Still Missing (4 page)

How was your Christmas, Doc? Hope Santa brought you something good. Dealing with a head case like me every week should've guaranteed you a spot on his "nice" list. Me? Well, despite my best intentions to avoid any form of holiday merriment or good cheer, it came knocking on my door. Literally. Some Boy Scouts came by selling Christmas trees, and maybe I was inspired by your wreath--or hell, maybe just by their being brave enough to knock on the only door with no Christmas lights--but somehow I ended up buying one. Always was a sucker for guys in uniform.

Problem was Mom had gotten rid of all my decorations, and every time I thought about going into a store...well, even if people didn't still stare at me like I have an elf growing out of my ass, I'd pretty much rather dance barefoot on broken ornaments than go into a store this time of year. Got so tired of looking at the damn tree sitting sad and naked in the corner that I dragged it down to the shelter in town. Figured someone might as well enjoy it.

Hell, there wasn't anything to put under it anyway. I told my friends and family I didn't want any presents, and I didn't go to any Christmas parties. I consider that my gift to the general public. No need to bring everyone else down. Compared to last year, this holiday's a raging success.

The morning after The Freak tried to rape me he made me shower with him. He washed me off like a child and didn't miss an inch. Then he made me wash him--all of him.

I had to stand facing the wall with my back to him when he shaved his body. I lusted after the razor. I wanted to slice his dick off. This time he didn't shave me. "Shaving is for bath time," he said. After we got out, he brought me some clothes.

"What did you do with my suit?"

"Don't worry, you never have to go into the office again."

He smiled. Today's choice was sexy underwear again, in bridal white, and a shift dress in a country pattern with little pink hearts on a cream-colored background. Something I never would have picked out--way too sweet and cute for me. After he gave me some flimsy slippers to wear, he sat me down on the stool while he made breakfast--porridge with dried blueberries. While I ate, he sat across from me and explained all my new rules. Actually, first he explained how truly screwed I was.

"We're miles away from any human being, so even if you did escape you'd never last outside longer than a couple of days. And if you're worried about how we'll survive, there's no need. I've taken care of everything. We'll live off the land, and the only time you have to be alone is when I go hunting or into town for supplies." I perked up--into town meant a vehicle.

"You'll never be able to find the van and even if you did, I've ensured you won't be able to start it."

"How long do you plan on keeping me here? You're going to run out of money eventually."

His smile grew.

"I don't deserve this, my family doesn't deserve this. Just tell me what I have to do so you'll let me go. I'll do it--I swear--whatever it is."

"I've tried to play women's games before, with some unfortunate results, but I won't make that mistake again."

"The perfume smell in the back of the van, on the blanket...is there another woman? Did you--"

"Don't you understand what a fantastic gift this is? This is your
redemption,
Annie."

"I don't understand
any
of this. None of it makes sense. Why are you doing this to me?"

He shrugged. "An opportunity arose and there you were. Sometimes good things happen to good people."

"This isn't a
good
thing. This is wrong." I glared at him. "You can't just take me away from every--"

"What exactly did I take you away from? Your boyfriend? We've already discussed him. Your mother? In general I find people rather tedious, but watching you two have lunch? People reveal so much through their body language. Your only real relationship is with your dog."

"I have a
life
."

"No, you merely existed. But I'm giving you a second chance and I suggest you pay attention--there won't be a third. Every morning after breakfast we'll have exercise time, then a shower. We had one before breakfast today, but there'll be no deviations from the schedule in the future."

He walked over to the wardrobe and unlocked it.

"I'll be choosing your clothes for the day." He held up a couple of dresses cut like the one I was wearing, one with navy hearts on a powder-blue background and the other just solid pale pink. My hatred for pink was escalating. Stacks of what was probably the same dress in various colors filled the top shelf. He reached back in and pulled out a lavender wool cardigan. "Winters can be cold up here."

