The Never List

hadn’t read enough to understand what he was talking about, but now I know some of the references he made, in his long, rambling speeches: Nietzsche, Bataille, Foucault. He talked a lot about freedom, a word that made me cry when he said it, even on days when I swore to myself he couldn’t do anything to get me to shed a tear. I am stronger than this, I told myself. Most days I wasn’t very strong. But in the end, I think I was.
    Over time I got the sense that he wasn’t driven by uncontrollable urges. Torture was simply fascinating to him. He was in awe of what it did to us and how it made us respond. As we writhed there before him, he studied, yes, studied, how long we could fight back tears. He was interested in why we so badly didn’t want him to see us cry. He’d ask us about it. He’d probe. And yet we were afraid to tell him the truth about anything.
    He knew how arbitrary shifts would disarm us and fill us with fear. And he liked to see the fear. He would change roles in an instant,from father confessor to maniacal devil. He laughed sometimes, out loud, with sheer glee, when he’d see the fear seeping into our eyes.
    And it was impossible to hide everything all the time. He figured out quickly how much I was suffering over Jennifer. Not knowing what was going on in her head all those days in the box. I wanted to ask him how she was holding up, but I didn’t want to reveal just how much she mattered to me, so I said nothing for months. He knew, of course. He knew how close we were, that we were not random co-eds sharing a cab home that night. Maybe he had gotten Jennifer to reveal some details, or maybe she called out for me to help her when she was on the rack. I would never know.
    But he knew enough to use her against me. He would ask me, as if he wanted me to make a noble choice, if I could take just a little more pain, a little deeper cut, if it would help her. And I did. I took as much as I could, squeezing my eyes shut tight each time the blade approached my barely-healed skin. When I eventually begged for mercy, he looked at me with disappointment, as though I were admitting that I didn’t love her enough, that I wasn’t able to protect her from what he was, quite unfortunately, going to have to do to her now.
    I started hating myself for my weakness. I hated my body for what it couldn’t handle. I hated myself for begging and bringing myself low before this man. I dreamed at night of smashing his face, of rising up like a banshee, screaming, hysterical, full of strength.
    But then, inevitably, when, after days of starving me, he would come and feed me little bits of food from his own hands, I would suck it off his fingers like an animal, greedy, thankful and pathetic—a supplicant again.

CHAPTER 14
    In the end, I flew to Portland alone, for the second time in as many weeks. Tracy had lost faith in the project once again or was maybe losing her nerve. Either way, she’d made an excuse about her work and had ended up driving back up to Northampton the same night. Maybe at the end of the day I was the only one strong enough to revisit those memories. The thought almost cheered me, as each day I was feeling slightly more up to the task, slightly more determined, even though I was no closer than I had been at the very beginning.
    There was something about this search that gave me a sense of purpose and made me feel that, for the first time in ten years, I wasn’t abandoning Jennifer. I knew that if I could find her body and put her to rest in that quaint little churchyard in Ohio with her ancestors, the whole experience wouldn’t seem quite as appalling.People died young all the time. I could almost accept the simple fact of her death, but I could not accept the way I’d lost her. And now finding her was the only way I could truly leave that cellar behind.
    I stayed at the same hotel in Portland as before. I had been impressed with their security last time, and they were very obliging when I asked for a room on the top floor. The concierge remembered me and knew to cancel housekeeping during my stay. The last thing I wanted was someone knocking on my door, coming into my room, touching my things.
    I drove to the university the next morning. I had done my Internet research and knew more or less where to find the two people I needed.
    Her name was actually Adele Hinton. I’m sure Christine remembered that with great precision, though she would never admit to that kind of familiarity with