by Drew Jordan
Yet I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t born with a gene for violence. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I thought about hooking the fish earlier. Or a fish. Confusion marred my thoughts and I concentrated on the sticky sensation between my legs.
I hadn’t been taking my birth control pills. Pulling out must be his attempt to prevent pregnancy and it was a shitty, lame attempt. It was everywhere, his sperm pond, mere centimeters from my vagina, and I thought about having his child here in the middle of nowhere, like a kidnap victim, and I jerked against the restraints, finding that anger.
“No,” I said, even though there hadn’t been a question. I bucked and tried to shift away from him, wanting to go home to Seattle and take a week long shower. Put on soft fleece pajamas and watch hours of reality TV on my couch. I’d order Chinese food and pick up ice cream to spoon right out of the pint. I’d drink wine. Sweet, fruity pinot grigio. I would get drunk and blot out this moment. All these moments. All my feelings. I’d forget I had ever decided I could live in Alaska and I’d settle into the purely mundane and normal life I’d had before. Where I pretended that I knew what I was doing, and was good at the lies I told myself.
The stranger squatted down without speaking and shifted my legs to around his neck. I realized what he was going to do before I could react, and it wasn’t until the first touch of his tongue was on my clit that I jerked, trying to move away. My shoulder hit the wall hard and I was off balance, wrists and forearms numb, totally at his mercy.
“Stop,” I demanded.
But he didn’t. Not even when I clamped my thighs around his head, squeezing in frustration, desperation. His fingers just gripped my ass tighter and his tongue did languid sweeps across my slit, and despite all my panic and anger, it felt good. Better than good. It felt like the answer. Like the knife that could cut through all the white noise and give me a solution. I didn’t understand that. It didn’t make any sense that I could be upset, want away from him, yet my body could greet his ministrations so enthusiastically. I let out a growl, irritated beyond reason that he could get his way and as always, like everything in my life, I had to just accept it.
I twisted and turned and made it difficult for him to hold me. His grip was so tight, I could feel the heat of his fingertips pressing deep into my legs and I knew I would be bruised. I didn’t care. My wrists were chafed and raw and I thought irrationally maybe I should just yank my arms clear off in order to get away. Rip the constricting limbs right at the sockets and leave them dangling from the ropes while I tumbled to the floor, smacking my head and blacking out. With luck, I’d kick him on the way down.
But since that wasn’t actually an option, in my frantic squirming and jerking I did manage to knee him in the cheekbone. I practically heard his teeth rattle. He yanked away from me and looked up, his eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. I went still instantly. I braced myself, expecting him to hit me. At the very least smack my ass hard or pinch me. He didn’t.
Instead, he said in his slow, seductive, low voice, “Is this what you want? Me to stop and never do this ever again? Because I won’t if you don’t knock it off.”
The moment dragged out, me staring down at him, him staring up. He was annoyed, but he was calm, in control. He was so ruggedly beautiful and that was so unfair. He also didn’t let go of me, but just held me and waited for my response.
I moistened my lips, tension in my shoulders relaxing now that I felt reasonably sure he wasn’t going to pop me across the face. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
“We can make this difficult or we can make this pleasant. Which would you like?” His fingers had eased up, but at the end of the question he squeezed my cool flesh. Hard. A warning.
There could only be one answer, of course. Because I was the captive and he was the captor. Because while fear can make you do crazy things, I wasn’t stupid. If he wanted the role of dominant, I would play the submissive. Even though my thoughts were wild and unfocused, bouncing around like a pinball, in everything I’d come across over the years about abduction cases, that’s what the victim did. Placated their abductor. I read those stories with an odd fascination that had bothered my roommate. She wanted to ignore the idea that anyone could break into our apartment and snatch us for nefarious purposes. I had been the opposite, reading with fascination, pondering what I would do, how I would escape, an odd exercise that showed I always needed to follow through to the worst possible conclusion of every scenario, a sort of macabre fantasy.
