Abduction: Awakening II
‘Ah, I see, at least, that I managed to make my impression somewhere along the line.’ He moved from the bed, the sound of his footsteps retreating across the room. She heard the sound of glass and squeezed her eyes shut as she fought to clear her vision. It was a moment later before she managed to right herself, coming to that awkward position somewhere on the other side of discomfort. There was a tension that seemed to ooze from every muscle in her body and the dull throbbing in her head stubbornly refused to clear.
She took a steadying breath, exhaling slowly, the sound hissing out of her nostrils, in some vain effort to convince herself that it would all be okay. It would never be okay. Her chin quivered, but she still forced herself to look at him as he poured amber liquid into a glass. She already knew what it was - Disaronno.
The argument of being okay was falling apart rapidly amidst the fracturing foundation of her self-confidence she had built for three years after having left their torrid, week-long, affair. She knew the signs of a panic attack and fought to lessen her heart rate, the clawing nervousness that ate at her stomach, the waves of nausea, but as he walked back towards her, the gates she was attempting to close flew open and she let out a sob. The tape tore at her flesh as she moaned loudly, her stomach heaving in an effort to clear this weight of stone that had settled there.
Liquid leaked from behind the tape and her crying eyes rolled back in her head as she fell sideways onto the comforter, struggling violently to free herself from her bonds, ignoring the screaming rage of protest her body signaled. He watched her for a moment, skepticism tainting his judgment as he attempted to glean the reality of her distress, but finally, he placed the glass on the table and moved closer. For her part, she stilled for only the moment it took him to strip the tape from her face, but the muffled sounds were replaced by a sharp cry as the path of red, welted flesh was left in the wake of it. She spit out the contents of her mouth and finally collapsed on the bed, rolling until she felt a cool, clean patch of cotton before passing out.
*** *** *** ***
I kept her there for another 10 minutes while I waited for sleep to claim her again. The drugs were emptying out of her system and this was proving to be a set back for which I had not planned. Some people respond differently, and she, unique in my experience, served as testament to that. I picked up my glass and took a sip of the liquid; amaretto, one of my favorites.
She was still, dead to the world when I reached into my pocket, pulling out the simple key that held her freedom - at least the freedom of her arms and legs. It is much easier to work when they don’t fight you. I glanced at my papers as I unlocked her restraints, sliding my fingers along the metal joints. The sensation and image of rope is astounding, but I often favored quick, efficient methods - these restraints provided them and still managed to show some measure of rope-inspired creativity.
I left her on the bed as she lay, unwilling to disturb her any further. The mind seeks comfort from stress and I was going to provide it in the form of patience. I wanted her cracked, but equally, I wanted it to be a direct by-product of my action, not her own body’s overreaction.
The chair I sat in was one of my favorites, the journal I pulled close to me, almost always at my side. I had no intention of keeping this one - any more than I would keep a tiger caged. Some animals aren’t meant to be without their freedom and I did not doubt for a moment that she would not suffer for even this minor loss of freedom - even were none of the other events to occur. As such, I wanted to record what I found. Most don’t have the stomach for my type of science, not when it comes to the mind and involved turning humans into guinea pigs - rats running through a pointless maze in search of their cheese.
That is what this was, science. That is how I justified the actions in my mind, but on deeper levels I acknowledged something darker, seeded deep within me, that not only questioned if I could do this, but challenged me to see it done. As I wrote down her day in my own personal code, I paused, the pen hovering above the page, poised on how to end the brief summary. I glanced at the window, which told nothing now of the desert valley below, but simply reflected me sitting there pensively, and smiled.
I wrote down two words to complete my thought.
Learning slowly.
