by Drew Jordan
A mix of relief and fear flooded me. I wasn’t sure I could look at him, but at the same time I didn’t want to be alone. Alone somewhere I didn’t know how to survive. Forcing myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed, I shivered uncontrollably. The first thing I needed to do was get the stove going again. The floor was painfully cold and I found clothes to pull on, big slouchy pants and a sweatshirt and wool socks. I wasn’t sure how he did his laundry, but I figured if I was forced to stay, I had a right to wear whatever of his I wanted.
Small defiance, but it was the only one I had.
Those feelings lasted as long as it took me to realize that there was no wood in the cabin. I was going to have to get some from the front porch. I was cold and tired and hungry. I was also very aware of my inner thighs and my wrists and how both had a lingering soreness deep inside. Shoving my feet into boots, I decided to forgo a coat and just go outside. It couldn’t be any colder outside than in the cabin. Goddamn Alaska and its goddamn cold weather. I would take Seattle rain any day over cabins that didn’t have heat that came on with a flip of the thermostat.
I stepped out onto the front porch and scanned the yard, looking for him. I didn’t see him anywhere, though the dogs gave me a loud frantic greeting that may have been friendly or not, I couldn’t tell. I blinked at the sunlight. I’d slept later than I’d realized, though I was losing sense of time. And place. The air was cold, but not brutally so. I breathed deep, filling my lungs with clean air. It tasted good, if air could have a flavor. My arms were sore from being strung up like a carcass. Or maybe from transferring fish. Or both. But they screamed in protest when I lifted a log off the tidy pile of wood stacked against the exterior porch wall. I had optimistically thought I could carry two at a time, but that wasn’t possible. They weren’t big logs. They were fireplace size logs and I was aware again of my physical limitations. I wouldn’t last more than a day on my own in the wilderness.
He knew that. I knew that he knew. I went into the cabin and heaved the log into the stove, watching it smolder and catch on the still simmering ashes at the bottom. I repeated the process three times, leaving one log in reserve next to the stove. Then sweaty and tired already, I went to use the outhouse. Finally, I was ready for coffee and something that resembled breakfast. After I choked down dry crackers, unable to figure the stove out, I looked around me, wanting a strategy. Any strategy.
My best bet was to figure out where I was in relation to town. Also to have the stranger teach me everything he knew about survival. I needed to learn to use a gun. I needed to eat, a lot, to fatten up before a forty-mile walk. I needed to steal a compass, pack water to take with me. All of which seemed stupid and impossible. I couldn’t walk five miles, let alone forty. He had said fall was swift and brief. The snow was due to fly in a few days and then what? I couldn’t hike through snow, in subzero temperatures.
I sat on the bed, assessing the box I was in. Could I stay here, alone every day for months without going insane? Could I stay here with him at night, as he stripped my body repeatedly? At what point did he take my soul with my body? I leaped up, unable to sit still, agitated and antsy. I yanked open the drawer on his nightstand. There was a knife in it, matches, and a book. Praise the Lord an actual book. With words. It was a mystery, a creepy old house on the cover, shrouded in mist. I wondered why this book was special. Why it had made the cut. I had half-expected to see some sort of male manual on heading off on your own. Kerouac or Catcher in the Rye, or Into the Wild, about the guy who starved to death in Alaska. Not just a regular old who-done-it mystery that probably had no hidden message. No symbolism.
I ransacked his dresser again, though I found nothing of interest. I was afraid I would be tempted to open the ancient gift tucked behind his shirts, so I avoided that drawer altogether. I looked at flashlights, batteries, pots, canned goods, mouse traps, and gun grease all neatly lined up on his shelves and in his cupboards. He wasn’t messy, but I already knew that. All it told me was that his mind wasn’t cluttered. He had everything organized and easy to use. Like he had me.
