Heart beats, quick breaths and the smell of fear. Well maybe bodies that could use a good shower.
Each girl massaged their ankles and wrists with trembling hands immediately the cuffs dropped down to their beds.
They moved to leave, weak knees giving out to gravity immediately their feet touched the ground.
Trying not to fall, with hands holding the bed posts as pillars until the men pointed the guns to their heads.
Each armed man moved to stand by their side, like a sign to a post.
They could feel their breaths on their neck, their eyes etching into their bodies through the masks, waiting for a move.
There was something else,
the stench of iron,
Was it blood?
Esmeralda slightly flinched when the armed man nudged her to walk, she glanced at the guard by her side and noticed how frigid he was to her current condition
Pale skin covered in slight bruises, hollow eyes filled with fear and deepened by lack of sleep.
Non of that mattered, finding a way out did.
The girls lined like soldier ants as they walked out of the room they had been subjected to for days.
Miss Coco led them into a high balcony.
They each gasped at how far it was from the ground.
It looked like a castle modeled out of a modern coliseum with a roof at the top.
The inner iron balconies built beside multiple rooms rolled down like a spring of stairs from top to bottom.
The roof looked like it was molded by hands while the walls had little traces of moss growing on the paint.
Who made this place?
And why?
They walked past every room and caught the gaze of men and women posing by their doorposts, dressed in garments that kept no intimate part of their bodies hidden from their searching eyes.
Perhaps, their best features.
The young and the old, the busty and the curvy, the slim and the thick.
The asian, the African and the American all in distinguished races and diverse body shapes,
Standing out to watch the new prisoners with a glint of despair in their eyes.
When they got to the end of the stairs and made their way to the middle floor, they gazed at the wide and open space.
Esmeralda felt like an ant in the middle of the 9 story building, the walls encircling them like a deep well.
She turned around and saw A large door standing right behind the stairs and wondered why it was the only door painted in bloody red.
Her thoughts were cut short when the guard nudged her to walk towards what looked like a giant wooden door, standing like a gate at the end of the open space.
The doors were pushed open by two hefty guards, that let in the cold winds and bright light.
A bigger monstrosity other than the house stood at a distance, a giant stone wall travelling around the house to block the entire outer landscape from their view.
There was no way to tell where they were.
Esmeralda stared at the wall in despair as it stood far above the building and made it look inferior next to it.
"Is this the great Wall of China" bambi asked with slight laughter, unable to hold back her thoughts
"Well no shit!" Coco laughed and urged them on.
They walked towards tall wooden frames built in between the mansion and the wall.
Once the doors were opened, they walked in and peered into an open space filled with rows of tent-like structures made of wood.
while the men stood still at the entrance and shut the doors behind them.
Their eyes widened when they noticed ladies walking about in the comfort of their own skin, unfazed by their presence.
Coco turned to them and ordered them to strip as she clutched the gun by her side and pointed it at their heads.
Bambi moved to do what she asked, unfazed by their stares of disbelief.
"What? That dress was dirty." She shrugged.
"Go on now, strip," Coco screamed.
Esmeralda held onto each strap of her dress and pulled it away from her body as she watched it fall to the ground, while the other girls followed suit. Each girl wrapped their arms around the intimate parts exposed to the diverse women around them.
"Good, now get in there and clean up." She ordered.
They walked into the tent and noticed a bar of soap hanging beside the wall with a hose pipe running water above their heads.
Esmeralda sighed when the water ran over her head and almost deafened the voices with its cool sensation while she rubbed the soap around the surface of her skin.
After they were done taking their baths, Coco handed them new nightgowns to change into and escorted them back into the mansion.
They were taken back to their rooms and chained to their beds once again. But Coco returned sooner than usual with four women dressed in sky-blue linen dresses.
"Get them ready to meet her." She ordered while they nodded and kept their gazes on the floor until she left.
Each woman made their way towards each bed and uncuffed their wrists before ruffling through the cupboard beside their beds.
They each pulled out a chiffon dress with a v-scooped neck and deep thigh splits at the flowing bottom of its waist.
They helped them get dressed and combed out their hair without meeting their eyes or uttering a single word.
Esmeralda noticed the women were a pair of twins, dressed in lengthy flowing dresses of different designs.
The first pair were petite read heads with soft hourglass figures, their heads pulled back in a bun. Something about that made her realize they must be the same age range as coco.
Somewhere in their late 40s, pale with slight wrinkle marks that were visible whenever they smiled.
Their sky blue eyes that reminded her of her father.
Where did he think she was? She could only wonder.
The second pair had the youthful pale glow withstanding how tall and flat their bodies were. But something about their bodies seemed a bit too lanky and stiff to belong to women.
The long chiseled arms, the muscles chests and the slim waist only made their inverted triangle shape a bit more prominent.
Their eyes were monolid and sharp, their features looked feminine and a little masculine too. The curtain jet-black straight hair nestled on each side of their pale face, flowing down below their waist made it harder to tell.
They all went on with their jobs until one of them finally broke the silence.
"April, aren't her eyes beautiful?" one of the women asked her sister with a warm smile while she unpinned Esmeralda's jet-black curls and brushed them down with her fingers.
Her second turned to them and nodded her head with a slight smile before continuing what she was doing with Bambi's hair.
Esmeralda stared into the woman's round warm amber eyes and furrowed her brows when she flashed a smile.
"You are all young and beautiful, am sure you won't have a hard time if you keep to the rules."
"What rules? We were kidnapped and brought to this strange place, please help us. I need to go back home." Esmeralda pleaded as she encircled the woman's steady hands in her trembling hands.
"Believe me child, there is no way to get out of here, all you can do is do what she tells you." She replied with despair in her eyes.
"Whatever you do don't," she moved to speak but went quiet when Coco barged in again.