But that had been the difference between Sammy and me. She’d been afraid because she had believed the possibility was real. I’d never thought I would have to use it. It had been an intellectual exercise for me.
Yet here I was. It was real.
So I had to be smart.
“I don’t want it difficult,” I murmured. I closed my eyes, swallowed hard. I couldn’t show him what was in my eyes- fear, disgust, calculation. Maybe my own bit of crazy, though not as crazy as his variety.
It made sense now, why he was alone in the woods. He didn’t play well with others. That much had been true. He wanted to make all the rules of the game.
“No? Good.” He lowered his head and flicked his tongue over my swollen clit.
I shuddered, but whether it was from horror or arousal, I wasn’t actually sure. Which then really horrified me. I couldn’t still enjoy his sexual attention. I couldn’t. That couldn’t be normal.
Yet I did. It was clear that I did, even as I breathed in and out and tried to relax, to reassure him I wasn’t going to fight him. Not now anyway. But as I stopped bucking against the restraints and him, as his tongue did intimate things to me, I felt the crescendo of desire again, despite everything. It was like my body knew he’d given me one orgasm, so why not two?
It was disturbing to me. I didn’t want to give in. But he had skill and I couldn’t shift away and if I had to be with him, he was right. Why make it difficult when I could at least enjoy certain aspects of it? This aspect. This wet, deep, vibrating guttural and sweeping pleasure, that could make me forget everything for two minutes. The sensation was overwhelming, dragging me away from the essence of myself, of all my thoughts and fears and anger. I bit my bottom lip to ground myself, to take my focus away from my clit, but it didn’t help.
He knew it. He knew he had me.
The stranger ground his mouth between my thighs, plunging his tongue inside my depths, before sliding up in a long, luscious lick that had me coming hard. A tight, painful, annoying orgasm that I both enjoyed and regretted. I did succeed in preventing any moans from escaping, but he knew, of course. There was no mistaking or hiding it.
He shifted his head away from me. “See? That wasn’t so hard. Do you want to be here, forever, without ever feeling that again? I don’t think you do, Laney.”
My name sounded different on his lips now. It seemed mocking. Less sweet and seductive. Maybe it never had. Maybe I had only wanted it to seem that way.
I swallowed excess bile. “It wasn’t hard.” It hadn’t been.
What did that say about me? That I could separate the physical from the emotional so easily?
I knew exactly what it said but I wasn’t willing to reflect too deeply on it at the moment.
“Thank you for being honest with me,” I told him. “I’d rather know the truth.” Sincerity rang in my voice, because I meant it. I didn’t like the truth, but I appreciated knowing what reality was. Because if I didn’t know it, I would create my own. A skill that I’d used more than once, with less than pleasant results in the end.
My inner thighs were sticky. My wrists, arms, shoulders all hurt. I felt like I was panting, though I hadn’t really exerted myself.
“The truth? You’d like the truth?” he asked. His expression was fierce, his grip still firm on my thighs.
Maybe I didn’t. The incongruity of the situation struck me. He was wearing me, so to speak. I wished I had more thigh strength, so that I could crush his skull, squeeze until his eyeballs filled with blood a
nd his lips turned blue. The sudden and unexpected awful thought horrified me and I let my legs fall slack. Apart. I wasn’t violent. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or a fish.
“What truth?” I asked and my voice was hoarse.
He turned and licked my flesh. “The truth about why I live alone in the woods.”
A shiver rolled over me, goose bumps rising in a wave down my arms, my nipples hardening. The roots of my hair tingled. “No. No, I don’t.” Because what if it was worse than anything I could imagine? What if he’d killed a woman? Dismembered her? Kept her head in his refrigerator?
Sammy was right- I watched too much fucking crime TV. It wasn’t helpful. I knew nothing about how to protect myself, and far too much about how to scare myself.
“Smart girl.” He rose, still holding me, so that my back arched and the tension on my wrists eased. With one hand he reached up and undid the rope.