Several sets of the same outfit he was wearing, beige shirt and pants, lined the lower shelf. And to the side I spotted a couple of beige sweaters. He noticed the direction of my gaze, smiled, then said, "You're the only color I need," and rolled right on.

"After you're dressed, I'll go outside and do my chores--yours are inside. You'll wash the dishes, make the bed, and do the laundry." He took a plate out of the cupboard and slammed it against the counter. "Incredible, isn't it? Made by the same company as the glass." Next he pulled out a pot and swung it through the air like a baseball bat. "Light as a feather, and in one piece too. I don't know how they do it." He shook his head.

"I'll spray down all the surfaces myself." He unlocked the cupboard under the sink and brought out a bottle of house hold cleaner. I noticed it was biodegradable but didn't recognize the brand.

"The cleaning fluid will be locked up at all times and you'll never be allowed to handle hot water or any utensils I feel are unsafe. After you're done with your cleaning duties, I expect you to finish your personal grooming. Your fingernails, which are a mess, must be perfect, and I'll file them for you. Your feet should be soft and your toenails painted. Women should have long hair, so I'll rub conditioner in yours to help it grow faster. You won't be wearing any makeup.

"Our day will start at seven a.m., lunch is at twelve sharp, and afternoons will be spent studying any books I require you to learn. I'll inspect your chores at five, dinner will be at seven, and after dinner you'll clean up again and then read to me. After reading hour, I'll bathe you, then it's lights out at ten o'clock."

He showed me a small pocket watch with a timer on it, like a stopwatch, that he kept on a key chain in his front pocket. No other clocks were in the cabin, so I never knew what time it was unless he told me.

"You'll be allowed to relieve yourself four times a day. These breaks will be supervised, and the bathroom door will be left open. In fact..." He glanced at the watch. "It's your first bathroom break now." I took the long way around the kitchen, putting as much space between him and me as possible. "Annie. Don't forget to leave the door open."

After I'd been there a couple of days he was outside when I decided to sneak in a pee. He came back in just after I'd flushed the toilet, so it was still running. I stood by the bed, trying to look like I was straightening it up. I thought maybe he wouldn't hear the toilet, but just as he started to turn on the kitchen tap and fill up a cup he paused, cocked his head, then went into the bathroom. Within seconds he stomped toward me, his face red and lips twisted into a snarl. I cringed in the corner, then tried to dart past him, but he grabbed my hair.

He dragged me to the bathroom and made me kneel in front of the toilet. Then he lifted the lid and shoved my head down, smashing my forehead into the toilet seat. He yanked my head back up by my hair while he reached around with his free arm and filled the cup with toilet water. He crouched behind me, forced my head to tilt back, then brought the cup to my mouth.

I struggled to move my face away, but he pressed the cup so hard against my lips I thought he'd break it. Some of the water went into my mouth and some up my nose. Before I could spit it out, he clamped his hand over my mouth, and I had to swallow it.

Afterward he made me brush my teeth twenty times--he counted out loud--then forced my mouth open wide so he could inspect my teeth. Next I had to rinse my mouth out with salt and warm water ten times. For the finale, he took some soap and water and scrubbed around my lips until I thought at least two layers of skin had been rubbed off. I never tried that again.

Feels like I'm never going to break free of all his screwy rules, Doc. And man, were they ever screwy. It doesn't matter that I know they're total bullshit. They're locked in and I'm locked down. On top of his rules, my psyche has added a few of its own--any little personality quirk I had before has been blown up twenty times and now I'm some weird hybrid of freakdom.

I take the same route to get here and stop at the same coffee shop. I hang my coat on the same hook in your office every session and sit in the same spot. You should see my routine before I go to bed--doors locked, all the blinds down, every window locked. Then I have a bath and shave my legs--left leg first, then the right, armpits last.

Once I'm done with the bath I apply lotion all over, and before finally going to bed I check the doors and windows again, put cans in front of the door, and double-check that the alarm is set--the cans are in case the alarm fails--then finally I make sure the knife is under the bed and the pepper spray on the night table.

