Producer & Director

Why was she crying? Was she afraid? If so, it wasn't the constant fear of the kidnappers. Cindy had been living with that fear long enough to know it when it broke through her defenses. No, this was fear of something else, but for once neither her analytic nor her feeling self could figure it out.

The tears had stopped before she reached the end of her bath, but her confusion and frustration remained.

****

As he washed in the tub Alan admitted to himself that he was absolutely befuddled. In a boy always in command of himself, if not in command of his environment, this was an odd sensation. There was only one way to interpret what he was feeling. He must be in the throes of something he never had expected to experience: he must be in love. But Cindy had told him to leave (if not in so many words). Why? Was she angry? Embarrassed? Sick? Afraid? If she was afraid, what was scaring her?

Duh! He said to himself. What's not to be afraid of? We're prisoners. We could be killed (or worse!) at any minute. We are under constant observation (to the point of being filmed!). And here we are playing with ourselves together on a bed when we've known each other only a few hours! Maybe he was the stupid one for not feeling depressed like Cindy must be.

With an almost palpable jerk, Allan's mind seemed to roll over. It wasn't a physical cataclysm, but it approached one. For the first time in his short life Alan rejected reality. He had no idea how he was going to say it, but he knew he had to tell Cindy that everything was going to turn out OK. It had to be, because now they had each other. In a rare burst of literacy (he was more comfortable with science) he thought to himself, "Love means never having to be logical." Quickly drying off and putting on his shorts he strode to the door to go back to Cindy and tell her just what he was feeling.

The door leading to the hallway was locked.

****

Having dried off and put on her shift and panties Cindy wandered out of the bathroom in a somber mood. So much had happened so quickly that both her thinking and feeling selves seemed to have shut down. She wondered if having a boyfriend could cause a person to have such mood swings. If so, she figured maybe she didn't want one. But she shivered in recalling the ecstasy she had experienced such a short time ago. Perhaps some down moments weren't too high a price to pay. She knew she could never go back and view boy-girl relationships in the same way. A new world of sensation had been opened up for her. And Alan had been the one to experience it with her.

Alan. Where was he? Why hadn't he come back? With a start she realized she had sent him away very abruptly. He had said he would be back, but he wasn't! Maybe he thought she had rejected him. As if she could reject the first boy who had shown her how to feel so good. Her rising mood was reflected in a renewed tingling in her core. She would go and get him. Together they would be able to deal with what they couldn't cope with apart. She ran to the door, turned the knob and pushed. It wouldn't open. She pounded on it like she had done the first day of her captivity, but this time her sobs were punctuated by the agonized repetition of the words, "Alan, come back. I love you."

****

The ransom pickups had gone exactly as I had planned. Careful preparation pays off. A phone call had started the parents of the girl on a trip from one note to another: notes that I had left in a series of remote locations (to allow me to see that the parents weren't being followed). Ultimately they reached the final spot. This was a trash dumpster hugging the wall of a long-closed factory. After the drop I immediately removed the money through a hole already cut in the side of the dumpster. That hole connected to another hole in the side of the building. After confirming there was no telemetry unit attached by police, I hurried out the other end of the factory and headed to my rented car using an underground route through storm drains I had long since scouted out. The police in the girl's city were still watching the empty dumpster while I was in the other city collecting the ransom for the boy using a similar routine.

I returned to my motel just in time to see my guests enjoying a mutual masturbatory session. At its conclusion I confess that I changed my plans. The fact is, I am not as cold-hearted as I need to be to be truly successful as a criminal. Like I have said before, I don't think I'm really evil, although I occasionally do bad things. Without question my guests were going to suffer psychologically to some extent from their experience. One could argue, however, that in return I had given them a chance to learn important things about themselves in a controlled way while other kids have to fumble around and sometimes make big mistakes in finding out the same information (if ever they do find it out). I know this is all just rationalization on my part, but it helps explain what I chose to do next.

Both kids had done well in a truly horrible position, and I had become fond of them. Their self-explorations had at that point had resulted in no physical harm to either of them. It was evident, however, that the next logical step in their relationship just might have a physical impact that could last forever. The girl had been with me two weeks and had not had her period. It was possible (if not probable) that she had just finished her cycle at the time I kidnapped her. She thus could have been at high risk of pregnancy if she and the boy were allowed to take that next step. Despite this, I probably would still have let things take their course except for the fact that they gave me an easy opportunity to separate them by simply locking the doors. Once I took that step (which gave me a chance to think things over), I found I couldn't unlock them again even if it meant giving up a chance to get more film footage. After all, the kids knew where they each lived and would have the opportunity to get together again after I let them go if they wanted to. If they became a couple (and eventually started a family) it would be a true choice on their part and not something forced on them by the constraints of captivity. Besides, I was already getting ideas for other arrangements that would provide me more and different chances for self-gratification. It's also possible that I was beginning to get a bit bored.

For whatever reason or reasons, I chose to do what I did.

One night later Cindy and Allan were found by police as a result of anonymous phone calls. They were lying on park benches in each of their respective cities, dressed in their own clean clothes quietly sleeping off a sedative. I wish I could have videotaped their descriptions to the police (and their parents) of what had happened to them.

My motel burned to the ground six months later. The fire department said it was caused by a wiring problem. Since I had done the wiring, I knew they were right. The insurance payment, added to the ransoms, helped me finance my next 'production'.

By the way, just for fun I checked back a year later to see how my former guests were doing. They were both attending college in the girl's home town. She was sporting a large diamond ring, and I am sure you can guess who gave it to her. I think that I made the right choice by turning them loose when I did. Accidentally, the ends may have turned out to justify the means in this case. Whether true or not, this thought has been more than enough rationale for me to keep on being producer and director of similar shows. Some day (if I'm feeling bold enough) I might share with you the results of some of them.