Cage Girl
Chapters 5 and 6
Chapter 5
I checked on her at eight, sat on the bed and watched her. She heard me come in but didn’t move, lay on her back, eyes shut.
At one level I wanted to keep this purely technical. First this then that. Be gentle while at the same time showing my ability to control.
She was so young. A tan still remained from last summer outlining her bikini. The palest areas on her torso focused attention to her breasts and pelvic region.
She was blond with dark eyebrows matched with equally dark pubic hair. Her breasts were large enough and firm enough so they swelled from her chest.
I realized she’d turned her head and was looking at me. I rose from the bed and walked to the cage, looking down at her. I slowly circled the cage not touching it. Her eyes followed me.
So many questions she hadn’t answered yet or asked. I couldn’t completely understand why she wanted to be here. Maybe she understood why she was here better than I thought.
She began to touch herself and I shook my head. I left the room and returned to my book. Maybe she thought she could provoke me. Or maybe she thought by doing certain things she could please me.
I checked on her again at nine. She was prowling the cage on her hands and knees. She looked at me once as she passed along the side closest to the bed.
Mostly her hair swung down across her face and she let it sway back and forth across her arms. Her breasts hung, each cone tipped with a pink nipple. I noticed a bruise on the inside of her right thigh, halfway to the knee.
I left when she backed against a bar, pushing her crotch into it. She remained silent.
I let the alarm go off at ten. I put the book back in the bookcase in its proper spot and left the bedroom, shutting off the light.
She lay against the cage, moving slowly, half on her side. She quickly glanced at me and returned to her rubbing along the floor and bars.
I wanted to touch her, hold her hair and still her. Stood watching for several minutes more before opening the cage door.
I said, “That’s enough for tonight, Liz.”
She shook her head, rising to her hands and knees. Her hair flicked across the back of her hands. “No,” she whispered.
“You have to be at home by eleven.”
“No.”
I left her and got a coke from the refrigerator in the kitchen. I opened it, set it by the cage door, and sat on the bed.
She backed against a bar, turned to look at me, her hair wild, and rubbed her crotch against it. “No,” she whispered.
I let her do this for a couple of minutes before checking my watch. “It’s ten twenty-six. I want you out by ten thirty.”
She stopped rubbing against the bar, looked at me, brushing hair from her face. She began to smile, rubbed harder.
I got up and went into the bedroom, turning on the light. I gathered her clothes and carried them into the main room, dumping them onto the bed. I turned out the lights in the kitchen and bedroom, put the flogger back in its drawer. I took the coke and dumped it in the toilet, leaving the bottle on the counter. I turned that light out and stood by the cage.
“One last time, Liz. Get dressed.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“On ten I shut the cage door, lock it, go upstairs, turn out the lights down here. At noon I’ll come back down, I’ll be angry then so I’ll drag you out, drag you to the car and drop you and your clothes off at Kroger’s. One. The meat aisle sounds about right. Two. We’ll never talk again. Three. Never. Four. I won’t see you, acknowledge you. Five. If you come by my home or my shop. Six. I’ll call the police. Seven.” I held up three fingers, lowered one.
She shook her head and I lowered the second.
“Nine,” I said.
She darted out of the cage to her clothes.
“Don’t ever do that again, Liz,” I said.
She looked up as she pulled on her jeans.
“Get dressed.”
I waited by the steps, checked my watch. Ten minutes till eleven.
She gathered her purse, buttoning her blouse with the other hand. She followed me upstairs and when I opened the basement door I could hear the TV on. Bad music and fake moans. Junior was home. Forty-two years old and he still watched that shit. The faker it was the more he liked it.
Liz glanced at me.
“My son is home. You don’t have to talk to him. Your coat’s in the dining room.”
She put on her coat and I took her purse from the table.
“Wait. Breathe deeply. Count to ten. Relax.”
She brushed her hair from her face.
“Breathe. Better now?”
She nodded without thinking.
“Two worlds,” I said. “Downstairs, upstairs. In the cage, out of the cage. I’d hoped we’d have had a little decompression time. Talk some more. Maybe next time if we do this again.”
She tried to smile, caught another hair by her eye and pulled it aside.
“Maybe Junior will be too engrossed to notice us.” I was hoping it wasn’t because he was busy beating off.
I led the way to the front door and Junior met us, no shirt on, his pants unbuttoned. He started to speak, saw Liz behind me and his eyes got big. He said her name.
“You already know each other. Good. We’re going. I’ll be back shortly.”
She followed me out of the house to the car, almost tripping on the walk. I caught her arm, steadied her, released her arm. I guided her to her seat, I shut the door, got in the driver’s seat.
“You two know each other?”
