Time Out Of Time - Volume Two Part 6

"Something funny?" she asked.

"Just thinking of someone. Relax. You hungry?"

Her eyes darted to the food on the night stand. Her eyes rested briefly on the handcuffs, but she finally tore them away to gaze at me. She shook her head. I wasn't too surprised that she wasn't hungry.

"I want you to eat something eventually." I paused. "Sheila. Honey. I have to handcuff you."

"I know. I'm used to it." Resigned.

"I won't tighten them. They won't hurt."

The girl fought back tears but raised her right wrist. I got off the bed and wrapped the steel around her slender wrist. This was the most I'd touched the girl since I'd met her. Her wrist had faint marks on it. Perhaps the remnants of bruises from a particularly cruel or tight binding. I closed the cuff carefully and locked it, tested it to make sure she couldn't slip her hand out from the loose steel and clipped the other end around the bedpost. She let out an involuntary whimper but suffered the indignity mostly in silence. Her mind was probably rus.h.i.+ng around to other horrors that had happened to her while she was helpless and nude; things that weren't going to happen to her this time.

I pulled one of the decorative desk chairs over to the bedside and sat down facing her. She just looked at me waiting.

"Sheila, I know this is hard for you. I hope Jane and Christi helped you understand what is going on."

She bit her lip and nodded. "They were wonderful. I feel so much better. I really do. And that shower they gave me. I feel. Cleaner. I think I would have gone nuts if it wasn't for them."

I was actually surprised that she hadn't felt a little uncomfortable around the other girls. I mean, they had taken a shower together. A little much for a first date, I would have thought. But the girl was a bit of an enigma. Who knows what she'd been forced to do. Showering with a couple of people of her own s.e.x was probably tame compared to some of the stuff she'd had to do. Maybe this girl just wasn't shy around other women. Maybe she didn't mind being touched and washed by another woman. I'd heard that women weren't as paranoid of same gender touching as men. Perhaps, she'd been traumatized into rejecting males. I couldn't blame her. Or maybe she was bis.e.xual or lesbian even before being taken by Mayer. I supposed that I would have to probe more into this later. It might help me understand her. Like I had a hope of understand a female anyway, much less a lesbian. But I was curious, there really wasn't any real evidence that she was h.o.m.os.e.xual at all, just my overactive imagination.

"Honey. You have to eat. Okay?"

She nodded. She used her free left hand to pick up the gla.s.s of milk. She downed it in one quick swallow, her throat muscles working at the fluid. She put the gla.s.s back down and took a deep breath. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose up as she filled her lungs with air.

"Thirsty?" I asked, surprised at how fast she drank it.

"Like a desert. Abuse makes you thirsty, don't you know?" She flashed me a brief smile.

I smiled back at her and watched her pick up the sandwich and nibble at it.

"I'm going to let you sleep after you eat. You must be tired."

"And achy," she replied around small bites. "Please. Sir. Master. I. I'm not really hungry."

"Eat half then. You'll be hungry when you wake. You can eat the rest then."

She continued to eat the half sandwich in her left hand as she was told. Shortly she finished, but it looked like she almost had to force herself to eat. She licked at her finger tips and then lowered her hand to rest easily on her bare belly. I watched as she experimentally probed the discoloured area of her side with her fingers. She winced and let her hand fall back to her stomach. That was going to be one h.e.l.l of a bruise she was going to be sporting for the next few days.

"Why are you doing this?"

"What?" I was confused by her question. Could have meant any number of things.

"Why are you keeping me? What are you planning to do with me?"

"Sweetheart. Even I don't know the answer to that."

"You are going to hurt me as well, aren't you?"

"Not like that animal that was keeping you before. And I will let you go."

"When?"

"I don't know. You won't remember any of this when you return."

"So they tell me. Then what's the point?"

"*I* will remember. Problem with you is that I'm going to be returning you back to something worse than this reality. I feel bad about returning you. The others are going back to a better place."

