When Robert woke up, the bedroom was mostly dark, but from what light was coming in from the half open doorway, he knew the sun was up.  He seemed to have gained full control over his body, and when he sat up, he was surprised his head didn't hurt anymore.  The only residual effect of the drugs they'd given him seemed to be that he felt somewhat shaky.  Or maybe it was because he hadn't eaten in days, he was starving.

He looked around the dim room.  There was a large ornate wooden wardrobe with mirrors in the doors, a large chest of drawers with a gilt framed mirror over it, and the wing backed chair the girl had slept in.  The bed was a large size, and the bedding was much better quality than the linens he had at home.  It was a sleigh type bed, with a solid wooden headboard and footboard, and it was in the center of the bedroom.  An unusual placement for a bed, he thought.  Under the bed was a large oriental rug over a darkly stained wood floor.  He could see chinks of light coming through the gaps in the heavy black curtains. 

He got out of the bed and went in the en suite bathroom.  It was dark in there as well, and he pulled on a curtain so he could look out.  As soon as he opened it, the light was too bright making his eyes hurt so he turned away, leaving it partly open.  When he was done using the toilet, he washed his hands and face in the sink, looking at himself in the mirror.  His brown eyes looked clearer now, but he still looked like hell.  His light brown hair looked especially matted down and greasy. 

He couldn't stand his hair being that dirty, and found some shampoo in the cupboard behind the mirror.  He washed his hair in the sink, dried it with a hand towel, and ran his fingers through it to loosen the snarls, pulling out the curls.  He found toothpaste, and used some on his finger to clean his teeth a little.  He wanted to bathe, but he was too hungry.  He didn't seem to smell too bad now that he'd cleaned up a little, and he needed to find some food. 

He went back through the bedroom, opened the door and stepped out.  The room was too bright and he stood there blinking while his eyes adjusted to the light.  When he could see, he found himself in a large sitting room with doors leading to other rooms.  It was furnished with older furniture, just like the bedroom and bathroom.  There was a high ceiling dominated by a large chandelier. 

A fireplace with an elaborate mantel and an ornately framed mirror above it was on the wall to his right.  A large white couch was in front of it, and the quilt the girl had used was folded and lying over the back.  Two white overstuffed chairs were on either side of the couch facing each other.  The couch and chairs were placed on the edges of a thick, plush pale blue rug lying in front of the fireplace.  Along the far wall were shelves decorated with vases, boxes and other items.  There were dressers and tables scattered throughout the room with lamps and decorative objects on them.  All the furniture in the room looked expensive in an understated way, just like the room he'd slept in.

Directly across the room from him, the girl was seated at a large white desk.  She was sitting sideways to him, sewing something with a needle and thread and didn't notice he was there.  Her dark hair was back in the single braid.  The way she was dressed was a bit of a shock to Robert because it was so weirdly old fashioned and frankly, ugly.  She was wearing some kind of long sleeved shirt that buttoned up to her neck and tucked into a skirt that was long enough it reached her leather shoes.  Both the shirt and skirt were some nondescript grey-blue color, as if they were made from the same cloth.  She must have been doing laundry, because he heard the sound of a washing machine running somewhere.

She sensed he was there and looked up.  When she saw him, she startled and her eyes widened as if he'd frightened her, but she recovered quickly and tried to act calm, even though she was clearly unnerved by his sudden appearance. 

"Oh – hi," she said a little hesitantly.  He didn't respond.  She stared at him openly for a moment before she quickly looked away.  He could tell she'd been looking at his just washed hair. 

On his left were glass French doors leading out to a stone balcony.  He tried the door and it was unlocked so he opened it and stepped out.  It was unbelievably cold, taking his breath away.  He was in his bare feet and the stones under them were so cold, they made his feet sting.  The sky was overcast and grey.  A frigid wind was whipping around and it smelled briny.  He walked up to the parapet of the balcony and saw a large body of water nearly the same grey shade as the sky, with a horizon unbroken by land.  It was an ocean, he realized with dismay.  He was nowhere near his home near London, and he could feel fear prickling through his body. 

