Held (2 page)

In the side mirror, I saw that he’d left the door open so we could just pull in, but now he was going to have to get out and close it. If he had a remote control for it, he’d left it in his car, which was surely sitting in the parking lot of the mall.

He sat behind the wheel for a few seconds, glancing in the rearview mirrors, and then he turned to me.

“I’m going to get out and close the door. You are to sit here and do nothing. Don’t move one muscle. If you do, I’ll kill you. You got that?”

I nodded.

He got out quickly and I watched in the mirror as he shut and locked the garage door. He then hurried to my side of the SUV and opened the door.

Reaching in and grabbing my
right arm with his left hand, he said, “Let’s go.”

I thought of refusing. If I could overpower him now, I c
ould get out of the garage and run. But he put his right hand on the gun in the waistband of his jeans, and all thoughts of fleeing left me. I got out of the car.

Stupidly, I realized that I still had the bag from the mall hanging from my wrist. My purse was still slung over my shoulder and was clamped between my arm and my side.
If only there was a way to turn those jeans into a weapon. Perhaps I could smother him with them. Or strangle him. Those were the only ways I could think of, and I knew that both would be impossible. He was bigger than me. And he had a gun.

He continued to hold my arm as he closed the car door and pulled me along behind him
, walking quickly enough to cause me to jog. We went through the door that led from the garage to the small laundry room. I saw no dirty laundry. No clean laundry. No laundry of any kind. There were lots of various cleaning products on the shelf above the washing machine and dryer, all sitting neatly, labels facing forward.

Through the laundry room, we went into the kitchen.
I saw no dirty dishes. No clean dishes. No dishes of any kind. They were surely all put away, everything in its place. I saw no food. No trash. No food crumbs. No spills. No dust. No cobwebs. Nothing. There weren’t even any visible grease spots on the stove. It was immaculate.

In the kitchen, he stopped suddenly and turned to me. I didn’t see that he was stopping in time, and when he spun around, I bumped into him.

He stared at me oddly and asked, “Are you hungry?”

Shocked by his weird question, it took me a second to answer. When I shook my head no, he nodded, turned, and pulled me again, out of the kitchen into a hallway. We passed the first door on the right, but stopped at the second door. Again, he turned quickly to me.
I was prepared this time, and was able to avoid bumping into him.

He looked me up and down. Then, he jerked the shopping bag from my wrist and the purse from my arm. He threw them on the floor behind him and stepped toward me.

My heart raced. This was it. This was where he was going to rape me or beat me or both.

He put a hand on each of my butt cheeks and squeezed.
So this is how it begins
, I thought. But then, he removed his hands and placed them on the fronts of my hips, high on my thighs. He squeezed and squished, and I realized what he was doing. He was patting me down.

When he was satisfied that I had nothing in my pockets, he took a step backward. Without breaking eye contact with me, he opened the door to my right, his left. He flicked on the light.

Not wanting to, but curiosity killing me, I quickly looked away from him and into the room. It was a bathroom. Now I looked back at him, confused.

“Go in there. Do what you have to do. Clean up. Then come back out.”

Unsure of what was happening, I slowly turned away from him and stepped into the bathroom.

Behind me he said, “Don’t waste time looking for something to use as a weapon. There’s nothing in there. And don’t try to get out the window. It’s nailed shut. I’m standing outside this door with my hand on the knob. Don’t be stupid.”

He shut the door behind me, and I looked around the room. To the right of the door was the sink and cabinet. At the end of the cabinet was the toilet. At the end of the room, on the other side of the toilet, nestled between each of the walls, was the bathtub. Again, it was spotless. He clearly had an obsession with order and neatness. I was happy that if I was going to be held against my will, at least it was in a clean place. Had the house been crawling with cockroaches and germs, I don’t know if I could’ve handled it as well.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t really need to pee, but I wasn’t sure what was in store for me so I figured I’d better do it now.

I stepped over to the toilet and turned, facing the wall. I undone my jeans and slid them and my panties down my thighs. I sat on the toilet and looked around the room again. When the pee finally started coming, I wondered if all kidnappings went this way. Looking for the toilet paper, I saw it hanging from a holder on the side of the cabinet beside the toilet. As I reached for it, I noticed that it hung over the top of the roll. And it was folded into a point.

What kind of kidnapper kept such a tidy house and folded the toilet paper into a point? Then again, what kind of kidnapper offered to feed you and let you pee and clean yourself up? This was so bizarre.

I pulled a few squares off the roll and wiped. I stood and pulled up my panties and jeans. I fastened the button and zipped the zipper. I leaned over and flushed the toilet, considering whether I should fold the toilet paper into a point as it had been. Had I been invited over for dinner at a friend’s house, I would’ve. But I’d been abducted at gunpoint. He and his fancy toilet paper points could kiss my ass.

As I washed my hands
, I thought of a way out. I looked at the window above the bathtub and wondered if it was really nailed shut or if it was just something he said to keep me from checking. When I’d dried my hands on the towel that hung perfectly on the towel bar beside the sink, I quickly went to the bathtub. I quietly stepped into the tub and checked the window. It was small, but if I could get it open, I could fit through. I placed my fingers on the window and pushed upward with all my strength. It didn’t budge. Damn. Apparently, he was orderly
and
honest.