“Yes.” It had a dead sound.
“We both know a lot of people. No problem.”
“I want to . . .”
“Next time. High school or at your home?”
“My home, I guess.”
“Anywhere you want.”
“Andy, I . . .”
“Where am I taking you?”
She rattled off an address. About a quarter mile from the school. Not a bad neighborhood. Every town has those. Here there were posh houses, a nice old neighborhood, a lower class one not far away from it inhabited mostly, according to local reputation, by recent immigrants from Kentucky, other working class neighborhoods that were a little run down, and neighborhoods like where I lived, ranch style houses built in the sixties with brick fronts and mostly newer model cars in the driveways. Probably an equal number of wives with black eyes as anywhere.
I parked in front. “We’re late,” I said.
“I told you it doesn’t matter. They don’t care.”
“It matters to me. I said eleven and I meant eleven. When I say stuff we’ll both do our damnedest to make it so. Understand?”
She nodded.
“No, wait. There’s no time to talk. Okay? I should have ended your cage time at nine.”
She shook her head. She whispered, “I want you to whip me.”
“You think you want me to whip you. It’s not going to happen soon. Making me angry won’t make it happen at all. Understand?”
“Andy . . .”
“So if it’s really true nobody cares, call me tomorrow, after noon, at this number.” I wrote the house phone number on the back of my card. “We can go for a drive or talk.”
“Okay.”
I got out and opened her door. “Don’t touch me. Just walk away and be a good girl.”
She stood there looking at me.
“Liz, you have a beautiful body. I noticed, okay?”
She smiled, kissed the door frame and walked toward her house.
Jeez.
Chapter 6
Liz didn’t call Saturday or come by. I went out to the Burger King at eight in the evening hoping to see her and not to miss her call. Saturdays Burger King has more customers that time of night. People on dates and families lingered. Her booth was taken by three girls looking to be in their twenties, not awfully pretty. They exuded raw sensuality and showed lots of cleavage so I was surprised they were unaccompanied.
I wasn’t surprised not to see Liz. When things crash and burn it’s easy to wander the maze of self doubt and second guessing. She was so young and eager and I’d thrown her into the deep end. I wasn’t surprised when there wasn’t a message when I got back home.
Sunday dragged on and at eight I had to decide whether or not to go back to Burger King. I definitely wasn’t going to her house and confront her. A slow drive past Burger King and I didn’t see the familiar blond hair. I spent an hour driving in the country, bare of snow and seemingly lifeless under a full moon.
I decided then that on Monday I’d put an ad in the paper. It wasn’t fair to Leroy and the rest of us to have to make do when Junior decided to not show up. He could live with me; he’d have shelter and food on the table. That’s all I could manage anymore. He wanted to work he’d have to get his hands dirty and not fuck up.
It’s funny how anger works. Poor stupid Junior, he was receiving the brunt because I was mad at myself.
On Monday I was late because I stopped at the newspaper to put in the ad. The guys all had keys. Sometimes they came in early or left late or worked part of a weekend. It wasn’t required but their hours added up when they needed some extra money and the customers liked being pleasantly surprised at the speed their cars left the shop.
When I walked in, Leroy said, “She’s in your office.”
The door was open and Liz sat in the chair, looking down at the floor.
“I’m happy to see you,” I said as I sat behind my desk.
She looked up and her face was bruised and eye red and swollen. “Hi, Andy.”
“Do you drink coffee?” I stood and went toward the door.
She shook her head.
“Want anything?”
There was a brief delay and she shook her head.
I went to the coffee machine and got a cup. I shut the door behind me and sat next to her.
“Where do you want to start?”
“I need a place to stay. Shit.” She started to cry, wiped her face catching her hair. “Shit.”
“You have it. Who beat you?”
“Dad, my step dad.”
“When?”
“Saturday. I’m sorry. I wanted to . . .”
“That’s okay. Safe to get your stuff?”
“No.” She wiped the unbruised cheek with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to go back there.”
“When was the last time you had something to eat?”
She shrugged. “Yesterday?”
“What about school?”
She shrugged.
“All you have is what you’re wearing?”
She nodded, her fingers tracing the bottom edge of her jacket.
“Okay. In a minute we’ll get you some breakfast and some clothes. I’ll talk to the people at your school, tell them you’re out for a week. We need a doctor’s permit, we’ll get one because that’s next. I’ll make an appointment for after lunch. I’ll drop you off at my house after getting keys made. The spare room is yours as long as you want it. That door locks, the basement door locks, the front door locks. You’ll be safe. And then I need to talk to your family.”
She shook her head. “No. You can’t.”
“They need to know you’re safe. I want to try to get your school stuff. Anything else important?”
