Nothing explicit, but definite squick warning from here on in.

~oOo~

As soon as he heard the crunch of tyres on gravel again, his heart was in his throat. John became still as stone when the key turned in the front door. Any attempt to pick the handcuff lock had been thwarted and he had seriously started to consider slamming his hand against the wall until his bones splintered. Maybe then, he would be able to slip out of the impossibly tight cuff…

Footsteps echoed from downstairs; it sounded like heavy boots on a wooden floor. He remained motionless as he listened. The footsteps became a little fainter and then he heard the sound of water filling something – probably a kettle. How domestic, he thought, but I don't particularly want to stay for tea. Think, John, think! What would Scott do? What would Virgil do?

He didn't get much more time to ponder. He could hear someone on the staircase; one step, two steps. His mouth went dry.

Those heavy boots were getting closer. The steps stopped outside the door and there was some rummaging. Then the handle turned, the door was pushed open, and Grace entered, carrying a basin of steaming water. She had a bag on her shoulder and a flannel over her arm.

"Well, young man," she said, crossing the room and placing the basin on the nightstand. "I hope you've had enough time to think about your situation."

Fury and fright churned in his stomach. John said nothing. The woman smiled with sickly sympathy.

"Oh, dear," she said. "Still grumpy? Maybe I can make you feel better. I brought you something to wash with, and," she said as she opened the bag, "some clean clothes."

John felt himself blanch. Grace chuckled, a tinkling sound. It was as if she had seen that face before.

"Oh, don't worry," she said. "They're brand new. I sometimes buy men's clothes I like, even if there's no one at home to wear them for me." She placed the bag on the floor and unzipped it. She fished out a light blue, button-down shirt and unfurled it as if it were made of fine silk. "I think blue is your colour."

She laid it on the bed; John slid a little further away, finding himself against the metal headboard. Grace looked up, smiling, before plucking a pair of dark blue jeans from the bag. She laid them on the bed by the shirt, then added socks and boxers. She slowly smoothed each item of clothing out, removing every crease. John watched, confusion rising within him. Something about the way she so carefully arranged the clothing sent a chill up his spine.

"Now," Grace said as she straightened a sock so it sat perfectly in line with the other, "I want you to wash and dress – as best you can, considering." She nodded at the cuff that held him to the bed. "I'll be back up in a few minutes with breakfast."

It was bizarre. It was surreal. It was wrong.

"You can't do this!" John found himself shouting, wrenching anew against the restraint. "You can't keep me here."

There was no rage in her response this time. Instead she cocked her head to the side and looked at him with…pity.

"Oh, dear," she said again. "You're still grumpy. Well, I'm afraid to say that I certainly can keep you here. You're mine now. I'll dress you the way I want. I'll put you where I want. I'll only let you do what I want you to do."

John shook his head and could not stop the incredulous smile from spreading across his face.

"What are you, some kind of control freak?"

As fast as before, she was on him, beating him about the head with both fists. There was force behind those arms that belied her size. John's first instinct was to strike back, but his second was to stop himself. You can't hit a woman! a voice screamed from the back of his mind. A more rational voice replied: That rule shouldn't be in play when the woman has kidnapped you!

"Don't you dare talk back to me!" Grace screamed, her voice piercing his eardrums. "If you can't hold your tongue, I'll cut it out!"

John tried to protect himself from the blows with his one free hand and kept his eyes squeezed shut until the barrage stopped. I don't doubt it, lady! he thought.

After half a minute or so, the last blow fell. Grace drew away and John hissed through his teeth. His face and head had been peppered with knocks; the wound at the back of his head was throbbing again. He could feel something hot dribbling from his temple. Blood, he thought. He brought his fingers up to touch the area and they came away red.

Grace had taken a few steps away and had turned around. He could see her shoulders heaving as she fought to regain control.

"Get dressed," she barked.

Then she was gone, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

Despite the beating, John felt almost numb. I can't believe this is happening, he thought. This has got to be some kind of sick dream.

In the carefree, whitewashed world of Tracy Island, this sort of thing didn't happen. In the solitary embrace of the stars, there was no one there to hurt him. This must have just been a nightmare, a combination of deep-set fears manifested in the worst way.

"Come on, John, wake up," he thought. "This can't be real. It just can't be real."

Men didn't get kidnapped. They definitely didn't get kidnapped by women. Women weren't like that. They didn't rain punches down on men. And anyway, a man should be able to protect himself, right? So why didn't you push her away? Why didn't you knock her lights out?

That was simple: it wasn't possible. It had been too deeply ingrained in him, by both his father and his grandfather. You never hit a woman, Jeff had said. And you only hit another man as a last resort. Violence isn't the answer. Most of the time, it's what causes the problem in the first place.

John covered his face with his free hand. Tears stung his eyes again.

"This isn't real," he said again, gulping against the lump in his throat. "It can't be real. It's just a manifestation of all my fears: being kidnapped, being helpless. And the perpetrator is a woman because… Because I don't know anything about women. Women are 'the Other' to me, so it makes sense, right? And I wouldn't hit a woman, so it makes sense that my 'kidnapper' would be a woman. Right?"

