“You said she was trained Mia. How the hell is THIS trained. What the hell is this bitch TRAINED to do?”  Mia crossed her arms in her best negotiation “power” pose.

“No idea what you’re talking about Lou. She looks….docile…..to me.” Sarah was decidedly NOT docile.  The tall beauty was still wearing a network of hundreds of black zip ties and not much else. She was no longer “zipped” into a ball tie, and she was using her relative freedom to kick and roll as much as she could in the trunk of Mia’s car.

“Goddamn it Mia. I don’t care that she’s hot.”

“Hot as FUCK, Lou. Bitch is hot as FUCK.” Lou ignored the interruption.

“I told you the buyer wants a trained sex slave.”

“Oh, she’s had LOTS of sex, Lou. Don’t worry about THAT.” Mia gave a few pelvic thrusts for emphasis on the word “sex.”

“Don’t play games Mia!” Lou slapped his palm into his forehead in frustration. “I can’t even take a picture of her. She looks like a fucking porcupine! How many zip ties is this?” Mia looked up and extended one finger at a time as she counted up from “one” and pretended to be thinking hard for an answer.

“One, two, three, four….,” Mia squeezed her “counting” hand into a fist with only her middle finger extended at Lou. “I don’t know. Who gives a shit? The bag said 500 zip ties, so I guess, 500.”

“And you HAD to use all 500 on this bitch?” Mia didn’t care for Lou’s sarcasm.

“I was on a roll, OK Fuck-burger. I gotta enjoy my work because I sure as fuck don’t enjoy dealing with the ungrateful, uneducated, ‘I got my job when my dad went to prison,’ crime lord, whore shilling, fuck-burgers like you. Wait…did I already call you a fuck-burger?”

“Yeah, you called me a fuck-burger,” Lou couldn’t help but smirk. Mia was a hoot when she got fired up.

“Fuck. See what you did, Lou! Now I’m repeating myself. FUCK!” Mia was stomping around the back alley between her and Lou’s car. Mia was acting unhinged, but she knew exactly what she was doing.  “And remember! This cunt won a gold medal!”

“No, she didn’t Mia.” Lou rolled his eyes.

“Cross my heart. Look at her! You’re tell me this Amazon-looking, buns of steel, Jane Fonda, 20-minute abs, gym whore couldn’t have won a gold medal?”

“She’s a cocktail waitress from a casino on the strip. She’s not an Olympic volleyball player.”

“She WAS a cocktail waitress. Now she’s a sex slave.” Sarah whimpered loudly at that. “And

technically, she was a waitress at a ‘gentlemen’s club,’ not a casino. But it WAS on the strip….” Lou busted out laughing.

“OK, stop Mia. For the love of God, stop selling for a second. Jesus.” The corners of Mia’s mouth were curling up into a smile. “Look, the buyer that I have….that I HAD, was only interested in a trained slave. I can’t give him this raw bitch. I just can’t do it.” Mia slid over next to Lou and wrapped her arms around him. She scraped her nails up and down Lou’s back the way she knew he like to be scratched.

“So maybe not THAT buyer, but you DO have another buyer that would take her off our hands, don’t you lover dick?” Mia noticed that Lou was feeling tight. He’s been taking care of himself. Hitting the gym.

“What do you mean OUR hands, Mia.” Lou was looking for a discount. Mia broke off the embrace and walked back to her trunk.

“Fuck you, Lou! I guess it’s off of YOUR hands then because I’m not driving around the country with fucking kidnapped Wheaties Box Olympian hooker one more mile.”

“You said she was a waitress,” God, Lou loved when Mia went off. Mia reached into the trunk and with great effort, rolled Sarah out over the edge and onto the cobblestone. She groaned from the impact and laid still, whimpering softly.

“Well look at that, Lou,” Mia smirked, “the bitch is docile now.” Mia and Lou both started laughing while poor Sarah lay helpless at their feet. Mia knew she’d made the sale. She still owed Lou a solid on the next deal. Lou pulled a tightly rolled wad of money from his inside jacket pocket and reached it out to Mia who pocked it without counting.

“You hanging around Charleston, Mia?”

“Shit no, Lou. This shithole stinks like a sour cunt. You know the only reason anyone comes to

Charleston is to screw over the idiots who live here. That and because the cops are all bought and don’t give a fuck what we do on your families’ block. No. I need to get back to fart-water, Kentucky.”

“Oh yeah. What’s in fart-water, Kentucky?” Mia didn’t answer. She wasn’t actually sure how to answer. She just knew she’d left something special behind and she was going back to claim it.

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Tina was having a hard time functioning. Part of it was sleep. Just a little part. Tina only slept a few hours on a hard, half-built piece of furniture in her basement the first night after encountering Mia. But she’d managed to catch up from that deficiency the next night. No. Tina’s current state of imbalance was more about the thoughts and the images that kept forcing their way into the forefront of her mind. Memories that weren’t hers. Voices speaking words she could not understand. As disciplined as Tina

was, she could not suppress them from bubbling up from wherever deep inside of her they’ve been laying dormant. Some unaddressed trauma from her past. Some old dream from her childhood that

was being replayed for no apparent reason. Whatever it was, it now seemed that anytime Tina was not actively involved in some kind of activity to occupy her thoughts, her mind opened up to this chaotic and incomprehensible slide show.

