Better off Dead

He walked out through the open door and was gone for a few minutes. As I looked through the drawers, I found out that he was telling the truth. Not only did I find the pajamas with actual bunny ears and feet, there were three of them in different colors. There were also sweat shirts and sweat pants that were so thick and soft that they probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

The strangest thing about it was that every single item was my size. They were also all in colors that I liked. A few items were in colors that I probably wouldn't have picked but when I thought about them or held them up to the full length mirror I noticed that they went really well with my hair, eyes and skin.

I had to admit that my kidnapper had actually taken the time out to be both thoughtful and considerate. A nagging thought in the back of my mind had already started to compare the man to my husband.

I pulled my raggedy T-shirt over my head and skimmed my jean shorts down. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't see anything that would make some guy go crazy over me. I looked at my dirty bra and ancient panties and decided that I needed a shower before I put on any of those beautiful clothes.

I walked over to a small door...well, it was small compared to the giant one that held me prisoner. I didn't feel any buzzing. I figured that meant that I was allowed to go there. I turned the handle and then I heard a sound behind me. I turned and noticed that he'd come back into the room. As he saw that I was standing there in just my underwear, he quickly turned and went back outside of the room.

"Sorry," he called out. "I didn't think you'd be nearly naked."

I was confused. As he ducked back out of the room, I stood there in my underwear totally perplexed. The guy had kidnapped me. He was clearly not going to allow me to go home to my husband and family, but he left the room like his ass was on fire to avoid seeing me in my underwear.

On the other hand, he'd already told me that if I was going to be having sex, it was going to be with him. None of this made any kind of sense. If I had been in his position, I probably would have gone ahead and raped me, just to get it over with. Maybe he wanted to spoil me a bit or fatten me up, before he raped me. That way he could claim that he'd treated me well at his fucking trial.

"Hey," I called out. He ducked his head around the wall and noticed that I was still practically naked and pulled his head back.

"You do have several robes hanging in your bathroom," he yelled out. I looked into the bathroom and found that he was right. I wondered why there were three robes. I put one on.

"Okay, I'm decent," I yelled and he came into the room. I noticed that he had a bottle of wine and two glasses in one hand and a bottle of Shotz beer in the other. He ducked back out of the room and grabbed a cart that he had soft drinks on.

"So what the hell is going on?" I asked. He just looked at me curiously. "If you're going to rape me anyway, why the hell are you acting so weird about seeing me in my underwear?"

He looked really hurt. Then he nodded his head. "I guess I can understand that," he said. "But you have the wrong idea. You're not going to be raped, ever. You're not going to be hurt, or mistreated, ever."

"But you said that we were going to have sex," I insisted.

"I said I wanted us to," he reiterated. "It will always be up to you." I was shocked.

"So you mean, you're willing to kidnap me and keep me away from my husband and my family against my will, but you won't rape me."

"It sounds kind of stupid doesn't it?" he admitted.

"So why didn't you want to see me in my underwear?" I asked.

"Victoria, I'm hoping that someday you'll trust me and maybe even like me a little," he said shyly. "I'm not going to earn your trust by invading your privacy. This is your room. It's your part of the house. You're in charge here and..." the intercom on the wall chirped and a voice told us that the pizza had been delivered.

He went back to the intercom and told them to bring it down. A few moments later the woman I'd seen before came in carrying the pizza. She wasn't surprised by anything in the room which told me that she'd been there before. She didn't look directly at me. It was as if she was trying to pretend that I wasn't there. I filed that fact away for later. Maybe she felt guilty about being a part of kidnapping me. She might be useful in helping me to escape.

My captor, whose name was Adam, and I had a conversation that was almost pleasant. He explained everything about the room and the things in it to me. I actually had a computer that I needed to learn how to use. I had full incoming internet access but only limited outgoing access. I even had a credit card for online shopping. He seemed sad when he explained to me that I could order anything I wanted but I couldn't email, message or text anyone.

