The Painter (part two)

Chapter 4

She felt a dull pain in her back. She felt cold. One side of her face felt swollen. She lifted her head slightly and a burning sensation coiled behind the narrow slits of her eyes. Maybe it was the champagne, a hangover. She was prone to getting them. The darkened room came into focus and then came awareness bringing with it a tide of terror. I’m in trouble, she thought. Then she saw him sitting on the edge of the bed. Grinning. Naked. She was naked too. She tried to get up but her wrists were handcuffed to the bedposts. She pulled at them but it was useless. His grin widened. She saw his erection and the incoming tide peaked. She tried speaking, umpph, umpph, but her mouth was sealed with duct tape.

He crawled across the bed, his penis rubbed against her thigh.

Holding her chin he pulled her face to his and whispered, ‘you’re so beautiful. So, so, beautiful. Every sculptor’s dream, every artist’s…’

He ran his tongue along the side of her face leaving a trail of saliva, delicately biting her earlobe like a lover. His gaze followed his hand down her neck. He touched both her pink nipples, squeezing them gently. He caressed her flat stomach and then his fingers found the sweet valley between her legs. A gasping sob and the muscles in her thighs became taut. There was still a spark of defiance in her red-rimmed eyes but for how long? It seemed to excite him all the more.

She tried screaming, uuummmpppphh!

It seemed to work. His hand came away from her and suddenly burst into life again. Rhythmically at first but becoming more frantic as his excitement grew. Lena closed her eyes. She could feel his silent groans of pleasure as he seemed to lose himself in his own sick fantasy. Faster now, faster, faster, he stroked his throbbing penis as rigid as an iron rod.

A thought surfaced in Lena’s mind as Voltman’s excitement climaxed with the warm juices squirting against the outside of her leg: You dirty fucker, I hope you’ve yanked it off.

Voltman was still again. He leaned over and kissed her on the side of the face, then tucked his head against her shoulder and went to sleep with his arm across her waist.

Lena lay awake for several hours, tears all dried up, listening to his snoring. Sometimes he called out as if he was faced with bad dreams. She hoped he had nightmares all the time. Amidst her troubled thoughts she eventually fell asleep and was faced with a nightmare of her own.

Chapter 5

The next time she opened her eyes it was morning. The sun was shinning through the skylights above her. She shifted a little and a cramping pain stole its way up both arms. The handcuffs could slide up down the cast iron bedposts so she was able to lift herself up a little and get the blood circulating. Only after the cramp in her arms lessened did she begin to feel the back pains. But these were the least of her worries. Before she became aware of the pain she had heard Voltman in the room doing some form of exercise.

‘…seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…’

By the time she had lifted herself into a sitting position he had counted twenty chin-ups. He held onto the horizontal bar that hung from the ceiling to catch his breath before dropping onto his bare feet on the wooden floor. The muscles on his back and on his shoulders bulged with the strain, and his biceps as well as triceps were immense. But almost as if to draw attention away from all of this half his body was tattooed with internal organs that gave him a veined appearance. If nothing else she was pleased to see that he was wearing shorts.

‘Ah, you’re awake.’

Lena’s eyes quickly found something else to look at.

‘We have a busy day ahead of us but before we start can I get you anything?’

Lena’s lips were still sealed.

Mmpph, mmpph.

He crossed over to where she was sitting and reached out a hand. Her first reaction was to turn her face away.

‘Its okay, I’m going to remove the tape.’ His eyes turned spiteful for a moment. ‘Don’t make me hurt you again.’

He took one corner of the grey duct tape and slowly began to peel it off. Lena winced in agony. Her lips and the skin around her mouth burned. At first she said nothing but she couldn’t contain herself for long. ‘You bastard, you fucking bastard,’ she sniped at him.

‘Tut, tut. Such a wicked tongue.’

‘You’ll never get away with this.’

‘I already have, my dear.’

‘There were a lot of people at that party. Someone will have seen us leave together.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘Yes,’ she answered but she wasn’t sure of anything.

‘Well, it doesn’t really matter. By the time the police come knocking on my door you’ll be long gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘It’s best you don’t ask,’ he answered with a wicked smirk.

She watched him walk over to the sink and rinse out a glass and refill it with water for her to drink. When he held it to her lips she drank it so fast some of it spilled down her chin.

‘I’m cold,’ she told him afterwards, ‘and I need to go to the bathroom.’

Voltman left the room for a few minutes during which she pulled and pulled at the handcuffs until her neck and shoulders and arms and back hurt, but nothing would give. He returned holding in his hand a silk kimono. He took a key from the sideboard and unlocked the handcuffs. Lena snatched the kimono from his hand and quickly covered herself. She sat on the edge of the bed rubbing at the bruises the cuffs left on her wrists.

‘Stand up,’ he ordered.

