~
I wake from one nightmare into another, shivering in a pool of sweat. My heart is pounding relentlessly just like the rain outside, which I can hear rather than see from my supine position. I feel every fibre in my being screaming out, but the sound is trapped deep inside me. The sock he has stuffed in my mouth and taped over doesn’t help. Why he felt it was necessary to gag me, I can’t imagine. I could scream myself hoarse and no one would hear me from here.
Alex has left me lying here. I’ve been here for three nights and three days. He comes in three times a day. And when he does, he doesn’t utter a single word. Over the last twenty-four hours, I’ve tried several times to remember the last words he has spoken to me. In case they turn out to be the last words I ever hear.
I can’t remember the words Louisa’s rapist said, either. It’s always the same. It’s a recurrent dream of mine, her nightmare, and every time I re-create it as if the whole incident happened to me and not to her. But, when it’s over, I can never recall the words her attacker whispered in her ear before he walked away. The words my twin sister told me would be etched in her mind forever.
Usually, when I wake up from this, my first thought is the realisation that this was Louisa’s ordeal, not mine. I’m just a helpless spectator, reliving her experience by proxy. While Louisa’s life was destroyed forever that day, I can get up, walk away and live my life. Usually.
But not today. Today I’m stuck in my own nightmare. Handcuffed to a bed. One of the single beds in the nursery. The bed on the right, the one my sister compared to a coffin targeted by poison arrows. I’m a prisoner in my own home. Breathe in. Breathe out. Easy to think, not so easy to do when I’m on the verge of another panic attack with a gag in my mouth. I can’t get enough air through my nostrils.
I turn towards Chloe. I can just make out her sleeping form through the bars of the cot. I watch her until she wakes up too, then listen to her as she chatters away in her baby language for a while, surprising herself with the new sounds she can make. After a few minutes, hunger sets in and she starts to whimper and then cry. Bound and gagged, I can’t get to her. I can’t even sing to her. Feeling utterly helpless, I start to whimper myself.
It seems like several hours pass before I hear the front door slam. Just as for the previous two evenings, it’s a while before Alex comes upstairs to the nursery. I imagine him pouring himself a whisky and making the meal first. Taking his time. I’m not going anywhere.
Every day, it’s the same routine. I wake up handcuffed to the bed. He feeds and changes Chloe here in the nursery and lays her back down in the cot before fetching me breakfast. I’m allowed to use the bathroom while he watches. He ties me to the bed again before leaving for work. At lunchtime, he pops home from work, but he doesn’t stay long. I don’t get fed, but Chloe does, thankfully. I do, however, get to go to the toilet and drink some water from the tap. In the evenings, he takes Chloe downstairs for a while and when it’s her bedtime, he brings her back to the nursery. Then he brings me dinner and finally he lets me take a shower and clean my teeth.
I’m trapped in a time loop. It feels like the film Groundhog Day I watched with Louisa when we were thirteen or fourteen. Except that I wonder if I’ll ever escape it or if I’m doomed to live the same day for the rest of my life. I’m not sure if I’ll ever work out what I need to do to escape.
Ironically, I can’t wait for him to come. Not because I’m hungry. I have no appetite. No, I’m looking forward to his visit because time goes so slowly here. Although he won’t speak to me, his presence is a welcome distraction. And I can take a shower and feel ever so slightly human again. And above all, as I’m unable to hold my own baby, feed her, change her and comfort her, Chloe needs Alex to do that.
There must be a way to get round him. I replay the evening drill over in my head to see if there’s a moment when this opportunity arises. I have to make a move when he’s least expecting it. I close my eyes to try and see more clearly. But it’s hard to see a way out when there isn’t one and when I open them again, everything is just as muddled and murky. If I do manage to grab Chloe and make a dive out of the door, how far am I going to get before he catches up with me? If I’m fast, I might just about make it down the stairs and as far as the front door. And even if I did make it as far as the drive, I’d be barefoot, with Chloe in my arms. Alex is a runner. I wouldn’t stand a chance.
My mind wanders back to Louisa. She was a runner, but she didn’t manage to get away from her attacker. She used to win all the school cross-country races. She won the day she was raped. I’d skived off school because I didn’t want to compete. I should have been with her, walking by her side as she took the short cut through the woods on her way home that day. If I’d gone to school, Louisa would still be alive. She wouldn’t have been raped and she wouldn’t have committed suicide.
The door opens and Alex comes in. He picks up Chloe, who is screaming now, and leaves the room again, cradling our baby in his arms. I’m left in the nursery, alone apart from the fairies frozen mid-flight on the walls, observing me.
When Alex comes back, I need to be alert. Anything that he does or doesn’t do that differs from the usual routine could be my chance. In the meantime, I need to keep building up his trust. That way, he might lower his guard.
More time ticks by. When Alex has laid Chloe, clean and calm once more, in her cot, he fetches my tray. He puts it down on the bed next to me and puts his index finger against his lips. When I nod, he rips off my duct tape, making me wince from the sting. Then he removes my gag and I gulp in the air, greedily.
I decide to talk. Alex has decided, for reasons known only to him, not to speak to me. He doesn’t even speak to Chloe, at least, not in front of me. But it doesn’t mean I have to be mute.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
He looks a little surprised. But he’s not about to break his silence, apparently.
He takes the key to the handcuffs out of his pocket and releases my wrists. I sit up, rubbing my sore wrists. Not for the first time over the last few days, I scold myself for not taking the key to the handcuffs when I opened that box. Or not taking the handcuffs themselves.
