Animal Instinct

I'm not a morning person, never have been, so when the alarm goes off, I always have to restrain the urge to want to slap the thing silly looking for the snooze bar. On this particular morning, it took me six wild tries to land on it quieting the stream of crappy pop music pouring out of the speakers. I lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to find the motivation to sit up and start my day.

"You planning on getting up, or just lie there and count the cracks in the ceiling?"

I sat up scratching the top of my head. Standing in the bedroom doorway was my wife of two years, Julie, holding a cup of coffee in one hand.

"It's a work in progress...give me a second," I said, rubbing at my sleepy eyes.

"I've never seen anyone so slow to wake up. Come on, sleepy head, time and tide wait for no man!"

"Whatever...You've never sailed in your life...time and tide...," I yawned in mock exasperation.

The floor was chilly, so I put on my slippers and pulled a t-shirt on over my head. Julie had already fled from the bedroom back into the kitchen of our small one-bedroom apartment. By the time I emerged, she had eggs going in the skillet and bacon sitting on a plate next to the stove. I grabbed a piece as I breezed by on my way to fetch some of the same coffee she had been imbibing.

"You need to get a move on or you're going to be late to work," she said.

I nodded, blowing on my coffee. It was hard to work up much enthusiasm for another day of bean counting at the bank. Why I had let my dad convince me that accounting was in my blood, I'll never know. He and my sister were both enamored of their debits and credits, but that had never been my bag.

Julie carefully flipped the eggs over easy. She liked them that way. I preferred scrambled, but marriage is about compromise, right?

She was biting her lower lip in concentration, a habit of hers that had been going on since we met, and I am sure long before. A curvy brunette, with short hair, currently pulled back into a hair tie, Julie and I had met our freshman year of college, but not exactly hit it off. Admittedly, it had taken me a few years to get the hang of the whole college thing. I was immature out of the gate and more interested in partying than education. I give Julie credit with helping me to settle down and learn to study. She had been my English tutor back in the day, helping me navigate the tricky world of early American literature. I hadn't considered her a dating prospect at the time. Julie didn't exactly jump off the page as an exciting alternative. A girl of medium height with everyday sort of country girl looks including a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose she had come off as dull compared to some of the more animated girls I was used to hanging out with at school. Over time, she grew on me. Her quietly sarcastic sense of humor, the way she could be so patient and then almost comically angry when that patience would suddenly run out reminded me of my mom in an odd way.

I ended up getting the flu near the final days of my sophomore year, and it was Julie who nursed me back to health. I took her out to dinner as a thank you, and that started what turned out to be the last romantic relationship I would ever cultivate.

"Can you butter the toast?" she asked as it popped up out of the toaster next to the oven.

I did as she asked, trying not to get in her way in the small kitchen. This was a feat that would have been easier a year ago, though I would never have said anything to her face, Julie had put on a few pounds since the wedding, and her much broader rear end required a bit of navigation to get around.

"Can you pick up the dry cleaning on your way home from work tonight? I have class until seven, and they'll be closed."

"Sure..." I replied, setting the buttered toast on separate plates.

We took the food over to our kitchen table. It was a hand-me-down from my parents, but still more than functional. We had a small T.V. sitting on the kitchen counter nearby, and I flicked it on as I passed putting it on the local news.

"Do you always have to watch that while we eat?" she asked.

"I just watch it for the traffic news before I go into work," I said, trying not to sound defensive.

"You could try having a conversation with your wife in the morning."

I turned down the T.V. and smiled, not letting my annoyance show. This had been a reoccurring argument lately, that I wasn't paying enough attention to our relationship, but I honestly felt that was a two-way street and Julie hadn't been holding her end up either, not in the bedroom anyway.

"What would you like to talk about?"

"I think we should reconsider moving into a bigger apartment. I like the one over on Sage Avenue that we looked at last month."

"We don't need a bigger apartment right now, Jules. There is just the two of us, and I thought we agreed we would save our money for a while."