She did so right away feeling shaky on her feet.

‘Turn around and face the wall… good… now put both hands behind your back.’

Click – click. The cuffs were on her wrists again.

‘Come with me.’

He ushered her out the door and down one flight of stairs and showed her into a bathroom on the left. It was gloomy inside the windowless bathroom and the toilet stank. Water dripped from the taps on the wash hand basin and a mildew odour along the corner of each wall attacked her nostrils. It was hardly what you would call a five star bathroom but it wasn’t going to deter Lena from taking a leak. The linoleum felt grimy beneath her bare feet. She turned to close the door and Voltman prevented her from doing so.

‘Can’t you at least uncuff me?’

‘No.’

She answered the call of nature under the watchful gaze of Voltman and then they returned up stairs where he handcuffed her to the bed again.

‘Now here’s what we’re going to do,’ he said as he walked over to an easel he had set up in the centre of the room, ‘I’ve already covered the canvass with three coats of gesso and sanded it down. It makes for a smoother surface you see but I’m sure you know these things already. Now I’m going to paint your portrait and add it to my collection of Scarlet Ladies.’ He smiled across at her. ‘I know you must feel honoured.’

‘More than you could possibly imagine,’ she wearily responded.

‘Good,’ said Voltman. ‘Now all I need you to do is strike a pose. Not too evocative, I want to be able to capture the inner you. The real you. Oh and don’t forget to smile.’

Lena gawped at him in disbelief. He truly is insane.

‘It would be a whole lot easier if I wasn’t chained to this bed.’

His face darkened. ‘You’ll just have to make do as you are.’

Lena lay back and sighed. She was damned if she was going to smile. Voltman began sketching.

Chapter 6

Several hours passed and Lena had to cope once more with cramp in her shoulder and in her arms. Noticing her discomfort Voltman propped her with pillows and even then the pain only shifted from her arms to the lower part of her back. He gave her a painkiller and she was reluctant at first to take it until she saw the box it had come from and realised it was aspirin.

‘Stay still,’ he snapped at her anytime she moved.

‘I can’t. I’ve got pins and needles,’ she’d answer back.

Instead of figuring a way out Lena thought about Lukas. He’ll suspect something’s amiss; initially he’ll be angry thinking she had walked out on him (which in effect she had done), but when she didn’t show up for class or answer his calls he’ll know she’s missing and will report it. She hoped. He’ll tell the police he last saw her at the party, the police will speak to other people at the party, show them a picture and pretty soon they’ll come knocking on Voltman’s door. What a story the media would have then, and not just the media in the Art world. Abduction! Sexual assault! She could just see the headlines: Voltman the Devil Painter, Scarlet Madness. Lena imagined herself on television, giving interviews to the world press, selling her story for thousands perhaps even millions.

Voltman spent all of the first day doing a line drawing of the full portrait in graphite. He began with an outline of her upper body indicating the exact position of her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, and the general position of her eyebrows and hairline, as well as the curvature of her breasts. Instead of drawing her arms in a wide arch handcuffed to the bedposts he drew them neatly by her sides like Mona Lisa’s. He did all of this making soft, clear pencil lines and then he coated the entire canvas with a thin, light-golden wash and left it overnight to dry.

Lena was grateful he didn’t sleep with her that night. She pictured herself in the room shackled to the bedposts, her long bare legs curled up as best she could to keep herself warm, all five-seven of her and one hundred and twenty pounds shrivelling by the hour.

The following morning she felt unable to get off the bed to go to the bathroom so he helped walk her around the room

‘Why don’t you let me go, please?’ she begged, all pride and self-respect ruined, her natural instinct for survival now beginning to replace the blind optimism she once had. ‘I promise on my Father’s grave not to tell anyone. Just let me go and we can forget the whole thing.’

‘I can’t,’ he calmly responded, ‘not now that you’ve seen the way that I work.’

They continued to circle the room, step by step, inch by inch the strength returning to her legs, the bedsores, caused by thirty-six hours of chafing, slowly disappearing. She spoke quite lethargically as they walked.

‘You said I would become one of your Scarlet Ladies.’

‘Yes.’

‘By that you mean painting my portrait?’

‘Yes.’

‘So there were others?’

‘Of course. But none as beautiful as you.’

‘How many?’

‘You’re only the fourth.’

‘What were their names?’

‘Hmm, let me think,’ said Voltman as they completed another full circle of the room.

Meanwhile Lena’s eyes went side to side, like a spectator’s at a tennis match, in search of a weapon - a knife, a pair of scissors, a blunt object even to hit him over the head.

‘Firstly there was Eva, Eva Van den Burg. Tall, blonde hair. Sort of a Daddy’s girl. Spoilt rotten. She was the one who started it all off, really. She asked me to paint her portrait. She even offered me money but I told her I would do it for free as long it was our little secret,’ he chuckled, ‘and of course she agreed.’

