Page 10 of Jazz
Metal clattered again, closer. He’d pushed the bucket towards me.
“I’m not using that. Your floor will do.”
“Fuck’s sake,” he grumbled again, his hand tightening around a bicep.
Then he moved, pulling me with him. I wobbled, jelly legs not responding. My brain reluctant to allow me to move without being able to see.
“Can you take this off?” I tried to point at the blindfold.
“No.”
“I can’t see where I’m going.”
“That’s the point.”
“How am I supposed to see where to piss?”
“I’m taking you to the toilet. Pretty sure you can work out where to piss.”
His feet clumped beside me as I shuffled with my ankles bound. Now I could hear him move. Firm steps. Measured. Light. I’d bet he wasn’t fat. The footfalls were softer, weight distributed well as he walked. Fit possibly? Thin? Even better. But the grip on my arm was strong. A workman’s hands. That might be tricky.
A lock clunked in front of me. A door squeaking. The sound of our feet changed. Something covered the concrete in here, hollow, giving as we walked. He turned me around, facing the way we had come in.
“Toilet,” he grunted. “Behind you. Squat and piss. Tell me when you’re done.”
“Can I have my hands?” I asked, raising my bound wrists.
“No fucking way.”
“Then how am I supposed to get this suit off?”
“That’s a two-piece. Ya don’t need your hands untied for that.”
“Ankles then. Would make it easier to get my pants down.”
“Nah.”
“Fine. Then you’re gonna have to come and help.”
He paused. I could sense it, and I heard the intake of breath, the resignation. And suddenly fingers gripped myankles, a snap. A flick knife. And then the tension on my ankles spang free, jolting my legs.
“Hurry up and piss,” he instructed.
“Don’t be fucking watching.”
“You’ll just have to trust I’m not.”
“There’s no fucking trusting a Rat,” I scoffed, but the burning sensation in my bladder was becoming too much to bear, and I didn’t really care now whether he was watching or not.
Popping the button, I felt for the zip, shuffling the leather down my legs one side at a time with my bound wrists. At least the fuckers had tied my hands in front of me and not behind. If I were at all concerned that he was still here watching, my bladder wasn’t. Untold hours dangling from the ceiling in the cold. It should have been frozen, but instead I felt like I’d stored two days’ worth of piss.
It was nice to sit, even on the ridge of the toilet that was missing a seat, thick porcelain digging into the back of my thighs. I was so tired. I could just close my eyes and go to sleep; the seatless toilet felt like a bed compared to hanging from the fucking ceiling.
Taking a chance he wasn’t watching, that he had turned his back like he’d promised, I moved my hands over my eyes again. The material was still wedged tight, digging into my skin. I tried again to move it, wriggling at it, trying to slide it up, or down. But it wasn’t going anywhere; the fucking thing was one with my face. The knot at the back of my head was pulled tight, and even without the numbness in my fingers and my hands tied, I doubted I could undo it. This blindfold would need to becut off, and the only person who had a knife was him, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to swipe that off him.
“How fucking long does it take you to piss?” the muffled voice growled from a couple of metres away.
He had stayed outside, his voice dull, the consonants of his words softer, less angled. He’d turned his back. Giving me the privacy I’d asked for, and an escape route. I could jump him from behind. Then what? That voice was deep, his hands strong. Even without seeing him, I could tell he was big. He’d lifted me off my feet when he detached me from the hook, and I hadn’t felt a waiver through his body, or the tiniest of weakness. In the distance I could hear feet. Heavy, booted feet approaching quickly, urgently. Almost at a run, but not quite.