Prologue
Ten years in the past…
Mei felt their eyes as she passed the old Chinese Telephone Exchange’s three tiered black
and red pagoda, firmly propelled by her diminutive grandmother. The tiny old woman,
clothed head to toe in black, moved remarkably quickly and determinedly on exaggeratedly
bowed bound feet. Normally she provided the girl with protection just short of
claustrophobic. At this moment, though, a jolt of unaccountable fear rippled through Mei’s
delicate body, spurring her deep under her grandmother’s formidable aura.
The Caucasian man towered above Chinatown’s residents as he slowly strolled along
the crowded street, so tall, handsome and authoritative. A small, exquisite woman of
perhaps 40 years old, clad in a narrow black silk cheongsam dress, the flat raised collar
and fitted skirt accentuating her shapely body and long white throat, took many rapid yet
graceful steps at his side.
It was a gesture so brief Mei wasn’t certain she saw it. For a shameful if unwitting
instant her eyes met his. In that instant he gave an almost imperceptible nod and the
beautiful woman’s black eyes were upon her, searing her flesh.
She’d never actually met the woman but she’d overheard her parents’ and
grandmother’s circumspect whispers. Though she hadn’t fully understood, clearly the woman
was a force to be avoided … and feared.
The last thing Mei remembered before waking to an elegant voice was pushing through
the densely milling crowd toward a huge bucket of pink and yellow stargazer lilies sitting
near one of the Walter U. Lum marketplace’s many shop entrances. Her brow furrowed with
effort to remember and the sensation – rubbing? – startled her. Flowers, the overpowering
floral scent, that was her last memory.
The female voice spoke Mandarin from an older, more courtly age, rich, florid and
meticulously formal. Only the words penetrated the strange black haze. And they filled her
with fear so intense she thought her heart would explode. “Be still and silent – and obey
– and you will live.”
At once painful awareness shook her to her tender core. Something hard yet
peculiarly yielding filled her wide-open mouth almost to bursting and bit sharply into her
cheeks, making her jaw ache and head hurt. Panicked confusion threatened to again sink her
into unconsciousness. Black unconsciousness like the incomprehensible blackness that
covered her face, clinging impenetrably over eyes, nose and mouth. She struggled to
breathe through the obstruction and the strange, clinging material. A racking lightning
bolt of fear shot above her swirling mental sea. She thought she’d suffocate and almost
cried out … until she remembered the woman’s words and also, thankfully, realized she
could breathe, if with difficulty.
The girl so wanted to see, to know what was happening to her, and yet the knowledge
terrified her. Marshalling her courage, opening eyes wide, she struggled to see the
voice’s owner but could make out only dark shapes. She tried to rub away the encroaching
fabric and with a wrenching start realized she couldn’t move her hand. Horribly her mind
cleared but not the blackness.
Where was she? How had she gotten here? And more frightening, what did they want
from her and would they really let her live?
She lay on her belly – a hot flush suffused her face – naked on soft, cool fabric.
Her legs and arms were spread in a tightly stretched, intensely humiliating X exposing –
silent tears rose into her eyes – everything! She gave a tiny twist to her wrist then
winced. Metal chains! Though her terror was almost beyond sensibility, she was certain of
them when the large, rough links bit harshly into her skin. At the realization her body
seemed to collapse in on itself, all dynamism, all will, drained away leaving her utterly
limp. And wet! A chill gripped her at awareness of the soaking cold clinging to her face.
Or perhaps it was her fear. She didn’t know. Tears gushed into her eyes and were
sucked up by the black fabric. She didn’t know anything! Not even if she’d live.
The soft click of a latch, once, then again, jerked her to rigid attention. Fear,
tangible as a vice, squeezed her heart. A large presence walked quietly toward her,
footfalls shushing slightly against carpeting. She felt it circle, circle interminably all
the way around her. Unsuccessfully she struggled to see through the thick black.
Its first real sound was incomprehensible. Breathing, snuffling, a strange
combination of both, like a live boar she’d once seen in the market. Something touched her
spine and her body jerked involuntarily, almost wrenching arms and legs from their sockets
and cracking slim joints against metal.
With insane relief she recognized fingertips – warm, smooth fingertips. Gently they
touched her, not stroking but lifting off and returning to some other spot, her spine,
upper arm, waist, back of knee. As the fingers moved its agitation seemed to build, she
could feel and also hear it. With a snort it touched her behind …
… and it was on her, it’s hot breath, thick as treacle, on her back. Then wetness
soused her back and moved lower, accompanied by the hideous sniffing noise. Its tongue!
With unbearable shame and revulsion she recognized what it was doing. It was licking down
the crease between her legs! Everything, even the unclean parts, covering them with warm
gooey – vile – saliva.
Its breathing had become so laboured it beat against her ears. Even her chest seemed
to vibrate with it, punctuated by its moaning slobbering. The pitch intensified to fever.