Lena sensed he was distracted enough for her to strike but with what? She needed a weapon, fast.

‘Then there was Lotte Owel. I didn’t know if that was her real name or not until I read about her disappearance in the newspaper. She was just a hooker. A dirty, disease-ridden whore. She offered to have sex with me as I was passing her on the street. Can you imagine having sex with someone as ugly as her? Not if she was the last woman alive. I invited her back here all the same and put her out of her miserable existence.’

Damn him, thought Lena. Damn him for being so bloody meticulous about everything. There wasn’t a knife, a pair of scissors, not even a paintbrush left lying around. He had everything carefully tidied away. She was concentrating so hard on finding a weapon that she hardly heard a word he was saying. Something about a girl called Eve…? Eva? Eva Van den something?

‘And then there was Bella, Isabella Kemp.’

‘Bella Kemp, the renowned art critic?’ asked Lena, suddenly comprehending what he was telling her.

‘Yes.’

Lena remembered she went missing over a month ago.

‘She wrote some harsh criticisms of my work.’ A thin, hateful smile formed across his lips as he recalled the nights he spent with her. ‘Huh! I showed her who was undersexed.’

She stopped moving and closed her eyes for a few seconds. ‘I feel faint,’ said Lena.

‘Come, its time you were back in bed.’

‘No, please… let me sit down for a while instead.’

‘Very well.’

He led her by the hand to a chair and helped her down into it. Every joint in her body felt stiff. He handcuffed both her wrists to the arms of the chair and was about to seal her lips with more duct tape when she told him she was hungry.

‘Of course you are,’ he said and then sealed them anyway. ‘I have to go out for a while but I won’t be long. When I come back I’ll fix you something to eat.’

He left, locking the door.

She leaned back in the seat shaking all over. She tried shifting but the weight of the chair was too much for her. She felt helpless and afraid, tears streamed down her cheeks. With any luck he’ll be run over by a tram. Not likely, the Gods of fate had it in for her.

The handcuffs bit deep into her wrists. She tried sliding her hands out of them and for a moment she was sure it would work. The metal bracelet slid a quarter of the way up her left hand but would go no further. She had put in a tremendous amount of effort just to get it this far but unless she chopped her own hand off the metal bracelet wouldn’t relinquish its death grip.

Trying not to despair she searched the immediate vicinity but again it was a pointless exercise. Even if there were something of use to her the chains allowed for only six inches of freedom.

One thing she could do was remove the tape from across her lips. The first time she bent forward a shooting pain in the small of her back jolted her upright. The second time the pain seemed to loosen slightly and she was able to claw her nails at the edges. A little triangle of tape bent in the corner and she grabbed a hold of it before the pain in her back pounced once again. She pulled herself upright and half the tape came away exposing one side of her mouth. She waited a moment then leaned forward again and yanked it off in one gruelling strip, taking a thin layer of skin off with it. A red mist of pain descended upon her as she gritted her teeth. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. It will pass, it will pass, she told herself.

‘HEEELLLPPP!’ she screamed, ‘HEELP, HEELP, HEEELLLPPP MEE!’

For all she knew he could still be in the house. Lena didn’t care; it was too good an opportunity to let slip. It was perhaps her only chance left at survival.

‘HEELLP! HEELLP!’ she continued until her throat was sore.

Chapter 7

Sometime later she heard footsteps on the stairs. She had dozed off for a while. The angle in which the sun now flooded through the skylights had shifted forming two, almost vertical pillars of light. She reckoned it was mid-afternoon. The key rattled in the lock and the door slowly ground open. He stood in the doorway for a long time just staring at her. His bulk filled the whole of the frame and the shadow across his face was darker than ever.

She forced a smile but he didn’t return it.

‘Robin, is everything okay?’

‘I see you removed the tape.’

‘I ah…’

‘You didn’t disturb the neighbours I hope.’

‘No. I was thirsty and needed a dr-’

‘LIAR!’ he shouted and came storming forward.

‘No, Robin, please…’ She tried to sink away from him but there was nowhere to go.

He reached up and from one of the shelves grabbed down a stapler. His neck cords stood out and a single vein pulsed angrily in the centre of his forehead.

‘I’ll show you, you bitch.’

He clamped his hand upon her face and pushed her cheeks inwards forcing her mouth open. Then he fixed the stapler over her upper lip.

‘No, no, no, no,’ she cried. Naw, naw, naw, naw, was how it sounded.

‘The next time you pull a stunt like that I’ll staple both your fucking lips together. Do you hear me?’

She nodded and he held her in that position for a while, his knee resting against her chest, contemplating doing it anyway.

Seeing her squirm as she did aroused the artist within him. Her eyes mirrored her broken spirit and it was this that he wanted to capture in his painting.

