Their names were Bonnie and Greta. Charlie knew this because he had been listening very carefully to their private exchanges, his musician’s ear tuned into their nervous whispering. After a long time bickering and hesitating the two women had finally reached the decision to call Ben and tell him of Charlie’s unexpected arrival in the Looking Glass station. But just before Bonnie entered the coms room, she turned on her heels, seeming to change her mind.

“No wait…” she wavered. “Ben said we weren’t to break radio silence. Those were his orders. The moment we stop following orders this whole thing falls apart! We’ll just have to deal with the intruder ourselves…”

Greta chewed her lip and nodded compliantly. Charlie snorted, knowing that whatever they chose to do, the station was still going to flood. He was still going to die. If only he could make them understand the futility of all.

Bonnie circled his chair like a preying lioness, lashing at his face and yanking his hair. Charlie spat blood on the floor, ran his tongue over his loose teeth and held her stare without blinking. He had learnt to take punches long ago from harder fists than Bonnie’s slender hands. Charlie wasn’t intimidated by this woman. He wasn’t scared of anything anymore. He ignored her questions and began humming a tune under his breath. Bonnie slammed her elbow into his jaw.

“I told you to stop singing, you little freak!” she raged.

Greta stood on the sidelines, wincing over every blow. Charlie threw sly smiles in her direction. It seemed she was the good cop, the soft touch. She clung to Bonnie’s arm and begged her to stop hurting him.

“Why should I?” Bonnie hissed. “When his people caught Ben they beat him to a bloody pulp! They would’ve killed him if not for Michael…”

She frowned for a moment, seeming to consider this treatment of her leader. Then she raised her gun and pressed its cold hard muzzle to Charlie’s forehead. He still didn’t blink. Greta made a little mewling sound in her throat like a child who doesn’t want to see a harmless insect killed without need.

“Please…you can’t just shoot him!” she pleaded. “Think about it, Bonnie. He’s more use to us alive. What if more of his people swim down here? We need to keep him hostage so we can make them go away again!”  

Greta pressed her brow to Bonnie’s shoulder. Then she lifted her head and laid a trail of desperate kisses along the other woman’s neck. Charlie blinked his eyes realising that the two of them were lovers.  

Bonnie released a sigh and lowered her gun.

~*~

“I need to take a piss…” Charlie announced.

An hour had passed in silence before he made this declaration. Greta was sitting meekly in the corner while Bonnie paced the chamber, grinding her teeth like rusty saws. She halted and scowled at Charlie as he sat fidgeting with discomfort. For a moment he thought she might punch him again. Instead she cut the ropes binding him to the chair and ordered him to put his hands behind his head. He was led at gunpoint to a door on the left side of the chamber.

Through this door he entered the room which passed for the women’s living quarters; there were two beds on opposing walls and a short passageway that linked to a shower room and pantry. Greta stretched and flopped down on one of the unmade beds. From the look and smell of their sheets it seemed the girls had been sharing for a long time before Charlie arrived. After he had used their toilet, Bonnie ordered him to lie down on the spare bed and raise his hands. She bound his wrists together and fastened them to the pipes lining the wall above his head.

“We’ll talk again in the morning…” said Bonnie, her voice heavy with exhaustion. “…until then you lay still and shut your mouth.”

Bonnie tied a ragged blindfold over Charlie’s eyes so that he couldn’t see the girl’s undressing and slipping underneath the blanket together. But Charlie could still hear everything that was going on just a little way across the room. Greta was noisy in bed and Bonnie was rough. The squeal of mattress springs, the sharp intakes of breath and the moist slaps of palms on naked skin threw up wild erotic images in his mind which threatened to tip him over the edge. It had been a long three months. Charlie moaned and squirmed in his restraints yearning to have his hands free so he could reach down and relieve his own throbbing arousal.

Bonnie’s laughter echoed off the walls. She seemed thrilled to have found a new way of torturing him...

