I woke up to the sound of birds singing, and to someone quietly snoring in my left ear. A hairy hand, ornate with gold rings and an expensive watch, was tucked in between the bed and my neck. The other hand rested on the tip of my hip, and when he breathed in, his fingers would lightly brush against the skin of my stomach.

I’d never really felt at ease in a man’s arms. I was tall, big, and a bit of a dork. I had wide shoulders that I had inherited from my mom’s Scottish side of the family, and I always felt like guys had to stretch a bit too wide to embrace me, as if they could barely reach around. But Pablo held me effortlessly tight, and I’d never felt so tiny.

I thought of snuggling in for a while more, but the realization quickly hit: I was falling for my kidnapper. Stupid, stupid Sarah, falling asleep in the arms of the man she hated the most.

He’d tormented me, insulted me, taken everything away from me, all but killed me, and here I was fantasizing about his big arms. He wasn’t even my type. I’d never felt anything for older men. I hated his silly mustache. His ridiculous style. His kitschy golden jewelry. Had we met in a different way, and not while I was handcuffed in his grimy basement, I would have run in the opposite direction.

Yes, he had charisma and a good sense of humor. Yes, he was rich and was a great cook. Yes, he was handsome, confident, a good listener and an even better storyteller. But that wasn’t enough to make up for all the ways in which he’d hurt me.

I felt his warm breath blow down my neck, like a fire-breathing dragon sleeping on top of his treasure. I gently lifted my head up to take a look at him without waking him up. He was fully dressed, and wearing exactly the same clothes as the day before. He was dressed the same as the day before. His shirt was still open, his jeans were still on, and so were his muddy boots, laying on top of my pristine white sheets. Gross.

Aside from the fact that Pablo could sleep with his shoes on, and thus was obviously deranged, something else caught my eye. In the back pocket of his jeans was the thin rectangular outline of a mobile phone.

If I could just grab it, pull it out slowly before he woke up, perhaps I could hide it under the mattress, I could lock myself in the bathroom. I could dial 911, post a message somewhere on the Internet, calling out for help. The idiot had given me his full name–all I needed to say was “My name is Sarah Kennedy, and I’ve been kidnapped by Pablo Antonio Juarez Molina” and help would come, eventually.

Slowly and carefully, with the precision and flexibility of a burglar in an action movie, I reached out with my left hand. I bent my arm over and around his body, painfully twisting my shoulder and elbows at angles I didn’t know they could reach. My fingers stretched towards his pocket, trembling slightly from the strain and the stress. I was almost there. I could almost touch it.

I laid a finger on the edge of the phone. My heart was almost beating out of my chest. One false move, and Pablo could wake up. I pinched the phone, with my thumb on the edge of the screen and my pointer finger’s nail stuck in the charging port. I only managed to pull it out about an inch, before Pablo started mumbling and moving.

I quickly removed my arm, and whacked it down on my side of the bed. He muttered a few words that didn’t make sense, and which sounded more like grunts and yawns than a full sentence. His hands twitched once or twice, and his left arm slithered tighter around my stomach, like a snake around its prey. Then, he started snoring again. Pablo was still fast asleep.

I took a deep breath. Time was running out, and my window of opportunity was about to close. The second he stopped moving, my arm reached out again towards his back pocket. This time, it only took one swift move to snatch it. I carefully pulled it towards me, trying not to drop it on Pablo as it hung unsteadily between my two fingertips.

And there I had it. Right in front of me, nested in my trembling hands. Pablo’s phone, the key to my escape.

It was locked. But that wasn’t much of a problem. His hand was right in front of my face, with its fingers outstretched and its prints on display. I gently pressed the phone on his thumb.

"Try again," said the text on the screen.

I pressed it again, but it wouldn’t work. Two strikes, three strikes. I tried the index. Fail.. I sighed in desperation. One fail more and it would ask for a password I didn’t know, and my chances of escape would fly out the window.

Think, Sarah. What would Pablo do? Snort some cocaine, no doubt. Have some tequila for breakfast. Kidnap young women, maybe. And then, he’d do something really stupid and ridiculous. Like unlock his phone with his middle finger.

The phone’s screen unlocked with a satisfying click.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

With no time to spare, I scrolled through the apps to find Google Maps. Giving out the address of the house would make it easier for help to find me. But when the map opened, it was blank. I zoomed out. It was slow to charge, and there was nothing within ten miles than a straight path marked as “Unnamed road”. We were in the middle of fucking nowhere.

I angrily scrolled around, searching for the name of a town, or a road, or a pond, or anything. But the only interesting thing I found was a notification that popped up on the screen:

"Tengo novedades sobre Ana Peréz."

While my Spanish wasn’t perfect, I could obviously recognize her name. I clicked the message, and was brought to a conversation on WhatsApp with someone called Beto Arias. From what I could tell, they had spoken to Pablo the day before, asking meaningless questions like “Are you there yet?” and “Everything good?“. A new message popped up:

"Mejor te llamo ya.”

