A Stolen Life (5 page)

The towel on the window shows that the sun is up. This room is getting hot when I wake the next morning; at least I think it is morning. There is really no way to know for sure. I feel like I can’t breathe, it’s so hot. I am so thirsty and I’m starting to sweat. How much time has passed? I close my eyes thinking, Will I ever want to open them again? Maybe if I go to sleep, then when I wake up I will be in my own bed and this will be just a bad dream. I close my eyes and give in to oblivion once again.

He did come in that day to check on me. He brought me fast food and a soda. It’s hard to remember day-to-day things after this point. I think he came in at least once a day to bring me something to drink and eat. I became totally dependent on him for everything. He would take off the handcuffs while he was there so I could eat. He brought in a bucket for me to use as a toilet. I hated when he would put the cuffs back on when he left, so eventually I looked forward to seeing him and getting them off. Even though they were covered in soft fur, they still bit into my wrists and made my skin raw. It was hot in that room and I would sweat buckets all day. He said he was working on getting a cooler for the room and that would make it cooler for me. In the meantime he brought in a fan, which helped a lot. I would ask him every day when he was going to let me go home. I guess I can kind of figure out the answer to that even if I don’t remember his exact words.

He would try to make me smile with all these silly voices he would make. He had an English accent, a Texan accent, and an Australian accent. I feel this was all part of his plan to manipulate me into being compliant with him. He used his powers of persuasion to gain my trust. He became my entire world. I depended on him for food, water, my toilet. He was my only source of amusement. I craved human contact so much by then that I actually looked forward to him coming to see me; it felt like he was bestowing a gift to me … his presence. He was all I knew for months. I slept a lot during this time. There was nothing else to do and sleeping helped to shut off my broken heart. I didn’t
have any more nightmares like that first one about being taken; I guess I was living the ultimate nightmare so my mind couldn’t think of anything worse. When I dreamed, I dreamed I could fly. When I would wake, I would have no concept of time. A little light leaked through the towel on the window, but other than that not much light. I learned to gauge the time by Phillip’s visits. I knew it must be night when Phillip would bring my dinner. He didn’t touch me after that first day in the bathroom until one day about a week later …

I
hear the lock rattle and know he is coming to feed me. I am very hungry today. I can’t remember the last time I ate. I’m not sure how long I have been in this room. I tell myself I should start counting days because when I am rescued I will need to be able to know how long I have been in this room. I have no way of keeping track of the days. The handcuffs are making my wrists raw and make it hard to use my hands. I have nothing to write on or with. He always brings me a soda, so I think maybe if I can save the paper on the straw, then I can count the days by how many straw papers I have, but he always takes the trash from me and puts on the cuffs and there is no time for paper straw saving. I try to keep track of the days by how many times the sun sets, but I fall asleep so easily and sometimes when I wake it is dark already. I can see a little light coming through the window
but not much. It is either very early or the sun is setting. When the sun is up and the wind blows, the shadow on the towel that is hanging over the window looks like a person hanging from it. I have nicknamed this tree “hangman’s tree.” One time curiosity got the better of me and I struggled to get up with the handcuffs and finally got to my feet. I wanted to see what was hanging outside the window. I grabbed a corner of towel with my teeth and wiggled and maneuvered until I could see out of the window as best I could. There was nothing but a medium-sized tree outside the window, nothing hanging from it but its large gangly branches and thick, full-size leaves. I am relieved to see just the tree; I don’t know if I can stand any more strangeness.

It’s a very strange feeling to not go to school every day. I sometimes miss the routine I used to have, and sometimes it’s nice to not have to get up and go to school, too. But I am so bored. There is nothing to do in this place. I make up stories in my head a lot. I have made up one about a boy that has come from the stars. He flies around the world and when he hears a child crying he always come to investigate. I imagine that one day this Star Boy hears me crying because I cry every single day. He thinks my cries are especially heart wrenching, and so he combs the earth in search of me. When he finds me he is able to open the window of my prison and I take his hand and he flies me all around the world. But in the end he always returns me to my prison. I wonder why this is so.

I can hear my captor’s hollow footsteps coming from the room beyond. He enters the door and has a milkshake in his hand. At first I smile at him and want him to think I am doing well. For some reason I think it is important for me to be happy
around him. He comes in and crouches down and he says today will be a little different. He says I can have the milkshake and something to eat after we are done. Done with what? All of a sudden I am not hungry anymore. I have this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I want him to go away. I want to go away. I tell him I am not hungry. I just want to go home. He puts the milkshake on a shelf and bends down. He says to take off my towel and lay back on the pallet. He takes off the cuffs and relocks them in front of me instead of behind my back. He then sits down next to me and explains what he is going to do. He stands back up and takes off all his clothes. I do not want him to do that. I start to cry. He takes my handcuffed hands and holds them over my head. I feel so helpless and vulnerable. I feel so alone. He lies on top of me. He is so heavy. I can’t stop crying. He said he’d be quick and it would be better if I didn’t struggle because then he wouldn’t have to get aggressive. I don’t understand any of this. He forces my legs open and inserts the hard thing between his legs in me. It feels like I am being stretched apart. I feel like it’s going to come out of my belly. I am so small and he is so big. Why is he doing this? Is this normal? I try to scoot away. I try to close my legs. He just takes hold of my legs and shoves them further apart. He is too heavy and strong for me. He keeps my hands above my head. I try to think of anything but what is happening to me. Look anywhere except his face. I can feel the tears on my cheeks. He is making strange noises and grunting and sweating all over me. I can’t breathe he is so heavy. All of a sudden he makes a giant grunt and puts even more of his weight on me as he collapses. I cannot do anything. I cannot move. He finally moves and asks if I’m okay. He says it would be
easier on me if I didn’t resist or struggle so much next time. He says it wouldn’t hurt as much. I think to myself, If you didn’t do it in the first place then it wouldn’t hurt at all. But I am too frightened by his act to say a thing in objection to him. In my mind I am screaming NO I AM NOT OKAY … GET OFF OF ME! Why are you doing this? What does it mean? He said it was all over now and he gets up and says he’s going to go get something to clean me up. I am bleeding “down there.” I am so scared. Am I dying? Why am I bleeding? He says it’s okay—he just “popped my cherry.” I don’t know what he meant. He leaves and comes back with a bucket of warm water and a washcloth. He takes the cuffs off and says he will go into the next room and give me some privacy to bathe. I wash up and wrap myself in the clean towel and then sit back down on the pallet on the floor. Milkshake all but forgotten.

