Kept Woman

Why was she always saying that?

Get me out of here.

You’d think someone would be grateful for being held, for being fed and sheltered and looked after. But that’s all she ever said; get me out of here, as she clawed at the walls until her nails chipped and bled. I patched her up afterwards, kissing each of her cuticles before I wrapped them up in bandages. Her blood was always so warm on my lips. She smelled like pennies and sweat and the perfume I’d bought for her. It was floral and sweet, like a wedding. I could have gotten high on her scent alone. 

While I tended to her, she’d just sit there and cry, and beg, and scream sometimes. I told myself that she would understand someday, that at the end of this tunnel was a future in which I could hold her without her ankle being chained to the wall. Otherwise, all of this would have been for not, but that was impossible, wasn’t it? She would see eventually that I’d risked everything to have her. She was my world. Other people had jobs and friends and families. All I ever wanted was her eyes, her mouth, her voice. Nobody else was worthy of experiencing her, that much I was sure of. So, I’d had to step in.

Sometimes it sounded more like a prayer than a plea. She’d lay on her little bed in the basement and repeat it like a mantra over and over again until her silken voice was hoarse. 

Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Get me out of here.

I’d stand there against the wall and watch her. She used to always face me, I think because she was afraid I would sneak up on her. Now, her back was always facing me. All I ever got to see was the back of her head, her blonde hair water-falled over the edge of her pillows. 

“You don’t like it here?” My voice startles her, and she shifts then, glancing slowly over her shoulder like she was wondering if I was really there. As soon as her eyes met mine, she blinked three times, swallowed, and then sat up. She didn’t answer so I stepped closer, looking over her clothes. They were fresh, and I’d allowed her a shower the day before, so she looked stunning. Even her fingernails, they were perfect. She hadn’t tried scratching her way out in a while. I was glad.

“You don’t like it here?” I asked again, but this time my voice was softer. I wanted to hear her honest answer. I knew it was probably a pipedream that she would be so candid with me, but why wouldn’t she? I was all she had. All she’d ever have again.

“It’s fine here.” 

I didn’t believe her for a second, but I nodded like I did as I was sitting down on the edge of the small twin bed. The basement was fully furnished, had A.C. and a heater. I bought her whatever she wanted from the store weekly, made sure she was comfortable. Wasn’t this more than any person could possibly ask for? 

“I want you to like it here,” I said, and it strikes me how much I mean the words only as they’re coming out of my mouth. My tongue darts out to wet my chapped lips as I looked her over. Those blue eyes, her sandy blonde hair… I couldn’t look at her without thinking that God must truly exist. That was the only possible explanation for someone so perfect to be real, to be in front of me, able to be touched. 

“I do like it here,” she says, and her words catch me off guard because now it sounds like she means it. I catch her light eyes with my dark ones and try to search them for any sign of dishonesty. I can’t find anything, nothing but the cool, vacant waters of her irises. I want to swim in her. 

“Th-“ The words I had been planning on saying are stopped when she suddenly leans forward and swallows them, kissing me. I felt my lungs tense and my body freeze. She was kissing me. I had lost track of how long I’d had her, how many days had gone by where I wanted to kiss her and didn’t. I was scared of making her angry with me. It took only seconds before my hand was on the back of her head, fingers tangled into her golden locks, pulling her in closer. She tasted like the pancakes I’d given her that morning, with a tinge of orange juice.

I couldn’t even begin to think as our lips slipped across each other, and her tongue brushed the inside of my mouth. What I had hoped for so many times, that moment where she would accept me, had it finally come? But just as quickly as my heart had burned with hope and desire and validation, I felt the gun against my stomach. My gun. 

“Get me out of here.” A command, cold and demanding, her blue eyes turning from tropical vacation to stranded in the icy arctic. I supposed I should have seen it coming. Still, it hurt, with her flavor still in my mouth, with her wearing clothes I had bought for her. Where had I gone wrong? Had I not given her enough attention? Did she dislike the meals I made? 

“GET ME OUT OF HERE,” she yells now, pointing the gun at my temple. My blood ran cold. I wished for those moments where she was clawing at the walls, where this was a plea or a prayer, instead of the last words I’d hear from her pretty mouth. Would I ever see her again?

I was up off the edge of the bed undoing her ankle chain then, as my eyes were prickling with tears. She kept the gun on me every step of the way, even as I led her up the basement steps, both of us barefoot. I felt the urge to get her socks and sneakers. I didn’t want her running away on the road without something on her feet, even if she was running away from me. What if there was glass, or sharp rocks?

She started crying too, as I was leading her through the house toward the front door where I had carried her body in… how many days ago? It had to be in the four hundreds now…

I’m unlocking the door and she holds the gun, my gun, pointed at me with shaking hands. 

“You should take some shoes,” I can’t help but say, gesturing with a slow, soft movement toward the mess of sneakers and boots and slides by the door. She steals my converse, putting them on blindly as she keeps the barrel on me. I’d never felt so far away from her as she stepped out of the house into the evening light, golden and hot. It was the middle of summer. I wondered as she stepped out into it if she’d known that. But she couldn’t have. 

“Just go,” is the last thing I say as she slowly backs out into the yard, still holding me at gunpoint, though I’d made no strides to try and catch her. 

With that, she turns, nearly tripping on the untied laces of my shoes as she starts sprinting down the dirt road. Her golden hair flutters behind her like the mane of a beautiful horse, running away from me like I’d kept her in her stable for too long. I knew at that moment that I’d never see her again, that the police would be on my doorstep in the next few days. For some reason that didn’t bother me, not as much as my own lie was. I’d been honest with her from the start, from the moment I took her from the parking lot of a grocery store. I took you because I had to have you. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to take care of you. That honesty was part of what made me feel so connected to her, but I’d lied about one thing. 

My gun… it was never loaded. I’d never even bought bullets for it. 

It was at that moment as I laid in bed that night, focused on the absence of her small noises from the basement, that I realized something. Had she kissed me like that again and told me just after she wanted to go…

Even without the gun, I’d have done it all the same.