Still Missing

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! You 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.

SESSION SIX

Yesterday, I sat in a church for a while. Not to pray--I'm not religious--but just to sit in the quiet. Before the abduction I'd probably passed that church a thousand times without noticing it. We're not exactly a churchgoing family, my mom and stepdad were usually too busy sleeping their 'religion' off on a Sunday morning. But I've gone a couple of times over the last few months. It's an old church and smells like a museum--in a good way, a survived- lots-of-shit-and-still-standing kind of way. Something about the stained-glass windows works for me too. If I were to get all deep on you, I could say the idea of all those broken pieces being made into something so damn pretty appeals to me. Good thing I'm not that profound.

The church is usually empty, thank you, God, but even if there is someone else inside, nobody ever talks to me or even looks at me. Not that I would make eye contact.

When I first came to after The Freak beat me unconscious, my whole body hurt, and it took a long time for me to lift my head enough to look around. Waves of nausea passed through me. The right side of my chest burned every time I took a breath. One eye was closed up pretty good and the other one made things fuzzy, but I could see outlines. He was nowhere in sight. Either he was sleeping on the floor or he was outside. I lay still.

The bathroom was calling, but I didn't know if I could move that far, plus I dreaded his catching me going for an unscheduled pee. I must have passed out again, because I don't remember anything until I woke from a dream in which I was running on the beach with Luke and our dogs. When I remembered where I really was, I cried.