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I sit on a stool, bewildered.
“I'm going to say this once, Kate. This house is locked down. There’s no way out. Every window is locked and can only be opened with a key. Each door is locked. The windows are shatterproof. There’s an alarm that would sound anyway if anything was breached. So don't be stupid again.”
I watch quietly as he takes out some pans and begins to make bacon and eggs. I don't understand what’s happening. I thought he was going to kill me, but he claims he isn't. And I'm sure he’ll punish me. The fact that he's decided he wants to feed me right now is beyond my comprehension.
I feel suddenly self-conscious being naked upstairs in his bright kitchen with black and white parquet floors and the huge windows which offer me a stunning view of the gently rolling landscape outside.
My gaze shifts to a wooden block with an array of no doubt very sharp kitchen knives in it. He turns away from the stove and catches my guilty gaze.
He chuckles. “Don't even think about it. You don't want to escalate our relationship to knives. Trust me.”
I swallow hard and nod. Even as the smell of bacon and eggs wafts to my nose, I'm losing my appetite. How can I possibly eat knowing something extremely bad is about to happen to me? I try to keep my tears quiet, but I fail.
He makes no comment.
When the food is done, he places it in front of me and pours me a glass of milk. “Eat.”
I'm not sure if it's the smell of the food triggering my appetite or if somehow biologically my body now responds to his commands. I think it's the first thing but I wouldn't swear on it.
“Aren't you going to eat?” I ask.
“I already ate.”
He cleans up the kitchen and washes the dishes, then he leans against the kitchen island, watching me as I finish up the last bite of eggs. He takes the plate and glass from me and washes those as well. I pray it takes him forever to finish this task so I can stay in the warm, bright, safe kitchen a little longer. At the same time, I can't stand the maddeningly slow way he moves, the way he drags out the time leading to whatever horrors await me for stabbing him with a needle while trying to escape. Can he really blame me for wanting to be free and safe?
“Come, Pretty Toy,” he says.
Then he just walks out of the kitchen. He doesn't grab me and drag me along like some hostage. He simply expects that I will get up and follow him. And I will because every door and window is locked. Everything is shatterproof. There’s an alarm. Resisting or running is pointless, and it will only make him angry. I bite back another sob as I slide off the kitchen bar stool and follow him out of the room and the rest of the way down the hallway to that steel door with the security panel that leads down to hell.
He inputs a code, and the door slides open. There’s a wide, sweeping motion of his arm in that gallant after you gesture. I'm sure I'm about to faint. A wave of dizziness moves over me, and my legs don't want to support my body anymore, but I take a deep breath, and it passes.
He waits.
I feel the tears sliding down my cheeks again. But I know they don't move him—at least not in the way I would want them to. The outline of his erection pressing against the fabric of his jeans tells me that much. I walk in front of him, down the winding stairs into the dungeon.
I'm already on my knees when he gets down there, mostly because I can't hold myself up. And really, it's more like child's pose in yoga. I need to breathe, and this is the only way I can get deep enough breaths into my body without hyperventilating. It's only a bonus that I know it will please him and look like submission. Maybe it is submission. I know it's fear.
His footsteps stop next to me, and then he sits on the ground. I flinch when he strokes my hair and then my back. Over and over again. This is the last thing I expected from him after what happened upstairs—gentleness. And I know it's a lie, but I don't care. I will drink it up like it's the last drop of water on earth. I need just another few minutes of peace before he hurts me.
Oh god, what is he going to do to me?
“I'm not going to harm you,” he finally says.
“But I thought...” I shut my mouth because what the fuck am I doing? If he's decided not to hurt me, I don't want to argue him out of it. Be smarter, Kate.
“I'm going to train you. Don't misunderstand. This isn't kindness or a long lost conscience rearing its head. It's just the best choice for the outcome I want. Punishment and pain are always an option. And I’ll use them as necessary, but I want to own every part of you. Completely. If I use too much pain, your fear will drive you to try to escape again. I would never truly own you. But if I inspire gratitude... you're mine forever.”
Well, at least he's laid out his evil plan, so I don't have to drive myself crazy trying to figure out what's going on. Even as I think these thoughts, I know he's calculated the choice of even telling me this. And already I feel gratitude moving through me, unbidden. When one goes from thinking they're going to die to thinking they're going to be tortured, to a good breakfast and the absence of those things... gratitude is the only response one is capable of.
I know I shouldn't feel it. He's keeping me as a slave. He took me away from my life—such that it was. None of this is okay, but I feel so grateful anyway as if everything he's done so far has been one giant favor. And the pleasure and desire that repeatedly winds its way through me at his touch and the promise of it makes it seem true.
The words, “Thank you, Master,” slip out of me so fast I can't stop them.
He chuckles at this. He has me exactly where he wants me. I think he wanted me to jab that needle into him no matter what he says about his disappointment at me failing his test. He's not disappointed. It's all going according to plan.
Even if I had experience with psychopaths, it wouldn't matter. I’m one hundred percent sure that there’s not another human alive who would make the choices this man makes. He possesses the most terrifying combination of brilliance, evil, and patience. And I’m the unlucky lottery winner of his attentions.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper.
