Once, We Were Stolen

by Courtney Symons

She didn’t answer him out loud, simply turned and kissed him, full on the mouth. It was wonderful. Her lips were like cushions and tasted of mint. He would let her fall asleep now and would lie there holding her tired body until he fell asleep himself. It wasn’t long before he submitted to a deep, easy slumber.

  The hours passed quickly. Both Violet and Jeremy woke up a couple of times. They each looked at the clock, at one another, then closed their eyes and let sleep take them again. Every time Jeremy awoke, he was shocked to find the beautiful young woman still in his arms. He fell back asleep with a smile on his face and his arms still around her. He had no feeling in one of them, but the other felt good enough to assure himself he could pump enough blood back in there in the morning, on any other day he didn’t have Violet in his bed.

  When Violet awoke in the night, she did so with a start. Panic kicked in. Where am I? What’s going on? She looked over at Jeremy and remembered right away. His arms had stayed around her all night and she settled back down into them gently.

  Things hadn’t gone as she’d planned, but perhaps she had overestimated the amount she would need to give Jeremy to win his heart. Maybe he just needed someone to hold.

  Both wondered what would happen in the morning. Who would speak first, who would put their feet on the ground before the other. Would there be breakfast in bed, should she sneak back into her room before Ben awoke, would Ben even notice? Neither had any idea what the morning would look like, but both kept re-shutting their eyes and falling back asleep, willing to wait and see.

  Finally, the sun began to stream in too brightly for them to ignore. Violet’s eyes were open and her body was alert. She considered how she could get up without disturbing Jeremy’s sleep. When she looked over, she saw his open eyes looking right back at her.

  “Oh!” she said startled. “You’re awake!”

  He just nodded and kissed her hair.

  “Violet,” he said, his voice hoarse with sleep, “I know that once you get out of this bed, this will never happen again. But it was so nice to have you here. Thank you for spending the night with me. You have no idea how much it meant.” His breath slunk into her ear, hot and humid, triggering a nerve deep in her lower back and making her spasm with intensity.

  Jeremy was convinced their night had only happened because of the wine and the concussion. Violet wondered if he would let it happen again. For now, she decided to let it rest.

  “So I’ll just sneak out of here, back into my room, before Ben notices?” she asked quietly.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “I think that’s the best idea. And if you stay in there for awhile, I’ll bring you breakfast in bed.”

  She smiled. Perhaps he’s in love with me already, she thought.

  “And things will go back to normal?” Violet asked innocently. She wasn’t sure how she wanted him to answer. Mostly she hoped he would say no, that things had changed and would never go back to the way they were. He didn’t say that.

  “Yes, back to normal,” he said with a stiff jerk of his head that she took to be an exaggerated nod.

  She crawled out of bed, still fully clothed. She couldn’t recall ever having had such a good night’s sleep dressed in jeans and a sweater. She had forgotten the clothing was there at all, hadn’t felt any need to remove it all night. Maybe there was comfort in covering something. She had tried to lay herself bare before him but that wasn’t what he needed. Maybe he was too worried he would need to strip down too.

  “Okay,” she said as she got to the door. “Well, see you in a bit then.” It sounded phony coming out of her mouth. There was no way things could be the same. It was bound to become strange. It had to, didn’t it?

  When Violet turned the doorknob and pulled it inwards, she gasped when she saw two brown eyes waiting right outside the door.

  “Jesus, Ben!” she breathed. “You scared me. What are you doing?”

  “I heard you guys talking,” he shrugged, “I wanted to see what was going on.”

  Violet’s heart jumped in her chest. She had no idea how long he had been hovering outside that door, and she certainly wasn’t able to ask. Thank god she was fully dressed.

  “Oh, right,” she said in her best attempt at an everyday, normal tone of voice. “We had a bet last night that whoever went to bed first would have to make breakfast in the morning. He fell asleep first, so I was just reminding him that he owed me breakfast in bed.” The lie came easily.

