HANSEL 1
An Erotic Fairy Tale
ELLA JAMES
PROLOGUE
Leah
I’m trying not to cry. I really am.
I stop mid-stride, in the middle of my room, and wrap my arms around myself. I’ve been pacing for several hours, following a trajectory that has me crossing the room horizontally both ways. If drawn out on a map, my path would look like an hour glass. This is fitting, I think.
I tuck my chin against my chest and try to think of something else. Of someplace else.
I’m luckier than most of the other people in the rooms that line this hall, because I have an almost-photographic memory. When I want to, and sometimes even when I don’t, I can see moments from my past as clear as if they were real photographs.
I’m wearing a brown t-shirt and sweat pants and swaying on the fuzzy, green rug that covers most of my floor, but behind my shut eyes I see sunlight glittering on the tiny stream that runs through the backyard of my childhood home. The three of us splash through it, holding hands as we laugh and spin, our rainbow-sequined swim suits almost blinding in the light. Our grins are wide and carefree, our blonde hair spinning behind us as we dance under a smooth, blue sky.
My shoulders rock with a sob I swallow down, and another image appears; this one almost meaningless in comparison to the last. I see the hallway of the mall where I used to hang out in seventh grade with my “just Leah” friends, Maura and Kaye. Low, popcorn ceiling, beige-brown carpet with dark brown, triangular flecks; kiosks in the middle hawking sparkly cell phone covers I was always wanting; sunlight pouring through the glass ceiling, reflecting off Maura’s oily forehead, making Kaye’s hair look just like fire.
I open my eyes as I whirl to face the wall to my right. It, like the three other, is painted to depict a forest in autumn, but this wall also sports a realistic painting of a cottage in a clearing. Its roof reaches to where the wall runs into ceiling. Brush-painted grass stretches out along the baseboard, underneath a porch painted so well it looks like real wood boards. This is the witch’s house. If you look closely, you can see it’s made of food, not brick and stone and wood. If you look closely at the walls that sport just forest, you can see a trail of pebbles, and the occasional breadcrumb.
Mother painted it. She painted all our rooms, or so she says.
The witch’s house goes away when I close my eyes, replaced by a still shot centered on a sloppy, pink and white birthday cake. Three pink “5”s sit crookedly atop it—one for Laura, one for Lana, one for me. Settled around our polished oak dining table, my family is grinning as they sing the birthday song. My mom and dad look over the three of us with pride, Mom holding a camcorder, Dad waiting with a knife to cut the cake. Laura’s mouth is open wide, and I know she’s singing a little too loud; Lana’s hand is raised up to her ear, probably because she’s tucking a strand of hair behind it. That’s her thing. Or was.
The memory of her dainty fingers closing around a strand of silky white-blonde hair hurts more than you might think. Those little things that make someone who they are…I find that’s what I miss the most.
I lunge across the shaggy rug and throw myself onto the cot pushed against my room’s windowless back wall. With my body spread over the filthy green sheet and my face buried in between my arms, I give in to my need to cry.
But it’s not enough.
Crying never brought anything missing back.
I jump off the bed and run to the wall with the witch’s house painting. I flop down on my belly and press my cheek against the rug, angling so I can see through the little hole sawed into the grass-painted baseboard. The room next door has walls painted with grass and leaves and trees, just like mine. On the opposite side of my wall is a cottage that is said to be identical to mine. I see a swatch of brown over to my right: his cot, pushed against the back wall of his room.
My torso shakes as I hold my breath for just a second, then let out another sob. But I don’t see him. I don’t hear him. No arm, no hand, no face.
No Hansel.
I haven’t seen his hazel eyes staring back at me, or heard his stories—fairy tales he makes up just for me—in two whole days. I haven’t heard him knock at night when he can’t sleep and wants me to come sing to him.
I’m worried about him. So worried I can barely breathe.
