AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’s just climbing off the treadmill when I finish with the weights.
He makes me put the T-shirt and yoga pants on, then he fastens the collar around my neck and the chains on my ankles. “Get out,” he says coldly, and heads over to the free weights as I shuffle off miserably.
It hurts that he’s dismissed me so abruptly. I just did everything he asked without arguing, I’m submitting to him at a level that makes me sick with disgust at myself, and it’s still not enough for him?
I shouldn’t want his approval, but it’s hard for me to be around someone when they act as if they hate me. Even my kidnapper.
I’m already wretched enough. My whole life has been stripped away from me. When he smiles at me, when he’s gentle with me, it actually makes me feel good for a few minutes, and I crave that. It’s like being warmed by the rays of the sun. But it comes and goes without apparent reason. His attitude toward me is so inconsistent that I find myself thrown off balance, not knowing how to earn even moderately decent treatment from my jailer.
Early that evening, when I am sitting in the living room trying to find a comfortable way to read a book with that vile collar on my neck, Elizabeth comes to get me. She’s limping painfully, sucking in gasps of pain with each step. It looks like there’s a purple plum swelling where her right eye should be. Her nose is swollen, with a cut running vertically across it, and her lip is split. She holds up a chalkboard which has the words “I’m very sorry. It will never happen again”written on it.
“So what?” I snap at her.
I am sure this is humiliating for her, being forced to apologize to her hated rival and having to display her battered body to me. Well, sucks for her. She could set me free, she could alert the authorities to my presence here, and instead she’s crawling for the favor of a man who beats her bloody.
She glares at me with utter hatred through her good eye and gestures at the door.
Right. Dinner time.
I stand up awkwardly and hobble off to the dining room. I’m praying that he’ll take the collar off, but he doesn’t, and if I ask, I’m sure he’ll whip me. I can’t look down. We’re eating tapas, and I practically have to feel around on the plate for them. Food keeps falling off my fork onto the table.
When I set my fork down, though, he snaps, “You’re not done until I say you’re done.” So I say, “Yes, Master,” and keep eating until he says I can stop.
Then he holds out a napkin to me. “Clean up your mess,” he says scornfully.
I can’t believe this. He’s putting me down for being a messy eater when I can’t even see my food.
“Yes, Master,” I mutter. I have to bend at the waist so I can see where the dropped food is.
Elizabeth limps in after dinner, holding handcuffs and the hood. He cuffs my hand behind my back and puts the hood on, then finally removes the collar.
There will always be some kind of shackles on me. I can’t feel free for a single minute of my life.
As I awkwardly make my way through the hallway, I try to imagine him giving her those orders.
“And after dinner, you’ll take Tamara down to her dungeon cell, chain her to the floor, and remove her leg cuffs and collar.”
Seriously. That has to be the kind of thing he tells her. And shedoes it. She scurries to obey, like the pathetic little mouse she is. How messed up is that? How messed up is my life?
I remember to do my tapping rituals right before I fall asleep, but they don’t bring me the comfort they used to.
I toss and turn that night, struggling to get comfortable, and finally fall into a dreamless sleep. I wake up with my heart racing, struggling in the clutches of anxiety.
My morning panic attacks seem like an especially cruel trick of life now that I’m here. As if waking up to this nightmare isn’t horrible enough? I breathe in and out slowly and do everything I can to calm myself down as much as possible under the circumstances.
A little while later, Elizabeth comes in, her bruises still livid and her gaze still full of hate, and she puts the hood on me. Then she leads me upstairs.
Joshua seems calmer and less hostile. It’s a new day. Perhaps it’s also a new chance to figure out how to earn his favor.
I instantly climb into the bathtub at his command, and I lie back with my eyes closed and let him bathe me without protest.
I still ache from the beating, but not as badly as I did before.
“Look at me,” he says as he slides the washcloth between my legs, and I open my eyes. His ocean blue eyes hold me prisoner as he massages me gently, thumb sliding down between the folds of my flesh. “Think of me when I touch you like this. Only me.”
“Yes, Master.”
With every stroke of that cloth, he’s washing away the memories of my past. Here, with him touching me, he’s pushing my stepfather aside. For once, I don’t mind him invading my mind. Having him in there is so much better than the alternative.
