I moan, allowing myself complete abandon. He has stripped away so much of me that it's impossible to feel shame in front of him at this point. He is my shame. He owns that too.
I want to call out a name, but I have nothing.
“Who are you?” I cry.
“The Night,” he rasps.
I let my body collapse around the sensation of him inside of me, resting my face against the curve of his neck. His smell, a heady dose of masculinity, intoxicates me, allowing me to get completely lost in The Night. It's his firm arms that hold me together as I increasingly go weak around the swollen cock inside of me.
“I'm gonna come,” I pant. The wave begins to crest. He grips the neck binding and tugs it back so that our eyes are inches apart. I told him I imagined the owner of those eyes fucking me. Now, he's reminding me this is not just a fantasy. This is real. This is a dream. This is a nightmare. Like he said, maybe sometimes they're the same thing.
He twists the back of the binding so it closes around my windpipe. The wave crashes over me. Spraying pleasure onto every inch of me. Each thrust just another little wave colliding against me. Like someone in a desert who has stumbled upon a great shore of relief, I drink up the salty water, knowing it could kill me, but all I care about is the instantaneous relief of now.
He grunts and plunges deeply into me, taking himself to the climax he couldn't achieve weeks ago.
I think it's over. I'll come down and feel the guilt I used to feel after playing with myself to my stepdad's dirty magazines. But he pushes me back on the table and spreads my legs. The warmth of his cum slowly drips out of me, the ultimate mark of a beast on his conquest. He uses a finger to wipe some off of me, taking the creamy mix of us and rubbing it on my nipples, glossing them with our filthy sex. He sucks on my breasts, cleaning up the filth with his mouth.
It's so fucking dirty. So repulsive, and yet, I can't help but watch it greedily. Watch him worship upon the altar of this whole fucked up thing. He lowers his face between my thighs and mouth fucks my still blooming pussy. It only takes seconds for me to come again. My thighs clench The Night as it consumes me.
“Oh god,” I call out, knowing that there is no such thing down here. At least not the one to which we say our evening prayers. Only Night.
I'm not sure what's next as I watch Night (I guess that's what I'll have to call him from now on) get dressed. He hasn't released my bindings and I worry that what we just did hasn't quelled the rage. That maybe the two body-quaking orgasms were simultaneously my punishment for my venomous talk and the reward for my submission. Maybe he'll leave me here for days, bound, forcing me to start over again to earn that balance we had just begun to find.
Evening has descended so that all I see are shadows of the masked violator getting dressed. Revulsion and attraction brew in me. Though the revulsion isn't just towards him. Never have I felt that level of abandon with another human being. Like two feral people relying on instinct, void of morality. He has taken away every sense of decency from me, so that there is literally nothing left to hide. Carter loves me. He is kind. He is sweet. He accepts me for who I am. Or does he?
Vesper must be good. She must be kind. She must take care of everyone. Because otherwise, who would love her? Her own mother barely did and her father has never laid eyes on her. Who would love a girl who is impure and dirty? A fiend with whorish desires? Not Carter. He loves the perfect Vesper Rivers. Normal Vesper Rivers. I was lucky to have such a handsome successful fiancé. Asking for anything more was greed. I always understood that.
Maybe Night is right. Maybe I have always been hiding, making myself easy to love by giving others what they needed and never asking for anything in return. What else could explain how my body betrays me?
Once he's done getting dressed, Night throws my blanket over my head.
“What—what are you doing?” I demand.
He bear hugs me and drags me a few feet, before deciding it's easier to do the customary fireman's carry instead. Draped in the blanket and still tied, I have no idea what's in store. Has he reached the endgame with me? Have I lost my luster now that he's fucked me? Is he going to kill me and move on to another new, shiny toy?
I feel bodies rock as he carries me up the stairs. The door creaking open and the warmth of the upper level instantly stifling me under the blanket. Footsteps I have become used to hearing from underneath the baseboards. The sound of a door swinging open. Then another.
