Rumor Has It: A Bad Boy Romantic Comedy (10 page)

It wasn’t until the fire door opened an inch, banging into the back of the dumpster that I understood what was happening. This man was blocking Theo and my security team from following me into the alley.

A voice in my head said run. I turned to flee. I was in towering heels; he wore sneakers. I was no match. I didn’t make it five feet before he tripped me, knocking me to the ground. His hand slid around my mouth, silencing my screams. He twisted my arm around my back, then forced me to stand.

We walked around a corner to a waiting car with the trunk popped open. He’d been waiting for me, but how? How did he know I would be in the alley? It was insane.

The man forced me into the trunk. As soon as his hand was free from my mouth I screamed as loudly as I could. My cries of help were cut short by a tire iron coming down on my head. Instantly, I blacked out.

12

I was scared to open my eyes. I squeezed them shut and listened. Distantly, I heard a dog bark. Water dripped somewhere nearby and above me voices spoke and laughed.

Rope cut into my skin. My hands were bound in front of me as were my legs.

I reached down deep to find some unknown source of courage. I opened my eyes. It took a second for my eyes to adjust. The room was poorly lit. I was lying on a dirt floor. The walls were covered in chains, whips, and dull, deadly looking instruments.

I stifled a cry. I recognized the room instantly from the pictures my stalker had sent me. He had won. I was his captive.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position and tried to push the panic away long enough to think. It proved nearly impossible. My vision blurred and the room spun around me. A dull, throbbing pain lit up the back of my head. Distantly, I wondered if I had a concussion.

I took a deep breath and tried to find my center. My old acting coach used to make his students do an exercise where we meditated before getting into character. We were supposed to find a calm center inside us, empty our minds of thoughts, then open our eyes. At which point we were supposed to be in character. I tried to do the same thing now. I imagined myself as the smart protagonist in a thriller. I could fight. I was strong. And I was in control.

When I opened my eyes, I still felt the same. This wasn’t a movie.

Laughter drifted down to the cellar from a room above. Was he throwing a party? It took me a second to recognize the voices as a laugh track. The voices came from a sitcom. So nice of my kidnapper to take a break from torturing me to watch television, I thought bitterly. The anger I felt was calming. It gave me something to focus on.

“Think…” I whispered out loud to myself. What would Theo do? Theo would never end up in a situation like this. He was too strong. No one could overpower him. He was a soldier with years of training and experience. This skinny creep would drop dead at the sight of Theo.

What options did I have? I had to get it together, take stock of my situation and try to escape. I looked around the room. Several of the instruments on the walls would make good weapons, but I had to get to them first. I tried to stand, but immediately fell back down. My legs were bound together so tightly that my feet were completely numb.

I pulled at the ropes binding my hands with my teeth. They loosened a bit, but I couldn’t free myself. I gave up and focused on my legs. I pulled as hard as I could, but I couldn’t remove the ropes. I did manage to loosen them enough that the blood flowed back into my feet. The sensation was painful. It was like being stuck with pins and needles all over the bottom of my feet and toes.

I bit the inside of my mouth and tried to go to that calm center my acting coach talked about. I couldn’t find it. Footsteps above me brought me back to reality. He was coming. Half dragging, half rolling, I managed to make my way to the other side of the room. Standing was impossible, but I managed to force myself up on my knees.

The weapons were out of reach. I cursed loudly. A slow, high-pitched laughter echoed through the room. My head snapped around. The sound had come from the stairwell. A man stepped forward. He wasn’t wearing the baseball cap any longer. He was bald with a weak chin, a long face and gray eyes. In the low light of the cellar his pale skin had a bluish tent like a corpse.

I reached up desperate for anything I could use as a weapon. I grabbed a chain. It fell loudly at my feet. I picked it up and held it out, unsure of what to do with it. The chain was heavy and covered in rust. Theo probably would have used it to strangle the guy. I didn’t think I could overpower him though. But there was nothing to stop me from hitting him with it as hard as I could.

“Good. You’re learning quickly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I knew you’d understand,” he said, ignoring my question. “That’s why you chose me.”

“Chose
you
?”

“You chose me to be your servant. I knew when I watched Last Glance you were speaking to me. You wanted me to find you, to wait on you for eternity.”

Last Glance was a small indie film I did early in my career. I played a girl in love with an older married man. They flirt and spend time together walking through New York City discussing their lives and the various challenges they face. They experience a deep connection in spite of the fact they’re at different places in their lives. Ultimately, the man decides to return home to his wife and my character is left alone to wonder what it all meant.

There’s a scene where the characters are discussing relationships and my character jokingly talks about making a slave out of a man. It’s a light-hearted moment that lasts no longer than a minute, but it apparently had a profound effect on my stalker.

“You were speaking to me, weren’t you?” he said, sounding like an eager child.

I wasn’t sure how to play this. If I rejected him, he might decide to kill me. But if I played along…

I glanced at the instruments on the wall. I wanted to live so I decided to play his game. I forced myself to smile. I turned my head to the side flirtatiously.

“You heard me?” I said.

“Yes! Of course.”

“I knew someone like you would find me eventually. It takes a real man to serve a woman.” Playing the part of his Mistress made my skin crawl. I barely managed to speak the words without vomiting.

The creep blushed. The sight of his pale skin spotted with pink made me want to puke. I could taste bile in the back of my throat. Still, I plowed on, committing to this character I was forced to play.

“That’s why I’m here, right? Because
you’re
going to serve
me
?”

“Of course.”

He suddenly ripped open his shirt and turned his back to me. It was covered in scars. My mouth fell open. For a brief moment, I felt sorry for him.

“Who did that to you?” I whispered.

“I did it to myself. I want you to continue it.” He looked at me over his shoulder and nodded towards the chains I held. “Go on.”

