The Short Story of a Kept Woman...

Kya sat in the barren living room, the walls coated in a disgusting shade of eggshell that was so terribly stained it looked like the home had been abandoned. Oh, how she so desperately wanted to clean the living room, but she knew she couldn't. She knew that he would be upset. Beyond upset actually. He would be angry. Angry enough to lock her in the basement again with those… things. She couldn't bear the stench that they gave off. It reminded her of the van. The van that had brought her to this place that night after she had gotten off of work. It made her head reel, just to think about what he had done to her that first night. It had been three months in this wretched hell hole and she had learned what set her captor off. She strayed from doing those things to avoid "punishment", also known as a night in the basement. She stayed quiet, kept to herself unless she was spoken to. He would come back at precisely 8:07 every night. She would remain on the couch until she was addressed. When she was addressed, she would stand, kiss his cheek and move to the kitchen to get his drink. He preferred beer, of course. However, there were some nights when he would prefer whiskey. After having his preferred drink of the night, she would take his glass, wash it, and then follow him to the couch where she would sit in front of him and listen to him rant about the way he had spent his day. After the rant- usually lasting an hour and a half in length- they would go to his room. There they would lie down, in the same bed. He would play with her ever-growing hair and tell her how beautiful she was. Then he would look at her, holding her face and apologize for the deep scar across her right eye that he had given her. He would kiss the scar and turn off the bedside lamp, pulling her into his chest to sleep. There, she would stay awake hours after he fell asleep before she fell into her - usually- 4 hour long slumber. She would wake up and sneak out of his nearly painful embrace to shower and then make him breakfast. He had no preferred breakfast, so this was one of the few things that she did not have to limit herself in her newfound life. After making his breakfast, she would clean the kitchen, one of the few rooms in the house that he allowed to be cleaned. After doing so, she would find him ready to leave and would escort him to the door, where he would hug her and leave.

Her day consisted of her wandering about the house, trying to find something to do after cleaning the few rooms that she was actually allowed to clean. These rooms consisted of the kitchen, his bedroom, the bathroom, and her bedroom, which was now seldom used. Once done cleaning, she would make something small for herself to eat. She couldn't find it in herself to make something big to eat. She couldn't. She had gone months without eating anything but small bits of food when he had first brought her to the house.

She knew quite a bit about the man that had taken her. They had gone to high school together apparently. He refused to tell her his name though. He only said that once he had her full trust and she had his, that he would tell her. That was six months ago. He was tall, possibly 6'4". He had bright turquoise eyes that bore into her soul nightly as he played with her hair. He was by no means slim, but he wasn't quite muscular either. He had shoulder-length, black-as-night hair that seemed to glow in the moonlight that shone through his bedroom window each night. He had a deep, intimidating voice that spoke softly to her when he was around. Scars raised from the flat plains of his flesh and littered his body from a childhood accident that he found much too unpleasant to recall. His skin was pale, but not quite ghostly in color. In all reality, the man was not unattractive in the slightest bit. It was the way that he acted that made him dangerous. His moods were unpredictable. Some days he would come back angry, and others, he would come home and hold her the second he entered. He was strange, yet he seemed to keep his feelings in check when he was around Kya, or… he tried to at least.

There had been nights that he would walk in, violent and angry. On those nights, after having an encounter with him once in this state, Kya knew to lock herself away to keep from getting hurt. The first and only time that she had not locked herself away, she ended up with 3 broken ribs and an endless slew of apologies the next day as he tended to her wounds. Now, when Kya did lock herself up, she would sleep. Usually the morning after, she would leave her room to broken objects strung throughout the house. She would clean up all of the debris, waking him up in the process. He would stand in the doorway, watching, until he would eventually join in on helping her clean. It was routine for them at this point.

On the good nights, he would walk in the door and hold her, talking about his day to her. He would talk about his brother and his family, the one that he was no longer a part of. He missed them, but he knew that he couldn't be back with them because of what he had done. Instead, he called Kya his family. He never said how he saw her in the dynamic, he just called her family.

Now that she had been with him for quite some time, he took to being romantically affectionate towards her. Instead of her pushing him away, or reacting at all, she let him. She stayed still and let him. He noticed and he had asked, but she only said she just wasn't comfortable yet. He hadn't believed her, but had shrugged it off.

It had been like that for some time. She knew that it would stay that way as well. So for now, she would remain a husk of her former self until she knew her captor. Until he gave in, that was when she would try to break out. If she knew him, she could gauge what he could do. Until then, she was going to remain as trustworthy as ever to him.

Part 1 of a multiple part series if it goes well. Thank you for reading!