Stockholm Syndrome? - Chapter 13: Chapter 13

Archer's POV
Everyone was happy I was home. Mom was so relieved she wouldn't let me out of her sight. I silently cursed my kidnapper for increasing her protectiveness. She made the doctor order a battery of tests. I was made to lie down while some guy with a gloved finger poked around in my private places. I went through numerous x-rays. It was like with every x-ray that revealed I had no broken bone in my skull, mom was convinced it was a massive cover-up that the radiologist and the doctor were privy to.
I recounted the same story a couple of times. I didn't know who kidnapped me. He wore a mask and I couldn't recall where he'd taken me since we moved twice. He drugged me. I didn't know what he wanted. I couldn't guess his age from his voice. I spent most of the time in a trance. I couldn't remember the call to my mom. I escaped after he let me use the bathroom.
Besides physical exams, there were blood tests and urine tests done. Some drug called desmethyldiazepam was found in my urine. They concluded that I'd been drugged with valium and a combination of other drugs, some of which were already out of my system.
People came to see me. Some of my former classmates passed by to say hi. Mom wouldn't let me walk them out or let them stay longer. I was living in a bubble. It wasn't ideal but I didn't complain much. Mom had been through a lot, she needed to put me in a bubble for her to feel better.
Our relationship hadn't changed, but sometimes when I looked at her I saw the woman Felix described, the one who had an affair with a married man. It was hard for me to accept that it was the same woman. Mom was friendly, protective and caring. She didn't seem like the sort to have an affair and belittle another woman.
I couldn't bring it up. Maybe mom had seen the error of her ways and changed. Not only was it not my business, I couldn't talk about Felix.
Felix.
For days after I left his house I thought about what happened on that final day. I locked myself in my room to analyze the situation without any interference. Mom thought it was the trauma of the kidnapping and I allowed her to think that. She suggested counseling and I told her I would be fine. I needed to deal with things on my own.
She wasn't deterred, something I soon learned.
Anyway, back to the subject.
Felix and I had discussed objectivity and subjectivity. He didn't think it was possible to be objective when the way we experience things was in itself subjective. He said everything was the concept of beauty.
I didn't know if he was right, but I'd failed to be objective with him. Even after he told me he killed people, even after he kidnapped me I chose to let him go. I chose to protect him. The objective thing was to let him surrender himself to the police. It was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. I'd just given a murderer free reign to do it again. I didn't know him. I couldn't trust his promise.
Yet I felt like I knew him. I trusted his promise. It was beyond anything I had ever experienced. It wasn't like teenage I-can't-live-without-you moments. It was deeper. It was screwed up. Yet I liked it. I didn't do what was right. I did something that felt right. The only thing I hoped for was not to regret it.
I heard about Felix the day I went home. The police said they'd received a call from a man who claimed to have me at his house. When they got there they found Felix, who said he had not made the call. After a thorough search of the house they'd found no trace that I had ever been there. They couldn't trace the origin of the call so they didn't know who had made it. I imagined Felix had used a fake voice during the call because his thick maple syrup voice was clearly distinguishable.
Just remembering his voice brought back a particular memory. On the night he'd famously given me a bruised jaw and a split lip (everyone's "awes" increased when they saw it), he'd done something else quite unexpected.
I'd been quite vigilant of everything he did after hitting me. I feared he'd decide it was time to kill me, so when he took me to his bathroom, I was surprised. He surprised me more when he took care of my split lip. With that he softened me up. For some reason I was just seeing him differently.
I was still surprised when he let me shower. For someone who was going to kill me he was quite generous. He'd even offered me an apology. "I'm sorry" wasn't much, but I hadn't expected him to say anything remotely resembling that.
Everything that night was strange, but nothing had been as strange as what happened when he walked in after I took a shower.
