Divine by Karen Kingsbury Page A

inside nothing was the same. Instead of Grandma Peggy's house it was a roomful of cobwebs and skeletons. In one corner were her mama and grandma, but they were sleeping.
    Jimbo reached her and grabbed her hair, but she pulled away. "Mama, wake up!" She shrieked and ran to them, but when she made her way through the cobwebs and tried to touch them, she realized it was all a cruel trick.
    It wasn't them. They were stuffed dolls, made to look like her mother and grandmother. Mary screamed and turned around, and all the men—each of the ones who visited her in the basement—were inside coming closer . . . closer. . . .
    She would scream again, and this time she would wake up.
    There were a few other dreams, four in all. They repeated themselves in no special order. She might have the dream about being in the cage ten straight nights, and then she'd have the one with the cobwebs and skeletons. It didn't matter which one happened, because once she was awake, she couldn't fall back to sleep.
    So she went through the day exhausted, sleeping in fits and starts between meals, hoping that day wouldn't be one when Jimbo would come downstairs. She was so tired that she felt sick to her stomach most of the time. Once in a while the fear from the dream would stay with her all day, and when nightfall came she'd lie in the basement shaking, imagining things in the dark corners. Men with knives or cages.
    Jimbo's friends continued to come see her. By the end of her first year in the basement, no one bothered to call them special visits anymore.
    They were work.
    The old couch was still in the basement, but Jimbo had brought in a bed a few weeks after setting her up down there. "Treat the men nice, Mary, ya hear?" He handed her an oversized bag. "These are for you. Men pay top dollar. You need to look the part."
    The part was ugly and shameful. See-through nightgowns and panties that didn't fit right. She felt like a doll being dressed up and then used for sport. And that's what she was, nothing but sport to the men who came down the basement stairs.
    One time she asked Lou about the visitors. "There are no neighbors, no other houses." She rubbed at a bruise on her right cheek. Jimbo had slapped her the night before. "Where are the men from?"
    "They come for the stuff, the junk." She made a face at Mary as if she were stupid. "They pay more for the drugs if they get a little action on the side." She chuckled. "A lot more. Makes it worth the drive."
    Mary was eleven when she said something under her breath, words that changed her life yet again. "See if I'm still here in the morning." She blurted the threat at Jimbo as he finished with her.
    His eyes blazed instantly, and he pushed her down onto the bed. With all his weight he pinned her shoulder to the mattress. "Meaning what?"
    Mary was too angry to back down. She sucked up whatever was in her throat and spat it in Jimbo's face. The spit hit him square in the eyes, and before he had time to wipe his face, she answered him. "It means I'm running away. I'll be gone before you wake up."
    Jimbo's face grew deep red, and for a minute she thought he was going to kill her. He slapped her cheek hard and shouted something obscene at her. He probably would've finished her off except Lou opened the basement door.
    "Quiet down," she shouted at them. "I got a customer waiting."
    That night Jimbo tramped down the stairs and studied her. "You're a fool. You think you can run from me, do you?"
    That's when he brought out the handcuffs. He clamped one cuff around her hand and one to the bedpost. "There." He laughed again. "You should be quite a sight trying to run away with a bed flying behind you."
    ***
    Over the next few years, Mary pieced together enough information to understand her lot in life. She was a slave, really. She wasn't sure how much money she was making for Jimbo and Lou, but the last time they let her out of the basement she saw a fancy car in the driveway and a big-screen television in the