Feeling the man pull out from me intensely, I knew it was over. But knowing that I would meet with the same ordeal repeatedly, hopelessness overcame me. It would never be over. Not until I found a way out of it all.
They secured the den with plentiful guardsmen. Bulky chains covered my hands and feet, leaving me with no way to break free easily. I lay motionless like a log all this while, allowing them to do whatever they wanted to me.
The men chattered, laughing among themselves outside the door to my cell.
“The Master is very kind, letting us enjoy his toy while he is away.”
“Maybe he was tired of her, lying like a corpse while he did all the hard work.”
“Anyway, he will have a new bride soon. Then he’ll have no use for this piece of trash.”
“Now, you, Jink, as the youngest, you should be compassionate with your words. After all, you used her the longest.”
Their words cut through me like a knife. They used me and relieved their deprivation. All five of them. And all they could say about me was how I lay like a corpse.
I wallowed in disgust at the stench of the fluids that they had left on me. They used me, spat on me, and treated me worse than an animal. Yet, I could do nothing while they ravaged me, like I was not a living person. The man named Jink had even given me a blow to the face when I let out a cry of pain.
After the last of them had left and locked the door of my cell, I tried to get up to clean myself, ignoring the sharp pain in my lower abdomen. It was like a large knife had sliced me up. Every single step I took was agony. I managed a few steps to the sink in the corner and began washing my face with dirty brown water.
Unconsciously, I noticed my reflection in the mirror. Horrifying, but this was the truth.
As I had expected, the fullness of the blow left my left cheek swollen, but it was nothing compared to the pain I had low down. Grazes filled my once-flawless face and blood was seeping from a cut I had below my chin.
I always had a high pain tolerance, but my bodily wounds were nothing compared to what I had deep within. They had ripped my dress to shreds, leaving me in almost nothing.
I was thinking about where I could get something to preserve all I had left of myself: my dignity, when suddenly, my stomach churned with pain and I passed out. When I came to, I was looking into the face of a woman in red.
“You are…”
“Milanda. You can call me Sis Landa.”
The fact I was no longer in my cell but in a warm bed brought me to my senses. Who was this woman, and what did she need from me?
“Sis Landa, why did you rescue me?” The words erupted from my mouth before I could stop myself. I felt exhausted and the pain in me was exhilarating.
“I don’t have any reason for anything I choose to do.”
The woman towering over me was beautiful, but aside from beauty, I felt a vibe of charisma from her. She wore a confident look about her. In short, I sensed she wasn’t a normal person. If she was the one who broke me out of my prison with no fear for the rules, she had to be someone special to that man they called the Master.
In the underworld, one bearing an address such as Sis normally meant a female senior. So, she was one of them, yet helped me? I found it rather hard to believe.
“Thank you, Sis Landa.” I couldn’t think of any words to say right now. I was just too tired to think about her relationship with the Master and anyway, it didn’t benefit me at all. I needed her help to free myself from this place.
“Rest, little girl.”
Feeling myself deprived of any energy to even check what I was wearing under the blanket, I closed my eyes and entered a deep slumber. In my dreams, I saw Sherry, my best friend and her husband Anderson, and my lover, Syl.
………………………
Piper’s Dream
“Thank you for helping me out. I don’t know how I can ever repay you,” I smiled, flashing my large, round eyes. Sherry smiled, tightening her arm around her husband.
“Just thank Anderson. He was the one who reported Lee Jung for molestation. Although someone deleted the footage, he found a good tech guy to recover the original footage.”
Sherry was smiling gaily. She wore a bright yellow dress, and it looked like they had just discharged her from the hospital. They linked hands romantically. I looked at Syl.
Syl was my underground lover. He was a married man, but his wife had insisted on an open relationship because of her sex addiction. For the sake of children he loved but were never his, he had to agree to this arrangement.
I had fallen for him at first sight when Sherry’s friend Amber had her first appointment with him, as he was a gynaecologist. After that, I had been harassing him at his clinic. During appointments, I insisted he run a full-body examination of me. When he refused, I took off my clothes to provoke him. He still rejected me and insisted that I leave.
The rejection continued until the day his wife announced she was having a baby with her new lover. That had been the last straw. Then we hooked up at Sherry’s birthday bash. From that day onwards, we never missed a day of seeing each other.
He loved children so much that my greatest wish was to bear a child for him.
We walked down a flight of steps to where I saw a parked Mercedes. I recognised the car clearly to belong to Syl.
“I’ll like to invite you both to high tea as thanks,” Syl announced. “Do you have time?”
We arrived at some restaurant. I didn’t care what the name was, but I trusted my lover with his choices. After ordering some dishes, Syl whispered to me, telling me he was going to the gents.
I felt uneasy to be alone with Sherry and Anders, but he soon returned with a silly smile plastered across his face. The lighting in the venue dimmed.