Tina was presently fending off any of the invading hostile images by finishing up one of her favorite activities, which was a hike along the long derelict train tracks through the woods. Kentucky was a hub for the railroads before the country expanded further West and commerce went with it to St. Louis and Chicago. Now there were miles and miles of unused tracks to nowhere that were slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. One such stretch of track cut through Tina’s neighborhood. The old tracks had been paved over by the road and were obscured from casual observance by thick bushes and trees on either side of the road. Tina had been walking for hours. She emerged from the trees refreshed from the mental respite her exercise provided.

But avoidance was one thing and denial was another. Tina was determined to face whatever demons were afflicting her mind. She did her best thinking in the shower, and since she needed to get ready to go to work, Tina decided to kill two birds with one stone and try to organize her thoughts while she cleaned up. Tina indulged in few luxuries; however, she went all out when she remodeled her home’s bathroom. Tina’s custom shower had shower heads on the front and back, a rainforest shower head above, body jets and steam nozzles. She even had new water lines installed to the house to increase the water pressure, just for the shower.

Tina stepped into the powerful streams of water and closed the glass door. She was going to reverse-engineer this situation like she would a piece of furniture. This started with Mia. Specifically, it started when Tina was stopped in her tracks and utterly controlled by a person she did not even know was there. And that is the total opposite of the person that Tina fashioned herself into. She was her own woman. She was totally capable. Completely independent. She’d walked away from so many relationships where the man became remotely controlling, she’d lost count years ago. And it wasn’t ONLY that Tina felt utter domination like she’d never experienced before. It was that she loved it. She needed it. She was weak in the knees over it. Tina had never experienced anything like the total relaxed

state of euphoric bliss in her entire life before losing herself in Mia’s aura.

Tina closed her eyes and raised her face up so the deluge washed her hair back over her head. Tina turned her head to the left and then to the right, allowing the water to stream down either side of her neck. When she did, her long blonde mane gently brushed against her buttocks. She pumped a handful of body wash and worked up a generous lather. Tina returned her thoughts to recent events.

Perhaps more perplexing than the visions were the compulsions. Specifically, from the first night, Tina was overcome with an inspiration to work on some still unknown piece of furniture down in her basement workshop. She labored all night until she passed out on it, and when she woke up this very morning, she still wasn’t sure what she was building. What’s more, she imagined that there would be more directives following this one. She didn’t know what was telling her this, either. Tina almost felt like she was living in the past, present, and future, all at the same time, but only able to see snapshots from each. Never the whole picture, and none of it made any sense.

Tina stretched her arms up and spread her fingers wide. She stood up high on her toes and pivoted allowing the jets and nozzles to pound away on every contour and reach every crevice, washing away at least some of the weight and the worries she was shouldering. Eyes closed tightly, she basked in the glorious steaming water, relishing the moment, stretching it out for as long as possible.

But Tina’s moment was cut short by an unfortunately timed shortage of hot water. One of her two hot water tanks must be going bad because she routinely spent an hour or longer pruning away. The water went from hot to warm to practically frigid in moments.

Tina opened her eyes. It was much darker than moments before. The shower’s tile walls were gone. Tina was in a narrow well with tight stone walls all around her. Tina blinked hard and shook her head to shake the water from her eyes hopeful that would bring her back from this vision, but it did not. Thick iron manacles locked Tina’s wrists together. She hung from her bonds by a chain that stretched up into the darkness above her. Ice cold water was pouring down from above making it hard for her to catch a breath. Tina’s ankles were also bound in the same iron manacles with a chain pulling downward. Tina looked down to see what the chain was connected to and saw nothing but dark, rising water. RAPIDLY rising water!

Tina twisted and turned to try to get loose and scraped herself against course and jagged stone walls. There must be a weight at the bottom of the ankle chain. A very heavy weight. Tina was being pulled apart from above and below.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up.” The water was over Tina’s ankles. She bucked and thrashed. “This isn’t real. Wake the fuck up now!” The water was up to her waist now. The cold was stealing Tina’s breath. “Oh God, wake up.” Mist rose up from the deluge of water from above. The level was up to Tinas neck. She pulled as hard as she could. Her wrists bled but she could not pull her hands through the manacles. “Wake up, please, Goddamn it!.”

Tina snatched one last gulp of air and held her breath. She squeezed her eyes tight and felt the water rush up over her head.

“You have to wake up Tina!”

The water level was rising even more rapidly. She felt it go above her hands. Tina opened her eyes and looked up. The water was murky, but she could see the bubbles up above hands where the water was still pouring down and filling the well higher and higher. Tina struggled to keep her lungs full as she kicked and strained. She squeezed her eyes shut again.

“You have to wake up.” Tina forced herself to be still and stop fighting. “Calm down. It’s not real. When you open your eyes, you WILL be back in your shower. OK. Open your eyes.”

Tina opened her eyes and was horrified to see the stones of the well. She lost half of her air in an explosion of panicked bubbles. Tina’s lungs were truly burning now. She was looking around for an escape. There was always an escape. But not this time. Not from this. She closed her eyes again. She had seconds before her body would force her to open her mouth and inhale.

“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”