Page 26 of Pose for Me
This isolation, with no one around and no one to talk to? It’s fucking hell. I had enough of it growing up, and I can’t take it again. I’ve become too used to being around people.
For some fucked up reason, my body still wants Ryell’s touch. Every time he enters this room to give me my meals and sketches me walking a track in the floor, heat blooms over my skin. I’m left fuckingdisappointedwhen he leaves with minimal words and absolutelynotouching.
That was probably why I gave up so easily when he entered my cell. It’s what I’ve been craving, even though I want my freedom too. Though I should want my freedommore.
Before I can think more about what the fuck just happened when Ryell came down earlier, he returns with a tray of food and his sketch pad. My stomach rumbles, but I don’t move, watching his hands to make sure he has nothing that will hurt me. Every day, I expect to see a gun, a knife, something that will end my life, but he always has food and his sketch pad.
He slides the food into the cell through the small opening at the bottom, and I make myself wait for a minute before I walk over and pull the tray toward me. Even though I’m fucking famished, I take my time, chewing every bite slowly. He might have me captive, but he won’t make me a fucking savage.
Like he’s done every day for a week, Ryell waits for me to start eating before he opens his sketch pad and draws. As has been my normal routine, I pace the cell, not keeping still for him to get a good angle or whatever the fuck.
It’s not like he’s a photographer, needing me to be still so the image won’t blur, but the first few days he sketched me, Ryell growled for me to stop pacing. So I’ve done the opposite, knowing it’ll piss him off.
His silence is killing me. Any other day, he’d taunt me, asking how I liked my accommodations, how I slept, or any other bullshit he could think of. I hate it, but it’s better than this…silence.
“Is Ryell your real name?” I blurt out, wondering why this is the first time I thought to ask this question. I’m sure it isn’t. Why would he tell me his real name…unless he knows I’m not getting out of here, no matter how much I try?
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look up from where he’s dragging his charcoal pencil across the page in front of him.
“Where are you from?” Maybe he’ll answer this question.
No such luck, he just keeps sketching.
“Hey, motherfucker!” I shout, stopping directly across from him, fisting my hands to my side. “Fucking answer me!”
He doesn’t rise to my anger. In fact, he pretends as if he doesn’t hear me. His breathing doesn’t change, his expression doesn’t change, his posture doesn’t change. Almost as if…he doesn’t notice me as a person. Hell, not even as a pesky fly swooping in front of his face.
“Ryell, I know you hear me fucking talking to you! Don’t fucking ignore me!” My voice cracks on the last word, and I fucking hate it. I hate showing him any vulnerability, any weakness.
Again, no response from him.
“You better fucking kill me because I will make your life fucking hell when I get out of here!” I threaten.
With that, Ryell stands up and rips the page out of the sketch pad. Still not looking at me, he strides over to the cell and slides the paper through the bars. I let it flutter to the floor, trying to catch his eye. But Ryell acts as if the cell is empty.
“Fuck you, Ryell! Fuck you! You monster! You’re afucking monster!”
His stride doesn’t change as he walks toward the door, leaving me yelling at his back, just as I do pretty much every fucking day.
I snatch up the paper, intent to rip it up, but a message in thick block letters catches my eye.
SLEEP WELL.
Sleep well? What the fuck? I sleep like shit every night.
With a growl, I start to rip the paper, but my vision blurs. My head swims, and my legs feel like noodles. I drop to one knee, not able to make it over to the bed to collapse onto the thin mattress.
“Wha…?” I try to raise my hand to rub down my face, but it feels like lead, too heavy for me to lift.
Before I can figure out what’s going on, I fall onto my back, and I remember nothing else.
I come to on the floor, my arms tucked behind my head and my legs spread with my knees dropped to the side.
Even though I’m awake, everything is still fuzzy, and I’m trying to figure out how I got here.
Where the fuck am I? Why am I cuffed? Are thosebars?
I try to speak, but nothing comes out.
