Chapter Forty-Six

I LET HIM TAKE me back to my prison. It was part of the bargain: no struggle, no fuss. He swore he’d kill Ariadne if I tried to escape or ask for help. He’d have had to do it instantly, and he’d have been convicted of murder, but he knew I couldn’t take the risk. I’ve always believed he wants to be punished and Ariadne’s life is too precious to use as a bargaining chip. Alone, I could have run, screamed, kicked, fought, thrown myself on the mercy of strangers. I could have killed him and pleaded self-defence. I turn from this thought because it gives me too much pleasure.

Ariadne is gone from me, that I understand. If she can be saved, in return for her life I have given her up to the world she has never known. If she dies, I will have wrecked our life together, my reason for living, in vain. I had to try, God knows. I had to try. It tears me apart that I shan’t find out, perhaps for many months, if she is still alive. The Lover has taken away the television. He said it wasn’t to punish me, but to calm me down. By some malformed logic I think he believes this, because when he punishes me it means darkness and he has yet to take away the lights.

I struck a bargain with him. I promised not to betray him when we took Ariadne to the hospital if he would let me see the others. He agreed and I am waiting, in despair about Ariadne but still with a faint glimmer of hope that he may keep the promise. I know in my heart of hearts it is almost impossible. Does he know where they are and if not how he will find them? If he can find them, what explanation can he give to persuade them to come here? Under what terms will they walk away again? If he shuts them up with me, their friends will contact the police. Did my own friends get in touch with the police? I’m suddenly pierced by a terrible guilt. Surely he would not try to keep the girls here, in this dungeon?

He has started talking again about a future life for us; this time, he says, with the girls. How can he believe this when we have never been a family? Does he think those three young women will have no minds of their own, like Ariadne? He is retreating again into a place where I can’t reach him. He’ll become vicious and cruel. I’ve managed his mood so well for so long I cannot bear it if that madness returns. Yet this time he has not struck me. He hasn’t trapped my arms in his restraints. He hasn’t laid a finger on me. I’m filled with a deep fear. It’s almost worse to suffer a continual state of anticipation that the blows will come than to have to fend them off when they do.

The signs are all there, the insecurities, the uncertainties, the demons that make him lash out. Yet, if not calm, if not gentle, he has not been savage. I’ve not had to submit to his anger, not had to plead against his brutality nor submit to rape. Has he found someone else on whom to vent his scorn? Has he been shaken by Ariadne’s illness? Is it possible that he has repented?

The quality of air in here is poor today, or perhaps I notice more how thin it is after my journey outside. I’m dizzy and have to lie down. I must save my energy to concentrate on Ariadne. I focus all my thoughts on her. She needs my willpower to help her to live.