She'd begun to lose track of the days.
Marilyn had started out counting each sunrise and sunset faithfully, keeping a mental tally of the time passing in Thredson's cool quiet basement, but one morning she woke up and realized that number was suddenly beyond her grasp. She tried again and again to pin it down - was it 8 days, or 9? Thursday or Friday?
After that she stopped watching for the sun's light in the far corner window. What was the point? Somewhere deep inside a tiny voice cried out that it was important, that she shouldn't lose sight, but the voice was too weak and far away to change her mind.
Since the incident in the shower a sort of odd numbness had settled over Marilyn. She had held a priceless opportunity in her hands and let it slip away like some exotic butterfly she somehow knew she'd never see again.
It hadn't been for nothing; Oliver was nearly giddy with happiness when she returned to the basement at the end of her long iron leash with no struggle at all. He'd kissed her hard on the mouth, murmuring that he knew she was different, she would be happy here, he could trust her. He'd let her keep the lighter. He'd brought his record player downstairs so she would have something to listen to during the day when he was away.
He'd kept her chained to the bed. Marilyn supposed his trust only went so far.
For the first few days he left her for his work at the asylum, she tried to keep her mind and body sharp. She did a series of exercises to strengthen her less frequently-used legs and kept careful track of the sun. Then one day she'd decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to build her tolerance for the strong, stinky weed he brought her. After all, he would probably ask her to smoke it again, and it was unwise to continue to let herself be taken off-guard by its potency.
There was a kernel of truth to this logic but she also needed desperately to relax, to slow her racing brain from its constant rush of thoughts and plans and worries. So Marilyn smoked. She listened to records. She waited for Oliver to come home.
The first time he came down the stairs to find her stoned and insatiable they had made love for hours.
When the fog cleared she made a silent promise to never fall into that trap again. Yet somehow each morning she found herself lighting another joint to make the dark basement less frightening, to make the long hours pass faster, to make the outdated records sound better.
And so she'd begun to lose track of the days.
Now Marilyn listened to Artie Shaw and his orchestra wail away on their instruments, a slow rolling song called "Nightmare". The sleazy horns reminded her of a noir film she'd seen once and for some reason made a thin humorless smile rise to her lips.
She took another long drag off her joint and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke rise before her and fade away. It didn't have the same paralyzing effect it used to, which was good, but it still softened the sharp corners of her strange shattered life, which was also good. Marilyn closed her eyes and enjoyed the swimming sensation in her skull just as the front door slammed upstairs.
She tapped the ash from her joint and set it in a cut-glass ashtray on the nightstand. He'd be with her soon; Oliver never wasted much time when he arrived home from the asylum.
A few minutes passed and Artie Shaw moved on from a nightmare to something a little jazzier. Marilyn sat cross-legged on the bed, waiting.
Just when she'd started to suspect something was wrong the door at the top of the stairs burst open and the doctor came barreling down, a cigarette clamped firmly between his lips.
"That bitch," he spat, and Marilyn was suddenly quite glad she'd spent her whole afternoon smoking. He was in a rage; Oliver paced the length of the basement restlessly, pulling long drags on his cigarette and exhaling in large angry puffs.
"What's wrong, baby?" she purred, but her tone disguised a chill wariness. He'd already removed his white work shirt and tie, which was unusual; he usually enjoyed watching her take them off him, undoing each button one at a time with a slow precision. He stalked back and forth in only his black dress slacks and white sleeveless undershirt, a sight that both worried and excited her. His lean muscles rippled as he moved and she found herself licking her lips.
"Lana," he said, drawing the name out as if Marilyn were stupid and the answer was obvious. "She's going to fuck me over, she has the tape-"
He kept marching back and forth, his free hand flexing and unflexing as he took yet another drag on his already half-spent cigarette. He reminded her of a caged jungle cat, beautiful and dangerous.
Marilyn extended her arms and motioned towards her chest. It was imperative she get him to calm down; in this state he was likely to do something drastic.
"Come here," she said gently, taking advantage of the maternal side she had once prided herself on supposedly not possessing. "I'll make it better."
The doctor shot her a brief look and kept pacing.
"You're high," he said with a hint of disgust.
Marilyn was undeterred. She motioned again, opening her legs to allow him room in her lap. This act was becoming almost natural.
"Let me make it better," she said, and he stopped his deranged path around the basement to look at her once more. There was a moment where she thought he might turn on her, hands outstretched to take her by the neck and put an end to it all, but at last he relented. Oliver tossed his cigarette to the floor, climbed into the bed, and leaned against her like an overgrown child.
All the anger seemed to melt away from his body as she tucked her legs around him in a strange sort of hug, pulling his head to her breasts to stroke his hair carefully.
"Tell me all about it," Marilyn murmured. She was no longer afraid; when he was like this he was putty in her hands, and the weed had lulled her into a peculiar zen-like peace.
"She's going to ruin everything." The doctor had buried his face into the white cotton of her nightgown, nuzzling his nose along the curve of her breasts. "Before you were here, Lana tricked me, that bitch, she recorded me, she had no right-" Marilyn hushed him tenderly and rubbed her palm along the nape of his neck.
"We'll take care of her," she found herself saying, and the words were a surprise even as they left her lips.
"She'll go to the police," Oliver said, but the voice near her breasts was a little stronger now. "She has evidence. She can get me put away, or worse."
"We'll take care of her," Marilyn repeated, and now she had something, she had a little nugget of an idea, it was buried deep in the dark recesses of her stoned-sluggish brain but it was something.
Thredson sat up, frowning, and scanned her face as though he sensed this.
"How?"
