Free Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

a character or plot twist, he was so articulate and passionate I'd get caught up in it and reveal more thoughts of my own. He encouraged me to explain and defend my opinions but never flipped out, even when I contradicted him, and over time I began to relax during our literary debates. Of course, when reading time ended, so did the only moments I didn't dread, the only activity I enjoyed, the only thing I did that made me feel like a human being, like myself.

    Every night I lay in bed imagining The Freak's sperm crawling up inside me and willing my eggs to hide. Since I'd been on the pill when he took me, I hoped my body was messed up and I'd be rescued before I could get pregnant. But I also thought I'd get my period right after the first missed pill, and that didn't happen until about a week after he was finally able to rape me.
    One morning we were in the shower, doing the routine, me facing the wall as he stood behind me washing my legs, up and down and between them. Then he stopped abruptly. When I turned around, he was just standing there looking at the cloth. There was blood on it, and when I looked down at myself, I saw blood on my inner thigh. His jaw clenched and his face reddened. I knew that look.
    "I'm sorry--I didn't know." I cringed against the wall.
    He threw the cloth at me, got out of the shower, and stood silent on the bath mat, glaring at my crotch. The curtain was half open and water dripped onto the floor. I thought for sure he'd flip out over that, but he reached back in, moved the showerhead so the water hit me, and turned the tap to cold--I mean suck-the-wind-out-of-you cold.
    "Wash yourself off."
    I tried not to scream, the water was so cold. He picked up the cloth from the shower floor and threw it at me.
    "I told you to wash yourself off."
    When I thought I was done, with the cloth in hand, I said, "What do you want me to do with this?"
    He motioned for me to give it to him, examined it, and handed it back.
    "Do it again."
    When there was nothing left on the cloth, and I was practically blue, he let me get out.
    "Don't move," he said. I wondered if my shivers counted as movement. The Freak left the room for a couple of minutes and came back with a scrap of material.
    "Use this." He threw it at me.
    I said, "Do you have any tampons or anything?"
    He put his face close to mine and slowly said, "A real woman would be pregnant by now." I didn't know what to say, and his voice rose. "What have you done?"
    "There's no way I could--"
    "If you don't do your job, I'll find someone who will."
    While he watched, I got dressed and put the stupid rag in my underwear. My fingers were so numb I couldn't get the row of buttons done up on the dress, and as I fumbled with them, he shook his head and said, "You're pathetic."
    My period went on for six days, and every morning he waited outside my cold shower until I handed him the cloth with no blood on it. The entire bathtub had to be wiped down with cleaning fluid before he'd have his shower. He made me put the used rags in a bag, which he took outside and told me he burned. We skipped bath time too, which was fine by me--it was six days he didn't lay a hand on me.
    During the afternoons he made me study books on how to get pregnant. I still remember the title of one, The Fastest Way to Get Pregnant Naturally. Yeah, that was The Freak, because, you know, abducting a woman, locking her in a cabin, and raping her is real natural.

    As soon as I stopped bleeding, he was trying to knock me up again. I prayed my body would know his sperm was sick and reject it, or all the stress and fear would make it hard for me to conceive. No such luck.
    About three weeks later, I knew my period was due and hoped every twinge in my belly was cramps. Every time I went to the bathroom, I prayed to see blood in my underwear. After four weeks, I knew. Judging by my little wall calendar, I figured I'd gotten pregnant around the middle of September, about two weeks after my period ended.
    I