– Find Part 1 here – Chapter list here –
Is this where it ends, I asked myself.
I felt the warm rush of blood down my face, and as I tried to gather my wits the world seemed to spin and I knew I was lying on my side, the bike pinning me down. I was strangely unaware of pain, but I couldn’t orientate myself. I was aware of blood dripping from my face, and tried to reach up to stem the flow but my arm wouldn’t move. And then quite suddenly things faded and I stopped hearing the thump of the engine and I mercifully lost consciousness.
I have no idea how long I was like that but sometime later I awoke to feel the sun on my face. With difficulty I opened my eyes, dried blood caked my eyelids, gluing them half closed. Immediately I was aware of a burning pain in my shoulders. That and the heavy bike pinning me. I tried to shift position to wriggle from beneath the machine. It was no use. I just couldn’t move without that intense pain becoming unbearable.
Weakly I attempted to see my surroundings, but lying here all I could see was a little of the scrubby bushes around the gully I’d fallen into. I guessed the fall must have been six or seven feet. I squinted through half closed eyelids but the effort was too much. I closed my eyes and once again drifted off.
Later I woke once more. I stared at the impossibly blue sky. Trying to lift myself on one elbow to see my surroundings I was greeted by waves of pain once more. I have always told myself I am good with pain. I hardly need any anaesthetic at the dentist, but this was something altogether different.
Thinking I would die out here beneath a roasting sun I considered my position. Would it be the thirst, or a snake that got me? Perhaps it would be one of those dour looking vultures up there circling. Yes, that blue sky was impressive but not friendly. I wondered what it might feel like to experience the first pinch and rip of a vultures beak. And me here without a lick of make up on my face.
So, this is what putting on women’s clothes gets you, I thought. Well, perhaps I was always destined for a bad end. I hoped Annabel would remember me fondly.
And that’s when I heard barking. Dogs. And then voices.
+++
They were indistinct at first. Two, maybe three people. And they were searching. I couldn’t make out the words, I think perhaps they spoke in Spanish.
I vacillated between wanting to cry out and wanting to stay as silent as the grave I was shortly to occupy. A moment or two later the choice was removed from me as a shadow passed over me, and a short man in shirtsleeves appeared in my field of vision, a vicious Doberman on a leash straining to reach me. And then another man with another dog, and another.
They said something, clearly shocked at my appearance. I was too surprised to speak, but called more of their companions over and a moment later the bike was being lifted off my body.
They reached under my arms and next I was being hauled up and unsurprisingly I cried out in pain and swiftly lost consciousness once again.
+++
When I came to I was in a clean room. White sheets. A bandage on my arm and around my shoulder. One eye was covered in a patch and I could smell antiseptic. I was clearly being treated, and for that I was grateful. I had no idea how many hours had passed, and when a woman came into the room with a brush, apparently to sweep the floor, she noticed I was awake and hurried off to tell someone.
Another person came in. While not dressed like a nurse, she inspected the bandages and not responding to my questions diligently went about the business of someone who was clearly a caregiver of some form.
I asked where I was, and she continued to hold silence. Why wouldn’t she speak?
Again I tried and no reply came. No smile either. As she left the room I felt a grave fear. Where the hell was I?
Perhaps Annabel had made good her escape and found people who would help. My hopes were dashed when the door opened and standing framed in the doorway I saw the man they’d called Mark. Large and well dressed. He looked fresh, his clothes clean and pressed.
“Ah, so sleeping beauty is awake,” he said. “I am so pleased to see that you are improving.”
“How long have I been here,” I asked.
“You’ve been in this bed for five days. Quite the invalid, but you are improving. I am pleased about that.”
Somehow I found no comfort in his words.
“Yes, before I go to work on you I would like you to be returned to fitness. Don’t worry. Your health really is your least concern.”
With that he left. A tray of food was brought and placed on a bedside table. This time as the door closed I heard the cold impersonal sound of the deadbolt being slammed home and realised I wasn’t going anywhere.
+++
I saw no one the next day, nor the following one. Food and water was provided, fruit and some juice. To be fair I was being treated well, in as much as I was being allowed to recover, but Marks words haunted me.
I would walk around the room now and then, slowly returning to mobility. My shoulders, still bandaged and being changed regularly were beginning to feel much better. I surmised I must have dislocated my left arm and it had been manipulated back with tissue damage, but not too much in the way of long term consequence. My face remained bruised and I had a nasty cut above my eyes, though it had been stitched closed presumably while I’d laid unconscious for those few days. Gradually I was returning to something resembling good health.
I was able to use the small en suite bathroom and see the state of my face in the mirror. While my nurse kept me clean and fresh with a wet towel, I tried to wash in the hand basin, and most of all longed for a razor, quite disgusted by the growth of a small amount of stubble on my face. I asked the nurse for a razor but she didn’t seem to understand until I did a mime, scaping the stuble from my face in a comic enactment of shaving. A tiny safety razor appeared an hour later.
I knew that if I could just stay alive it would only be a matter of time before Annabel would send help. I knew she would. She must.
The windows were shuttered from outside, so I had no daylight but for the few shafts of light that entered between the shutters. I could tell day from night, but not much more. And always the same woman coming in with food, or fresh bandages, and never so much as one word from her.
Not until the sixth day did this change.
+++
It was on the afternoon of the sixth day that I was taken to Mark’s office. I’d evidently been held in a small outbuilding and as I was walked by my nurse to the main part of the house I passed the mangled wreckage of a trail bike.