I could recognize a few words from when I lived with the Peréz family. ”Ya mejor” was what Ana’s mom would say once she would finish detangling my matted hair–it meant “Better now”. ”Te” was obviously “you”. If I remembered correctly, from all the times Ana’s dad would say ”Llamo a tu mamá" when he was about to call my mother, llamo meant “I call”. Like a puzzle, I pieced the words together in my mind.

"Better I call you now."

The realization hit me like a runaway train. But Beto Arias’s name had already popped up on the screen, and the phone started buzzing. Within half a second, it started ringing, with a loud, high-pitched ring like a wailing alarm, that woke Pablo up much faster than it took for me to even react.

He pried the phone out of my frozen fingers, and jumped out of bed. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t look at his red face, distorted by rage; and at the clenched fists he was trying his best not to throw at my face. I couldn’t listen to the loud stream of insults he was spitting, calling me a whore, a brat and a bitch in more languages than I could speak.

He picked up the phone call, and his angry voice slowly faded away as he stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him. I stayed in bed, laying in the exact same position I was in when he caught me. My shaky hands were still cupped, about a foot away from my face, as if they were still holding onto the phone.

I fucked up.

•••

There was a knock on the door. Obviously, it wasn’t Pablo. Pablo didn’t knock. He preferred to barge into rooms without a warning.

There was only one other person I could think of that was likely to walk through that door, and she was the last person I wanted to see. Although I would have killed just to speak with anyone else than the mustachioed freak, I reckoned I would also rather jump out the window than have to cross gazes with the maid, and relive the embarrassment of yesterday night.

“Come in,” I mumbled reluctantly, as she knocked a second time.

I made sure my bathrobe was securely shut and I curled up under the sheets in a corner of the bed. I stared into the distance, still wondering whether it was me or Beto Arias who had just annihilated all my chances of survival.

The maid entered the room, holding a pile of clothes under one arm, and a silver platter in the other. Shame rushed back up in my cheeks as I watched her walk towards me.

She was still tiny, just not as much as she had seemed the night before. She couldn’t have been taller than 4′10". She still wore her blue uniform, with a white collar and apron that didn’t have a single pleat. Her hair was tied into a neat, tight bun, with not a frizz to be seen. There wasn’t a blemish on her skin, not a wrinkle on her face.

“Good afternoon, Señorita," she said with her shy, high-pitched voice. “I’m your maid.”

I tried not to look into her eyes, and stared instead at the porcelain plate she set down on the vanity, filled to the brim with still-sizzling bacon and steaming scrambled eggs. I hadn’t eaten in two days, and my stomach was whatever comes after empty–yet, I didn’t really feel hungry.

“Yeah, I remember you,” I winced, “Listen, I’m so, so sorry about what happened last night.”

She smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve seen much worse things here.”

I arched an eyebrow and gave her a nervous grin, trying my best not to picture which one of Pablo’s antics could have surpassed my drug-induced indecent exposure.

“I brought you some pajamas,” she added softly, handing me over the large pile of blue silk, pink satin, and white cotton shirts and nighties. My face turned crimson red as I grabbed them. Obviously, she was making fun of me.

“Thank you,” I mumbled. “Just what I needed.”

When she walked away from the bed and focused her attention on something else than me, I tried to catch a glimpse of her peculiar face. I couldn’t figure out whether she was thirteen or thirty. She looked mature yet innocent, both responsible and a little awkward. She kept trotting around the bedroom, shuffling her tiny feet.

“Excuse me, what was your name again?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she stuttered, as she brought over the silver platter to the bed. “I forgot to tell you. I’m Mafer. It’s short for Maria Fernanda.”

“Nice to meet you, Mafer,” I said meekly.

She smiled so warmly, with two cute little dimples appearing on her cheeks. She exuded care and sweetness. She even smelled like a hot vanilla cupcake. Her presence in the room was simply soothing, and my shame and embarrassment quickly faded into the back of my mind. Even now that the drugs had worn off, I still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t an angel. She was enthralling.

Although, most likely, Mafer was a completely normal person, with flaws and imperfections, and I was just biased after spending so much time with someone as awful as Pablo.

“Why are the sheets dirty?” she asked, tracing her finger on the mud streaks at the foot of the bed. “I changed them yesterday.”

“Oh,” I muttered. “Pablo slept with his shoes on.”

She stared at me with wide eyes, as if she couldn’t believe what I’d just said.

“Señor Juárez sleeps here?” she asked.

I arched one eyebrow. “Only yesterday. Why?”

“Are you his girlfriend now?” she asked innocently.

“Do you know what he did to me?” I hissed back.

Was she judging me for sleeping with my kidnapper, or was she just plain stupid? She quickly glanced at the door behind her, then back at me. Her nostrils flared, just like those of a scared little rabbit. She bit her lip and nodded quietly.

“Then you know I’m his hostage,” I seethed.

Mafer stammered, and turned bright red in the face. “Yes, I– Sorry, Seño. I’m so sorry.”

