His mouth drifted down my neck, leaving a trail of kisses that settled at my collarbone, and my fingers tangled in his hair without conscious thought. This was muscle memory, months of intimacy encoded into my nerve endings.
For one disorienting moment, I wasn’t in a basement. I was upstairs, in our bed, on a lazy Sunday morning when we had nowhere to be and all the time in the world. The sunlight streaming through the curtains, turning everything gold, feeling the phantom shape of Tom’s smile against my skin.
I felt myself responding. My body arched into his touch, heat pooling low in my stomach. My breaths came faster, matching his.
His mouth claimed mine again, deeper this time, hungrier, and I kissed him back with equal intensity. My hands slid under his shirt, finding warm skin. He made a low sound of pleasure and pressed closer, one leg sliding between mine, the friction sending sparks shooting up my spine.
The chains clinked softly with our movement.
And then I remembered.
I pushed him off me before I could think twice about what Iwas doing.
Tom stumbled back, nearly falling off the mattress, looking completely disoriented.
“What—” He was breathing hard, his shirt rumpled and half-untucked, lips swollen from kissing.
“I changed my mind,” I told him, flatly.
I watched him process it, watched the hope drain out of his expression, replaced by something that looked suspiciously like hurt. He straightened, adjusting his clothes with hands that shook slightly, running a hand through his hair.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay. That’s—that’s fine. You don’t have to—” He stopped, seeming to realize there was nothing he could say that would make this better. “I’ll go bring you some water.”
He left me alone.
I sat there in the aftermath, my heart racing, my lips still tingling from the kiss. My skin felt too hot, too sensitive, like every nerve was exposed and raw. I could still feel the ghost of his hands on me, could still taste him on my tongue.
I felt dirty.
Not violated—that would have been easier to process, simpler to categorize. I felt dirty because some part of me had enjoyed it. Had wanted it. Had forgotten, even for just a few moments, why it was wrong. Had forgotten that everything about this situation was fundamentally broken beyond any hope of repair.
I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, trying to make myself smaller, trying to compress the confused tangle of feelings into something manageable.
It didn’t work.
* * *
I tried to act normally after that.
Normal was a relative term when it came to imprisonment, but I attempted it anyway. I ate when he brought food. I responded when he spoke. I didn’t bring up what had happened that night, and neither did he.
I didn’t try anything like that again.
The attempt to get closer to him had done more harm than good, but it was too late to take it back now. I could see it in the way he moved around me—more uncertain, like he was navigating a minefield and couldn’t quite remember where all the explosives were buried. The easy warmth that had been building was gone, replaced by something tense and awkward.
But I could be patient when it mattered.
It took time to get back to where we’d been at the start—to that careful equilibrium where I responded just enough to keep him engaged and encourage hope without promising anything. Days bled into each other, marked only by meals and the changing quality of light from the small window.
Slowly, but surely, things began to go back to normal.
* * *
It was a day like any other when the chance for escapeappeared.
Tom brought me food as usual, setting it down on the small table he’d brought down weeks ago, along with a glass of water.
“I have to go to work. Will you be okay today?”
