‘Are you drugging me?’
I’m lying on Sadie’s bed, wearing one of the new/old T-shirts she brought me and a pair of the stonewashed jeans. The Duran Duran T-shirt I was wearing has been laundered and folded neatly, though. She seems to appreciate that it’s my favourite.
Sadie is at the dressing table, brushing her hair. She lowers her brush, and her shocked blue eyes pierce mine. ‘What?’
I repeat my question. ‘Are you drugging me?’
It’s the logical conclusion I’ve come to after weeks of trying to figure out why I can’t bring myself to leave the flat—she’s turned me into a drug addict. I don’t seem to care about anything else but living here with these three women and helping them in some way. But why I want to, and what exactly it is, is still beyond my grasp.
‘If you are, it’s OK,’ I say when she doesn’t reply. ‘Imean, it’s notOKthat I’m now an addict, but I understand. I just want to know what the drug is, or if it’s more than one. Like, is it a combination of uppers and downers ...?’
Sadie’s expression gives nothing away. She comes and sits next to me on the bed, and I shuffle my legs over to make room for her. Sometimes she lies next to me at night, but she’s gone when I wake up in the morning. I’ve noted that she’s a very quiet breather. Which is good as I’m a light sleeper. Well, I was. Now the drug makes me so relaxed that I pass out straightaway, even though I’ve been lying around doing nothing all day except listening to music or readingSmash Hits.
‘Is it cocaine and Valium?’ I press. That’s all the drugs I know. Apart from weed. I saw various pills and ‘special’ cigarettes floating around when I was on the concert tour. I partook once or twice, but I’m a generally a clean-living guy. Besides, I had a responsibility to the band to remain clear-headed. A roadie operating on a drug-induced high would have been no use to anyone.
‘I’m not giving you drugs, Elliott,’ Sadie says, placing her pale white hands in her lap. She has nice nails. They’re like little translucent shells and always buffed to a high shine.
‘Then why can’t I leave?’ I whisper, feeling suddenly emotional about my situation. My throat bobs as I swallow a lump in my throat, and Sadie stares fixedly at my neck.She’s been doing that a lot lately.
‘Do you want to know the truth?’ she asks.
I nod and sigh with relief. ‘Yes please. Just tell me. It’s driving me crazy.’
‘I’m sure it is.’ She plucks at a thread on the bedcover, and I wait. I’m good at that. Patience is my forte, but even I have my limits. ‘So the thing is’, she says slowly, ‘I can override your will and make you do things, Elliott. You’re my thrall.’
I blink. ‘T-thrall?’
‘Yeah. Sorry, but our coven has certain ... needs that we need help with.’
‘You mean the blood?’
She nods.
I rub my face, confused. The words ‘thrall’ and ‘coven’ and the need for ‘blood’ suggest that they’re trying to pretend they’re vampires or something. I seem to have stumbled into a bad re-enactment ofThe Rocky Horror Picture Show.
But I still don’t understand how Sadie is managing to manipulate me. Itmustbe a drug of some kind. I’ll go along with it for now and try to get more information.
She’s looking at me carefully, as if to gauge how close I am to freaking out.
I smile encouragingly to show her that I won’t. ‘So you’resort of like my mistress then?’
She nods. Wow, OK, she’s a dominatrix. I gulp. Maybe that’s why she’s never around much at night. She’s off whipping men in a dungeon somewhere. But I’ve had a poke through her wardrobe when she wasn’t here. I found some leather skirts, but no catsuit, handcuffs, or whips or anything.
I plaster a fake smile on my face. ‘OK! That makes so much more sense. And you can get me to stay here ... how exactly?’
She hitches a shoulder. ‘You have my venom in your system. That acts like a sort of drug, I guess. So technically, I have turned you into an addict, if you want to be really picky about it. But I haven’t given you enough to make you crave it yet, just enough to make you easier to manage.’
Great. This is all good information. All I need to do now is find out how she gets the ‘venom’ (if that’s what she’s calling it) into my system.
‘And how do you administer it?’ I ask casually. ‘Through my food or ...?’
Sadie parts her lips and taps one of her eyeteeth and then the other. ‘I bite you. With these.’
I almost chuckle but manage to stifle it in time, and she doesn’t seem to notice. Bite me? Wow, she really is taking this pretend vampire thing to the limit. Next thing she’ll bepopping in a pair of fake fangs!
I need to compliment her on her ‘biting ability’. I read somewhere in a crime novel that a victim should give the kidnapper compliments so they get an ego boost and therefore become complacent and let their guard down.
‘You must be very good at it,’ I say placatingly. ‘I haven’t felt a thing.’
