Chapter 14

It seemed so long. Renee sighed and stretched. It seemed forever that she and Fran had shared this dirty, foul room. She stared blankly at the cold, white light illuminating the grimy window pane and it didn't mean escape or freedom anymore. It meant nothing because she couldn't escape.

There was no place to go. There was no one to go to. She shivered as she remembered the lust that was becoming a part of her life. She wanted it to stop. But her own fiber was interwoven in it. Sometimes she forgot whether it was Manuel who suggested the games they play--or if they were her idea, or Fran's.

Everything was so confused! Renee shook her head, as if that had something to do with the massive confusion around her.

"Fran?"

"Uh?" the blonde girl rolled groggily over on her gray blanket and stared blankly at Renee.

"We've got to get out of here, Fran. We've got to make plans for escaping!" Renee felt hysteria gripping her as she realized the blonde girl wasn't responding, just staring blankly at her as if she had a screw loose.

Fran's body was a beautiful flash of ivory twisted on the cot. She looked almost languorous, sprawled out with her honey- colored hair spread carelessly under her head.

Fran looked, Renee realized with a feeling of dismay stabbing at her heart, as if she had adapted. As if she belonged here in this place and this time!

What did she look like herself, though? She stared at the soft, dark skin she got from her French mother and wondered. Did she look like she belonged, too?

Could anybody really belong to this?

She searched her soul and the answer frightened her. There was no doubt in her mind. It was "Yes!"

An unequivocal, definite yes!

Renee stared at Fran with new fear in her eyes. Fran belonged now and the blonde girl couldn't help any longer. It was up to her. For both their sakes. Only...

She was scared. Desperately, mortally scared. She asked herself the same question she was going to ask Fran: if she wanted to escape?

Only she didn't know. She couldn't make the decision now. And, when the time came, what decision would she make?

Renee collapsed on the bed and the sweat beaded on her body despite the chill in the room. It's the heroin, she told herself. It's the desire for heroin that's making me sweat.

But she lied to herself, and she knew it. It was fear--fear that she wouldn't be strong enough when the time came to make a choice. Fear that maybe, just maybe, she would choose to live in her body as an animal, as a manifestation of lust, as nothing.

Quietly she cried herself to sleep.

When Manuel came again, was it days or hours, Renee wondered dully? He unleashed them and let them sit up and eat bowls of foul smelling soup and bean tacos.

Renee wasn't really hungry. She ate mechanically, chewing and gulping her food in a methodical fashion that made it disappear speedily without coaxing. The dull lust that was always in her body now was coming to life. It twisted her intestines and chilled her skin. She ate faster. The sooner she was done, the sooner Manuel would give her her reward.

He led them across the hall, the grim, dirty hall with the two naked light bulbs in the ceiling, burning day and night.

Manuel undressed and hung his clothes from a nail in the light green, plastered wall.

"Fran," he said. He pronounced it "Frahn," and he gestured the blonde girl up to the low table.

Holding her shoulders, he lay her back on the table, with her butt hanging over the end and her feet straining for purchase on the floor. Fran whimpered as he tied her wrists to the table so she couldn't change her position.

Fran's breasts were beautiful, twin ice peaks capped with dark red flowers. Manuel ran his hand down her taut belly and dawdled near her spread thighs before he brought them up to her breasts and began to squeeze. Fran moaned and arched her back.

Manuel was sucking her tits. Drawing them out. Making the nipples blossom into round rods that slipped between his lips.

Renee quivered, almost enviously. The blonde girl was writhing back and forth breathing harshly as Manuel mouthed her breasts.

He moved between her legs, spreading them wider, making the girl arch higher to keep her straining toes on the ground taking part of her weight. Tenderly, Manuel stroked her belly, bringing moans to her lips. His hands glided over her hairy crotch, squeezing the white skin inside her thighs.

"Please!" Fran cried. "Hurry! Fuck me, Manuel! Fuck me!"

Instead he placed one finger in her slit and slowly began rubbing it in and out.

Renee drew closer, fascinated. Fran's twat was twitching excitedly. Her liquid was dripping down her leg in a thick stream. And still Manuel continued his excruciatingly slow manipulation.

Faster, Renee thought. Faster! She could almost feel that finger stroking the inside of her own passage. Her hips convulsed in sympathetic rhythm to his probing digit.

Fran's cunt lips were swollen with blood, pink through the blonde pelt between her legs. She was writhing and screaming and shouting, but Manuel refused to bring her to a climax.

"Give me a cigarillo!" he ordered.

Renee hurried to his clothes, groped around in the pockets for a minute before she found his cigarettes. She still needed matches. Her fingers went back through the pockets until she felt the smooth, slick cover of a matchbook--and something else.