Three days passed. Viktor brought food and left without saying a word. The silence became unbearable. When he came down again, Anya rose to meet him. She looked worn out; her voice trembled with the kind of sincerity born of desperation.
“Viktor… please. I can’t do this anymore.”
She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, as if trying to keep her body from falling apart.
“For two months I haven’t seen anything except these walls and that sink. Please let me… just take a bath. Upstairs. And maybe… have dinner with you. Not down here. I promise I’ll be quiet. I just want to feel alive.”
Viktor looked at her for a long time. Something like satisfaction flickered in his eyes—he was looking at a creature whose will hadn’t been broken, but erased.
“Fine. Come with me.”
The bathroom upstairs was blindingly white. Hot water roared into the tub; steam clouded the mirrors. Anya sank into the water, and for a moment it felt like all of it was a nightmare that would dissolve now.
The water burns my skin, but inside I still feel ice. I scrub myself with the loofah so hard my skin turns red, but I don’t feel clean. I feel like a corpse being washed before it’s laid in a coffin. Viktor is standing behind the door. I can hear him breathing. He isn’t peeking—he’s guarding his property.
She put on the fresh dress he’d laid out. The silk slid over her body, making her shiver. She went into the kitchen, where the table was already set.
Outside the window was night. Real night—not a concrete ceiling. Viktor sat at the head of the table. He opened a bottle of wine for dinner. It all looked like a date, if not for the fact that Viktor had a phone in his pocket with photos of her mother.
“See, Anya?” he said, calmly pouring the wine. “It can be exactly like this. Silence. Peace. Good food. You just had to stop resisting the obvious.”
“Yes… it’s very beautiful here. Thank you.”
She forced herself to take the fork; her hands shook slightly. She lifted a piece of meat to her mouth. The food was perfect, but on her tongue it felt like wet cardboard. Every sip of wine burned her throat. She watched Viktor methodically cutting his steak, and suddenly the photo from the supermarket flashed in her mind. Him. Behind her mother. Right there.
Her stomach clenched into a tight knot.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“You’re hardly eating. You don’t like it?”
“No, no, it’s delicious,” she tried to smile, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. “I just… got out of the habit.”
She swallowed another bite. And in that moment, her body said no. Her throat turned into a trigger. Nausea surged up instantly—hot and unstoppable. She realized she was about to throw up right onto this flawless white table.
“Sorry… I…” she forced out.
She jumped up, glancing at the door—it wasn’t locked this time. She bolted out of the kitchen, down the hall, down the stairs, into her basement. Viktor didn’t follow. He just sat and listened.
Anya stumbled into her bathroom and vomited. Her body convulsed, rejecting everything “good” he’d tried to feed her.
When the spasms eased, her hands were shaking so badly she nearly dropped the towel. Anya turned.
He stood on the last step and looked at her. He stood there in silence. Her fear of that silence became stronger than the physical pain. She had to fix it. Right now.
He turned away without a word.
“Viktor! Wait! Please!” she called hoarsely, wiping her mouth with her hand.
He didn’t stop. The lock clanged.
Anya threw herself at the door, slamming into it with her whole body. She slid down it to her knees, choking on tears and terror. She understood: he’d taken this biological failure as another act of sabotage, a refusal to accept his “care.”
“Viktor, I didn’t mean to! I swear!” she shouted through the door. “I just got sick! Please forgive me… I want to make it right! I’ll try, just don’t go silent! Don’t leave me like this!”
But upstairs it was quiet. The silence was the answer. She was down here again. Alone again. And now—without even a trace of his trust.
“Viktor… are you there? Please,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to the cold wood. “I didn’t mean it… I really wanted that dinner…”
Her voice broke.
“I just got sick. It wasn’t the food, I just… got worked up. I wanted you to like it so much. I wanted you to see that I’m trying.”
She sobbed, digging her nails into the doorframe. She wasn’t begging for freedom—she was begging him not to be disappointed in her.
“Please don’t think I did it on purpose. I want everything to be like before. For us to watch shows again… I’ll be good, Viktor. I swear, I—”
Another wave of nausea twisted her insides so sharply she couldn’t finish. Her stomach, already empty, clenched in a painful spasm. Clamping a hand over her mouth, Anya lurched away and ran for the toilet again. The sounds of her misery echoed through the basement.
When she, pale and swaying, came back to the door, she heard it.
There were no footsteps on the other side. Only heavy, steady breathing. Viktor hadn’t gone upstairs. He’d been standing there the whole time. He’d heard her promises, heard her crying—and heard her body betray her, turning itself inside out.
He’d witnessed her complete humiliation.
“Are… are you there?” she asked, barely audible, sliding down the door to the floor.
The silence on the other side was dense and crushing. Viktor didn’t say a word. He just stood there, feeding on her helplessness. And then came the dry, measured sound of footsteps—he was walking away slowly, leaving her in the dark.
Hidden-volume note:
He heard everything. Every second of my humiliation.
I didn’t lie to him through the door, but my body told the truth from the toilet. He stood there and listened to me throw up. For him it was the best proof of my ‘insincerity.’
Frankl wrote about dignity. What dignity can a person have who apologizes for her gag reflex to a locked door? I’m nothing. And he knows it.