“Forty years. That’s how long Martha King was in business. She danced away into retirement. Not once did anyone stop to ask the kids, is this right for you?”
“She won’t talk to us,” Larry said.
“Of course she won’t. She doesn’t like questions. There’s a group of us. Survivors of holding time. There aren’t a lot of us alive and functioning. The suicide rate was off the charts. Many ended up in prison or murdered. Of course, people like Martha would say we were destined for that anyhow. She would say we were lucky to get any help at all.”
He touched the scar on his ear.
“There are even some kids who believed in it,” Jerry said.
“It’s true,” Reggie agreed. “I’ve talked to a few who are convinced Martha saved their lives. They have to believe that, you know.”
“How come?” Larry asked.
“Because they never left that room. You’ve heard of Stockholm syndrome? Some say it doesn’t exist. But I know there is a way it does. When you’re in that much terror, the person who finally releases you becomes the only one who can save you. Even if they were the one who put you there in the first place.”
“We were told some of the boys ran away,” Amanda said.
“I never believed that,” Reggie said.
“Why not?”
“I remember that first boy they said ran away. Steven. They said he had run away in the middle of the night. But I didn’t see him at dinner. I think something else happened to him.”
Larry sat straight up.
“What do you think happened to him?” he asked.
Jerry turned from the window, his face a mask of pain.
Reggie looked at his hands.
The air grew even heavier.
“There was a man there. Ike Tressler. Martha had him help. He would come in and hold us down. And afterward...”
There was a long silence.
Larry looked at Amanda. She understood too.
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said.
“It wasn’t Dennis, if you’re wondering. It was me. Me and others they knew were gay. He said he was teaching us a lesson.”
“We met him,” Larry said.
“He’s still around?” Reggie looked stricken. “I was hoping he was dead.”
“He’s alive.”
Reggie’s reaction to the news was painful to watch. They could see the walls and floor fall away from him, and then he was falling, falling to where his partner was the only one who could catch him.
“Jer—”
“I got you,” the older man said. “We should stop this conversation.”
Jerry rode down the wheezing elevator with them. They had left Reggie upstairs, in the small bedroom.
“Will he be okay?” Amanda asked.
