You are someone so very special, Brynne. I feel things with you—emotions and ideas and dreams; a deep understanding that brings me to a place I never thought I’d find with another person. But I have demons too. I am terrified of facing them without you. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time but I do know how I feel about you. And even if you hate me for what I did, I’ll still love you. If you won’t see me, I’ll still love you. I’ll still love you because you are mine. Mine, Brynne. In my heart you are, and nobody can take that away from me. Not even you.

E

A week passed before I sent Brynne my letter. Longest f**king week of my life.

Not exactly true, but I’d smoked enough Djarum’s to either bankrupt me or give me cancer. I told the florist purple flowers and to include the letter. It was Sunday afternoon when I ordered them and the florist told me they would be delivered on Monday. I had them sent to her at work instead of her flat. I knew she’d been busy with school and wanted to wait until her final exams were over and finished.

Brynne and I are not over and finished. This is the mantra I continued to tell myself during those days because it was the only option I could accept.

3

They make you believe things that are not true. They tell you so many times, you accept what they are telling you is the truth rather than lies. You suffer for it like it’s the truth. The most effective torture is not physical—it is mental of course. The mind can imagine terrors far more horrific than you could ever physically bear, just like the mind will tune out those physical hurts when the pain surpasses what your body can endure.

The nerves in my back screamed like acid had been poured onto the destroyed flesh. The pain took my breath away it was so acute. I wondered how long till I passed out, and if I did, would I wake again in this life. I doubted I could walk more than a few yards. I could barely see from the blood in my eyes and blows to the head. I would die here in this hellhole and probably soon. I hoped it was soon. My dad and Hannah couldn’t see me like this though. I hoped they never found out how I met my end. I prayed there wouldn’t be a video of my execution. Please, Christ, no video of that—

Luck of the draw. I’d had no luck when they ambushed our team. No luck when my weapon jammed. No luck when I didn’t die trying to evade capture. These f**kers learned their techniques from the Russians. They loved to get western prisoners. And British SF? I was a f**king crown jewel. And totally expendable to my country. Luck of the draw. A sacrifice for the greater good, for democracy, for free will.

Fuck free will. I had none.

My tormentor this day loved to talk. He never stopped talking about her. I really wish he would shut his filthy hole. They don’t know where she is…they don’t know how to find her…they don’t even know her name. I kept telling myself these truths because it is all I have at my disposal to work with.

The backhand to my face roused me. And then another woke me fully.

“We will make you watch when we take her. She will scream like the whore she is. An American whore who does naked photographs.” He spit in my face and jerked my head back by the hair. “So disgusting your women…they deserve everything that happens to them. To be used like a dirty whore.” He laughed at me.

I stared at him and memorized his face. I would never forget it and if the opportunity arose I would cut out his tongue first, before I killed him. Even if the killing was simply imagined in my mind. He did not like my reaction. Inside I was frozen with fear. How could I stop her from being taken? I wanted to beg but I didn’t. I just stared and felt my heart thump inside my chest, verifying my status as alive. For now.

“Every guard will have a turn between her thighs. Then when their lust slackens she may watch when we take your head. You know this will be the way you meet your end, don’t you?” He held my neck back and dragged his finger across my throat. “You will be begging for mercy like the pig you are…about to be slaughtered. You won’t be proud then.” He laughed in my face, his yellow teeth flashing under his beard. “And then we will kill your American whore in the same way—”

I bolted up in my bed gasping, my hand on my c**k and dripping in sweat. I leaned against the headboard and took stock of where I was…and thankfully where I wasn’t. You aren’t there anymore. It was just a dream. That was a long time ago.

My nightmare was the sort that takes all the bad shit that ever happened to you and stirs it together into a dreadful brew you must bathe in. I closed my eyes in relief. Brynne was not a part of the horror from Afghanistan. She was of the here and now. Brynne lived in London, working and taking her graduate degree. It was just your subconscious mixing together everything that’s bad. Brynne is safe in town.

She just wasn’t with me anymore.

I looked down at my cock, hot and hard and wrapped my fist around the shaft. I closed my eyes and started stroking. If I kept them closed I could remember that day in my office. I needed the release right now. I needed to come so I could stop the bloody shakes invading from that f**ked up nightmare. Whatever worked. It’d be a temporary fix but would have to do.

I remembered. The first time she came to see me. She had on red boots and a black skirt. I told her to sit on my lap and made her come with my hand up her quim. So f**king sexy showing up in my office. She looked beautiful falling apart in my arms, from what I did to her, from what I made her feel.

Brynne had tried to pull away from me and I didn’t want her to. I remember she had to tug herself off my lap. But when she slid to her knees and touched me through my trousers, I understood. She told me she wanted to suck me. I knew I loved her in that moment. I knew because she is honest and generous with no artifice. She is real and perfect and mine.

Not now she isn’t. She left you.

I kept my eyes closed and remembered the vision of her beautiful lips closing over the bell end of my c**k and taking me in. How wet and warm and exquisite her mouth felt that first time. How beautiful the moment when she swallowed and looked up at me in that sexy, mysterious way she has. I never know what she is thinking. She is a woman after all.

I remembered everything—the sounds she made, her long hair all about her face, the slick slide against her warm lips, the grip on the shaft as she twisted and pulled me deep into her beautiful mouth.

I remembered that special time with Brynne back then, as I jerked myself to an empty climax in my very pathetic and lonely present. I had to remember or I wouldn’t have got off. I cried out as the spunk shot out the top of my c**k in a near painful rush, all over the sheets on my bed, shiny white against the black. It should be her! I panted against the headboard and let the release spread throughout my body, angered that I just wanked off to her image like some desperate freak.