Cooler night air. Crickets creaking. Complete darkness.
We're outside.
“Where are we going? Please tell me. Please don't hurt me.” I don't fight. In this position, I can barely breathe. If I flail, the noose connected to my hands tightens. I listen for clues. The sound of grass crinkling underneath his shoes. The crisp scent of nature that lingers on Night sometimes. A hint of animal stench. A farm? Is that why his jeans are often smudged in paint or oil and ripped?
Then it dawns on me that this is my first time outdoors since I was captured. I had hoped I would find a way outside again, even if it was under captivity, but I never knew how. Yet, wrapped in this blanket, I am still a prisoner, still confined. Just like looking at the sun beaming through those tiny basement windows, the scents and sounds are just a tease. Days ago, the blanket was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me, wrapping me in its warm embrace, lulling me into erotic dreams. Now it's just another prison, hot and claustrophobia-inducing.
Just when the panic begins to set in, that perhaps this really is a march to my slaughter, there is the sound of another door opening. It slams shut behind us.
Night sets me to my feet. He folds the blanket over from behind to keep my face covered, but expose the bindings, which he loosens and removes. I moan from the relief and shake off my arms. He takes the blanket off, but it's so dark I might as well have my eyes closed.
He slaps me on the ass, which sends me forward a bit before pulling the door open. In any other circumstance, it could be considered playful, but everything he does is designed to belittle. I try to peek outside, but it's like a pool of black ink. The kind of dark you forget exists when you live your nights by the glow of street lamps and TVs playing through your neighbor's windows. From the chorus of crickets coming through the door, I am sure we must be in the middle of nowhere.
“Where are you going? Wait!” I can't believe I'm begging him not to leave, but that basement has been my cocoon and suddenly he's thrust me from those walls and is leaving without a word. The insecurity frightens me.
He flips a switch beside the door before slamming it shut. A few latching sounds follow. I'm too disoriented by the sudden bright light to pursue his whereabouts. Besides, what I see shocks me. I'm in a tiny windowless cabin. Well, it's more like a shed, but it's freshly painted white, down to the wooden plank floors. On a twin bed, its head pushed up against the center wall, pristinely made with white sheets and covered with a pastel-toned quilt, there is a pale pink nightgown, one that looks a lot like the white one I wore when I was taken. The one he cut up, and me along with it, and used to bind and gag me. Next to that are two newspapers and a note. I run to them almost as quickly as I did that first meal, desperate to understand my new surroundings.
This is your new home. You are expected to use the attached facility to clean and groom yourself daily so you are always ready for me.
I've seen your room at home. You don't have as much here, so I hope you can keep it tidy. Maybe if you had less clutter, you would have noticed the things I had rearranged and took from your room in the weeks before my final arrival.
I gasp, remembering the moon necklace and the photo. During the saddest, lowest times, when I was starving, I thought of how grandma said she would look at the moon and think of me. I sobbed, wishing I had that necklace to hold onto, to feel like the only person who ever really understood me was somehow still connected to me. This son of a bitch had to have taken it. I know it was in the jewelry box. I have to get it back.
As usual,
your composure and compliance will mean a pleasant experience for you. Acting like a bitch means that that won't be the case. Then again you like it rough. I don't care. I'll get what I want either way. I like it when you don't fight. I like it when you do. This is for you, not me. Though I will admit there are traits about you that attracted me to you out there—that flush in your cheeks, your lush hair, your healthy body. I'd prefer for you not to be starved and sullen. But it won't stop me, as you have already experienced. So, let’s agree that it's in your best interest to make the most of your time here. It's in my best interest to keep you looking like the girl I first took.
Eat. Rest.
Your quality of life is entirely dependent on the choices you make.
