Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter (20 page)

“Please,
just give me another chance.” She turned her gaze to the old man, pleading with
him. “Don’t fire me for this. Please don’t.”

“Then…”
His thin lips spread into a little smile as he held up the choker, an offering.
“Put it on.”

“No…”
She backed away, suddenly horrified by the prospect. Modeling the forbidden
piece alone, secretly, was different, but putting it on in front of him? It was
too humiliating to bear. “Please, no…”

“If
you want to stay, you will put it on!” He held the ribbon above her head as he
maneuvered behind her, pushing her away from the bed and toward the mirror. “I
want to see it on you.”

“No…”
She shook her head as he lowered the necklace. He was moving slowly, and she
felt caught in a trance as she watched the ribbon descend. She would have let
him put in on her right then. She’d even begun to lift her hair out of the way
so he could tie the ends into a neat bow, when she clearly heard the words,
“Save
them.”

Neither
of them moved or spoke, but she knew he’d heard it too. She caught a glimpse of
surprise in his eyes as the necklace stopped in mid-air. Lydia didn’t think,
she just reacted, slipping past him and running toward the door.

“Lydia!”
The booming sound of his voice stopped her as she passed the threshold and she
hesitated, one foot in the room, one foot out. “Lydia, the jewelry box needs
polishing.” His voice had moved back to smoothness almost instantly. “
You
will be back tomorrow.
”

It
wasn’t a question. The foot outside of the door itched, aching to go. But part
of her remained, and she whispered, “Yes,” just loud enough for him to hear,
before disappearing down the hall.

* *
* *

Lydia
hadn’t returned for a week. She called in sick to all of her cleaning jobs, not
just the Kauffman place. She wasn’t really sick, not at first, but she stayed
in bed, the curtains drawn, tucked under the covers as if she were. Admitting
what she was really feeling would have been too impossible to entertain. The
fear dug in her belly like a hook, but the longer she stayed away, the more she
really
did
begin to feel sick.

She
wasn’t feverish, but she felt chilled as if she were. Her body hurt, her bones
ached as if longing for something, and she wondered for a day or so if she had
fulfilled her own prophecy of illness and caught the flu—but there was no
congestion, no headache, no sore throat or stomachache, none of the tell-tale
signs. Just an overall, dull body ache for…something.

At
first, she expected the phone to ring with a call, either from Kauffman himself
(or most likely from Mrs. Bauer) or perhaps the company for which she worked,
making it an even cleaner break, telling her she was fired. When that didn’t
happen, she just continued to pick up the phone every morning to call and say,
“I’m sorry, I can’t come in, I’m still sick,” before collapsing, shivering,
into her bed again. It wasn’t until the dream she had in the early morning
hours of the new week that she finally knew what she needed to do.

“Save
them…”

The
whispered words drew Lydia into the boudoir. They seemed to come from two
places at once, from the portrait hanging on the wall and the seamless box in
the corner, and she looked between them, waiting to hear the voice again.

“Save
them…”

The
box had the stronger pull, and even in the dream, she ached, something
constricting in her throat like the closing of the aperture of a camera as she
approached the shiny, mahogany object, her trembling hand outstretched. Barely
breathing, she opened the box, and like dream imitating life imitating dream,
she removed the black choker from inside and stood in front of the mirror with
it held against her neck.

She
looked terrible. There were deep hollows beneath her eyes, her hair lank with a
week’s build-up of grease, her cheeks splotched with the few bits of food she’d
managed to get down during the week—tomato soup, a grilled cheese
sandwich. Sick food. She felt ill, even now in her own dream, in a dream world
where things should shift, her self-perception steadied on the memory of
itself. Instead, she saw herself as she was, forehead slick with sweat, eyes
dull, mouth slack, the black ribbon of necklace cutting a swath across her
thin, pale throat.

Slowly,
she brought the ends of the choker together at the back of her neck, encircling
the delicate expanse, not tying it, just admiring the stunning contrast between
her pale skin and the dark fabric. For a long time, she was transfixed on the
necklace itself, the way the cameo in the center glinted in the light, and she
gasped when she looked up into the mirror again, seeing herself transformed.