I touched everything twice, going from one corner, down the wall, to the next, and all the way around the perimeter of the cabin, looking for what, I had no idea. A manual on how to use the stove? A hidden cell phone or laptop? There wasn’t anything. Nothing to connect me to the outside world. No access to the Internet or instant information. What had seemed like a mere annoying novelty in the days before now felt like as much of a prison as the four walls of the cabin. Isolation. My nemesis.
It was deafening, the silence. Even the dogs were quiet and I rushed to the window, wondering if somehow he had taken them with the sleigh without me noticing. But they were in the yard, half lying down, sleeping, though I thought a few were missing now that I was really inspecting the yard. I’d never counted the dogs, but there were more than the five I saw. So he had taken the sled, I just hadn’t noticed it earlier. Maybe he’d gone back to the river. I wondered if I could find it again. The path couldn’t be hard to follow. If I made it to the river, I could…
What? What the fuck could I do? Swim to safety?
“I don’t know what to do,” I said out loud, because the quiet was maddening and I needed to hear that I still had a voice, that I was still alive. That this wasn’t a dream, a terrible, off-the-rails, crazy ass dream. My voice sounded small and pathetic and suddenly I heard the echoes of my mother, mocking me.
I had asked for a Barbie for my fifth birthday, but my voice was tentative and shaky, my desire and hope great enough to compel me to speak, but with zero confidence. And she shredded me, mocking my squeaky and trembling voice, before dismissing my request as an expense we couldn’t afford. Later I found out that when she married Dean, she already had a hundred grand in credit card debt, and that all those days and nights she was gone from our apartment, she was gambling or shopping. Or sucking cocaine up her nose. She was fond of anything self-destructive and expensive and addictive.
She’d raised me in a way that I grew up meek, obscure. Never wanting to rock the boat. It was what it was. I knew why I was the way I was. I didn’t even hate myself, or her, for that matter. What she had done was her shit, and now what I did was my shit. Everyone has to carry their own bucket full of it. So while she carried hers in federal prison, I was carrying mine in Alaska.
Tired of being weak, I fought the urge to cry tears of frustration and fear. That would only confirm what I already knew- that I wasn’t wily enough or strong enough or creative enough to solve my own problems.
But I had one thing going in my favor. I was a good actress. I could manipulate men. And I was the babydoll. The one everyone wanted to take care of. If I could figure out how to play on the stranger’s heartstrings, he might feel sorry for me. He might trust me enough to take me to town with him.
Make him think I was scared of being alone. That I needed him with me at all times. That was what I needed to do.
But that would mean I’d have to be with him all the time. The thought made my stomach curl into a tight knot. But I could either do this and gain back my freedom or I could avoid him now to stay here forever.
Neither was an attractive option.
I paced and paced, my sore ankle complaining. The minutes, the hours ticked by. I tried to read the mystery novel. I couldn’t get past page one because the words kept blurring. I would have loved to have read the entire thing. To lose four hours in the escape of someone else’s world, a comfort I desperately wanted. But I couldn’t focus. The loneliness I needed to present to him was gradually, with each passing second, becoming more and more reality.
What if he never came back? What if he died on the river or on a trail? What the fucking hell would I do then?
My anxiety kicked up a notch and I repeatedly walked to the window to glance out in search of any signs of his impending arrival. What would I do if he had just abandoned me? Gone to town without a word, never to return again? I would die here. I would die in the woods of exposure or sta
rvation or flesh eating bacteria or a bear or the dogs or from childbirth.
I was going to die. Alone.
It was dark. I let the fire go down to embers, because I was afraid to go outside for more wood. I had started the day out wanting to exert my independence.
I was ending it curled up in a ball on the bed, huddled under the blankets.
Clutching my useless cell phone, I risked powering it on so I could look at the images on it. I still had twenty percent battery power but swiping through my pictures only made me feel worse. There was my little sister, mugging for me with exaggerated duck lips. There was my group of girlfriends in our hats, looking happy and carefree and slightly drunk. Was I ever as carefree as I looked? Had I been happy? Obviously not if I’d thought to seek answers in Alaska. Answers to questions I didn’t even know.
