Twenty-One
Blake
I’m scratching off a third day that he doesn’t read to me. It’s Saturday, and before I came here, I would have spent it planning to go to some party or the bar my friends would hang out at. Do they wonder where I am? Is anyone looking for me?
Such a stupid thought that is too. That would imply he enjoyed being around me to begin with. He kidnapped me to teach me a lesson, or save me or whatever, and though I have no clue why he feels he needs to do any of that, I know it’s not because he likes having me here.
He’s keeping me here anyway. But how am I supposed to learn when he’s not here showing me anything? I tug at my hair, looking back at my markings on the wall. He said he’d bring me a planner. He also said we’d read a book together, but then he left it here as if I’m supposed to continue on my own.
I’ve picked it up twice, reading some of it in my head and then out loud.
I’m so tired, though, and everything I do takes so much out of me.
The book is too heavy when I hold it and my mouth cramps when I move it too much, so I’ve been mostly staying still today.
I’ve been lying around, looking at the blue space between the cracks of the ceiling and watching birds fly by the window too far away.
I’m trying to keep track of the changes of the sky so I can better guess what time it is, and that’s also why I listen for the sound of his car to pull up.
It’s not because I’m waiting for him. I’m not.
If anything, it’s better that I’m sleeping while he’s here.
Less time I have to deal with him and less time I have to pretend to be a farm animal.
Except being his piglet isn’t really the same thing is it?
I scrub at my face, letting out a groan, and pound at my head.
I’m not his piglet. I’m not a fucking piglet at all.
I’m Blake. I’m a person who needs to return back to the real world and leave this strange reality I’ve accidentally allowed myself to get used to.
My eyes stay on a crawling beetle as I try to ignore the shaking doors. It’s the wind. It’s not him. I don’t want it to be him. I don’t.
“I don’t,” I say out loud, my eyes aching to go to the door whenever the chains rattle.
They stop and I close my eyes, pushing built-up tears I didn’t even know were there down my cheeks.
“I don’t,” I say again with my heart and mind being tugged in different directions.
Monday comes, then Tuesday and Wednesday. Finally, on Wednesday, I catch a glimpse of him sneaking out of the barn and I try to call out but my throat tightens too much for me to let out more than a low whimper.
I turn around and a black notebook with a pencil on top rests beside me.
I run my fingers over it, and when I pick it up, a small hand?sized planner is lying underneath.
He was right about writing on paper being better than wooden beams in a barn.
It takes me a while to gather my thoughts and write about what’s around me, describing each thing I see in complete detail.
Then I scribble some pictures of what I imagine the barn looks like on the outside and everything around it.
When sheep baa around me, I draw them too.
One white and another red with white spots.
I lift the pencil and then press it to the paper again.
I keep my eyes on my moving hand and the pig I’m supposed to be drawing turns into a tall man dressed in all black with a mask covering his face.
I want to say I don’t think about him all the time.
I really wish I could. I also want to say I don’t miss him reading to me or running his fingers through my hair.
They felt like pure magic when he scrubbed my scalp in the tub, which reminds me, I’m not smelling my best these days.
I sniff at my armpits and my stomach coils.
Will I be getting another bath soon? I look between my legs and my cock hardens when the way he washed my body pops into my head.
His fingers were soft and I preferred them to the towel. If he’d kept his gloves on, I would never have known what they felt like and would never have thought I was missing something whenever he touched me with them covered.
I close my eyes, kicking my leg forward, and my hand falls between my legs, tugging at my erection.
My balls ache and I let out a frustrated groan.
I drop the pencil and yank down my underwear, letting my cock spring free.
Precum drips over my stomach and I stroke my base, tossing my head back, trying not to let my mind go to him.
It goes to Logan instead, and those deep brown eyes of his.
They oddly reminded me of T’s but they were a different color.
Suddenly my thoughts shift over to my kidnapper.
The way he licks his lips between eating and how I could almost hear his growling voice beneath the voice changer when he said hmmm.
I realize what I’m doing and drop my hand.
My cock head is swollen and purple. I slam a fist to the mattress and pull up my underwear, curling up on my side.
What is happening to me? Why did I wish he was touching me instead of my own hand? Why are thoughts of him overpowering the ones I have of Logan? I close my eyes, rocking my body until I lull myself into a deep sleep.
I shoot up, opening my eyes and gripping onto my blanket when the chain outside starts shaking against the metal lock.
I hold my breath, feeling like forever passes before I let it go.
The door opens and I stay where I am, waiting for him to come to me.
The ladder shakes and the string moves as it’s being tugged on.
A bucket lifts into the air and hangs. As I’m crawling to it, his footsteps grow farther and farther away.
Before I can reach the ladder, the doors slam shut and my heart sinks.
I look in the bucket and there’s a container of macaroni and baked chicken inside. Underneath it is a pack of baby wipes and a traveling kit with toothpaste. There’s a small toothbrush inside, along with a small bottle of lotion and vanilla chapstick.
He’s still giving me what I need to survive and yet it isn’t enough.
He’s giving me everything I require to stay alive, and here I am still fading to nothing.
Is he letting me go soon? Has he given up on me like everyone else?
Has he realized what my dad has, that I’m useless and incapable of being anyone worth putting time into?
It could mean he’ll let me go, then. It could mean my freedom.
And it could mean going back home to be a different kind of prisoner.
My dad will be waiting and expecting me to go right back to work while telling me how all this was my fault.
Will Logan be waiting too? I’m a fool to think he would.
I’m a fool to think so. He hates me, and T must hate me too.
I know one thing for certain, I hate myself.