Comfort Food (4 page)

The soup wasn’t for my benefit. It was for his, to more easily break down my defenses. The water had been the same. Small kindnesses. So I would come to trust and depend on him. I couldn’t forget what he was, that I wasn’t his guest.

I’d been afraid he would fondle my breasts again, but he didn’t. Instead, every few bites he trailed his finger down my cheek. I fought hard not to flinch and equally hard not to lean into his touch. I tried not to react at all. I just sat there and let him do it, and then it was over and he was feeding me again.

Every few bites he’d do that same comforting gesture as if I were a wild cat he was trying to tame. As if he were rescuing me. Sometimes he stroked his hand through my hair, and once, in a moment of weakness, I leaned into the touch. It was stimulation, connection, communication. It was something. But every time I leaned in, I hated myself just a little more.

When the bowl was empty, he left the room. I sighed, leaning back against the wall, trying not to hold onto memories of his hand on me as if it were a good thing. A few minutes later, he was back, and I tensed again. Was this when it would start?

He held a strip of black cloth in one hand and moved slowly toward me. I struggled to my feet and backed away to a different part of the room. He advanced. Finally, I was backed into another corner and had nowhere left to go.

My eyes pleaded with him not to do it, but I didn’t fight him. I didn’t waste words because I knew he wouldn’t answer them. I was shaking as he tied the blindfold around my eyes.

But I let him. I let him because I knew he’d do whatever he wanted anyway, and I was developing a sense of gratitude that he hadn’t physically hurt me yet. He hadn’t hit me, or cut me, or any of a million other things he could have done. He hadn’t raped me, yet. And he seemed disinclined to do those things, at least in the classical way.

When the blindfold was in place, he took me gently by the arm and led me from the cell. We went down what I perceived to be a hallway, and he took me into another room, locked the door, then removed the blindfold.

We were in a large but plain bathroom. All decorations and pictures had been taken off the walls, if they’d ever been there in the first place. The mirror had been removed, and there was a faint outline on the wall where it had once hung.

There was a sink with toothpaste and a plain white toothbrush and a shower with a plain white curtain. On the toilet seat were clothes in my size: gray sweatpants and a white top that buttoned up like an art smock. No panties or bra.

There was a chair in the bathroom where he sat and regarded me.

“Please turn around,” I said. I didn’t believe he would do it, but he did. He turned his chair to face the door, as if he were a gentleman. I thought for a brief moment about wrapping my hands around his neck and squeezing, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to kill him before he could break my arm.

I turned on the water, quickly shucked my clothes, and got under the spray. I drank in each sensation, the hot water spraying over my body, the floral scent of the soap and shampoo. After I’d finished, I rested my forehead against the cool tile and let the water run down my skin. I was afraid at any second he’d jump up and pull me out of there, but he didn’t.

When I stepped out, I noticed he’d taken my old clothes away from me. Of course, I couldn’t keep those. Those clothes would make me feel too much like a person. I slipped into the sweats and shirt, buttoning it quickly, and picked up my towel.

The towel was warm, fresh from the dryer, and it smelled like a spring meadow. Well, not really. It smelled like what we’re told by the dryer sheet people that a spring meadow smells like. But I believed it right then. I resisted the urge to put the towel against my nose and inhale.

“Okay, I’m finished.”

He stood and turned, giving me a once-over before replacing the blindfold. This time I was less afraid because it had become part of a routine, a natural continuation of actions before. He led me back to my cell and then was gone. That was the second day.

This pattern went on for seven days. I knew the time that passed because I used my fingernail to scratch a mark every day into the concrete behind the toilet. Three meals and a shower equaled a day.

He never tried to stop me from dancing. He must have known I’d eventually break anyway. There’s only so much pleasure one can derive from even a well-loved activity when it’s the only thing to do.

On the seventh day after my shower, he returned me to my cell. He removed the blindfold and stared at me, as if he could read my thoughts, or was trying to gauge his progress. He reached out and started to unbutton my shirt.