"Well...It might not stay the two of us..." she said quietly looking at me over the top of her steaming coffee.

I almost dropped my bite of egg short of my mouth. There it was again. How could a woman that was only twenty-four years old already be feeling her biological clock ticking?

"Yeah...I thought we agreed to table that issue for the time being."

"You always sound like your father at times like this making everything sound so impersonal like having a kid is a business decision."

"It is. I mean there is certainly a financial component to consider, plus we've only been married for a couple of years shouldn't we enjoy each other for a while before we bring a kid into the mix?"

Julie frowned at me, and I know what was going through her head. She had come from a family with three brothers and two sisters, big by most standards. I believe her expectations had always been to have a bunch of kids running around underfoot. I wasn't necessarily opposed to the idea, but I wasn't in an all-fired hurry to get there either.

"Look...I'm just saying that we don't need to rush into being parents. We're just starting, and there is no reason to jump ahead in the game."

She sat down her coffee cup, running a finger around the lip.

"I get what you're saying. I just don't want you to lose sight of how important this is to me."

"That's hard to do when you bring it up every day..." I muttered taking a bite of my breakfast.

"What?"

"Nothing, Dear. I gotta get ready for work."

I got up from the table walking back into the kitchen just catching a headline scrolling across the bottom of the T.V. screen. It was an update on a story that had been going on for weeks now about people being kidnapped and then returned under mysterious circumstances. The folks involved never wanted to talk about their experiences, and the police so far were baffled by the seemingly random crimes that included no ransom notes and the victims being released within a day apparently with no knowledge of who had held them or why.

The shower that followed did me a world of good waking me fully. I wiped the steam off the mirror, getting ready to shave off my day's growth of beard. Julie might have been letting herself go a bit, but I was still hanging in there my body tight and trim from nightly jogs. I even tried to lift weights at least three or four times a week to keep my fit, six-foot-two-inch frame in decent condition. My short, blond hair had been much longer in college, but I had to cut it when I went to work at the bank. On the upside, at least it didn't tickle my neck anymore. My green eyes were still a little red from lack of proper sleep, so I put some drops in them before I scraped off my beard with a cheap razor.

Julie had been kind enough to lay out my clothes, and I pulled on my underwear just as she walked into the room. I thought I saw her eyes linger for a moment on my crotch, and I gave her what I hoped was a seductive smile.

"You know...I don't have to be in that big of a hurry," I said, starting to lower my underwear again.

She didn't seem to get it at first, but then recognition dawned on her face.

"Oh...Well, I need to get going too. I promised my mom I would drop by and visit before I go to class today."

I sighed in disappointment. Ever since Julie had decided to go back to school for her Masters, our sex life had taken a nose dive. I honestly felt that it had more to do with me not wanting to get her pregnant though than her being too tired from school work.

"You know...It's been a while..." I said.

"Don't whine, Charlie, it makes you sound like a kid who doesn't get his way."

I sucked in my breath on that one ready to let her have it but decided it wasn't worth the argument and it would just make me late to work.

"Fine...Thanks for laying out my clothes," I replied instead.

She just nodded and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek as she breezed by into the bathroom. I left before the sound of the shower ever faded.

Traffic was light on my way into work, so I was able to make up some time on the road. Since it wasn't late yet, I decided to stop at my favorite coffee house for a nice beverage to take to my morning meeting.

Julie might make passable coffee, but she had nothing on the "Java Joint" for a truly spectacular cup.

The place was crammed with the usual assortment of business folks and students getting their caffeine fix before they started their day. I waited patiently in line for my turn, giving my order to the barista who wrote my name on the white cup in his hand. While he did his work, I scanned the crowd.

My breath caught a little in my throat when I realized she was there.

