Held (11 page)

As he led me to bed, undressed me, and restrained my arms, I kept hearing his words echoing through my mind.

There’s always tomorrow, there’s always tomorrow...

Was that my life now? Stuck here in this house with him while he killed women in the basement? Thinking of ways to keep him liking me, and yet keep him from having me. Always trying to think faster than him, trying to guess his next move. Trying to do or say whatever would set him off the least. Jumping in my skin every time he moved, wondering if this was the time he’d turn his anger on me.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live like that forever. I had to get out of this house and away from him. I didn’t know how or when,
but I knew that I had to. But any attempts I was to make would have to wait until I’d regained my strength.

I was pretty certain that while I was naked and strapped to the bed, I felt his hands not only fondling my breasts, but sliding up and down my thighs. I fell asleep quickly, but I never felt him touching my crotch while I was
awake. As crazy as he was, there was no telling what he did after I drifted off.

The next morning, I woke to find
Ron standing beside the bed. His arms were folded across his chest. Though he was looking at me, he didn’t seem to see me. He was too lost in thought. In fact, he didn’t even notice that I was awake for a few minutes, which was more than enough time for me to notice the blood under his fingernails.

At first, I thought I was imagining it. After all, he was meticulous about cleaning. Surely, he wouldn’t walk around with fresh blood caked under his nails. But after blinking to clear my vision, I clearly identified it as blood. Fresh blood. Some of it still seemed wet.

I wouldn’t have brought myself to his attention at all. I would’ve continued lying there while he remained lost in thought. But I really had to pee.

“
Ron.”

Nothing.

“Ron.”

When he spoke, it was quiet. Too quiet for me to clearly hear. But after concentrating hard on what I had managed to hear, I deduced that he’d said, “I’ll just kill her.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was he referring to me or Melinda? Or maybe he was remembering Stephanie. I had no idea what to think.

On the verge of pissing the bed, I said, “
Ron,” with more force than before.

This did the trick. His eyes cleared and he focused on me.

“Good morning.”

“I really have to pee,” I said squirming a little.

“I’m sure you do,” he said without moving.

Several seconds passed and he still hadn’t moved. He just kept standing there smiling at me.

“Ron, I really have to go.”

“I know.”

“Do you think you could undo these cuffs and let me use the bathroom?”

“Sure.” He kept smiling, and he kept not moving.

“Ron, you’re really starting to piss me off here. I have got to go.”

“I know you do, Nicole.” His smile, which had been up to this point a regular smile, was now the smile I would expect a psychopath to have. There was nothing in those crazy eyes of his. His smile had an evil undertone.

Angry, I said, “Do you want me to piss the bed?”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“Do you think it’s wise to leave me laying here, knowing I have to pee?”

“Do what you feel you must. I believe you don’t need to go as badly as you think you do. It’s all a matter of the mind, Nicole.”

“No. It’s a matter of the bladder. The damn thing’s full and screaming for me to let it out. But I can’t do that if the asshole with the key won’t unlock the handcuffs.”

“Really, Nicole, that language isn’t becoming of a woman of mine.”

“A woman of yours?” I asked in a snotty tone. I faintly remembered that I was supposed to be on his side, buying myself time to find a way out. It was hard to do at the moment, though.

“Yes. You’re a woman of mine. And you really shouldn’t say things that a woman of Melinda’s sort would say.”

“Well if I’m a woman of yours, you really shouldn’t leave me here in pain, begging you to use the toilet,” I said as I squeezed my legs together as best I could.

“Maybe you’re right. But maybe you need to learn control. You need to learn to control your body, Nicole.
It’s mind over matter.”

“Now it’s piss over foam, you dickhead. I just pissed the bed because of you.” I couldn’t help but cry. I was ashamed of myself. I hated him. How could he do that to me? How could I let him?

Quickly, he jerked the blanket off my naked body and watched as the sheet grew darker in a growing pool around me. He watched until I was finished. All I could do was cry. I couldn’t hide my face. The best I could do was turn my head to the right as far as I could.

As my thighs and butt grew warmer, I hated him more and more. I hadn’t wet the bed since I was three, yet here I was at twenty-eight, wetting the hell out of a bed because of him. If I ever managed to pull my hand free of the cuff, I’d kill him, even if I had to do it with my bare hands.

“Do you need to release your bowels, as well?” he asked.

“No. There’s enough shit going on in this room,” I snapped.

He chuckled. One of these days, I’d knock the chuckle right out of him.

He finally released me from the bed and led me to the bathroom for my usual morning routine. I took longer today than usual. I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran cold. I brushed my teeth until my gums bled. I combed my hair until my scalp burned. Fuck him. He made me piss the bed
. The least I could do to him was make him stand in the hall and wait for me.

Two days after I’d pissed the bed, Ron sat across the table from me. We’d finished a delicious breakfast of fried eggs and bacon and were halfway through a game of Gin Rummy. I was winning.

“I have a surprise for you, Nicole.” I could tell by the way his face lit up he was excited.

“Really?” I asked as unenthusiastically as possible.

“Yes,” he said getting up from the table. “I’ll be right back.” He bri
skly walked out of the kitchen.

As I listened to his footsteps fade down the hallway, I tried to pull my hand free of the handcuff. I struggled with it until I heard his footsteps return.

He held something behind his back and sat in his chair. Smiling, he revealed that he was holding a stack of papers.

“What is it?”

