The Cave Ch. 03

Riley asked, "What time do you think it is?"

"I couldn't say." Christ, could I even tell time anymore? "Seven? Eight?"

"They will be marking me absent soon, if they haven't already. That's five percent of my grade, right there."

"Which class?"

"Advanced biology. I've been trying to get into that class forever." She shook her head, as if remembering something and then shrugged her shoulders as if it didn't matter anymore.

"What did you want to be? A biologist?"

"I'm premed."

"A doctor?"

Her smile was politely dry. "Yeah."

"Your folks must be proud."

"Maybe. Somewhere. They died a couple years ago. Car crash."

"Sorry." Then I thought of something. "Does anyone know you're here?"

"To be honest, I was having a bad week and just had to get out of the Cities. I grabbed my camera, picked a direction, and drove."

"Someone will miss you if you don't come home, though, right?"

"Um," she squinted dubiously. "Maybe?"

She seemed disinclined to talk about it, so I let it go. "What motel were you staying?"

"I hadn't checked in anywhere yet."

"Where's your car?"

"Parked at a wayside just out of town. Over by Jasper Peak?"

I nodded. Jasper Peak was an old fire lookout. I think it was fenced off, but there were plenty of places to get a good look at it.

"I went into the woods on foot to take some shots."

Her car might be there a while, but I think if it was there long enough it might eventually get towed. If anyone was looking for her, they might be able to locate her car at the impound lot.

"I was taken on Highway 169 on my way to Pike Bay," I said to myself. That was miles from Jasper Peak. And Amy said she was taken a few miles south of Tower. There was a lot of forestry between those places, a lot of cover for Pratt to hide in.

"So he took you, too..." she said distantly, mostly to herself. "Have you, ah, ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Uh-uh," I said, but it sounded familiar. "What's that? Did you study it in school?"

"Yeah." For a moment, she considered how to explain. Then she scrunched up her nose dismissively. "Not important. Nevermind."

After a minute, I said, "He'll be bringing our breakfast soon. Why don't you try and get some sleep before that?"

*

I had to confess, I loved watching Riley sleep.

Those first few days, I don't think Riley ever slept through the night, which meant she took a lot of little naps during the day. It never occurred to me until I saw her sleeping, all that trouble I vainly took to make sure my body was always modestly arranged—it didn't stay that way when I was asleep. It was the same for Riley. She had too much pride to sit at ease, and she always seemed terribly uncomfortable, cramping her body unnaturally to keep her knees pinned together, slouching her spine to hide her breasts. Such vanity didn't matter here. But asleep, her arms splayed in a limp V-shape, her pretty head of strawberry blonde tipped sideways, her sweet mouth slacked open, and her legs slowly splitting open the deeper into sleep she fell, exposing the hedge of flaxen hair at the apex of her thighs. With her sleeping, I didn't have to pretend I wasn't staring. I speculated whether Amy had watched me the same way while I slept, but I didn't think so.

The routine stayed the same, but it was interesting again to see it all through Riley's eyes. Her unease as she watched Pratt by the fire, her grimaces of disgust as he skinned a rabbit in one yank, her obvious relief when he left the room, and the shades of red she turned while Pratt obliviously cycled through his various states of arousal. By day two, she had stopped screaming when Pratt came near her, but she kept her distance when he brought her food and outright refused to drink from the cup if he was holding it.

There were not many opportunities for games. After Pratt had eaten his lion's share and delegated us our rations, there was little left to give as rewards. Maybe that was why he didn't play games with Amy when I was around. It was a pity. I had grown to like the exercise and attention and I think part of me wanted to show off for Riley. I had gotten pretty good at catching things in the air.

When it was time for bed, I could tell the angled lovemaking positions Pratt put me in were for Riley's viewing benefit. I didn't mind it as much as I thought I would; they were facile compared to the disgrace of the wall harness. Admittedly, I was no exhibitionist, but I found myself searching the dimness for Riley and I wasn't sure why. Not that it mattered. Her face was always covered, leaning bashfully into her arm.

Bathroom breaks were not much better. Amy once told me it had taken her three days before she could go in front of Pratt. It took Riley almost five.

