Kitty Thomas - Comfort Food

Comfort Food

Kitty Thomas

Digital Edition
Copyright 2010 Kitty Thomas
All rights reserved.

Digital Edition LicenseNotes

This ebook is licensedfor your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold orshared. If you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for youruse only, then please purchase your own copy. Respecting the hardwork of this author makes new books possible.

Publisher's Note:

This book is a work offiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of theauthors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance toactual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirelycoincidental.

Neither the publisher nor the author endorse or condone any actions carried out by any fictional character in this work or any other.

You can find information about my other work at the end of this book.

Thefirst day of my captivity was like being born... or dying. Theyreboth kind of the same thing with the long tunnel and the bright lightat the end. Maybe it wasnt like either, actually. Maybe Imremembering it wrong because for me that day all there was, wasdarkness.

Iwas blindfolded, sitting in a hard metal chair, with each of my legsbound to a chair leg and my arms tied up behind me. The sharpest bitof sensory input I had was the silence. It was a suffocating blanketfrom which there was no escape. Unless I started talking just to hearmy own voice, a desperation I refused to display in the first fiveminutes of consciousness.

Iremember thinking this was how spy movies often started, with sensorydeprivation: the first step to get the prisoner to spill his secrets.I had no secrets. I was an open book, and maybe that was the problem.I was a minor celebrity on the public-speaking circuit, self-assured,articulate. The poster-girl for everything others wished they couldbecome. Not a threat to anyone really.

Idwritten a few books and had started to grow a following of loyaldevotees. Someone would notice I was missing, at least by the time mynext speaking engagement rolled around in a couple of weeks.

Theday had started at one such engagement. A very nice luncheon, in avery nice restaurant in downtown Atlanta had been booked for theevent. I usually started and ended my book tours in Atlanta becauseit was close to my home in the suburbs.

Theaudience was mostly comprised of women, my primary demographic,though Id never set out to become some voice of women.There was a smattering of men, but I wasnt paying much attention.

Womengo through their lives a bit differently than men. Were alwayscautious. Its not that we live in abject terror twenty-four hoursa day thinking some random man is going to come along and rape orkill us. Only the most neurotic of us think that way.

Still,you never know what kind of wacko out there has become fixated onyou. And despite all the empowering speeches and the womensmovement, in the grand scheme... women are prey.

Thiswas the place I was at, the almost complete denial it had happened tome. Me, who is always so careful. Locks her doors, doesnt walk orjog with ear buds in her ears, doesnt take candy from strangers invans. You know the drill.

Iwas listening to the silence and wondering how the hell this could behappening. Other things were running through my mind as well. Thingsthat had me hoping maybe I did have some government secret and once Ishared it, I could go on my merry way.

Rape.Death. Dismemberment. Maybe in that order, maybe not. Though thatorder would be preferable to Dismemberment. Rape. Death. Or Rape.Dismemberment. Death. You always want your dismemberment to happenafter the death.

Deathfirst would be the absolute best-case scenario. Id seen enoughwoman-in-peril movies, and I was no MacGyver. I didnt really haveany kind of ballpoint pens on me that I could somehow get out of apocket and turn into a ballistic missile.

Mymistake was a stupid one. Id left my drink unattended. Men neverhave to worry about this shit. I guess because statistically speakingthere are fewer female psychos stalking men than the opposite, andmost confrontations between men are pretty straightforward.

Likeall women raised in the current climate of fear and loathing of men,I was taught never to leave my drink unattended. All women know this.We do. Even if we arent explicitly told, it seems to come with thepackaging and wiring of being female. Just common sense in the age ofthe date rape drug. Expecting even the most sensitive male to trulyunderstand any of this is like expecting a wolf to understand thefiner points of being a rabbit.

Still.We seem to think there are exceptions. Like my luncheon.

Thereare no exceptions. If there were, I wouldnt be sitting tied to achair listening to the questionably comforting sound of my breathgoing in and out.

Icouldnt stop thinking about how my parents were going to react toall this. My sister, Katie, had died several years ago in anaccident. She was deaf and hadnt heard the car barreling aroundthe curve. The driver wasnt used to ice on the road. No one in thesouth is. My parents hadnt spoken about her in years because theycouldnt deal with it. I couldnt imagine how theyd cope withmy disappearance and wondered if theyd curse God for doing thisshit to them twice in a row.

Thedoor creaked open then, exactly like doors do in scary movies. Atleast now I knew what kind of story I was in, no sense fooling myselfabout it. The sound of his boots echoed eerily loud on the concretefloor as he approached me. He stopped maybe a couple of feet away asthe silence stretched on for a small eternity. Finally, I feltcompelled to speak.

Whyare you doing this? My voice shook when I said it, and I hatedthat. I sounded weak. Id never sounded weak before in my life.

Itwas such a clich question. If these were to be my last words, theyfelt like stupid and unimportant ones, but I had to know. Why hadhe taken me? Did I send out a vibe or was he just obsessed? Was theresomething about me that screamed Victim?

Idalways tried to give the impression that I wasnt easy prey. Idbeen fooling myself. It had been ridiculously easy for him to takeme.

Thenagain, maybe I was being all wrong-headed in assuming right from thestart my captor was male. Theoretically, it could just as easily havebeen a woman.

Somebodyjealous of my professional success. Someone who hated me for someimaginary reason, like that her husband thought I was pretty orsomething. As if I can control who thinks Im pretty. There wasalways that one-in-a-million reason for some woman to go apeshitpsycho on you.

AndI dont hate men. There is a very small percentage of men whochoose to perpetrate violence against women, despite the ease withwhich they can do it. Most women dont hate men. Those that do,though, probably do so not because most men are violent towardswomen, but that they could be, if they wanted to. This knowledge setsup a kind of helpless rage in some women. One Id never succumbedto until today.

Hestill hadnt spoken. I was carrying on this internal monologue inmy head because I was afraid I might say something that would get mekilled. Or worse. It was naive, but I wanted to believe I couldsomehow alter the course of events here by saying the right thing. Mywords, the thing that had made me so compelling to people, were moreuseless than I wanted to admit. My only weapon had the efficacy of asquirt gun.

Icould feel the heavy lump forming in my throat as he stepped closer.I couldnt see him because of the blindfold still covering my eyes,but I knew he was observing me, probably taking me in with amusement.It pissed me off that he held my life in his hands, and yet he mightbe amused with me.

Icontinued to wait for him to answer the