“You can’t feel like what happened to her is your fault,” Regan protests.
“Really? Maybe you should reserve judgment until I finish the story,” I say shortly. Surging to my feet, I lunge at the minibar. I need some alcohol to finish this story. There are six more bottles of liquor inside. I take out the Jack Daniel’s and swallow the bottle in one gulp. In my absence, Regan has moved to the sofa and is patting the cushion. With a sigh, I head back and crack open the bottle of rum. Rolling the small bottle between my hands, I finish the story. “So I’m telling her to get out and do some normal stuff. She’s studying at MIT, some kind of string theory shit that is more complicated than how the F-16 is constructed. During one of our Skype calls, she tells me that some classmates of hers are going on spring break to Cancun, and I encourage her to go. No.” I stop and drink down the bottle, tossing the empty container on the coffee table. There’s not ever going to be enough alcohol to make the pain of this memory go away. “I force her to go. I tell her that she’s wasting her life in school, that the real world is passing her by—she’s gotta get out and live it.” Those last words come out with so much bitterness and self-hatred that even Regan leans away.
“She goes and on the second day is kidnapped. I get a Red Cross call—the line family members can use to inform you of an emergency—and fly twenty hours home. When I get to the ranch, my momma looks like she’s aged fifty years and can barely rise from the chair to greet me. My dad doesn’t want me to even step foot on the porch of our house. He tells me to find her and not come home until I do.”
“Oh, Daniel.” Regan leans over and starts rubbing my upper shoulders, which feels far better than I deserve at the moment. “Have you been saving girls for the last eighteen months?”
That and killing people.
“Every time I walked into one of those houses or pulled over a truck carrying fucking kidnapped girls, I didn’t know whether I felt relief or disappointment at not seeing her face. Until a few hours ago, I believed she was dead.” I hunch over my knees, using my hands to cradle my head. “And now I’m feeling so much fucking relief, I can’t even tell you, Regan.”
“Do you need to cry it out?” she murmurs.
“What?” I crank my head around.
“Cry it out? You know, let it go. That’s how my, I guess, ex–best friend Becca and I used to deal with things.”
“I hope you know I’m not Becca.”
She smiles, a bit sadly. “I hate that you found me in that house. I hate that I’m a fucked-up victim.”
Turning swiftly, I grab her by both arms. “You are not a victim. You are a fucking survivor. You have more life in you than half the people walking around living their normal lives.” I shake her a little so she gets this. “You are not a victim.”
I don’t think this penetrates, because she continues. “Earlier, in the alley,”—she gestures in some vague direction behind her—“I freaked out because you were pressed up against me. I felt like I was back in that room.” Her breath catches as if she’s holding back some tears, but I don’t encourage her to cry it out, because I don’t know if I can deal with her tears at this moment. “What if I can’t have sex like a normal person? What if all I can do is mutual masturbation?”
Her words are conjuring up wild, erotic images, which I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate. Swallowing hard, I push my lust away and attempt to speak normally. “I think you’ll move past that.”
“I wanted you this morning,” she admits. “I mean, you saw me. I really wanted you. I was fantasizing about you touching me, you rubbing me, your dick inside me.”
Oh Christ. This sex talk is making my dick stand up. But what if . . . ? A thought occurs to me. A really selfish thought. One generated by my dick, but I can’t help myself. Standing up, I say, “Then take me.”
“What do you mean?” She sounds bewildered but intrigued.
I unbuckle my pants and then lie on the bed. “Why not come over and use me? Do what you like to me. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. If all you want me to do is lie here while you feel me up, then that’s what we do. If you want to climb on top of me and ride me, that’s cool. Shit, you can even tie my hands up.” I shiver at the thought. “Use me.”