Confined

by Bernard Wilkerson

The sixth or seventh time he came, three or four feedings later, he brought her a cup of warm broth.

  “I thought you might like this for a change,” he mumbled as he handed it to her.

  He didn’t come for two feedings after that, and Eva wondered what had happened to him. As the time grew since he had last come, she grew frantic, wondering when he would come again, wondering if anyone would visit her again, wondering especially if Visitor would ever return. She didn’t like what the man did to her, but she decided she deserved it, and her cooperation kept her safe. If Visitor ever did come back, she didn’t think she would even tell him. She quickly convinced herself that he was the one who had probably instigated the abuse and the man who came into her cell was merely the tool of Visitor’s wrath.

  Those thoughts confused her. Was her present situation God’s fault? Her fault? Visitor’s fault? Or the Lord Admiral’s fault?

  The Lord Admiral. It was easiest to hate him. He did so much wrong. If she ever got her hands on him again, she would kill him. She was glad he suffered like her, that he had been whipped and lived in a tiny cell like the one she lived in. She wondered where it was, if it was close, or if she was in a women’s prison.

  Did all Hrwang women serve naked in prison, like her? The Lord Admiral had told her once that only criminals walked around naked. Were there other cells near hers filled with naked women like her? She never heard them. Never heard anyone but Visitor and the man who raped her. And those who fed her, although they never talked to her. Was Visitor just a jailor like the rapist? He couldn’t be. He knew who the Lord Admiral was. He claimed to be the one who had sentenced Eva to be whipped and to spend the rest of her life in jail.

  She mourned when the man finally returned, although she was grateful for the light. He brought her a tiny flower which she accepted graciously even though she wanted to shove it in his face.

  That sparked a feeling of defiance in her. When he left, she realized she’d become the wrong kind of a mouse. She’d become the mouse who was timid, who, out of fear, allowed someone to walk all over her as she hid in the corner. She wasn’t supposed to be that mouse. She was supposed to be the mouse that flipped a bird at a hawk. She was supposed to be defiant, even in her weakness.

  Eva understood in that moment how women endured abuse for years. They disassociated themselves from it, blamed God or themselves for whatever happened, and hoped they could minimize the pain in their lives by cooperating with their abuser.

  She understood, but that wasn’t her.

  The flower, rather than winning her over, convinced her of the evilness of the man. Of the evilness of all Hrwang. She thought bitterly at his two day absence, two days when she missed the light he brought, two days she worried that he might come back at any time, and she wondered if it were the Hrwang equivalent of a weekend. Had the man gone home for the weekend, kissed his wife and children, had meals with them, played with them, and pretended that he wasn’t a horrible person?

  Or did whatever mental disease he had manifest itself in asocial behavior, and he lived alone, watching TV or doing whatever it was lonely abusers did while he fantasized about returning to his victim’s cell?

  No more.

  She would be the mouse defying the hawk. She would have to endure him a little while longer while she prepared, but she would only do it as part of her strategy. She couldn’t do anything while she suffered from repeated concussions, so she couldn’t let him hit her again. But when the time was right, she would be ready.

  She stretched her blanket out, stood on it, and began moving through the steps of lian quan jiao, her former daily exercise for building power in her hands and feet.

  Soon, she would not be the victim.

  Eva’s muscles hurt. They were stiff, unused, cold. She felt no power in them, and she knew she would have to exercise before she was ready to take on her assailant. He was big, and she would only have one chance to betray his trust. Attacking him felt more dangerous than all of the deception she had practiced on the Lord Admiral.

  After a feeding, she presumed it was another day, a light shone through her door. She was in the middle of exercising, and she dove for cover under her blanket. She wasn’t ready for him to return yet. She hadn’t mentally prepared herself for this fight.

  “I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  It wasn’t him. It was Visitor.

  Eva didn’t know how she felt at Visitor’s return, or rather, she didn’t understand her feelings. It inconvenienced her that she couldn’t continue preparing for her fight with her assailant, yet she didn’t want Visitor to leave. He was probably the cause of all her suffering, yet he brought relief with his visits. Now he gave her a little light and she was grateful for that too.

  “I smuggled the light in,” he said. “I could get into a lot of trouble.”

  “I thought you were in charge,” Eva said.

  He huffed a little but sounded relieved.

  “I wasn’t sure you would talk to me. I apologize for not having been by in a while. Good morning. ”

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I don’t really want to go into that. Can we talk about something else? Like your world? Tell me about your world.”

  “It used to be beautiful and sunny. Now it’s cloudy and rainy all the time.”

  “From pollution?”

  “From your attacks.”

  Visitor was quiet for a while.

  “Do you go to church on your world?” he finally asked.

  “No. I mean, I did. When I was little. I stopped going to church and seminary when I was fifteen.”

  Eva was proud of herself. Her head was clear and the words flowed in Est.

  “I don’t believe you. Parents would never allow their children to stop going to church,” he said.

  Eva laughed bitterly.

  “It’s not like my Dad had a choice. He stopped going when we moved to California. I certainly wasn’t going to go on my own.”

  “Why did he stop?”

  “I don’t know. Probably because my Mom left him and she was the one who made us go.”

  “We usually only divorce when one spouse is convicted of a crime.”

  “Lucky you,” Eva said. She never knew the real reason her mother had left them. She suspected, but she didn’t actually know. Her Dad had told her that her mother was adventurous, like Eva, and had simply become bored. He had said she’d left to go find herself. Eva had dismissed that thought immediately and knew there must have been something else. She may have been bored, but a mother doesn’t easily abandon a daughter, does she?

  Eva had always thought there was another man.

  But she didn’t know for sure, no one ever admitted it to her, and when she did a little investigating after she joined the Agency, she found nothing. If her mother had left for another man, they were split up by the time Eva became an agent. But she couldn’t come up with another reason.

  “Do your people ride horses?” Visitor asked. He stirred Eva out of her memories.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Horses. I know you have them. They are different breeds than we have, but they are the same species. Do you ride them?”

  “Many people do,” Eva replied. “But I never have. Why?”

  “I never have, either. I just always thought it looked interesting.”

  This guy was so random. Eva had to return to her lian quan jiao, but she wasn’t going to uncover in front of him. Not when he was having her abused.

  “I don’t want to talk about Earth any longer.” She used the English word to avoid saying ‘Hrwang’.

  “Earth? It’s not called Earth anymore. It is now called New Israel. Didn’t Prisoner Five Three Seven Zero Nine Two Two tell you your planet had been renamed?”

  No, he did not.

&nb
sp; She couldn’t believe the Lord Admiral renamed her planet.

  If she got out of her cell, she wasn’t going to try to get free, she decided in that moment. She was just going to find him in his cell and kill him. The Universe needed to be rid of the former Lord Admiral.

  “I’m really tired,” she said. “I have a headache.” She almost laughed but managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “I understand,” he replied. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  And if things go well, Eva thought, one way or another, I won’t be here.

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