~*~

Charlie spent most of the following week tied to the bed, his wrists growing raw and blistered under the coarse rope that secured them to the pipes. Every morning Bonnie would pull up a chair beside him and continue with her interrogation. Charlie continued to respond to her with the same irritating nonsensical answers. He loved to wind her up. Sometimes Bonnie would slap him for his insolence. Other times she would just roll her eyes and pinch her temples.

“When are you gonna start giving me some straight answers, Charlie?” she asked him one morning after several hours of questioning.

He smirked teasingly. “Maybe when you start asking me nicely…” 

Her stony expression had broken, a smile coasting onto her lips. Just as suddenly Bonnie had flushed with indignation; annoyed with herself for finding him funny. It amused Charlie to think he was wearing her down faster than she was wearing him. He liked playing these little games and trying to make Bonnie laugh. It was the only way he could claim a victory over his captor.

Greta was far more considerate of him. She would give Charlie water from a bottle and feed him soup out of cans. She cleaned the cuts on his face and treated them with iodine to prevent infection. When Charlie started to complain of stiffness and cramps, Greta had appealed to Bonnie to allow him a walk each day. Bonnie had insisted that Greta kept his hands tied and a gun to his back, but she grudgingly permitted her to take Charlie on strolls around the moon pool.

On their walks, Greta would talk incessantly about her family, her childhood and all the things that she was missing from home. She seemed to relish the chance to have someone new to talk to. Bonnie never had much time for light pleasant conversation and Charlie was a good listener. Greta especially liked to talk to him about her dog, Pepper, who she had left behind with her parents two years ago. She didn’t know if her beloved pet was still alive, but Charlie could tell by the yearning in her voice that Greta would much rather be walking Pepper in the sunshine than walking him around this gloomy station on the ocean bed.   

“I’m sorry this isn’t a very nice place for walking, Charlie…” Greta said out of the blue one listless afternoon.  

Charlie raised his head and looked into the girl’s dark solemn eyes. He wondered for a moment why she was bothering to make an apology to her prisoner. When he saw her expression he understood. Greta was a prisoner here too. So was Bonnie though she would never admit to it. These women were bound to their orders. Every day they were waiting for somebody to release them.  

Charlie gazed around the chamber, his eyes drifting over its filthy grey walls and upwards to its jagged metal rafters. The pressurised air was tight, moist and salty. It felt like they were inside a ribcage; trapped in the belly of a whale. Charlie began to remember the story of Jonah from his Sunday school classes. Jonah, the man who had been tossed into the sea by his crewmates, a sacrifice offered to calm a raging storm. But Jonah had not died. He had been swallowed by a whale and held prisoner in its stomach until God had told the beast to spit him up again. Charlie shut his eyes and prayed for the station to puke its guts out.

~*~

One night Charlie awoke from a fitful sleep to hear Bonnie and Greta fighting in the main chamber. He lifted his head so his ears weren’t muffled by his arms which were stretched up towards the pipes where his hands were bound. Before he could clearly discern any of their argument, Greta came storming into the bedroom. She slammed the metal door behind her and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Hot bitter tears were streaming over her flushed cheeks.   

“I hate this place,” she sobbed. “I’ve always hated this damned island! I hate Ben too. Why won’t he let us communicate with the mainland, huh? Why won’t he even let us talk with our old campmates any more?! He’s left us to rot down here! We haven’t seen daylight in weeks! God, I need to get out of here. If Bonnie really loved me, then she would take me away from this awful place. But all Bonnie cares about is Ben and Jacob and her damned orders!”  

Greta was still whimpering as she crawled over to the bed and climbed onto the mattress beside Charlie. She wept against his shoulder, dampening his sleeve. Then in slow moments Greta reached up and untied his hands.

“Would…would you please hold me?” she stammered.

Charlie was too shocked for a moment to do anything but comply. With his hands free, he could attempt to overpower her, but Greta was crying now and he didn’t have the heart to strike her. After a few minutes her sobbing died down. She leaned close to Charlie and breathed a shaky whisper into his ear.  

