The gag in Sherry´s mouth tastes aged. Stained with her sweat and blood, it smells worn, like the leather skirt that she bought when she was 15 years old.
She has kept it to this day, because firsts, no matter if they are pieces of clothing, or people you love, have a way of forever staying your favourites.
She would know; to her parents, she was the first born, after all. Actually, no one else was born to them, after her, either. She was raised an only child, and more than enough for her mother and father, so they would claim. Over and over again, they would still make her feel like she had to prove it to them. If she ever gets out of here, she will.
It isn´t the first time that he has gagged her. Leather-coated silicone forces her mouth open, and prevents her from speaking, biting and screaming. The sobbing and crying that is coming from somewhere in her throat and turns him on, he can hear and despite it.
Sherry is slowly getting used to her forced open yaw, and to the feeling to have no voice at all. That he replaced the duct-tape with a gag, is her fault. The other day, the tape lost cohesion during his touches, drenched in the salvia that gathered in her disgusted mouth, and in the tears that she couldn´t hold back, when he raped her over and over again.
As soon as he left, she felt it coming loose and chewed it off her mouth. It tasted toxic, somewhat like rubber mixed with smelling glue.
She shouldn't have screamed. Then he might have left her alone. Even if she had tried to prevent it, however, she couldn't have kept the screeches that started shooting from her lips, when he had left, in her mouth any longer.
He didn't instantly come back. Either the room is sound-proof, or he isn't up there half the time and only comes by every now and then. On his way back from the school he drops his children to, perhaps. In his breaks from work, or after the kisses goodbye that he blows to his wife when he has had his morning coffee.
Even though she would have had enough time to stop before he returned, Sherry was still screaming, when she heard his heavy footsteps outside the door.
The silence whenever he halts in front of it is the worst sound of all. Thereafter, the rummaging of the jingling keys in the lock that will forever trigger her panic. Briefly after she heard it last, he showed her what he was capable of. A memory that will haunt her for the rest of her days.
He rushed in, noticeably enraged, and approached her cage to unlock it. The next second, she felt his hard slap on her cheek. It shut her up, and burst her lip.
When she heard his trembling voice sounding out, she tasted blood in her mouth.
"You stupid bitch shouldn't have done that," he pressed out, pulling her up.
"Get away from me," she shouted at him, her voice trembling. "Just let me go, I have a family! They are looking for me, and I bet you they´ll find me soon."
He threw her against the bars of her cage, still enraged and with a cruel smirk on his face.
"They don't care about you, you artificial cunt," he spat out at her, his smelling breath hitting her face. "You're only a face in a magazine, even to them, and you know what? You made sure of that yourself."
No, Sherry was more than that. As despair threatened to engulf her, a flicker of determination ignited in her eyes. She would not let this be the end.
His grip around her wrists suddenly loosened. When he rushed out of her cage, the draft that his frantic motions caused moved the stuffy air. It scattered the odor of urine, sweat and fear. He left the cage door open. Moving in the draft, it was creaking, as if to demand her attention.
Was this the sound of freedom, she caught herself wondering. Should she try to escape?
Slowly, she tried to approach it, before her rattling foot chain pulled her back, and maybe for the best. He was still in the room. A second later, his rummaging in an old desk that leaned against the back wall reminded her of it.
A single moment passed, and he returned to her, with flashes of rage crossing his face, and the leather-coated gag that is in her mouth right now in his hand. When she saw it first, her heart started fluttering.
She wouldn´t easily give up her voice again.
Before he knew what was happening, she lunged forward, using all her strength to break free from her bindings. The chair in the corner got tangled up in her foot chain and toppled over, and in that moment, the darkness all around her gave way to a surge of adrenaline.
"Get the fuck away from me!" She screamed, her voice defiant. "You ridiculous wimp won't get to break me, I won't let you!" She aimed at his manhood; with her words, and with the leg of the toppled chair that had been lying in between, and that she now had in her hand.
It was a weapon that he had given her himself. Using it, however, she missed. He jumped a step back, and the next time she blinked, his fast fingers were wrapped around the chair legs that she had just aimed at him.
With demonic strength he tore the weapon from her hands, and the seat hit her in the face where it broke her nose and cut her skin. The impact of it left bruises on her lower cheek. Dizzy and dazed, she tumbled back from him. Facing her, he threw the chair out the cage door behind him, without paying any attention to its echoing clatter.
She flinched when she heard it. Before she could consciously comprehend what was happening, he had her. When she felt his arms wrapping around her, as if to squash her, and his kicks in the hollows of her knees to destabilise her, she still didn't surrender. In an instant, she twisted her head and bit him. In the throat, and so hard that he was screaming, while his blood stained her perfectly white teeth.