He even explained the three robes thing to me. One of the robes was pure silk, another was Cotton and the last was terry cloth. He didn't know which type I preferred. I had to admit that I didn't know either because I'd never owned a robe.

I had cable hooked up to my 72 inch TV and I could watch whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. If I wanted to eat something, I had only to go to the intercom and ask for it. Or I could cook myself. If I needed to cook something that I couldn't do in my small mini kitchen, I could cook it in the huge kitchen in the main house.

As soon as I got used to things and proved that I could be trusted, they'd give me more freedom. The freedom would, of course, come in levels. If I was good, I'd be allowed the use of the entire house and then the grounds of the property. If I proved trustworthy then I'd be allowed to go off of the property and eventually we'd go on vacations and trips.

"Like where?" I asked.

"Like anywhere you want to go," he replied.

"So how do you know that I wouldn't go nuts and start screaming as soon as I got outside and saw the first person who'd listen to me?" I asked. "I could just string you along and be very good until I got outside and then start screaming my head off."

"You're a very young and beautiful woman, Victoria," he said. "I know that this is a very unusual way for people to get together, but I want very much for us to be very good friends. At the same time I'm assuming that you want to live and I assure you that I have no intention of spending the rest of my life in jail. I've taken certain precautions to prevent that. Among them is your implant. I and several of the people on my staff have small key fobs that control your implant. Even when we travel or you go out one of us would always be with you. If you did anything like that, from the first sound you uttered, we'd have our own freedom at stake so we'd push the button immediately. When you tried to go out through the door that was only a small sample of what you'd get. You'd be in too much pain to tell anyone anything and that pain, if left unchecked, could easily kill you." He looked down as he said it.

"All of us have killed people before in the service of our country. We might not like killing, but if it was necessary to assure our own freedom, we wouldn't hesitate. So as much as I think I could love you, I'd push the button in a heartbeat and then start all over again. Even if you got lucky and the person who found you was a skilled surgeon, he'd need to know exactly where the implant is and how to remove it safely. The chances of him having the equipment to do that out on the street somewhere are very remote."

From the look on his face I could tell that he didn't like talking about that.

After that, we just generally chatted about what I could do and what I couldn't. He told me that when he got home from work the next day, he'd take me on a tour of the house and the grounds. When I asked him what I had to do during the day he just smiled and said, "Whatever I wanted."

And he'd told the truth. The following day, when I woke up, I stretched and looked around me thinking that I'd just had the best sleep of my entire life. I was going to eat the rest of the pizza but I noticed a note that he'd left on the table beside my beautiful bed. The note told me to have a great day and that when I woke up or needed anything to simply speak into the intercom and I'd have it.

I took a long bath with real bubble bath. Then I looked through the closet and the drawers to find an outfit. There were so many God damned choices that I didn't know what to pick. I turned on the TV and looked at what some of the women on TV were wearing. I put together an outfit that looked like some of the TV hostesses' clothes. I took my hair out of its customary ponytail and tried to comb it out.

I looked through the drawers and found an assortment of makeup. I'd never really worn much makeup. I was experimenting with some of the stuff when I heard a laugh from behind me. I turned and saw that it was the woman from the previous night.

"You don't know how to put that on do you?" she laughed. I just glared at her.

"And what exactly are you dressing up for? Is this some kind of dress up game?" she asked.

"Excuse me," I said coldly. "I didn't major in kidnap etiquette."

"Look Victoria," she said. "We may as well make the best of this. He's a really good guy and trust me, he went to a hell of a lot of trouble for this. So let's just put the details aside and try to make this as pleasant as possible."

I still got the idea that there was something that she wasn't telling me. She showed me how to put on the eye makeup and everything else. Over the next few weeks, I found out that she'd actually been the one who'd bought a lot of my clothes and set up my room.

She stepped back and looked at my face and nodded her head. "You are pretty," she said. "But we need to do something with this hair. Now, as far as the clothes, Honey he's probably going to show you around the house and the yard. So you're not really going anywhere. I'm pretty sure you'd be more comfortable in just some jeans or some shorts. It's going to be over ninety degrees today. You'll have a lot of chances to get dolled up."