  Ben seemed satisfied. He wasn’t even jealous; he didn’t like breakfast in bed anyhow. He went one way and she went the other, back to her bed not slept-in. She wondered how much Ben noticed, what he took in. Would he notice the change in them? As if the pressure had dropped in the room or there was a silent stranger sitting in the corner that they guarded their words around. It had to be evident. It would definitely be noticeable. She decided to get to work at coming up with an excuse. Easiest would be to tell Ben she hated Jeremy, and that she was just angry because she wanted to go home. The effort of carrying out the lie was unappealing.

  Violet closed her door behind her and pushed her weight against it. She slumped to the floor and wrapped her arms around her buckled legs. She was forced to remind herself the purpose of her plan. Perhaps she could ask Jeremy later that day if they could go home, and he’d be too vulnerable to say no, too desperate to please her. She wasn’t confident enough to try yet. It would take a little more time, which was all she had. Grain upon grain of it; time she could hold in her hands and spend as she pleased, but not really. It slipped through her fingers bit by gritty bit. It made her sick, that her time was so dispensable.

  If I went home tomorrow, she told herself, I would be in the same spot I was a year ago. I would have to get a job, work myself crazy, save money, apply for programs I haven’t chosen yet.

  If she went home tomorrow, there would be no more late night campfires. No unexpected gifts. No lazy Sundays, or weeks, lazy months. No gardening, no fresh air. More stress. Less time for herself. More responsibility, more guilt, more questions. The guilt might be the hardest part. How was she going to explain to the world that she had stayed with this man for so long? Why she hadn’t found a way out sooner? How she could let her little brother spend so much of his childhood in a place like this? Why hadn’t she fought harder? She could imagine the skepticism, the judgment, the heavily lidded eyes staring at her in accusation. She would be made the villain, just as much as Jeremy.

  Could she go home? It wasn’t a question she had ever thought to ask before, because of course she could. As soon as they escaped, they could head right back home and life would continue as normal. But so much time had passed that she knew it wouldn’t be that easy, could not be. A part of her might never be able to forgive her mother for not finding them. A part of her mother might never forgive her for being away for so long. What would become of Jeremy? She would turn him in. She would have to turn him in. It was the only logical solution.

  A knock behind her jolted Violet’s head and attention. She shimmied away from the door, pulled herself up and opened it. Jeremy stood there, tray in hand, steam rising from everything fresh and hot he had prepared for her. Eggs, toast, tea, and a bowl of yogurt.

  “This is all for me?” she asked, although she knew it was. She walked over to her bed, propped her pillow and leaned against it.

  “All for you,” he repeated as he set the tray in her lap. “Take your time, I’m making some for Ben too, don’t worry.”

  “He was in the hall,” she reminded him.

  “I know,” he said. “It sounded like he wasn’t too concerned though. Do you think?”

  “Oh, definitely not,” Violet agreed. “He’s fine.” She made a mental note to sit down and talk with Ben just in case.

  Jeremy was already retreating toward the door. She could tell he wasn’t comfortable in her space; the space that had become hers. He would never have laid his head on her bed. As he left, she puzzled over his reluctance to get into bed with her. How could a man morally d
epraved enough to kidnap someone be incapable of intimacy with them? She knew it was gruesome, but shouldn’t that have been part of the plan? Why would he have chosen her; young, relatively fair, a waitress – a role that, by definition, involves submissiveness. Why her if he hadn’t meant to touch her? It made no sense. Perhaps Ben being along for the ride had changed things. She couldn’t decipher his moral code. She would just have to keep trying.

  That night, Violet sat up in bed waiting. When all the lights had gone out and Ben was snug in his bed, Violet crept out of her room, gently eased open her old wooden door to avoid the creak, and tiptoed down the hall to Jeremy’s room.

  Knock, knock. There was no sound from within. She tried again. Knock, knock, knock. A little louder this time. Still nothing. Violet rested her hand on the doorknob and wondered if she could just walk in. She held her breath and told herself that on the count of five, she would open it.

