Pisachas

Chapter Six

As soon as Gilia began tasting the deep soil on her tongue from fragments inhaled off the floor, she pushed herself up. She had remained lying there for God knows how long, fearing Sach would come back. But when he didn’t, Gilia forced herself to get up. There was nowhere for her to go—since there was no door leading out of the room—but it wasn’t in her to just lie around waiting for that demon to return. So, she decided to explore her enemy’s surroundings a little.

The bedroom was rather large like a Sultan’s chamber. The bed was the main focus in the center of the room, since it was so huge. Gilia walked around it following the walls lined with random bits of furniture that ranged from mahogany tables with antique treasures of sorts displayed on top—some looked as ancient as Ramses II—to oak chairs, iron candle holders taller than she and even steel shackles in one corner. Gilia shuddered at the thought of having those cold clasps around her wrists. She quickly moved on.

Paintings from maybe centuries apart hung the walls in no specific order; a Georgia O’Keefe charcoal drawing on one side of the room and then Fuseli’s Nightmare hung on the opposite side. He even had a Picasso Ma Jolie original. Well, they all seemed authentic to Gilia, but then again she wasn’t really an aficionado of art. She’d just enjoyed an Art History elective she’d taken last semester for credit hours.

The fireplace she’d been thrown in front of earlier wasn’t lit, but Gilia wished it was. She chased chill bumps up and down her arms over her seemingly thin robe. It was fluffy and warm when you knew you’d soon be in warm pajamas to go with it, but wearing only that for hours in a drafty room underground got unpleasantly cold.

A metal clock the size of her fist sat high on the stone mantel. It read almost four in the morning, but Gilia knew she hadn’t been gone that long yet. It was surely broken, for the ticking minute hand was frozen on the six. If it wasn’t meant to tell time, it must have had some sentimental value to Sach for him to keep it.

A great shiver ran up her spine as she moved slightly past the fireplace to a section of the stone wall that merely had another tall candle stand on the left. The rest was bare. The longer Gilia stood there staring at the stones the more she noticed something was off about them…like they shimmered. Well, not sparkly per say, but if you threw a rock at it, the wall would ripple like water.

Gilia also noticed a small breeze would every now and then caress the skin of her long legs and face; the only parts of her unclothed. Hmm. She wondered if it really would move if she threw something at it. Gilia searched the floor for any small pebble or broken stone to throw coming up empty. And she didn’t want to throw some antique collectable of his and smash it to pieces. Surely she’d lose her head over that.

After a moment, Gilia decided to just stick her hand up to it and see what happens. She’d expected to feel icy hard stones like the floor, but it wasn’t hard at all. In fact the wall felt liquidy as if she’d stuck her hand in a giant tub of jello. Quickly pulling her hand back, she examined it. Everything looked normal. It felt fine, intact.

This had to be some sort of doorway, camouflaged. It was the only thing that made sense. Maybe on the other side was a way out. A tunnel or something to follow to the surface. If they weren’t too deep in the ground, perhaps Gilia could climb her way out. Return home to her father and Gran. They were probably worried sick.

She slowly stepped towards the wall and hesitantly immersed herself into the jelly textured doorway. Her eyes were clamped shut, but as soon as she felt fresh air hit her face she took a deep breath and opened them. It had been a door, but it hadn’t led to any escape route. Only a hallway with possible other doorways and many actual visible rooms too.

This place was massive, she thought. Room after room, some pitch black, others dusty and full of cobwebs as though no one had been in them for decades.

After wandering around for nearly half an hour, Gilia had decided out of the thirty or forty rooms, only three were being used…a bathroom, the bedroom of course and a library type room with couch seating, grand piano and thousands of books upon the shelves on the walls. Gilia had expected to find Sach somewhere in this place, but she was thankful that didn’t happen. She was positive he’d be ticked to see her out of the bedroom. She shuddered to think what he’d do.

Even after all that searching, Gilia still hadn’t found a way out; not even a front door to this forsaken place. And if it was camouflaged like the door to the bedroom had been, well, there was no way in hell Gilia would find it. There were just too many stone walls to search and it would take her weeks.

And another problem Gilia faced, she realized, was that she couldn’t remember where the bedroom entrance was. It had been somewhere between the library and the bathroom down the corridor, but even that seemed like an impossible task.
What would Sach do to her when he finds her? Trying her best not to bawl, Gilia walked into the library and sat down onto the striped silk lounge sofa. It wasn’t very comfortable; seemed more for style than anything else.

But her body ached from all the tension and her calves were worn from exploring this giant mansion. Gilia hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until her head hit the striped matching pillow on one end. Sleep overtook her in minutes, something she hadn’t done in what felt like forever. Her body was finally refusing to go any further.


