Vladimir(57)

“What,” I asked.

“You wanted to escape.” He pointed a waggling finger at me.

I shrugged, acting caught. “Of course I did.”

“So you kidnapped me.”

“What?” My breath was heavy in my mouth. I felt myself blinking rapidly, smiling an inane smile.

He nodded, his finger still pointed in my direction, as though he had found me out, but then a layer of awareness seemed to leave him, and the nodding turned internal, a negotiation with himself, his lips moving in an inaudible mumble. After what seemed like a lifetime of this he cocked his head and slurred, “I overdid it.” Then his nodding turned to a shaking of the head, which went on for another interminable period, and the shaking took over his entire body, prompting a sort of wriggling in his spine, a twisting of his hands, a fluttering in his eyelids. It was as though he were performing a sinister dance—even drugged he had a kind of grace, a jittering Nijinsky—his bodily agitation romantic and terrifying. Finally, his movements slowed to a restless shifting back and forth. I tried to speak to him, but it was as though another layer of consciousness had been stripped away, and my heart felt practically seized with fear. Would I need to call 911? When I approached to check on him, as if in answer, he tried to rise out of the chair, knocking his drink and water glass to the floor, and I ran to him and placed my hands on his arms to try and still him, to get him to sit. Sweet boy, his arms were so strong and so firm and yet he clutched on to me so tightly to steady himself, like a child, he clutched me because he needed me, I felt cascades of tender thrills course through me as I led him back to his seat, using all my strength to steer him. On the first try we missed the chair, he fell to the floor on the side, and I had to plead, cajole, push, yank, and eventually slap him in order to hoist him up into the seat. I pushed my full weight against his incredible chest to keep him in position as he writhed. “You’re all right, sweetheart, you’re okay,” I murmured repeatedly to him, pressing my body against his until he fully succumbed to the drug’s physical force and slumped over on his left side, inert and fast asleep.





XV.


Inexperienced with pharmaceuticals as I was, I hadn’t expected Vlad’s reaction to the drug to be so visible and violent. I had thought, rather hazily, I admit, that he would drift off on the couch and I would unpack our provisions, lead him (somehow, I hadn’t worked it out exactly) to my bed, and lie down beside him. Once there, I had hoped that the blunt forces of anatomical proximity and attraction, mixed with his still-intoxicated state, might take over. And after? I would have him away and to myself, he would be compromised, guilty, needing, ashamed, and, taking advantage of his inner conflict, I would heal him, help him, and thus create the space for the eternal, if physically fleeting, union of our souls.

I hadn’t anticipated his physical struggle. His form lay twisted over the armrest of the chair at an evil angle. He looked the way Sid used to look as a toddler when she would fall asleep in her car seat, her body so completely collapsed that, if John was driving, I would climb into the back to hold her in place. There was work to do in the cabin, but I felt as though I couldn’t leave him. I thought of a fact I had learned about preindustrial, agrarian times, and how in those times, some mothers would tie their babies to chairs with strips of cloth while they went about their duties around the house or in the fields. If I could only get him upright and secured, I felt he would be safe.

Considering Vlad’s girth and solidity, I needed something stronger than fabric to effectively restrain him, and found a leftover pack of zip ties in the junk drawer that I had bought to tame the television wires. I squatted below where he was collapsed and used my back to push him upright, then inserted the plastic strip in a space between vertical slats at the back of the chair, threaded it around his right bicep, and pulled it tight, careful not to pinch his skin. For extra security I added another, higher on his arm. This seemed to work momentarily, he rested straight up, but then his body sagged in the other direction, falling over the side I had bound. I thought about binding his other arm, but I wanted him to be able to have use of at least one hand, that felt safer, kinder, what if he had to itch? I stared helplessly, the alcohol I had drunk that afternoon dulling my thoughts. Then I remembered the chain we used on the shed where we stored the kayaks. I hurried outside, opened the combination lock, and undid the length of metal that prevented the doors from springing open. I then returned to the house and wrapped the chain several times around his chest and torso, inserting three fingers in between the binding and his form so that I knew it wasn’t too tight, and locked it in place. His head lolled, but that seemed all right; he had a strong pulse and was breathing normally and I now felt confident he wouldn’t choke or otherwise injure himself.

After I finished I stepped back, regarding him, and a feeling of pleasure revved within me, like the acceleration of a motor. The sight of him, the fact of Vladimir’s bound body, chained up in my hideaway cabin in the middle of nowhere, was fantastic and absurd. If someone were filming me, they might have seen me bite my palm in disbelief, cover my eyes, run my fingers through my hair, laugh, crouch, rise again, and put my hands over my face once more in shock at what I had done, at the spoils of my desire, the outcome of my obsession. I was playing up my reaction, for myself, like a child who wins a prize and can’t stop emoting about it, reassuring myself of my perspective in the face of the extraordinary scene displayed before me. Then they might have seen me become quiet, approach the bound man, kneel before him and rest my head against his thigh, breathing in the metallic smell of his selvage jeans like incense at an altar.