It
was still her face, her eyes open wide in astonishment, but her hair was washed
and styled, piled up on top of her head in fat, blonde curls, her cheeks
flushed with blood, her eyes bright with light. And while she had been clothed
in an old, stained t-shirt when she first entered the room, now she was nude,
the smell of her skin rising like dozens of roses all around her.

What’s
happening to me? She wanted to ask someone, even her own reflection in the
mirror, but the words wouldn’t form. She tried again, her lips making the
correct pattern, her tongue moving, but no sound came from her throat.

I’m
beautiful, she said, or rather, didn’t say but mouthed to her mirror dream
self, a stunning realization that held a great deal of power in her mind. Not
only beautiful, she thought, lifting her chin to admire the choker at her
throat, but
well.
That all-over ache she had felt even in her dream had
completely disappeared.

The
necklace, she realized, reaching to tie the ends behind her throat. She needed
the…

The
phone jarred her out of sleep hard enough to jerk her out of bed and onto the
floor as she reached for it. Work, inquiring about her cleaning jobs. Would she
need someone to fill in for her, perhaps on a more permanent basis? Her
supervisor this time, not one of the girls, and she knew it was now or never.
Lydia swallowed, touching her throat, sure that no words would come out when
she spoke.

“I’m
better,” she croaked, her voice hoarse from misuse but intact. “I’m coming in.”
The words,
I’m better
, weren’t entirely true, she thought. Still caught
in that liminal space between waking and dream, she put the phone down and
shakily got up off the floor to take her first shower in a week. She would be
fine. Soon.

*
* * *

“Hey,
there she is!”

Lydia
nearly dropped her caddy full of supplies as she whirled around in the supply
closet to face the man in the doorway. He filled it completely, his eyes
roaming over her uniform as they always did, lingering on her hemline.

“We
thought you musta died or something.” Jonas dropped a wink at her that she knew
he must think was charming, leaning his shoulder against the door frame and
blocking the way out completely. “What happened?”

“I
was…sick.” She shifted the caddy from one hand to the other.

“Better
now, though?”

She
nodded, taking what she hoped was an invisible deep breath, and headed toward
the door, saying brightly, “Back to work I go!”

“Aw,
what’s the hurry?” he asked, not moving from the exit. “There’s no fire, and
that damned creepy room sitting up there can wait, don’t you think?”

At
one time, Lydia would have laughed and agreed with him. She might have casually
even suggested a cup of coffee in the kitchen and probed him further about what
he knew about the “creepy room” upstairs, flattering him enough to keep him at
bay. But not today. Today she didn’t just have to clean the boudoir, she needed
to be in it, to enter the space no one else dared to go, to touch those things
which had become so familiar. She needed it like she needed air to breathe.

“Please,”
she murmured, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “I need to go.”

Her
tone was her downfall, she knew it instantly, but there was no time to change
her tact, and she didn’t even know if she could anymore. She had always been
wary of him, but her self-assurance had made it clear to him—and all men,
really—that she wasn’t going to be messed with. Something had happened to
her, though, and now she felt like giving up. Her pleading tone gave him all
the permission he needed.

“No,
baby, I’m pretty sure I got just what you
need
.” Jonas grabbed her
around the waist, quickly shutting and locking the door behind him as he used
his body to turn her, pressing her toward the wall. His kiss was hard, the
weight of him crushing the air out of her lungs as he groped her through her
uniform. She struggled, but he was strong, and she was incredibly thin and
weak.

His
hand slipped down the V of her uniform blouse and into her bra, fondling her
breast. He slid another hand up her skirt, impatient with her panties—she
wore stockings, not hose—shoving them aside to roughly probe through the
nest of blonde hair between her legs, searching for heat. He groaned against
her mouth when he found what he was looking for, shoving his fingers up inside
as he began to grind his erection against her thigh.

She
sought to catch her breath as he took a break from kissing her mouth to pull
her top open and bra down, popping the first two buttons on her blouse and
letting her breasts spill free so he could suckle them while he worked the
zipper on his pants. He must have heard her draw breath, because a big hand
covered her mouth the moment she opened it, muffling the scream she issued.