My arms fell heavily down onto my chest, blood rushing into them so they burned and tingled. My fists clipped his face on the descent, but it was gravity and numbness, not my fault or intention. But he didn’t react and it struck me as odd that I could perceive him as fair and thoughtful still. He was though. He knew it was an accident and he didn’t get angry. I studied his face, afraid to stare at him too long or lock eyes, but wanting to understand him, what was happening. It wasn’t the face of evil. Or so it seemed.
But what did evil look like?
And if we gave gradations to evil was that a delusion?
“Put your arms around me,” he murmured.
I did. He still held me, wrapped around his waist. My nakedness felt obvious, awkward. I wasn’t the triumphant seductress now, but the woman who couldn’t leave, even if I wanted to. Yet when he kissed the swell of my breast, I oddly welcomed his touch. He was right. If I had to be here, it was better to have things easy between us than contentious.
The dark of my childhood apartment sprang to my mind, and the minutes crawling by with agonizing slowness while I waited. Waited for my mother to return.
Nothing was worse than loneliness. Not even captivity.
“How long has it been since you saw anyone else?” I asked him.
He carried me to the bed. “Not that long actually. Only four weeks. But in the winter I go almost six months without seeing anyone.”
Oh, God. The thought of being that long without human touch made me shudder. I couldn’t do it. We were approaching winter. If I didn’t get out now I’d be stuck there all winter long and he’d be my only contact. The only skin I could touch. The only lips on mine. The only arms wrapping around me and the only masculine fingers skimming over my body.
“I think I would go crazy,” I told him as he set me down on the bed. Was that what had happened to him? He came to the woods and went crazy? Or did he come to the woods because he was crazy?
“People shouldn’t fear solitude so much. There’s nothing wrong with silence.”
If it was a choice, maybe not. But it wasn’t my choice. It had never been my choice. “Is that your philosophy? Do you have a philosophy?”
“Yes. Don’t ask questions.”
I almost laughed, but I stopped myself. Everything had changed. I wasn’t getting to know him. I couldn’t help him or care about his opinion of me. He was an asshole to keep me from my family. A crazy, cruel asshole and every word he spoke, wrenched from him by me, every time he touched me, proved that.
“I guess you’d prefer me to be silent. You basically said as much.” Not that I was holding to that, the irony being I was questioning him about silence.
He tucked my hair behind my ear and shook his head. “The more I hear you speak, the more I want you to continue. I like the sound of your voice. It’s sweet and cautious and full of questions and awe at the world. It’s as beautiful as you are.”
Damn it. Fucking damn it. Why did he have to describe me in a way that I would have loved to hear from any other man? It was words that showed he understood me, on a certain level. From a guy I’d met online dating or at work, it would have been worthy of gushing over to my friends. But it didn’t matter with him. It couldn’t.
“I’ll try not to make you change your mind about it.” It felt strange to say that, because in truth, I meant it. But it sounded kinder, more seductive than I felt. The way I would have said it and meant it the day before. When I thought I could leave.
He leaned forward, caging me with his strong forearms and broad shoulders. “I don’t ask a lot, you know. Really. You’ll be happy.”
As he invaded my space, I tried not to turn my head away from him. If I showed weakness, he wouldn’t like it, I knew that instinctively. Submissive and weak were two totally different things. I widened my eyes as they welled with tears. I couldn’t cry. That would be a huge mistake.
“I’m very easy to please,” I whispered.
Something flickered in his eyes and he pulled back so quickly I jumped. He didn’t say anything. He turned and went over to the kitchen area and turned the tap on. I watched him from the bed and surmised he was cleaning off his body. I swallowed hard, afraid to even contemplate getting pregnant. Nothing could be worse. So I refused to even think about it. I turned to the nightstand and picked up the pill pack he’d left there for me. I wasn’t even sure what day it was anymore, so I just took two dry and sat there, waiting.
Waiting for him.
It occurred to me that maybe that was what I was going to despise the most. Having to wait for him to instruct me what to do. How to live. I wanted my freedom of movement back. I wanted my ankle healed and I wanted real clothes and I wanted to understand the world I was living in. I wanted to know my role.
