Honeymoon for Three

but I have to go to the bathroom.”
    Alfred seemed taken aback. “Uh, can you hold it?”
    “I’ve been holding it. Now I’ve got to go.”
    “I’ll get one of the cooking pots.”
    “I’m not going in any damn pot. I’ll go outside in the trees.” It wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but she would if she had to.
    “But you can’t walk.”
    “Okay, Alfred, it works like this. Untape my hands and legs and give me my shoes. I’ll go in the trees. I’m not going to run away. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Where would I run to?”
    That was true. Dark woods loomed on either side of the road. Hansel and Gretel woods. If she ran into the woods, she would get lost. Or the witch would get her. She would have to come back to the road at some point. There was no way to elude Alfred. He apparently saw the truth of this. He took the blanket off her and untaped her hands. She brought them around to her front and started rubbing them together to get some circulation back into them. Then he untaped her legs.
    Penny had a momentary urge to attack Alfred, but her hands and feet were barely working, and he would quickly overpower her. She put on her shoes. He opened the sliding door and stepped outside with her. He told her to stay in sight. She walked a few feet into the woods and went behind a tree, trying to preserve a modicum of modesty.
    When she came back, Alfred said, “I think you cut your head. Let me look at it.”
    For the first time, Penny noticed the ache on the top of her head. She remembered that it had been worse right after Alfred grabbed her, but she had ignored it as being the least of her problems.
    Now he sat her on the floor in the doorway of the camper with her feet on the ground. She didn’t have any choice in the matter. He stood on the ground beside her and parted her hair with his fingers.
    “You cut yourself. That’s what caused the blood on the pillow. It’s stopped bleeding, but I want to clean it up.”
    Alfred stepped inside the camper and wet his handkerchief at the tap of the sink. He started working on the cut. Penny was surprised at how gentle he was. She thought she remembered hitting her head on the trunk cover of the VW when he grabbed her from behind and jerked her upright. It stung when the water touched it, but she didn’t say anything.
    How could she be angry with him when he was taking such good care of her? That was a stupid question. He had kidnapped her. He had hurt her. He might kill her. She had to stop feeling sorry for him. Or whatever her feeling was.
    “What do you want with me?” Penny asked.
    Alfred didn’t answer immediately. She couldn’t see his face because it was above her as he concentrated on her head, being careful not to hurt her any more than necessary.
    After a pause, he said, “I thought we could be happy together.”
    In one way that was laugh-out-loud funny, but she didn’t dare laugh. She had to set him straight, though. No false pretences.
    “Alfred, I’ve always liked you.” That wasn’t really a lie. At least she hadn’t actively disliked him. But when she didn’t see him, she never thought about him. If he had disappeared, she wouldn’t have noticed. In her life he was a nonentity. She couldn’t tell him that.
    “I’m married now. I belong to Gary. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. When we get back to L.A., I’ll fix you up with some girls. I know some nice schoolteachers.”
    Alfred didn’t say anything. He kept working on her head. She suspected that he had completed cleaning the wound. Maybe he just wanted to touch her. She was no psychologist, but she realized that what she had said about fixing him up didn’t register with him. For whatever reason, he didn’t want other girls; he wanted her.
    Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lived near her and spied on her. He wouldn’t have followed her on her honeymoon. He wouldn’t have tracked her down again after he had lost her, against great odds. He wouldn’t have killed a man. God, was she responsible for that? That was more than she could handle right now. It was time to try another tack.
    “I’ll make you a deal, Alfred. I’ll stay with you until we get back to L.A. Then you have to let me go back to Gary.”
    A rational person would see through this, but Alfred had not been acting in a rational manner, as defined by the norms of the human race. Would he accept half a loaf? She wanted to create an atmosphere of trust so that he wouldn’t tape her again, but she also