Terri Austin - Diners, Dives & Dead Ends

He squatted before me, setting the bowl down next to him. It contained water and a washcloth. He squeezed water out of the rag and brought it toward my face.

I flinched and backed away. Then I steeled myself, vowing I wouldn’t show my fear again.

“I just want to put this on your jaw, Rose. I’m so sorry I had to hit you.” He applied the cool cloth to my face.

“You didn’t have to,” I said. My jaw ached with every word.

“You didn’t leave me any choice. I couldn’t let you scream, now could I?” He sounded so calm and reasonable. He wasn’t hiding anger the way Sullivan had. Steve was perfectly pleasant — it wasn’t an act. Chills crept up my spine.

“Why am I here, Steve?” I had nothing to fight him with, not even my body at this point. The only thing I could do was keep reminding him that I was Rose, a person, someone he knew and kind of liked.

“Because this is the only way I can get your attention. With Axton back, I knew I wouldn’t see you anymore.” He wet the rag, wrung it out, and reapplied it to my bruised, swollen skin.

“You could have gotten it another way, Steve.”

He pulled the rag away and gave me a cold look. “Don’t pull that bullshit, Rose. I asked you out and you kept turning me down.”

“So you kidnapped me instead?”

He brought the cloth back to my jaw. “I tried to get your attention other ways. But you always ignored me.” He used a little more force when he said the words, causing me to groan and pull back.

“Sorry.” He immediately regulated the pressure.

“What ways?”

“I saw Sullivan come out of your apartment. Be honest, Rose, you had more of a relationship with him than you let on. And that lawyer was up in your apartment for a long time. That’s the night I broke your car window. I didn’t want to, but knowing he’d touched you made me so angry.”

“We just talked. And I’ve never had a relationship with Sullivan.”

“I won’t tolerate lying. Be honest with me.”

“I’m serious, Steve. I never even kissed Sullivan.”

He continued to stare at me before smiling once again. “Okay then, but you let the lawyer fuck you, right?” He dipped the rag and brought it back to my jaw.

Oh my dear Lord, I was dealing with a psycho. How could I have not seen that he was crazy pants? He’d seemed like a perfectly nice guy.

“Rose,” he said in a conversational tone, “did you fuck him?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Good.” He dropped the rag back into the bowl with a plop. Water splashed over my knee and onto the floor. “What about that guy from the band, the one with the holes in his ears? I saw him outside your apartment, along with the lawyer the other night. Were you doing both of them at the same time?”

“No.”

He reached out and stroked my hair. “You’re so beautiful. Every man wants you, Rose. Even Eric.”

“Steve,” I said, phrasing my words carefully. “Eric is just my friend.”

His hand left my hair and strayed to my neck, which was still bruised from the other night’s fiasco. “I know. But he wants to be so much more.” He brushed his thumb over my collar bone. “I drove by and saw you at his house. I looked through the window and watched the two of you hug and kiss.”

“I don’t remember—”

“That was the night I broke into your apartment. I was so upset you let him hold you like that. I regret my lack of self-control.”

I suddenly felt very cold. Kidnapping me, hitting me, tying me up in his basement — that wasn’t a lack of self-control?

“I forgive you. Maybe if you untie me, we can talk like two people. Like Rose and Steve,” I said, as casually as I could manage.

“Right. I went to all this trouble to get you here and I’m just going to untie you?” He pushed his face toward mine, his eyes hard behind his lenses, his lips compressed. “Do not treat me like a fool.”

Panic started to rise and I thought I might start hyperventilating. I inhaled as slowly as I could, then exhaled. “I won’t. But why am I here, Steve?”

He ran a finger along my bruised jaw. “I want to give you the chance to get to know me. You never gave me a chance. There are things I want you to know. Things I want to say to you.”

“I want to get to know you,” I said as sincerely as I could muster.

He smiled. “Good. We’ll have lots of time together.”

It hit me then that he didn’t intend for me to ever leave. He would never let me go. He’d either kill me or keep me a prisoner in this basement forever. I felt tears sting my eyes and blinked rapidly to keep them from falling.

I wanted to keep him talking. Knowledge was power, I reminded myself. “You can say anything to me, Steve.”

He sat back on his heels and regarded me with steady eyes. “No,” he said after several minutes, “I don’t think you’re ready to listen yet.” He picked up his bowl and left. I heard a lock slam into place.

Hours passed. The pain in my face dulled to throbbing ache. When he came back it was still dark out. This time he brought a bottle of water, a handful of tissues, and an empty bowl. “I figured you might need to go to the little girl’s room,” he said, setting the bowl on the floor.

I held out my hands for him to untie me. My stomach clenched. How was I going to subdue him and get out of here with my feet bound? I didn’t know, but this might be my chance to get free.

“No.” He smiled. “I’ll help you.”

I didn’t want him touching me, let alone see me with my pants down. But I had to pee, so I decided to suck it up. Since he’d last left, I had resolved to do whatever it took to stay alive. I knew it would get much worse than this. My only goal was survival.

I focused on a crack in the wall as he unfastened my jeans and yanked them down. Although he seemed clinical and detached from the whole process, having him touch me like that was the most humiliating moment of my life.

When it was over, he unscrewed the water bottle and held it to my mouth. I eagerly drank a third of the bottle, dribbling a little on my chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. Then he left, taking the bottle and the pee bowl with him.

I managed to doze off and on, but awoke every time my chin dipped toward my chest.

I kept an eye on the window. It was too small to crawl through, and we were too far below ground to actually see anything but tall grass, but I could tell it wasn’t as dark now, and slowly, light crept into the room.

Steve came down again with the bottle of water in one hand and a small white pill in the other. “This is a sleeping pill. Open up.”

I clamped my mouth shut, my jaw screaming at me the entire time.

“If you don’t take this I’m going to have to knock you out again.”

I quickly thought about another knock to my jaw and decided to take the pill. I opened my mouth and he gently placed it on my tongue. Then he gave me a sip of water and pinched my nose. I held the water in my mouth until I ran out of breath. I swallowed, then sputtered and coughed.

“I’m going to leave the bottle here with the cap off,” he said, setting it down next to me. “Do you need to use the restroom before I leave?”

I hastily shook my head. “Where are you going?”

“To work, of course.”

He left and slid the lock into place.

Fifteen minutes. That’s about all I had before the pill would hit me. I scooted my butt backwards until my back hit the wall next to the door.

Sharp needles dug into my hands and feet. Ignoring the pain, I pressed my back against the wall, and using my feet, pushed myself to a standing position. Then I began bending my legs, shaking my bootie, straightening my bound hands over my head. Anything to keep the pill from working. I did this until my muscles ached. A thin film of perspiration covered me, sweat pooling around my bound wrists. I felt the drug making me sluggish, sleepy.