‘Perfect,’ he whispered and then leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

He stood up and stepped across to the easel. The canvas was almost dry. His eyes went from angry to dreamy to evil. Soon it would be time to start painting.

Chapter 8

‘Why did you become a painter?’

Voltman thought about it for a moment before giving the simplest of answers. ‘Because I’m good at it.’

He sat on the edge of the bed with a bowl of tomato soup on his lap. Chained to the bedposts Lena gratefully accepted each spoonful.

‘It can be very lonely at times. Don’t you miss interacting with other people?’

‘And what’s so good about that?’

‘You can make new friends.’

‘I don’t need friends, my paint brushes are my friend…’

Lena realised the only way she was getting out of this predicament was to outwit him somehow. She was hardly going to clobber him over the head or beat him up – a heavy weight versus a straw weight was no contest. So she continued to probe him looking for some weakness in his psyche.

‘…and besides, this way I get to be my own boss,’ he added.

‘Would you not like to meet a nice girl and fall in love?’

‘Huh! Love is for the Michelangelo’s of this world.’

She dribbled some of the soup on the corner of her mouth. He leaned forward automatically and dabbed at it with a napkin. Their eyes met and for a brief second a little message flicked back and forth between them. He quickly looked away from her. She tried really hard to entice his attentions again but he was having none of it.

‘But meeting other people can be such a source of inspiration. It can help to broaden your mind.’
‘I don’t need to broaden my mind.’

He continued to feed her the rest of the soup.

‘So what do you enjoy most about painting?’
Voltman stood up and crossed over to the sideboard and set the empty soup bowl down.

‘Escapism. I enjoy painting because it’s my world. I get to be God. I can paint whatever I want using whatever colours I choose…’

‘I thought you wanted to be the Devil.’
He looked at her sharply to see if she was joking.

‘Enough talk, we’ve work to do.’

He opened the top drawer and took out a blue nylon headscarf. Lena knew instinctively what he intended to do with it.

‘No, please… there’s no need, I promise I won’t make a sound.’

‘It’s funny but… Bella Kemp said the exact same thing.’

He crossed over to the bed and sat next to her.

‘There’s no need, really, I’ve learned my lesson.’

He lifted her head slightly and tied the scarf very tightly over her mouth.

‘Mmh, mmh!’

‘Ssssshhh, there’s a good girl,’ he whispered and kissed her cheek.

He got up again and this time walked over to the easel. He studied the drawing carefully and spoke to her at the same time.

‘You know what makes my collection of Scarlet Ladies so unique…?’ Lena shook her head.
‘They’re painted in blood, human blood.’

He turned and from the same shelf where he kept the stapler he took down a scalpel.

Lena whimpered when she saw the knife.

‘Ah, don’t be like that. Not many people get the chance to contribute something towards their own portrait. You should be grateful.’

She screamed and screamed but could not be heard as he slowly made his way towards her. The cramping pains, the bedsores, the numbing coldness were forgotten in an instant and replaced by extreme terror. She was now faced with the reality that she was going to be murdered. Just like the others. A Scarlet Lady. No knight in shinning armour was going to break down the door and save her at the last possible moment.

‘Mmmmmmhhh! Mmmmmmhhh!’

He sat on the bed next to her looking like Doctor Death in his white overalls.

‘There, there,’ he whispered, ‘don’t worry. I just want a little blood that’s all.’

Her pulse beat rocketed; 100, 200, 300. Tears stinging her eyes, stomach heaving up and down uncontrollably.

He delicately ran the smooth side of the scalpel over her eyelids and down the front of her face. Torturing her, teasing himself. He had a painter’s steady hand and the gentle caress of a lover. The cold, smooth blade passed over her throat before making its way south towards her nipple. He let the scalpel sit there for a second, contemplating, loitering with intent, should this be the spot to make that surgical incision? The razor sharp blade continued to probe her soft skin. It was almost like he was a trainee surgeon trying to pin point exactly a burst appendix. For a moment it seemed like she had earned a reprieve as the cold scalpel broke contact with her body. But Lena was too afraid to open her eyes and see where it had gone. In that split second her whole life flashed before her. Her Father’s funeral, her Mum - still living in Rotterdam with her younger sister, her boyfriend - Gio, her best friend - Carol, Lukas, her studies, her apartment, even her two cats Abbot and Costello. Suddenly he grabbed her ankle and held it, steady as a rock, as the knife found its way between her big toe and the one next it. She wailed a silent scream as it sliced the skin open as smoothly as a knife through soft Brie cheese right down to the metatarsal. She could feel the blood gushing from the wound. And then he sliced deeply around the ball of her foot and through the instep. The pain was excruciating, jolting through her body in waves of electric current.

The lights dimmed and then there was darkness.