Most of the scenes he made me do were either embarrassing, stupid, infuriating, or humiliating, but rarely frightening. One, however, was. He played someone who knew Damon intimately, and who was giving me some advice. I had very few lines.
“You have to be careful,” he began. “There is one thing more important to Damon than your happiness.”
“What’s that?”
“His unhappiness. If he ever has to choose between the two, he will probably choose the latter. His need for his own unhappiness makes him dangerous. He will do anything to preserve it. You should always be careful, always protect yourself, never let your guard down completely. I’m afraid for your safety in the future. If you ever feel unsafe, don’t hesitate to kill him. If you don’t, he may end up destroying you. If I knew how to help him, I would, but I fear it’s impossible. His pain is intense. His intention to make you happy is the only slight relief he’s had from it in years.”
“But what is his pain?” I asked. (This wasn’t in the script.)
He shot me. “You made me forget my lines.” He paused and continued: “Please remember my words: I don’t think Damon can ever be normal, ever be sane. The important word here is ever. Always remember that. You may not want to, always, but do.”
“Will he let me go?” (This was in the script.)
“I think so, but there’s no way to know for sure.”
“Can you try to persuade him?”
“That wouldn’t do any good, because I am him.”
“Is there anything I can do to persuade him to let me go?”
“Nothing I can think of. But I think you are safe here, because you’re here against your will, and as long as that’s the case you’re safe from him.”
“Should I try to escape?”
“You haven’t had any opportunities. If you ever have one, by all means you should grab it.”
After eight months of captivity I decided to make him believe I had fallen in love with him. It would be hard, but if I succeeded, it could help me escape. So I began.
I stopped complaining, I laughed at all his jokes, I listened with interest to his speeches, I looked at him with admiration whenever it seemed appropriate, and I initiated physical contact by occasionally offering to unstick some of the forgotten gum from his face. He noticed these changes in an amused way.
One day, during a wishing session, I made a wish that he would teach me how to move like him, and how to dance like him. He said it was a very good wish, that it could be useful to me as an actor to move well. The lessons began. We were obliged to engage in more physical contact than ever before. We danced in front of each other, and he wanted me to follow his movements; to flow with him. We were supposed to be waves. But sometimes I wasn’t flowing well enough, so he had to help me feel his flow. He would put his hands on my waist and request that I put mine on his shoulders. Then I understood the essence of his movements. And something else happened. Despite my hatred of him, which hadn’t subsided one bit, I felt, for the first time since my abduction, a strange sort of physical attraction to him. I knew this was sick, and I think it was simply because he was big and close.
I continued pretending I was enamored of him, but without ever saying it right out. During a wishing session, however, I did tell him I wished he were in love with me.
Out of the blue, one day, Damon said that if my love for him were an act, I was doing a really good job, that he couldn’t tell if it were real or fake. He added that if he knew for sure it were an act he would let me go right on the spot because he’d know I was now an excellent actor.
This was a dilemma for me. If he was lying, then telling him the truth would ruin my plan of escape. On the other hand, if he was telling the truth, I could be released immediately by being honest.
I decided to play it safe for a while and assume he was lying. I continued my love pretense.
Just a day or two after this interaction, five of the six monitors in my cell were turned off. When I asked him about it, he said there was a malfunction. The only one still working was the one showing his bedroom.
The same day that the monitors went blank, Damon spent less time with me than usuaclass="underline" he left me alone in my cell for many hours during the afternoon. The same thing happened the next day. I didn’t know what it all meant, but it made me jittery, which was partly why I finally decided to reveal to him that my love for him was an act.
Finding no good time to do it that day, I planned to tell him the next day. That night I got one of the sickest anagrams he had ever given me.
It was a little cup, and in it was a drop of half-dried, yellowish, sticky slime. I didn’t know what it was. The note read:
Dear Anna Graham,
We will do this earlier than usual tomorrow night.
(3-letter word)
I had the feeling the stuff in the cup was body fluid, but I didn’t think it was pee. I thought it might be pus, and it did fit, because the answer would then be sup. I verified this the next day with Damon and I was correct.
After our early dinner, just as I was asking myself when would be the best moment to tell him about the fakeness of my love, he said, “I must confess to you that I know you’re not in love with me. I know it’s an act.”
I drooped.
He added quickly, “It’s not because your acting is bad that I know this. It’s because it would be impossible for someone in your position to be in love with someone in my position. But your acting was great.”
“So you’ll let me go?”
“No.”
“Why not? You said that if my love for you was an act, you would let me go because it meant I was a great actor. Were you bluffing?”
“Kind of.”
“My acting is still not good enough, is that it?”
“No. Your acting is great.”
I huffed. “But still not good enough for me to be released, right?”
“Yes, it is good enough for you to be released.”
My heart raced, and I suddenly imagined the dinner I would have tonight with my parents.
“But I will not release you,” he added.
“You want me to get better?”
“I don’t think you could. At least not significantly. I think you’re as good as it’s possible for anyone to become.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“There is no problem.”
“Then when will you let me go?”
“I will not let you go, ever.”
“Ever!” I yelled. “Why?”
“Because this way we can keep acting out scenes. If I let you go, the outcome is so predictable: you’ll be in movies, become a star, win Oscars, blah, blah, blah. Banal. But if you stay, it’s less banal. It hasn’t been done before. At least not as often.”
“What about my happiness? Do you think I can be as happy here?”
“No.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because I don’t care anymore.”
“About my happiness? But it was the goal of your life! You claimed that I would be so happy if I became a great actor, after you shaped me up and let me go.”
“Yes, you would be very happy. It’s important that you be completely aware of that,” he said, facing me squarely. “We have achieved our goal. I have succeeded in creating in you a rich potential for happiness. If I released you now, you would become extremely successful very quickly. And you would be very, very happy. It’s more interesting to keep you here. It’s a new challenge that will distract me from what I should be distracted from. This way I can see if I can make you happy here. It’s harder.”
“Damon, I’ll kill myself if you don’t let me go,” I said, looking into his eyes.