96Rose Red
Chapter Two
Paige expected to wake up with some unknown man's lips on hers. No such luck. Instead she was awoken by a pink metal handcuff coming down on her wrist. She groaned slightly. Had no one bought her? It wasn't that she wanted to be sold into basic slavery, but if she wasn't purchased, she knew that she would belong to Sleeping Beauty Inc. They would get their money's worth out of her. When she came in to be put into cryostasis she had leafed through the pamphlets where women came back after serving their year with diamonds and designer handbags and goodies galore (all presents from whoever bought them). If Sleeping Beauty Inc. owned her, she would spend the rest of her life doing disgusting grunt work no one had invented a machine to do yet. It wasn't that Paige expected diamonds, but she did expect to be sold. Her disappointment made her lips an accordion of sadness.
"Oh, stop that!" the female guard programming her wrist band snapped. "At least you're not going to have my job."
Paige blinked. "Does that mean …?"
"Yeah, Sweet Pea. You were sold. Hallelujah," sang the guard sarcastically. She was obviously a left-over Sleeping Beauty who had not been bought.
"So, where's the guy?"
"He left."
"He left?" Paige exclaimed.
"Yeah. He didn't feel like waking you with a kiss and took off. You're to be delivered to his place."
Paige thought his busyness made him seem rich. Sleeping Beauty Inc. did not make their customers kiss their product. It was optional, so the guy could have hung around just to take her with him. His being so busy that he couldn't even spare the time to do that made him seem like a great catch, but then she remembered to ask the day. If she had been there a month he would have had to spend a lot more than if she was close to her expiry date. "What day is it?" she asked rather feebly.
"March 2214."
"Crap," she mumbled. That meant that he had paid almost nothing for her. It was all her fault for getting her memory wiped. That invalidated her contract with Sleeping Beauty Inc. and instead of just selling her for one or two years, they were allowed to sell her for life. She couldn't keep her unhappiness off her face.
"Why do you look so miserable?" the guard asked, throwing Paige's wrist away and typing something on her own much larger wristband.
"'Cause I'm probably bound to some ridiculous moron for the rest of my life," Paige scowled.
The guard put her hand on her hip haughtily. "I should be so lucky. Do you think I would be acting this grouchy if you were being taken away by a guy twenty years older than you with whisky breath and bruises on his knuckles? Oh no. I'm acting like this because even though the man who bought you clearly has no money, he's young and … how should I put this? Very nice looking."
Paige didn't know what to say. Had her luck had turned around?
"So, what's the bad news?" the guard asked, obviously making up Paige's next line. "The bad news is that he's so broke that he didn't buy any clothes for you from our stores. He opted for you to wear the street clothes you wore here for the transfer. So that means no ball gown, no bathing suit, and no elegant heels. We're not going to give you a speck of make up or a drop of perfume."
"I'll live," Paige said, swinging her legs out of the casket-like box.
"Personally, I think that's why he didn't want to leave with you when he left. He didn't want to be seen carting out a very ordinarily dressed woman from a place that is supposed to be selling runway models. Or maybe we wouldn't let him. In any case, we'll need the nightgown back."
"Right now?" she asked, holding the tie on the back of her neck.
"No. Go to the change room. It's going to be my pleasure to escort you all the way to his home, in the north."
"The north?" Paige gaped, doing a double take.
"Yeah. I wasn't done telling you the bad news. That isn't a problem is it?"
Paige rolled her eyes. She had to go wherever the guy who bought her wanted her to go. She smiled sickly, "No. It's not a problem."
"Excellent. Get dressed, get fed, get in the truck and we should be there sometime tonight."
Paige pursed her lips. She wasn't sure if this was good luck or bad luck, but whatever it was she had to accept it, so she got herself to a dressing room.
The truck the guard put her in was not usually used for transporting girls from Sleeping Beauty Inc. It looked more like an army transport left over from the war.
