Ivana opened her eyes and went into a state of panic. The calamity of the recent past flooded into the forefront of her awareness. She sat bolt upright, sweating and distraught.
The overhead light left the far reaches of the confining space dark and gloomy. The dinginess of the bare concrete floor and the emptiness of her surroundings weakened her morale. The sheets of metal bolted to the window frame gave little doubt as to the nature of the environment. She was locked in a place that had been designed expressly for the purpose of keeping a person captive. Homesickness and despair gnawed at Ivana's resolve. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Ivana's mother and father, Sherry and Fisher Curtis, placed a stone wall between their public lives and their home life. The Curtises already spent much of their time in seclusion. The self sufficiency of the ranch provided them the privilege of not having to venture out very often. Fisher graduated from the University of Texas with a dual degree in agriculture and business, and had been friends with some of the more prominent citizens of the state. He devoted himself to his business and family, but every now and then one of his old friends talked him into attending an event. Ivana could count the parties she had attended on the fingers of one hand.
She stopped crying and wiped her face with the towel. She brought it to bed with her before she went to sleep the fourth time. Ivana waited for food again, wondering what it was like outside. The room had become uncomfortably warm. Sweat began to bother her, but not nearly as much as the boredom. The abrasions on her ankle had swollen and reddened. Every time she moved her leg the irritation reminded her she could not move about freely.
Ivana decided to fake a trip to the shower to see if she could get the food any faster that way. Sure enough, someone slid the tray through the door and closed it quickly. She didn't use the element of trickery to attempt to catch a glimpse of her captor. That could wait until the next time.
The young lady grabbed the tray and plopped down on the bed. Barely halfway through the second sandwich her eyes grew heavy and sleep washed over her like a tidal wave. She managed to lie down before slipping into unconsciousness.
When Miss Curtis woke up she found herself in an entirely new room. The chamber contained nothing but the chair. The area she could see was circular and had a diameter of approximately eight feet. The curved wall, the floor and the ceiling was constructed of an aggregate of cement and gravel. Ivana immediately felt a striking difference in the temperature of the room. It was chilly.
She couldn't move at all. Her arms, legs, sternum and neck were solidly fastened with straps to a straight backed chair with many hooks and hinges. The belt around her neck constricted her breathing ever so slightly, as did the tight restraint just below her chest. Her nose itched, and she couldn't scratch it.
Ivana had an unobstructed view of a heavy steel portal four feet away. A sliding plate in its upper portion would allow someone to see through it. The sealed edges around the entryway had no cracks in them. A shock went through her when the tumblers of the lock turned and it opened.
A figure wearing a black robe and hood stood in the ingress to the bare niche. The area behind that individual was unlighted. Ivana's heart leaped in her chest as the figure entered and she noticed a suitcase in one leather gloved hand. The door swung closed by itself as the specter of her fear crossed the distance between them.
The innocent woman endeavored to speak, but she only managed to sputter incoherent combinations of vowels and consonants. Before she could say anything articulate a rolling metal table was beside her with the suitcase on top of it. The person next to her opened it and pulled something out.
A large velvet blindfold with an elastic band was secured in place over her eyes. Next the robed presence put a pair of fur covered headphones over Ivana's head and plugged them in somewhere behind her. A mask similar to the ones high altitude pilots wear for oxygen fit snugly over her mouth, but it served only to limit her oxygen intake, not supply more. Her heart raced and she felt faint.
An electronically garbled voice sounded in Ivana's ears while she teetered on the brink of hysteria. The voice sounded completely computerized, but didn't have the metallic ring of a vocoder. It hovered in the tenor range. The pitch called to mind an older woman. "Lacy, I'm going to ask you a few questions. If you don't want to be punished you will answer them honestly and directly. Do you understand?"
"Ye-yes," she managed to utter through the sharp anxiety. Evidently the mask had a microphone inside of it, because Ivana wasn't pressed to speak up or repeat herself.
The fact that the individual used her middle name unnerved her further. Nobody she knew outside of her immediate family had any idea what her middle name was, except for her grandparents. She couldn't remember the last time she heard her own middle name.
"Are you still a virgin, Lacy?"
"Wha... what?" she felt her cheeks turning the color of bright rouge.
"Answer the question. Are you still a virgin? Tell the truth."
"Yes. Yes, I'm still a virgin."
For some reason Ivana felt wistful about the answer. She was brought up believing that chastity was akin to spiritual purity. In that moment she felt she had missed out on one of the great things in life. She worried she may die without ever knowing what it was like. Worse than that, the idea that she might experience sexuality for the first time at the hands of an abductor finally sank in. Once again her eyes misted, but the form fitting blindfold kept them closed.
"How old were you when you experienced menarche?"
"I don't understand."
"When did you get your first menstrual cycle?"
"Right after I was 12 years old."
"Have you ever experienced any abnormalities in your cycle? Do you have particularly bad occurrences of premenstrual syndrome?"
"No. Uh, no." Her hot breath reflected back into her mouth. It added to the sensation of being trapped. The prolonged constriction of oxygen kept her light headed. She was sweating again, despite the cool air.
"Have you ever been to the doctor for anything related to the female genitalia?"
"No. Never," she answered smartly, put off by the line of questioning.
"Well, then. I need to take a look at you," the hooded figure said in a tone she could not decipher.
Lacy wanted to protest. She tried to move her hands and arms, but they wouldn't budge a fraction of an inch. The mask was removed from her face. The cool air on her lips starkly contrasted with the cloying warmth of her own respiration.
"Open your mouth," the voice instructed.
She did as she was told. She expected a dental examination after the line of questioning. Instead her captor inserted a thick rubber bit between her teeth and buckled the tethers behind her head. She emitted a couple of involuntary sounds of indignation at the process.
Lacy felt leather gloves as her legs were separated and fastened spread wide apart. The person fiddled with the back of the chair for a couple of seconds and it lay back flat, and the arms of the chair slid down into place. The new position tightened the strap around her midsection. Then she felt her dress being pulled up. The crisp air made her acutely aware. When she felt her hidden place opened up to full view, blood rushed to her face, neck and shoulders. She had never felt humiliation before in her life.
"So you were telling the truth. It warms the heart to know that sexual abstinence is still alive and well in this day and age."
The examination, for it could have been nothing else, was over almost as quickly as it started. Her legs were rejoined at the thighs, calves and ankles. The base of the chair was raised so that she lay supine.
"I'm going to give you something to help you rest. You have a big day tomorrow. There are some people who want to see you."
Lacy did her best to speak. A squeal escaped her throat when she felt the pinprick of a needle entering her flesh. She got out, "Mno, g-no, g-no," over and over again before oblivion conquered her waking state.