And although I knew she was right, I loved the dress I'd picked out so much that I stubbornly refused to change. When Adam did get home, I knew it immediately because as soon as he got home, he came straight to me. Even though the big door was open, he knocked on it before coming in.

"It's your house, Adam," I said.

"Not this part of it," he answered.

"Well, by all means come in," I said. He came over and looked at me and his entire face lit up. It made me feel really weird. "What?" I asked.

"You look so beautiful," he said. "I wish..." then he stopped.

"You wish what?" I asked.

"I wish we could go out and do something tonight that was worthy of that dress. I would really enjoy showing you off," he said.

I got the weirdest feeling in the pit of my stomach and I had to lock my knees together. Again, I could see that he wasn't lying to me. He was being honest. I'd been married to Zeke for over five years and he'd never made me feel that way.

Adam held out his hand and slowly walked me through the big door to my room. He showed me the entire house and I loved it. The house was beautiful and there was so much of it. We went out and looked at the deck in the rear and the pool. There was a small wooded section off to one side but the entire property was fenced in.

That evening and every one that followed, Adam and I spent a lot of time together. I honestly believed that he spent more time with me during those first couple of months than Zeke and I spent together during our entire marriage. We played games together and watched movies. There were some nights that we grilled steaks and just watched the stars before I returned to my room.

He actually taught me to swim. I'd never learned because I'd grown up in a trailer park that was nowhere near any water. The closest I'd ever gotten to swimming was taking a bath. And during all of that time, he never touched me. He didn't so much as hug me.

And I was enjoying it. The strangest thing about it was that he gave me regular reports and no one had reported me missing for the entire first month that I'd been gone. I watched the news every day and there was nothing mentioned on the TV news or in the newspapers about my disappearance.

Finally, almost three months after I'd left, I saw a short piece on the TV news. They'd interviewed my brother about my disappearance. They'd only reported me missing because my birthday was coming up and some of our extended family had sent me cards and asked about my whereabouts.

While they interviewed my brother Reb, who didn't seem to be too broken up by my disappearance, they panned slowly across the park. I caught a glimpse for just a second of Zeke. He was trying to stay out of the frame but they caught him anyway. My husband, Zeke, the man I'd been trying to get back to was lying on the sofa on the porch with his feet up and a bottle of beer in his hand. He really didn't seem to be too broken up about my disappearance.

My birthday was a huge deal. Adam celebrated my birthday for a fucking week. Every day of the week he brought me another present home. At the end of the week on my actual birthday, he took me out to a really fancy restaurant. I could tell that he was nervous about it, but he didn't need to be. My need to escape had faded. I was slightly depressed and slightly pissed at the same time.

I was depressed because the people who'd known me and lived with me all of my life didn't seem to care that I'd gone missing. I was pissed because my fucking husband just took my disappearance in stride. All this time I'd thought that they'd be out putting up posters of putting my face on the back of milk cartons. I guess I'd thought I needed to bide my time and then escape because my family was tirelessly walking the streets looking for me and none of that was true.

The guy who'd kidnapped me, cared more about me than my fucking family.

At the restaurant, I could tell that Adam was nervous. "Adam, Honey, just relax," I said. "I give you my word that I won't try anything tonight. You can trust me."

It turned out to be one of those magical nights like in the movies. It was the most romantic night I's ever had. After we got home from dinner, we had a glass of wine out on the deck and then lay down in the grass watching the stars while he pointed out different constellations to me. I wasn't really looking at the stars though, I was just listening to the sound of his voice and remembering that he had never said a cross word to me. He'd never hit me and all he'd ever done since I got there was to try to make me happy.

On an impulse, I just turned towards him and kissed him on the cheek. He stopped talking and just glowed. I went into shock for a second realizing that I'd kissed the guy who was preventing me from going home. I half expected him to grab me and rip my clothes off right then. But he didn't. He just smiled back at me. I felt awkward so I started talking to fill up the silence.