“The numbers on the keypad are notes. It was programmed by musician. The code to turn off the jamming equipment is ‘Good Vibrations’ by the Beach Boys. So now you know, Charlie. I’m glad you came here. I hope you do fulfil your destiny and switch the thing off. Then maybe we can all go home…”

Greta took his face between her hands and kissed him. She kissed him as though she had been starving for weeks and his mouth were a ripe piece of fruit. Charlie returned the kiss with the same fever of desperation, realising that he too had been starving. He had never kissed Claire this way. With Claire it was always light brushes against closed lips. She was too soft and delicate to be devoured. Greta kissed him with such a fierceness the cuts on his lips split and bled into their mouths. It was like she was kissing an open wound. Maybe she was.   

“You…you dirty little tramp!!”

The shriek came from the doorway. A rough hand seized Charlie by his collar and threw him to the floor. Charlie lifted his head to see Bonnie standing over him. Before he could speak she kicked him in the chest, her hard leather boots slamming into his ribs. Greta screamed and pleaded for her to stop, but Bonnie wasn’t nearly through. She took a length of rope, knotted one end around Charlie’s wrists and held the other in her fist like a tether. Bonnie dragged him through into the main chamber. Charlie stumbled behind her, winded and gasping. He felt weak and bloodless as a veal calf. Bonnie brought him to the edge of the moon pool. With one hard shove between his shoulder blades she forced him into the water.   

Charlie frantically kicked his legs, trying desperately to keep his head above sea level. Bonnie had him dangling like a worm on a hook. She tugged the rope, bringing him closer to the brim. She caught hold of his hair and dunked him under. Charlie flailed and panicked. He had always had a slight fear of water, which had hardly improved since Desmond had told him he was fated to drown. The pressure in his lungs was burning now. When Charlie opened his mouth to scream, the saltwater rushed into his throat, clogging his air passage...

His mind was reeling as he choked and thrashed. He couldn’t drown now. He wasn’t ready. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. He had to turn off the equipment first. He had to make sure his friends were rescued. If he died now it would all be for nothing. His mission, his life, everything…      

~*~

He must have blacked out.

When Charlie came to he was lying on his back on the ledge of the moon pool. A hand was stroking the wet hair from his brow. He coughed and moaned. He could hear Bonnie and Greta talking over his head.  

“Don’t ever do that again...” said Greta. “I mean it. If you hurt him anymore I’ll leave you. I’ll take one of the diving suits and swim away from this station. I’ll join his camp like Juliet did. I don’t have to stay here with you.”

Greta’s tone was calm, but deadly serious. He could hear Bonnie shuffling nervously, making guilty swallowing sounds in her throat.   

“I’m sorry for trying to drown your pet…” she muttered.  

Greta managed a shaky smile. The two women kissed to seal their truce. Then they took Charlie by the arms and lifted him from the floor. They lead him staggering back to their sleeping quarters where they stripped him of his wet clothes. Greta wrapped a towel around his trembling shoulders and then pulled him into their bed, pressing her body and their blankets closely around his goose-pimpled flesh. Bonnie frowned at them in confusion and annoyance. Charlie couldn’t resist leaning into Greta’s hold, enjoying Bonnie’s looks of seething jealously.

“He’s freezing, Bonnie,” Greta reasoned. “He’ll catch a chill if we make him sleep on his own. We don’t want him falling ill on us…”

Bonnie sighed as she realised what she must do to win Greta back. She locked eyes with Charlie and reached down to grasp his chin.

“Let’s make one thing clear before we get into this…” she hissed. “You are not screwing us. We’re screwing with you.”  

