Gwen's POV:
I had to pee sooo badly. It had been yesterday the last time I peed. Every morning was the same. Wake up from the 5 hours of sleep we got, by a boot to the chest, or arm, or whatever it connected with, depending on which position we were laying, go to the bathroom and take a five minute shower each, brush our teeth, use the toilet, and one by one as we were done, make our way upstairs into the kitchen to start the day. The restaurant opened at noon, so we had to start preparing the food for the day at 11am. We had just gotten to sleep, most of us, at 6am, when our "clients" finally left. They had to be out by 6am. That was the rule. They had 6 hours with us, to do whatever it was they wanted. If they paid for all that time. Some didn't. Some just paid for an hour. Some had all night with us. This wasn't one of those fancy places, though. This was a cheaper priced who.re house. We didn't have fantasy rooms. We didn't have fancy beds and se.xy accessories. We had two mattresses piled on the floor, two pillows, sheets, and a blanket. And for clothes, we had bras and pan.ties. Except for kitchen duty, for which we wore plain white v-neck tees, and black or gray yoga shorts, and plain, cheap thin flip flops. We only got ONE pair of flip flops to last 3 months. That's when the boss did shopping for new stuff. Every three months. If they broke early, which they usually did, because they were really cheap and flimsy, we had methods using stuff from the kitchen to fix them. We had a bowl full of those square bread bag closers, among other tricks we'd learned. We HAD to wear shoes. And if we didn't, we'd get a beating. Sometimes, we had to strap the flip flop bottoms to our feet with duct tape or electrical tape or twist ties or string...whatever we found in the kitchen. As long as we had a shoe surface on the bottom of our feet, we were safe from a beating that day. (well, a beating for THAT reason, anyway...there were plenty of other reason for beatings throughout the day.)
I finally got done as many salads as I could make with the supplies the blonde girl had chopped already, so I rushed downstairs to the bathroom to pee. The toilet was occupied by the redhead girl. I knew this, because there were no doors. It was an open room with three showers, a toilet, and two sinks. She looked up and gave me the signal that she'd be there for a little bit.
Holding myself, I ran back up the steps and through the kitchen to the edge of the restaurant. I would get a beating if I peed myself. And it was going to happen if I didn't go NOW.
So I had to use sneaky, desperate and very dangerous ways to avoid the trouble.
I poked my face slowly out of the kitchen doorway and checked the short hallway leading to the dining area on the left. All clear. I nervously stepped out to the immediate right, to the door of the restaurant's public ladies room. I opened it slowly, and listened. It sounded all clear. I looked behind me one more time at the hallway. Still clear. I disappeared quickly through the bathroom door and ran to one of the two bathroom stalls to pee.
Ahhh. I needed that so bad. I had dribbled a few drops in my pan.ties already, as my body anticipated letting it go, while I pulled my shorts down. It was close. I closed my eyes, threw my head back in relief, and rested on the toilet seat for a few seconds. It was the only break time we ever got. Going to the bathroom. The only time we ever got to just sit and do nothing for a minute or two. And this bathroom was soooo much nicer than ours in the cellar. Private stalls, the smell of cleanliness, perfect white clean sinks.....it was luxury. But it didn't come without extreme danger. If we got caught using the customer's bathroom, we'd get a beating. A big one.
I cringed at the thought, and then decided I'd better get back.
I flushed, fixed myself, and poked my head out of the stall. If a customer walked in, I'd have to hide in the stall until they left. We couldn't be seen by the customers. We were all bruised and battered and malnourished. They'd surely be shocked and question us or call the police.
And if the police ever showed up at the boss's door, we'd all be killed and disposed of, and all evidence of our existence in the cellar would be erased before they could get a warrant to come in later. At least, that's what the boss told us would happen. No one wanted to find out if it was real or not, so we didn't test the theory. We didn't try to sneak out of the kitchen to find help and escape. We didn't do anything. Because even if one of us escaped, we knew the other girls would be brut.ally mur.dered. He told us how he would murder us already, just to make sure we did NOT try anything. And luckily, none of us could fathom letting the rest of us die like that, just for our own freedom. Luckily.