  One, two, three, four, five. She didn’t open it. She tried again. And then she did.

  “Jeremy?” she whispered into the darkness. “Are you awake?” It was fairly obvious he was not. Taking small steps forward, she relied on memory to lead her to his bed. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark after sitting in her light-flooded room. She stubbed her toe on the leg of the bed, and stifled a whimper. A rustling of sheets before her said that at least he was there.

  “Jeremy.” She said it louder this time. She didn’t want to startle him; he might shout and wake Ben. A figure hovering over his sleeping body – does that sort of thing scare men the way it does women? She wasn’t sure.

  Peeling the covers back from the lonely side of the bed, Violet slid her body underneath and next to Jeremy’s. He radiated heat. He’d been asleep for some time; Ben had lasted longer than them with something on television.

  His back was to her, curled up in a ball facing the empty air. She reached out and rubbed his back. He groaned in an innocent way and leaned his body toward her, still sleeping. It amazed her the way human bodies respond to touch even in the deepest of slumbers. Violet burrowed herself against him and nudged her knees into the back of his. The movement of her shorter body left her head midway down his back, but she pressed her lips to his spine and instantly felt the warmth of his body transferred onto her mouth.

  A sharp intake of breath followed by a jerk and a hand reaching back toward her indicated Jeremy was awake.

  “It’s okay,” she soothed, “It’s just me.”

  He breathed out. “Violet? What are you doing here?”

  He hadn’t invited her, after all. She had snuck into his room and his bed without asking permission. What if he had done the same?

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said, which was partly true. She hadn’t allowed herself to, waiting to sleep next to him instead.

  Jeremy turned to face her, suddenly alert. “Violet?”

  “Yes?” She feared he was about to ask her to leave but it was the opposite.

  “Do you like living here?” he asked.

  She paused, not sure what he was asking. “Yes, I do.” What else was she to say while lying next to him?

  “What do you like about it?” he pressed.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, not sure how she felt about listing reasons why she didn’t mind being held captive. What alarmed her was the quick list that sprung forth in her mind. “Well,” she continued, “I like waking up when my body tells me to. It’s been months since I’ve set an alarm for anything, and that’s really nice.”

  She hoped that would satisfy him but he asked for more.

  “What else?”

  “Hmm. I never minded my job because I liked the people and bringing in money … But it’s not the worst thing in the world to not go to work every day.”

  He didn’t ask her to continue, but his silence did the job. She should’ve stopped there, but she didn’t.

  “I like getting to spend so much time with Ben. I like being able to put off real life for a while and not think about the decisions waiting for me at home. I like not having to live up to my mother’s expectations.” She didn’t need to be so honest. He was probably only looking for one thing, true or false, and it was the thing she said next.

  “And I like getting to know you,” she said. After the words were over, she sucked in her cheeks and lay there, dead silent, waiting.

  “I really like that as well.” He bought it. It had been a pretty good sell. “Do you ever wish you were back home?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “I do miss sleeping in my own bed. I miss my mom. I miss my friends, and the regulars at the diner. I miss being able to go wherever I want whenever I want to. I miss going out for dinner. The movies. The gas station, even.”

  Experiences she never knew she’d enjoyed were now absently ached for. The mundane adventures; the everyday safaris.

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said after a moment. “I guess you would.”

  She hated him again, then. She wanted to get out of his bed and run to her room, slamming the door behind her. She didn’t, though. Didn’t move at all.

  Facing her, Jeremy said what he’d been dying to for weeks. “Violet, what if I asked you to stay here with me?”

  “What do you mean? I am here with you. Ben and I both.”

  “No, I know,” he said sheepishly. “But I’ve been forcing you to stay. Do you think there’s a way you could ever choose to stay with me? To live with me?”

  “Jeremy, no,” she said quickly. “I couldn’t. I can’t just be cut off from the rest of the world for the rest of my life. That’s cruel.”

  “I know,” he said again, “but you wouldn’t have to be. If you chose to live here with me, then I wouldn’t have to force you to stay. You could leave whenever you wanted, just as long as you always came back.”

