Escape Artist : A Short Story

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• January 2, 2026

All my life I loved action movies and I thought it was even a little romantic if you were gagged, tied to a chair and waiting for your beloved to save you from the bad guy, only in real life there is no one to save you, because your beloved put you here. And here you are. Mascara running down your face onto the duct tape covering your mouth. I know I don’t look sexy because snot is running over the tape.

Maybe I deserved this, because of all the men I slept with. That’s what my ex fiancé said when I told him my ovaries were fucked up and probably couldn’t have kids. To be fair, he was never mean when he wasn’t drunk. But when he was drunk he said awful things. He rarely drank at all. When we found out I couldn’t have kids, neither of us took it well. We both drank and I took it out on myself and he also took it out on me. Sure, he’d feel horrible the next day and apologize, but on some level that is who he was. He went to church and all that. Hoping for some sort of redemption for his sour views of people. My father was a drinker, but a quiet drinker who said very little when drunk, except when cursing at coaches while watching sports. He rarely gave advice, and if you went to him for advice, he’d say, “ask your mother.” He once did tell me to trust what people tell you when they’re drinking more than when they are sober. He told me that when he wasn’t sober, so probably good advice.

How did I get here. Well, I was just sleeping. I was watching reruns of “The Golden Girls” and nodded off in bliss of false promises of television programs that life was constantly funny. When I was young, all my Mom watched were Lifetime movies and the “The Golden Girls.” Lifetime movies I couldn’t stand. Too cheesy, too formulaic, too much bad acting. And as I got older and more educated I mocked my mother for enjoying such programs, thinking I was so much smarter for watching strange shit like “Twin Peaks” or dark and strange shit like “The Twilight Zone.” We always had “The Golden Girls” though, and even when I was away from my Mom I felt like she was right on the couch with me. At some point it becomes abundantly clear that no person will ever love you as much your mom, so you might as well settle for less.

I woke to my boyfriend zip tying my hands together. Groggy, and unsure what was happening, I mumbled something while sort of laughing, initially thinking he was trying some kinky sex thing. Though kinky sex things weren’t really his thing. He picked me up, sat me on a kitchen chair and roped me to it. Rope around my body. Duct tape around my ankles tethered to chair legs. This is when I started really waking up and demanding an answer to what he was doing. As soon as I yelled “HELP” one time, he slapped duct tape over my mouth.

You see, my ex fiancé was the jealous type. He asked so frequently about previous boyfriends, I almost started believing he was a cuck and got off on the idea of me being with anyone but me. He got mad when I laughed a little too hard at other guys jokes. In my defense, my ex fiancé wasn’t that funny, so it wasn’t unusual that other guys made me laugh more, but guys tend to think everything revolves around sex, and I promise you if Freud was a woman, she would adjust her psychoanalysis to, “everything is about sex for MEN and everything is about finding peace between perpetual worry for women.”

Jacob was not the jealous type. At least not outwardly. Jacob was unlike anyone I had never known before. Nothing seemed to bother him at all. He never shot down plans I made for us, or complained about a movie choice. Hell, he even watched “The Golden Girls” with me and would laugh. His eyes were dark like his hair and he had such a great jawline, I once told him he’d make a sexy Batman and it’s only now I find it disturbing he said he’d prefer to be the Joker. The gears in my head started to turn, knowing I had missed clues that I was dating and falling for a psycho.

“I know about Brandon,” he said.

Brandon? Who the fuck is Brandon? My mind searched for a Brandon. Did I know any Brandons? I knew a Brendan. The last time I even heard the name Brandon was that political insult, “let’s go Brandon” that society beat to death ad nauseam like the kids these days with “6/7.” I wondered if, like these trends, I would be beaten to death by a man I promised my mom she would meet soon.

“I’m sorry I had to tie you up like this. But I couldn’t get into your phone while you’re sleeping.”

He used my facial recognition to unlock my phone and then said, “do you want to just confess so I don’t have to do this?”

The only plus side of having duct tape ripped off your mouth is I’m sure it removed any little upper lip hairs that might be unflattering in a certain light.

“Fuck Jacob, are fucking crazy. Untie me.”

“If you don’t talk I’m putting the duct tape back.”

“I don’t even know a Brandon. I have no clue what you’re even talking about!”

“Maybe that’s an alias name then.”

“An alias name? Take a moment to, like, zoom out on this situation and look at how insane you’re being. If you loved me even a little, you would stop this right now.”

“I do love you, that’s why I zip tied your hands in the front.”

For fucks sake.

He cut off another piece of tape. “HELP!” I yelled, but I know my neighbor isn’t home. Maybe someone would be outside. Grabbing my hair to still my trashing head, he taped me again. This is when I started crying.

“You’re crying now?” He said like that wasn’t any humans natural reaction. “I can’t even look at you,” he said, like I was the disgusting one in this situation. So he went to the couch and scrolled through my phone.

To be honest, I was a little worried about what he would find. He wouldn’t find a Brandon, or flirtatious messages with anyone since we’d been dating seriously for about three months. Truly, I was not having an affair. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find other things that would upset him. Or other things he could misconstrue. Sure, there were some dirty pictures on there. I also worried about my group chats. The group chat with my cousins was mostly family gossip but it didn’t lack a pleather of memes that could be considered offensive in most circles. Worse would be the group chat with my two best friends where there was constant dating talk. If he went back far enough, too much information about things I rather keep hidden from him based on his current behavior.