He even had a "set" of spare kitchen workers, ready on call for when the restaurant inspectors came sometimes. He'd hide us in a secret corridor in the basement until the inspection was done. He had everything covered. Things I didn't even know about.
The ladies room was clear, so I rushed out, and peeked through the door. The hall was clear, still, so I slipped out the door, and took two steps towards the kitchen door, when suddenly, the men's room door swung open and hit me on my side.
I froze in my tracks.
This wasn't happening. No. It's not happening.
I stumbled a few steps, and gained my balance. Then I did the very thing I should NOT have done. I turned my head back to look at the door.
Why? If I'd have kept on going, I would have probably been fine.
But no. I made the most fatal mistake I could possibly make. I turned my head, and showed my face to the customer coming out of the men's room.
My newly battered, bloodied, bruised, swollen face.
And this man, stood there, mouth open, staring at it.
Staring at me.
I knew what my face looked like, because I got a quick glimpse of it in the ladies room mirrors as I passed the sinks on the way out. It was the only time we got to look at ourselves, when we cleaned the customer bathrooms. Otherwise, we'd never know WHAT our own selves looked like. And a different girl cleaned the bathrooms every night, so we'd go days of never seeing ourselves, till it was our turn to clean in there. I know I'd stop cleaning for a few minutes, and just stare at myself in the mirrors. Up close. Far away. From the back, down the front....I'd get every view of myself I possibly could. Just to see who I was. To see what the other girls saw when they'd look at me. Get to know myself just a little bit. Most views in the mirror were bruised and battered. But sometimes, if it was a lucky few days, it wasn't. And I could see who I actually was on the outside in those rare times.
I'd stand there in shock, looking at my facial features. I'd take my ponytail or bun out, and move my hair all over and just look. I'd touch my face and stare as if I wasn't sure if the girl staring back at me was real or not. And then I'd usually burst into tears. It was the only pity I got. Whatever I had the chance to give myself. Then I'd realize I better get back to cleaning, or I'd get beat if I didn't get everything done in time for the "night customers". We called them "clients".
I stood there, eyes locked on this man, who stood there with his eyes locked on mine.
He had said something after the door bumped me. I think it was "Oh, hey, sorry!" I wasn't sure. But I knew that when someone talked to me, I was to obey, so my first instinct took over, and I had turned to look at him, accidentally.
His mouth slowly opened as he stared at me. His eyes widened too. I couldn't move. I tried to get the will to move, but I couldn't. I was literally frozen there, unable to rip my eyes off of this man. He had chestnut brown hair that was mopped and carelessly messy around is head. A few curls stuck out here and there in the mess, mostly at the bottom which was around his mid neck. And he had deep green eyes like a forest. And something about those green eyes......there was something that shown in them. I saw....what I could only describe as......kindness. That's the first thought that hit me. Pure kindness in his eyes. Gentle. Like he could never harm a fly. I wasn't used to men's eyes being like that. All the men's eyes I saw were dark. Even if they were blue, the men's eyes I saw were all shaded dark. Dark with evil-ness behind them. Or dark with...dirty lust. Or, as in when I looked into the boss's eyes, dark with pure hatred and pure he.ll behind them.
"Are you....alright?" the kind looking man said to me when he finally got his own lips to move. I could see him struggling to find a word before that. His mouth had moved around like it was talking, but nothing was coming out until then.
My mouth dropped open, and my eyes still never left his, as if they were paralyzed. I didn't know what to do. I'd been seen. My face was more than noticeably beaten to a pulp. My legs were bruised with new blue and purple bruises, along with older yellowed ones. I was a nightmare. And he had seen it.
