"I know,"

Suddenly, the closet door was thrust open. The light from the bedroom blinded me for a moment. I blinked and looked up. Skeeter was standing there totally naked.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you talking to?" he asked. I saw him wobble and realized he was drunk again. "Is she in here with you?" he asked, the thought occurring to him. He leaned in and pushed the clothing that remained away from me. "You're crazy." he said.

"Talking to yourself."

"Please, untie me and let me out" I begged.

"Sure. And Rhona will skin me alive. You look like you're doing fine."

He stared clown at me and then smiled, looked back at the doorway, and started to squat. He brought his face so close to mine. I could smell the whiskey mixed with the sweat. It turned my stomach. He moved his tongue over his lips. Panic, like two giant hands, tightened a grip around my ribs, making it harder and harder for me to breathe.

"I was thinking about last night and how disappointed you must have been," he said.

"I wasn't disappointed. I was disgusted. Just like I am right now. Get away from me."

"You just asked me to help you. You don't know what you want, do you?"

"Yes. I asked you to untie me. Nothing else."

"You know. I have this theory about lesbians.

They just don't know what they're missing, never having had it. Am I right or am I right?"

He poked me in the stomach with his right forefinger and I pulled back. Then he gripped my stomach with his thumb and forefinger and squeezed until I cried out.

"Hey, shut your mouth. You wake Rhona and there'll be h.e.l.l to pay," he said, and looked back at the doorway.

"Leave me alone."

"Now that would be stupid and a total waste of an opportunity for you," he said. smiling.

Instinctively. I pushed myself as far away from him as I could by twisting and turning my body, until I was against the closet wall. He reached out and seized my ankles, turning and pulling me back. I started to scream but stopped when I saw his eyes go to the sock.

"Shout again and I'll stuff that deep into your throat," he threatened.

"Please, leave me alone."

"It's against my religion to pa.s.s up an opportunity to please a young woman." he said.

He pulled me more and then he lined himself up and put his arms around my thighs to lift me as he drew closer. I couldn't put up much resistence. This is going to happen. I thought. What good did it do to scream? Who would help me? All I can do is close my eyes and try to close my mind to it as well, maybe pretend to be somewhere else, somewhere pleasant and beautiful. My silence and my cessation of even the smallest resistence only encouraged him.

I3: Bound clad Gagged Page 427 "That's more like it. Now you're getting the idea." he said. "This is going to be an eye-opener for you. You'll never forget it."

Where had I heard that before? I thought, I felt his hardness move against me and looked at him, at the way he threw his head back, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open and for a moment, only a slight moment. I was intrigued by how much pleasure he expected he would have, even without my being willing. It occurred to me that he could be doing this with anyone, that emotions, affection, love didn't matter to him. Rhona probably didn't matter all that much to him either. He was with her only because of what she promised and what he saw he could gain for himself. In the end perhaps being gay or straight didn't matter as much as whom you were with and why you were with him or her. Everything we did in our lives could have little or no meaning, which was what I thought described Skeeter, or if we truly gave ourselves, invested our trust and love in someone else, could have deeper, lifelong meaning.

Was it too late for me? Would I be like him?

Like Rhona? Would what he was about to do to me min my chances for any real happiness? Was that what he was taking from me? Or had I already lost it along the way during this journey that had brought me to this horrible moment?

"NO!" I cried, despite his threat if I wasn't quiet. "NO!" I cried for myself, my dreams and hopes, my faith in all that was possible and good in this life.

My cry took him by surprise. He had thought I had totally surrendered. My shout gave him pause, which was quickly turning to anger, but before he could do anything more, we both heard this most horrendous and shrill scream. He turned and fell back on his side and I had a clear view of the bedroom doorway in which Echo stood, her hands on her ears as though she could hear her own basic, desperate howl rising out of the depths of her own fear, instinctive and raw.

A moment later Rhona was right behind her looking in at us, her face in a rage with her eyes wide and her lips twisted, "Skeeter!" she shouted. "You d.a.m.n idiot. You fool. Look what you've done!"