The empty room did not respond. The silence brought reality crashing down around him.

He was still undressed when Grace returned, bearing a tea tray.

"Don't you like the clothes?" she asked. Her tone was almost caring. "Was the water too hot to wash with?" She set down the tray and dipped her fingers in the basin. "It doesn't feel too hot," she said. "Oh well. If you won't co-operate, I guess I'll have to do it myself."

She picked up the flannel, moistened it and knelt on the bed. John flinched away when she tried to clean his face. She shook her head. That sickly, sympathetic smile was back again.

"My, my, you are sensitive," she said. She pulled his face towards her, more gently than the last time she had touched him, and pressed the flannel to his temple. He hissed again. "There, now."

Push her over, John thought. Push her off the bed. Break her nose. Break your own damn wrist and make a run for it!

But he couldn't. It went against every principle he held dear. There must be another way out of this, he thought. Use your God-given brain and think!

So, he tried a new tactic.

"Why am I here, really?" he asked, deliberately catching her eye for the first time.

Grace cocked her head to the side and blinked. Her eyes were round, owlish.

"No one has ever asked that question before," she responded, rinsing out the flannel and then cleaning the rest of his face. The motherly actions made his stomach churn again but he tried not to show it. "Well," she said, "it's simple. You're here because I want you to be here. You're here because that's what I want."

"Why do you want me here under this much duress?" John asked, closing his eyes as she wiped the flannel across his brow. "You've got to know that I don't want to be here."

Grace shrugged her shoulder and started wiping the back of his neck. She ran the cloth up to his hairline.

"I don't care that you don't want to be here," she said. "I've never cared if the men I brought home wanted to be here."

John opened his mouth to speak but found that he had no words. What could be said to that? Eventually, though, he found his voice. He spoke slowly, softly.

"What happened to the others, Grace?" he asked.

She wiped down his chest and lifted his free arm. It took all the effort that John had not to recoil.

"They stopped being useful to me," she said, as matter-of-factly as if she had been talking about a pair of old shoes. "First, there was Ian. He didn't last particularly long. He tried to kill me, pushed me down the stairs and then ran. I shot him in the back." She shook her head wistfully. "And I had liked him a lot. Marcus was the second one. He lasted over a year, but he gave up in the end. Just started crying for hours, never stopping. So I had to put him out of his misery." She paused, grabbing onto John's raised bicep and looking straight into his eyes. "I didn't want to kill them," she said. "That's not what I want. I didn't like having to do that. I cried when I put them in the garden."

The intensity of her stare, the shake in her arm as she pressed her fingers deep into his muscle, sent another chill down John's spine. I am in so much danger, he thought.

She relinquished his arm and pulled away, casting the flannel aside. When she spoke again, she kept her back to him.

"I've never found it easy to make friends," she said. Her voice was so low he could barely make out her words. "I always tried but no one wanted me. Even when I was a baby, no one wanted me." Then her tone took on a hard edge. "So I need to take what I want," she said. "I have to take it."

The cooling water on his skin made him shiver. John gulped against the rising tide of fear within him. Not good, not good…

Grace turned around again, her face pulled into a plastic smile.

"Well, never mind all that," she said. "We all have our little problems, hmm? So I've had my Marcus and my Ian. Who are you?"

John set his jaw and shook his head.

"I'm not telling you anything."

The woman shrugged; it was a girlish, teenage response.

"I guess it doesn't matter," she said. "If I didn't like your name, I would just change it anyway. I'll have to have a think about what to call you."

She lifted the mug of tea, now lukewarm, from the tray and held it out to him. John just about stopped himself from licking his lips. They were cracked and his mouth was arid, but it galled him to take anything from her.

Grace rolled her eyes.

"Just take it," she said. "It's only tea."

Thirst ruled his actions and he accepted the cup. It was a delicate thing, thin china with a floral pattern. He sipped the liquid but nearly spat it out again.

"Good God, that's sweet," he said.

Grace giggled and placed a hand over her mouth.

"Oh, sorry," she said. "I sometimes forget that other people don't take their drinks as sweet as I do. It's a force of habit to just pile the sweeteners in."

John forced himself to gulp the liquid down regardless. Dehydration will do me no good, he thought. Not that tea is good for dehydration. But still, it's better than nothing…

After a few moments, he licked his moistened lips. Fear rose again. There was something else wrong with the taste, something that went beyond even the saccharine tang of too many artificial sweeteners.

Then the dizziness hit.

"Oh, God…"

The cup tumbled from his hand and he fell face down onto the blanket. Try as he might, he could not shift his head. His body was no longer his own to command. For a terrible moment, he couldn't suck any air into his lungs. I'm going to suffocate! But then he was upright again, the room spinning as all energy drained from his body.

"What…"

He felt something at his wrist – he was free! She had released the cuff! Run, Tracy, run!

But of course, he could not.

John felt himself being lowered on to his back, yet at the same time he seemed to be floating away. Everything disappeared as the world went dark. Then sight returned but sound had gone. He felt Grace grab his head and tip it backwards. Then something was thrown down his throat.

Her words reverberated in his mind.

"I need to take what I want. I have to take it."

Mercifully, he didn't feel the rest.