I looked down at the chain. He wanted me to beat him? Better than him beating me, but still, it was nuts. I saw the opportunity this presented though.

“You’ll have to untie my hands and feet first,” I said.

He looked at me suspiciously. “You’ll run.”

“Are you disobeying me?” I said with the most authoritative voice I could muster.

“No, I just…”

“You’ve tied my ropes so tightly that I can’t even stand. How do you expect me to punish you?” He looked confused. “Untie me,” I ordered.

He took a step towards me, then stopped. I laughed. “Are you going to defy my orders?”

I once played a part as the commander of a star fleet in a sci-fi movie. The movie bombed, but I tried to channel the character now. She was strong and bold; she had zero tolerance for bullshit.

“Untie me,” I said blandly, as if it didn’t really matter.

He knelt down and untied the ropes binding my feet. The rush of blood to my feet made me feel as if I was going to pass out. I wiggled my toes and stretched my legs. My kidnapper stepped back. I held out my hands.

“You can punish me with your hands tied,” he said.

I was afraid to argue with him, so I said: “Fine.”

I stood and stretched my legs. I was weak in the knees, but I managed to brace myself against the wall. I held the chain tightly. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all I had. A low rattling noise filled the quiet space of the cellar. It took me a moment to realize that the sound came from the chains. My hands were shaking so badly that the metal links were rattling against one another.

I took a deep breath and tried to settle my hands. It didn’t work. My nervousness didn’t escape my captor’s attention either. His eyes narrowed. I could see the look of betrayal in his eyes. I was supposed to be his Mistress, but I could barely keep my nerves in check.

“Don’t defy me,” I said, but my voice shook.

“Defy you?”

“You’re mine now,” I said, sounding pathetic. He looked disappointed. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“John.”

The way he hesitated to respond led me to believe he was lying. “What’s your real name?”

“J-John.”

“I don’t’ believe you. How are we supposed to have an honest relationship if you won’t even tell me your real name?”

My captor started to mumble and pace around the room. “I’m honest,” he said. “You’re the liar. I’ve done everything for you and you don’t appreciate any of it!”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “It doesn’t matter. You are going to submit to me.”

“
It doesn’t matter?
Doesn’t matter? Are you mad?”

The fact that he thought I was the crazy one was not lost on me. I was in way over my head. I thought I could manipulate him and escape. Clearly, I was wrong. This situation was out of my control. I was fucked.

“Turn around.” I tried to sound commanding, but my voice shook badly.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“Where’s Liliana?” Liliana was the name of my character in the movie. “What have you done with her?”

He ran up to me quickly and shouted in my face. “Where is she? You’re not her.”

I didn’t know what to say. I acted without thinking. I wrapped the chain around my fist and hit him with it as hard as I could. The man stumbled backwards. He put his hand to his face and cowered away from me. His grey eyes were big and round. He looked like a child who’d just been slapped by his mother.

I remembered my self-defense lesson with Theo. I took a defensive pose and waited. My kidnapper lunged at me again. I sidestepped his attack then brought the chain down on his back. He stumbled to the side and fell. I hit him again and again. He covered his head and curled his knees to his chest like an infant.

I hit him until I was exhausted, then I hit him some more.

Breathing heavily, I stumbled back against the wall. My kidnapper laid still. Was he breathing? It was hard to see in the dim cellar. I took a step closer and kicked him. He made a sound like an animal. He was still alive, but injured.

I started to make a run for it when a strange sound stopped me in my tracks. I turned to find him staring at me. A huge, bloody smile spread across his face. He actually
liked
being beaten by me.

I didn’t waste any more time. Propelled by fear and disgust, I bolted up the cellar steps into the house.

Upstairs, a television sitcom blared with the canned laugh of a sitcom audience. I looked around frantically for a weapon. Behind me the cellar stairs creaked. My kidnapper was on his feet and slowly making his way up to the living room.

I slammed the door shut and ran to the couch. I pushed as hard as I could, moving it in front of the cellar door, barricading it.

The room was a mess. Empty cartons and dirty dishes covered the floor. The wall behind the TV caught my eye. I stepped closer. Images cut out from magazines covered the wall. My face was everywhere. Some of the images were candid photos, taken from the red carpet, others were professional shots. One photo was of my face blown up huge. It took center stage in his sick montage of my life. The eyes had been cut out of the image and my mouth was painted blood red.

Pounding came from the other side of the cellar door. Inch by inch, he was pushing the barricade away. Before long he would escape. I ran to the front door and stepped out into the fading light of early evening. The air was unseasonably cool. I wore a thin dress and no shoes. Limping across cracked asphalt, I ran across the street. I pounded on the door of the first house I came to.

A man shouted: “Go away!”

“Please!” I begged. “I need help. He’s coming.”

“I’m not falling for that. Go away.”

I gave up and ran to the next house. The neighborhood was rough. Most of the homes’ lawns were dead or overgrown with weeds. The people who lived here were probably used to burglaries and worse. It was understandable that they didn’t want to get involved. Still, I was desperate.

I ran to a white house with peeling paint. Several of the windows were boarded up. It was hard to imagine anyone other than squatters living in a house like this. Still, I pounded on the door. It came open as if its hinges were broken. Inside, several people sat on a couch and on the floor. They passed a joint around and looked at me through glassy eyes.

“I need help,” I said. “You don’t have to do anything. I just need a phone. Just call 911. Please.”

They looked at each other slowly, then started to laugh. “Tell me you see that girl…”

“Of course I see her,” a girl replied.

“I thought I’d gotten into some bad shit.”

“Just call 911,” I protested. “Please!”

“We’re not calling the cops, man. I can’t get busted again.”

“Shit, they won’t even come out here anymore.”

Was crime in the neighborhood so bad that the cops had given up on policing it?