Her eyes were crossing and uncrossing, contemplating her hair in the bright afternoon light, watching the strands come into focus and out again. Blurry nanotubes to golden strands and back. Headache. She focuses her eyes out the window, far to the horizon, and rubs her temples. The view from here is amazing. Mountains, the treetops, nothing for miles. At night, no lights. She appreciates it, she really does. The last place didn’t have any windows at all. Here she feels like Rapunzel or a cloistered princess waiting for a knight to save her from a dragon.

There’s a knock at the door and the slot opens for her dinner tray. Corn tamale, bag of chips, box of apple juice, a chocolate chip cookie wrapped in wax paper, yogurt for tomorrow morning, and two silk tetrahedron bags filled with black tea. Same as yesterday. Not bad. She wishes he’d go back to salami sandwiches though. He makes a good one. The vegetarian food is new. She’s not sure why he made that change. He’d never tell her, and she will never ask. They don’t talk much, not after the agreement.

She knows he won’t come back until the morning; she’s counted the days since his last visit. Usually he comes in, gives a few slaps to her boobs and her face, swats to her ass, then spits on it before fucking it. Typical Saturday. Then he’ll grunt and mumble at her a bit. Socially awkward and shy of her, after all this time. Still unable to look her in the eye.

Every once in a while, he makes love to her, moving slowly on top of her, kissing and stroking her hair. She heard him whisper “love” once. But the next week, it was back to normal – a hard fuck, leaving her used and bruised.

She watches the sun set and the stars emerge. She falls asleep looking forward to tomorrow.