I knew this because after every no-go, when Riley hurried out of the tunnel, Pratt would follow behind, ambling sullenly and glaring at nothing in particular, and I would catch his eye to silently implore him and he would shake his head infinitesimally. The first time Pratt escorted her out, she knew from my heeding what to expect, but her legs still shook like peach preserves. I wondered if my warning had overwhelmed her, caused her to overthink it, and I felt guilty every time she shifted in her chains from the discomfort of her cramps.

"I can make water," she choked one night when she was feeling ill. Pratt had gone out late to find her a handful of huckleberries. We all hoped their laxative properties would help. "I just can't...you know."

"I know," I said softly. I felt helpless in my chains.

Her gray blue eyes shined miserably. "How long did it take you?"

"It's not a race" was all I said.

After that, I made Pratt give her half of my berries in addition to her own allowance. I urged him with hand signals to offer her more water. It must have worked. On her fifth day, there was a bounce in her walk as she left the tunnel and I could see the strain was gone from her face. I didn't have to look at Pratt to know, it was in her small, liberated smile. His arms were folded stoically as he watched her climb up to her chains, a glint of smug, reluctant pride in his eyes. I was too relieved to be jealous. Already, I could feel the air lifting, the mood of the cave altered, and Riley's cheeks stained pink from the attention.

Pratt had chores to catch up on and supplies to stock for winter, and was gone the rest of the day. Lately, he was taking longer and longer during his evening hunts and I wondered if the colder months were making it harder to find small game. Returning without something was no option for him. It seemed a skilled hunter like him would find other things to hunt, like pheasant or duck. And I was almost positive at least one of the fur blankets was a deer hide.

Between cat naps, Riley and I chatted to pass the time. She was better company when she wasn't constipated and definitely easier to talk to than Amy had been. I told her about my mother in Duluth and my father who died several years ago from a heart attack and the small slew of nonfiction books I had written that had gotten moderate reviews. Riley explained to me about how her parents died on New Year's Eve her first year in college, how her father died immediately but her mother was on life support for three days. She had an older sister in Nebraska who was married and had two kids, but they only saw each other around Christmas time.

"I don't think I really got to know my mom until I was about 13," Riley told me. The fire had been untended for a good length of time and the light was just beginning to slip away into a soft orange glow. "That was right around when she started making me fruit smoothies for breakfast and we would drink them on the front deck in the morning."

"Sounds nice." My head was leaned back on the wall, dreamy and wistful. It was pleasant to have someone to listen to.

"It was," she said, but with a curve of uncertainty. "I think it was because I was hitting puberty. She switched me from eggs, bacon and pancakes to dry toast and fruit smoothies." Her head bobbed side to side and her tone became hearty as she mocked her mother. "'A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips,' she'd say."

Riley got quiet just then, reflecting back on her own story as if she regretted telling it. In the few moments of remaining light, I saw her chin begin to quiver, the pain of her parents' death bubbling up fresh. I looked away, offering what little privacy I could give. I could relate to her. Sometimes the clearest memories of my father were not his finest moments. I remembered how he would call my bras "double-barreled sling shots" and jest about my thunder thighs during my awkward years.

Sniffing, Riley quickly asked, "Have you ever read Plato?"

"Some." Her subject change came as a relief to me. Thinking of me as a teenager in the nineties was not always welcomed.

"'Allegory of the Cave'?"

"I do recall that morsel of mandatory reading," I said, grinning, although I don't think she could see anymore. "But I'm a lot further from college than you are. Refresh me."

"Three men tied up in a cave all their lives?"

My eyebrow arched. "Sounds familiar."

"There was a constantly burning fire behind them and only thing they had to look at was the shadows on the wall. It was all they ever knew and for them it was reality. I think one was released and eventually came back to the cave to report his findings to the others. I remember it was about a journey to enlightenment."

It was probably more interesting on paper, but it didn't seem very realistic to me. How did they eat? How did they make waste? "Are you saying when we leave we'll be enlightened?" I asked, my tone mockingly elegant when I said that last word.

"Will we ever leave?" Riley asked.

The silence that followed seemed to widen the dark chasm between us and she seemed so far away.

Later when Pratt came home, the first thing he did was stop to build the fire back up. It took only about 10 seconds for his stench to waft up to the bed.

"Ugh!" I cried, twisting my face into my arm to cover my nose. That smell! Not again! That horrible odor of rancid meat was overpowering.