They quickly stood up and moved to the side for her to inspect them.
"They look good enough, the boss is ready to meet them." She announced with a smile and clapped her hands together. Esmeralda watched each woman move to leave with her pair, the redhead turning to spare her a glance before the guards came in.
They were hurled out by the guards and taken into one of the rooms at the bottom floor.
Esmeralda groaned when she was forced to sit at a round table with the rest of her peers.
The table was filled with various delicacies that made their mouths drool, yet they stared at the closed doors in trepidation of what their fate would become.
well except for Bambini who grabbed all she could as she hoped each food would taste as good as it appeared.
One of the ladies looked lost as she stared into space, with red bruises fading into pink.
Esmeralda wondered what had happened to her, but seeing lady lake bothered her more.
Their stomachs clenched immediately after the doors burst open, two guards stood aside as a slender figure emerged and quickly gained the attention of every girl in the room.
She stood tall, dressed in a red cotton suit and a feathered hat that obscured her face from their view as she took her seat at the most glorified seat at the table.
They all intensely peered at her until her identity was revealed when she took off her hat, it was in fact, Lady Lake.
"You? Why did you bring me here? What is this shitty joke your maid said about selling my body? This was not what you told me." Esmeralda yelled and slammed her fists on the table.
It elicited quiet gasps from everyone but she didn't care.
"Calm down, feisty." She laughed and racked her hand through her wavy shoulder-length ginger-red hair. She stood to her feet, gently strolling down to her side.
"Yes I offered you a job and honestly you are exceptionally perfect for it, honey." She confessed with a silly smile on her thin red lips as her silver eyes gazed intently into hers.
"You call selling my body a job? I trusted you because I thought you were an honest woman but I guess women can be as evil and heartless as men." Esmeralda screamed while Lady Lake laughed in response.
She gasped however when Lady Lake swiftly grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the table with one of her hands while the other folded her arm behind her back.
They all gasped, the other girls taken aback by how fast their nightmare was becoming a reality.
Esmeralda groaned as the fire in her sky-blue eyes ignited while she struggled to break free in spite of the pain that rippled through her body.
"Listen, blue eyes. I can take anything from anyone but never raise your voice at me. Or next time, I'll slit your throat and cut out that little cord that's causing all this noise." She muttered into her ears. While the others watched with shivers running down their spines.
Esmeralda pushed back with all the force she could muster and broke free as she tried to pushed Lady Lake away.
Yet Lady Lake stood her ground with a silly smile on her lips.
Esmeralda fought the urge to caress her arms, the sting becoming a little stronger when she watched lady lake laugh and make her way back to her seat.
"Lovely ladies, I have a proposition for you all. It's either we do this the easy way or the hard way but I must remind you, your next decision is your very undoing. Accept your fate and work for me or get horrendous treatment for rejecting me." She spoke softly with a toothy grin as she traced invisible circles on the table without breaking eye contact with them.
"I'll happily work for you, Lady Lake but can I ask for something?" Bambi asked with uncertainty in her eyes.
"Oh sure honey, go on." She replied with a smile.
"Can I dress as nicely as you and get all the money I want?"
"Of course, though you can't get cash I'll make sure to reward you with expensive jewelry."
"Really? Can I eat?" Bambi asked while she hesitantly reached for the muffin she had dropped on her arrival.
"Of course you can. Good to have you on board." She replied with a smile and watched Bambi quickly munch on the muffin in her grasp while the others stared at her in disgust.
"What do you say?" she asked as she turned to the others.
"I will never sell my body. If this is the job you offered, then I'm done. I don't care how you do it but I want you to take me back home." said Esmeralda
Lady Lake however laughed heartedly with amusement lingering in her eyes.
"A feisty one you really are, I'll give you that. Is she speaking your mind? Or do you want to speak for yourselves?" she asked.
"Miss, I can't sell my body. I can do decent jobs even if it's hard labor, but if you can't, take me back to India" Molly replied.
"Ma, I don't know what this place is. But from the little I understand, this is something I can never do. biko(please) I can't do it." said Amanda.
"Alright, if you want me to do this the hard way, it's fine. " She replied and snapped her fingers Some guards burst through the doors a second later and waited for her orders as they clung tight to their rifles.
"If any of you want to leave you are free to leave, boys let them go, give them the exit route while they are out" she smiled
Esmeralda stood up quickly, with Molly and Amanda following quietly behind her, but before she turned to leave she moved to the lady covered with bruises and gave her a hand.
Tears welled in her eyes before she took it and went with them. The room deafened with silence.
They all ran bast the door while Bambi sat back "stupid" she quietly muttered with a sigh.
The whole house stood still to watch them run and they ran, from the main gate to the stoney walls.
When they slowly approached the main open gate, the bruised lady ran with all her might with the others lagging behind at a close distance.
Until a loud bang echoed as a bullet hit her square in the head, throwing her body off course while the others stood still almost falling to their feet.
Amanda and Molly screamed while Esmeralda stared at the body slowly engulfed by the pull of her own blood with widened eyes.
Her eyes were frozen with a smile,
She almost made it.
The doors went shut with the hope that came with it.
Miss lakes strolled down to the body, and crouched at her head.
"I thought for sure, it would be you" she smiled.
"Oh well, you just have to do something again and I'll be right this time" she muttered and sighed.
"Boys come clean this up, I don't like the sight of blood in my fun house" lady lake motioned them.
They quickly wrapped her body and took it away.
"Take these three back to their rooms and make sure they go through the first phase of their punishment. I don't forgive so easily" She ordered as she pointed out to Esmeralda, Amanda, and Molly.
Each guard quickly went to their side and hurled them out of the room while everyone paused to watch.
"you will obey me" Lady Lake beamed as Esmeralda cried while she was dragged away with the girls.