Thirty Days Of Lolly

The first thing I noticed was the smell… all fresh and green like pine trees with maybe a bit of the sea. Then, as my eyes started to open, there was the light… soft and gentle yet, somehow, natural. And everything was a lovely soft peachy pink colour. 

At last, I was awake enough to look around. I was in a perfect bedroom, lying in a lovely soft bed which was absolutely enormous with heaps of cushions and pillows and things. There were even a couple of teddy bears in there with me. The baby one had a heart on his tummy which was fun and the Daddy one was enormous. Somehow, my arms had wrapped around him in the night.

There was a bookshelf, a dressing table with a mirror, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers all made of lovely wood which had been polished so much that it looked like it was glowing. The dressing table even had a pretty bunch of flowers on it.

I slipped out of bed to have a bit more of a look around. The bookshelf had basically every book I’d ever heard of: Harry Potter and The Hunger Games and Twilight and everything. There were also various horses and cats and things on the shelves, all made of metal, sort of propping up the books.

Then I noticed that all the cupboard and drawer handles were shaped like curled up pussycats. That was all kinds of fun and made me smile.

The window had two different sorts of curtains. The ordinary ones had pictures of pink, blossomy trees on them but they were open. The other ones were just white, gauzy things. I pushed them aside and was dazzled by brilliant sunshine… I guess that’s why they needed the gauzy curtains!

When my eyes got used to the light, I looked out and the view was basically perfect too: a garden with grass and flowers and trees and, across the other side, there was a huge swimming pool with lying-down chairs and things. Beyond the garden, a little valley with trees and stuff ran down to a blue, blue sea which seemed to stretch out forever.

Behind the bed, there were half a dozen pictures, all pencil sketches of a girl, probably the same girl: on the beach; playing netball; walking across a park; turning round to look at a picture in an art gallery. The artist had really concentrated on this one girl… everything else seemed to sort of blur into the background… and he’d only really concentrated on the shape of her body. Her arms and legs and even her head were just rough blobs. Even her body was just drawn with a tiny number of lines but you still really got the feeling of what she was all about. You could see that she was about as old as me and she had a really good figure. I loved the netball one. It had this amazing feeling of total movement and life about it as she jumped and bent and stretched.

But there was something funny about those pictures… maybe they were even a bit creepy.

I sort of tried to get my head around what was going on… where was I… and how had I got here? But it wasn’t easy because everything felt a bit mushy. The last thing I remembered, I was heading home from school. There were roadworks with flashing lights … and a white van… then there were men all around me… and a funny smell

And the next thing I knew, I was waking up here.

I was still trying to work out what was going on when there was a knock on the door and I suddenly realised that all I was wearing was a nightie. It was very pretty with lace and everything but it was really short. So I hopped back into bed and said, “Hello?”

A man walked into the room. He was tall… well over six feet. I mean, I’m not exactly tiny but he would loom over me. He was muscly with shiny blue eyes which seemed to flash everywhere and, when he looked at you, they seemed to burn right inside you. He had short, tidy dark hair with just some little flashes of grey around his ears and he was wearing a pair of beige chino things and a smart, office type shirt with blue and white stripes and the sleeves rolled up. He was carrying a tray with two cups on it… proper posh cups with saucers.

“Move over, please,” he told me.

There was something a bit funny about the way he talked and I sort of guessed he wasn’t English… or even American..

He put the tray down on my bedside table. And, when I shuffled across, he shocked me by sitting down on the bed next to me. But, before I got the chance to think about how weird that was, he handed me one of the cups. “I made you a hot chocolate,” he said. “I hope that is acceptable.”

“Erm… yeah, sure, I guess…”

I took a nervous sip and it was the most delicious thing I’d ever drunk… creamy and chocolatey and just perfect. He was drinking some sort of evil-looking black coffee.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

“Yeah… I guess…” I answered. I mean, the whole situation was totally weird and freaky.

“And is the room satisfactory?”

“It’s really lovely.”

There was a short pause so I sort of pulled myself together and tried, “Erm… who are you… and where are we… and what’s going on?”

“I appreciate that you have all sorts of questions but I am unable to answer them for now,” he replied. “But you will receive an explanation eventually.”

“But I’ve got to know what you’re called, at least.”

“Young lady,” he sounded more bored than annoyed, “I have given you an answer and further nagging will not change my decision. Is that clear?”

I gave a sigh and said, “I guess.”

He gave me a bit of a glare.

I mean, I didn’t much like the idea of him bossing me around but then I sort of worked out that I was in bed… wearing nothing but a nightie… with this weird man sitting next to me… and nobody else around. And that meant it was probably a really bad idea to go winding him up too much. So I did the, ‘Yes, sir,’ thing for him like a good little girl.