Across the room, even Riley's nose was scrunched in disgust.

Pratt dropped his shoulder furs on the bench and bounded on all fours onto the bed. I struggled quickly to my feet to ward him off. When he smelled like this, he liked to mark his territory.

"No! You stink!" I cried. I kicked at him, but he caught me by the heel with one hand and tickled my side with the other. By now, he knew where I was most ticklish. I giggled, thrashing my chains.

An unrecognizable flutter of laughter rang out. Pratt and I halted at the same moment and peered over at Riley. She was smiling at us, a great big, wide, Cameron Diaz smile, and her dimples dazzled me. Pratt met my eyes, sneering one of his half-grins.

Playfully, I lightly punted his shin with the ball of my foot. "Go, Smelly. Clean up. We demand food."

His spirited expression didn't change and I knew he didn't fathom a thing I said, but he withdrew anyway and disappeared into the tunnel. Somewhere he bathed. A reservoir in the cave or a pond outside, maybe. If it was in the cave, I wondered why we were not allowed to bathe there as well.

"I don't know what it is he gets into, but it smells terrible," I said.

"Does he make his own candles?"

I blinked. "How do you know?"

"It's the tallow," Riley said.

I made a face. "It's the what?"

She nodded upwardly at one of the candles on the wall. "To make the candles, he has to render the tallow. The animal fat. It's a potent smell."

"How do you know?"

"My mother used to make candles as Christmas presents. She boiled the fat in the garage though so the house didn't stink."

"Huh," I said and shook my head, as if coming out of a daze. "I had no idea."

"I think he saves our urine, too." She looked at me from the corner of her eye, furtive, with an impish smile.

"For what?"

"Probably to soften the animal hides he saves. It dissolves the fatty tissues and makes it easier to scrape off."

"Did your mother do that, too?"

Riley chuckled. "No. I read it in a book once. In the first century, the Romans used urine a lot in the tanning industry, thus the Roman Pee Tax."

I think my jaw dropped. "You're officially the smartest person I've ever met."

"Hardly," she scoffed.

That evening, straddled and rocking, I sought for Riley in the shadows, looking at her through my lashes. She was sagged against the wall, one slender knee up, her arms suspended limp and lazy from her manacles. Her eyes were black and deep as she gazed at me and I felt for a few minutes I was commanding her attention. Neither of us could seem to look away, not until Pratt sat up and gently flipped me on my back.

Later, I tried to close my eyes to sleep, but the ache of insecurity kept me awake. My brain was filled with restless thoughts about Riley and Pratt. I knew as well as anyone the process Pratt exercised to expunge our dignity and gain trust. Overcoming bathroom anxiety was only the beginning. I wasn't sure I was ready for them to get closer, but I felt assured that if Pratt had so much as dared to clean her up earlier, she would have come back shell-shocked instead of the cheerful manner with which she did return. There was that, at least. But all it would take was a slight change in her scent and Pratt would be on her like fungus. It made my stomach sick to think.

On my twenty-ninth morning, I woke up to perfect darkness.

Perfect darkness...and a cold bed.

*

"Pratt?" I whimpered.

Oh, Christ, no, not yet!

"Pratt!"

I felt him land on the bed nearby. The blankets flew off me. Hairy arms gathered me up.

Wasting no time, I plunged a hand under the soft ribbons of his loincloth, thankful to find him still buried under a thatch of bristly hair and encased in soft, unretracted foreskin. He exhaled a pleasant little growl, but I slid both hands up his chest to his face, searching for his mouth. I stretched up on my knees to sniff his lips, but all I could smell was the spicy zest of evergreen and forestry. His mouth opened in response. I licked him, his malleable lips, his slippery teeth, his hot tongue, but I found no salty traces of what might be Riley's excitement.

Throwing my face against Pratt's ribs, I burst into tears. "I'm not ready," I sobbed. "I'm not ready to let you go!"

I don't know if he understood, but his arms tightened around me as if he did, rocking me, comforting, letting me soak his chest. And when he was sure I had cried it all out, he found my hand again and slipped it back under his loincloth.

