From out of the swirling mist he conjured other images of Trudy—a vision of whatever and whoever he wanted her to be—before her spectre had transmogrified into a very solid, snivelling, sixteen year-old: The times he had sat in front of his computer with her loveliness, her innocence, her whole being, flooding through the Internet and appearing as words on his screen. And his face warmed at the way he had sat naked in his little room, his hand in his groin, as he read and re-read her often misspelled, and frequently misused, words.
Trudy’s captivity had altered everything and, as he rushed home from work on the Monday evening, he missed the expectant thrill of meeting his true love—his computer bearing Trudy’s E-mail message. It wasn’t that he wanted to communicate with her, he wanted to really communicate with her, and would have been hard pushed to explain the difference.
“Come on Trude. It’s just a game,” he said enthusiastically, trying to pretend nothing had changed by her capture. “We can play it together. I’ll leave a message for you, then you can send a message back to me.”
Pouting, “No,” she turned her back and sat cross-legged on his bed in the dungeon.
“Oh come on,” he implored, his hand worming toward his groin.
“Sod off.”
He begged … “Please, Trude.”
“Fat slob.”
… insisted, “Come here.”
“Asshole.”
… ordered, “Get over here.”
“Bollocks.”
Losing control, he grabbed her long ponytail, dragged her to the stool beside him, and started to type. “I love Trudy McK …” then a pang of remorse swept through him and his fingers shook as they wrote “I’m sorry, Trude. I didn’t hurt you, did I ?”
“Screw you,” she had typed valiantly in response, determined he should not see her weaken.
Just twenty feet above the water, the fog thinned and the seagull glided gracefully in the brilliant sunshine, searching for greener pastures. A trace of sunlight stole through the mist and Roger instinctively held his face up to bask in its grudging warmth. Staring at the inside of his eyelids, he formed a picture of Trudy which bore no resemblance to the bruised and battered body now lying on the rough flagstone floor beneath the house in Junction Road. His mind’s eye could never have imagined the pathetic comatose figure with knotted hair, bloated eyes, and diarrhoea encrusted legs, though a sudden dark thought sent a shiver down his spine and shook his eyes wide open. Trudy’s sleek image evaporated in the haze. “Trudy,” he called softly, his lips hardly moving. But she was gone.
The dark memory clouded his mind with darker thoughts: Trudy’s first morning in the little room under his house, the previous Saturday.
“Why are you keeping me here?” she had blubbered, as soon as he unlocked the door and let himself in. She was curled on the edge of the bed, head buried in hands, tears dripping uncontrollably off her chin onto the swell of her breasts.
“’Cos I love you, Trude.”
“You lied to me.”
“You lied to me too,” he retorted, in a “tit for tat” voice.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“White lies,” she conceded, in between wet sniffles. “I never sent you Marge’s photo or nothing like that. And you said you had a big house.”
“It is Trude. It is a big house,” he shot back, deluding himself.
“Show me,” she said, uncurling herself and starting toward the door, looking for a way out.
Ignoring her request, he blocked her path. “And I’ve got a car.”
“A poxy Renault,” she taunted, stabbing him with her finger and feeling the flabby flesh give way. “A poxy little Renault. What sort of car is that? You said you had a Jag.”
He blushed. “I’ll get one.”
She poked him again, taunting, goading. “Like hell you will.” Another poke. “You’re just a fat slob with a poxy little Renault.”
“Don’t make fun of me,” he cried, sticking his hands over his ears.
“Fat slob, fat slob, fat slob,” she yelled.
The smack sent her reeling as she took a fall for a thousand previous tormentors, and her cheek stung as a torrent of blood gushed from her left nostril, but she didn’t give up. “Bloody monster,” she shouted, then scuttled into a corner and huddled into a miserable ball awaiting a further attack. Nothing happened. Her whimpers subsided, her breathing slowed, and she carefully raised her head, anticipating the thump that didn’t come. Roger sat on the edge of the bed, his whole body heaving as he silently cried.
The deluded seagull swooped again, its battle cry piercing the haze long before its mottled grey plumage shot out of the murk and lunged. Perfectly camouflaged in the mist, the turkey-size bird buzzed the raft repeatedly, appearing from nowhere, screeching ferociously, then disappearing—only to re-appear a few seconds later from an entirely different direction. After a dozen or more fruitless passes, the bird showed its contempt with a badly aimed dollop of shit and vanished.
The shifting brightness of the early afternoon caught Roger’s attention. A hint of movement in the water suggested a breeze. A slight lulling motion stirred the raft and one edge lost its grip on the water and dropped back with a little “plop.” Balancing himself precariously, he raised himself as high as possible and strained his eyes into the surrounding sphere of mist. Then a stab of pain doubled him over and he sank back into the raft clutching his belly. Another cramp hit him as his stomach fought with the contents of the emergency ration box—three days provisions for ten, devoured by one person in five hours.
The thought of food reminded him of Trudy, but everything reminded him of Trudy. Warm, fuzzy memories of their evenings together swam into view but were bent beyond recognition. Candlelit dinners followed by sessions of passionate lovemaking were as fictional as the Barbie he’d fallen for. Most evenings he had munched a mountain of junk food while transfixed by the computer screen, watching it as if it were television.
“Do you want some chips, Trude?” he had offered one evening, without taking his eyes off the screen. She picked a few from his outstretched newspaper bundle but had little appetite.
“Happy families,” he mused with the briefest glance and the thought of a smile. And he meant it.
It was Tuesday evening, the day before his departure to Holland. “It’s nice having you here,” he continued, still concentrating on the moving picture in front of him.
She mumbled, saying nothing.
“I’m glad, Trude.”
“Ummh,” she hummed and could have meant absolutely anything.
“It’s nice having my own family.”
“I’m not your family, Roger,” she said reproachfully.
“You are now, Trude.”
Her fight was gone. “Alright, Roger.”
“I love you, Trude,” he said, not taking his eyes of the screen.
“I love you, too,” she responded mechanically.
Just like Mum and Dad, he thought, and wasn’t so very wrong.
Following supper, he had a few minutes while a computer program downloaded and turned his attention to her. “I’ll brush your hair, Trude.” The brushing led to stroking, stroking to licking, then he made a clumsy stab at her ear with his tongue.
“Get off,” she screeched. His sad round face turned