Deprivation- The Feast and the Famine

Chapter 1- A Limb and a Chair

If only it weren't for the hand...Claudia picked at the soft arm of the chair she found herself in and stared at the severed limb.  It was gray and bloodless, the flesh around the base bruised and shredded where it sat cut off between the floorboards.  How was such a thing possible?  How did an arm get stuck in the floor like that? The body, she reasoned, must be trapped hanging below or cut free from the force of the floorboards slamming upwards.

Some of the nails on the hand peeled back as though the owner had been trying to claw his way to safety.  Safety was out of reach, and his limb became cruelly mangled, leaving only the hand and the splintered wrist bones on the surface.  On one finger, a gold ring rested.  It was worth a great deal, Claudia supposed.  But what use had the maker of this deadly prison for riches?  The way the hand jutted out from behind the leg of an ornate table with its brutalized fingertips resting on a finely woven rug proved that to her satisfaction.

Yes, indeed, it would be an exquisite prison if only not for the hand.

"Claudia, you have let me down rather severely I'm afraid," He said, the image and sound firm in her mind's eye. He wasn't there; his voice was her frantic memory imprinting itself on reality. "Obedience is the most important quality in a woman. My desires are all that should matter to you."

"No, please, just let me go," Claudia repeated, just as she had when she faced him in the woods with his hand holding fast to her arm.

"You are mine, and I'm afraid that I must discipline what is mine. Only twice, have I deemed a woman worthy of better, and both of you failed to live up to expectations. I dislike it when my disappointments hang around."

"You're scaring me."

"I have not even begun to scare you, dear one."

Claudia did not remember arriving in this room.  Could not, in fact, remember much of how she left the city except her one encounter with him.  A few vague clouded pictures of rainy countryside and the rocking of a carriage lingered.  She could taste day old bile in her mouth but did not recall how it got there.  Even if she escaped outdoors and got away from her expensive prison, she had nowhere to go.  She was out in the middle of nowhere with no idea where to run.  

Even if she had known how to get back the city, there was nothing there for her now.  No one would protect her.  

This being the case, she was not inclined to move from her chair.  She had sheltered in inaction since she woke but merely uncurled and looked around her.  The door to her room was closed, but she eyed its lock.

Across the room, on the table were a glass of water and a plate of fruit and bread.  It smelled fresh and looked appetizing enough.  Likely besides the food she would find some cheeses or butter for the bread.  Lying next to the platter rested a slip of white paper.  Claudia was not interested enough to brave the floor.

"Thank you for the chair."  The seat had yet to send her sliding to a bloody death.  She did not trust the floorboards to show the same kindness.  The hand was proof of it as far as she was concerned.  Who knew what other traps awaited her about the room.  Death and dismemberment were all the room provided so far.  She wouldn't be so easily caught in the net.  She wasn't ready to slide into a bloody death or be speared with a blade from some unseen trap.  

The food would not be poisoned because that would be completely against the point of this elaborate trap.  Why bother with floors that could kill if you only intended to use poison?  On that note, why bother ferreting her away from the city out into nowhere just to poison her?  That could be done easily enough from the comforts of home.  No, anyone who owned a place like this intended to use it to its full extent.  Even a rich man did not spend this much on something to see it go to waste.

Claudia felt contrary.  Perhaps if it had only been poison, she would have done it to get away from a bleak future.  But this demented will that brought danger and depravity to such finery put her backbone up.

And constantly the hand impeded her thoughts, freezing anything resembling reason.

"You have never known want. I'll show you the true world," he whispered in her ear from some past place without killer floors. "I will show you what crawls beneath."

He wasn't there and responding to him was insane.  "I'll just starve here. You've won, but you'll have no joy from it."

She combed her fingers through her long brown hair. There was no point in dying with her hair in tatters. She tried to pull it to order over her shoulders.  Prying at every last knot until it dissolved beneath her touch.  Sometimes one of her dark, bright rings would catch on her hair and tug strands from her scalp.  She did not notice but occasionally stopped to remove the hairs from the glittered gemstones.

As she combed, she noticed that her hair was oily against her skin.  It was filthy, like any drudge's hair as they cleaned the floors.  She glanced down at her nails and realized that they too were as dirty as any workers.  

She stared down at that layer of grime under her nails like a stricken child.  Somehow that was worse than the nagging hunger in her stomach or the pounding headache that plagued her.  Her own disarray took all the romance out of dying stationary.  No matter what she'd not be a pretty corpse.  All she had been good for her whole life was being pretty.  Bred to be soft, docile and useless, what else but beauty remained to her?  Now, she was deprived even of that.

When Claudia touched her face, she realized it was soaked with tears.  That would not help her beauty either.  She had never cried prettily.  With that thought, she began to sob uncontrollably.  Her cries filled the room and escalated into a full-scale wail.

It was all gone.  Everything was gone.  She would never feel the warmth of love growing inside her.  She would never dance across a ballroom and feel the eyes of admirers on her back.  She would never sit at an opera and feel the music sweep over her and transport her.  And what use had any of it ever been to her? Only one good thing ever existed, and that was gone now. Destroyed.

Her vision swam as she struggled to fill her lungs inside her corset.  In the blackness swimming outside her vision, she saw his face framed in sunlight.  She could almost feel the warm horseflesh beneath her and the wind against her hot cheeks.  That was life and how brief it had been.  

Her cries quickly faded to gentle sobbing.  Even this ceased after a few moments.  She was left pale and shivering. Her eyes reverted to the hand and the hideous reality of death.

"I'm dead."

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