I had been in the cave a short four days before Pratt could smell the fear leaving my body. I don't know how long it had been for Amy, I suspected longer. Thinking back, I'm not sure if Riley's fear ever really left her, even after I was gone. And around my 31^st day in the cave—Riley's 8^th—I could really sense Pratt's impatience with her. I'm not sure if he actually longed for her. Maybe I just didn't want to see it, convincing myself his random erections were always for me.

On my 32^nd morning, I woke to a crackling, hissing fire. Pratt had already lit the candles around the room and he was dressed in his shoulder furs, sitting by the fire. He looked like he was stretching his arms, twisting them out in front of him with his hands clasped together, but with a secret smile I realized he was practicing the magic trick I had showed him right before Riley arrived. From the way his arms struggled, I could tell he hadn't figured it out yet.

I sat up to stretch and he dropped his arms when he heard me. Riley must have woken at the same time. Her eyes were puffy with sleep as she yawned at the ceiling.

I didn't notice Pratt's basket of berries sitting on the log bench until he picked them up. My eyes flicked to Riley's, saying everything in one covert look. He left us alone. And with me unchained.

Loosening the strings of his shoulder furs, Pratt kneeled next to me and set aside the basket full of dark, ripe huckleberries. He leaned over for some sweet nose kisses. His nose was still an ice cube from the outdoors and he smelled of the cold, and when he submerged his frosty hands into the covers to warm them on my naked body, I squeaked. Eyes happily gleaming, he peeled back his lips in a grin. One hand slipped down to cup my pubis and an icy finger sunk into me slowly.

"Hooo," I exhaled. I felt like I had just waded waist-deep into Lake Superior in March. His swirling finger was quickly making slush out of my anticipation. His shoulder dipped back slightly, pushing his digit in further and I groaned. I wanted to thrust my hips, but avoided sudden movements to elude the grappling hooks at the end of his fingers.

Quickly, he yanked out his finger, threw off the covers and smacked me twice on the tush. Time to get up, he seemed to say.

I hopped to my knees.

Holding up the basket of berries, he shuffled backwards to the edge of the blankets. Then he pointed to the wall.

My face split into a grin—a game!—and I hurried into position, squatting down on my feet, my muscles tense and ready to spring. Across the room, Riley was sitting up alertly. Her hair was pushed back over her shoulders and her nipples looked deep rose in the firelight. I could see her eyes as they lingered on my exposed sex, but her expression was unreadable.

Pratt tossed and I scurried. I hadn't played this game in a while and my legs were stiff. In no time, I was panting and could barely swallow down the berries I caught, but I didn't think about it. I wanted to do well in front of Riley, even if some of my moves were less than graceful. I managed to snag 13 berries out of 15 throws, a personal best for me, and I knew I was done when Pratt set the basket down and pointed to the bed in front of him. I crawled over and kneeled up, fighting to catch my breath. It felt good to stretch my lungs.

Sliding his fingers into his waistband, Pratt removed the skeleton key to the shackles and showed it to me. At first, I thought he wanted me to lock him in the cuffs for some reverse role play, but when he dropped the key into my hand, he swung his arm back and pointed to Riley. She was sitting still as a statue, flicking her wide, frightened eyes between Pratt and me.

I hesitated, shook my head. He wanted Riley to play, but she wasn't ready.

His camel-colored eyes sharpened on me. I didn't look away. Why couldn't he be patient with her? Why couldn't he wait until her fear went away before stripping away her pride? Besides, Pratt had never played these games with Amy, not in front of me at least, and I was still trying to fool myself these games were just for us. Like our gentle nose kisses.

With a disgruntled snort, Pratt tightened his fist around the key and stood up. He took one step towards Riley before I stopped him.

"Okay, okay," I hissed, picking myself up off the floor. No sense in worrying her more than necessary.

Sneering triumphantly, he opened his hand and I snatched the key. Christ, what did he want us to do? Compete for the berries? Fight each other for food? Well, I wouldn't play that game. I already had enough berries, I didn't need anymore. Riley could have what was left.

Stepping carefully over the rocks separating our beds, if her thin layer of straw counted as a bed, I approached and cupped her elbow to help her stand.

"What's happening?" she whispered under her breath.

"Just a stupid game," I muttered, stabbing the lock with the key. I was remembering how I broke out in tears after my first game of catch. I wished I had had someone tell me not to take it so seriously. "It's impossible to win."