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By Root 2409 0

did, but you came to love it. Well, I think it tastes like shit, but you have an acquired taste for buttermilk. That’s sort of what’s gonna happen here. You’re gonna hate it at first. You’re gonna hate me more than you do now. But it’ll grow on you. You’ll acquire a taste for this, too, I promise." He unlocked the door and put the key back into his pocket. "Not one word unless I tell you." Smiling, he motioned for me to enter first. " ‘Inhuman cruelty,’ " he whispered as I opened the door and he followed me into the shed.

A woman lay blindfolded and handcuffed in the middle of the floor, a brown leather collar around her neck, a five-foot chain running from the collar to a metal pole. The pole rose from the concrete floor to the ceiling, where it was welded to a rafter. When Orson slammed the door, the woman clambered to her feet, wobbling awkwardly around the pole, attempting to gauge our location.

She must’ve been about forty-five, her blond hair losing a perm. Slightly overweight, she wore a red-and-gray bowling shirt, navy pants, and one white shoe. Her perfume filled the room, and blood ran down the side of her nose from a cut beneath the blindfold.

"Where are you? Why are you doing this?"

This isn’t happening. This is pretend. We’re playing a game. That is not a human being.

"Go sit, Andy," Orson said, pointing to the front of the shed. I walked past tool-laden metal shelves and took a seat in a green lawn chair near the double doors. A white shoe rested against the doors, and I wondered why the woman had kicked it off. She looked in my direction, tears rambling down her cheeks. Orson came and stood beside me. He knelt down, inspecting the shiny tips of his boots. Suddenly, something clenched around my ankle.

"Sorry," he said, "but I just don’t trust you yet." He’d cuffed my ankle with a leg iron, bolted to the floor beneath the lawn chair.

As Orson walked toward the woman, he shoved my gun into a deep pocket in his mechanic’s suit.

"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked again. Orson reached out and wiped the tears from her face, moving with her as she backed away, winding the chain slowly around the pole.

"What’s your name?" he asked gently.

"Sh-Shirley," she said.

"Shirley what?"

"Tanner." Orson crossed the room and picked up two stools that had been set upside down on the floor. He arranged them beside each other, within range of the woman’s chain.

"Please," he said, taking hold of her arm above the elbow, "have a seat." When they were seated, facing each other, Orson stroked her face. Her entire body quaked, as though suffering from hypothermia. "Shirley, please calm down. I know you’re scared, but you have to stop crying."

"I wanna go home," she said, her voice shaky and childlike. "I want —"

"You can go home, Shirley," Orson said. "I just want to talk to you. That’s all. Let me preface what we’re going to do by asking you a few questions. Do you know what preface means, Shirley?"

"Yes."

"This is just a hunch, but when I look at you, I don’t see someone who spends much time in the books. Am I right?" She shrugged. "What’s the last thing you read?"

"Um…Heaven’s Kiss."

"Is that a romance?" he asked, and she nodded. "Oh, I’m sorry, that doesn’t count. You see, romance novels are shit. You could probably write one. Go to college by chance?"

"No."

"Finish high school?"

"Yes."

"Whew. Scared me there for a minute, Shirley."

"Take me back," she begged. "I want my husband."

"Stop whining," he said, and tears trickled down her face again, but Orson let them go. "My brother’s here tonight," he said, "and that’s a lucky coincidence for you. He’s gonna ask you five questions on anything — philosophy, history, literature, geography, whatever. You have to answer at least three correctly. Do that and I’ll take you back to the bowling alley. That’s why you’re blindfolded. Can’t see my face if I’m gonna let you go, now can you?" Timidly, she shook her head. Orson’s voice dropped to a whisper, and leaning in, he spoke into her ear just loudly enough for me to hear also: "But if you answer less than three