After the initial moment of rage, I snicker at the sardonic tone in the note before flicking it onto the bed. It's oddly…human. All this time, he's been a caricature of a kidnapper. Just elements of this idea of a person. But here, I hear a bit of the real asshole in him. That smug son of a bitch. I eagerly grab the two newspapers that he made no mention of in his note. Since he showed me the segment on TV about my kidnapping, I have had no concept of how my family or the outside world is reacting. I had time to think about his intentions since that day. My verdict is that since he won't talk to me, at least in not any way that a normal human would converse with another, it was his way of explaining the direness of my circumstances. That I was his captive, that he knows who my family is, and that the police seemed to be clueless about my whereabouts.
The paper to the left is dated the day after my kidnapping. On it is a recent picture of me. Carter took me to the coast for an overnight trip a few months ago. This picture was one we took along one of the bluffs. My hair is windswept and I'm smiling.
NURSING STUDENT KIDNAPPED IN TERRIFYING HOME INVASION the headline reads. I flip to the article, reading about how Carter had given up on the bedroom door when he realized he couldn't get enough leverage while being hog-tied. He screamed and screamed until a neighbor—the very ones I tried to scream to when I was taken—heard him when one stepped outside for the morning paper.
Authorities were desperately searching for me.
I was believed to be the victim of The Night Prowler. I remember hearing about him on the news that night, but beside the fleeting chill anyone has about news of a criminal on the loose, I hadn’t given him much thought. To be honest, his wasn't the only name on the news. Despite the sunny weather, beautiful houses, and well-mannered neighbors, the Sacramento area had been plagued with prowlers for some time now.
I hadn't known much about his crimes, but the article went into detail. About the pattern they believe he followed. That he may have prowled dozens if not hundreds of homes, ransacking them, taking tokens and peeping through windows for years before finally escalating to attacking homeowners about a year ago. Hot prowl. That's what they call it when a prowler enters a home with people inside. It takes a level of brashness many criminals do not possess. Most criminals just want your things and minimal confrontation. The hot prowl, that's instigating complication.
I cringe at the unmitigated brutality of his crimes. At me for allowing myself to enjoy this monster in any way.
He is why we fear the night. He is the real monster kids imagine in the closet or under the bed. A shiver races down my spine thinking about how I have found a way to be somewhat comfortable with this man.
As if to twist the knife in my gut, the article states that he has never been known to kidnap, preferring to leave without a trace, making him elusive to the cops. Maybe if I had said nothing, he would have fled. Maybe I did bring this upon myself. But I had no choice. He had Johnny. I throw the paper down in frustration, sick and angry at myself. If I had paid more attention, maybe I would have been able to notice someone had broken in. If I had just screamed in the house when he shined that light in my eyes, maybe he would have spooked and left. I let him force me to bind Carter. There were so many times along the way I could have done things differently.
I grab the next paper and skim the date. It's been just over four weeks if this is today’s issue. I can't believe a month has already passed. But there's a wisp of hope in that—it's a month and I am still alive. I can survive this. This time the headline on the paper is about some political race. I flip the pages to find the many articles about me and how the world has stopped to find me. It takes me several passes through before I find a short one.
NO NEW LEADS IN THE CASE OF THE MISSING SACRAMENTO NURSING STUDENT
The Sheriff of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Hunter-Ridgefield, claims they are still working vigorously behind the scenes, but have shifted their investigation from a large scale search to old fashioned police work, with evidence from the scene and witness testimonies so they can be more targeted. It feels like code for “we have no clue.” Forgive me if I sound cynical.
Besides that update, there's not much news in it. In fact, the article is about how The Night Prowler has yet again stumped the police and they don’t believe he has committed a crime since taking me, but he has been known to go through periods of dormancy, so much is uncertain. Yet there is one development that makes my heart skid to a halt.
When asked if she thought her daughter was still alive, Rivers' mother confessed that they had “given up hope on that possibility.”
Four weeks. Four fucking weeks and she's already cast me off as dead. She's finally free of the burden. The daughter she didn't plan on as she fucked every man in our commune. She had to guess who my father was and he wouldn't even think of accepting me, knowing the odds. She was a hippie, but it was never about love and peace with her. It was freedom. From responsibility. From the world's expectations. Now she's free, married to a doctor of all things. And I'm the one who's a prisoner.