I’ve been here for a long time, I’m pretty sure. Long enough my sheets have spots where sweat stains have turned them hard and rubbery. Long enough that the first bite mark I made in the corner of my wall is almost two inches shorter than my current height. And in that time, I’ve never not seen Hansel for more than three hours and sixteen minutes. He’s never left his room for even three and a half hours. I know that for sure, because I’ve never left my room at all.
I cry for Hansel for so long I fall asleep there on the rug. I dream of Mother’s girlish voice, the way she smells of stale cigarettes when she reaches in to hand me plates, the strawberry-scented powder she occasionally sprinkles through the small hole cut into the bottom of my door. I dream of the click of Hansel’s door as he leaves, those times he does, and the welcome click as he returns. His fingers on my fingers. His knuckles on the wall.
I wake up furious at Mother Goose. I hate her so much. Every time, after he comes back from wherever she takes him, he goes straight to his cot. He lies there for hours while I die wondering how he is, and when I see him next, he’s…different. He doesn’t breathe the same or speak the same. He doesn’t even move the same. He doesn’t look me in the eye. He doesn’t reach through the hole in the wall for my hand. He just lays there with his head on his arms. And when I reach through to stroke his arm, he doesn’t scoot closer to me like usual.
I try to talk to him, to entertain him, but I never know if what I’m saying is right, because he doesn’t say much. A long time ago, I used to ask more questions, but after so many times of him asking me not to, I just stopped.
But I know it’s bad, whatever happens to him, because those are the nights he always knocks on the wall.
Last time he left his room, he was gone for just one hour and forty-seven minutes. And, now that I think about it, he didn’t seem as different as usual. For instance, he came straight to me without going to his cot.
But lately he’s been quieter on the days he doesn’t leave his room. Too quiet. Like he’s not telling me things.
I rouse to the sound of heavy breathing and assume I’m still dreaming.
Except it’s louder. He’s louder. So loud—louder than he’s ever been—that I know I’m not dreaming.
I scramble up on my elbows, then drop my head down to the floor with my eye as close to the peephole as I can get it.
I want to yell, but I’m so nervous I can barely whisper. “Hansel?”
“Turn around.”
I go completely still.
“Leah.”
I turn around slowly and feel the blood drain from my head.
“Hansel?” I croak.
My eyes jump to the open door behind him, then back to him.
I’m not dreaming.
He’s so tall.
His hair so dark.
His face so handsome.
He’s like a prince! From one of the stories that he tells me.
His face crumples as I stare at him. As if under some terrible spell, he sinks to his knees, and I finally notice that his hands are stained bright red.
CHAPTER ONE
Leah
Ten Years Later
It was Lana’s idea to come here. Well, of course it was. Who else would want to do something like this the night before their wedding?
Not Laura. That’s for sure. The night before she married Todd, her high school sweetheart, she insisted she, Laura, and I give each othe
r facials, then made us don wedding-themed, one-piece bathing suits (hers was white with gold sparkles; ours pink) and climb into Mom and Dad’s hot tub together so we could talk about our favorite girlhood memories. Yeah. That’ Laura.
This is Lana.
Me? I don’t want to get married at all, so I certainly don’t need this kind of… What is it? An escape? Or a diversion from impending monotony? I’m not sure. All I know is, we’re in a sex club.
It’s called The Enchanted Forest, and right now we’re standing in a closed-off space just inside a warehouse-style building near The Strip, waiting to give the tickets Lana bought online to a hot, tatted up guy dressed in all black.
“Come on, Leah.” Laura bumps me from behind, and I realize Lana has already stepped forward and handed hot tattoo guy her ticket.
I do the same, and Laura behind me, and another guy in black ushers us over to the other side of the crowded space, where we wait in front of two massive, worn-looking wooden doors with rustic, iron knobs.
The two dozen or so people behind us move past the ticket counter relatively quickly. When the last person has rejoined the line, hot tat guy pushes one of the heavy doors open and holds it as Lana struts through. She’s wearing all black, just like he is. Black jeans, black low-top boots, black tee. It contrasts with her pale skin and her short, blonde spikes. She gets a few strides into the room ahead—it seems to be torch-lit, I notice with a shot of apprehension—and turns sideways to check on Laura and me. Her red lips curve into naughty-looking grin.