I sat before his huge desk as he finished something he was preoccupied with on his computer.
“So what do you plan to do? Take me out into the desert and shoot me? You’d better do it soon. Annabel’s going to make sure someone comes out here to help me.”
“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry too much about that, my dear,” said Mark. “You see that bike smashed up outside? I don’t think your little friend is going to be sending any help. You see, she was in worse shape than you when the dogs found her. It was a pity the boys looking for her weren’t able to get to her sooner, and get them off her. But still, don’t worry your pretty head about her.”
My poor beautiful Annabel. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.
“What have you done with her,” I asked.
“Oh, don’t worry yourself. She won’t be troubling anyone anymore.”
I felt all the fight drain from me. Annabel. I thought of the softness of her body and the tender moments we’d shared together. I thought of her laughing and clearing the stables with me. And I thought of how we’d held each other on the train journey.
“You bastard,” I said. “What have you done to her?”
“That’s no concern of yours,” said Mark coldly. “In fact, where you’re going you’re not going to need to worry about anyone at all.”
He gave an unpleasant little laugh and continued.
“No, you’re going to have plenty of time to think about your own problems,” he concluded.
“Why don’t you just shoot me,” I said feeling desolate.
“What? After all the trouble I’ve gone to? I could have left you for the buzzards to clean up,” said Mark matter of factly. “But that seems a waste. I mean, after all you’ve done to,” and here he paused glancing at my breasts, “to make yourself so very ‘presentable’. No, You are more use to me alive. I can use you, ship you off to one of our brothels, or maybe just sell you. You know a pretty girl like you trades for quite a lot in Dubai. No, you see, you’re an asset. Just dumping you in a desert would be a waste of a resource.”
“Just kill me,” I said still thinking of Annabel.
“Oh no,” said Mark as he shook his head. “You really think you’re getting off that easily? Besides, we hired you to do a job and you haven’t finished it. You don’t get off that easy.”
“What do you mean,” I asked.
With that he went to the door and called for someone. A moment later a young woman I’d not seen before entered the room. He said something to her in Spanish. She looked in my direction, and without question went to one of the draws in the wardrobe and I heard her rummaging around for something. She drew out a leather hood with some buckles, and a ball gag.
“I’d like you to meet my daughter. She’s in training, you know. I expect her to inherit the business some day. She’s doing very well, don’t’ you think?”
He turned to her and said something I couldn’t understand.
“Yes, that one,” he continued in English.
The girl, little more than a teenager, came across to where I sat in front of Marks desk, and firmly took my hair in one hand, gathered it, and then placed the hood over my head. I could still see from two eye holes in the hood. I didn’t think I’d like Marks parenting style.
“I don’t want to do this,” I protested, but her firm hands continued and I felt straps being tightened behind my head.
I tried to resist but there was no point fighting. I was in no shape to put up much of a struggle and after all, to be quite honest, I felt like there was no point anymore. My poor Annabel.
Mark spoke to the woman once more in Spanish and she went and got a collar and leash. She placed it around my neck and tightened it.
I noticed she wasn’t handling me roughly. She seemed to be following Marks orders, but not treating me unkindly. It was more in a matter of fact way, in the manner one might act if told to do something by a foreman in a plant. I came to the conclusion she must be following instructions in a manner she’d learned the hard way. She was indifferent, if anything.
“You see, you really are a disgusting individual,” said Mark.
“You don’t need to say that,” I replied.
“Oh, but I do,” he answered. “I want you to know how filthy I think you are. And when I finish with you I want you to feel that way about yourself. And that will just be the start of what’s going to happen to you. You’re going to experience a form of hell that you have no concept about.”
“What are you talking about,” I said.
“Oh, you’re going to learn that you are your own jailer. You’ll understand soon enough.”
With that Mark said a few words to the woman who had been standing in attendance quietly. She retrieved a chain leash from the draw and attached it to the collar and it hung down before me. Mark was looking at me as though I was something he wouldn’t want to touch. His disgust was more than evident.
“Alright. I suppose you don’t look a complete disaster. Not exactly to my taste,” he spat out the words, “but, you’ve already embarrassed me infront of my guests. That was a mistake, young lady. Don’t worry though, I think we both know you are going to pay dearly for that little transgression.”
I felt a chill through my whole body. I could tell this man meant every word he said. He rose from behind the desk, and came to where I was sitting.
“Now get on your knees,” he said.
“What?” I replied truculently.
He spoke more firmly this time.
“On your knees. Now.”
I stared at him.
The punch came so hard and fast I had no time to raise my hand against the blow. It slammed into my already bruised face.
“It’s a good job you have a hood on. Your face is gonna get real messed up if you don’t start learning fast. Still, it’s ok. There’s plenty of time.”
He drew his fist back in preparation for another blow. I dropped to my knees and was on all fours in a moment.
“Good,” I want you to meet some of my friends.”
With that he took the leash and led me toward the door.
+++
FInd the next part HERE – https://fionadobson.com/cmtm/clothes-maketh-the-man-part-72/
Become a member!Clothes Maketh The Man is a serial you can find on http://FionaDobson.com/cmtm Started in 2016 it has been published in regular in episodes, all of which can be found here . If you are enjoying the serial, show your support by joining my Patreon and sharing this page. By supporting me on Patreon you help me continue to regularly produce high quality content. FD