Syl knelt before me, with a gold-coloured box in his hand.
“Piper, the love of my life, will you marry me?”
Milanda’s room As I knew, it was a dream. I woke up again with puffy eyes. I had to be crying in my sleep. Milanda was sitting on the far end of the bed, watching me like a hawk. “Hmm, hmm. So very interesting.” I cowered, pulling the soft duvet closer around me. “What are you talking about?” “I meant your little love story. Thought you are an innocent victim that Lenard Lee just brought back to satisfy his cravings. It turns out you aren’t too pure yourself, being the other woman in a relationship.” She uttered her words so confidently as if she had just bore her X-ray vision of me and seen the memories I kept in my heart.
I forced myself up, and ignoring the pain in my knees, clambered up the nearby bed. In my mind, it concerned me he was going to tear me apart again. Ever since I stopped seeing Jacques come for me, he had likely departed on his trip as well. I heard from the guards’ chattering that he had left to conquer some territories and only today I had known that he had left for his impending marriage. Not that it would help me. The only way I could stay alive was to not die. After waking up from the dream with my injuries somewhat healed, I felt calmer and thought more rationally. Even though I had no explanation for it, I suspected it was the childish version of Milanda- the witch. What she had done to me had helped me. After I successfully left this place, I would plot my revenge, I swore silently. Closing my eyes, I wis
I was so mistaken when I thought he would have allowed me to spend the night in his bed. Instead, he had kicked me off his bed in the middle of the night. He ordered me to sleep on the icy floor. It was even worse than being in prison. Humiliated and used me to satisfy his desires for Milanda. I persevered, all for the bigger picture. Three days later, Milanda summoned me. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Milanda’s first question was how the Master had been. It was a hard question for me to answer. Thinking of how he was careful with me while I was the ‘Milanda substitute’ but going all cruel with me when he grumbled about how Jacques was taking a long time made me weak with pain.
It was a cold rainy morning when a scruffy guard awoke me. Knowing everything in my enslaved life had been laid out for me, I wasn’t interested in paying much attention to what he was talking about. The torment by the Master had gone on for over a week, and I wasn’t keen to think about what games would wait for me today, or his volatile attitude. All I just wanted to do was survive. Where was Jacques, and when would I finally be free from my cage? “Hurry. The Master is waiting,” the guard muttered impatiently, throwing the dress they expected me to wear on the ground. I took a quick glimpse, barely making out a purple silk-like dress with bows on one side in the dimly lit room. Had I been the Piper I was before, it would have been beautiful to me. But all these material things didn’t matter to me anymore. I was as used and broken as they made me to be.
I awoke to find myself in total darkness, with no remembrance of where I was. My first impression upon feeling my surroundings was that I was in a jungle. How did I even arrive to be here? I didn’t know the answer. But then, I heard him. “I will break you,” his words echoed in my mind. Immediately, I didn’t think of where I was or how he got there. My instinct was to run. And I ran as fast as I could, but the next thing was that the Master was right before me. I saw his face as clear as day. His venomous laughter instilled fear in me. I was like the little pig running from the Big Bad Wolf in the stories I heard as a child. Scared out of my wits, but unable to run from him. “What do you want from me?” I trembled so hard that my teeth chattered and took a few steps backwards. I sought the courage
When I saw Sherry outside in the living room, I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or to be upset.First this woman was the cause of my demise, I wouldn’t be damaged or even held in confinement if not for her.But in the past, she was the most important person in my life. I had sworn to protect her, just because she was my friend.Back when we worked in Lin Corporation, we were each other’s own shoulder to rely on. But everything changed after Lee Jung came in. He was the true villain, not Sherry.“Remember what we spoke about earlier.”Jacques’ kind voice bounced off in my mind. We had to be cautious and make every step with care.And that involve
- Two weeks later -“May, wake up.”This was the beginning of my new life. I would be living in Bangkok with Jacques and Sherry, who now went by the name Everleigh. According to Sherry, Lee Jung had provided us with a new identity each, and Jacques changed his last name as well, from Jacques Jones to Jacques Jensen.My new identity was Maybel Wright, May for short.I didn’t know how the last two weeks passed, but out of my cage, everything seemed to get better as Jacques promised. While I no longer felt my body was disgusting as before, it was only that fear of darkness in me that struck at night.He was always there for me.His voice always calmed me, and
“What did the specialist say today?” Sherry was lying on the couch with her bump pointed upwards.I giggled, staring towards Jacques.Jacques adopted a serious expression on his face, looking glum. “Erm, she needs a long series of therapy sessions to recover. That’s for occupational therapy.”“For psychiatry, it will depend on herself. We won’t know for sure.”She immediately pushed her bankbook towards him. I widened my eyes curiously at the massive number of zeros in her account.“Hey, you’ve got a lot of money!” I chuckled, bouncing on the nearby recliner. She instantly cupped her hands protectively over her bump.