Laura, beside me, is lagging as we step into the foyer—which is definitely lit by torches. She’s peeking into her small, square, canvas purse, the one she’s got slung across her chest so Vegas bad guys don’t steal it. As she looks down, her layered, shoulder-length hair falls around her face like a curtain.
I wrap my fingers around her purse strap and tug. “Beep beep. You’re backing up the line.”
“I need my lip gloss,” she says as she moves into the vast foyer, muttering about how dry it is here. Laura is attending Episcopalian seminary in a beautiful, quaint Tennessee mountain town where I’m pretty sure it rains all the time. All her pictures there look foggy.
Lana and I exchange a look as Laura steps over to the side of the yawning room, letting some of the crowd spill past us. It’s not a catty look, just one that acknowledges that Laura is slow and likes to do things her way.
I cast my eyes around the room we’re in and feel my breath get stuck in my throat. Heat moves across my chest and back around my shoulders as my pulse quickens. My gaze darts over the stone floors and up the stone walls, taking note of many small, iron balconies hanging at various heights. My stomach sours as I see they’re all draped with ivy. I tilt my head up, hoping to hide my face from Miss Perceptive, Lana, and feel like I’ve been sucker-punched. The domed ceiling is dark, but I can see white stars strewn over it. And—oh, fuck—that’s a half-moon, clearly painted white over the darker paint.
Deep breaths, Leah.
I pull my gaze down quickly, checking Lana’s face to see if she noticed my reaction to this place, but she’s too busy doing her own once-over of the room. I see her brows pull together and wonder if she’s noticing the same thing I am, but I quickly decide that it’s unlikely. She’s only ever seen pictures, and she doesn’t have my freakish visual memory.
I clamp my teeth down on my lower lip, clearing my head to make room for a memory that could confirm or deny the déjà vu I’m feeling. Nothing comes, and I lose my focus when Laura rubs some gloss over her lips.
After she slides it back into her bag, the three McKenzie sisters link arms like middle school girls and walk toward the shadowed hall out ahead of us.
It’s lined with torches like the foyer, but as the ceiling is lower and space narrower, it seems fractionally brighter.
Good.
I’m sure once we get down it, there will be something sexy and wild and freakish in a totally different way than the place that I’m remembering.
This isn’t Mother’s House.
After just a minute hearing Lana, a psychoanalyst, babble about how healthy it will be for our egos to experience a “carnal demonstration,” and another minute listening while Laura, gonna-get-her-PhD.-in-Divinity politely tells Lana that her ideas about what the psyche needs are full of shit, we’re in the hallway.
Not as dark as the foyer, but still dark. Torches on each side, every ten feet or so. Up close, they look like wooden clubs with flaming honeycombs on the end. Smoke curls off them, but I hardly smell it. A quick glance at the ceiling reveals what I expected: slits. It’s some kind of fan device, I think, drawing the smoke up and out.
Like Mother’s House.
Except…c’mon. When you’ve got torches in an enclosed space, there’s probably not that many ways to get the smoke out.
Just like when you’ve got a domed ceiling, it’s got to be pretty common to paint a sky on it.
Lana and Laura are engaged in friendly bickering about the purpose of our visit here when we come upon the next gut-punch. Off to our right, in a little alcove—circular, with a curtained, circular window reaching most of the way around it—is a replica of David. You know, the famous nude sculpture.
I can tell right off that Lana notices it, too. She slows almost to a stop and stares at it as if she’s never seen it before. I watch her brows scrunch as nausea spreads through my stomach and extends its sticky, sweaty fingers through the rest of me.
Her perceptive blue eyes shift quickly to mine. She smiles a little, warm but noncommittal, the kind of vacant smile she probably gives during psychoanalysis to encourage a patient to go a little further toward some painful memory.
