Angelique Rising by O'Neil Lorain

Author:O'Neil, Lorain [O'Neil, Lorain]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-01-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Lexa did everything the monster demanded. She made his video. It consisted of the two of them on a large chaise lounge outdoors by his pool, smiling, festive drinks at their side. Donald filmed it. Malcolm had his arm around her in it, his hand on her back holding a Taser to her spinal cord. The gold ankle bracelet she wore glinting in the sun was actually chaining her to the lounge. He'd given the bikini to her, what there was of it. Altogether he'd made her watch three other women do the same video and she'd been right --the little actress that had disappeared had been one of them.

She wore the costumes he gave her no matter how demeaning they were. She recited the lines like she meant them, the words he told her to say all a betrayal of her own humanity, her own right to personhood. She enacted the endless permutations of fantasies. But for her what was real was her screams with the pain he inflicted --choking, electrical, ropes, gags. And when he left she would walk, sometimes crawl, to the shower, turn it on and curl up into a little fetal ball on its floor for hours waiting for the horror to pass into unconsciousness. Sometimes when he left and she was coughing up blood Margret would enter and tend to the housekeeping. Lexa abandoned her feeble attempts to get Margret to help her. Days slipped past without dimension and in each one Lexa's hands trembled worse than the day before.

*****

"Yes, Wyatt, the work is proceeding splendidly. Mr. Johnson has paid our overdue bills and we are well on our way back to self-sufficiency thanks to you and Angelique." Mother Superior Rosemond glanced to the table and wondered if she really should leave. It probably was the only way. "I will give you both some privacy," she said exiting the room, the same room in the convent Wyatt had had his first meeting with her in.

"Thank you for coming, Wyatt. Please --can you tell me how Angelique is?" Father Wadzniak, seated across from Wyatt at the table, asked.

"I am not here to discuss my wife with you. I am here because you said it was the only way you would give me the Church's archived material I want," Wyatt responded irritated that the priest had called him by his first name.

Father Wadzniak was a squat muscular man with strong white teeth, blotchy skin and bland red rimmed eyes. His voice was thick, caramel, making no concessions for his past or his actions indeed almost defiantly pompous. He was a man who firmly believed he had the answers who never gave off the impression there was any possibility otherwise.

"True. But what harm would it do to humor an old priest?" he asked dryly.

"When it comes to harming Angelique, you're the one who would know."

"I have paid my penance, Wyatt."

"You locked a child in a root cellar. A child! If it were up to me you would be in prison to this day Father.

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