Comfort Food Read Online Free PDF Page B

real food and I was willing to do just about anything to get it. Soup is great, but three meals a day and it becomes less filling. You start to feel full but hungry at the same time.
    He didn’t come into the cell at all. He just opened the door and slid the tray in at regular intervals. He didn’t touch me or physically feed me. I felt completely bereft. I couldn’t believe I’d become so attached to my captor’s presence until I experienced the absence of it.
    The hot showers became a distant memory. Instead, once a day he’d send in a large pail of tepid water, a sponge, soap, and shampoo. And of course a clean towel and a new set of the exact same boring clothes he’d been dressing me in for a week. And a comb as well as a toothbrush and toothpaste.
    Now the drain across from the toilet made sense. When I dragged the heavy pail to the corner to bathe, I was aware of how completely exposed I was. If he wanted, he could watch me clean myself, and he probably
    did. I was careful to ration out the water so I had enough to bathe, and also to wash and rinse my hair.
    I’d stopped dancing. I didn’t want to hold out anymore. I didn’t want to hold onto whatever I could because I knew he was breaking me and succeeding. Dancing just made it take longer. I wanted to be done with it so I could move on to the next thing I would have to endure in his care.
    Only in my dreams did I feel anything. I’d started dreaming about him, his hand on my face, feeding me. Even my subconscious mind had turned against me. Instead of dreaming in vivid bright colors and loud noises and vibrant tastes, I had begun to dream about the cell with him inside it.
    My desires had shifted from wanting the outside world to just wanting him to come back into my cell and for my punishment to be over. I wanted to prove I could be better. I could obey and do what he wanted.
    Finally, on the seventh day he stepped inside. He sat across from me as if nothing had happened, as if we hadn’t had a period of non-communication for days, and he started to feed me. When he touched my face, I leaned desperately into his hand. I wanted him to be pleased with me, to know he could trust me now.
    When the soup was gone, he took the tray away. I experienced a moment of panic, fearing I’d done something to upset him, that he would abandon me for another week, but he returned a couple of minutes later. He approached me and started to undo the buttons of my top. I didn’t pull away this time.

    . . . She didn’t resist as he removed first her top, then her sweatpants. She stood naked and shaking, self-conscious. She wanted to cover herself but was afraid if she did he’d punish her again. So she stood there, looking down at the ground as he observed her. She knew he must have watched her on the video monitors while she bathed, had probably stroked himself to the sight of her. And yet, it was different for him to be so close.
    He raised her chin so their eyes met, and he smiled. He was pleased, and she couldn’t help the tiny flush of pleasure that went through her body at that idea. Then his mouth caressed over hers, an echo of everything he’d been from the beginning . . . gentle. As if everything he did, he only did it for her own good. To teach her.
    She responded, her mouth hungrily accepting his touch. His hands drifted to her breasts, fondling her. She didn’t think of pulling away. Instead, she thought of how she could get closer and pressed her breasts harder into his hands, her body screaming for more contact with his.
    He put the blindfold over her eyes and led her to the door. She was terrified of where he was taking her. Were there others in the house?
    She found she had little to worry about as he took her into another room. The combination keypad went off in a series of nondescript beeps, and then he laid her back on a bed.
    She’d forgotten beds, what they were like, what pillows felt like against her flesh, or soft mattresses. She still wore the