The Thirteenth Virgin

"What am I supposed to tell them? That I have a beautiful young girl up here who would be a virgin if I hadn't violated her with my scarred, ugly finger? That she's crazy enough to risk being poisoned and raped by a madman because the voices in her head tell her it's okay?"

She pursed her lower lip and glared at me, just like she had on campus. A heavily accented, older woman's voice spoke from her mouth. "Tell them things will change. I believe the word you people use is 'chill,' so I would ask you to do precisely that. This supposed Master's power comes from Evil. I know Evil. But I also know Good. Chill. I got this."

"Oh my God!" Sadie squealed. "Did I say that?"

"No. I did," the older foreign voice said. "There isn't enough time for me to possess both of you, so I must reveal myself. I am dust now, so you can not see me, and it is tiring to speak aloud, so I must ask you to trust me. I am also strongest on your Halloween. Wrongs will be made right."

Sadie laughed again. "I didn't know she could do that. Now I feel a little more confident."

I forced as much of a grin as the thick scar tissue of my face allowed. "If she talks to Master with your mouth, I don't know what he'll do! But I'm still worried."

Downstairs, the girls thought I was crazier than I probably was.

"What happens to us when you fail?" Mary asked. "I don't like the chances of a crazy teenager and a cripple against a mad scientist."

"We make sure the door is locked so the dogs can't get at us, and we wait to die of dehydration," Sharon said.

"You're assuming he'll fail. He won't," Frieda huffed.

When I went upstairs, I heard the shower running. I set Sadie's tray on a table outside her cell, and sat with my back to her, waiting for her to finish.

The water shut off. "You can turn around, Igor. I have to get used to having a man look at me. Should I be naked when he comes in?"

I studied her wet body through the wire. "No."

Her face fell. "I look that bad, huh?"

"No. You should be clothed. Master doesn't deserve to see you like this."

"Come in here, Igor. I want to know what he might do."

I unlocked the cell door and carried the tray into her. She sat naked on the edge of her bed to eat. When she finished, she relaxed in the center of the bed, cross-legged, exposed to me. "I will let him have me if I must. What should I wear tomorrow?"

We chose a short white gown. She slipped it over her head. The neckline plunged on her short torso, so she flashed me constantly. The hem was below her knees.

"The panties are too big for me. How do I look?"

"Willing."

"That's good, I guess," Sadie laughed. "Call Master and tell him I can't wait."

"Good news, I trust," Master said when he picked up his office phone.

"Master, she looks forward to meeting you. She says mature gentlemen are attractive."

"I may run a controlled study tomorrow morning without the drug. I need to gauge the effect my appearance and charm have on her, especially since she's learned to put up with you. Tell her to expect me at eight. You will serve us breakfast in her cell." He hung up.

"He wants breakfast with you here at eight."

"Will you shave again me at seven? I don't want any stubble." She stripped off her gown and draped it over a chair. "Tell the others not to worry. Get a good night's sleep." She pulled me against her small naked body and leaned up to kiss me. When she broke away, she said, "That was supposed to be a kiss for luck. You forgot I read minds."

Downstairs, Sharon said, "For her sake, I hope the drug fries her brain. Maybe she won't understand the heat until it's too late."

Mary snorted. "For her sake, I hope she doesn't understand what your sicko Master wants to use her for -- some kind of breathing sex toy. I've done some crazy things, but the thought of him putting his .... I can't even say it."

"Please!" Belinda said. "Stop being so negative! Igor, do you think she has a chance?"

"Who knows? There's something very odd about her, like with the voice. She kissed me before I came down here. Really kissed me, only for a second, but she moaned."

"She moaned?" Frieda giggled.

"Yes, but ... I don't know. She sounded like an older woman, my age, maybe, like she knew what she was doing."

"My last boyfriend loved that," Mary laughed. "He said it felt like I gave him complete control."

"No. I understand now. She took control of me."

"Who did? Sadie?" Sharon asked.

"She used Sadie to do it. The sorceress kissed me through Sadie."

"Better than we do?" Belinda whispered, nuzzling her wild hair against my scarred chest.

"Differently. Like she could be any age she wanted. In that one second I felt like the first time I got kissed at a party, and then like it was with my girlfriend, and my mother, and grandmother. And how I think it would be with a goddess and a whore. Were sorceresses also courtesans?"

"They probably were taught by older sorcerers. Maybe they slept with their teachers. I knew girls that did," Frieda said.

"You said she's a virgin, right? Sharon asked.

"Was, until Master made me break her with my finger."

Mary said, "No girl can do all that in a one-second lip-lock. You may be right about her, or it, or them, whatever. She may rock his world. Then, you can hit him on the back of the head and let us out."

"Nothing is that easy. I have to be up early, so I'll say good night."

I woke before my alarm, well-rested, feeling better about things than I had in years. Sadie, or whoever she was, was my ticket -- our ticket -- out of hell.

"What is your plan?"

"I don't have one," Sadie said.

"She doesn't need one. You don't listen, Igor," her other voice said. "Now shave her again."