A lot of nights when I try to sleep in my bed, all I do is lie there listening to every little sound, so I get up and crawl into the closet, dragging a blanket--I crawl in case anyone's peeking through the windows. Then I tuck myself in and arrange the shoes so they're in front of me.

Last time, you said my routines were probably providing me with a sense of security--and yes, I've noticed the casual something-to-think-about's and have-you-considered's you've started sliding in there once in a while. As long as you don't start asking a bunch of questions, we'll be okay. But I swear to God, if you ever ask how I'm feeling, you'll be talking to my back as I cruise right out of here for good.

So, this routines thing? At first I thought you were totally off base, but I've been giving it some brain time, and I guess my bedtime ritual does make me feel safe--which is ironic, to say the least. I mean, the whole time I was up there I was never safe. It was like riding a roller coaster through hell with the devil at the control switch, but the routine was the one damn thing I could count on to stay the same.

Each day I push myself a little further, and some shit has been easier to shake than other shit, but certain things? No way. Last night I drank a gallon of tea and spent almost an hour on the toilet, at least it felt like an hour, trying to force myself to pee at an unscheduled time. Almost got a dribble--had this oh-my-God-I'm-going-to-pee moment--but then my bladder seized up again. All that experiment produced was another sleepless night.

On that note, I've had enough for today. I have to go home and pee, and no, I don't want to use your bathroom. I'd just be sitting in there, thinking about you in here, wondering if you're wondering whether I was able to pee or not. No, thanks.

On the way over here today I stopped at the coffee shop on the corner of your street. Looks dingy on the outside but has killer java, just about makes the drive into the city worth it. I'm not sure what you have in that mug of yours--for all I know it's scotch--but I took a chance and got you a tea. There should be some perks to having to end your day with me.

By the way, I like the chunky silver jewelry you're always wearing. Matches your hair and kind of gives you a chic grandma feel. The kind who might still have sex and like it. Don't worry, I'm not hinting for details--I know shrinks don't like to talk about their lives and I'm way too self-absorbed these days to listen, anyway.

Maybe I like your jewelry because it reminds me of my real dad, which fits with that whole self-absorbed thing. Not that he wore a bunch of the stuff, but he did have this one claddagh ring of his father's. My dad's parents were straight from Ireland, came over and opened a jewelry store. The ring was the only thing he got when they were killed in a fire soon after my parents were married--bank took everything else. I asked Mom for the ring after the accident, she said it was lost.

I like to think if my dad were alive he'd have tried everything in his power to rescue me, but I don't really know how he'd have handled it. He was a pretty laid-back guy, and in my mind he'll always be forty years old, wearing his nice fuzzy sweaters and khakis. Only times I remember him getting excited were when he told me about a new shipment of books at the library where he worked.

I thought about him sometimes on the mountain, even wondered if he was watching over me. Then I'd get pissed off. If he was my guardian angel, like I told myself growing up, why the hell didn't he make it stop?

On my second night, The Freak tenderly washed my back in the bath. "Let me know if you want more hot water." He squeezed the cloth and let the rose-scented water trickle over my shoulders and back.

"You're quiet tonight." He nuzzled the wet hair at the nape of my neck. Then he took a strand into his mouth and sucked on it. I ached to thrust my shoulder up into his face and break his nose. Instead, I stared at the bathtub wall and counted how many seconds it took for a bead of water to fall. "Did you know every woman has a unique flavor to her hair? Yours tastes like nutmeg and cloves."

I shuddered.

"I knew the water wasn't warm enough." He ran the hot water for a minute. "I can tell just by looking at a woman how she'll taste. Some men are fooled by the color. It would be easy to think your mother with her young face and blond hair would taste clean and fresh, but I've learned to look deeper for the truth." He moved in front of me and began to gently wash my leg. I continued to focus on the wall. He was just trying to mess with me--I couldn't let him see it was working.