Her glimmer of hope and the upper hand that she had over him didn't last. With blood running down his neck, he jumped at her and overpowered her. His elbow hit her temple to switch off her consciousness.
The world was upside down, when she came to. Literally. An all encompassing pain that came from her calves was spreading throughout her body. At the first blink, she didn't understand it, too dazed and numb she was still. Only at the second, when she tried to move, did it fully register, and a startled sound of shock was trying to press out of her mouth, but didn´t make it past the leather-coated gag that he had forced it open with.
She was hanging upside down, her wrists in a rough rope that was hanging down from high above her; her calves pierced by strong hooks that prevented even the slighted motion Blood trickled from her torn skin, where the hooks bit into her flesh, and her head was throbbing in time with the dripping that she heard, each drop of which echoed through the cavernous basement like a metronome count of her agony.
Her vision was swimming between spots of red and darkness, and her stomach, churning with sour fear. Every time that she tried to move, despite the pain and hooks, her captor's gloved fist crashed into her gut. Her ribs rattled, and pain was shooting up her spine in electric flashes. He had told her to be quiet. Now she would be trying, she had no other chance.
Her lips were split, and thick on her tongue she sensed a taste of copper. The basement reeked of mold, damp earth, and the sweet odor of blood. He had brought a lamp this time. Patches of yellow light from a single, filthy bulb revealed the concrete walls around her; they were slick with moisture. Like strangling snakes, rusted pipes curled up above her. Somewhere in the gloom of the lamp, rats were scuttling. They were drawn towards her by her blood, her fear, and the warmth of her body heat.
Her breathing shallow, she squeezed her eyes shut and fought her nausea. She couldn´t let herself faint once more, since she wasn't sure whether or not he would let her wake up again. Her perfect skin that had once been admired on glossy magazine pages, was bruised and torn. The grace, control, and composure that she had always been representing, had been wiped out by desperation and helplessness. She was done.
Suddenly, a soft rustle sliced through the oppressive stillness. Sherry's heart slammed against her ribs, and she dared to open her eyes again. A thin shaft of pale moonlight that was filtering through the high vent illuminated a silhouette that was gliding across the cement floor. The black cat, small and little, was back.
Had her plan worked? Had the cat distributed her call for help, or was the shred of her favorite dress still in the pendant of the collar?
She just needed to know. It was this thought that encouraged her resilience and endurance, as the cat was winding its way toward her. Its sleek fur was shimmering like oil in the dim glow of the lamp that he had put on the old desk in the back.
Sherry´s chest tightened.
Hopefully she had been right, and it was his. Otherwise, her cry for help in the pendant would be purposeless and she would never be found.
Its emerald eyes were glowing in the dark, when it started staring up at her.
Of course, it was his, it had to be! More often than not, it came in with him, and then he left it there to take care of the mice and rats that were hiding in the corners. He treated it like his only friend.
With a thin flicker of hope wavering in her mind, Sherry started communing with the creature. The only witness to her torture, and perhaps an unwitting ally.
When it jumped the last inches towards her, its paws landed lightly on the concrete just beneath her dangling head. It sniffed at the blood that was dripping to the ground from the hooks above, before it approached her face. The purring grew louder and louder in Sherry´s ears, the closer the cat came.
Once it rubbed its soft head against her forehead, it vibrated through her and calmed her nerves. Her heart was pounding, as if each beat were a promise that she wasn't alone in the pit of darkness. As the cat's whiskers brushed against her shin, her spirit ignited, despite the pain that still throbbed through her body.
If the only salvation in this basement was to come in the form of a calm and silent cat then she would have to hold on to that glimmer of hope as long as she could. Despite the jaws of who- and whatever awaited outside. So she did.
The seconds that she was left there, hanging upside down, dragged on, but her spirit wasn´t fraying. Each moment stretched like an eternity that was bit by bit soaking up despair, like a cloth would soak up water. However, she didn't give up.
The cat stayed with her through the torment of silence and fear that were the next hours. With its tickling tongue, it was gently licking her face clean from the blood on her forehead and lip, encouraging her to keep up the hope that he wouldn't just leave her here.
Sherry took the lamp that he had brought down before he had left her, hooked to the ceiling, as a faint confirmation. And then he came back. He took her down, just before the flesh in her calves would have started to rip apart.
Even though she has been in agony ever since then, now she can be sure that her cry for help has been heard. She opened the pendant when he last left her and the cat alone. The scrap of her favorite dress isn´t inside it any longer.
It is in a stranger's hands.
Hopefully in the hands of someone who takes it seriously, she thinks.
Someone who knows what to do with it.
Someone who will send her help.