“No. It’s okay.”
“How’s your mom about all this?”
“She won’t do anything. Can’t. It’s okay. They don’t care.”
“We’ll see.” I moved to my seat behind the desk and went through the rolodex. Dr. Alan’s office fit us in at one. I knew there’d be a wait.
“You hurt much?”
“I’m okay.”
“I have tylenol.”
“Okay.”
I tossed her two and got a cup of water. She took them without, was standing when I got back with the cup.
“Drink some anyway,” I said.
She looked up at me and there was a smile this time. “Okay, boss.”
I told Leroy I’d be gone all day and that I had put an ad in the paper for office help. Hopefully we’d have someone by the end of the week.
Behind the shop, Liz said, “Not the cagemobile?”
“Sweetheart, looking the way you do, if someone saw you in there, I don’t think I’d survive the ride to the station.”
She was still looking at me, no smile, no frown.
I opened the car door for her and she got in.
I noticed breakfast for her was just soft stuff and clothes shopping didn’t involve trying things on. I ended up asking her if a garment was her size and, if she said yes, giving it to the woman waiting on us. Goodness knows what she thought. The woman could tell I had no fashion sense, but the odd thing was how listless Liz was. Not an ounce of excitement.
Liz stayed in the car when I went to the school’s office. Once I gave them Liz’s name I could tell they’d already written her off. They told me they needed a doctor’s slip and I asked them how many copies just to be smart.
So we had lunch, more soft stuff for Liz but she was looking better, and then sat for an hour at Alan’s office. I had a word with him before, letting him know what I wanted. A full checkup, tests for STDs and pregnancy, X-rays if needed, whatever he thought was necessary.
When he was done with the examination, the nurse called me in. Dr. Alan dryly stated a litany: badly bruised, face and body, torn anus, nothing broken. Test results would take a week. Liz sat there, staring at the floor.
“Do you know who did this?” Dr. Alan asked.
“That’s for Liz to say.”
She shook her head.
I looked to Doc Alan and shrugged. “I need you to sign something for the school so she’ll be excused for missing this week.”
As he wrote he said, “She seems to have a pretty good idea of the types of food to eat. Rest. I’ve given her two prescriptions. No sex until she heals.” He said that looking at me.
“I think we have that taken care of. Anything else?”
“Whoever did this should be in jail.”
“My feelings exactly.”
“I want to see you,” said to Liz, “next Monday.”
I said, “We’ll be here.”
I wrote a check and made the appointment. Outside the doctor’s I said, “So it wasn’t one wallop, was it?”
She was silent.
“You doing okay?”
“Think you can wait a week?” She glanced at me, smiled before looking down.
“I waited sixty-three years for you, what’s an extra week or two or three, heh?”
She slapped my arm.
We dropped off the prescriptions, got spare keys made and left the doctor’s note at the school office.
It was close to four when we got to my home. I showed her what keys fit where and once she was in the basement went to get the bags of clothes from the car.
She was sitting on the bed, when I returned, in the main room, jacket off.
“There’s food in the kitchen down here, mostly pop and snack stuff. I’ll get some soup for tonight. Breakfast?”
“Juice. That’s all.”
“So the bedroom door locks. There’s a radio, books.”
“The cage?”
“Let’s go easy, okay. For a day or two. Then we’ll see.” She had that look she had Friday night. I turned on the light to the bedroom. “It’s not that bad.”
She started to cry. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m happy you came to me.” I stood there looking at her. “Okay, I’ll be gone an hour or so. Kroger, the prescription, and I’ll stop at your house.”
“Please don’t. I’m okay. They don’t care.”
“They cared enough to beat you. I won’t tell them where you are.”
“Andy.” She touched my sleeve. “Don’t.”
“You’ll be okay.”
“Andy, my step dad has been fucking me since I was a kid. Junior might be there.”
I’d suspected the one, the other surprised me. “Junior and your dad. Who else?”
She shrugged, looked away.
“Okay. I’m not looking for a fight. Just Kroger and the prescription tonight. When you feel like talking we’ll talk.” I touched the unbruised cheek. “Junior’s not a problem. Your family’s not a problem. Okay? You’re safe here.”
She nodded, looked away.
Like she really trusted me. I locked the door to the basement, she had a key if she needed it, and left for my errands.
Anger is a crazy thing. Junior being involved in this was a blow. I hoped I didn’t see him. I suspected he’d stay away and I knew he’d figure out where Liz was.
Cage Girl Page
Chapters 1 and 2 | Chapters 3 and 4
Chapters 5 and 6 | Chapters 7 and 8
Chapters 9 and 10 | Chapters 11 and 12
Chapters 13 and 14 | Chapter 15