"She is a beautiful woman, though. Makes me wonder how many of your boyfriends wanted to have sex with her. If, when they were making love to you, they thought about her."

My stomach flipped. Over the years I got used to my boyfriends ogling my mom. When they weren't busy shoving in one of her dinners they were staring at her full mouth. One guy actually told me my mom looked like a hotter, grown-up version of Tinker Bell. Even Luke stumbled over his words sometimes when she was around.

Seventeen seconds, eighteen...that bead was
slow.

"I doubt any of them could see, as I could, that she'd taste like a green apple, the kind you think is ripe until you take a bite. And your friend Christina, with her long blond hair always pinned up, always businesslike. There's more to her than meets the eye." I lost track of the bead of water.

"Yes, I know about Christina. She's a Realtor too, isn't she? Quite a successful one, I understand. I wonder why you surround yourself with people you envy."

I wanted to tell him I wasn't jealous, I was proud of Christina--we'd been best friends since high school. She taught me everything I know about real estate. Hell, she taught me everything I know about a lot of things, but I kept my mouth shut. This guy would use anything I said to screw with me.

"Does she remind you of Daisy? Daisy was cotton candy, but Christina, mmmm...Christina. Bet you she tastes like imported pears." My eyes met his. He began soaping my feet. I was sick of being played with.

"How did your mother taste?" I said.

The hand on my foot stilled and tightened. "My mother? Is that what you think this is all about?" He laughed as he plunged my foot underwater, then he got the razor from the cupboard.

This time when his hand gripped my leg I began to count the lines in the tiled wall. When the cold blade of the razor slid down my calf, I lost count and started again. When he made me stand up, so he could shave everything, I divided the tiles by the number of cracks in the grout. When his hands spread lotion on me, he hummed a song and I counted drips of wax down the sides of the candles.

I took inventory of whatever I looked at. I'd multiply and divide the numbers. If another thought or a feeling crept into my mind, I kicked it out and started again from the top.

While he tried to rape me for the second time, I didn't move, didn't cry, just stared at the bedroom wall. If I didn't react, he couldn't get it up. Help had to be on the way, I just had to tough it out until it showed up. So no matter what he did to me, I counted or thought about planes while I lay there like a rag doll. He gripped my face and looked right in my eyes and kept trying to force his limp penis into me. I counted the blood vessels in his eyes. His dick got softer. He yelled at me to call him by his name. When I didn't, he pounded his fist into the pillow right next to my ear, screaming, "You stupid, stupid bitch!" with each blow.

The pounding stopped. His breathing slowed. On his way to the bathroom he started to hum.

While he showered, I clutched the pillow over my face and shouted into it.
You sick fuck!
Y
ou limp-dicked asshole! You picked the wrong girl to mess with.
Sobs went into the pillow next. The second I heard the shower shut off I flipped the pillow over, placed it back under my head dry side up, and turned my face to the wall.

Unfortunately, failure didn't discourage him. Each time it started with the same routine, bath time--which was when he liked to talk the most--followed by shaving, a lotion rubdown, then the dress. I felt like a Broadway performer: same stage, setting, lighting, and costume night after night. The only thing that changed was his increasing frustration and what he did about it.

After his third failed attempt, he slapped me twice in the face so hard I bit my tongue. This time there was no satisfaction, bitter or otherwise. I muffled my sobs with the pillow, sucked on my bloody tongue, and dreaded the end of his shower.

The fourth night he punched me twice in the stomach--my breath whooshed out of me, and the pain shocked me as much as it hurt--and once in the jaw. That pain was excruciating. The room dimmed. I prayed for everything to go completely black. It didn't. I stopped crying into the pillow.

The fifth night he flipped me over, knelt on my hands, and ground my face into the mattress so hard I couldn't breathe. My chest burned. He did this three times, always stopping right before I passed out.

