Keep Me

I learn all of this during our walks. While Rosa doesn’t like jogging, she’s more than happy to take a brisk walk with me in the morning, before it gets too hot and muggy. It’s something we started doing on my third day here, and it’s quickly becoming part of my daily routine. I like spending time with Rosa; she’s bright and friendly, reminding me a bit of my friend Leah. And Rosa seems to enjoy my company as well—although I’m sure she would be nice to me regardless, given my position here. Everybody on the estate treats me with respect and politeness.

After all, I’m the Señor’s wife.

After the incident at the gym, I have done my best to accept the fact that I’m married to Julian—that the beautiful, amoral man who abducted me is now my husband. It’s an idea that still disturbs me on some level, but with each day that passes, I grow more and more accustomed to it. My life changed irrevocably when Julian stole me, and that far-off ‘normal’ future is a dream I should’ve given up a long time ago. Clinging to it while falling in love with my kidnapper had been as irrational as developing feelings for him in the first place.

Instead of a house in the suburbs and two-point-five kids, my future now holds a heavily guarded compound near the Amazon jungle and a man who both excites and terrifies me. It’s impossible for me to imagine having children with Julian, and I dread the fact that in a few short months, the three-year birth control implant I got at seventeen will cease to be effective. At some point, I will need to bring up this issue with Julian, but for now I’m trying not to think about it. I’m no more ready to be a mother than I was to be a wife, and the possibility of having that choice forced on me makes me break out in a cold sweat. I love Julian, but raising children with a man who thinks nothing of kidnapping and killing? That’s a whole other matter.

My parents and friends back home aren’t helping. I spoke once with Leah, telling her about my hasty marriage, and her reaction had been shocked, to say the least.

“You married that arms dealer?” she exclaimed incredulously. “After everything he’s done to you and Jake? Are you insane? You’re only nineteen—and he should be in jail!” And no matter how much I tried to spin everything in a positive light, I could tell she got off the phone thinking that my abduction left me a few cards short of a full deck.

My parents are even worse. Every time I talk to them, I have to fend off their probing questions about my unexpected marriage and Julian’s plans for our future. I don’t blame them for adding to my anxiety; I know they’re worried sick about me. The last time we had a video call, my mom’s eyes were red and swollen, as though she’d been crying. It’s obvious that the hastily concocted story I told them at my wedding has done little to alleviate their concerns. My parents know how my relationship with Julian began, and they’re having a hard time believing I could be happy with a man they see as pure evil.

And yet I am happy, my fretting about the future aside. The icy emptiness inside me is gone, replaced by a dazzling abundance of emotions and sensations. It’s as though the black-and-white movie of my life has been redone in technicolor.

When I’m with Julian, I’m complete and content in a way that I don’t fully understand and can’t quite come to terms with. It’s not like I was miserable before I met him. I had great friends, a loving family, and the promise of a good, if unexceptional, life ahead of me. I even had a crush—Jake—who gave me the proverbial butterflies in my stomach. It makes no sense that I somehow needed something as perverse as this relationship with Julian to enrich my life and give me that which I was missing.

Of course, I’m no shrink. Perhaps there is an explanation for my feelings—some childhood trauma that I’ve repressed, or a chemical imbalance in my brain. Or maybe it’s just Julian and the deliberate way he’s been molding my physical and emotional responses since those early days on the island. I am cognizant of his conditioning methods, but my recognition of them doesn’t alter their effectiveness. It’s strange to know that you’re being manipulated, and at the same time enjoy the results of that manipulation.

But enjoy them I do. Being with Julian is thrilling—both frightening and exhilarating, like riding a wild tiger. I never know which side of him I will see at any given moment: the charming lover or the cruel master. And as messed-up as it is, I want both—I am addicted to both. The light and the dark, the violence and the tenderness—it all goes together, forming a volatile, dizzying cocktail that plays havoc with my equilibrium and makes me fall even deeper under Julian’s spell.

Of course, the fact that I see him now every day doesn’t help. On the island, Julian’s frequent absences gave me time to recover from the potent effect he has on my mind and body, enabling me to maintain some emotional balance. Here, however, there is no respite from the magnetic pull he exerts on me, no way to shield myself from his intoxicating allure. With each day that passes, I lose a little more of my soul to him, my need for him growing, rather than decreasing with time.

The only thing that keeps me from freaking out is the knowledge that Julian is drawn to me just as strongly. I don’t know if it’s my resemblance to Maria or just our inexplicable chemistry, but I know the addiction works both ways.

Julian’s hunger for me knows no bounds. He takes me a couple of times every night—and often during the day as well—yet I get the sense he still wants more. It’s there in the intensity of his gaze, in the way he always touches me, holds me. He can’t keep his hands off me—and that makes me feel better about my own helpless attraction to him.