Secrets and Lies: Hostage

The dog, I have to walk her eventually. Then, then, I can get in a taxi and just leave, but Dicksin still has my passport. If I tell the front desk will they help me? No, no one will believe me. Dicksin will make up some story about me being crazy. I'll look insane.

I am insane. This can't be real. I must be dreaming. No having a nightmare. I shut my eyes hoping everything will change.

Dicksin claps his hands in front of my face again. "Wake up!"

I'm still in the hotel room. Two days now without sleep. How is he still going? The little white pills. My head spins.

"This won't work unless you want it to." He says caressing my face.

I look at the cards on the floor. The places I'm supposed to step to become the wife he wants. Sheryll Crow's voice rings in my thoughts, "If it makes you happy, it can't be that ba-a-ad."

I want Dicksin to be happy. I've been a terrible wife. Not thin enough for him, not affectionate enough, not supportive enough. I eat too much. I'm so cold and distant. I need to give him this.

My stomach twists. My dad's voice comes back to me. "In that day seven women shall take hold of one man saying, "We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach."


My throat tightens around silent screams. I look at the floor again. How can anyone love the bible? The memories of everything I learned in church swirl around tearing me apart like a hoard of demons.

Part of me wants to rip open the hotel nightstand and use the stupid book for kindling to start the whole hotel on fire. 

No. Bad idea. Someone could get hurt or worse die.



Dicksin starts over. "And we're going to have a great life. You, me, and" blood rushes through my head. The sound of her name on his tongue turns my soul to glass and the tender smile he gives me smashes it to pieces.

All this time of him cheating, I never expected it would lead here. I never suspected he was capable of such deliberate cruelty.

Bigamy. The word seems unreal. All this time I stayed because "Marriage is sacred."

She knew about me, that he was married, but she still put on that white dress. If it hadn't been for the pictures of their wedding would Dicksin have told me?

Why did he do it?

Because I'm nothing. He wasn't being callous. He just acted like I didn't exist because I don't. I have to forgive him.

"No," some part of me yells at the top of its lungs.

"I'm tired, can we just go to sleep?" I ask, paralyzed, unable to place my foot on the next card, more afraid of who I might become than Dicksin's temper.

"After we do this just ten more times," Dicksin says with boyish excitement.

The need to vomit almost overcomes my sense of self-preservation. The twenty times before I kept making mistakes, my emotions spilling over. Dicksin seems oblivious to the pain he is causing me. My face is likely red from crying but he is looking at me like he thinks I'm beautiful again.

If I can just get through this without a meltdown, if I can just pretend until I have time to sort and think, maybe then it will be easier, but Dicksin won't let me leave.

Where did he hide my passport? I try to glance around without him noticing.

Can I get to the Embassy and request a new one? Is the Embassy open? What time is it? Four A.M. If I sit waiting there and Dicksin finds me... It won't work. What will he do if I try to leave? At least, for now, he's allowing me to eat.

"You won't find it." He says almost giddy. "Come on we need to get through this, for the sake of all those people whose incomes depend on the company."

Am I being selfish wanting time to process? Is my pain hurting others? I look back and hate myself. Everyone I spoke to, I hurt their incomes. My best friend, she hasn't been doing as well since she saw me break down.

I have to be stronger. For him, for all of them. I try again, willing myself to let go of the last shred of happiness I will ever have.