I pushed him away, but he didn’t try to force me. He didn’t start yelling; he did nothing but shrug and then turned toward the door. I panicked. I couldn’t be left alone like this, in this endless routine of nothing.

“Wait. Please don’t go.” It had been a week. He showed no signs of releasing me. On the first day I’d been willing to trade groping for food. I needed to be touched now.

Dancing wasn’t enough sensation, hot showers weren’t enough. I had started to crave the gentle caresses that accompanied meals. I knew it was sick, twisted, but I needed to connect, to feel some sort of communication with him.

He stopped next to the door and turned toward me. There was something almost like pity in his expression. It was the closest thing I’d ever seen in those black eyes, and I wished suddenly that I could read his thoughts, so I’d know what to do. He pressed his thumb up to the fingerprint scanner.

“Please! Please don’t leave me here. I’ll do anything you want.” I moved to him and reached out and touched him for the first time of my own volition. My hand gripped his arm; I couldn’t let him leave me alone again. I couldn’t keep up this maddening pattern forever. It had to stop, anything to make it stop.

My mind was going down trails I wished it wouldn’t. His soul was ugly, but physically, he was beautiful. I could give in to that. I could let that touch me without feeling the need to vomit. And I wouldn’t be blamed for it. I was the victim here.

He firmly, but gently removed my hand from his arm and walked me to the other side of the room to my corner. He shook his head at me, his eyes serious.

He turned again, and this time I didn’t follow him. He left me alone in the cell, and I slid to the floor and cried.

THREE

Another week. That’s what pulling away cost me. He didn’t beat me or throw me down and force me; he just gave me another week. This time it was worse. It was worse because he denied me his physical closeness, touch.

For the next seven days he fed me three meals a day, chicken noodle soup, no deviation. I wanted real food and I was willing to do just about anything to get it. Soup is great, but three meals a day and it becomes less filling. You start to feel
full
but
hungry
at the same time.

He didn’t come into the cell at all. He just opened the door and slid the tray in at regular intervals. He didn’t touch me or physically feed me. I felt completely bereft. I couldn’t believe I’d become so attached to my captor’s presence until I experienced the absence of it.

The hot showers became a distant memory. Instead, once a day he’d send in a large pail of tepid water, a sponge, soap, and shampoo. And of course a clean towel and a new set of the exact same boring clothes he’d been dressing me in for a week. And a comb as well as a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Now the drain across from the toilet made sense. When I dragged the heavy pail to the corner to bathe, I was aware of how completely exposed I was. If he wanted, he could watch me clean myself, and he probably

did. I was careful to ration out the water so I had enough to bathe, and also to wash and rinse my hair.

I’d stopped dancing. I didn’t want to hold out anymore. I didn’t want to hold onto whatever I could because I knew he was breaking me and succeeding. Dancing just made it take longer. I wanted to be done with it so I could move on to the next thing I would have to endure in his care.

Only in my dreams did I feel anything. I’d started dreaming about him, his hand on my face, feeding me. Even my subconscious mind had turned against me. Instead of dreaming in vivid bright colors and loud noises and vibrant tastes, I had begun to dream about the cell with him inside it.

My desires had shifted from wanting the outside world to just wanting him to come back into my cell and for my punishment to be over. I wanted to prove I could be better. I could obey and do what he wanted.

Finally, on the seventh day he stepped inside. He sat across from me as if nothing had happened, as if we hadn’t had a period of non-communication for days, and he started to feed me. When he touched my face, I leaned desperately into his hand. I wanted him to be pleased with me, to know he could trust me now.

When the soup was gone, he took the tray away. I experienced a moment of panic, fearing I’d done something to upset him, that he would abandon me for another week, but he returned a couple of minutes later. He approached me and started to undo the buttons of my top. I didn’t pull away this time.

. . . She didn’t resist as he removed first her top, then her sweatpants. She stood naked and shaking, self-conscious. She wanted to cover herself but was afraid if she did he’d punish her again. So she stood there, looking down at the ground as he observed her. She knew he must have watched her on the video monitors while she bathed, had probably stroked himself to the sight of her. And yet, it was different for him to be so close.