The guard smiled roguishly when she showed her which truck they were taking. "Sorry, he didn't spring for one of the company limousines either. You know the ones. Pink all over and full of fruit and champagne, but look the window in this bad boy rolls down. Isn't the fun almost too much?"
"Quiet," Paige huffed as she got in the front seat.
The guard got in next to her and they began the drive.
Paige sat there and played with the bracelet/handcuff around her left wrist. That was the one thing that she got to choose herself when she signed her contract with Sleeping Beauty Inc. They had big clunky ones that were thick and wide that jangled around a girl's wrist. They had ones with pretty beads hanging on tiny chains. There were some made out of rubber and some made out of leather. Hers was made of pink metallic links an inch wide. It was pretty, but something about it reminded her of chains which she also liked. She wanted to remember that she was a prisoner. That way she wouldn't have any grandiose ideas about the rest of her life.
The last thing she remembered before she had her memory wiped was the sight of the man she loved. That night, he was asked her to go into business with him. She couldn't make up her mind and asked him to leave her alone so she could think about it. When she woke up the next morning she discovered over two years had passed. There was a note from herself explaining that she did work for him and it didn't work out. In order to clear the debts she had incurred she had decided to sell herself to Sleeping Beauty Inc. It would have been fine – only lasting for a year - except the terms of the contract that protected her were void and she was sold as a lifetime investment. Basically, he had bought all the work of her life for pennies, but if he hadn't bought her, the situation would have been far worse. Sleeping Beauty Inc. would have owned her for the rest of her life if he hadn't.
She shrugged her shoulders. She just had to roll with it. She had to concentrate on her duty to the man who bought her, Harrison Fox, it said on the page. If she didn't do a good job he could throw her into prison or sell her on the internet. He could even rent her out if he wanted to. He owned her.
Well, it didn't matter. If her business deal with that guy hadn't worked out than there was really nothing left for her to live for anyway.
It was a long drive north. The flowers were blooming in her city, but as they drove Paige saw fewer and fewer flowers were opening and mountains she had never seen the tips of were growing in front of her. The weather got colder and it went from early spring back to winter. She was being taken to the absolute middle of nowhere, but she didn't mind. Nothing could bother her. She was too unhappy about other things.
Harrison stood on the dirt road outside his house and felt his shoulders sag. The earth spread out in endless dry prairie before him and in ragged mountain ranges behind him. When he was in the city he had seen so many beautiful buildings. Most of them were made of reflective mirrors that contained solar cells to power the houses. The cities were built in careful designs so the sunlight was reflected between them to create the highest amount of power possible. He had thermal tubing under his front yard that had been installed seventy years before. It was slightly more advanced than the septic tank out back.
It wasn't that his house was ugly. Actually, it was the contrary. It was made of stone, had a beautifully angled roof, a delightfully inset entryway with the cutest little roof over it, and a dozen other features that made it worth looking at. From the road, it was practically a tourist attraction, but once someone got out of their vehicle and came up the walk, they saw the house for what it truly was – a magnificently designed rat hole. Not that anyone intentionally designed a home to be that, but after eighty plus years, that was what it had become. The inside was in terrible disrepair.
And he had invited a purchased woman to live there.
He sighed.
Well, he'd do what he could to make her room livable. One of the beauty spots of the house was a two storey turret off the southwest side and he planned to do the top room up to be her bedroom. She would be there soon, so he went inside and up the circular stairs to the room. He had to clean … everything.
They wouldn't have arrived before nightfall if Paige's guard hadn't been so serious. Neither of them had even traveled all day before. Most of the cities were closely clustered and commutes were quick when most people traveled via rails. This place was in the middle of nowhere.
Paige's butt ached fiercely as she scooted off the seat in front of the house where Mr. Harrison Fox lived. She looked at the house in the yellow light that bathed the countryside before sunset and didn't know what to think. The place was ancient – picturesque – but ancient.