I know that smile well, and I have one that answers it. I curve my lips up, conveying in our wordless triplet speak that I’m A-okay, and nod toward the rest of the hallway.
“Lead the way, smut sister.”
After a discreet, half-second x-ray stare, she does. Laura lags behind me, messing with her phone now, probably texting Todd to let him know that there hasn’t been any sinning just yet.
I’m glad Lana’s got her back to me and Laura is distracted, because I’m starting to lose my shit a little more with every step I take. I’ve noticed a rug under my feet, which probably went unnoticed until now because my psyche refused to acknowledge it. It’s green, with gold leaf flecks.
My hand reaches automatically into the right-hand pocket of my sexy-tight red jeans, fingertips fumbling desperately for the tiny pill I keep with me, just in case.
At that exact moment, Lana, still a step in front of Laura and me, looks over her shoulder at us. Her eyes collide with mine, then widen as they sweep down my body, to where my overeager hand incriminates me.
“Leah,” she says sharply.
“What?”
Her eyes widen only a fraction.
“What?” I say calmly, digging my hand deeper into my pocket. Sweat starts at my hairline and sweeps back over my scalp. I itch and tingle: phantom pains. I feel moisture at my nape; it pops up between my shoulder blades. Sweat and…hunger.
“Tell me you aren’t…”
I shake my head. “No way. Why do you think…?” I glance down at my hand, as if I’m still confused.
Laura puts her hand on my shoulder. “Leah, you are reaching for a pill, the way you said you always used to keep them in your pocket!” She grabs my elbow. “If you are—”
I jerk out of her grasp and stop in my tracks. “Jesus, you guys. No, okay? I wasn’t doing that!” Inside my pocket, I bring my ring finger on top of my middle finger and push at my middle finger’s nail, digging under it with the nail of my ring finger until I feel a sharp ache. I pull my hand out of my pocket and hold it up.
“Broken nail. See? Paranoid a little bit?” I jab my gaze from Lana to Laura.
Lana’s shoulders relax as she goes off high alert. Laura winces. “That looks jagged.”
“Yeah.” I let my breath out slowly.
We’re w
alking again, and I try my best to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth.
“You seem edgy,” Lana says, as the last of the people who were behind us walk around us, leaving us at the back of the pack.
“Maybe because it’s so crowded,” Laura says, ignoring me and looking at Lana.
“Maybe because we’re going to watch sex,” I murmur.
I feel instantly guilty. This is what my sister wants to do on her last weekend as a single woman. I should be a good bridesmaid and keep my mouth shut.
Just because this place happens to remind me of Mother’s House doesn’t mean I have the right to ruin this night for Lana.
Let’s be honest, Leah; you don’t really remember. I entered The House, was led to my room, and left it seventeen months later. Without a visual memory to confirm the dread this place incites in me, I’m going on nothing but emotion, adrenaline, and a vague sense of anticipation.
I remember what I learned in rehab, where I spent three months almost a year ago: How, when this intense anxiety surfaces, it’s usually triggered by feelings. Feelings I haven’t dealt with. Ones that somehow relate to my experience as a captive.
In this case, I can almost guarantee I know the trigger: sex.
This place probably doesn’t even look like Mother’s House. It’s just my mind, playing tricks, because I’ve been thinking The House, and Hansel.
We walk past a few more flickering torches, and one of the small, wood doors punched into the stone hallway walls opens. I flinch a little, and both my sisters’ eyes flicker to me. Thankfully, we’re all distracted by the ripped, bouncer-looking guy who steps out of the door in a black wife-beater and black jeans with black sneakers.
He clears his throat and flashes us a handsome smile. “You might want to pick up the pace, ladies. The show started several minutes ago. If you’re much later, you may miss it. No late entrances once we get past the five minute mark. Unless,” he says, looking up and down us, “you’re here for Edgar?”
“We are,” Lana says with a bob of her spiky head. “Eleven-thirty in The House, right?”