving back to allow Jimmy to enter.
Jim stifled a curse. What the hell was Riley doing, hanging Jessica back on a hook? Had he intended to leave her there all night? By then, her arms would fall off, Christ!
Jim lifted her off the hook, and then took her hands in his. They were ice cold, and blue. For a moment he thought he saw a flicker of relief behind Jessica’s mask of defiance, but then it was gone and she went back to pretending he wasn’t there and that hanging by her arms for 12 hours was nothing more than a day at the beach. For a girl, she had a lot of balls.
“Angus is waiting in the car,” Jim continued as he led Jessica from Riley’s room. Funny that she wasn’t resisting that too much.
“Got it,” Riley said, following them into the hall. “See yah.”
“Later … good luck,” Jim said.
In his room he stood facing Jessica.
“Bed or floor?” he asked, as he always did when he had his night with her.
Jessica nodded at the floor, as she always did.
Jim sighed. She never took the easy way out.
He pulled her to a spot on the floor next to his bed. Pulling the cuff keys, he undid her hands, looped the cuffs through the hook on his bedpost, and re-cuffed her. He caught her hands as she started to pull them away, and inspected them again.
“They’re going to hurt like hell when the blood comes back,” he said. She stared at him, attempting to shoot darts of defiance at him with her eyes. “I can rub them for you, help bring the circulation back faster. All you have to do is ask.”
Jessica’s expression didn’t change.
“Suit yourself.” He replied and let her hands drop.
He sat on his bed and debated what to do. He’d planned on playing his guitar tonight. He tried to play whenever he didn’t have her with him. On his usual nights with her, he would spend the time having a staring contest with her. The challenge was to see who would look away first. They were equally matched for the contest and usually by the time he was too tired to keep it up it’d been hours before either one looked away.
One thing he knew for sure, Jessica was determined. That determination caused him some concern when he had her in his room for the night. Though she was chained and could not conceivably do anything of harm to him … he couldn’t relax enough to do anything but hold the staring contest with her.
Often a one way conversation accompanied the contest and he found himself blabbing to her about things that he didn’t talk to anyone about, and she most assuredly cared little about, in hopes of getting some response from her. But he rarely got one, just a determined, angry stare.