I eat the dinner. Slowly. Partly because it’s an effort to keep each mouthful down but also because the longer Alex is here, the more chance I have of coming up with a way to get out of here.
‘It’s delicious.’
This time he looks at me suspiciously. Time to change tack.
‘Alex, is it really necessary to keep me tied up? You could put a lock on the bedroom door and keep me prisoner here without having to attach me to the bed. I could look after Chloe. She needs me.’
I look behind me where the handcuffs are lying on the pillow. I have picked off most of the black fur. I had the idea that the cuffs might be a little larger that way, enabling me to pull my wrists out of them. It didn’t work. I merely succeeded in pulling off the skin around my wrists.
He has a smirk on his face and I think he’s amused by my one-sided conversation. He sits on the bed, close to me, so close I can smell him, his smell mixed with a tinge of sweat from working all day in warm weather. That familiar scent that once turned me on. Right now, it’s making me feel sick. I turn my head away from him and load another forkful of food into my mouth. I have to eat. I need to keep strong for Chloe.
‘Do you have to gag me? No one would hear me if I shouted anyway.’ If he has taken in a word I’m saying, he gives no sign of it. ‘I won’t shout, Alex, I promise. But I can’t breathe properly with that sock in my mouth. And I’d like to be able to comfort Chloe when she cries.’
I’m not getting anywhere. Think, Kaitlyn! Think! He isn’t armed. I look around me discreetly for something – anything – I could use as a weapon. He brings me my food with a plastic fork and no knife. I don’t think hitting him over the head with the tray will stun him enough. I could make a dive for the bookcase, grab a storybook, but I doubt that will be of any more use than the tray. Christ, I’m desperate.
When I’ve finished eating, Alex nods towards the door. This is my cue to make my way to our en suite bathroom. While Alex stands in the doorway, keeping an eye on me, I strip off and pee and then get into the shower.
I stay for as long as I think I can get away with under the jet. Can I use the hot water somehow? Alex’s bottles are lined up the way they always are with the tallest on the right and the smallest on the left. I pick up the bottles and rearrange them. Then I turn a couple of them upside down. I feel a strange sense of satisfaction at this small act of defiance, although it’s short-lived. I contemplate hurling the bottles at Alex, but I’ve always been a terrible shot and even if I hit him with one of them, it wouldn’t buy me enough time to get Chloe and myself out of here.
After a few minutes, Alex pulls back the shower curtain and turns off the taps. I stand there, shivering and dripping, hugging myself as Alex looks me up and down. I’m sure he’s dying to say something, some vicious remark, but he can’t break his self-imposed vow of silence.
Eventually, he hands me my towel. I dry myself slowly and scan the bathroom frantically. A little bird settles on the windowsill, a wren or a sparrow maybe, looking in at me, emphasising just how helpless I am. It’s probably sheltering from the rain, but I get the feeling it’s taunting me. It can fly away.
There must be something I can use. Then it comes to me. The toothbrush glasses. I could seize one and throw it against the wall, then use a shard as a weapon. Why didn’t I think of it before? Alex is holding out my toothbrush for me to clean my teeth. I’ll have to act quickly. I walk over to him. Then my heart sinks. Alex has already anticipated this. I hadn’t noticed until now, but the glasses have been replaced by plastic beakers.
I catch sight of my face in the mirror on the bathroom cabinet above the sink. My eyes are as red as my bloodied lip and my cheekbone looks sore and bruised. I wince and continue to scan the room in the mirror. Could I smash the mirror? What with? Nothing. There’s nothing.
When I’m dry and I’ve pulled on some pyjamas, he leads me back into the nursery and cuffs me to the bed again. Then, pocketing the key, he pulls the curtains. This signals the end for tonight.
‘Talk to me,’ I plead. ‘Say something. Don’t go. Stay here and let’s discuss this.’
As Alex turns to go, I scream it. ‘TALK TO ME!’
But still he says nothing. Not a word. He leaves the room, leaving me feeling like a failure. I’ve failed to escape. I’ve failed my daughter. I start crying and I scold myself for breaking down. Keep strong, Kaitlyn!
It takes me several minutes to realise that this time he hasn’t gagged me. I have my voice. I’m not sure how that will help me get out of here, but it feels like a start.
I haven’t slept much since I’ve been bound to the bed. But this evening, my body is screaming out for rest. Sleep promises me temporary relief and oblivion. I do like the idea of escaping from all this for a while, although I’m afraid of what I might dream. I’m also afraid of that moment when I wake up, that moment when reality kicks in and reminds me my world has been spun upside down.
I think of Chloe. I must sleep. When my chance of escape comes, I’ll need all the strength I can muster. I can breathe more easily now that my airway isn’t obstructed and I do sleep for a few hours.
I wake up with a jolt. I don’t know what woke me. I have no idea what time it is. The curtains are still drawn and there’s not much light in the bedroom. I’d guess it’s early in the morning. Too early.
‘Alex?’
Something is very wrong, but I’m not sure what it is. My breath comes in short, sharp gasps and they seem to echo in the room. My laboured breathing is the only noise. Everything else is quiet. Too quiet.
I turn my head to the right towards the cot, my eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light. A sudden spike of terror slices through me. Chloe! But the sound doesn’t leave my lips. My breath has been snatched away. Chloe! This time it comes out, a sound somewhere between a yowl and a scream.
Despite the semi-darkness of the room, I can see quite clearly through the bars of the cot. My baby has gone.