He looked straight down, and saw a tremendous drop down a rocky cliff with large boulders being battered by waves at its base.  This place didn't look anything like the coastlines of England he'd seen on holidays.  It had to be the Atlantic, but exactly where, he couldn't tell.  He had no idea which direction he was looking, since the clouds seemed to be the same uniform brightness, obscuring the location of the sun.

As he walked the length of the stone balcony in both directions, he could see it ran along a wall of mullioned windows and glass French doors leading to other rooms, including the room he'd slept in.  The building he was in seemed to be a huge stone estate, or castle possibly, on a promontory jutting into the ocean.  He wasn't able to see anything to the left in the way of coastline or any other buildings, other than a small bit of the one he was in.  To the right, there was a thick forest of pine trees obscuring his view of anything else.  He felt even more disturbed looking at the forest.  He couldn't recall if there were any forests like this on the coast of the U.K. but maybe he was in Scotland.  He didn't like this at all. 

When he looked over the parapet again, he was unable to see the building below him because the balcony hung out too far.  Above him, the wall went up several feet to the roof with no windows.  He was on the top floor.  He looked back down at the boulders and waves, trying to judge whether it would be possible to jump and survive.  It didn't look like it. 

"When the tide comes in, the water covers the rocks," he heard.  The girl had come out on the balcony and stood by the door, hugging herself because of the cold, her skirt whipping around her legs in the wind.  She was staring at him so intensely with her blue eyes, it was like she was x-raying him.  It was unsettling.  "But it's still dangerous.  If you survive the jump, the waves and the currents are too strong for –." 

"Is that a warning?" he shouted, interrupting her.  

After a few moments of staring intensely at him, she said hesitantly, "Yes, I – guess so."  Then she said, "I don't want you to –," but she didn't finish the sentence, as she continued staring at him, her eyes wide. 

He waited, but it was clear she wasn't going to say anything else, so he said, "Escape?" 

She closed her eyes, then took a deep breath and said quickly, "I don't want you to die."  Of course not, he thought angrily.  They took him for a reason.  If he died, it would fuck up their plans.

He looked out at the horizon.  "Where are we?" 

"I don't know," she said.  When he looked back at her, she'd stopped looking at him with her wide-eyed stare. 

"You don't know where we are?  I don't believe you!  You're just not telling me because you don't want me to know!" he shouted, angry she was lying to him.  She just stood there, refusing to answer him, looking at him with something like pity in her eyes. 

His teeth were starting to chatter uncontrollably from the cold, and he walked to the door to go back inside.  She stiffened as if she thought he was going to hurt her, but she didn't try to move out of his way, looking down.  When he got to the door, he waited for her to step aside.  Standing so close to her, he was struck by how tall she was.  He was fairly tall for a bloke, and she was probably only a half a head shorter than him.  She looked up at him and he raised his eyebrows to her, to let her know she needed to move.  She stepped out of his way, looking relieved.  When he went inside, she followed him and closed the door behind them. 

Next to the desk she'd been sitting at was a doorway, and he walked through it.  This room was a surprise.  It was large and open, resembling a small ballroom with a white tile floor.  The ceiling was high with ornate plaster work and crystal chandeliers.  French glass doors went along the wall to his left leading out to the balcony and large mullioned windows ran along the length of the wall opposite him. 

There was a treadmill, a rack of free weights and a weight bench set up near the French doors.  "You can work out whenever you want," she said in a soft voice, seeing what he was looking at.  "It helps a lot with the boredom."  

He didn't try to hide the sarcasm when he said, "I imagine it does." 

Then his eyes found the most important thing in the room.  At the farthest wall, next to the big windows, was a black grand piano with the lid closed.  He walked up to it.  It was a really good piano, an expensive one.  He hesitated before he touched it, feeling the smooth wood.  There were several music books stacked on it.  He didn't look through them, but from what he could see, they were mostly by modern composers.  He recognized a few of the books. He had the same ones at home.  Some of the books were still open from the last time someone played. 

"D'you play?" he asked, looking at the girl. 

She looked up at him and her eyes got wide as she stared at him intensely again saying, "Yes."  Then she looked away and mumbled, as if she was embarrassed, "I'm okay."  She blushed before he turned back to the piano.