It wasn’t until Gilia felt like she was floating across the ground effortlessly that she woke to strong arms wrapped around, holding her weight and a hard chest pressed against her cheek. Gilia was too afraid to open her eyes, but she knew instantly she was being carried by him.

“Don’t try to fool me, little one. I know you’re awake now,” Sach chuckled.

Gilia felt the rumble in his chest and grimaced. He must have felt her body tense, when she realized he was holding her. “I’m not trying to fool you,” she said still groggy from sleep.

“No, just escaping my prison. Right?”

Gilia swallowed hard and nodded her head, hoping he’d cut her some slack for telling the truth.

“I told you, you can never leave. Why don’t you listen?” She didn’t say anything. “You do know if you make it outside there are things that could kill you,” he went on.

Kill her? What kind of place was this anyways? “What things?” she asked hesitantly.

“For one the water, but you don’t need to worry about that now because you aren’t going to try to escape again, right?”
He was testing her, but Gilia knew if she tried anything he’d probably kill her or worse. “Right.”

Before Gilia could get a breath, Sach had made a hard left straight into the wall, but instead of crushing her against it, they went right through coming out into his bedroom once more. He dropped her onto the bed and then turned back to the wall entrance.

At first Gilia thought he was going to leave again, but instead he mumbled something in…Latin? Maybe. There was a scrapping noise like dragging a pick ax across metal making the hairs on the back of Gilia’s neck stand up.

Sach pressed his palm onto the wall where the jelly doorway had been, but his hand was flat against the stones. “There, that should keep you in for now.”

When he faced her again, Gilia had never seen a man so satisfied as Sach looked right then. As if he’d found a way to cage a wild bear or something. She was completely trapped now.

“What if I have to use the bathroom?” she asked desperately. He couldn’t just leave her locked up forever!

He just shrugged his shoulders and laughed. Pulling a small necklace with a lime green stone glowing on the end—one she’d never seen before—Sach twirled it around in his hand. “Maybe if you behave, I’ll let you have this.”

“I don’t need any more stupid stones!” Gilia yelled, feebly tossing a pillow at him. She remembered how well stones worked for her before. None at all!

The man laughed again, batting it away and slipped the necklace back in his black pants. “This one you might. It can bring you whatever you want. Food, water…anything. Except escape routes of course. But any human necessities you may need.”

“Even a toilet or a shower?” she said sarcastically.

Sach didn’t answer her, but Gilia could have sworn he grumbled something that sounded like, ‘women’, and marched over to another wall on the opposite side of the room. He mumbled something incomprehensible and the wall in front of him moaned and rippled until a small passageway opened up. Gilia could make out the tiny dim bathroom equipped with a toilet, sink and shower.

Wow, had he actually done something nice for once. Gilia was almost speechless, but managed to whisper, “Thank you.”

He watched her enter the small room and a miniature chandelier of candles lit abruptly, startling her. Her reflection in the oval mirror over the sink made her jump at least three feet back. The robe she wore was dingy with smudges of red dirt and black soot; one of the pockets had been ripped. Gilia’s eyes had rings around them even though she’d managed to sleep some; her long maroon hair was frizzed and nappy; her shoulders sagged from the heavy stress and her normally long slim legs looked boney and bruised. She was disgusting, but under the circumstances…

Sach appeared behind her just as he had in her own bathroom before kidnapping her. Only this time he was visible.
He didn’t touch her like before, only stared at her reflection looking back at his own with a possessiveness that frightened the crap out of Gilia. She could see how much he wanted her, and she gripped her hands into small fists to keep them from shaking.

Sach’s hands slipped onto her shoulders over the robe, massaging gently in circles. First clockwise, then counter clockwise. It was so soothing; Gilia began swaying on her feet. Her body was just so warn from all the stress, even Sach’s touch felt nice. Until his hands slid down her arms, pulling her back into his bare chest that is.

Instantly, Gilia was alert again. “I gave you something. Now it’s your turn to give me something.”

From the look on his face, Gilia knew exactly what that something was. “Please…no,” she begged.

“It is only fair. You can submit to my needs or I can force you as I did last time.” He reached around her waist loosening the sash of her robe. It parted a couple inches revealing a bit of her cleavage, belly button and the soft dark triangle of curls, she knew he desperately wanted to touch.

The soft rhythm of caresses over the flesh of her stomach wasn’t unpleasant, but it made her queasy to think of what he intended to do to her later. Gilia knew sex wasn’t supposed to be painful, but every time she thought about what he’d done to her before…her instincts were to run. But she couldn’t. She was frozen with his body wrapped around her like a blanket of heat and desire so intense. Gilia shivered when his hand cupped her womanly mound. He kept his fingers over the lips, hesitating to enter her.

She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from crying out in fear. His voice was there in her left ear, “Don’t fight me, little one…and this will be just as pleasurable for you as it is for me.”