"Please. Don't send me back. You can do whatever you please to me, but I can't go back." She'd made a similar deal with Mayer. But I doubt if that occurred to her. She seemed genuinely afraid of Mayer. Understandably.

"Honey, I have to. Eventually. But, I swear, I'll find some way to get you out of this when I get back to the main timeline. I'll make sure that b.a.s.t.a.r.d pays for what he's done to you."

Sheila swallowed heavily. Fighting back tears. "O-okay. You aren't going to hurt me as much as he did are you?"

"No honey. I'm not. Right now, I'm just trying to take care of you. Not hurt you. You've been through quite enough for the last couple of months by the sound of it."

"Jane told me. She told me that you could be kind."

"Jane is a good woman. Strong. Like you. Smart."

"You actually respect them in some ways. Don't you?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "Honey, you have to get some sleep."

She hitched herself back down the bed. Extending her right arm to accommodate the handcuff, lying her blonde head down on her extended arm. She had turned on her side and drawn up one leg. She looked almost comfortable despite the restraint on her right hand. She closed her eyes.

"You don't have to handcuff me, you know. At first I was horrified that I was moving from one monster to another. G.o.d, how I cried. But if the girls are telling the truth, at least you aren't as bad as that other a.s.shole. And I'm not going to run. Jane told me that you actually kept your word. If I obeyed I wouldn't be punished. Mayer, that f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d, would force me to obey. Usually with promises that I wouldn't be punished. And then kick the h.e.l.l out of me anyway. Please. You don't have to keep me bound. I'm not going anywhere. I can't."

"I know, sweetheart. I know. It's just a safety and decorative thing. At least for now. It shouldn't hurt too much."

"It doesn't. It's better than what Mayer made me sleep in."

"Get some sleep. Try to rest."

"I will. And thank-you." I turned to look at her naked, reclining figure. Puzzled. "For getting me away from him. And being nice to me," she continued. "Even if you couldn't let me go."

I bent down and kissed her forehead. She didn't flinch at all, but merely closed her eyes again. I walked to the door and touched the light switch. The room fell into a semi-darkened state. I could see her body moving rhythmically with her breathing and I softly shut the door behind me. Allowing her to sleep off the horror and abuse of the morning.

I walked swiftly back downstairs. I checked in on the girls again. Amy was still quietly listening to her music. Elizabeth was still reading d.i.c.kens. Christi had picked back up the Stephen King/Peter Straub novel. I found Jane lying back in the sun, delicately eating the last of her sandwich. She looked up as I approached.

"The sandwich was good."

"You should tell Elizabeth."

"I will."

I sat there watching the bare girl for a moment. "What are you thinking?" I asked her.

"I was just thinking about Sheila. And what she had to go through. What she still has to go through when you return her."

"I know. Scary ain't it?"

"You aren't ever going to treat us like that are you?"

"No. Why?"

Tears formed in her eyes. She willed them away. "I couldn't handle that. She shouldn't be sane. That went beyond cruel, what that a.s.shole did to her. At least when you are hurting me, I can rationalize. Some day it will be over and I will forget about it completely and continue to live my life as though none of it ever happened. She doesn't have that option."

"Maybe she's not sane."

"She is. Tired. Battered. Frightened. Terrorized. But she somehow retained her sanity. That guy was going to kill her you know. Still is, I guess."

"The thought had crossed my mind. Janey, I'll take care of it. When I restart the world. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d is going to be *discovered'. Don't you worry your pretty little head. Sheila will be okay. Here and there."

Jane blushed. "Why'd you come down here?"

"Couple of reasons."

"Torment time for the rest of us?"

"Not yet. I came down here because I wanted to talk."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And you talked to me. The others are engrossed in books. And music."

"You could have forced them to talk."

"Not the same."

"Why else? You want s.e.x?"

I was surprised. "You offering?"

"If you want. You know I will. Don't have much choice."

I shook my head. "*fraid not now. Not in the mood."

"I thought guys were always in the mood."

