Blind Angel of Wrath (The Blind Sleuth Mysteries 2)

5 Here and now

I am still asleep when the Master brings something down for breakfast. I don't hear him coming. Suddenly I wake up and he's there, addressing Loretta bossily. "I've cooked a double portion. You share with the new girl. Be good; I'll be back tonight..."

He shoves a tray with food and water through a hatch at the bottom of the barred door. Or so it appears to me, listening carefully to the scraping sounds. Some other supplies have been shoved back and forth over the concrete floor just before that, a pail with water taken out, another shoved in.

Then a key is turned in the lock of the hatch, apparently, and shortly after that the man's footsteps recede. "So he doesn't even enter our prison to feed us," I tell myself. "We're like dangerous beasts kept in a cage..."

For breakfast we're having overcooked spaghetti with some cheap tomato sauce, obviously something out of a tin. The whole thing lukewarm. But I am hungry and wolf down my share, that is: what's left after Loretta has finished eating and passes the pan and spoon over to me. The first mouthfuls of food and water are painful to swallow, because of last night's throttling, but the pain eases after a while.

"Do we always have pasta for breakfast?"

"Not always. Sometimes rice with a curry sauce from a tin, or baked beans... Oh yes, and a couple of pills. Reach out for the tray, here are yours."

"What kind of pills are these?" I ask a little apprehensively.

"Oh, you know, just a vitamin pill... and 'the pill'."

"You mean like a contraceptive?"

"Yeah, that's it!"

"Well, I have never taken that before, and I was raped last night, so it might be a little late."

"I know, but take it anyway... Just feel around on the tray, there's two pills right in front of you."

We are both sitting on the concrete floor in front of our beds. The chains attached to the wall above us don't allow us to touch, but Loretta passes things on to me by pushing the tray over to my side. So I find the pills and take them with a sip of water, hoping it is nothing more sinister than a contraceptive and multivitamins.

"Now let me guess: dinner will be more of the same, right?"

"Yes, the Master must have a lot of crates full of tins in stock... and biscuits and chocolate bars, of course. We have a portion here that we'll have to share and make us last until dinnertime..."

After eating, we wash and groom ourselves from a pail of water, brush our teeth with Loretta's toothbrush and paste. We have to wash up our breakfast utensils with the same water. "A bit disgusting," Loretta admits, "but it can't be helped."

Then I want to get dressed. The previous night the rapist brought me back almost naked and manacled me while the clasp was still chocking me. After groping around I find my clothes in a heap at the foot of my bed, but it is not so easy to put them on. With my knickers and my skirt, my sheer tights and my shoes, there is no problem, but because of the chains I cannot put on my bra, my blouse and my sweater, so I have to tie something around my shoulders in such a way as to be as decent as possible.

"And now what?" I ask.

"And now nothing. We have to wait. We have to amuse ourselves. I don't have anything to read at the moment, apart from my dictionary."

"But the lights are on?"

"Oh yeah. They were switched on when the Master came down and they'll be switched off when it's time to go to sleep..."

"And that's how you've been living for a year now?"

"Yeah. Sometimes I find the days so long that I almost look forward to a fuck with the Master in the evening"