The Silk Trap. A Novel in 43 Chapters
Chapter 23: Wake up, Lara!
Lara could hear the doorbell ring.
It was ringing quite urgently and repeatedly somewhere downstairs. The doorbell had a strange hollow ring as if it was ringing inside a glass bowl. She got up and headed towards the door and found the door locked. She realized that the ringing was coming from the other side of the door. But she saw a small crack in the door from which she could see who was outside. She peered through the crack and saw it was Michel. He was standing outside in a tuxedo and a bouquet. He looked so handsome in black. But he looked worried.
He was loudly calling out her name. Suddenly the door she was leaning against broke open, and she stood right in front of him. She gave him a big smile and said, “Hi Mish, You look great. Who are these flowers for?”
But Michel did not see her in front of him. He kept calling her name louder and louder and kept ringing the bell. Lara could hear him shouting, Lara! Lara! …Lara! Lara, wake up!…
Lara felt extremely surprised. She was standing right in front of him, and yet he could not see her. She reached out to touch his arm, but suddenly Michel disappeared.
In that instant, Lara opened her eyes.
It was pitch dark. The only sound she heard was the sound of a distant church bell tolling from afar. She tried to get up, but her head felt so heavy that she had to lie back down. She felt like she had been run over by a bus. Every muscle of her body ached. Her body felt like lead, and she felt she had no power in any muscles. She was sure that she had been in a horrible accident.
She tried to see if she was bandaged anywhere. As she raised her hand to feel her face, she felt a tug on her wrist. She looked down and shrieked in alarm.
Her right hand was handcuffed to the bed.
Lara started to quiver with fear. She tried again to open her eyes to make sense of where she was. The first thing she noticed was that there were no windows in the room. There was a door in the far distance, and a cold white light was slithering in from under the door. A single folding metal chair was next to her bed.
Her hands felt sore. She looked down at her hands again. She had an intravenous drip bandaged to the back of her wrist attached to a pouch on a tall metal rod. Her other hand was handcuffed to the bed. She slowly moved her bandaged hand under the covers to realize that she had some hospital gown on. But apart from that, she was naked.
Had she had a horrible accident ?! She could barely remember anything as she tried to trace herself back to her last memory.
She saw herself in the Club with Jan and the Italian group who had traveled with her. The molly pill had started to take effect. The music had become exceedingly loud. The lights had started to bleed into one another. She remembered being kissed by Jan in the empty VIP room while the crowd danced like a storm outside.
Lara could remember Jan’s breath all over her neck and his tongue deep in her mouth as she started to feel out of breath. She remembered that the room had suddenly started to spin out of control and her mouth felt excruciatingly dry. She wanted to call Michel and ask him to come and get her out. She wanted to call him and had asked Jan to help her. Jan had stopped kissing her and gone to get her phone. She last remembered Jan asking for her password for the phone. The last thing she remembered was Jan looking at her as he sat a few feet away from her, trying to make a phone call. She could tell that the ecstasy pill had an adverse reaction on her… it was ramping up much faster than any previous dose.
That is where her memory ended. Until now…
Lara was shivering...
Her skin felt like ice against the thin sheets that barely covered her body. She could tell that she was lying on an old hospital bed. Her handcuffs banged and scraped against the thin metal and echoed grimly in the empty room. The only warmth she could feel was the slow drip of her tears as they flowed down her cheeks. Oh God, she whispered, where have you brought me?
The nurse outside heard Lara moving around in her bed. He looked at his watch. It was about 8 am. He got up from his desk and took out his keys and unlocked the door, and entered.
Lara was awake. She looked confused and scared.
The nurse entered the room and came closer to Lara.
“Who are you?” Lara tried to shout as she spoke, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper. The man now came even closer to her, looked sternly at Lara, and then smiled and said,
“Welcome to the palace, princess.” Welcome to your new home.”
Lara immediately saw that he was a Trans man by the look of his face, the strong smell of his perfume, and the dark nail polish on his fingers. He reached down and stroked Lara’s face with his thick wooden fingers and then traced his hands around her neck as she tried to squirm away from them. The nurse lowered his face close to Lara’s lips and said,
“Don’t try and fight, my dear. It will only make you feel worse. You know you almost died getting here. We had to pump you with a lot of cortisol and other fun stuff to get your heartbeat to stabilize.” He paused as he looked at the drip pouch level, and then he looked down on her again and said in a tone of mock sympathy, “Those heartless bastards overdosed you.”
He moved away from Lara and walked to the door, stopped at the door, turned, and said,
“But you are safe now, baby. And you are a lucky girl. The Queen is very excited to meet you. She has been worrying about you all morning. She will be here soon. So get some more rest, and in case you need to go to the loo… the pan is under your bed.”
Then he closed the behind him, and Lara heard the lock turn in the door.