My heart pounding, I press the stop button on the remote as fast as I can and return my wide eyes to Kent, who is still looking at me.
Please, please, please. By all that is holy, let him not have seen me watching his sex tape.
“What are you doing in here,” he asks, angry.
“Um,” I say, terrified, hoping he doesn’t pick up on the tremor in my voice. “Fiona brought me here? Said I could look through some…” my eyes dart around the room for an answer that is not porn. “Some family photo albums? And home videos?”
He narrows his eyes at me, his eyes flicking to the pile of vintage Playboys on the floor. “She shouldn’t have brought you down here,” he says, moving aside so that I can leave the room. I quickly get to my feet, flicking the power button on the remote so that the TV goes blank.
Then, dropping the remote, I scurry out of the room, praying with all my might that Kent does not go back in to see what tape is in the VCR.
He closes the door behind me as I head for the steps. “Go upstairs,” he says. “Don’t come down here.”
Glad to obey, I hurry out into the kitchen, heaving a sigh of relief. I head back towards the main part of the house, looking forward to going to my room so I can bury my nose into a very different kind of book, my hand sliding to the back pocket of my jeans to check on my phone.
My hand slides over smooth denim. I stop dead in my tracks, panicked, and pat all over my body looking for it. Then, slowly, I turn back towards the little door. I definitely felt it in my back pocket when we left the patio…
God damnit. My phone must have fallen out in the weird porn room.
Steeling myself, I know I have to go back. If my dad or Janeen ever called I didn’t have it – I’d just die with guilt.
On tiptoes, I walk back to the little door in the kitchen, pulling it open a crack to listen. I don’t hear a sound. Tentatively, I put a foot on the step, waiting for a creek. Nothing. Then, silently, I hurry down the stairs and through the hallway.
I let myself back into the little room and grab my phone, which is sitting on the leather chair. Then, for good measure, I pop the VHS out of the VCR and put it back in its black casing, which I slide back on the shelf. There, good. Now no one will ever know.
I leave the room and, quiet as a mouse, shut the door behind me. I begin to creep back along the hallway when I hear something to my left.
I stop dead, terrified that I’ve been caught.
But no one comes out to scold me.
I hear the sound again to my left, a kind of snap, and then a muffled groan. Unable to stop myself, I consider the door from which the sound is coming. It’s thick, made of iron, with no window. It has a bolt on the outside, like a prison.
But I can also see that the bolt is not locked.
I know it’s a mistake. I know I shouldn’t.
Even as I know these things, though, I stare at the door, consumed by my need to know more.
I take two steps closer, reaching out a hand to grip the metal handle and then, my inner voice still screaming at me to stop, I pull it open just a crack and look inside.
The noise from inside is suddenly louder without the thick door to keep it in.
I see two men facing me, strapped to chairs, fabric gags tied across their mouths. They’re moaning, one sobbing, as they look at something just out of my sight, terror in their eyes. As I watch, though, their torturer reveals himself.
Kent, dressed in his suit pants and an undershirt, steps into my line of sight. My eyes take in the strong muscles of his back, the rage that I can see pulsing through him just by the way he stands over these men.
He’s wrapped his belt around his hand, a long piece of it hanging down from his fist, the buckle dangling. As I watch, Kent rips his fist to the side, letting the belt drag across the men’s faces like a whip, the buckle tearing the flesh of their cheeks.
“TELL ME,” Kent commands, his shoulders heaving. The men tremble before him, crying. They shake their heads no, but this is apparently not the answer that Kent wants. He drops the belt, moving to the man on the left and pulling a knife from his pocket.
The man starts to scream as Kent stands behind him, pressing the sharp edge of the knife to the man’s pinky finger. The scream turns to a howl of horror, of pain, as Kent presses the blade deeper.
I’m frozen to the spot, horrified. Though I can feel myself trembling, I can’t move, can’t stop watching. The man not being cut begins to scream in panic, looking everywhere for a way out and then –
Oh my god –
His eyes fix on me. He sees me peeking through the door, fixates on me. He begins to scream in my direction and I think I can hear the words “help! HELP!” reverberate through the room.
Sensing a change, Kent’s eyes shift to the other man and then move directly to me.
I gasp and push the door shut and then bolt – bolt – from the hallway.
Panic moves me faster than I thought I could go as I scramble up the stairs, sprint across the kitchen, pull open the kitchen door and then use the banister to propel myself up the main stairs two steps at a time.
Oh my god, I think, he’s a monster, he’s a psychopath!
Of course, I had already made this assessment – in jail when I’d interviewed him, then again when he kidnapped me – but now? The truth feels like it has hit home inside of me, after seeing that scene in the Mafia King’s basement.
I reach the top of the stairs and throw myself towards my room, my fingers inches from my doorknob, when something grabs me around my waist, hauling me back against a solid body –
I scramble, shrieking, trying to get free, but he holds me fast. He grabs me by the hair at the back of my neck, forcing my head back, my face turned up towards his. I pant, in his arms, pinned against him, finally still. “What did I tell you to do, Fay?”
“My phone!” I gasp, remembering my rationale for being there. “I forgot my phone!”
“You deliberately disobeyed me, Fay,” he says, walking forward a few steps, pressing me backwards, my feet working to keep up as I feel the door to my bedroom press into my back. It swing opens and then, suddenly, we’re in my room.
Kent kicks the door shut and pushes me up against the wall. My breath comes fast then – I almost hyperventilate –
“Calm down, Fay,” he says, his body pressed against mine. I blink up at him, realizing that he’s completely calm. That he’s been completely calm this entire time.
It takes a minute, but I force my breath to come slower. I look up into his face and he watches me, his fingers loosening in my hair, beginning to stroke slowly at the base of my neck.
I can’t tear my eyes from him as he brings his face close to mine. “Did you like watching me work, Fay?” he asks, his voice dangerous.
I feel my lip starts to tremble. I see him look down at it.
“Do you know what happens to people who watch me when they’re not supposed to?” He murmurs, his voice tipped with a razor’s edge.
Slowly, I shake my head no.
He brings his mouth close to my ear, the stubble of his jaw brushing against my cheek. “They get punished,” he whispers.
My breathing grows heavier at this. I can feel my breath matching up with my pounding heart, my chest pressing against his. I know he can feel it too.
He withdraws his mouth from my ear, looking at me again, a cruel smile lighting his lips. “What is it, Fay,” he murmurs, wondering. “It’s almost as if, disobeying me like that, you want me to punish you…”
I close my eyes as a moan slips out of my mouth when he says that. God damnit – god damnit – my whole body goes loose in his arms, pressed against him – a steady ache builds at the apex of my thighs, and, suddenly, I know that I’m wet for him.
I feel horror cross my face, shame – god, what was wrong with me –
“No, Fay,” he growls, and I open my eyes to see him staring down into mine. “Don’t fight it. You want to pretend that you don’t belong in this world, but you were born to be here. Just like me,” his voice lowers, stroking me like velvet, “you’re drawn to the danger, Fay.”
He brings his face even closer to mine so that I feel his next words like a force against my lips. “Danger,” he says. “It makes you want to fuck.”