He stepped in front of the keyboard behind the bench and looked at the music.  She wasn't lying about being an okay piano player if this was what she was playing, he thought.  It was ridiculously simple music.  He put his hands on the keys and played a small bit from one of the books.  It was too pretty for his taste, but the tone of the piano was wonderful. 

In that moment, he was overwhelmed with a longing to sit down and play, to lose himself in the music, forget where he was and what was happening to him.  It would be so easy, to escape from this place through the music.  He imagined playing, hitting the chords as hard as he could.  Before the piano could pull him in, he forced himself to take his hands off the keys and step back. 

"You play, too!"  She sounded surprised, almost excited. 

"A little," he replied with a shrug of his shoulders, and made himself turn his back on the piano. 

"You can play the piano any time you want to," she told him, as if she was hoping he would.  She seemed a little too enthusiastic, and it made him angry.  Yeah, right, he thought, not bloody likely.

He looked out of one of the windows.  The thick pine forest seemed to wrap around the building, making it impossible to see what was beyond the trees.  Then he saw what was on the other side of the window, metal bars in a pattern that matched the panes of glass, cutting off another potential route of escape. 

Just as he stepped back to see bars on the nearby windows, the girl said unnecessarily, "All the windows have bars on them."  He ignored her, but it made him angry she was so determined to let him know he shouldn't try to escape.  She could keep her fucking comments to herself and it would be fine with him, he thought angrily.

The wall opposite the balcony was mirrored from floor to ceiling, and had a handrail along its length at waist height.  There was another doorway nearer the wall opposite the windows and piano.  Robert went through that door, and it led to a small bedroom.  The bed was the same size as the one he'd slept in and dominated the room, but without a headboard or footboard.  The only other furniture was a small wardrobe and a chest of drawers.  There were two large windows framed by white gauze curtains, exactly like the ones in the ballroom giving the room a lot of light.  He saw the bars on the other side of the glass.  Everything in the room was white, the furniture, the bedding, and the walls.  There was no rug, just the same dark stained wood floor that was in the room he'd slept in.  It looked antiseptic and spare.

"This is my bedroom," she said as she stood by the door they'd just entered. 

She had a small en suite bathroom through another door, with the same claw foot tub, sink and toilet he had.  It was white and spare looking, like the bedroom.  He went through a third door that led back to the sitting room and she followed behind him.

"Are you hungry?  The kitchen is this way," she asked softly.  He nodded and allowed her to lead him to the kitchen which was next to her bedroom, off the sitting room. 

Compared to the other rooms he'd seen, this one was shockingly tiny, dark and cluttered with broken down furniture.  There were only two small circular barred windows letting in a little light.  Outside of both of them, was the forest.  A single light bulb hung from the center of the ceiling, providing a little more light.  This room seemed to have just been thrown together.  Even the walls seemed unfinished and shabby.  They probably hadn't been painted in decades.  There was a small table with two mismatched chairs, which was the only place to sit. 

She motioned for him to take a seat, and he sat while she started pulling things out of the fridge.  Other than the fridge, there was an oven, a coffee maker, a toaster, and open shelves, holding dishes and food with a wood counter on top.  It wasn't much of a kitchen, the one in his tiny flat looked like a gourmet's dream in comparison.

She offered him coffee or tea and he accepted the tea.  She boiled water in a kettle on the burner and made him a mug with loose leaf tea in a steel ball.  When she handed it to him, he could see her hand shaking slightly, betraying her nervousness. 

While she cooked, he sipped his tea and watched her.  He couldn't believe she wore those ugly clothes.  The skirt was so long it reached below her mid-calf.  Besides the shirt and skirt, she had on stockings and slip on leather shoes that were also quite ugly.  Even though Robert wasn't much of an expert, it was obvious to him she wasn't wearing any makeup, which was just as odd as her choice in clothing.  It was beyond strange. 

"What's the story with Moreau?" he asked her. 

She turned to him, looking surprised and said, "Who?"  But then he saw her face change as she realized who he was talking about.  So it wasn't the bastard's real name after all, he thought.  He wasn't surprised he'd been lied to.  She'd no doubt given him a fake name as well. 

