The Gray Zone Read Online Free PDF

remembered from that day were so vivid, while huge chunks of time from the rest of her life—before and after her husband—were complete blanks. She did get new clothes, a uniform for school, but couldn’t remember how she got them. He must have taken her shopping, or perhaps he brought them to her, afraid the cops would notice them. They ate somehow, but Kelly couldn’t remember whether he ordered in or employed a cook. There were so many people that came in and out, cleaning, fixing, serving. She never got a pet. Kelly was pretty sure he didn’t touch herat all in those first few weeks except to stroke her hair or hold her hand.
    She turned sixteen a couple of months after he had brought her home. The memory was a vivid one.
    They had been in the screening room, watching
Pretty Woman
. During the scene when Julia Roberts leans out her window and Richard Gere gets ready to climb up the fire escape, Kelly volunteered, “Today’s my birthday.”
    He stared for a moment, then took her hands in his. “Marry me. Marry me and the courts won’t be able to do anything to us. To you.”
    Kelly didn’t even have to think. She’d been surviving on what other people had been offering her since she was six. She grabbed the chance to decide for herself. For that moment, she allowed herself to be Julia Roberts.
    “Okay,” she said.
    She married him three days later in the Houston city hall. She signed the marriage license that said she was eighteen. No one questioned it. The two of them stood alone in front of the judge, but Kelly wore the elaborate white dress and veil he had bought for her. When the judge was finished talking, her new husband lifted her veil and kissed her.
    “That does it,” he whispered. “Now you’re mine forever.”
    “Yes,” she heard herself reply. She looked up at him and saw that his eyes were vacant, impossible to read. “I love you,” she said, repeating what she’d heard on commercials and in movies. He smiled and pulled her to the car.
    He drove her home and carried her up the stairs. “This is your bed now,” he said, draping her on the black comforter in the master suite. “Turn over.” Slowly, he undid each of the dozens of pearl buttons running down the back of her dress.He tore the last few and threw the pile of tulle on the floor. He rolled her onto her back.
    “Now touch yourself,” he demanded.
    More confused than frightened, she reached between her legs. Her husband wiggled out of his suit. Suddenly he smacked her hand, flipped her over, and forced himself into her. Kelly screamed.
    “Shut up!” he shouted. “Do you want to go back to the streets?”
    She pressed her face into the mattress and refused to let herself cry. When he was done, he rolled her over and kissed her lips gently.
    “You’re mine,” he said with a grimace. “Remember that.”
    From that moment on, Kelly let him do whatever he wanted, and she performed whatever he dreamed up. And yet, as clear as most of that night was in her mind, the next several years were a blur. Eventually she became an expert at anticipating his moods, for the sake of her survival, just as she had been adept at reading the emotions of her foster parents, but sometimes she misjudged. His rage came unexpectedly and, out of nowhere, he might pinch her nipple until she felt pain in her groin, or, overcome by his own nightmares, he might rip her clothes off and sodomize her.
    Kelly looked up suddenly. The diner had gone quiet. Everyone had shifted in their seats to face the television, where the words BREAKING NEWS were scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Kevin was drumming on the table with his fingers, lost in his own little world. Libby was eating her Jell-O. The waitress turned up the volume. A man with thick, dark hair and gray eyes spoke. Kelly recognized him immediately from their encounter at the club.
    “Congressman Porter Garrett of Nevada was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room early this morning,” said