Whipped with Whips

Darkness strikes
once again
I’m all alone
it feels like the end

He walks with me
while I sleep
It’s like a heart attack
on a one way street

I can’t sleep tonight
‘cause I gotta run, gotta hide

And I’m running, running from this nightmare
I turn around, but there’s no one there
And I’m running, running from this nightmare
Running, running from this nightmare
–Tuesday Knight, Running from This Nightmare

Twelve-year-old Veruca Salt ran across the floor, her black Mary Jane shoes hitting the hard wood as she ran down the hallway. Walking briskly behind her, his cane hitting the hard floor with every step, was none other than Willy Wonka.

She had to run. She had to get away....from him. And she knew why – it was because he loved the chase, and he loved it when they ran.

Is this how the other victims of those kidnappers I would often read about felt whenever they tried to escape them – and failed?

The question rang in her mind as she kept running. However, she stopped when she saw it.

A pair of red double doors. She knew that they were locked. She didn’t know how she knew; she just knew.

Veruca felt so. . . dirty. So unclean. She felt as though she had been violated.

But that wasn’t the scary part.

The scary part was. . . she had been ordered to keep it a secret.

And the “it” part....

Veruca tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry like the Sahara Desert. Then he walked up, and his shadow covered her.

“My dear little Veruca,” she heard him say in a mocking parody of concern, “you always have to run from me.”

He then bent down so that he was level with her eyes. Then his purple-gloved left hand reached up and grabbed her chin. The action forced her to look at him directly.

Then he said,
“You really should be more careful, little girl. After all, I thought I could... whip you into being disciplined into being the perfect chocolatier, and learning about, of all the things there are in the world... pleasure.”

As she heard the words “whip” and “pleasure”, she shuddered. Then, she remembered everything that had happened...

*Flashback*

Veruca was holding onto a silver metal bar. She was naked down to the waist, and her ankles were tied together with brown rope.

She bit her lower lip, struggling to keep under control a whirlwind of emotions that had surfaced in her mind just then. But, most importantly, she was doing her best not to scream. She felt it would provoke him.

As she tried to tighten her grip on the silver metal bar hanging over her head, Veruca kept her eyes shut tight. She felt sure that she could see, in her mind’s eye, the crimson life force creeping out of the wounds in her back and running down it like a crimson-red river of some kind.

As she felt the pink whips lashing her back again and again, Veruca shuddered. She then tried to keep her mind off the lashings she was receiving by imagining something else.

Being in her bedroom at home in Buckinghamshire... painting a picture on a piece of white paper with a variety of colors, especially brown, pink and purple... eating vanilla ice cream with a few rivers of chocolate syrup flowing down it from a bowl...

“Little girl.”

It was his voice. It was like velvet. Simply seductive, inspiring and very acutely articulate. Sensuous, sharp, tempting.

She heard his cowboylike boots tapping the floor as he walked over to her, and cringed upon feeling his gloved fingers stroking her naked, bloody back.

“Don’t touch me,” Veruca whispered. She was still feeling the effects of the lashings. “Please, take your hands off me.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Mr. Wonka, and then added, “Little Miss Temptress.”

That word – well, the phrase, actually – instantly started a fire in both Veruca’s mind and in her soul. Before she could ask what he meant, or before she knew what was happening or about to transpire, she then found herself lying on a bed with red silk sheets and black pillows – face down, to be precise.

But before she could try to turn herself around so that she was face up and lying on the bed, Veruca then felt his fingers stroking the naked skin of her back, thus stopping her progress...

Veruca blinked as the memories suddenly came back to her. They were images, sharp and clear as shards of glass on a wooden floor, or a clean, flowing river.

She looked up, and her eyes widened as the realization of where she was now came to her. It was the “Whipped Cream” room – the very same room that she had seen that fateful February day when she was on the boat ride along with the others.

“Little girl, always remember.... whipped cream isn’t what it is unless it’s been whipped with whips.”

Veruca’s screams rang through the room, but no one heard her, as Mr. Wonka had made the rooms soundproof.