"Huh?" he said, as if he was just awakening from a bout of sleepwalking. He looked at me and then at Echo, who was silent with her mouth wide open and her hands still on her ears, her neck straining. It had the effect of making us all feel as if we were the deaf ones, unable to hear her.

"Now she knows April's still here and she's seen what you're doing and what we did."

He shook his head. "I didn't... how could she hear her scream?" he demanded. as if somehow he had been cheated, as if someone had broken one of the rules.

"Does that matter now, you fool? Why did you come in here? Why did you have to do this? We're almost there."

"Aw-." was all he could say, and waved at her.

He struggled to his feet.

Echo looked at him with confusion and terror and then looked down at me. I tried turning myself so I wasn't so exposed. I could just imagine how frightening a sight I was to her. Rhona seized Echo by the shoulders and walked her deeper into the bedroom, forcing her to sit on the bed with her back to me.

"Stay there,' she said, waving her finger at Echo. "Stay!"

"She's not a dog," I muttered.

"You shut up," Rhona said. "Why are you still standing there like that. Skeeter? Go put something on while I think. Go on!" she shouted, and pointed at the doorway.

He moved quickly out of the room. There was no doubt she had sobered him up instantly.

"Now you listen to me," Rhona began, stepping closer to me. "This doesn't change anything, understand?" I could almost see the wheels churning in her head as she thought and spoke. "No one's going to believe what she tells them after we describe how you seduced her. Of course, she would say whatever you tell her to say. Anyone would realize that. You'll just put her through a terrible, terrible ordeal."

"She's your own daughter." I said as though she had to be reminded. "'You're the one putting her through a terrible, terrible ordeal, not me."

"You're going to make it worse for the both of you now," she replied, undaunted.

Skeeter returned in his underwear and a T-shirt.

He stood by looking like a remorseful little boy, his head slightly bowed, waiting for Rhona to either whip him or grant him a reprieve. She looked at him. at Echo, and at me.

"All right. Here's what we'll do," she began, "You and Echo will stay in this room until we return from the hospital tomorrow. Skeeter, you'll nail that door shut, tie the handle, do whatever has to be done."

He nodded, looking happy he had been given something to do to repent.

"What about her?" he said, nodding at me.

"Echo could untie her while we're away. I mean. I'll get that door shut so tight, it'll take a tank to open it, but still, they can go to that window and start screaming or something. I could nail it shut. too. I suppose, but they could break the gla.s.s and she could make a commotion."

She thought, nodded, and turned to Echo.

"We'll have to tie her up, too, then, so she can't free April," she said.

"No, please don't do that to her. She's absolutely terrified as it is."

"It won't hurt her to lie still for a few hours,"

"I promise. I won't shout out the window. We won't try to escape.

Rhona raised her eyebrows. "Sweetie, the last time I believed in promises. I believed in Santa Claus, and you know what that's worth," she said. "Skeeter.

get something to use."

"No, don't do that," I pleaded. Skeeter turned and ran out.

Rhona walked over to the closet, lifted her foot to push me into it, and closed the door on me.

"How can you call yourself a mother?" I screamed.

She was still right at the door. She brought her lips to the slight opening. "I never did," she said.

14.

The Great Escape .

I heard Echo's cries for help and her moans of confusion. She surely wondered how her mother could stand by and watch Skeeter tie her up. Trevor was wrong. I thought. Blood wasn't as telling and strong as he imagined it to be, at least for someone like Rhona, who was so selfish.

Once again I heard them talking to Echo as if she were some sort of pet.

"Stay here, Just stay here," Rhona shouted at her. "We'll be back as soon as we can to untie you."

Echo was probably too hysterical and frightened by now to have the concentration required to read lips and had no idea what she was being told.

All she saw was a wild, angry woman shouting down at her, a woman she once hoped would be the mother she never really had. In her small, protected world what was happening to her was far too bizarre for her to understand.

Now that they had us both tied up. Rhona decided it wasn't necessary to nail the door shut.