It was pointless to deny my feelings, and just as pointless to try to understand them. I feared Master, maybe more than death. But I was calm. What would happen would happen. The sight of Sadie's pink, tender womanhood, glistening in the scented water I used to rinse her after she was smooth, did more to calm me than I would have expected. A man would make love to her one day. I prayed she would be able to enjoy it with her memories of today.

She dressed in the filmy white gown she had found, her black waves held with clips from a box in the closet. She looked pure, innocent, and a little awkward in her sexy attire, like she did on stage at the club. But she moved with a sensual grace I hadn't seen before. Master would be pleased.

The clock in the laboratory struck eight, and the mumbling of the dogs fell silent. A moment later, Master unlocked the steel door and then bolted it behind himself.

"Good morning, sir. I wasn't sure what to wear."

Master strode to the wall of the cage. "Good morning, Sadie. My name is Vincent. You must forgive Igor. He doesn't understand how a gentleman treats a lady. Igor! Where are the flowers?"

"Master? What flowers?"

"He really can be quite forgetful, my dear. But now that I see you, I realize flowers would have been insulting, crude and ugly compared to you."

"You say the sweetest things!" Sadie exclaimed.

"I never drink in the morning, but I would almost be willing to break my own rule to toast your beauty."

"Sir, I'm too young to drink," Sadie whispered. She hooked her fingers in the metal lattice of the cage and pulled her body against it, pressing the thin fabric of the gown tight against her small breasts. "Igor didn't tell me you were this good looking."

"Nor did he inform me of the purity of your beauty, my dear."

"Aww. You're sweet, Vincent! Why don't you come in so we can get to know each other better?

Master nearly stumbled over himself entering her cell. "Igor! Bring another chair in here."

"We can both sit on the bed, can't we? I know! We can feed each other breakfast! Doesn't that sound like fun?"

Master sat on the edge of the bed, and Sadie handed him a glass of juice. "Igor tells me you're a scientist."

"A researcher, yes."

"Are you going to do an experiment on me?"

"I'd like to do a study."

"About what?"

"A few questions first. Are you comfortable talking about sex, young lady?

Sadie blushed. "You mean, what they taught me in school? Or my own experience?"

"The latter."

"Not much to tell. I haven't done much. I kissed a guy."

"Did you like it?"

"Yeah."

"Would you do it again?"

"Yeah."

Master leaned toward her, the closest thing I had ever seen to a smile on his face.

"Wait, Vince." She pulled her gown off over her head and bent over to put her glass on the floor. "This is how I was dressed. Is that okay?"

"Quite." Master gulped the rest of his juice and leaned toward her, puckered.

Sadie kissed him, pressing her body into him. Over his shoulder as he cupped her small breast in his hand, she grimaced and then winked at me.

"Vince! Wow!" she giggled. "That was, um, nice!"

"Yes."

"Know what would be nicer?" She grabbed the sash on his silk dressing gown.

"Yes, I think I do, young lady."

Sadie knelt on the bed next to him. "I never did this, but I saw videos." She licked her lips. "Show me what to do, Vince."

He grabbed her head and pushed it toward his lap but then grimaced, and flopped back on the bed.

"Master?" I cried.

The sorceress' voice spoke. "You people have some interesting potions. I put a lot of Viagra in his juice. There once was an herb like that. It killed by making the brain bleed. So easy. I have my own magic left to use on you. Then I can rest. Farewell."

Sadie shook herself. "I wonder if I could have gone through with it." She put her gown on and sat demurely on the edge of the bed. "Igor!"

"What?"

"Your hand!"

I looked at it. The gnarled, fire-ruined skin was changing, sparse hair growing on the back of it. The finger I used to hurt Sadie looked the best of all of them.

"Hello?" Sharon's voice called up the stairs. "Igor?"

She came up the stair into the laboratory, a dog prancing obediently at her side. "What happened?"

"Your feet!"

"I know! I'm going to dance at my wedding! Belinda's helping Mary pick out more modest clothing, and Frieda's out petting some puppies. Oh, are you Sadie?"

"Maybe I am now. Would you turn your back, Igor? There has to be something in that closet that won't make me look like a slut."

*****

"Sadie wants to talk to you." Belinda walked over to me, her bronze body more beautiful than before with the beginnings of the rounding of her belly. She took off her sunglasses and smiled at me with her mother-of-pearl eyes. "I already told her it's okay. All of it."

"Igor!" Sadie squealed. "How's my favorite father-to-be?"

"Loving it here. You should visit."

"I'm coming to stay with you over Spring Break, and I want you to do something for me."

"You are? Great! What do you want me to do?

"When you put your finger inside me in Vince's lab, you tore my hymen."

"Sadie, we've talked about that. You know I didn't want ...."

"Stop. Yes. I know. But it's apparently taken care of, according to the campus gynecologist. It grew back, just like Frieda's spinal cord."

"Really?"

"Yes, just like your crushed bones and burned skin. So, I need a favor. I knew it with the way you treated me in my cell. The way you touched me. I want you to take my virginity the right way."