Then the front door swung open and a man came ambling out the front door. For a second Paige thought he might be drunk, but then she saw that the reason his body was so unbalanced was because he was carrying something heavy over his shoulder. It was a huge sack with strange things poking and stretching the plastic. Honestly, the angles looked like someone's kneecap and elbow. Then the bag made a weird squishing sound as he dropped it to the ground just outside the fence. That could be guts.
Paige and the guard winced in unison. They were both thinking the same thing.
"Excuse me," the guard said in a nasal tone. She had clearly stopped breathing through her nose. "Are you Mr. Harrison Fox?"
"That's me," he said wiping off his oily work gloves onto his dirty jean jacket.
Paige peered up at him under lowered eyebrows and followed the guard's example. There was something fowl on the air. Was this what rotting flesh smelled like? And Mr. Harrison Fox couldn't have looked shadier. His black hair was all over the place and his neck and face were super brown and lean like he worked with his body constantly.
She nodded her head towards him and tried to look like she wasn't remotely disgusted or disappointed. Actually, she was scared stiff and she doubted she could hide that.
"I'm here to deliver Rose Red: model 85001. If you'll just present your key card, we can finalize the transaction."
Harrison took off his work gloves and fished around in the front breast pocket of his jacket before he pulled out a pink and silver card. He presented it to the guard who then grabbed Paige's wrist. After scanning the card with the bracelet, she let go of Paige and gave Harrison back his keycard.
"She's all yours," the guard said, stepping away from the two of them and heading back to the truck.
Harrison looked around at the empty ground by Paige's feet. "Excuse me," he called to the guard. "Didn't she come with some luggage or something?"
The guard turned to answer his question. "Sorry, if you'll look at the packing slip and the package details, you'll see that no additional clothing or accessories were purchased with this model."
Harrison frowned and waved to the guard that she could leave. He stood silently next to Paige while the truck pulled away and skidded down the gravel road in a huff of dust.
After the air had cleared, except for the bag of rotting human entrails, Paige dared to say something. "You don't have any clothes for me?"
"Not a stitch," Harrison admitted. "I'm afraid you won't find this place very much like most of the homes Sleeping Beauty models usually get assigned to. We're fifty six kilometers from the nearest town and, trust me; it isn't much of a town."
Paige looked at the house without a single solar panel on it, then at the man without a clean square inch on him, and then at the vomit-inducing bag lying a few feet away from her. It probably would have been the most depressing sight she had ever seen in her life, if she hadn't already seen the note she wrote herself that her sweetest dream had ended in misery.
"Can I see inside?" she whispered, sick to her stomach as to what he would expect once they were in the house.
"Yeah. Where are my manners?" He beckoned her toward the front door. Then he gave her a tour. "This is the kitchen and in there is the living room. There's a bathroom there and down that hallway is my bedroom and my … empty room. This door opens to a staircase that takes you upstairs to your room and another bathroom. Then if you go down that hallway it leads to the garage and out to the courtyard."
Paige did her best to hide the fact that she was pleased that he had given her a separate bedroom. She had been briefed about how most clients wanted to sleep with their purchase right away. Others never did. Some girls were bought with the intention of putting them to work, not using them for pleasure. She realized now that when she saw Harrison she worried that he was going to bring her inside and expect her to act like a full-on prostitute.
"Here, let me take you up to your room." He said that line while he removed his icky jacket and held onto the doorway to remove his boots. Then he bounded up the stairs like an elephant.
Paige quivered, and then steadied herself. She must have been ready for worse than this when she signed her contract at Sleeping Beauty Inc., except she couldn't remember it.
He took her up to a turret room. Paige had to do a double-take as she found herself in the middle of a sundrenched space. The west view was fantastic, but with one look, she could see that the room was crap. The blankets on the bed were frayed and the carpet was sticking together in clumps. The dresser was at least a hundred years old with ancient Spiderman stickers clinging to it in half torn off ribbons and the mirror attached to it was broken with a long crack down the middle.
"Here's the bathroom," Harrison said, opening a door on the side. Then he paused for effect. "Well, what do you think of it? Do you think you could live here?"