It had started a few weeks earlier on my usual coffee stop, that was the first time I had noticed her sitting at a table on the far side of the cafe. I had no idea what her name was, and was far too intimidated by her to ask, well, that, and the fact that I was married. She was something though, a strawberry-blond with curly hair in a vast halo around her gorgeous face she could easily have been a model for a major magazine with her perfectly symmetrical features. Her blue eyes sparkled in the glow of the lamp on her table, and I couldn't quite look away when she brought her steaming cup up to those sweet, full lips. Her body was just as impressive, slender and athletic with long legs and an ass that looked like you could bounce an artillery shell off it. Once, she had come in while I was getting my order in a running suit unzipped enough down the front to show off the gray sports bra she had on underneath. The breasts that were barely contained in that cloth could have won a prize at any beach beauty contest in the world. Whomever she was this girl had become something of a fantasy of mine. My guilty morning pleasure whenever she happened to be in here. If I had a dime for every time, I had rubbed one out to thoughts of her...I would have a shit pot load of dimes.

"Your coffee, Sir?"

I took me a second to register that the guy behind the counter had been talking to me.

"Sorry..." I said, taking the cup.

I had to walk right back past her table to get some napkins, and it made me oddly nervous being so close to her even though she didn't know me from Adam and we had never spoken a word. The space between her table and the next was narrow, and I had to turn sideways to breeze past facing right toward her. I almost made it without her even acknowledging that I was there, but as I took the last step that would have carried me through the gap my jacket snagged on the empty chair opposite of her pulling it nosily around. Her eyes shot up, locking with mine, and I froze.

"Excuse me," I croaked in a voice that sounded like I hadn't achieved puberty yet.

She smiled, perfectly straight, white teeth on display, "It's fine."

"It's fine," the first words I had ever heard her speak. Her voice was soft and musical, just as beautiful as she was...

Then I was passed her, and on my way to the counter plucking so many napkins, you would have thought I was planning on opening my own restaurant. It took me all the way to the sidewalk outside to calm my racing heart, but once I did, I felt instantly ridiculous.

"What the Hell am I getting so worked up over? Some pretty stranger in a coffee house I'll never actually get to know..." I thought to myself, more than a little embarrassed at my behavior. I was a married man after all, not that I would be the first guy in the history of the world to stare at a nice looking girl, but obviously, nothing was going to happen beyond that.

I squared my shoulders and started walking toward the back parking lot. The front had been too full when I arrived, so I had been forced to park in the overflow area behind the coffee house. As I turned the corner, I nearly collided with a big brute of a guy with dark eyebrows and eyes the color of mud. He towered over me looking down like some angry God from atop his throne.

"Watch where you're going," he said in a gravelly voice.

"Sorry...," I mumbled side stepping to get out of his way.

He glowered at me like he was going to say something else, but then kept moving. I put my head down determined to get out of the parking lot and put some distance between me and the unsettling man in the black coat who oddly had stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and was looking back at me.

My hands shook a bit while I tried in vain to hit the button on my keys to open my door. It took me three tries, but at last, I heard the tell-tale beeping and my door lock popped with an audible noise. My rear end slid comfortably into the seat, and I adjusted my body to settle back into it, holding my coffee in my offhand while I slipped the key into the ignition. My door was still open, so I sat my coffee in the holder and reached to close it. The door was almost shut when a hand came out of nowhere slamming it back open. I barely had time to react before a dark gloved hand covered my face pushing me back in the seat. Panic hit me, and I tried to struggle, but something was wrong. The glove smelled odd, and I felt my body go limp as if all my muscles had failed at the same time. I fought to move, but not only was my body not cooperating; I suddenly started to feel very sleepy. My last clear image was the steering wheel coming toward me.

MY PRISON -

I awoke with something cold pressed to my cheek. It took me a long moment to realize I was lying on a tile floor, and an even longer one to realize it wasn't just my face that was feeling cold it was pretty much all of me. I sat up sputtering and looking around me in a daze trying to get my bearings. I was in what appeared to be someone's bathroom, a pretty decent sized one at that with a large tub, double sink vanity, and a separate shower. The even more disconcerting thing was the reason for my chill. I had been stripped to my underwear.

