… solipsubmissive …

This is a continuation; you might wish to follow this link to the beginning:  Part 1  

Elizabeth stepped out of the shower and wrapped her hair in one of the two clean towels she found on the sink every time she entered the bathroom.  This prison had been created especially for her.  She was now certain of this.  The way the towels were stacked was the same way she did it at home, right on the corner, nothing hanging over the edges, the two right corners of the folded towels touching the front and right edge of the sink.  She’d never noticed how precisely she did it every time.  But he had.

She still didn’t know his identity.  He was familiar to her in no way.  Nothing from her past.  He didn’t resemble anyone she’d ever met, and he was handsome enough that she was sure she’d remember if she had.  Regardless, she sensed they were somehow linked.

Since she no longer had any sense of the passage of time, she had simply begun following a familiar pattern.  She considered her “day” as the time between waking and falling asleep again.  “Night” was the time she remained asleep.  Each day, as soon as she opened her eyes, she sat up and looked around the room to see if anything had changed.  Nothing ever had.  Always there was a tray of food on the nightstand next to her bed with the same selections.  Far more than she could eat in a day, and never specific to any particular meal.  The dresser stood across the room next to the chair her captor had twice occupied.  The bed.  The un-window.  And the doors.

Ignoring the tray, she had slipped out of bed and opened the drawers to the nightstand.  Empty, as they had always been.  Next, she walked to the dresser and opened the top drawer.  It contained, as always, a clean set of sheets.  The remaining four drawers were empty.  She peeked into the bathroom and noted the two neatly folded towels on the sink, then closed that door and moved to the closet.  It was also completely empty.  No hangers.  Nothing on the shelf.  Finally, she walked by the door to the room and twisted the handle once.  Locked.  As always.

Finished, once more, with her customary “tour” of the room, she’d taken her shower.  Now, as she bent and wrapped her wet hair with one of the towels, her mind spun.  Remaining impassive wouldn’t work.  It was not in her nature to simply shut down and internalize.  Invariably, he would manage to elicit some reaction from her, be it anger or fear.  It made no sense to continually hand him a victory each time he forced her to step outside her emotionless shell.

She straightened and glanced at the fogged up mirror.  Usually, she liked to wait for her mirror at home to clear itself, often opening the bathroom door to speed up the process.  Lint and towel marks were a pet peeve, but today, she didn’t care.  Today, Elizabeth was going to fight back.

She scrubbed the other towel on the mirror until she could see herself, see the determined look in her eyes.  She turned in a circle, scanning the walls of the room for evidence of a camera.  She had not found one in here, but now she wanted one.  Satisfied there wasn’t one in the room, she wrapped the damp towel securely around her body, opened the door and left the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

As it happened, she was wrong.  There was a camera in the bathroom, and it faithfully recorded the beginning of her battle.  It was behind the mirror, usually rendered blind by the light coating of water droplets Elizabeth refused to wipe clean.  This time, however, with her uncharacteristic action, it picked up, at close range, the adversarial gleam in her blue eyes.  Gone was the uncertainty that had underscored every other expression.  Stephen noted the change and accepted it for what it was. 

When she left the bathroom, he turned his attention to the cameras in her room.  He heard the bathroom door slam, saw the strong set of her slim shoulders, watched as she stalked across the room to the tray of food on the nightstand.  She picked up the small bowl of cream cheese intended for her bagel, set it on the dresser and hoisted herself easily to the top.  Once there, she picked up the little bowl and, very deliberately, smeared the cream cheese on the glass covering the only camera she could reach from there.

Smiling with satisfaction, she jumped down, grabbed the bowl and stood in the center of the room.  Scooping out a glob of the stuff, she glared at the next camera and took aim.  Stephen recoiled, despite himself, when it splatted exactly where she’d intended. 

He sat back in his chair and considered his options.  He could go stop this little tantrum, but that was what she wanted.  She was positively spoiling for a fight.  Or he could allow her to finish with her little plan of obscuring the obvious cameras and suffer the restriction of his observational capabilities.  This was not a palatable solution, either.

He smiled.  Punishing her childish behavior as it deserved…with a child’s punishment… was, by far, the most reasonable solution.  Additionally, he would find pleasure in it.  Stephen nodded, his mind made up, and watched her line up her shot at the final camera of which she was aware.  Her aim remained true.  His view of her changed to that of a blurry dark splotch on the glass in front of the lens.  He waited as the camera adjusted, bringing clarity to the splotch, then stood.

He pushed a button to activate the smaller cameras hidden about the room.  These did not afford coverage as complete as the wall cameras, but they would have to do.  He picked up the phone.  “I’ll need a ladder, a bucket of warm ammonia water, and some washcloths placed outside Elizabeth’s room.  Thank you.”

Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Stephen replaced the handset in the cradle.  He opened the closet door near the studio console and perused his choices.  With a nod of satisfaction, he reached in and removed a traditional wooden paddle from the wall.  He closed the door and gave the monitors one last glance.  Elizabeth sat motionless on the edge of the bed, her arms crossed over her chest, the towel still wrapped around her nude body.

She had no idea what was coming.

Part 5