“What is it?” he asked as if I’d just asked the world’s silliest question. “You know what it is.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Of course I know what it is. I just have a horrible habit of asking questions I already know the answer to. It’s kind of a hobby of mine.”

He shook his head and smiled. “I sure love having you here.”

“I’m so lucky.”

“It’s the book.”

This piqued my interest. “The book? The book I’m supposed to be helping you with?”

“Yes, and you are helping me, Nicole. I’ve learned so much from you. You really have made this character come to life for me. She’s more than just a name on a page to me now. When I think of her, I think of you. I suppose that’s how it will always be,” he said fondly.

I said nothing.

“Would you like to read it?”

I considered reading it. I wasn’t sure if I should or not. It would probably be a good insight
into the mind of a maniac, but did I want to see that? Wasn’t it bad enough knowing what I knew about him already? Did I really want a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a monster?

“Yes,” I said.

“Well you can’t,” he snapped.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you to read it until it’s finished. I’d like it to be a surprise to you.”

“Why the hell would you ask me to read it if you weren’t going to let me?” I asked angrily.

“I just wanted to know that you wanted to read it. And now I know,” he said smiling. He put the stack of papers on the floor by his feet, out of my sight and reach, but not out of my mind.

I couldn’t help myself. “I hope you get a paper cut from those papers and it gets infected.”

He laughed. “I’m sure you do, Nicole.”

A while later, I asked, “Do you have a television?”

“No. They’re nonsensical and impractical. They waste a lot of valuable time.”

“They don’t waste time. People waste time watching the stupid crap they put on TV. But there’s a lot of good stuff on there too. Lots of educational programs.
For example, and this should interest you, there are several shows devoted to serial killers.”

“Is that so?” he asked, obviously amused with me.
I’d thought I was treading on some thin ice making such a statement in such a crass way, but it seemed to only entertain him.

“Yeah. And not just serial killers. Psychopaths, schizophrenics, delusional people, pretty much all kinds of whack jobs.”

He chuckled. “Maybe I should invest in a television after all.”

“You should.”

He looked at me with enough affection to turn my stomach, and then asked, “Did you watch a lot of television?”

I winced at the way he referred to me in the past tense, and said,
“Not a lot.”

Shuffling the cards, he asked, “What kind of programs did you watch? Soap operas?”

“No,” I snapped. “I hate soap operas. Talk about a waste of time.”

“I’m sorry, Nicole. I just assumed since you were a woman, you’d watch those type
s of programs.”

“You shouldn’
t assume things about people.”

“No?”

“No. You don’t buy a book based solely on the cover, do you?”

He nodded. “You’re right, Nicole. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve known a lot of women who watched that type of thing.”

“Was one of them your wife?”

Quickly, he stood, reached across
the table, and slapped me hard, bringing tears to my eyes. I’d never been slapped before. It hurt like hell. It felt like dozens of pins stinging my face.

I know he saw the shock on my face as I rubbed my left cheek with my free hand.

“I’m sorry, Nicole. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said as he sat down in his chair again.

For a while, all I could do was look at him, shocked. I shouldn’t be surprised, of course. He was a psychopath. I should be expecting anything at
anytime. But I hadn’t seen that coming.

“I’m sorry. Let’s just forget that ever happened, shall we? It’s your turn,” he said, indicating the cards.

“You can kiss my ass if you think I’m going to play with you after that.”

“Nicole, please.”

“No. I’m not in the mood to play cards anymore.” I tried to cross my arms over my chest in a childish manner, but with my right arm shackled to the underside of the table, I could only cross my left arm. That probably looked at least half as stupid as it felt, so I relaxed my left arm, letting my hand fall to my lap limply.

Maybe I was crazy for talking back to him the way I was.
I know he liked it when I did, but I also knew there was a very thin line that I couldn’t see but knew I didn’t want to cross. It would take him from amused by me to furious at me in the blink of an eye. But I didn’t care at the moment. I was angry.

I didn’t talk to him much the rest of the day. I watched as he cleaned the house, but if he looked my way, I averted my eyes. Eye contact provoked conversation and I wasn’t in the mood for that.

While he cleaned, I pulled on my hand, trying desperately to free myself of the metal handcuff. I tried to bend my thumb over far enough into my palm to make it smaller. It didn’t work. I even spit on my wrist and rubbed it around under the cuff trying to create enough lubricant to allow my hand to slip through. It didn’t work either.

In fact, the only thing I succeeded in
doing was rubbing my wrist raw and making the bones in my hand hurt.

There would come a day, though, when the cuff would be just loose enough for my wrist to slide out.
Then I would be free. And Ron would be dead.

A couple of days later, I was cuffed to the table while Ron was in the basement. He’d been down there for a while. I didn’t know what he was doing and I didn’t care. When he’d first gone down, I’d heard Melinda’s screams, but they’d fallen silent some time ago.

Now, I just sat and waited.

Eventually, Ron came stomping up the stairs in a huff. I could tell he was angry by the sounds of his footsteps. They were heavy, quick, and purposeful. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to face him, afraid I would be the center of his anger.

Turns out, I didn’t have to turn around to be the center of his anger.
And if I had put half as much thought into it as I thought I had, I would’ve seen this coming.

I heard his footsteps approach me from behind. They stopped directly behind me. I caved and started to turn around to face him, but before I could, he had his right arm across my right shoulder, and with his hand, he held my jaw tightly. His left hand came up on my left side. Before I could register that he had something in his hand, he was forcing it into my mouth.