My legs were shaky, so I had to go slow standing, reaching over to brace myself on the bathroom counter. I took several long, slow breaths to calm myself, trying to figure out precisely what was happening here. The sink turned out to be functional, so I threw some cold water into my face to help bring me around then stopped to survey the room again. It was a typical bathroom for the most part except for the fact that it had only one tiny window up in the corner which was blacked out and covered with steel bars.

"That's something you don't see in a bathroom usually," I commented to no one.

There were two doors, but both turned out to be locked. They were made out of steel, not wood as one would expect. I didn't figure I had much of a shot, but I gave it the old college try anyway throwing my shoulder into one of the doors. It rattled in its frame but otherwise didn't budge. My shoulder hurt like Hell from the impact, but I sucked it up and tried again taking a step back this time and really laying into it.

"Shit!" I yelled, holding my shoulder when the door didn't move.

"You're wasting your time," said a distorted voice.

"What? Who is that?" I called out. The voice had seemed to come out of thin air.

"I said you're wasting your time, Charlie. You're not going anywhere."

The voice was coming from a speaker in the ceiling, and I stepped closer to it anger seeping into my tone.

"You have no right to keep me here!"

"True...but here you are..."

The voice was filtered, altered in such a way I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, old or young.

"What do you want from me? How do you know my name?"

"Both good questions, but I hate to have to explain myself twice. I think you need to meet your companion for this exercise first."

I heard a buzzing, like the kind you hear when a security lock gets sprung, and the metal door furthest from me swung open suddenly. A woman clad only in a bra and panties charged through stopping well short of me her eyes wild and scared while the door behind her slammed shut.

"What...Who are you? Where the Hell am I? What's happening here?"

Her words tumbled out in a rush, and she looked at me like I was the Devil himself.

"It's o.k...I'm not going to hurt you...I got thrown in here just like you..."

She was panting, almost hyperventilating, so I kept my hands wide apart and tried to talk to her in soothing tones.

"It's going to be o.k. I'm Charlie..." I said calmly.

Her breathing slowed, and her face became slightly less flushed and panicked looking.

"Kristie..." she said quietly.

"Kristie...O.K. Kristie, do you remember how you got here?"

"No...I was getting in my car...and someone...someone grabbed me...," she said her voice showing that she was still ready to break down again at any moment.

"Easy...I hear you...The same thing happened to me," I said, hoping my voice was calming enough to keep her from falling apart.

She was looking at me oddly now though, up and down like she was trying to identify something about me.

"Wait...I know you...from the coffee shop."

Recognition hit me like a thunderbolt. I guess I could be forgiven, I had never seen her before without clothes, but the woman before me was my fantasy girl from the "Java Joint."

"Yeah...Yeah, that's right, the Java Joint. We both get coffee there."

"You were there earlier...I remember you were going past my table and...and...You caught your jacket on the chair..."

"That's right...Did you get grabbed there too?"

"No, it was later at my apartment. I was getting out of my car to go inside and then...then..."

Her face clouded up again, and it looked like she was going to cry. I felt like I should do something to comfort her, but I thought it would send the wrong message if I tried to do that when we were both in our underwear.

"It's going to be alright. I think at this point we just both need to stay calm and try to figure a way out of here."

"That's not going to happen," came the voice again.

"Who was that?" said Kristie looking around.

"I don't know," I admitted waiting to see what it would say next.

"You don't need to know who I am other than I'm the one who holds your lives in my hands."

"What do you want?" said Kristie, her voice trembling, but more in control than it had been.

"We're here to play a little game. A social experiment I like to call, "Whose an Animal, and Whose A Human."

"I don't get it. What does that even mean?" I asked.

"It's simple, Charlie. We're going to see if you have any moral fiber in that well-toned body of yours."

"Moral fiber? What the Hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that you've spent weeks pining for poor Kristie here, fucking her with your eyes every time you see her at the coffee house. While your wife sits at home loyally waiting for her husbands return you're plotting in your head how you're going to get Kristie into bed."

"I have no idea what you're talking about! I've never plotted anything. I don't even know this girl!"