Charlie was tied up and blindfolded as always. There were certain rules that didn’t change. He didn’t try any sudden moves, but simply allowed the women to guide his bound hands over the parts of their body that they wished to be touched, teased and fingered. If Charlie did these things well, then he would feel two pairs of lips against his neck, two sets of breasts against his chest and two tongues trailing down from his nipples to his bellybutton. He didn’t blame them for drawing the line at intercourse considering the threat pregnancy held to the women of this island, but he was whimpering with gratitude when they had the tender mercy to clasp hands around his cock and grant him his own blessed moment of release.   

He could hear Greta squealing with delight. She seemed to be cherishing this new experience of sexual dominance. Before Charlie came along she had clearly been the submissive in their relationship. Bonnie and Greta were just like a bored couple who had bought themselves a new toy to spice up their sex life. Charlie didn’t object to their games. After all this wasn’t the first time two women had wanted to tie him up and molest him. Threesomes had been a regular occurrence when he was touring with the band. It felt almost nostalgic. For some reason female fans had always liked to seduce him in pairs and take charge of him in bed. Charlie was always content to be their plaything for the evening. Their little rockstar doll.

When it came to sex Charlie felt like he knew everything and nothing. For all his countless liaisons he had never slept with a girl that he loved. In all honestly he had never slept with a girl whose name he could still remember. Yet even when he had learnt of his imminent death, Charlie felt no desire to sleep with Claire. That isn’t to say he wasn’t attracted to Claire. She was the most adorably beautiful girl he had ever seen. He had fallen madly in love with her at first glance. But sex was something that had become very sullied and sinful in his mind. Charlie felt like his love for Claire was the only part of him that still remained pure.    

When it was over, Bonnie and Greta slumped down beside him, gently twisting his hair with their fingers. Charlie felt the warmth seeping back into his body. A little warmth to hold off the chill of creeping death…

~*~

Charlie, Bonnie and Greta slept twined together on the small bed for several nights afterwards. The two women who always seemed so tense and frustrated in the day slept peacefully at night, breathing easy as they cuddled their Charlie bear between them. Their prisoner lay restless; his eyes wide open beneath his blindfold, his wrists twisting in the ropes that encircled them.

A hot ball of shame was swelling in his chest. Charlie hadn’t swum down to this station to get caught up in Bonnie and Greta’s psychotic relationship. He had a task to complete. His friends were all counting on him switch off the jamming device. If he failed they wouldn’t be rescued. And while they waited Charlie was lazing through his captivity, lingering in the respite and sleeping with the enemy. He had submitted to Bonnie and Greta so easily. He hadn’t even considered resisting them. He was so used to consenting to casual meaningless sex. Liam had always drilled it into Charlie that if one or better yet two attractive women want to sleep with him then he would have to be out of his mind to refuse them. Now Charlie was thinking that he must be crazy to have allowed himself to get drawn into this.      

Charlie winced as remembered Claire confessing to him that she had been friendly with Ethan. She had taken walks with him and received gifts from him during the time he had held her prisoner. Charlie had been hurt and sickened by the thought of Claire practically courting that evil creep who had kidnapped her and hung him from a tree. Claire explained that she must have been drugged at the time and hadn’t really understood Ethan’s intentions. Charlie had nodded and told her that it was okay, but deep down he felt a stinging sense of betrayal. And now here he was; doing the same thing and much worse besides. Maybe this was some sort of coping mechanism, but it felt more like a submission.

Charlie had no chance of accomplishing his mission while he remained their helpless prisoner. He could feel himself growing weaker by the day. He was losing weight and his muscles were slackening. When his clothes had fallen to rags Greta had dressed him in a set of her own vests and combats. Charlie was embarrassed by how well the women’s clothes fit him. He wasn’t any bigger than them. He was starting to realise he didn’t have the strength to fight back. He was being made to feel very emasculated and degraded through this conditioning. The girls were doing press ups and lifting weights every morning while he lay bound on the mattress, a little bug wrapped in their web, slowly being drained of life.  