He raised her chin so their eyes met, and he smiled. He was pleased, and she couldn’t help the tiny flush of pleasure that went through her body at that idea. Then his mouth caressed over hers, an echo of everything he’d been from the beginning . . . gentle. As if everything he did, he only did it for her own good. To teach her.

She responded, her mouth hungrily accepting his touch. His hands drifted to her breasts, fondling her. She didn’t think of pulling away. Instead, she thought of how she could get closer and pressed her breasts harder into his hands, her body screaming for more contact with his.

He put the blindfold over her eyes and led her to the door. She was terrified of where he was taking her. Were there others in the house?

She found she had little to worry about as he took her into another room. The combination keypad went off in a series of nondescript beeps, and then he laid her back on a bed.

She’d forgotten beds, what they were like, what pillows felt like against her flesh, or soft mattresses. She still wore the blindfold as he spread her legs apart, his fingers dipping into her and grinding against her heat. She was wet, so wet for him that she could hear it as his fingers pumped in and out of her in a chaotic rhythm. Then his mouth was on her sex, driving her on until she screamed.

“Yes, please, please don’t stop touching me.” Her breathing became erratic as she crested over the wave of her orgasm. Release, sensation, pleasure after so much nothingness. Then he was inside her, still gentle, thrusting in a steady soothing rhythm, like the ocean waves beating on the shore. She felt his release and then he pulled out of her . . .

I laid on the bed panting hard as the door clicked shut. The blindfold he’d used to transport me still covered my eyes. I didn’t remove it. I was afraid if I did, he’d take me off the soft warm bed and put me back in the cell. I didn’t want to go back there. If I had to be his whore to stay out of there, I would do it.

I had the sudden urge to cover myself, but resisted it. I refused to move one inch from where he’d left me. I would move when he allowed me to move and not before. I needed him too much to make him angry with me now.

Maybe half an hour passed before the door opened again, and immediately I could smell food. Not chicken noodle soup. Real food. He removed the blindfold.

Complete sensory overload.

There was roasted turkey, dressing, sweet potato casserole, corn, those great fluffy homemade yeast rolls. I dug into it as if I’d been starved, and in some ways I had been. Everything tasted so good, so much better than it normally did when I had these things at Thanksgiving. There was sweetened iced tea and a small plate to the side that had a warm slice of pumpkin pie on it. A can of Reddi Whip sat at attention waiting to cover the pie.

I was probably eating like a pig. He didn’t seem to care, so I didn’t care. He didn’t appear to be conditioning me to have proper table etiquette. When he’d been stalking me, he’d probably watched me eat at dozens of functions, and this wasn’t how I normally ate, the shovel-in method.

Once I’d convinced myself the food wasn’t going anywhere, I slowed down and started to look around the room. The first thing I noticed was sunlight. I had a window! It was bulletproof glass (something I found out later) with bars over it. Still, it was a window. There were light, gauzy curtains to soften the starkness of the bars. The sun was shining, and the sky was blue, and I could see it. I knew what time of day it was, finally.

The room was lush with bright, rich colors, like those from my dreams. Fabrics hung on the walls and draped from the ceiling. It felt like being in a genie’s bottle, only much roomier. There were several floor lamps and a few comfy chairs, the kind you could sink into and then have trouble getting out of.

Next to the window was a calendar with the date circled. June 3rd. It had been mid-May when I’d had my last speaking engagement. The room was even larger than the bad cell, and it had almost everything one could think of. There was a CD player and hundreds of CDs. There was an ornate desk and comfortable-looking swivel chair. A beautiful red leather journal sat on the desk with more pens than I could count. There was a clock on the desk that told me it was three-thirty in the afternoon.

One wall was all bookshelves with more books than I could read in a year. Scanning the titles I noticed some of them were old favorites of mine, and others were books I wanted to read but had never found the time. A few were books I’d never heard of but in genres close to the others.