The little clock Joe had placed in the box had an illustrated background to it showing the transition of night to day and back again. Right now you could see it was just after midnight which was when Joe would come to visit you. You hated being asleep when he showed up, you knew him and knew that he wouldn’t touch you without your permission but at the same time you could never have dreamed he would have kidnapped you and stuck you into a box.
You two had met a holistic trauma rehab facility. You both had trouble communicating in a group setting with everyone but found solace in each other. Your therapists encouraged you both spending time together. You two would go for walks in the woods ditching the group as they would drink LSD laden tea and sob about the stardust they were made of.
He had shared the chaotic environment he endured as a child when he came across a burnt tree during your walk. He had stopped to sob.
One group you had always participated in was the in creative movement class. You had danced throughout your childhood and high school years and found freedom in ridding the extra energy stored in your body, letting it move how it needed and scream what you couldn’t whisper.
You saw him watching from a distance while you were in your movement sessions.
On his last night there you two took a walk through the woods again, when you both came upon the burnt tree you had asked him if he could help you. He closed his eyes like you asked while you moved your body under the moonlight to the music only nature gave you. He never opened his eyes once. He respected your wish. You ran your body until it was nearly exhausted and the dried leaves were sticking to your sweaty legs.
You hugged him. It was the first human contact you had been able to bare since your own childhood. It even felt comforting. He knew your difficulties and didn’t move, he let you make all the moves and that was the only one you were capable of making at that time. You sobbed just as he had.
He left the next day. You watched from the room in your window as his wife pulled up and showered him in hugs and kisses. He looked up to your window with a solemn expression and watched with his big eyes from the prison of her car as she drove him away. You thought it would be the last time you would see him.
Until you woke up in his prison.
You had been out of the rehab in Portland for a month and back to your normal grind running your cat cafe. You stayed late preparing your documents for your tax return. It was so strange because one moment you were staring at a receipt and the next you were groggy and staring at Joe through a glass window.
He had been spying on you through your own security cameras and knew that you were the only one that drank the watermelon tobacco Brazilian coffee and that you did it every night you stayed late. He had spiked the coffee and somehow ended you up...here.
You weren’t sure how many days you had been here but it was enough for him to find homes for all of your foster cats in the cafe. You could thank him for that at least. He had brought you here to keep you from his wife who he said had a violent side and had read in one of his discharge papers his connection with you. That you could also thank him for.
You looked around the room and cleaned up the middle of it. Your body had a lot of thoughts at the moment and you felt it yearning to release.
You closed your eyes taking deep breaths in and out and listened to it urge you to lift your arms out in front of you. You threw your head back and felt the stretch down your spine. You rolled your hands then dropped suddenly sweeping your leg out to lunge. Again you threw your head back and let your back follow to wave as you straightened your legs. Your body needed a moment to breath so you stretched one arm out to the side as far as it could go and traced a circle as far as you could reach over your head until it reached your other arm now stretching out in the opposite direction.
You could feel him watching.
You opened your eyes and found him watching you with his hand pressed against the glass. He watched you with the same intensity he had watched you in each of your classes. He looked not like he wanted to devour you but he wanted to crawl into your body so he could feel the closeness.