He came back to the bed with a washcloth in his hand and I crossed my legs protectively. I didn’t want him touching me with that. But he ignored my obvious discomfort and pried my legs apart, cleaning my inner thighs with the cold damp cloth. My cheeks burned and I looked down at the blanket, not at him.
“You’re spotting,” he said. “And I need to get condoms and some things for you in town. I’ll go next week when the weather turns and I don’t have as much winter prep to do.” He tossed the washcloth on the nightstand and climbed in bed beside me with a grunt.
He was going to town. He. Not me. Just he.
I was sitting but he immediately lay down, his arm behind his head. “What do you need besides tampons?”
Hugging my knees to my chest, I wondered at how casual and normal he sounded. Like we were a couple, choosing to live in the woods together. My skin was itchy and I was cold, but loathe to just crawl under the blanket. He had excluded me in mentioning going to town, and I heard that loud and clear. I was going to be left at the cabin while he went to go and get supplies for my extended stay. If there was any question about his intention that sentence erased it.
It felt more restrictive than the ropes. More oppressive than his body crowding me. More painful than when he’d yanked my ankle from under the seat on the plane.
I thought about a million things I wanted yesterday. From cute clothes and a blow dryer to facial cleanser and a bottle of wine. Books. Music.
What I wanted today was the right to choose if I stayed or left.
I would leave of course.
But I couldn’t have that. So what did creature comforts matter when I was a prisoner?
In the end, I asked, “Do you think maybe I could have some panties? I have money in my wallet. I can pay for them.”
It was risky to ask, but I’d feel like I had more armor in place with underwear on. Besides, at some point presumably I would have my period. I was already spotting. Going without panties was a gross reality I didn’t want to contend with long term. All of it was a gross reality I didn’t want to contend with, but maybe I could handle it better wearing underwear.
“You don’t have to pay for them. And yes, I will get you some.” He stretched out his arm toward me. “Lay down with me.”
Relieved that he hadn’t gotten upset, I did as he asked, sliding in
beside him. He pulled the blanket over us and I sighed at the protection from the cabin’s frigid air. It felt like a damp cold had seeped inside my bones and taken up residence there. I felt frigid. Small. Brittle.
His arm around me was warm, strong. Comforting.
I told myself to think of him as Sam, as he’d instructed me to. If he was Sam, and we were a couple, then none of this was nearly as terrible as it well and truly was. If Laney and Sam lived in a love shack in the woods, then that was our choice. Because we loved each other and we loved Alaska.
I closed my eyes and tried to convince myself that my imagined truth was the real truth. I concentrated on his breathing, and my own. Mine was erratic, frantic. His was steady, even. If someone doesn’t know they’re crazy is that the actual definition of crazy? If he suspected he was insane did that mean therefore then he wasn’t because he could recognize it?
What was I?
Who were we?
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, lips brushing over my temple.
I opened my eyes so I could see his expression. He did look content, loving. Boyfriend Sam to girlfriend Laney. There didn’t seem to be any mystery there, any hidden depths or secrets.
After a second, I closed my eyes again. I couldn’t sustain the fantasy.
All I could do was sleep.
Tomorrow I would plan my escape.
CHAPTER NINE
Exhaustion allowed me to sleep dreamless, a welcome comforting void of nothing, and I woke up disoriented, not sure where I was for a minute. The air felt frigidly cold and I shivered, burrowing further under the covers. The blankets smelled like lavender, and when I reached to the left for my cell phone, I suddenly remembered where I was. Nowhere, Alaska.
A prisoner.
Heart rate kicking up a notch, I turned my head to the right, expecting to see him in bed with me. But his side was empty. There were no ropes attached to the headboard. His spot in the bed was straightened, like he’d never slept there. I sat up, looking around the cabin for him, the blanket falling away from my naked breasts. The stove wasn’t emitting any heat that I could feel and I scanned the wall for his coat, his shotguns. I wasn’t sure if any were gone or not. What I did know was he wasn’t there.