“Don’t,”
he warned, grabbing her by the hair and shoving her to the floor. It was cold
tile, and Mrs. Bauer kept it as clean and shiny and slick as the dining room
table. The wind was immediately knocked out of her as she landed, and then he
was on her, crushing the air from her lungs again, hand over her mouth once
more as she twisted and bucked underneath him. He struggled between her legs
with one hand, with her panties, his hard cock, and she didn’t care in that
moment that this man was going to take her virginity in some stranger’s
cleaning closet, she really didn’t care, she just wanted it to be over so she
could go.

The
desperate need to be somewhere else, anywhere else (
no, not anywhere…you
know where you need to go
) rose up in her like a fire and she bit his hand
hard as he attempted to aim his hard cock between her thighs. And she screamed
then. She managed to find her breath and scream.

“Help
me! Please! Someone! Anyone! Rape! Rape!” The last word was strangled with his
hands—both of them now—at her throat.

“Shut
up!” he hissed, squeezing, the light above his head making his face just a
shadow as he choked her.

She
groaned as he slammed her head against the tile, but her heart rose as she
heard Mrs. Bauer’s voice outside the door.

“Who’s
in there?”

“Help!”
Lydia squeaked as her airway constricted, seeing bright stars in a sudden
darkness, although her eyes were still wide open.

“What’s
going on here?” Mr. Kauffman, now, the sound of a key in the lock, and Jonas
was up, quickly straightening and zipping as the door opened.

Lydia
gasped, trying to sit, her breasts still exposed, her skirt pulled up, her
panties askew, trying to focus on the two figures standing in the doorway, the
old man and the housekeeper. The latter glared at her exposed on the tile
floor, and the former’s eyes were both concerned and full of—Lydia
wouldn’t recognize the look until later—lust.

“Just
a little slap and tickle,” Jonas said with a grin as he tucked his shirt into
his pants. He shrugged at the glaring Mrs. Bauer. “What can I say? I couldn’t
keep her off me!”

“Out!”
Kauffman’s voice thundered and Lydia cringed on the floor, moving quickly to
cover herself. The thought of being fired wasn’t so bad, not anymore. She’d
been terrified at the idea of having to look for another job, but now it was
just the thought of being separated from this house, from the boudoir, from the
necklace
…even now, it was all she could think about.

“Jonas,
you’re fired.” The old man lifted his cane and poked the younger one in the
gut. “Get out of my sight.”

Jonas
looked like he wanted to fight, but he didn’t. Instead, he strode silently out
into the kitchen and they all heard the door close behind him.

“Please,”
Lydia pleaded, crying now, scrambling to stand and pick up her cleaning caddy.
“I just want to go clean the boudoir. I just want to do my job. Please.”

“Ah,
Lydia, perhaps we need to call—” Kauffman started.

“No!”
She straightened, her jaw set. “I’m going to the boudoir and that’s final!”

Kauffman
gave a stiff nod and stepped aside as she passed. Lydia didn’t turn as she
neared Mrs. Bauer, who had moved out of the closet doorway and further into the
kitchen. The woman hissed at her, too low for Kauffman to hear, “Tramp!”

She
didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything. She just needed to get to the
boudoir—
to the necklace
—and she knew, she just knew, that
everything would be fine again.

Just
standing in front of the jewelry box made her feel better—the tightness
in her chest relaxed, the ache in her bones disappeared. Even the sharp new
pain of her throat where Jonas had throttled her, and the throbbing lump on the
back of her head from where he’d smashed it against the floor slowly dissipated
as she polished the wood with her cloth, shining it so brightly the sun gleamed
off its surface and hurt her newly light-sensitive eyes.

She
heard the sound of him coming up the stairs—the cane coupled with each
footstep was unmistakable—but it didn’t stop her. Reaching into the box,
she lifted the choker, turning to look at herself in the mirror over the
dresser. Just like her dream, she looked terrible, the dark circles showing
under her eyes, her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, showing the
already forming bruises at her throat.