Behind Closed Doors: A Novel

That first time, I was ashamed of the way I clung to Jack when he finally came to let me out of the room in the basement. It had been a long, terrible night, made worse by the knowledge that I had helped make it the nightmare it was. Until then, I’d had no real idea what he intended for Millie. I knew that fear would be a part of it, but I had been confident that I would be able to protect her from the worst of it, that she would be able to run to me, that I would be with her at all times. Even though Jack had told me he wanted someone he could hide away, it had never occurred to me that he meant to keep Millie locked up in a terrifying room in the basement so that he could feed off her fear whenever he wanted. To know the extent of his depravation was bad enough, but the fear that he would leave me there to die of dehydation, like Molly did, that I might not get out in time to save Millie, broke me—which was why, when he eventually unlocked the door the next morning, I was almost incoherent with gratitude, promising that I would anything, anything, as long as he didn’t take me down there again.

He took me at my word and turned it into a game. He began setting me tasks he knew I would fail so that he would have an excuse to take me down to the basement. Before I hit him with the bottle, Jack would let me choose the menu for the dinner parties we gave and I would choose dishes that I’d cooked many times before. From then on, he imposed the menu on me and made sure the dishes he chose were as complicated as possible. If the meal wasn’t perfect—if the meat was a little too tough, or the fish a little overcooked—he would take me down to the room once our guests had gone and lock me in overnight. I was a fairly confident cook, but under such pressure I made stupid mistakes, so much so that the dinner where Esther and Rufus had been invited was the first time everything had gone smoothly in five months.

Even when we went to friends’ for dinner, if I said or did anything that displeased Jack—once, I couldn’t finish my dessert—I would get taken down to the basement as soon as we got home. Aware that my fear had a potent effect on him, I would try to remain calm, but, if I did, he would stand on the other side of the door and, his voice hoarse with excitement, tell me to imagine Millie in there, until I begged him to stop.