I had to stay in the same place I’d just been raped in. I didn’t know at the time that is what it was called; the word “rape” was not in my vocabulary. Today that makes me feel terrible for that little naïve girl. She is still a part of me and at times she comes out and makes me feel small and helpless once again. At times I feel like I’m still eleven years old. But something inside that frightened little girl made her a survivor and she has made me the person I am today. That rape turned out to be the first of many frequent encounters. I don’t remember if he came in every day to have sex with me; all I know is it happened more times than I can count. Each time it happened I learned to “go away” in my mind until he was finished. I would make up stories in my head to pass the time. It was easy for me in those early days to escape into my dreamworld because I had always been a dreamer and had my head in the clouds a lot. I used to lose all track of time and it helped to keep me from going crazy.

Knowing my kidnapper’s name was not something I wanted to know. I remember thinking that I did not want know his name because I had heard that once you know their name, they can never let you go. During the first week or so I did learn that my kidnapper’s first name was Phillip. I don’t remember how I knew; it wasn’t like he introduced himself. He revealed it subtly without me realizing it.

I can’t believe how much I came to rely on him for everything. I remember the heat was getting really bad and I was so thankful to him when he finally installed an air-conditioning unit. It seemed he had an answer for everything. Phillip seemed
like a nice guy when he wasn’t using me for sex. I even started enjoying his company. I was naïve and desperately lonely. I was locked in a room all by myself for days on end, and he was my only contact with the outside world. All I could do was survive and endure …

Hours later as I lay staring at the ceiling, I notice the forgotten milkshake has enticed the ants to come. I regret not drinking it because now I am so hungry my stomach is growling at me. There is a long trail of ants that leads from the window to the milkshake. Some have ventured further and now I think they are starting to explore me. Maybe I smell so bad it is attracting them. I don’t know how long it’s been since I had a shower. I haven’t had one since that first day when he had me get in the shower with him. Since then, the only cleanup I’ve had is with a bucket of water. The ants make my skin itch even worse than my unclean body already does and sometimes they get in my mouth and leave a spicy flavor behind. The cuffs make it near impossible to scratch and flick them away. I wish I could get in a nice hot bath and just soak all the grime away.

H
e says he is going to get me a kitty. I have been telling him how lonely I am and how much I love cats and all about the ones I used to have. I am so excited I can’t wait to have a kitty to talk to. All I do is lie here in this room all day long. I am so bored. He doesn’t leave the cuffs on me anymore. One day after he was done having sex with me, he said if I promised to be good he would leave the cuffs off. He was going to trust me because he didn’t want to put them back on me; he wanted me to be more comfortable. I thought of many things I could say, but none of them were polite, so I just nodded. After he left and I got cleaned up in the bucket of water he left, I thought about venturing into the other room that is attached to the room that I am in. I made sure that I could hear the lock on the outer door click closed before I even dared to move, then I sat up and listened to
all the sounds I could hear. Sometimes I can hear him coming even before I hear the lock. I can hear a lot of things that I never noticed before. I listen to the outside a lot. I hear the train—the whistle and how it rolls on the tracks. I can hear someone mowing the grass. I can hear birds. And I can hear airplanes overhead. I miss being outside. I am so bored just sitting in here. I even miss brushing my teeth. Oh, what I would give for a toothbrush! I will never forget the time my stepfather Carl grounded me for not brushing my teeth. He believed in brushing after every meal. I admit I sometimes didn’t brush after every meal. One day my friend Shawnee must have called and he picked up the phone without telling me. She asked him if she and her dad could take me with them to the movies. I guess he said yes, and a little while later she was knocking on the front door. I answered the door and was surprised to see her because I didn’t know she was coming; Carl didn’t tell me. She asked if I was ready to go to the movies; she assumed Carl had told me about the movie and that I should get ready. Carl announced I couldn’t go because I didn’t brush my teeth after breakfast. He said he had checked and the brush was dry. I pleaded with him. I said I would go brush them right now, I said I brushed them when I woke up, I added I really wanted to go and if I had known I would have brushed my teeth. But he refused to relent, and I stayed behind with tears running down my face as Shawnee and her dad went off to the movies together. For some reason that day sticks in my head. I’m thinking about it because I don’t have a toothbrush and I know Carl would be really mad at me given that I haven’t brushed my teeth in weeks. It would be funny to see the look on his face if I ever told him that. I do try to keep my teeth clean by using my finger
to scrape off the plaque. It’s amazing how much plaque actually builds up on teeth, especially the back ones. My tongue works for polishing, too. I wonder if I will ever be given a toothbrush again.