I went way back, so far back that I found a picture of Trent on it and my nose twitched as I studied it. I didn’t want to think about how quickly everything had gone so horribly wrong and how everything had gotten crazy and scary. I’d thought that was the worst thing I could go through.
But now there was this. I powered my phone down, plunging myself into darkness. The dogs whined outside and I listened, on high alert. Was there a bear out there? I should get up and shove something in front of the door in case bears were smart enough to turn doorknobs. But then he couldn’t come in. He. I mentally scrolled through names for him. Each was an unsatisfactory attempt at labeling him. I didn’t know how to label him. The stranger. The kidnapper. The lover.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I concentrated on my breathing. In. Out. But then the dark behind my lids scared me even more than the dark of the room and I whipped them back open.
When the door creaked and light flooded the entryway, I let out a startled shriek. “What are you doing in the dark?” he asked, his flashlight beam sweeping over me. “Are you sleeping? It’s only eight-thirty.”
The bright light blinded me briefly and I blinked. “I can’t find a light switch.” It sounded stupid. There was electricity from a generator, I knew that. I’d seen him turn on the light over the sink and there was a flashlight in the nightstand. I added, because I hated how pathetic I was, and wanting him to feel guilty for abandoning me without a word, “I didn’t know where you were.” It sounded accusatory and salty.
As I sat up, he shut the door behind him and turned on a light as he kicked off his boots. “I didn’t know you needed my daily itinerary. I told you fall is short. I have work to do.”
“But yesterday you took me with you.”
He paused in taking his coat off and the corner of his mouth turned up. “Did you miss me?” he asked, his voice whiskey smooth and unrepentant.
“Yes.” It was the truth. I couldn’t stand to be alone. Not here, not anywhere, and his company wasn’t offensive. He wasn’t disgusting or vile or annoying. He was just… dominant. There were worse things. My rationalization made me swallow hard but I couldn’t help it. We could make this pleasant or unpleasant. “I was worried about you.”
That made him laugh, a genuine if somewhat rusty sound. “You’re kidding, right? I know what I’m doing.”
“But you were gone all day.” I let the blanket fall down off my chest even though I was wearing a sweatshirt. It would draw his eyes and it did. “I thought something bad had happened.”
His gaze flicked back to mine. “I can take care of myself. But it’s been a long time since anyone worried about me.”
I held my hand out, because I wanted him to trust me. And I wanted comfort. What an insane concept. Comfort from my captor. Yet I needed it. “I was. Come here and reassure me you’re fine.”
His head tilted. “Why do I feel like this is a trap?” he murmured. “Do you have a knife under that blanket?”
“Why would I do that?” I asked honestly, startled. I had thought he trusted me more than that. That I was coming off as sincere. “I can’t survive without you. I’d have to be a total idiot to kill you, even if I was capable of stabbing someone. Which I’m not.” I kicked the blanket down past my knees before peeling off the sweatshirt I was wearing so he could see my bare breasts, see I wasn’t hiding anything. “Besides, we’re making this easy, not difficult.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” He rubbed his jaw, like he wasn’t convinced, but he did take a step towards the bed.
It seemed very important to win this victory, to get him to come to me. He needed to believe me or I would never gain the ground I needed. “Yes.” I let my fingers drift down, like I was giving up. “I just wanted to feel your skin. I’m sorry.” My left eye started twitching but I ignored it, concentrating on keeping my body relaxed, my lips slightly apart.
Reaching his hand behind his neck, he yanked off his flannel shirt, mussing his hair in the process. He was so goddamn good-looking. That was half the problem. I wouldn’t have flirted if he wasn’t, but then again, it made this all so much easier. I could want to yell and scream at him, hit him, but I could still effectively fake an attraction to him because it wasn’t entirely fake. I focused on his bare chest, not his eyes, not those blue pools of intensity.
“You want to feel my skin?” he asked, moving towards the bed with graceful strides.
