I’ve just edged myself with no possible chance of release for three or four more days. I must be out of my mind. I admit, this is a low point for me. I stare up at the ugly blind obscuring the window and try to remember how to pray. I haven’t prayed since I was six. My friend, Luke, used to go to church a lot and he told me that God would give me whatever I wanted if I prayed hard enough. At the time, I prayed for a baby chimpanzee that would love me and stay small and cute forever. I prayed my hardest, but needless-to-say I didn’t get it, so I never bothered with prayer again. Now, I cast my eyes skyward.
Dear Lord God,I whisper.Please make my boner go away.
Yet again my prayer goes unanswered. I don’t make eye contact with Asshole when he uncuffs me. I wait until he walks to the kitchen and then I scurry to the sofa as quickly as I can. I lie on it with my legs curled to one side.
I take stock of the situation. My behavior hasn’t been perfect, but overall, I can’t believe how well I’m handling this whole being kidnapped thing. All those asses at the various schools I attended who told my parents I lacked resilience have been proved comprehensively wrong.
Might write them a note to let them know how wrong they were when I get out of here.
I’m a little more subdued than I was yesterday, but I do make an effort to continue my quest to annoy him. I don’t have a huge amount of energy on account of not having slept all that well, so I focus most of my attention on complaining. Specifically, I complain about general boredom and a lack of things to watch on TV.
“Netflix is total shit. Not a single thing to watch,” I sigh.
“Try Hulu.”
“Even worse. There’s less than nothing to watch on Hulu.”
He hesitates almost imperceptibly. I can see he’s trying not to argue but the effort is costing him. “Try HBO.”
“I’ve seen everything on HBO.”
“You can’t have seen every…” he cuts himself off. “Watch something you’ve already seen then.”
I start rattling off a list of programs I’ve watched on HBO. For good measure, I provide him with an over-all rating and follow that up with a detailed breakdown of things I didn’t like about each show. When I see his eyes start to glaze over, I hit him with a question. I take care to ensure each question is a little more inane than the last.
“What’s your favorite Disney movie?” I ask, after I’ve covered off everything else I can think of.
“Beauty and the Beast,” he replies a little faster than I was expecting.
“Hmm, have a little crush on Belle, did you?”
“No.”
“Mrs Potts?”
He exhales very deeply. “I like the library scene, okay?”
“Thelibrary?” I make no attempt to wipe the disbelief off my face. It’s the last thing I was expecting him to say. I’m baffled and lose my train of thought for a few seconds, but quickly get back on track. “Now you see,Idid have a crush on Beast. In fact, you could call it something of an awakening. All that snarling, beastly business definitely did it for me. To this very day, I feel sad when Beast changes into a man.”
He tries not to react, but I notice him clenching his jaw. A little muscle bulges and contracts where his top and bottom jaw meet. It’s just the encouragement I need.
“Bathroom,” I say loudly.
He gets up and follows me in. I take my time. I piss at my leisure and wait to see if I can feel his eyes on me. I’m positive I felt them yesterday when I was in the shower. I felt them running down my back like thick, dirty grease. This time he’s either not looking, or he’s got better at doing it in stealth mode. I decide to double down on my resolve to scare him with my flagrant homosexuality so when I pull up my sweatpants, I loosen the drawstring a little. They’re already loose so now when I walk, they expose more than a hint of my crack.
When we settle back down in front of the TV, I wait until he seems to be getting into a show and then I jump up and walk towards the kitchen, pausing right in his line of sight. I stand in his way until I’m positive I can feel his dark, beady eyes boring into me. When I do, I wriggle my hips slightly and raise an arm over my head and to the side, as if I’m stretching for a yoga class.
Am I proud of myself for this display? Hell no. Not even a little, but I have no choice but to play the hand I’ve been dealt.
By late afternoon, I’ve given up pretending I’m watching anything on TV. I lie back on the sofa. He sits as far away from me as possible and I crowd him with my feet. I watch him. He has a distinctive look, I’ll give him that. If you were into bad boys and you met him, you’d be toast. He has this intense masculinity about him that’s exceedingly disconcerting. Not that I’m saying he’s attractive. He’s not. It’s just that if you had a thing for men who are borderline animalistic in their appearance, you might notice him.
That’s what I’m saying.
If he turned up at the audition for the villain of a superhero movie, the casting director would take one look at him and cancel the rest of the auditions. I doubt he’d even let the rest of the actors read.
That’s all I’m saying.
“I’m bored,” I say for the millionth time. He doesn’t react, so I up the ante. “Ugh. I hate this feeling. Whenever I feel like this, I can tell I’m about to start becoming super annoying.”