His lips on mine, his hands along my jaw, my hand on his waist; it was something surreal for me to take it in all in one time. His kiss was light yet awakened every part of my body. I was aware of my heartbeat and intense desire for more than just his kiss. The moment was smoldering and I briefly wondered if he could tell just how much he'd broken any resolve consisting of denial I would have ever hoped to have.
I let myself go and submitted myself to my desires, to him. That night we shared a moment of ecstasy. Reality fused with dreams, I forgot I was a captive in the hands of my kidnapper. His eyes were hypnotizing, his whole being was magnetizing.
I shed my fears faster than my clothes. For a moment I didn't care about anything but the man standing in front of me. That man, with glassy black eyes filled with darkness and a grin that always made me want to smack him. That time, it made me want him to keep moving his pelvis until nirvana broke in and around me. In retrospect, always wasn't the best adverb to use.
His long slender fingers were imprinted on my body as he traced its contours. His lips had seared my skin, something that awfully felt like branding. But it wasn't, because I wasn't his and he wasn't mine.
Nirvana did break, explosively so. Pleasure filled in and all around me and as I lay that night with his arm around me, I lamented why it had taken me so long to experience something like that, something so dangerous and yet so fulfilling.
When I woke up the next morning, for a few minutes I watched him sleep. He looked like a big teddy bear, something that made smile. A couple of thoughts crossed my mind. I'd given myself away so easily. I'd been consumed with so much desire that I behaved recklessly. A part of me despised that newly acquired information about me. I'd displayed wantonness I didn't know I possessed. I'd never behaved that recklessly before.
I didn't look in silence for long though. Despite what had happened, I was still in danger. The big teddy bear was still the same person who'd kidnapped me.
I got out of bed, dressed and snuck out of the room quietly. I was hoping to find a way out of the house but it was impossible. Everything was locked and requested a "password". I almost felt like I'd walked onto some high-security army camp, except there weren't soldiers, just a computer threatening to kill me. Okay, it didn't, but it seemed pretty much capable of it.
I gave up trying to escape and decided to make breakfast. I had a thing for food, and my last meal wasn't going to be bread and beans. I'd had enough of that to last me a lifetime and a half. It took a while but I found ingredients I could use to make pancakes so I settled on that.
I don't know if it was the connection I thought I felt to Felix, but I couldn't find it in me to let him go to jail. When I got angry when his "boyfriend" called I just knew I didn't want him anywhere near a jail cell. Instead, I wanted to hit the hell out of him for having a boyfriend.
Psychologists would call it Stockholm syndrome, something I did a lot of research on after I couldn't stop thinking about Felix, my outright lie and the jealousy I felt when his boyfriend called.
They said it was a result of trauma, a need to identify with the aggressor so as to stop perceiving him as a threat. What I felt for Felix would be chalked down to that, me needing to stop seeing myself as a victim. But was it really? Or was it more?
It was hard to figure things out, but Felix never left my thoughts. He never tried to contact me either. I didn't know if he was watching me through the camera he'd installed in my room and after an extensive search I had never located it.
It was a screwed up thing to do, but I missed him.
One afternoon I decided to start getting ready for college. Even though mom was reluctant to let me leave, she couldn't hold me hostage. I needed education and she wasn't about to deny me that.
I started first by cleaning my room and packing things better so I could see what I was taking with me and what I was leaving behind. Mom was somewhere in the house. It was a Saturday. There were only two weeks left before I would leave for college. If it was up to mom she wouldn't go to work and just stay with me.
I decided to back up pictures from my phone when I was done tidying my room. Felix had given me back my phone after I asked him for it, something I appreciated. I was almost done with my collages, I just needed to add some pictures and make a few adjustments. I hoped my flatmate wasn't into somber atmospheres because I planned to print my collages and frame them; and nothing smaller than 20"x 24" would do.
I connected my phone to my laptop and sat on the chair just beside my desk. I opened my picture folder. The first picture to come into my view was the last picture I had taken. I double tapped on it.
