Renting Ginny

My eyelids slowly fluttered open. I was lying on my back. Where the hell was I? It hit me a moment later that I was lying on some sort of cot in a basement somewhere. I tried to sit up. When I did, I realized that my entire body ached as if someone had used it for batting practice. I pushed the covers off and looked down at my naked body, and found it to be covered with bruises and welts. I looked around the room. No one else appeared to be in it, and nothing else out of the ordinary besides the cot seemed to be present either. All I saw were the usual things one kept in a basement – a washer, a dryer, boxes, etcetera. Up high along the area where the wall met the ceiling, I could see two casement windows on opposite walls. Shrubs blocked some of the light beyond them. On the sides that didn’t have windows, stairs were present to my left, while a small room was present to my right. Although the door to the room was open, I couldn’t see into its darkened interior. Whatever it was – a closet or a bathroom – it had no window in it. I then went to swing my legs over the side of the bed, but something tugged at one of my ankles as I did so. Shoving the covers further down towards the foot of the bed, I glanced downward and inspected the object that firmly gripped my ankle. It was a tight leather band in which a chain was attached. My gaze followed the small, light yet heavy-duty chain that was perhaps ten feet long over to a support pole in the center of the room. The room was probably about thirty-five feet by forty feet, and I guessed it to be below the living room and kitchen, based on its shape, but not the bedrooms. The next thing I noticed was the piece of paper sitting on the small square plastic table by the cot. I snatched it up and read the elegant scrawl. Hello Beautiful, So sorry about the cuts and bruises. I didn’t realize you had such tender skin and that I was getting too carried away. Please accept my apologies. I will surely make it up to you when I get in from work. I will pamper and spoil you with a delicious dinner of your choosing (we’ll have to order something again since you’ll probably be too sore to go to the store), then we’ll give your friends and family a shout-out and you a nice hot, relaxing bubble bath and even a massage as well. You’ll be feeling better in no time, I promise! For now, I left you a pot of coffee and some donuts within your reach. The chain is long enough so you can use the bathroom as well. I hated to do this to you but please believe me when I say I did it for your own good. We couldn’t risk you breaking another window in a panic because that wouldn’t look good in court. Just relax and rest up today. I’ll be back to make everything better before you know it. I charged your laptop so you can at least play games or something like that. You’ll find a bathroom toward the foot of the cot. “My God,” I said to myself when I finished reading the pathetic note. “This bitch isn’t just mean, she’s crazy!” I wished to hell I could take out another window. Surely the cops would then see that I was being held hostage if it happened a second time, wouldn’t they? But they may also wonder why the hell I was dumb enough to go back with her after the sick twist bailed me out, I also realized. Trying not to let the panic that welled up in my chest or my battered body cloud my thinking, I slowly began to test the limits of my chains. If I could get to a window or at least find something big enough to hurl at it and smash it with, I could maybe scream for help. I had a loud voice. It should easily carry to the street. I also didn’t give a shit what the police thought once I was able to somehow get them out to the place, so long as they got me out of it. The cement floor was cold to my bare feet as I slowly stepped away from the bed. Not at all to my surprise, my restraints kept me several feet away from the windows, but they did allow me to reach the bathroom, where I quickly peed before setting out to decide on what might be the best way to free myself from the lunatic I was never sorrier to have met, gorgeous or not. I hurried back over to the bed and lifted my bound leg up. I tried to pry the leather band from my ankle but there was no way I could slip it off. It was so tight that I was amazed it didn’t cut my circulation off. Unable to pull it off or apart, I then studied my surroundings for something to cut it with. Not finding anything obvious within my view, I reached under the cot’s mattress in hopes of prying one of the metal springs loose from the frame it rested upon. If it had a sharp enough end, I might be able to tear the two-inch band loose. I tugged and tugged at anything sharp that I could possibly loosen from the frame of the cot, but nothing would let go. Dropping the mattress, I shoved a lock of hair back from my face and resisted the urge to collapse in a heap of tears on the old, smelly thing. I studied the windows both in front of me and behind me and tried to guess which one I would be most likely to hit and break, provided that they weren’t made of Plexiglas and that I could find something heavy enough to break them with. After studying all the objects of potential within my limited radius, I realized I had three possibilities. The carafe of coffee, the plate the donuts sat on, and my own laptop. The problem with the laptop was that it was too heavy. I could probably throw it far enough but not high enough. I decided on the donut plate first, but not without helping myself to one or two of them before I gave that a try. Why not at least eat some of this madwoman’s food? It was free and it was unlikely that she could slip anything inside a donut. Besides, I needed to keep my energy up, as there was no saying just how much of a fight I had ahead of me trying to escape this psycho. As I ate the sugared donut and sipped on some of the tepid and bitter coffee in which I’d poured into the Styrofoam cup by the carafe, I hoped to myself that someone I knew was becoming alarmed over not hearing from me and had sent the escort service out to investigate. In truth, though, not enough time had gone by for them to really start worrying. Once a week had passed, then they would worry. The thought of being stuck there that long made me hurry up and finish the chocolate donut I’d started on after finishing the sugared donut. Wiping crumbs off my bare lap, I dumped the remaining two jelly donuts on the table and concentrated hard on the front window. The front one may be slightly harder to hit but it would be the one I’d most likely be heard screaming from since it appeared to face the street. That was the feeling I got anyway but I couldn’t say for sure. Maybe it was really the back I was aiming at. I slowly raised the plate and, concentrating on the window, I hurled the plate in its direction like a Frisbee. It missed. After my first of three chances shattered loudly to the floor, I picked up the coffee carafe. It felt like it might be too heavy to toss as high as I needed it to go, so I downed the rest of the oily-looking brew that remained in my cup and then poured another cup. Now with the carafe a little lighter, I concentrated once again and took aim for the window. Then I watched chance number two out of three fall with a loud thud to the floor below the window. Coffee spilled from the fallen carafe as tears threatened to spill forth from my eyes. I knew I had to try to calm myself before I took my last and final chance of ever being lucky enough to smash a window and scream for help. I hated to destroy my own laptop, but if that was what it took to get out of this nuthouse, I was perfectly willing to do it. This time, I aimed for the other window. “Come on, you can do it,” I said aloud, trying to muster up some self-confidence. But I couldn’t. I fell to the bed sobbing as my laptop hit the cement floor with a deafening and hopeless thud. I had broken things and made a mess, but I had not broken free. And then I thought of the shattered plate. My eyes snapped open and I rose from the cot once again. If I could somehow reach a shard of glass, it may very well be sharp enough to sever the leather band around my ankle. I scrambled over to the closest piece and strained with all my might to reach for it. But there was no way. It was simply too far away. Period. Pissed at myself for not thinking of trying to use the shattered glass as a file before throwing it out of reach, I returned to collapse on the bed in a fit of tears. I cried and cried what seemed to be a river of tears, until my mind and body were too exhausted to stay awake.