Nodding, I swallowed. I couldn’t tell what he was going to do, couldn’t read his expression. But then I never could. He wasn’t totally unpredictable though. I anticipated him binding me. He didn’t. Instead, he crawled across the bed to me and hovered in my space, hair falling forward, his eyes raking me, arms encasing me.
Then he kissed me. A sweet, simple kiss, his breath mingling with mine, his touch warm and reassuring. It shattered me. And I cried. It was so unfair, so fucking unfair.
He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I’m the one who is sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to scare you today.”
Despising the fact that I was sniffling and watering, I took a shaky breath and reminded myself my own weakness could aid my purposes. He was being tender with me and that was an advantage I had to hold on to. “I know you didn’t. But I’m out of my element here. I’d rather be with you so you can teach me what I need to know. Like how to chop wood and turn the stove on so I can cook.”
Fire a gun.
In case I needed to shoot something.
Someone.
But I knew better than to say that now, when he still didn’t trust me.
He nodded slowly. “Okay. Sure. Be with me. If that’s what you want.”
A shiver rolled over my bare arms and shoulders. “Yes. That’s what I want.”
“You know what I would like?”
My body stiffened. I forced myself to hold his gaze, to relax. My poker face sucked but my expression probably wasn’t much different than it usually was with him- startled and unsure. “What?”
“For you to lie back so I can make love to you the way a man does when a woman cares about him.”
His words confused me and I wasn’t sure how to respond. What game were we playing? Was he parroting my behavior to show me it was ridiculous? He didn’t actually like me. I was a plaything, a toy. A doll.
So I just lay back onto his bed. Reaching out I touched his chest, splaying my fingers over the hard, warm muscles. I had expected him to want to tie me up, to be rough, pull my hair. I’d been mentally prepared to hate him for that. But he threw me off balance with his softness. It was a con. It had to be.
He took my hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed each fingertip gently, before lacing his fingers through mine and bringing them both to the bed, clasped above my head, like we were lovers in the truest sense. Melancholy spilled over me, like warm honey, and I couldn’t shake it off. An ache that had nothing to do with sex bloomed in my chest. This was what I wanted, in reality. Back in Seattle. I’d been on a dating hiatus prior to Michael because of what had happened, but I missed this. This connection. This understanding of who you were with someone, where you stood. That you were a we.
I could be touched a million times
a day in the most casual sense by a boyfriend and never get tired of it. It sucked that I was being offered exactly what I wanted in false packaging. That was the definition of cruel irony.
But the impermanence of it, the deception, didn’t make me turn away or reject it or hold myself aloof and removed from him. Oh, no. I opened. Physically and emotionally I sprawled myself apart for him to see, to touch, to taste, to take. I couldn’t stop myself. The wall had crumpled and I wasn’t strong enough to fortify it.
“I’ve seen many beautiful things,” he said. “Sunsets and snowstorms and the fierce beauty of a rushing river. But I’ve never seen anything as stunning as you.”
Goose bumps rose on my skin. I’d never been good at accepting a compliment. And I wasn’t now. “You’re just saying that because you haven’t seen a woman in months.”
He shook his head while his hand covered my mouth, firm, but gentle. “Shh. No speaking. Let me feast on you.”
I didn’t have a choice. I had to let him. But I questioned if I would tell him no anyway. He had the strangest ability to hypnotize me, to relax me into doing his will, with his words and his touch. He constantly kept me uneasy, yet there was something addictive about that, about wanting to please him. I knew that there was something deeply unhealthy about that, but at the same time, so damn intoxicating. If I had to stay, I had to feel, and I’d rather feel something good and wonderful.
When he kissed my neck, hand still over my mouth, I flicked my tongue over his finger, wanting to taste his salty flesh. His flavor was unique. It was like fresh air and wood chips and dirt, covered by a layer of hand soap. He was a man with an earthy scent, a masculine smell that appealed to me, and made me feel feminine. I liked the cage his arms created around me, the illusion of safety. And he would keep me safe, from everything outside. I believed that.