Most nights ended with him getting up, his face expressionless, and then I'd hear the shower run for a while. After he got back into bed, he'd cuddle me and talk about something trivial--how natives cured meat, what constellations he saw on his nightly patrol, which fruits he liked or disliked.

But one night he lay down beside me and said, "I wonder how Christina is. She's so calm and self-possessed, isn't she? I wonder what it would take for a woman like her to lose control."

I struggled to catch my breath as he wove his fingers through my stiff hands and softly rubbed his thumb against mine.

As he snored beside me the idea of his hands anywhere on Christina, or of her feeling one second of the terror I was feeling, tore at my insides. I couldn't let that happen. My current plan wasn't working, unless my goal was to get myself, and possibly Christina, killed. It was taking too long for me to be found, and he wasn't going to turn to me one day and say, "This doesn't seem to be working out, so I'm going to take you home now." I might have gambled longer with my own life, but not Christina's.

I was going to have to help him rape me.

Understanding his behavior was critical. I dredged up everything I'd ever read about rapists, every TV show I'd ever seen about them--
Law & Order: SVU
,
Criminal Minds
, a couple of A&E specials--mostly focusing on what rapists like and under what circumstances they kill their victims.

I remembered that some rapists need to think the victims enjoy what they're doing to them. Maybe The Freak was able to delude himself into thinking I was actually turned on, but still couldn't get it up because on some level a little voice of doubt was creeping in on him. Right now it was making him impotent. If it got louder, I'd be dead.

The next night in the bath, I said, "You're very gentle." He stared at me hard and I made myself look into his eyes.

"Really?"

"Most men, you know, are kind of rough, but you have a nice touch."

He smiled.

"I'm sorry I've been difficult, I just wasn't sure, you know, at first, but I've been thinking maybe...maybe it's not too late for me to start a new life." How much should I hesitate? If I was too positive he'd never buy it.

"Difficult?"

"I mean, it will take a while for me to get used to everything and all, but I'm beginning to see that maybe I could like it up here. With you."

"You think so, do you?" He dragged out each syllable.

Forcing myself to make eye contact again, I tried to convey as much sincerity as possible.

"Yes, I do. You understand a lot of things most men don't."

"Oh, I definitely understand a lot of things most men don't." His face broke out in his award-winning smile. Bingo.

When he rubbed lotion on me, I said, "I really like that scent." His smile grew even bigger.

After I put on the dress, I twirled for him and said, "It's exactly what I would have picked out."

Back on the bed I moaned for him and kissed him back, but cautiously, as though I were awakening to his touch. His pants sped up and I counted the seconds between them like contractions. Inside, I died.

With his breathing heavy and his face flushed, he lay on top of me. Worried he would lose his erection--and then lose control--I reached down and fondled him before things could turn ugly. It had to be done.

Deep inside myself I curled into a ball and hid from my own words as I whispered, "I've waited for this moment."

His arms tensed and his face turned dark with rage. He clamped his hand down on my throat. His hand tightened as I clawed uselessly at it.

"I could kill you at any second, and you talk like a whore? You should be terrified. You should be begging. You should be fighting for your life.
Don't you get it?
"

He finally released my throat, but my relief was interrupted by a blow to my stomach. He pounded my body with his fists, against my breasts, face, crotch. I struggled, but his fists were everywhere at once. The blows rained down until I couldn't feel them anymore. I had passed out.

It's strange, Doc, when The Freak called me a whore and beat me, I felt pain but no sense of outrage, because I
wanted
him to hurt me. Even while my body struggled against him, my mind cheered him on. I
deserved
the pain. How could I say those things? How could I touch him like that?

I did a lot of things on the mountain, a lot of things I didn't want to do and a lot of things I didn't want to believe I was capable of doing. But that time? When I wonder how I became the zombie I am now, how I could have gotten so lost, it always traces back to that moment--the moment I put my soul on the shelf to make room for the devil.