Robert arose from his chair. He walked slowly to the window and surveyed the scene outside. Despite the late hour, the sun showed no sign of setting. The stretch in the evening was well and truly established and the landscape remained bathed in soft, warm light. A tractor was working out of earshot in a far off field, but apart from that the picture was one of unspoiled nature. It was what had attracted him to the property to begin with; peace and quiet and seclusion, the house an isolated incongruity in an endless tapestry of green fields separated by low stone walls. At night an occasional fox would trigger the sensor light in the yard as it prowled for unsuspecting prey, but other than that his days and nights were undisturbed.
He turned away from the outside world and reluctantly took his seat at the antique ebony writing desk. If he couldn’t write a story in these surroundings he held out little hope for himself. Perhaps it was only his vanity that kept him returning to the chair. He stared at the blank page. It was his parents’ fault really. Had he only undergone some sort of childhood trauma perhaps he would have something worthwhile to say, some reservoir of pain and suffering to let spill forth onto the page in a torrent of carefully crafted metaphors and similes. But no. He had been raised comfortably middle class—an only child, privately educated, who never wanted for anything. He’d graduated from university, stumbled into a job with an insurance firm and in the blink of an eye his youth had vanished. He had reached middle-age unscathed and now here he was attempting to compose a short story for a competition on the theme of ‘Pain’ when in truth he had little or nothing to say on the matter. There had been the day his dog had died but he had been largely unaffected by the loss. And yes, both his parents were also dead but that seemed somehow inevitable rather than tragic. They’d had a good innings, as they say. The clock on the wall read twenty past eight and seemed to frown at him and his lack of progress; its ticks sounding remarkably like tuts of disapproval. Perhaps he’d talk to Sophie. He always felt energised after speaking to her. Her dauntless spirit was inspiring at times, though she could be almost casually cruel towards him on other occasions. Perhaps he’d write her into the story—the feisty best friend character who punctuates moments of sentimentalism with her acerbic wit. She could even be the love interest—his perfect match hiding in plain sight. She’d certainly get a kick out of that. He smiled at the thought of her reaction to this proposition. It would probably lean more towards explosive than acerbic. But wasn’t that what he liked about her? There were other, more attractive girls out there, more obvious matches for a man of his station, but it was Sophie’s forthrightness, her sense of righteous indignation, her confidence and self-possession that had drawn him to her. She could be headstrong and indignant and her tongue was sharp but she could never be accused of dishonesty. She kept it real, as young people used to say. He stared at the blank page. The opening line was important—the famous hook he had heard so much about. Drop the reader in the middle of the action. Avoid cliches and descriptions of the weather at all costs. Perhaps he would be better off with a laptop. Admittedly, pen and paper had a certain romantic appeal, but his fingers were more accustomed to a keyboard and so far all his pen had produced were lewd doodles that he had hurriedly destroyed lest they somehow find their way into the outside world and destroy his reputation. ‘Pain’. It was a terrible theme for a short story competition. It encouraged self-indulgence, self-pity and adolescent angst. He was determined to find a unique slant on the topic, something to separate him from the pack. Perhaps he could submit the blank page itself—an abstract art piece interrogating the sense of numbing, emptiness that can accompany a loss? Or maybe he could create a story from a collage of newspaper headlines and magazine articles like the serial killers in the movies, an anguished cry for help, a desire to be caught, the exquisite pain of a predator as it devours its prey? No. At best he would look pretentious, at worst, unhinged. He found himself standing by the window again staring at the two small outbuildings in the yard below. Steeling himself for the task ahead he nodded solemnly before turning away abruptly and exiting the room. He walked swiftly down the stairs and outside through the utility room. He crossed the yard to the shed and pushed open the unlocked door. A selection of hand tools were neatly arranged on the wall. With a care bordering on reverence, he removed the electric cattle prod from its hook. The unassuming wand was a little over 12 inches in length with two copper nodes at the tip. He screwed the wand onto the rubber handle and squeezed the trigger. Sparks danced like malevolent angels on the heads of the copper pins. The device had been modified to increase the power while minimising scarring—high voltage, low current. Pain. He left the shed and made his way to the second outbuilding. He removed the lock from the heavy chain which, once released, rattled angrily to the ground. He took the stiff, steel handle in two hands and forced it across. There was a moment of resistance before the door moved towards him, its hinges squeaking painfully as he pulled it open. The smell of urine and faeces assailed him and he turned away in disgust. “Christ, Sophie, we’re going to have to do something about that smell,” he said through gritted teeth. “If it’s warm tomorrow I’ll get the hose, okay?” Sophie made no response. She was seated on the floor at the back of the room, her arms above her head, wrists in handcuffs, cuffs chained to the wall, her nightdress soiled, her legs a mass of dirt and bruises. Her face was barely visible beneath her matted hair but the eyes that peaked out between the strands burned with a hatred that was not lost on her captor. It brought a smile to his lips. He covered his nose and stepped inside. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, raising the cattle prod. “I know you’ve been good and I know what I said last time but this is an exception. I just have an awful case of writer’s block and I need something to shock me out of it. Pardon the pun,” he smirked. “Get away from me,” she growled as he moved towards her. “Don’t be like that. If there was another way you know I’d take it. I’m not the bad guy here. I’m doing this because I have to, not because I want to. You know that, right?” She raised her head and spat in his direction, her effort landing short. He offered her a sarcastic pout and a sympathetic head tilt. After all this time, she still had some fight in her. She lashed out with her bare legs as he took another step closer but he easily evaded her and now he was standing over her and the cattle prod was crackling menacingly and tears were rolling down her face. .. Robert took his seat at the antique desk and cracked his knuckles with satisfaction. The adrenaline had left him and he was relaxing in something akin to a postcoital cloud of contentment. One last exhilarated thrill shivered through his body as he picked up the pen and began to write: PAIN Like a cornered animal, Sophie flailed and squirmed at his approach. The handcuffs cut into her wrists and the chains on the wall rattled in panic. She howled in despair but there was no one around to hear her screams. There never was. Defiant as she appeared, her eyes pleaded with him for mercy, and he could tell that there was only a little fight left in her. He smiled as he raised the cattle prod . . . |