Paige smiled kindly. She honestly wasn't feeling that way, but she didn't think offending him would be a brilliant tactic at this particular juncture. "It's wonderful," she lied. "I should thank you … for buying me."
Harrison smiled and edged toward the door. "I'll let you clean up. And I'll bring you a shirt to wear to bed."
Paige let him close the door before going to the window once more to look at the view. The view was the one thing that would make the place livable. It would have been perfect, if she hadn't been able to see that garbage bag. He didn't buy her just to murder her, did he?
Harrison came upstairs with a plaid shirt for her to wear and asked her if she wanted something to eat. She declined, saying she was really exhausted after the trip. Then she honestly did try to go to sleep, except that it was a complete waste of time. She couldn't stop thinking about that garbage bag and how it honestly smelled like something was rotting. By midnight, she couldn't take it anymore. How was she supposed to live in this house comfortably when she didn't even know for sure what was going on? It was probably just her imagination getting away from her and if it wasn't, then she needed to know that too.
She was wearing the plaid shirt Harrison had given her when she slipped on her pants and shoes and quietly made her way downstairs. The house was completely silent, so she guessed Harrison was already asleep. She paused at the front door and wondered if it had an alarm system was attached to it and if a buzzer would go off if she tried to leave the house without Harrison's permission. The place looked positively archaic so she bolstered herself, undid the deadbolt and turned the handle. No alarm sounded.
It was freezing outside as she stepped out onto the front porch. This close to the mountains the air was dead frigid this late at night. Oh well, she thought as she hugged herself, this will only take a minute.
She ran down the path to the fence where Harrison had dropped the bag. It was still there. She took one sharp breath and tugged it open. At first it was too dark to see and the smell was absolutely overpowering, but she couldn't leave until she knew what was in there.
Suddenly, there was a light on her hands. She whipped her head around to see Harrison standing in his pajamas a few feet away from her holding a flashlight. "What the Hell?" his voice echoed through the cold air. At first he sounded confused and then he was laughing heartily. "And here I thought you were running away and instead you snuck out of the house to …" Here his laughing could not be repressed. He finally got it together and was able to finish his sentence, "to go through my garbage." Then he was hooting hysterically again.
"Well," Paige demanded. "What is this?"
"You know – garbage!" He came over to her and shone his flashlight into the open bag. He showed her inside and she saw rotten potatoes, corn, mushy celery, and molded over oatmeal.
She plugged her house and fell backwards. "Good grief! Don't you have a garbage disposal?"
Harrison pulled the bag closed and tied it off. "Hard to believe, isn't it? Honestly, Baby, we're lucky to have hot and cold running water."
"Then," she said thinking, "if an alarm didn't go off in the house, how did you know I was out here?"
"That bracelet of yours is pretty fancy," he said, as he stood up straight. "Come on. You've got to tell me what you were expecting to find out here."
"Nothing," she said, getting up and brushing herself off.
"'Nothing,'" he repeated. "Uh-huh. I'm going to believe that. Well, we'll just stay out here until you feel like spilling the beans."
Paige didn't move. She knew from her contract that if she tried to go into the house without his permission there were about fifteen different forms of punishment he could inflict that were totally legal. And it was freezing out. She couldn't last long.
She muttered, "I'm an idiot."
Harrison didn't say anything, but leaned on the fence and waited for the rest of her story to come out. He was still chuckling under his breath.
"I didn't think it could be rotten food. I thought that maybe it was a dead body," she admitted quietly. Then she moved to run back into the house, but Harrison grabbed her arm.
"You thought I was a murderer?" he asked, all the humor had run out of his voice. She got a better look at his eyes – they were nice and she had to admit this awful thing she suspected to someone who looked nice.
She nodded regretfully with her lips pursed.
His eyebrows were high as he sighed. "We're off to a terrific start."
Author's notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter one. I love the reviews. You keep reviewing, I'll keep writing and we'll all live happily ever after. Check out my blog sometime. There's a link to it on my profile page. Love is all around the world.