I just looked at her.

"Might help you take the edge off this," she remarked. She idly arched her back, thrusting her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s out towards me. This woman was full of surprises. I felt myself react to her offer, but this wasn't the time. Later perhaps.

I shook my head. "We've got to deal with our elderly cook out in the kitchen. And then I have to have a little chat with our judge."

Jane nodded. "I don't believe that you are choosing Polly over me." She smiled mischievously. "I'll help with our cook. You realize that you are going to give her a heart attack if you unfreeze her. I'm a.s.suming that you want her out in the backyard as well."

I smiled. "How the h.e.l.l am I going to unfreeze her without giving her heart failure?" I touched Jane's arm. She picked up her plate and gla.s.s in her bound hands and carried them back to the kitchen.

We entered the kitchen and Jane dropped the plate and gla.s.s into the sink. We both regarded Polly. Still oblivious to the people around her. The nude girls moving in and out. The s.e.x. That was going to change for her unfortunately.

I reached down and released Jane's hands from her restraints. I sent her off to get some rope to deal with our cook. Poor old woman. I felt sorry for her, but I had to move her out of the way. And to do that I had to slip her into a different timeline. Ours. I'd try and make it as painless as possible for her.

I guess it had to be done. Soon she'd be obliviously in a slower time frame and out of all this. I sat on one of the kitchen chairs. I pulled the gun out of the waistband of my jeans and lay it on the table. I concentrated, freeing the elderly lady from the time freeze. She began to pour the tea which she'd been doing when I froze the world. Her back was still to me.

I let her finish pouring the tea, not wanting to startle her while she was holding the hot liquid. When she put the teapot down, I spoke to her, "Polly?"

She whirled around. Far faster than I'd expected. Her accent was distinctly English, "And who the *ell might ye be?" Her eyes found the gun lying on the table immediately. "Aye. Come in to rob the place, eh?" She laughed. "The Judge will love *at. *fraid that I don't *ave naught but tea for the likes of you."

No fear. Her calm demeanor surprised me into laughing.

"Polly. My dear. I'm not here to rob you."

"Aye lad. What else you need one of them popguns for? Silly man."

Just then Jane waltzed through the kitchen door. Obviously not aware that I was going to unfreeze the old woman without her here.

"I got them, Master!" she announced jovially. "Oh s.h.i.+t," she continued as she saw the old cook standing there. Polly's jaw had just about dropped to the floor as this naked teenager just walked in like there was nothing unusual about being unclothed in her kitchen.

In amus.e.m.e.nt, I watched as Polly's eyes rolled back. Her hand flew to her breast and she exclaimed a quick, "My word." She promptly began to sway. Jane dropped the rope and scampered to the tottering old woman. As she fainted, Jane just reached her and had real trouble lowering the bigger woman to the floor. I just sat and watched, unable to react quickly enough to help.

"Ooof." Jane grunted as the woman was laid out on the floor. "Couldn't wait could you? She weighs a ton. A ton and a half. Way to avoid heart failure."

"Your fault."

"My fault????" Jane looked at me. Completely incredulous.

"Yeah, I was having a nice conversation with the nice old woman and you barge in like you own the place. All naked and all. Make her faint."

Jane gave me a dirty look but checked the woman. Loosened the collar on her uniform. Jane breathed a sigh of relief. Just a faint. Not heart failure.

"Like I had a choice," Jane remarked as she worked.

"Come on, what's done is done." I got up and wandered over to where Jane was. "You take her feet. I'll get her arms." Jane moved around to where she was told gripping the woman's ankles.

Together we struggled with the woman, dragging her out the door and to the nearest tree outside. I sat her up with her back against the tree. I relaxed in the gra.s.s as Jane carefully bound the helpless woman to the tree.

"Not too tight. Doesn't have to be," I instructed Jane.

"I know."

"G.o.d she was heavy."

"I told you that," Jane said smirking.

The woman stirred just as Jane was forming the last knot.