Perfect Submission by Roxy Sloane

ONE: ISABELLE
    I don’t sleep. I’m exhausted and broken, my
whole body screaming for a break, but I couldn’t sleep if I tried,
not after the worst night of my life.
    I’m in jail.
    Holding, to be exact. That’s what the cop
tells me as he hustles me down a long hallway, the cold metal of
the handcuffs biting into my skin.
    “You’ll be brought up for interviews in the
morning,” he says gruffly. “Guess someone wants to teach you a
lesson, sticking you down here for the night.”
    Cam handcuffed me. My hands behind my back,
he drove me crazy with pleasure. It was sexy. Forbidden. But
there’s nothing sexy about the fear and panic that over takes me
now, feeling these cuffs locked tight around my wrists.
    “Please,” I beg him. “I need to call
someone. This is all a mistake.”
    “You’ll get your call in the morning.”
    He comes to a stop at the end of the hall
and yanks a metal door open. “Play nice with the other girls,” he
snorts, unlocking my cuffs. “They won’t bite.”
    I look inside and feel claustrophobic. It’s
a small concrete cell, maybe fifteen feet square, with bars on
three sides. There are five other women sprawled on a narrow bench
or pacing the small space. Judging by their clothes and teased
hair, they weren’t arrested for white collar crime.
    One of them paces closer, “Not unless you
ask, baby,” she coos at the cop. “But it’s extra.”
    He rolls his eyes. “Go on,” he nods, but I
don’t move.
    This is just a nightmare, I tell
myself desperately . Any minute now, you’re going to wake
up.
    “I said move!” There’s a hand on my back,
and then I’m pushed hard. I stumble, almost falling inside before
the woman catches my arm. “Easy, sugar.”
    There’s laughter.
    “What’s your name, honey?” The woman who
helped me leers closer. Her makeup is harsh and smudged, and she
stares me up and down with a whistle. “Looking fine. Where you
working? Uptown?”
    I can’t deal with this. I’m overwhelmed and
living a nightmare come true. “No…” I mumble, my heart racing. “I
don’t… I’m not…”
    “What are you saying?” She moves closer.
“Spit it out.”
    I try to breathe. The walls feel like
they’re closing in on me, I can’t get enough air. “Please…” I
whisper.
    “You too fancy to talk to bitches like us,
is that it?” another woman snorts.
    “Cut it out, Devonne,” another of the women
yawns. “You know those fancy girls don’t know what the fuck they’re
playing at. Probably hit on a cop and got busted at one of the
hotels, you know how they do.” She gives me a sympathetic look.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get off with a caution. Maybe some community
service if it’s your first offense.”
    The first woman, Devonne, stares at me
another minute longer, trying to scare me. Suddenly, she lunges
towards me. With her glassy eyes and the strange expression, it’s
obvious she’s on drugs. At least the other women seem sober. I back
away into the corner, facing forward so I can see if anyone comes
near me.
    Devonne bursts out laughing. “Fucking
pussy,” she snorts. “They’ll eat you for breakfast in gen-pop.”
    She saunters back to the other side of the
cell. She can think she won, as long as she leaves me alone.
    I take a deep breath. It takes everything I
have not to cry.
    I lean back against the wall, sitting with
my knees hugged to my chest on a hard, narrow bench. When I was a
kid, I used to play a game to hide from mom’s dealers, or the
bullies in the foster homes I lived. I would hide in the smallest
space I could find: a cupboard or cabinet, the crawl space under a
bed. I’d close my eyes tight, and count to a hundred, and pretend
that if they couldn’t see me, then I didn’t exist. It wasn’t
real.
    Now, I squeeze my eyes shut and open them
again, but the scene doesn’t change. It’s real, too real. The
clatter of bars, and the chatter of the other prisoners. Down the
hallway, someone is yelling, and here in