He replied with a smile and a nod.

I took another sip of my drink then stared out at the world for a bit over the rim of my cup. “Can I ask one thing, at least,” I said at last. “You’re not planning on doing… you know… horrible stuff to me… are you?”

He chuckled at that then leaned down and kissed me on top of the head. It felt a bit weird but nothing like as nasty as you’d have thought. “No, Treasure,” he replied. “I have no intention of ‘doing horrible stuff’ to you.”

I suppose that had to be a good thing… and it wasn’t like he had any reason to lie.

So I felt a bit more comfortable as we drank up our drinks together.

When we were done, he took my cup and said, “There’s a bathroom behind that door, clothes in the wardrobe and underwear in the chest of drawers. Go and make yourself clean and shiny then come downstairs for breakfast.”

“Yes, sir!” I replied in a totally over the top way like I was a soldier or something! Breakfast sounded like a really good idea.

At least I made him smile.

He stood up and popped the cups back on the tray but, before he turned to go, he leaned down and bopped another kiss on the top of my head.

And I was smiling as I watched him leave.

I just lay there for a minute, trying to get my head round what’d just happened. I mean, I’d never had that much to do with proper men so I didn’t exactly know what to expect but he’d left me with this funny feeling in my tummy

And I definitely didn’t get the feeling that he was planning to do anything nasty to me.

And it wasn’t like there was a lot I could do about it anyway.

So I hopped out of bed. The door had a lock on it so I popped that on. It was a simple thing… the sort you’d be able to open easily from the outside… but at least it’d stop the guy from wandering in on me by accident when I was changing.

Then I looked in the wardrobe. There were all sorts of different things hanging up in there… shorts and T-shirts and skirts and dresses and things… they were all a bit short. I mean, not stupidly short or anything but they’d certainly show off plenty of my arms and legs. Also, everything in there was white.

I mean, that’d work for me because I have quite dark skin… my mum had once let slip that my dad was Spanish or something… but still, a bit odd!

I grabbed a sleeveless T-shirt… I liked it because it had a pretty lace thing going on around the collar… and a short skirt. Then I looked in the underwear drawer.

Ah!

There were plenty of pairs of neat, sensible knickers… all white too but some of them had a pretty lacy thing going on… but no bras. Not that I really needed them but I was sort of in the habit of wearing one. Also, there were no socks and… I checked round the room… no shoes or anything. I was going to be running around in bare feet.

So I chucked the clothes on the bed and headed for the bathroom. But, as I stepped inside, I came to a grinding halt.

The place was totally amazing… like in a luxury hotel or something.

It was all done out in swirly white stone and all the taps and things were gold. Over in one corner, there was a bath the size of a small swimming pool… it even had totally over the top lion’s feet.

There was a separate shower bit… no shower curtain or door or anything… I guess, if your bathroom is big enough, you don’t have to bother with that kind of stuff. It had a long rack stretching from floor to ceiling with every kind of shampoo and body wash a girl could ever possibly want.

After taking a second to get my head back in gear, I stripped off the nightie and hopped under the shower to do the ‘clean and shiny’ thing for him.

I spent ages in there. At first, I was busy trying to work out what was going on with the three million different controls which could do everything from a warm tropical deluge to little needles of water that were so sharp they pretty much peeled your skin off. But, once I’d sorted that out, I spent a while trying to get my head around what was going on. I’d been kidnapped… that much was obvious. But it couldn’t be for money… my mum basically didn’t have any money and had to work two jobs just to pay the bills… and, anyway, the guy was obviously rolling in cash.

So he basically had to be after me for my body… except that that really didn’t work either. I mean, he’d sat on my bed and given me a little kiss when I’d been messing around… but that was just kind of friendly… I didn’t get the feeling that there was any nasty stuff going on. And, even if the clothes were a bit on the short side, they were all completely decent.

It just didn’t make any sense.

But then I did a sort of shrug thing… there was just nothing I could do about it anyway.

So I hopped out of the shower and wrapped myself up in a wonderfully fluffy towel the size of a small car park. I dried myself off and popped on the clothes… they were a bit on the tight side but not too stupid. I was about to head off down to breakfast but then I remembered his ‘clean and shiny’ thing and worked out he would probably want me to sort myself out before I went down.

So I sat down at the vanity table and investigated the drawers. There were nail files and things but no make-up… probably a good thing. I mean, I’d messed about with the stuff a bit in the past but it never really worked and I always ended up looking totally stupid.

At least there was a hairbrush so I tidied up my hair… it’s only shoulder length so it doesn’t need too much messing around. Then I checked myself over in the mirror one last time. I wasn’t really sure what he expected so I guessed I would have to do.

With that, I headed for the door.