I'm already becoming a byline in the paper. They think I'm rotting somewhere in the desert. No one is looking for a living woman. The only person who knows I exist, who I matter to, even in a twisted way, is the man who took me.
I crumple up the paper and let out a frustrated yell as I roll it into a compact ball. Then I pull it apart and rip it petulantly, already breaking the rule of keeping my new home tidy. Tears roll down my cheeks as I realize that I must come to terms with the fact that this is my new reality. Maybe one day I'll be found or run away. That day could be tomorrow. But in the meantime, if I don't accept and adapt to the present, I'll lose my mind before that day comes. I'll be as torn and rumpled as the paper that litters the pale knotted-pine floor.
So I wipe the tears, bend down and pick up the shards of paper. I've already made my stand earlier, and I think that's enough rebellion for one day. As I pick up the pieces, I feel the soreness from when Night was inside me earlier. I quiver with the memories of the indecency. I grimace at my depravity in lusting for him. I take the fragments of newspaper and hide them under the bed, so if someone ever finds this place and I’m dead, maybe they’ll piece together that I was once here.
I push against a small door to find a very small washroom. There's no modern plumbing. There's makeshift wooden seat which I presume leads to a bucket underneath. It's too small a hole to fit even an entire leg through, so I don't entertain the thought of a grand escape. There is a basin full of water and another empty basin. On a small wooden shelf are fresh towels. On one wall is a small, faded mirror, ornately curved in shape. My face shocks me. It's thin, and my hair is wild. A bright red streak colors my pale neck from when he held the sharp knife against it. I run my finger against it and smudge the blood against my cheeks and lips like makeup. It's just a surface cut from the contact of the knife. It won't even scar. I know because I had many of these when he took me and they're all gone now. Erased from memory as I surely will be in a few months.
There is a pull cord and of course, I curiously yank it without thinking. Water rains down on me and I startle. It's some sort of makeshift shower. The water isn't hot, but it's warm enough, and already being naked and needing to cleanse away the earl
ier activities, I pull down the cord all the way and let the water fall on me.
A shower, even one as primitive as this one is an absolute luxury. I wash away the blood and evidence of the brutal sex we had, but the pink ligature marks on my ankles and neck stubbornly remain.
Blocked from my view earlier by the towels are small bottles. Shampoo and soap.
As the lukewarm water cascades down my skin, I think of the cute little abode in which I find myself, feeling a twinge of gratitude. This entire thing required thoughtful planning. Stop, Vesper. This is no different from the basement or a cage. But it is. He could keep me wherever he wants. Instead, he built me a home. He's given me a way to clean myself. A place without windows which means that at least I am safe from his prying eyes when I am alone.
He's stripped me of my dignity, but he's also giving it back to me in small pieces. If I behave, I can keep this.
Once complete, I wrap the towel around my body and use the small antique brush resting beside the empty basin to comb my hair. It's the first time in weeks I've felt comfortable. I don't know how long it will last, but this is the way things are now. Here, I still exist. The old Vesper Rivers will have to be stowed away, protected by the new one, so that when she is free again, she will still be whole. This is survival.
She looks like those jewelry boxes, a beautiful girl surrounded by pastel colors, confined to her perfect little world. She doesn't know I can still see her. Of course I would make sure to install peepholes throughout the little cabin. I'm me for fuck's sake.
She read the articles and cried. She understands now. It's only a matter of time before major resources are pulled from her search. There will be a little girl taken somewhere, a murder, then another. And with each of those she'll be pushed a little further towards the back burner. I saw how it used to bother my dad when a case couldn’t be solved, but you can’t pool your focus on one person forever. It’ll get to the point where they will require a mistake on my part to find her. I don’t make mistakes. Vesper understands that the only person who can take care of her now is me.
Take Me With You Page 10