She turned back to the oven and shrugged her shoulders.  "There's no story.  He lives here, I mean in this building, not here with – not here," she finished hesitantly, her voice trailing off. 

"Are we in France?"

 "I don't know," she replied softly.  

"Are we in Scotland?"

"I don't know."  He was getting awfully tired of hearing her say that.

"Why did he kidnap me?  Why is he keeping me here?" he asked, barely able to disguise the pleading tone.  The same two questions were going through his head over and over. 

She turned and looked at him with pity again.  "I don't know why." 

"Or you know and you won't tell me!" he said louder, instantly angry.

He saw her wince slightly when he said it, and then she said more quietly, "I don't know," and gave him a pointed look, like she was trying to tell him something, before she turned back to cooking.  It was unbelievable she could lie to him so brazenly, he thought.  She was fucking shameless.

Then the smell of food cooking made his stomach hurt because he was so hungry, making it hard for him to concentrate on anything else.  It seemed like he waited forever before she handed him a plate with sausages and two sandwiches made with toast.  He looked in the sandwiches and they each had a fried egg and cheese.  She made him more tea while he started to eat.  He was ravenous, and had to force himself to take the time to chew.  It was good, but she could've served him anything and it would have tasted good.  To his dismay, she joined him at the small table, sitting sideways with a mug of coffee.  At least she didn't watch him eat. 

"How long was I unconscious?" he asked as he ate.  

She put her coffee down and looked at him.  He could swear her eyes looked different now – they were closer to a purple color than blue.  "You were asleep when you came here yesterday.  It was the evening, and you woke up in the middle of the night, maybe three or so.  I don't know how long you were unconscious before you came here." 

"What day is it today?" 

She picked up her coffee mug and scratched at the side of it with her fingernail, like she was scraping something off.  After a moment, she said while concentrating on her mug, "I don't know what day it is.  I don't have a calendar here." 

That was fucking impossible, he thought angrily.  "What d'you mean?  I can't believe you don't know what the date is!"  Then he started shouting, "Am I not allowed to know the date?  Is that it?  Is it so I can't keep track of the time?" 

She had that pitying look on her face again.  "I'm sorry.  You could ask for one.  Sir might allow it," she said softly.  Did she just call that bastard 'Sir'?  Was she serious?  He wouldn't ask that fucking bastard for anything, he thought angrily.

He'd been kidnapped Friday night, he remembered, that was the twenty-fourth.  Judging by how long his stubble had grown, that was most likely three days ago.  That would make this Monday, the twenty-seventh.  Then Robert's thoughts turned to his mates.  Assuming they hadn't stayed the night at the girls' flat, Joey had to have known something was wrong when he got home Friday night and saw Robert wasn't in the bedroom they shared.  It was possible they thought he'd gone to another mate's flat to stay the night, and wait for him to show up Saturday. 

In any case, it would be obvious he was missing by Saturday.  They'd probably ring other mates to find out if he was somewhere else, or if anyone had seen him.  They'd know he wouldn't just disappear, he was the responsible one.  He was certain they'd exhaust all possibilities before they rung his parents and worried them. 

By now, his parents would know he was missing.  The police would've been called and would be looking for him.  But how easy would it be to find him?  It'd been three days already.  He'd been kidnapped by unknown criminals and was now nowhere near his home.  Robert prayed the police had solid leads they were still tracking down.  It was his only hope.  He couldn't help thinking his parents and sisters must be frantic with worry by now.  Thinking of them suddenly made his throat hurt and he found it hard to swallow.  He pushed his nearly empty plate away, feeling miserable. 

"Was that enough food for you?" the girl asked him softly.  "If you're still hungry, I can make you something else."

"I'm done," he mumbled, not looking at her.  She took his dishes and washed them while he finished his tea.  Robert noticed how quiet it was.  The silence was so profound it was almost oppressing. 

"Are you going to be here the whole time I'm a prisoner?" 

"Yes," she said, with her back to him. 

"Is there a computer here?" he asked.  She shook her head not turning around. 

"Playstation, Xbox, TV, CD player, mp3 player, DVD player, anything like that?" he continued asking with more astonishment, his voice rising as she kept shaking her head. 