Felix was staring at me. The hair on his head fell in thick short waves, sleek and darker than his facial hair which grew above his upper lip and along his jaw. I could remember the feel of his hair when my hand moved in it, sometimes tugging when he hit the right spots, which admittedly had been every time. His black eyes reminded me of a dark night with no moon, and I couldn't help but think of the twinkle in his eye whenever I insulted him; dark night with a few bright stars, yeah that would do.
His cheek dimple was more striking. It was deep and mesmerizing. In the picture he was smiling. I couldn't help but smile. I missed the idiot.
I made a decision. I wasn't going to put the picture in my collage. I wasn't going to delete it either. I was just going to keep it. Maybe I would meet him again when his hair had turned grey and he could no longer walk without a cane. I'd show him what a gorgeous guy he once was and how he'd looked when he'd screwed me up in a way that gave me butterflies.
I was about to close the picture when my bedroom door opened and Stella and Clark just basically threw themselves in. Clark had come back urgently after my disappearance and I appreciated it.
"Don't you guys know how to knock?" I asked as I swung my chair to face them.
A finger was pointed at Stella by the dark brown-haired guy she was standing to. Clark was a milder version of Stella, and I mean mild because I could hit him. He was the one who came up with crazy ideas that earned him the description "idiot" from Stella –but then again, to Stella it didn't matter what he did. He could win a Nobel Prize for everything they give it for and she'd still call him an idiot.
Physically he was taller than both of us, earning another nickname from Stella. Giant was something of an exaggeration but Stella didn't care. He retaliated by calling her a dwarf. I just couldn't understand how they couldn't see the love tension between them.
Clark had dark brown hair, light green eyes and a smile he used to whore around. Again, using Stella's words here. Using my words, Clark could really take it down a notch. His good looks and lack of self control were driving him a little bit crazy. He could find a great girl and settle down.
Clark knew it was a mistake the moment he pointed at Stella. She grabbed his finger and twisted it. It was fun watching him plead for her to stop. Gosh those two. I was surprised they had walked in together.
"Cut it out you two", I said.
"Tell the blond witch", Clark said and as I predicted, he followed that with an "Ow".
Stella seemingly satisfied, let his finger go.
"I swear I am going to get a cat to replace you people", I said.
"Wouldn't dare", Stella said throwing herself on my bed. Of course my plush soccer pillows were thrown to the floor.
"I'd be happy if you replaced her. A cat is a better companion than...that", Clark said pointing at Stella, deducing it was safe to now that she had moved away from him.
I wondered how it would be if they dated. If they suddenly became all lovey-dovey there wouldn't be any fights for me anymore. They would probably become engrossed in each other. Their bickering annoyed me sometimes, but it entertained me also. I would miss it.
"What are you doing?" Clark enquired coming to stand next to me.
"Moving my pictures from my phone to the laptop", I said and quickly closed Felix's picture.
"I thought you'd be done with the collages by now", he said.
"Yeah well, you didn't filter being kidnapped in", I said grinning.
My friends didn't think that was funny.
"Your mom asked us..." Stella started but I cut her off.
"I'm fine guys. I don't need counseling", I said. "At least something explains why you got here together", I said trying to get past the somber mood in the room.
"Are you sure? Counseling isn't such a bad idea", Clark said.
"I'm fine. Mom is just paranoid. She always has been", I said.
"Well if you need to talk, Stella and I are here", he said and Stella nodded.
"Great", I said nonchalantly.
Clark requested to see some of the collages I had done in his absence. Stella joined him and they spent half of the time either criticizing each other's pictures or pushing each other away from the laptop.
I stood up and walked to the door.
"I'm going to get juice. Mango and pineapple?" I said. They both nodded.
I walked out of the room with the picture of Felix lingering in my mind's view. He didn't know what I would give to see him again. I didn't know either. All I knew was this didn't feel like Stockholm syndrome. It was stronger, way stronger.