Page 13 of The Monster I Am

Jared’s eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror again, catching Rhys’s gaze accidentally, and he dropped them quickly. Did he have any questions? “Is the—” he gestured at himself only to realize that Rhys probably couldn’t see the gesture “—um, the art something that you do… a lot?”

Did it just happen at the parties, or did Rhys do it at other times, too?

He wasn’t sure if he wanted the answer to be yes, or no.

“Yes,” Rhys said, “but I don’t know how often I’ll be doing it to you.” He took a deep breath. “Usually, I choose blank canvases at parties. You’ll need time to heal between them. The knives are enchanted in a few ways; one of those is so that they won’t leave scars. There are other tools I can and will use between parties that will heal more quickly.”

Canvas. He was still wrapping his head around the idea of being a canvas. For art. Not a person, but an object to be used for art.

And fucked.

“Oh.” Jared still wasn’t sure if he was glad or disappointed at that answer. He shouldn’t want that. But he couldn’t say that he didn’t. Though the idea of other tools filled him with dread.

You will enjoy it.

If he could believe that.

He licked his lips. “What kind of tools?”

“Floggers, whips, canes,” Rhys replied. “More unconventional tools as well, perhaps, but you’ll learn about those in the moment.”

Jared shivered. He didn’t need to learn about those tools. He hadn’t had a whip used on him, but he’d heard one being used on the other slaves, and the screams that they elicited. He didn’t think those would be enjoyable.

He turned over his left hand so he could see the darkened and torn skin that had been left behind by one of the slaver’s friends who wanted to see if that kind of pain would make him aroused. It hadn’t. All he’d felt was agony and terror. “Belts?” he asked softly.

“Belts are a punishment,” Rhys replied frankly. “Not the most creative, but one of the forms of punishment I might use.”

Jared closed his eyes.

If that was a punishment, he would do his best to avoid them. But at least it sounded like Rhys wasn’t planning to replicate the “experiment.”

Rhys pulled into the driveway of a modest home, but he didn’t turn the car off. “I haven’t had a live-in slave since before the Takeover,” he stated, his voice calm. “There will be a learning curve for both of us, I expect. Please do not make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

Jared glanced up again, his brow furrowing slightly at the unexpected phrasing. Hadn’t had a live-in slave since before the Takeover? He guessed it made sense that supes had slaves even before they’d taken over the world as they had, but why wouldn’t Rhys have had one when it was probably much easier to do so?

Not that it was something he dared ask about.

Rhys got out of the car, opening the door for Jared.

“Yes, sir,” Jared murmured as he got out of the car, wincing as the dried blood from his back peeled away from the seat of the car. The concrete was rough under his bare feet, but at least it was better than gravel. He followed Rhys to the door, where the supe unlocked it and disarmed a security system.

Jared looked around the house, more curious than maybe he should have been. He hadn’t actually been inside one since before the Takeover. Unless he counted the run-down hovels in the slums where what was left of the former human residents of the city lived, which he didn’t.

It was… nice, but not excessively so. He’d assumed that every supe would’ve loaded themselves up with all of the finery and fancy stuff they could, but Rhys’s house looked like any normal house he’d have seen before the Takeover happened.

It looked like the house he’d grown up in.

“Let’s get you showered, then… Have you eaten?” Rhys inquired, taking off his shoes. “Do you know how to cook? I stay busy with work, but I’ll be working from home until you’re settled.”

Jared shook his head, dropping his eyes to his feet again when his owner spoke. “No, sir. Not since yesterday. I don’t know how to cook.”

Rhys led Jared deeper into the house. “All right,” he said. “You’ll learn how to cook, but in the meantime, you’ll be responsible for keeping everything tidy. Vacuuming, mopping, laundry, et cetera.” He stepped into a room that was bigger than Jared’s home in the slums had been, flicking the light on. “You’ll stay in here,” he said. “It will be locked when I’m sleeping or out.” He gestured to the bathroom. “Right through there. Take a shower, then find me in the kitchen.”

Jared cast a longing look at the bed in the room as he passed by it on the way to the bathroom. Unlike anything he’d slept on in the last ten years, it was an actual bed, with an actual mattress that wasn’t broken down and ratty. And he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep on it. That wasn’t how supes treated their slaves.

He had to fumble a bit with the levers for the shower, hissing at first when the water went from cold to blisteringly hot without warning. But he found a temperature that was comfortable and it felt like utterly luxury to be under hot water for the first time in years, even as the hot spray hit his cuts and made him wince in pain. It was worth it.

The water had sort of worked in the broken down house that he had shared with three other people in the slums, but it had never gotten warmer than room temperature at best. It had been downright misery to even try to get clean in the winter. Many times he’d had to heat up water on their old stove just to get it warm enough to wash himself with.