Using all my strength, I banged the hammer against the window. Then against the other window. Again, and again.
Then the bowling ball, throwing it at the windows.
But all of this made only bruises on the glass. And tremendous noise. The furniture and walls rattled.
I went back to using the hammer, panicked by the words: “from then on.” Those words implied more than a few hours. Even more than a day, probably. Actually, what was the maximum amount of time those words could imply?
Hammer in midair, I paused and stared into space, thinking about that question.
The hammer came hurling down against the window-pane: “from then on” did not exclude forever.
After a long time, I stopped hammering and throwing the ball. It was obvious I wouldn’t break the glass. I dropped the hammer and went to the TV monitors. Damon was still lying on his bed, apparently undisturbed by the racket. He must have expected it.
So. Damon turned out to be a psycho. I still had a faint hope that this was a game, but it seemed unlikely. And even if it was, Damon was still a psycho.
And the worst part was that it was not so surprising. Looking back, I could not comfortably say, “I would never have expected such a thing from such a person.” He made clouds, after all. But in a way, it was those very clouds that kept me off guard, that occupied my imagination too much to let it do its normal job: creating healthy paranoias of things like … oh, I don’t know, I’ll just say what comes to mind — imprisonments, why not.
I rushed around the cell in circles, inspecting every corner. I should never have saved him that night in the subway, arrogant fool that I was. The businessmen had been right: Who the hell did I think I was, Super Cinderella or something?
I searched the room thoroughly, but found no secret door, no way of escape. There was a closet, near the bed, with only a vacuum cleaner in it.
All I could do now was try to find a way to escape psychologically. Maybe there was something I could say, some way I could act, that might persuade Damon to let me go.
Before settling down to think, I took the hammer and stuffed it under my sweater. The metal was cold against my stomach. I hadn’t worn a T-shirt underneath, to be sexier. The memory brought tears to my eyes. I sat on the floor, near the bars, against the right wall of the cell, so that I’d be able to watch the TV monitors if I felt like it.
I had to figure out why Damon was doing this, what his motives were. Then I would know how to approach him. I replayed in my mind the last half hour before he imprisoned me. I mulled over his cryptic comments. He said he wanted to make me happy. Maybe he was now planning to give me jewels and treat me like a princess, having me live in extraordinary luxury, but somehow I doubted this: although my cell was nice, it didn’t have that kind of opulence; it wasn’t stuffed with satins and precious stones and rose petals and trays of fancy foods and closets full of gowns. But maybe that was because Damon wasn’t yet sure what my tastes were, and he didn’t want to impose satins on me if I preferred some other cloth.
Or maybe he wanted to use me in some pleasant scientific experiments involving his clouds.
Or maybe he knew I had a crush on him, and he wanted to offer himself to me; exactly the way I imagined he would when he was dragging me up the stairs.
But then I realized that with a psycho like him, even if he did, truly, want to make me happy, that did not exclude death. Maybe he felt I would be happier dead.
But if I came to my senses for a moment and stopped assuming he meant it when he said he wanted to make me happy, the field of possibilities opened up considerably and unattractively, ranging anywhere from torture to torture and death. Not knowing which it was, was itself torture. And would his torture, if that’s what it was, be mental or physical? And why the TV monitors?
I frequently got up and changed positions, because I didn’t always want to watch Damon sleeping. Sometimes I wanted to and sometimes I didn’t, and when I didn’t, I didn’t want to have to close my eyes not to, so I went and sat against the opposite wall until I wanted to again.
The hammer was by now warm against my stomach. Tense, I pressed it harder into my skin. I hadn’t managed to devote even a minute to thinking of a strategy. I was completely unprepared.
Damon came in when I was sitting against the no-looking-at-Damon wall. I was startled.
He was carrying a chair in one hand, and my overnight bag in the other. He took only one step into the room and stopped.
“I’ll trade you information for the hammer,” he said. “I don’t want you hurling it at my head.”
I was still sitting on the floor with my legs bent, and there was no way he could have seen I had a hammer under my baggy sweater. I wondered if I had been filmed, after all.
“No, you were not videotaped,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I just know that any reasonably intelligent person would try to hurl the hammer at my head. On the other hand, a brilliant or stupid person might not. I’m not implying you’re not brilliant. I’m sure there must be some brilliant people who would.”
I sat there, considering the offer of trade.
After a while, he said, “You’ll still have the bowling ball.”
What I was hesitating about now was not whether I would agree to trade the hammer for information — I had decided I would — but whether I would gently hand it back to him or hurl it at his head.
I ended up doing neither, because he gave me instructions: “Toss the hammer at least four feet out of your cell, and out of your kicking range.”
I did what he said. He relaxed immediately and bustled about, placing the chair near the cell, out of my kicking range, and putting my bag against the bars.
He then sat on the chair, and said, “Now I can answer your questions.”
“Why am I in here?”
“To receive a present.”
“What present?”
“You.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“I already have myself.”
“You have a certain version of yourself. But I’ll give you another version.”
“What version?”
“An improved version. If everything goes according to plan, once I’m through with you, the new self I will give back to you will be able to make all your dreams come true.”
I was relieved that so far, at least, it seemed he did not intend to kill me. Unless, in his eyes, an improved version of myself would be a dead version.
I said, “I see. So this will be a sort of self-affirmation seminar. Like ‘How to Be More Successful’ or ‘How to Improve Your Self-Esteem’? You’ll sit there and tell me I’m great? Or you’ll make me listen to subliminal tapes.”
“No. But I’m glad you’re not too upset to make light of this.”
I was furious. “I’m just astonished. And disgusted. I want you to let me out of here right now. I have no interest in your little plan. If you want to make me happy, let me out of here.”
“No.”
“How long are you intending to keep me in here?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Awhile.”
I sighed. “What are you thinking of doing to me?”
“Me? Nothing much. But you’ll be doing things to yourself. And you won’t do other things. I will alter you. Or rather, I will make you alter yourself. My gift to you will be to take away your freedom of choice for a while. Freedom can be very unhealthy and unproductive. Instead, you’ll have freedom from choice.”
“Please, just let me go.”
“Why?”
I spat out: “Because it’s unpleasant to be imprisoned.”
“What would you prefer?”
“Freedom.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Go home.”
“To do what?”