Twist Read Online Free PDF Page A

hall into the bedroom.
    Bonnie slipped her diaphanous pink negligee over her head, fluffed up her hair, then put on her slippers with the built up heels that made her calves look sexy.
    Rob was on the sofa, fully dressed except for his shoes. He was sipping a glass of white wine. Another, full glass was before him on the coffee table. When he saw her, he appeared shocked, then he smiled.
    “I guess there’s no point in wasting time,” he said. He stood up. “You have some wine. I’ll take a quick shower, too, and then I’ll be back.”
    “Gotta turn the hot water on high,” she said after him, as he went down the hall toward the bedroom and bath.
    He mumbled something indecipherable to let her know he’d heard.
    Bonnie sipped some Chablis, noting that it didn’t taste bad, considering how long it had lived in the refrigerator.
    When the shower stopped hissing, she had to wait only a few minutes before Rob came back into the living room. He was completely nude, still with droplets from the shower on his shoulders. She was surprised by his physique, which appeared much more muscular without his clothes. Muscle and tendon played whenever he moved.
    She remarked that he, too, didn’t believe in wasting time.
    Only it didn’t come out that way. Instead she’d uttered a string of slurred, incomprehensible words.
    Alarmed, she tried again.
    Same result.
    Beneath her puzzlement, fear took root. There was something in a far part of her mind she didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to face.
    Rob seemed unsurprised by her inability to communicate.
    She tried again and could not make sense.
    The bastard! The sneaky bastard!
    “You put something in my wine,” she said, though it didn’t sound like that at all.
    He paid no attention to her. Wouldn’t have understood her, anyway. He was bending over, picking up his brown leather briefcase. Inanely, she wondered if he was going to try to talk her into buying furniture. If he even sold furniture. There was no reason to think he hadn’t lied to her about that, too.
    My God! Like a rag doll!
    She tried to move but could only wriggle enough so that she slumped down farther into the sofa cushions.
    Rob opened the briefcase and withdrew a roll of gray duct tape. He held it up and smiled down at her. “Good for so many things,” he said.
    She tried to tell him to go to hell but made only a gurgling sound.
    Damn him!
    If she couldn’t speak, maybe she could scream.
    She opened her mouth to try, and he ripped off a rectangle of tape and slapped it over her half-open mouth.
    “You almost figured that out in time,” he said. Then he shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been very loud, anyway. Be a good girl and maybe later I’ll let you try again.”
    Bonnie attempted to rise from the sofa. Rob reached for her as if to help her stand. Instead he forced her upper body downward so she was in a seated position with her bent legs splayed out. Gripping the back of her neck and pushing her upper body down as far as it would go, he sat on her back to keep her down. She heard more tape being ripped off the roll, then felt it being wound around her wrists and ankles, fastening them together so she remained in her awkward, splay-legged, bent position, her bare back exposed.
    He stood up, stretched, then looked around. Walking from window to window, he made sure again that all the blinds were closed.
    Obsessive-compulsive, Bonnie thought through her agony and terror. Surely, while she was in the shower, he’d already made sure everything was sealed off from the outside world. She told herself she should have tried to understand him before now. If she’d applied her pop psychology to him instead of looking for what she so desperately wanted to see, she might have noticed something unusual about him.
    Or not. He was so damned usual . He worked so hard at it. She could see that now, how difficult it must be for him to make normal look so effortless when he harbored such monstrous