Charlie wondered what was happening to his friends. Were Claire and Aaron safe? Had Sayid, Jin and Bernard survived their mission? He thought of Desmond waking up in the outrigger and finding himself alone. The Scotsman must have told his old campmates that he had drowned. They probably thought he had failed in this attempt. But Charlie hadn’t failed…not yet…

Desmond had never given him any guarantees as to when his latest stream of flashes would be taking place. Charlie ought to have been happy to postpone the moment of his drowning, but the looming threat of death was still tormenting his dreams. The pillow under his head seemed to harden. It felt like his head was resting on the block waiting for an axe to fall. There was a part of him that just wanted it to be over with. He needed to escape these fears and shadows before they drove him crazy…as crazy as the two women who slept by his side.

Bonnie and Greta had been down here too long. Charlie didn’t want to become like them. He wanted to die in his right mind. It was time for him to seize fate with his own hands.

~*~

The following evening Charlie was lying curled up on the mattress when he heard the sound of laughing and clapping in the main chamber. The girls were celebrating something. He heard Greta’s voice yelling – “Let’s get the musician! Pleeeease!” There were some more hysterical giggles and then some clumping footsteps. The two women burst into the living quarters and came staggering towards the bed, their arms slung about each other’s shoulders. Greta collapsed on top of Charlie, kissing him clumsily on the mouth. Her breath was hot and smelt of spirits.

“It’s my birthday, Charlie!” she exclaimed. “We’re having a party!”

Charlie felt a pang of sympathy for her. He couldn’t even imagine a birthday party in this filthy underwater dungeon. But he wasn’t going to object to being freed from the bed. Greta cut him loose and took him playfully by the hand, leading him through to the main chamber. Charlie didn’t try anything. Bonnie was waving her gun around and in her drunken state he feared that her finger might slip on the trigger.

The two women led him over to the table where a half-eaten Dharma sponge cake sat beside a half empty bottle of Dharma gin. Greta sat Charlie down in a chair and pulled his hands behind its back, tying them carelessly with a short length of cord. Then she leant against the table, wiped a hand over the top of her cake and had Charlie lick the cream off her fingers. Bonnie picked up the bottle of gin and tipped a large slug of it down his throat, causing him to splutter. The girls laughed and ruffled his hair. Then they took their places around the table.

“Sing for me, Charlie,” Greta cooed. “Sing me happy birthday...”

Charlie drew a breath. He realised Greta had made the thongs too big for his skinny wrists. He could slip them out of the cords with little effort. He began to sing. Greta smiled dreamily. Charlie didn’t think his voice was that good, but the girl was pissed and must have been deprived of music for months. Bonnie gazed adoringly at her girlfriend and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

That was all he needed. Charlie tugged his arms free, snatched the gun from Bonnie’s limp hand and staggered back from the table. He raised the pistol at the two startled women. Bonnie immediately started to advance on him, her jaw slack and her fists bunched into angry red knots.

“Give me that back!” she demanded. “Give it me now, Charlie! Stupid little popstar. You don’t even know how to use a gun!”

This was a familiar assumption. Charlie’s smile lengthened.

“Guns? Piece of cake! They just go off in your hand.”

Charlie fired a bullet at the bottle of gin, shattering it into pieces. For a beginner he was a bloody good shot. Their old mate Ethan would attest to that. Greta screamed and stared at Charlie in tearful confusion. He felt a little sorry for ruining her party, but there were more important things at stake than her birthday wishes. Claire and Aaron needed to get on that helicopter.

Charlie ran inside the coms room and bolted the door behind him. He was already humming Good Vibrations under his breath. He had been going over the notes in his head ever since Greta had told him it was the code to disable the jammer. He tested the buttons on the key pad, figuring out which numbers correlated with each note. It would only take him a few minutes.

Meanwhile he could hear Greta screaming her head off in the main chamber. Bonnie was banging her fists against the porthole window. Charlie whipped his head around and saw she was holding up a grenade.

