The Little Red Who Survived by Aleks McHugh

Now first off, thank you for caring to listen. Or I presume so.I waited a long time to speak about the conspiracy that tried to bend me to its will and deny me mine, starting with my right to self-pleasure at the age of 12, to be master of my own body.

Didn’t work. In fact, the ruin of my sex had the opposite effect. Despite its intent, and maybe ‘cause of it, my seared anatomy—as it was a cauterizing iron they took to me as I lay unconscious—became emblem of my soul, my defining wound, stigmata. You find that too garish? Well, I find it so myself. I too would like to pretend such things never happened, and in the name of medicine.  

But that was not the cause of my fame. In fact, you would have to search the annals of science to find record of it. No, it was due to something else entire.

‘The Little Red who escaped by virtue of her own wit and courage,’ that’s what they said about me in the papers. Another Grim Tale, they might’ve added, if they were fond of dark humour as I am. I was a subject of folklore. And there were even books written about me and the others. Though none of them got it just right.

It didn’t help that authorities tried to ban details of my case. That my captor was no rootless outcast, but a businessman with reputable connections. That I outsmarted him and without aid of any mythical woodsman. It wasn’t just ‘cause the truth implicated them. I think they feared it would encourage a dangerous boldness in others who are like me. There are places where you can read this alternate version, though you would have to really be dedicated in looking for it. And nowhere will you find my real name.

Not saying it was strictly alone I escaped. I was helped by a force of the universe, what some call the spark or Christ, or maybe Hanuman guiding me with his simian hand. I’m a believer in all of these—a correction that prevents the utter triumph of evil. Though for far too long, I was as Odetta sings—a true believer, but a long way from home.  

My good news came as that excuse to use his bathroom—yeah, I invented that trick of captives—and the further sighting of a butcher knife on his counter. I would’ve just run away if I could—I wasn’t looking for trouble, though I was always being accused of just that—excepting he would only uncuff me from the bedpost (he had first insisted I urinate right there in bed) once he tethered me with a rope at my ankle.

I was still sawing the thick coil when he came at me and tried to reattach the cuffs, catching one of my wrists. I then had no choice but to go at him, our death moan begun, during which he dislocated my shoulder and twice near-wrested the knife away. Again, fortune found my hand, and I stuck him deep and broke free.

From there I stumbled bloody and lame through the brush to the highway where some passing motorists picked me up. A hippie couple, their van smelling of burnt rope and sandalwood—they were only too willing to drive me to emergency, once I dropped my knife.

With both of us critically wounded in the incident, we came to be treated in the same hospital, and him in the room right next to me. And while I had no visitors—no one even knew I was there till the washerwomen learned of my plight—he was besieged, counting amongst his friends, criminal elements, police and civic leaders alike. Two of his associates, their insignia in plain view, stumbled into my room and muttered regrets about unfortunate mistakes, which I rightly took as a warning.

I reported it anyway. I swear I did. Yet, he was never charged. The investigating officer classed his wounds as defensive, having deemed me a bad witness. You see, I had been in and out of institutions my whole life, and was at that point known to sell my sex, and to work the system. This last trait especially cemented my status as manipulative and a liar.

So it didn’t matter that I came to hospital with his cuff dangling off my wrist, the key, still in his pants pocket, taken into evidence with the rest of his clothes. It wasn’t examined until many years later, only once our families forced an Inquiry. If they did so at the time, they’d have discovered not only the key, but traces of two other guests of his Retreat who were then missing. If they had searched his lair, they would have found personal effects, including our IDs. Instead, he went on to prey on many other unfortunates.

Neither was it the last attempt to usurp my will. I escaped many times. I had to. I was tracked into a loop that kept circling back to captivity and near death and, just as my noose was tightening, escape, as in erotic asphyxiation. That being the nature of my Black Iron Prison.

The little red who survived. But I wished I hadn’t.  

Aleks McHugh

Image by Ronny Overhate from Pixabay – sharp butchers knife.