Suddenly something pressed high up on her inner thigh and there was excruciating pain. Her
scream, muffled and thin, froze her into manic attention through which the pain vibrated.
Would they kill her because of her noise? In dumb terror she waited.
And then, to her shocked relief, it lifted off her. The next moment, though, the
unimaginable happened. A force, like a fist, pushed against a part she didn’t dare
contemplate. It pushed, harder and harder. Abruptly she – and her world – tore apart.
Nine and a half years in the past.
She’d forgotten so many things. She no longer remembered when she’d last left “her”
room – that’s what he called it – nor really when she’d had a “proper” meal, as her mother
would have said. A tear started in her eye when she thought of her mother, but she
hurriedly repressed it. Had he seen? The thought rose disjointedly into her mind
accompanied by an only partially connected surge of anxiety.
“Are you feeling well, my dear?” The small table between them, a precious
Chippendale piecrust tea table, was clothed with two heavy linen runners crossed
perpendicularly at the centre and draped protectively over the fluted edges. Exquisitely
detailed chintz china breakfast dishes and delicate silver flatware – so beautiful and
refined, like everything in the room – were set before them on the creamy cloth. The tiny
bite of egg in her fork’s sculpted tines quivered as she looked across at him. When she
tried to steady it, she felt the tight seams of the dress he’d told her to wear pull
against her breasts and underarms, even against the skin-like waist cinch’s constrictive
ribs.
His tone and facial expression were so gentle, so considerate. She could see that
his continual assertion of love and concern for her must certainly be the truth. He was
only striving to help her fulfil her potential, to attain the perfection of which he said
she was capable. For an instant, she felt profoundly grateful to him.
His brow furrowed. Her body uncontrollably tensed and her breath stopped in her
chest. But the next minute he smiled pleasantly and she breathed again. “I do believe your
appearance is improving. Our regimen seems to be working well.” He reached across and
tenderly squeezed the hand holding the fork. Her hand seemed to her to have no substance,
to be in danger of disappearing all together if he pressed his fingers together. He spoke
as if to a child. “Now eat before the delicious food gets cold.”
She brought her shaking fingers toward the silver metal bands swathing her mouth and
throat and running over her head, now unlocked in front and folded back on steel hinges to
leave an inch wide opening across her lips. Where was his other hand? She wanted to look
at the dials on the metal box at his side but didn’t dare.
She gave an imperceptible sigh. Really, it didn’t matter. She had no choice. As the
fork touched her lips, her nerves seemed to turn off – or maybe it was on, she didn’t know
– in the corners of her jaw and the sides of her neck and head. From outside herself – or
so it seemed – she watched her head loll uselessly forward and felt pain stab through her
tongue.
His face, smiling benignly over at her, fluoresced neon in the blackness that filled
her vision.
Chapter One
Ten years in the past.
Karen and her friend, Delia, giggled together near, but not quite under, the
mistletoe.
They liked to think of themselves as identical twins. They were both on the
cheerleading squad. Their pale brown hair was streaked by the same hairdresser on the same
days with blond the yellow of early corn. They even had almost the same birthday – both
very excited about turning eighteen in the spring.
Actually, Delia was a little shorter than Karen’s 5’8” and about a stone thinner.
Karen was healthy, robust and rosy cheeked, like the farm girl she would have been if her
father had not been forced to sell off most of the family’s farm and go to work in their
tiny rural town’s only factory. And though Delia was pretty, Karen’s facial features were
classically regular, beautiful under a slight padding of baby fat – indeed, perfect.
Karen’s Dad had said Delia could come with the family to the company Christmas
party, this Christmas an extra fancy affair to introduce the company’s new owner to his
employees.
Now the girls stood holding plates only partially emptied of masses of Christmas
sweets more fabulous than anything they’d ever tasted. They stared at the boss when they
didn’t think he was looking, telling each other stories about how he would walk over and
kiss them under the mistletoe. They couldn’t believe how young he was. 30? Well, much
younger than Karen’s father anyway … and how handsome.
Delia thought he looked like Jude Law, with his elegant wavy hair and smouldering
eyes. Suddenly Delia gasped and poked her elbow into Karen’s ribs.
Karen spun around to see the new owner coming toward them, toward her she realized,
an expression on his face that made her breath stop in her throat. He smiled down on her
and extended his hand. She quickly tried to shift her plate to her left hand so she could
shake his.
Instead he took her plate and handed it to a passing waiter. “Let me help you,” he
said. He looked deep into her eyes. “You have a very beautiful face.”
His eyes flickered discreetly lower before lighting back on her face. An anxious
tremor passed through her. Did he think something was wrong with her? She was too
inexperienced to know for certain and didn’t have a clue how to react. Instead she waited
hopelessly for his approval, looking enthralled, almost hypnotized, into his face like a
small house pet.
He turned and walked away.
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