“Charlie, if you don’t open the door right now I’m gonna blow it off its hinges! Is that what you want, you limey fucker!” 

Charlie felt his heart thundering in his chest. The woman was bloody insane. He swallowed as he realised this was how Desmond’s vision was going to happen. He was going to type in the code and unblock the signals. Then Bonnie would detonate the bomb, causing the hull to crack and the station to flood. They were all going to drown. That was how it was going to happen.   

Bonnie began counting to five. Greta tugged at her arm, sobbing and pleading in her terror. Charlie’s fingers stiffened over the numbers. He couldn’t go through with it. He was prepared to sacrifice his own life and he didn’t mind taking Bonnie with him, but he couldn’t do this to Greta. The girl was afraid to die. She had saved his life more than once and had protected him from Bonnie’s foul temper so many times. He had to save her in return. Destiny would have to wait.

Charlie held up his hands so that Bonnie could see them.

“Okay, okay…I’m coming out!” he called.

Suddenly the sound of gunfire erupted in the main chamber. Charlie ducked down, instinctively covering his head. He crouched low for a moment, trembling and panting for breath. 

Then slowly he reached for the locks...

~*~

Bonnie and Greta lay sprawling in puddles of their own blood. Their milky eyes were turned upwards to the ceiling. Charlie stared down at their lifeless bodies, the shock breaking over him in slow shuddering waves. He raised his head to see Sayid and Desmond standing on the ledge of the moon pool. The two men were holding raised pistols in their hands. When they saw Charlie emerging from the coms room, they holstered their weapons and ran over to him. They cheerfully threw their arms around Charlie, embracing him fondly, but he slipped through their hands and fell to his knees beside Greta’s body. His lips contorted and stammered, his eyes pooling with tears. Sayid placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“It’s alright, Charlie,” he soothed. “You’re safe now.” 

Sayid seemed to think Charlie was simply suffering with post traumatic stress after his long captivity ordeal. The soldier rose to his feet and stepped into the coms room to investigate the equipment. Desmond stayed with Charlie, rubbing his back as he gasped and sobbed. Slowly it appeared to dawn on Desmond that his friend was grieving over his dead captors. He sighed. 

“We had no choice, brother. That blonde lassie was holding a grenade. She was about to remove the pin. The other girl jumped in the path of the gunfire when we started shooting. I guess she was trying to protect her friend.” 

Desmond suddenly clasped hold of Charlie’s shoulders and gently turned him round so that he was looking him in the eyes.

“I’ve been having more flashes, Charlie. I thought they had stopped, but…but this morning I started to see a bigger picture. I realised you were still alive down here. And that’s not all, brother. I’ve been having more visions of those rescue helicopters. I noticed something that I had missed before. When Claire climbs aboard she hands Aaron to a passenger who is already sitting inside. That passenger is you, Charlie. I realised I was meant to change the vision. We came down here to save your life, brother…because you’re gonna be rescued too!”    

Desmond smiled breathlessly as he waited for Charlie respond to the first piece of good news he had ever given him. Charlie pushed Desmond’s hands away, screwing up his face and shaking his head. He had reached the stage where he could no longer believe there was any hope for his salvation or anyone elses. The universe was too merciless to allow it. He raised Greta’s shoulders and cradled her head against his knees. Suddenly Sayid was calling him from the coms room.    

“Charlie…it appears that there is some sort of musical code locking the equipment. Can you come and help me decipher it?”  

Charlie didn’t answer. He watched the blood trickling from Greta’s lips, those lips which had once soothed his bruises and warmed his chills. He closed her eyes and wiped the last of the tears from her cheeks. Charlie was hardly aware that Desmond was looking at him with grave concern as he stroked his fingers over the dead girl’s hair. In a quiet voice, he finished her song.

“Happy birthday, dear Greta…happy birthday to you.”

The End

This story is continued in 'Washed Ashore' (Part One, Part Two) 
An epilogue fic written by  

pacejunkie