get the cell clean to the exact standard he expected from his hostages.
During those two days he’d forgotten all about feeding Jackie. He had heard her cries and her pleas, but ignored them as his anger overrode any sense of humanity.
And now it was Jackie’s turn. At least the next girl would be spared Jackie’s final moments.
She finished with her fingernails and had collected them all without dropping a single one as previously instructed. Jackie stepped closer to the bars and reached out to Elmore. He took the nails and examined them.
Good. A great batch that’ll immortalize Jackie at least for the next month or so.
He looked back at her near naked form and nodded toward her feet. Jackie looked down and understood. She bent to her knee and started in on her toenails. Once each foot was clipped, she handed all those nails to Elmore who took his loot and stepped to the table to place them in a small bowl where they’d be washed and ready for his teeth at a later date.
He stood back in front of her cell and pointed at the only piece of clothing she wore.
The panties.
Again, without pause, she understood and slowly slipped them off, not allowing them to touch the floor.
Elmore could see the worried look on her face and he knew why. Since this wasn’t his regular visit and he hadn’t supplied her with the requisite cloth to bathe with, would he use her body as he always did? If he did, she wouldn’t be as clean and that was never good for Elmore.
He understood. But that was the only way to deal with filth. He had to get down and dirty to root filth out. He needed to lay with her as the unclean thing she was and then he could be angry enough to remove the stain that she was from his world.
Jackie handed him her last pair of panties. He laid them down in the box that would be shipped out in the morning with the pictures he’d taken of her earlier that authenticated the use of the panties.
If the customers who bought the underwear ever knew how authentication was attained, he wondered how many would continue to purchase them.
Jackie stood in the center of her little prison, naked, shivering with fear, not cold, looking pathetic.
How dare you? Come here and act like you’re someone special. I will teach you what’s special.
Other than the little mattress he allowed them as a cot and the small thin sheet for a blanket, there was a waterless toilet and nothing else in the cell. He couldn’t allow them any way to off themselves. He also had to be careful that they wouldn’t discover a weapon to attack him with when he entered their cells for his evening pleasure.
Elmore pulled the cell keys from his pocket and found the one for Jackie’s door. For a moment the room blurred in his vision. It was always this way. His anger would rise and become a fury. In that final moment, all that mattered was the girl and removing the stain that she had become.
“No, no …” Jackie whimpered and stepped away from the door.
“Why no, Jackie? After six months, you’re used to me by now.”
“Not at this hour. You never come in the afternoon.”
“Am I required to check with you when I want to alter the schedule?”
The lock clicked, the cell door opened. He eased it open all the way. At any other moment, he knew she would be pretty. One hundred and thirty pounds, tanned skin, nice cup size and long, pretty hair. Two, three months ago, she was. He had enjoyed her labors. But now she was dirty, unclean. What Elmore did with grime was wipe it out.
“No. I just … what I mean is … I’m scared.”
“It’ll be okay, Jackie. After today, we are done here.”
It must be something akin to how cows feel when they’re being led to the slaughter house. An innate sense of impending doom. They know their fate and are powerless to stop it. In Jackie’s eyes, she knew her time had come. But Jackie wasn’t a cow. She
Missy Tippens, Jean C. Gordon, Patricia Johns