"It would be something we would be forced to explain later." she realized.

I heard Skeeter agree and they left to get some sleep. I could hear Echo whimpering. Apparently, so could Rhona. She returned to the bedroom and shouted at her to be quiet. She probably put her finger to her lips and gave her some sort of threatening look as well because soon after. Echo did stop crying. In my mind's eye. I could see her shivering on the bed, her hands and feet bound. Before long, like me, she drifted into the escape of sleep.

I woke to the sounds of Skeeter and Rhona getting themselves up and ready in the morning for what they believed would be their big day. I heard Rhona come back into to the room to check on Echo first, "See? You're fine: she told her. "Just rest. Drink this water," she said.

I didn't know whether Echo did or not, but a few moments later. Rhona opened the closet door and looked down at me with the jug of water in her hand.

"If all goes as I expect it will. I'll be back to cut you loose," she said. "Don't make any more trouble, not that you could. Just don't try and you'll be out of here and on your way, wherever that is."

I said nothing and then, probably more because she didn't want anything to happen to spoil things for herself than because she felt compa.s.sion. she knelt down and poured me a gla.s.s of water. too. I took it greedily and she was a bit more patient about it.

"Actually," she said as I drank. "I expected things would have gone better than this from the very beginning of my arrival here. I was being Pollyanna like you and deluded myself enough to believe my mother would be generous and forgiving and happily give me what was mine, especially after she willingly helped me when I was in trouble in Mexico. Of course. I didn't know you were here and that she had formed this surrogate daughter relationship, leaving me out in the cold."

I stopped drinking and she took the gla.s.s away, "That's not true," I said. "I never replaced you as her daughter,"

"Don't tell me how my mother thinks. I don't think she liked me from the day I was born. She always used to tell me I cried too much. I whined too much. I demanded too much. Half the time she pushed me off on my father and made him take care of me, comfort me, entertain me. Who knows? Maybe I wasn't really her child, although I'll have to admit she was very pretty when she was my age and looked like I do now.

"She got pregnant again, hoping for something better than me. I'm sure. For the longest time, she kept it a secret that she had given birth to a boy after me. I bet she didn't even tell you that. huh? Well?'

"No." I said. "'Trevor told me. The memory is too painful for her."

"Ha! Too painful? After all these years?"

"Unlike you, most women would find losing a child too traumatic to ever forget or forgive," I said, dipping into some well of wisdom I didn't know I had.

She raised her eyebrows.

"Nice try, but I'll tell you what I think. I think she believed I had taken all the health possible out of her body and left the next baby deformed and inadequate. She blamed my existence for his death."

"That's so stupid." I said, and she flushed with anger, her cheeks flaming red.

"How dare you tell me I'm stupid! You didn't live here all those years and listen to her and the way she spoke to me. I could hear it in the tone of her voice. What do you think Echo's being deaf meant to her, huh? The same thing. It was somehow my fault.

That's why I had to get out of here. I couldn't stand it,"

she said. "I couldn't stand being blamed for every disaster in the world."

"I'm sure that was something you yourself imagined," I said. though I couldn't be sure there wasn't a grain of truth in what she said. Even so, it didn't come close to justifying all the terrible things she had done and would do.

"Are we going or what?" Skeeter called from the doorway. "I'm growing old waiting."

She glared at me. "It's a waste of time to talk to you anyway," she said. "Just keep quiet."

She stood up and closed the closet door. I heard them leave the room and even descend the stairway.

Then I took a deep breath. Somehow. I thought.

Somehow, I've got to find a way to stop all this.

But what could I do, tied and shut away in a closet? What would Brenda do? I wondered, not that I could ever imagine her permitting herself to be in such a predicament.

"She wouldn't lie here like a dead one," I heard.

Did I say that, throw my voice again?

No, she wouldn't. I thought. She wouldn't be feeling sorry for herself, moaning and groaning about how this is her own fault and how terrible the world and some people are. She wouldn't flee to the escape of constant sleep either.