Geoff Nicholson - The City Under the Skin

She squirmed, tried to roll away, kicking as she moved, but he was ready for that too. He seemed skilled, practiced, keeping her immobile as he tied her wrists and ankles. He didn’t speak, didn’t threaten her, didn’t press a weapon to her head or throat, didn’t need to.

She assumed the obvious, that this was the prelude to humiliation, violation, rape at the very least, though since her ankles were tied and her face covered, she already had an inkling that he might have something specialized in mind. But first there was a journey. She was lifted up, then placed in the back of a vehicle, a van. The way he handled her wasn’t exactly careful, but he didn’t throw her around, expended no unnecessary energy. The doors slammed, and in due course the van began to move. The journey seemed a long one, and even though she wanted it to be over, she also knew that what came next would surely be worse.

The van stopped. He hauled her out. She was aware, briefly, of being in the open air and then inside a building and then being maneuvered awkwardly, half-carried, half-dragged, down a set of stairs into a basement. There she was lifted up again, set facedown on a metal bench, maybe an examination table, and belts or cords were strapped around her to hold her in place.

It hardly came as a surprise when her clothes were pushed aside, but they were not ripped, not pulled off; instead, they were carefully raised and folded back. She remained some way from being naked, but her back and buttocks were laid bare. She steeled herself for the touch of his hands, but it seemed some preparation was required. She could hear drawers and cabinets being opened and closed. Some kind of equipment was being set up. She wondered if he was going to play doctor and patient.

Then it started. She heard a drone, like a high-pitched dentist’s drill, and then she felt something in her back, a precise line of pain. Was that a knife, a needle? A syringe? Was that the feel of drugs or chemicals entering her body? No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t an injection, nothing so limited or clearly defined. Rather, something seemed to slice through her, repetitive, broad but not deep. She thought of a sewing machine, as if she were being stitched and patched. She considered several other possibilities before she thought of a tattooing machine, but then she knew that’s what it had to be. She was being marked, inked, tagged.

It hurt, of course, but it was hard to separate the specific pain of the tattooing from the more general pain and degradation that went with being kidnapped, bound, hooded, bared, penetrated. The needles going into her flesh might have been bearable in themselves, no more than a long series of nasty stings, but not knowing how long it would go on and when, if ever, it would stop: that was excruciating.

She knew next to nothing about tattooing, but even so, she’d heard that sooner or later endorphins were supposed to kick in, that the pain became a kind of pleasure. But she didn’t let it happen. She wasn’t going to allow herself to experience relief, much less pleasure. Her back felt hot and cold, alternately then simultaneously. She knew her skin was wet, with sweat and blood and maybe ink and some liquid that he kept swabbing her with. She had no idea what design he could possibly be making. She tried to make sense of it, tried to envisage what the clusters and lines of pain might add up to, what private imagery they were mapping: cracked madonnas, orange-eyed felines, devil women, galleons with their black sails on fire. She knew she was close to hallucinating.

She had no idea exactly how long it went on. It seemed like hours, but it could have been much less, and as with the journey in the van, she didn’t know what would come at the end. If he wanted to kill her, then there’d be no stopping him. She was his. Nobody was coming to save her, and she certainly wasn’t going to be able to save herself.

At last the tattoo machine stopped. There was a silence and a stillness that seemed the most delicious she had ever known, a tide going out, a reprieve, even though her back and buttocks felt as if they’d been mashed into raw hamburger. Then there was the sound of the equipment being cleaned and stashed, drawers closing, water running, something being washed away. She felt her clothes being straightened and put back into place. The straps that held her to the table were removed.

Her hands and feet were still tied, and the leather hood remained in place as she was made to stand up. She could just about keep herself upright, but her legs felt elastic and newborn, and the ground seemed very far away. She was led up the stairs, back out onto the street, and again into the van. The anticipation of what might or might not come next was its own torture. The drive seemed shorter this time, the journey less urgent, until the van stopped and she was being hauled out, dumped on the sidewalk. The ties at her hands and feet were loosened though not removed. The hood was taken from her head, and she was pushed facedown onto the ground again so she couldn’t see her assailant. Somehow the cold, abrasive surface of the street felt reassuring and solid, and there was air, not good air, not fresh air, but something wonderfully different from the inside of that hood. Before she could even sit up, she heard the van driving away, and it was gone before she could turn around and try to get a sighting of it.

She realized that with just a little effort she could untie herself. She still didn’t know if this was a beginning or an end. And as she looked around her she realized he had delivered her to exactly the place he had picked her up, not far from where she lived. That indicated a fastidiousness, a kind of consideration that was deeply menacing.

She stood up. She was in one piece. She was herself. She hadn’t even been robbed. Her keys, money, and cell phone were still in her pockets. She walked the short distance home, convinced that nothing worse could happen to her. She went inside, through the outer gate, up via the big, unstable elevator, into her own space. She sat on the bed, too hurt to cry, and at last, because she knew, however unbearable, it would have to be done, she went into the bathroom, stripped off the clothes that she knew she’d have to burn. She steadied herself, took a deep breath, and turned her back to the mirror so she could look over her shoulder and see what had been done to her.

A hulking, matte-black SUV stood at the center of the courtyard, customized to express deep aggression and luxury. The courtyard, a broad, wet, scuffed square of tarmac, was enclosed on three sides by several levels of solid, workaday buildings, a series of former workshops, offices, storage units, all linked by open metal staircases, decks, and catwalks. There were many doors, all of them shut, and all the windows were covered, in some cases barred. It was impossible to tell what went on here now, but certainly nothing explicitly industrial. A few guys in overalls who looked as if they might have jobs to do were standing around, conspicuously not doing them.

But one guy was working, which was why the tarmac was wet. A young black man, wearing shimmering orange shorts and nothing else, was cleaning the SUV, resentment oozing from his every pore. Above him, on a second-story deck, his boss, Wrobleski, was watching him intently. This car, these buildings, this whole compound, belonged to Wrobleski. This was the place he did a lot of business, and it was also where he lived. If you looked up to the rooftop, you’d see that along one side of the structure was an extra level, a lavish, hard-edged architectural addition. In a way this new part looked just as industrial as the buildings below, with metal girders, glass walls, exposed ducting; but it was an apartment, a penthouse. The girders were painted bright red, the walls of glass curved symmetrically, the ducting had a polished gleam to it. The corner of a domed conservatory was visible nearby on the flat roof.