"She's in an asylum," she said, and the something she had slipped through her fingers like a penny down a storm drain. Marilyn felt it go that easily but she couldn't abandon it, it could be another hope, so she just kept going. "How's she going to get it to the police?" Oliver kept his eyes on hers but had no answer for her. "Do you think she'll be released?"
"No," he admitted, his own brain turning over his own something. "I'm her doctor, I'll never allow it. And the Monsignor seems to be... preoccupied."
"There," she soothed, and suddenly felt an irrational hot flare of anger towards the faceless Lana. Whatever she had done to him had been far worse than any of them as far as Marilyn could tell, and it had left the window open for Oliver to find a new target. Lana had lived, Lana had escaped, but she was still causing ripples through his life and by extension Marilyn's. If she had just accepted her fate perhaps Marilyn would still be home, sleeping in her own warm bed and living in complete ignorance of the predator next door.
"How do you expect her to get to the police when she's an inmate in an asylum?" she went on, unsure of what to do with this fresh misplaced hostility.
"She's smart," Oliver said, but he was taken with the new light in her eyes, the sudden unexpected change in her normally calm energy. It was like he had felt her axis shift, and it terrified her.
"You're smart," Marilyn insisted, and all at once she was ravenous for him. The fear and anger and high met in a crashing symphony and she just gave into it because it was simply too much to fight all the time.
She scooted behind him and wrapped her legs around his waist, snaking her arms over his chest to pull him close. He put his hands on her bare knees and squeezed as she began kissing the sensitive area where his neck met his shoulder.
"What are we going to do?" Oliver asked, tracing his fingers along her skin.
"We'll worry about that later. Lana's not going anywhere." She had no idea what it was supposed to mean but the words sounded good; Marilyn gave his skin a little bite and his whole body jerked. She could feel the rise of his erection against her foot resting in his lap.
Perhaps if she played along, made Lana the enemy, she could get him to move her upstairs. Perhaps he'd even take her to the asylum to help, he'd unlock the cuff around her ankle, he'd take her into the sunlight and she'd have another chance at sweet freedom.
The thought fueled the fire between her legs and she reached between his, grasping what had grown there.
Oliver sucked his breath through his teeth, bucking into her touch. She had a sudden urge to dominate him completely, to exercise the rare power she held over him. To make him aware of it.
Her thoughts were racing. The days of captivity were taking a toll on her and Marilyn needed to regain control, clear the muddiness from her mind.
She slipped off the bed, the ankle chain rattling loudly as she dropped to her knees before him. He stared at her with wide dark eyes.
They faced off for a moment before Marilyn smiled and began to unzip his pants torturously slow. He licked his lips; she tugged his slacks off and tossed them aside, then set to releasing his erection from the confines of his plain trim boxer shorts.
She'd been holding this weapon in her back pocket until now, and it thrilled her to think the effect it would have on him. Oliver stared at her wordlessly, holding his breath.
She wasted no time and simply took his throbbing cock into the wet heat of her mouth. He let loose a surprised little noise, hips bucking, and fell back onto his elbows. A sense of satisfaction rolled through her as she began to do what boys had told her she did well since junior year of high school.
Marilyn ran her tongue up and down the length of him, pausing briefly to dart at the underside of his swollen head. He growled softly in the back of his throat. She was careful to not set him off too early - she had her own end in mind - but knew the right moves to make him rock hard and helpless.
She ran her fingers through the dark hair on his thighs and Oliver suddenly seized the skin on the back of her neck; a pleasurable shiver ran down her spine. Marilyn met his gaze and kept sucking, slowly, tracing delicate patterns with her tongue along his pulsing member.
He stared down at her hungrily, hips twitching and jerking as she worked long low moans from his throat. His grip on the back of her neck was firm but not painful; she realized he may be trying to reestablish his dominance, remind her who was really in control here, and she decided to overrule him. She held one singular power in this dark dank basement and like hell he was going to take it from her.
The doctor made a sound of disappointment as she pulled away only to be surprised as Marilyn shoved him backwards on the bed and straddled his lap.
She felt a surge of pride looking down at the lithe, muscular man beneath her. His chest heaved, he was wildly aroused but he made no move to touch her - for the moment, she was completely in control.
Without breaking eye contact Marilyn slowly lowered herself onto him; his mouth fell open as she enveloped him in the hot slick space between her legs and began to rock her hips in an agonizing rhythm.
Oliver slid his hands over her waist, bunching up the hem of her nightgown so he could watch with awe as his throbbing erection glided in and out of her. She picked up speed and he grunted, taken off guard, but she was in charge now, she was going to make him come and she was going to make him remember it.
Marilyn clasped her thighs firmly around him and rolled her hips in a wide circular motion; a loud involuntary moan left his lips. He was unraveling, and fast.
Keeping him inside her, she leaned forward and pressed her breasts against his chest, her simple white nightgown meeting his sleeveless undershirt. As she rode him Marilyn took the doctor by the chin and carefully began tracing his perfect lips with the tip of her tongue.
She saw him come before she felt it. Thredson's eyes rolled back in his head and he gave a shuddery little gasp as she drew out his orgasm with long slow rolls of her slim hips.
Satisfied with this reaction Marilyn focused on her own impending release; she buried her face in the exotic-smelling curve of his neck and rode out an explosive climax that left them both breathless and sweating.
When he began to grow soft inside her she slipped carefully off of him and laid there, enjoying the afterglow. Oliver adjusted himself back inside his boxers, then paused for a moment. After a brief silence he pulled her to his chest, her back pressed against his torso. She allowed herself to be held this way and tried to ignore the sinking feeling that she liked how his arms felt around her.
"Marilyn?" he whispered at last, breath warm in her ear. "Would you like to sleep upstairs tonight?"