I stepped back out of the tub and quickly checked in the cabinet under the sink. There was a pack of extra toilet paper, a toilet bowl brush standing in a holder,
and an extra bottle of liquid antibacterial hand soap. That was it. Boy, he wasn’t kidding when he’d said there was nothing in here.

Quickly, I checked the four drawers that stood in a column down one side of the cabinet. A few towels, a few wash cloths, but nothing more.

I opened the cabinet again and took out the white plastic toilet bowl brush. I stood there holding it, wondering if there was anything at all that could be done with it to help me out of this mess. Had any damage ever been caused to anything other than toilet scum by a toilet brush? I doubted it. But it was all I had unless I thought I could squirt the liquid soap hard enough and fast enough to inflict serious eye damage, and I doubted that was possible. In fact, I doubted that even if I could pump it with the speed and strength of a super hero it would reach more than a foot at most. It was useless against everything except bacteria and germs.

I swung the toilet brush through the air, trying to j
udge whether it would hurt him.

Then, the door opened.

I stood there holding the toilet brush like a moron, and he stood in the doorway looking at me as if I were a moron.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked.

“Looking at it.”

“Well, put it back and come on.”

I returned the brush to the holder under the sink, closed the cabinet door, and left the room.

He flicked off the light behind me and again grabbed my arm. He led me back toward the kitchen.

“You should eat something,” he said. He led me to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and shoved me down on it. “Sit there.”

“
Is that what you wanted me to do? I didn’t get that from being forced onto the chair,” I said sarcastically. Asshole.

From his back pocket, he produced a set of handcuffs. He quickly snapped one around my right wrist. He bent over and snapped the other one under the table. When he walked away, I felt
around and found the metal hook he’d attached to the table, apparently for just such a purpose as handcuffing me to it. It was deep. I couldn’t twist it, couldn’t make it move at all.

I tried the handcuffs. They were locked tight around my wrist, so I couldn’t pull my hand free, though it didn’t stop me from trying. When I saw it was no use to keep hurting my wrist that way, I thought maybe I could move the table. I placed both my hands flat against the bottom and lifted. I managed to get it a couple inches off the floor on my side, but it was too big and heavy to move more than that. And that had worn me out. Besides, even if I could move it, what was I going to do? Slip quietly out of the kitchen while connect
ed to a huge wooden table, walk through the garage and out into the street, totally unnoticed?

“You’ve got a smart mouth on you,” he said as he pulled food from the refrigerator. “You talk to everybody like that?”

“No. Just assholes that kidnap me from the mall,” I said, again trying to pull my wrist out of the cuff.

With his back to me, h
e chuckled.

“What the hell is so funny?”

“That you think I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah, well, I think it’s funny that
you think you’re not.”

“A lot of people think I’m not,” he said lightly.

“I doubt that.”

“It’s true.
Everybody I’ve ever worked with liked me.”

“Yeah, well, people in insane asylums aren’t the best judge
s of character.”

Again, he chuckled. “I
’ve never worked in an asylum. Although, I believe that would make for interesting work.”

“I bet you do,” I muttered under my breath. My wrist was burning, but I couldn’
t keep myself from trying to pull free.

“Do you like mayonnaise on your sandwich?” he asked with his back to me.

“What are you serving? Asshole sandwiches? I can’t imagine you’d know how to make anything else.”

“Mayonnaise it is,” he said.

Putting things back in the refrigerator, he said, “You’re a little firecracker, aren’t you?”

“If by firecracker you mean pissed off woman, then yes. I am.”

He chuckled again. “I like that. Keeps things interesting.” He carried two sandwiches to the table. He set one in front of me and carried the other with him to the other side of the table where he sat facing me.

Tired of messing around with him, I asked, “Why am I here?”

He smiled. “Because I want you to be.”

“That’s a bullshit answer.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Why do you get what you want? I don’t want to be here, so give me what I want and let me go.”

“I can’t do that. You’re research to me and I need you.”

“What kind of research? Like experiments and stuff?” All kinds of horrible images flashed through my mind. I was terrified of mad
- or even slightly angry - scientists experimenting on me, and now he tells me I’m research. Shit.

He smiled broadly. “No. Not like that.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I’m waiting on you to eat your sandwich. It would be rude for me to eat before you, so if you would be so kind as to take a bite, I’d appreciate it. I’m quite hungry.”

“No,” I said defiantly to him. “You can starve.”

He chuckled. “I said it would be rude. I didn’t say it was impossible.” He took a bite and chewed slowly.

Defeated, I could only watch.

Seeing me watching him eat, he said, “Eat it. Asshole sandwiches are good.” Had I not been handcuffed to his table after he’d abducted me, I might’ve found that funny.

I looked at my sandwich. It did look good and I had skipped lunch. I’d planned to stop and grab a burger after the mall and before the salon
, but I never made it that far.

Instinctively, I brought up my right hand to grab the sandwich, but it jerked to a stop before it even saw the top of the table. I quickly looked at him, and then used my left hand to awkwardly pick up the sandwich. Taking the first bite, I realized how good it was. The man kept a tidy house and made a mean sandwich. But he was still an asshole.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“What do you have? Piss and vinegar?”

“I’m out of vinegar, but I could whip up a batch of piss if you’d like.”

With a deadly serious expression and tone, I said, “You’re funny.”

“Thanks. I have water, milk, tea, and I think there are some sodas.”

“I’ll have water.”

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“I would’ve thought you’d have taken something more complex. Instead, you chose the simplest of the things I offered.”