I was now a dead girl. And so were all the other girls. The only good thing, was that this life of pure hell would finally be over. But the WAY it would end....I couldn't even bare to think about it. All because I had been careless, and been seen.
My own mouth moved around silently just as the kind eye'd man's had. Only I couldn't find words as he had. All that came out were gasps. Gasping sobs of breath came out of my chest as it heaved up and down in horror as I thought of my impending horrible death because of the mistake I'd just made.
My breath hitched in my throat and chest, and my eyes were filled with horror as they looked directly into his. And lastly, the tears came flooding out. My hand flew to my mouth to silence my sobs, and finally I got my legs to move. I turned from him, releasing him from my look of utter horror, and rushed the last five steps to the kitchen door, and pushed through it and leaned on it to stop and hold myself up and collect myself from what had just happened.
What do I do? What do I DO???? It's all I could think. I'd just killed us all. Do I tell them? Do I say anything to them? No. I can't. I can't do it. They'd have to sit and wait for that fatal knock on the door by police. It'd probably be better if they didn't know until the last few minutes. Yes.
I would NOT tell them what just happened. Maybe this guy would just leave and nothing would ever happen, anyway. Why stress them out for nothing?
I had to get my breath back to normal and get back in the kitchen, and quick. This had all taken too long now. The boss could come out any second.
I took a few final deep breaths, and composed myself enough to keep walking around the corner and into the huge, open kitchen area. All the girls were hard at work, just like when I left. I stared at each girl as I walked calmly over to the salad station, where new chopped ingredients were starting to pile up again, waiting for me to arrange them into bowls. As I looked from girl to girl, my stomach twisted and churned, as images of each one, dead and mutilated flashed through my brain. These were possibly all dead women standing. Living their last day of life. A life that was stolen from them. A life of pain and horror, that none of them deserved. A life that would be cut short, and that might not actually be a bad thing, in our situation.
My hands shook as I got back to arranging the salads. I realized I'd forgotten to wash my hands first. I couldn't do it in the ladies room, because that would take too long. Someone could come in.
I couldn't even get myself to move away from the salads. Making salad was the only normal thought I could concentrate on right now. So I didn't wash my hands. I lost myself in the cut green leaves, and the shiny red pieces of tomatoes, and the thin slices of bright orange carrots, and the hard crispness of the croutons....it calmed me to concentrate on all the pretty colors this world had to offer. It was the only evidence for us in here, that a sun actually existed in the sky. We didn't go outside. We didn't have windows in the cellar. Well, there was one small window at ground level, which was up at the top of the wall in the cellar, but it had a cover over it, outside. A rounded slotted thing. A little bit of light came in through the slots sometimes, but usually, it was just a dark spot in the wall from our view.
It was hard as hell, but somehow I was able to calm down and focus on my work the rest of the day.
If I was going to die soon, it wouldn't matter anyway. No sense in worrying about it. I felt horrible for the other girls though. Maybe the green eye'd man wouldn't say anything. Maybe we'd all be ok. Who knows?
A/N:
**Oh, I wanted to ask, if you're reading this, this story was originally written with the main character of "Gavin", instead of Harry.
I found myself wondering what it would be like, with Harry as the main character, so now that I'm uploading it to Wattpad, (it's already all written and done.) I'm going through and changing every single mention of the name Gavin, and replacing it with Harry (Styles)
Also, later, Louis Tomlinson becomes a major part of the story, and his character was originally called "Nate".
So I'm also changing all the Nate's to Louis's and Lou's as I edit the curse words and post each chapter.
What I'm asking you, is that if you happen to catch any stray "Gavin" or "Nate" names that I missed and didn't replace with Harry and Louis, could you point them out to me in a comment, so I can fix them? I'd appreciate that!!
It's actually tough to go through and find every single mention of a name! I'm sure I'll miss some.
Alright then, read on, if you will!
Thank you!
:)
-J