44
Marin
Charles wants to watch a movie.
I’m going to need a moment with that sentence.
Charles—the man I drugged, transported across state lines, and chained to a support column in the basement of a house—wants to watch a movie.Specifically, he wants to watchThe Notebook.He says this with a straight face.He says it like a man ordering room service at the Four Seasons and not like a hostage making requests from a concrete floor.
The basement is not the bedroom.I need to be clear about that.The basement has soundproofed walls, a sealed door, no windows, and a potty chair I bought at a medical supply store forty minutes away.The cashier looked at me—thirty-two, healthy, in full makeup—and asked if it was for my grandmother.
“It’s for my husband,” I said.“He’s recovering.”
“Oh, bless.What happened?”
“Everything.”
The potty chair sits four feet from the column.Charles can reach it with the slack I’ve given him in the restraints—enough to shuffle over, do what he needs to do, and shuffle back.Supervised the first few times.Now I just leave him to it.We don’t discuss it.Ever.It is the one subject on which Charles and I have reached a complete and binding agreement.
He tested me once.Early on, before the basement, when we were still upstairs.I loosened one cuff for the bathroom and he lunged for the window.I tased him in the shoulder.He dropped like a bag of sand.When he came to, I was sitting in the chair reading a novel.
“The next one goes somewhere less comfortable,” I said.
He hasn’t tested me since.
So when he asks forThe Notebook, it’s not the request that throws me.It’s the tone.Calm.Pleasant.Borderline conversational.Like we’re two people who didn’t relocate to a basement because he pissed the bed four times.
“You don’t even likeThe Notebook,” I say.“You told me romance movies were ‘emotional propaganda designed to set unrealistic expectations for men.’”
“I’ve had time to reflect.”
“You’ve had time to develop Stockholm syndrome.”
“Maybe.”He shifts against the column.“Or maybe I’m trying to do what you asked.Remember?You wanted a real conversation.A reset.Two adults figuring it out.”He pauses.“This is me figuring it out.”
I don’t trust this.I don’t trust this the way I don’t trust gas station sushi—the presentation is fine but something underneath is going to kill me.
But he’s calm.He’s been calm since the basement.No yelling.No threats.No legal posturing.No weaponized Tuesday dinner quotes.He ate the casserole.He took the pills.He saidthank youyesterday and I nearly called a priest because I was sure he’d been possessed.
“If I bring my laptop down here,” I say slowly, “you understand that doesn’t change anything.”
“I understand.”
“The cuffs stay on.”
“I assumed.”
“And if you try anything—you remember what happened last time you tried anything.”
“I remember.”He rubs his shoulder where the taser caught him.Involuntary.He doesn’t know he’s doing it.“Vividly.”
“Good.”
I go upstairs.Find my laptop.Open Netflix.Scroll past fourteen true crime documentaries—which feels pointed—and findThe Notebook.
I carry it downstairs.Set it on the floor between us.Angle the screen so we can both see it.
Then I do something I haven’t done since I brought him back down here.