The only way I knew how much time passed was thanks to the clock on the microwave which was never accurate to the actual time, but at least it tethered me to some sort of reality as every minute crawled. Ten minutes felt like an hour. Squirming in the chair I resented every movie that made escaping being tied to a chair look possible. The silence from Jacob on the couch was worse than him yelling. Could you believe that I was starting to see a future with this asshole? That I told my mom about him?

Now that I was forced to rethink it, I suppose I didn’t know Jacob that well. We mostly spent time at my apartment. In fact, he was practically living here for about a month. The one time I went to his apartment, it was a disaster. He said his roommate was a total slob, so he was embarrassed for me to be there. That’s why we always went to my place. He wanted to move but had lost a lot of money in crypto so was just saving money living with the messy guy. Having never met the roommate, who knows if he ever existed.

It was like that for almost twenty minutes. Then I had an idea. It wasn’t a great an idea and not super original either. But I started sort of “hopping” with my body. He yelled at me to stop a couple times before coming over, saying it to my face. I made noises, and looked down to my crotch, trying to convey that I had to pee. Yes, that was my grand plan.

“If you yell, it goes right back on,” he said with a finger pointed in my face, “nod that you understand.”

Nod, yes, nod.

“I have to pee. Just let me out to pee and let’s talk about this.”

Instead, he replaced the duct tape and then tore through the cabinets to find a popcorn bowl. He threw it to the ground and started unbuttoning my pants. My resistance was met with a cold, “if you want to pee your pants, it’s fine by me, I’m trying to do you a favor.”

He shimmed my pants and underwear down to my ankles, lifted my legs and placed the bowl under me like the most uncomfortable bed pan ever. He had to hold my body up, and then I couldn’t really pee. I mean, I didn’t really have to pee to begin with. Also, now I had performance anxiety.

“Just go,” he said with impatience. Then, “you didn’t have to, just trying to escape. Real original.” So he pulled the bowl from under me, but just then, I started to pee and I peed on him.

“Gross! What the hell is the matter with you?”

That’s a question I’ve asked myself almost every day of my adult life and now it is abundantly clear I should have been asking that about everyone else.

Piss trickled from the chair onto the floor. Jacob aggressively pulled my underwear and pants back up, which absorbed the pee on the seat. Jacob leaned in and kissed my forehead, “bitches need their faces rub in piss sometimes.”

As he returned to the couch, he said, “don’t worry, I’m not going to leave a mark on you and you’ll be let go soon enough.” We sat in silence (well, me in silence by force). Jacob was a fantastic kisser. My ex fiancé was a lousy kisser, afraid to use his tongue. Afraid of my tongue. He’d prefer a peck on the cheek to a make out session. Jacob was the opposite. Passionate. Kissed you like the movies, like it could be the last time you ever saw each other, like it mattered.

Sex for me, often, was fun but like scratching an itch. Compulsory, human. Kissing is where the true intimacy lied. Maybe that’s why so many men were bad at it. Though in this moment, sitting in my own pee, tied to a chair, I felt personally wronged by Cher when she sang, “if you wanna know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss.”

When he returned to the kitchen enough timed had gone by that my pee pants were dry. He opened the medicine cabinet and took out these CBD melatonin gummies I have that I occasionally use for sleep. Then, he opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors.

“This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to go to sleep. And when you wake up, these scissors will be in your lap and you’ll be able to escape. I won’t be here. Don’t even bother trying to find me. Ever.”

As if I ever wanted to see him again. Though I did have a lot of questions.

Grabbing my jaw with force, he peeled back the tape half way and started shoving the gummies into my mouth. I managed to bite him a little and then he used more force. Though I tried to spit them out, he was successful getting three gummies in, which would for sure knock me out. After he put the tape back, he sat on the counter and just watched me. Just stared, dead dark eyes. “You really are very pretty,” he said, as I began to fade.

When I woke up, as promised, scissors were in my lap. I couldn’t be sure of how long I was out for, as my only source of time was the unreliable microwave. I was able to cut the zip tie and free myself. My phone sat on the counter like there wasn’t just a huge controversy around it. I was unsure who I should call first. My family, friends, the police? Though the first thing I did was change out of pee smelling clothes. Then, I went through my phone.

Scrolling through messages to see if he messaged anyone. Opened all my social medias, emails, searching for what maybe he was searching for. Nothing appeared to be unusual or even a red flag that could trigger him. Maybe he found nothing and was embarrassed? Then, I checked my bank account. All my money was gone. Wired to a cash app and sent to various accounts.

Who the fuck was Jacob? And how many times had he done this? Won over a girl with his looks and charm, semi move in and put on this asinine charade of another lover, the ultimate gaslighting, only to do what he was always planning to do. Even as I called the police, I knew he wouldn’t be caught. Not this time. Maybe next time or the time after that. Jacob was smart. Or whoever the fuck he was. Everything I thought I knew about him was a lie. In fact, the only true version I knew of him was the man who sat on the counter and watched me fade, as he stole everything I ever worked for. As he crumbled my confidence of knowing a lover. Infiltrated and violated, I was trespassed on every level— my home, bank account, heart and worst of all my mind. It was like a bad Lifetime movie. There I was trying to be an escape artist, but he was the escape artist all along.