"I only meant that as a thank you, for all of the trouble you went to for my birthday," I said. "It didn't mean anything else." He nodded silently, and I felt like shit. I was confused.

On one hand, the guy had been nicer to me than anyone ever had in my life. On the other, I had to constantly remind myself that he had taken me against my will and was preventing me from going home to my family and my husband.

I was also very sure after seeing that story that they were looking for me and would find me sooner or later.

It was so weird. He was just standing there awkwardly, smiling in front of me, like the little kiss I'd given him meant the world to him. Over the next few weeks, things got even weirder. We went for walks through the neighborhood and I got to meet a few of the neighbors. They all scanned me like they wanted to see what was special about me. And they all seemed to like Adam.

Shit, I liked Adam. If he hadn't kidnapped me...If he hadn't kidnapped me, I'd still be back in that fucking trailer, fetching Zeke's beer. I think that was the moment when I just stopped thinking and started living.

There were times when I still thought about escaping and looked around to see how closely they were watching me. There were also times when my guilt made me retreat to my room. Adam seemed to sense those times and he never got angry, he just gave me my space until I went looking for him again.

When December came around, bringing snow and cold weather, I realized that Adam and I had been together for six months. There were no longer any stories on the news about me. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about me.

I thought about what winter had been like in the trailer park and laughed. I often ended up having sex with Zeke more for the warmth than because I wanted to. On the other hand, Adam and I frolicked in the snow like a couple of kids and then ran inside to cups of delicious raspberry cocoa. We sat in front of the fire either inside in the fireplace or outside by the fire pit on the deck. We played video games or watched movies together on my giant TV.

Adam always let me pick the movies we watched. He just sat there with that silly smile on his face and watched me out of the corner of his eyes when he didn't think I noticed.

Over the past few weeks, as Adam and I grew closer, Tela, the woman who watched over me had grown more sullen. She was never rude to me, but I got the impression that she'd never approved of them taking me. At first, I'd thought that it was because she was on my side, but later I realized that she was afraid for Adam, not me.

A few weeks before Christmas, I was talking to her and I mentioned Adam's habit of staring at me and she lost it. It was the first time I'd ever seen her lose her cool.

"It's really weird how he just sits there and watches anything I want to watch," I said. "We even watched Steel Magnolias last night. My brother once told me that no man in the world could sit through that movie without throwing up several times. But Adam just sat there smiling. Most of the time, he didn't even look at the screen. He just watched me. I wonder why he does that?"

"Fuck! what a moron," she suddenly screamed. "He does it because he loves you. For some reason he thinks you're really God damned special. Do you even have any idea of how lucky you are? Shit, I wish I could just dump your ass back in that trailer park..."

"I wish you could too," I said. "I'd go in a heartbeat. Let's go now!" She just walked out of the room and I didn't see her for the rest of the day. The next day she apologized. I finally saw what was going on. Tela loved him. The problem was that I wasn't sure that I didn't myself.

That evening as Adam and I watched Game of Thrones, I stared at him out of the corner of my eyes too. I kept catching him staring at me. I finally waited for him to do it again and I stared right back at him. I could see it shining out of his eyes like a big puppy. He really had feelings for me. It made me feel strange.

The next thing I knew, I was kissing him again and this time it wasn't a quick peck on the cheek. My mouth opened and I wrapped my arms around his neck and my tongue went after his. He responded and I don't know how long we kissed for. It felt like forever and I enjoyed it. Adam has his own taste. It was like mint and pizza combined. I loved the fact that he didn't taste like stale beer and rotting teeth.

Another thing that I loved was that he pulled me to him gently, not forcefully. It was as if he was happy with whatever I gave him. He wasn't interested in taking what he wanted.

I hadn't had sex in six months so I got heated up really quickly. I pressed my tits against his chest and threw a leg over his waist. The next thing I knew he was pushing me away from him. I was shocked.