  Violet couldn’t believe her ears. It was perfect. Her fingers gripped her wrist, where that dreadful bracelet had been dangling for months. Mostly, she could ignore it. Pretend it was part of her outfit. But sometimes she was struck with such an urge to rip it off her arm. How dare he strap something to her body like a brand, a searing hot shackle to mark her as his. If that bracelet was removed from her wrist, Jeremy wouldn’t be able to track her any longer. She could drop off the grid, get as far away as she could, and never come back.

  “Yes,” she said quickly, before he could rephrase his offer, take bits of it away. “Yes, I would do that.”

  Jeremy mistook her firmness as fact. It sounded to him as if she had thought about it already, on her own, long and hard, and had come to the conclusion that she wanted to stay with him forever. How could he be so lucky?

  “You would?” he asked excitedly. “You would stay here, of your own free will?”

  “I would,” she lied. “I would stay here with you.”

  Neither of them mentioned Ben, whether they should ask him as well, whether he would get to go home or be forced to stay. Violet didn’t want to get Jeremy thinking about the details, and Jeremy didn’t want to say anything that might make Violet change her mind.

  “This is amazing,” he whispered.

  “When would this happen?” Violet asked.

  Jeremy wanted it to start right then, that very moment, but knew he should do it bit by bit. “In a week,” he said. “One week, and it’ll all be over.”

  Violet felt freedom rise to her throat like bile.

  28

  She went to his bed every night after. Crept in when the lights were off and stayed until the sun started to crawl up the walls. The same routine; she would curl up against him and kiss the middle of his back, slither down to get the small of it on her lips. It became easy, but she had no idea what would happen if Jeremy decided he wanted more than just warmth.

  On those nights, Violet closed her eyes and pretended she was next to someone who kept her safe every night and held her hand every day. Jeremy was the only man besides Ben she had ever lived with, and she found herself playing the childhood game of House, except in a real one, with a real man.
With eyes closed against the moonlight, he could be anyone. He was warm, he held her tightly and he smelled like comfort. The rest, she could block out. The gangly limbs, the freckles and wild hair, the nervous tic that crept into his speech sometimes, not allowing him to say what he wanted on his first attempt. Those things could be erased in the night.

  At the end of that week, though, on the last night that she knew conclusively she would be under the same roof, under the same sheets, as Jeremy, she allowed it to be Jeremy. She allowed all of the things she had discovered about him to stay in bed with them. Running her fingers through his hair, she remembered how the sun made it look aflame. As she traced her fingers over his lips, she saw them moving slowly, trying to get the words out.

  Against her will, or maybe with it, her hips began to press themselves against Jeremy’s stock-still body. It felt natural and intimate. Her hips had remained still next to him for far too long. Would he really not respond to her touch?

  He stiffened. He didn’t relax or wrap his arms more tightly around her, but she knew he had noticed and was trying not to. Her hands traced a line from his jaw to his chest.

  “Jeremy?” she whispered.

  “Violet?” he responded.

  “We can. I want to,” she said.

  “You do?” Incredulously, as if she couldn’t know what she wanted, and if she did, it couldn’t be him. By all rights, it shouldn’t have been him. But he was the one who had been next to her for months on end.

  “I do,” she said firmly. She didn’t want to argue or convince. No more words needed to be spoken, and she hoped he realized it.

  He didn’t. “I just don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” he protested.

  “I know,” was all she said in reply. Then she kissed him, and kept kissing him more deeply whenever he tried to mutter anything else.

  He started moving with her, his hips arching in time with hers. She rested her thumbs on the elastic of his underwear and pulled them down. She wanted no time to second-guess herself.

  Jeremy’s body moved perfectly with hers. Violet’s mouth clamped shut in attempts to stop from moaning from pleasure and shame. He touched her gently, he went slowly, he didn’t race her through the process. There was sweat, there was fire, there were moments when Violet thought her body might burst.