"What the bloody hell is there to do around here?" he demanded loudly. 

She turned around, leaning against the sink having put away the last of the dishes.  She looked quickly at the counter and oven, and then looked at him, saying, "There's a library.  It has a lot of books.  Other than that, there's just what you saw – the piano, the treadmill, the weights."  He couldn't believe it.  The place was a fucking estate, and yet there were no modern electronics to help pass the time. 

When she saw the expression on his face, she said, "You can ask Sir for those things."  Like bloody hell, he thought bitterly.  He'd rather throw himself off the balcony than ask for anything from that smug bastard.  And this was the second time she'd referred to Moreau as 'Sir'.  It was more than a little creepy. 

When he didn't reply, she looked at him intently with that look of pity back on her face.  "I know what you're going through," she said softly.  "I'm really sorry you're here.  I don't blame you for being angry." 

"Spare me the sympathy, will you?" he snapped angrily.  He wasn't about to let her think she could manipulate him by making him think she felt sorry for him.

She looked away from him, and after a moment said, "If you want, I'll show you the library.  Then you can take a bath or – whatever."  

He didn't say anything and got up.  She led him across the sitting room.  They walked through a large open doorway leading to a smaller room about the size of the room he'd slept in.  It had bookshelves that went from the floor to the ceiling, filled with books.  There was a leather couch and chair, two small tables with lamps on either side of the couch.  There was yet another chandelier in the center of the room.  There were no windows.  He looked at the titles of the books.  There were classics and a lot of books by authors he didn't know.  All the books looked like they had been placed there decades earlier.  He didn't see any books in French.  Perhaps they weren't in France after all, he thought.

"There's another door to your bedroom behind here," she said softly, and she pulled on a bookshelf in the center of one of the walls.  It was a door in disguise that opened directly into the room he'd slept in. 

It would have been impressive under normal circumstances, but all he heard were the words 'your bedroom'.  They rang in his head over and over like an alarm.  His bedroom, like they had set aside a room just for him.  He remembered the familiar way the bastard had talked to him the night before, like he knew him, and then Robert suddenly realized they'd planned this.  They'd chosen him. 

He felt the enormous amount of tension that had built up in his body since the previous night snap suddenly and he was possessed by an intense rage.  In two steps he'd reached her, grabbing her by her upper arms.  They were thin, and his large hands wrapped completely around them, squeezing them as tightly as he could.

He shouted, "That is not my bedroom, d'you understand?  It's not my bedroom!" shaking her.

She was limp in his hands, refusing to look at him and said quietly, "Yes, sir."

Her passivity made it seem like she was just humoring him, and he completely lost control.  He jerked her up sharply, then shoved her against a bookcase as hard as he could.  It was so hard he heard her head hit the wood.  She looked at him with fear, crying out in pain. 

He shouted, "I don't live here!  D'you understand?  Don't ever say that to me again!" shaking her hard.  

She burst into tears and struggled to pull free.  Seeing the fear in her eyes as she tried to get away from him, brought him to his senses.  He was instantly horrified at what he'd just done, and let go of her.  She stumbled away from him, nearly falling as she sobbed. 

He had no idea what had just happened to him.  Then the rage he'd felt a moment before, was instantly gone, and he felt panic surging through his body, taking its place.  He felt a terrible black crushing weight closing in on him, like he was being trapped in an avalanche and he was finding it hard to breathe.  He collapsed on the couch gasping, as the black crushing weight pressed down on him.  His whole body was shaking violently, and he thought his heart might explode it was racing so fast.  He was certain he was going to die, as he desperately tried to get enough oxygen in his lungs.  He couldn't help thinking his family would never know what happened to him, and the tears came.

*********

Robert is not doing so well!  But then, I didn't think anyone would if they'd been put in this situation.  And poor Georgie is stuck having to deal with the guy freaking out. 

I've included some pictures in the multimedia that I collected as I was writing the story to help me visualize the flat.  Some of the pictures shaped the look of the rooms and some looked exactly as I imagined them originally over 30 years ago.  I hope you enjoy seeing them!

I won't keep you any longer, I know you're dying to find out what happens next!  Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think.  If you're enjoying the story so far, please leave me a vote before you click through!