“Are you who you say you are?” the Voice ventured.
“Or, are you a collection of lies: a façade of many facets? Are you a lie within a lie? Are you solid, are you fluid?”
“I don’t know!” Helen blurted, harried.
“You don’t know yourself? Are you so lost in the fabrication of your front that you have lost all touch with what was once a defined designation?” it taunted, a sensual edge rising from its hiding spot. Helen had been in this basement for hours, listening to a genderless voice pick and poke at her. She had been blindfolded in the beginning, but her captor had relieved her of that, hours ago. Now, here she sat, facing a workbench devoid of tools. Instead, the space was decorated by a tapered candle and a pack of cigarettes. The candle provided a creepy, intimate ambiance.
“Please! Let me go…”
A dark chuckle met her request.
“What do you want?” she whispered, snot plugging her nose.
“You know what I want,” It said, matter-of-fact.
“I’m not gonna fuck you!!” she screamed, feeling panic building its way back from under her control.
“No, no, silly. You know what I want.”
“NO, I DON’T, MOTHERFUCKER!!”
The voice stilled. She could hear it clear its throat. “Don’t play coy; the name of the game is disclosure: are you who you say you are?” It seemed amused, which was out of place with the context of the situation.
“Do you get off on asking people pseudo-deep questions?” Helen sobbed, nodding her head drowsily. In the haze of it all, she felt the raw adrenaline of being trapped beyond salvation. The adrenaline was making her lose track of time, at the moment. “How long have I been here?”
“4 hours, 2 minutes.”
“4.. 4 hours?? How.. how..?”
“Enough of that – are you who you say you are?”
“I’m Helen Briggs.. yes.. that’s who I am.”
“Are you sure? Have you never been anyone else?”
“No.. I’ve always been me.”
“Never Edson, Edson Briggs?”
“How—yes, but that wasn’t a different person, that was a name.”
“A driver’s licence; a home address; a bank account. Are these what make Helen 'Helen'?”
“If you’re implying that a name defines my sexual organs, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“Yours were altered.”
“Mine were scrambled, motherfucker. You’d rather I lived a life where the only people who would have had sex with me would have been perverts with fetishes?”
“Now, see, therein lies the problem, Helen,” the Voice mused. “What is wrong with mixed, hermaphroditic genitalia? Besides the social connotation, really, there is nothing to be ashamed of. It occurs in nature.”
“What are you, my mom? Tell that bullshit to any regular, red-blooded hetero man…”
“Are there any other types of blood out there?”
“Maybe aliens have blue blood.”
“Alas, you deviate from the topic at hand; are you who you say you are?”
“I thought we covered that. I was a semi-boy, now I’m a full-girl.”
“Who you present yourself to others as. Are you that person?”
“Wha.. maybe?”
The Voice stayed silent for a few minutes. Various places on Helen were itchy, stiff, or fevered. There was no clock, well, none that faced her. She listened intently for the telltale tick-tock of a regular clock. No such luck. The Voice must have a digital on Its wrist. She twisted her head back as far as she could. All that she saw was a wall, and the vague suggestion of a dark doorway.
“Hello, hello?” an electronic voice inquired. It repeated.
“Pardon my rudeness, I must attend to the door now,” the fading Voice said, leaving behind the distinct tap-creaaaaak of a staircase.
“Don’t you fucking leave me, you faceless spook!” she squealed, squirming in the homemade metal chair.
“Spook’s a derogatory term,” the Voice imparted, faint.
How far down am I?
The Voice left her alone for a while. She couldn’t determine how long. Everything still tingled, itched, or ached. She snorted her nose, hoping to clear it. All she got for her troubles was a splatter of wet snot on her lip. While she waited, she jiggled her head, and blew at the snot, trying to get it off. She could hear It coming back down the stairs. Slow, steady, patient – all of these words seemed to apply to the Voice’s stride down the steps. Tap-creaaak, tap-creaaaak, tap-creaaak.
“Allow me to get that,” It said, procuring a tissue from somewhere. She heard the fooptch sound of the tissue coming out of a box. A hand waved in front of her face, tidying the snot like a mother might.
"Now, back to the game: are you who you say you are..?"
Helen screamed, heaving and sobbing in frustration.
"Are you..?"