She awkwardly scurried off to the other side of the room, looking for something she could do right. She bit her lip in regret, and I started to feel sorry for her. At least, that is, until she walked over to me.

“You should eat, Seño,” she said. “You haven’t touched the plate.”

“I’m fine,” I muttered. “I’m not feeling hungry.”

“But you must eat,” she insisted with a shy smile, pushing the platter towards me. “Or you will be all skinny.”

“For God’s fucking sake!” I blurted out, sending the silver tray flying off the bed and across the room. “What is it with absolutely everyone worrying about my fucking weight?!”

The maid stared at me in shock and silence.

“Can I please spend five minutes of my life without someone calling me Little Fatty?” I kept on screaming, distorting my voice to mock the nickname Pablo had given me. “Or telling me I’m too fat, or telling me I’m too skinny?”

Mafer, without an answer, bent over and knelt down to start picking the piles of egg off of the floor.

I tried to stop, swallowed my spit, but it was too late. Anger flowed out of my mouth like someone had opened the floodgates. “Like, could I please spend one day, one single day where no one worries about what I eat? Why is everyone so obsessed with this bullshit?! Am I the only sane person here?”

It was obvious from the small string of drool that hung from the corner of my mouth; from the hundreds of exploded blood vessels in the white of my eyes; from the breakfast crime scene splayed out on the bedroom floor–I was no saner than they were.

Tears filled Mafer’s eyes, and she quickly turned away from me to wipe the drop that had just rolled down her cheek. My heart broke for the poor girl, who’d just been the target of a few months of repressed anger. I got down from the bed and sat by her side on the floor as I helped her pick up the fallen bits of bacon.

I mimicked her movements, throwing handfuls of soggy scrambled eggs back into the discarded silver platter, but it wasn’t long before I started sobbing uncontrollably.

“Seño, are you okay?” she asked, with a voice that sounded almost motherly. I couldn’t believe this girl still managed to care for me after what I’d just put her through.

She wiped her hands on her clean apron, and opened her arms for me to fall into. I buried my face into my greasy hands, and put my head on her scrawny shoulder.

“He’s going to kill me, Mafer,” I wept.

“Mr. Juarez?” she asked, in a hushed tone filled with worry. “Why would he?”

“This morning, I tried to escape,” I explained between tears. “And he caught me.”

“Oh...” she answered, and I felt her shake as a shiver shot up her neck.

I pulled myself away from her with a bitter chuckle.

“That doesn’t sound like good news for me,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know Mr. Juarez, so I don’t know if he could–”

“It’s okay,” I cut her off as softly as I could, and wiped snot off of my nostrils.

We sat in silence in an awkward side hug, as Mafer gently rubbed my hand to comfort me.

“What do you know about him?” I asked her, “I mean–if you don’t mind talking about him.”

Mafer’s eyes scoured the room as she thought up an answer. She tilted her head to one side, and bit her lip.

“Well... Most maids think he is a good-looking man,” she said, before looking up at me with a cheeky grin, “but my friend Maria José says his mustache looks stupid.”

I let out a soft chuckle.

“And what do you think?“I asked her.

Her bronze cheeks turned a dark shade of purple when she blushed. She pinched her lips and tried to contain her embarrassed laughter.

She hid her eyes under her hand, and squeaked. “I think he’s handsome. I think.”

I smiled. It felt so good to finally talk to someone who seemed so sweet, so normal, so human.

“You know, it’s okay, Mafer,” I sighed. “About the girlfriend thing. Sometimes even I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean–I don’t know, really. It’s weird,” I muttered, “I have so many reasons to hate him, you know, he took everything from me. I know he’s a horrible person, and I should be trying to get away from him as fast as I can, but... When I look at him–sometimes, not always–I feel... things. He does make me smile occasionally, even though he also drives me crazy. But when I think of him when I’m alone, it’s the good parts I remember the most vividly.”

Mafer nodded, and rubbed her thumb on the back of my hand. “Do you think you love him?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I guess if you hang enough red flags in one room, it just starts to look like a birthday party.”

Mafer squinted a little, as if she struggled to understand what I said. Although my metaphors seemed lost on her, it felt amazing to be able to vent. It also seemed like we both enjoyed each other’s company. Sitting on the floor, side by side, with her hand tightly squeezing mine, it felt like I had made a friend.

A friend. My heart started racing. Maybe I could get Mafer to help me. Send a message to the outside, tell Ana that I’m still alive.

I took a deep breath, and in a hushed tone, I pleaded. “Mafer, could you help me with something?”

She straightened up and looked at me with an uneasy look on her face. She opened her mouth as if she was going to speak, but she said nothing. She just stared at me, with eyes full of dread, as if she knew exactly what I would ask next.

“Can you help me get out of here?”

She shook her head in silence, and avoided my gaze. She wouldn’t stop staring at the door, as if she was afraid someone was out there, listening to us.

“I’m sorry, Seño,” she breathed, as her throat twitched with a nervous gulp, “but I can’t do that.”

Kerning

Mafer

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