My mind taunts me with useless questions that run endlessly, like a hamster on a wheel. What are you doing? What has happened to you? Are you letting him do this?

I ask myself these questions even though deep down I know the answers. Asking preserves my innocence, ignores my stupidity. I came here of my own free will. Now I have none.

“You want us to be close, don’t you, John?” he asked me. I want us to, yeah, but I don’t know what’s happened to him – what’s happening to us.

I want to believe we can make up for the lost time.
He’s sure we can. He told me, “The facts are irrefutable. Studies have shown that trust, dependence, need – all of these things will bring us closer together. You trust me, don’t you?”

He’s a doctor, of course I trust him.

I haven’t eaten since yesterday. He had scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. The smell seeps at me from beneath the locked door. The gnawing in my stomach never goes away but it’s not from lack of food. Up until yesterday, I’ve been able to eat. Until yesterday, I was able to do almost anything I wanted within the two thousand square feet of this place.

Things are different now. I can only eat when I ask. To ask is supposed to make me dependent on him, to help us bond – something we missed when I was growing up. I wait by the door. Sometimes I get up and look out the window. It’s fall now, summer’s dried up, been sucked away like the pond just on the other side of the brick wall in Central Park. My door is locked, my windows are locked. I feel eyes I can’t see watching me so I step back. I’m supposed to feel safe here but all I really feel is trapped.

“If anything happened to you…” he told me. It’s what Mom says. He lost her and now he’s afraid of losing me.

Classical music plays from his library behind the locked door – Chopin, Prelude in C Minor. Kane’s at the hospital. But he leaves the classical radio station on for me to keep me company. Four months ago I would have laughed at the idea of it.

Now, I listen.