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I know a peace offering when I hear it. I take him up on his offer, and I hang up confident there’s one relationship I didn’t totally fuck up last night.
Next up: I need to call Best. I have to explain why I never showed at the club’s service door with two packages in urgent need of transportation by the best wetwork team in North America.
At leastthisclusterfuck didn’t result in eight guys dead.
When the fuck did that become my standard? No eight bodies, so everything’s great.
Nothing’s great.
Alix is gone.
And I can’t come up with any way I’m ever going to see her again.
37
ALIX
* * *
In Master’s house, I’m completely free.
If I want to, I can sleep all day. I can stay up all night. I can open every window in the house, letting the air conditioner labor as the late August heat fills the rooms with heavy humidity. I can seal the house shut and lower the temperature to sixty degrees.
There’s no reason to charge my cell phone. I don’t want to talk to anyone. No one will ever call me.
I don’t have to worry about dressing for business meetings or casual day at the freeport, for workouts in the gym or fancy dinners out. I don’t need to decide between sandals and sneakers, between stilettos and practical pumps. I just wear my blue smock.
Ursula cooks three meals a day—breakfast at eight, lunch at noon, dinner at six. Now that I’m living in the house, she has groceries delivered—milk and eggs, meat and bread. She’s a good cook, and she makes enough for six people at every meal. I eat if I’m hungry. I scrape my plate into the garbage once I’m full. Ursula feeds the leftovers to Master’s crows.
Ursula is the perfect companion. She spends most of the day in her room off the kitchen. Her English, never strong, has grown brittle in her time alone. She asks nothing of me. Accepts me, exactly as I am.
I spend most of my time in the library. I learned a lot about art in the first three years I spent in this house. I applied that knowledge when I lived at the freeport. Now, it’s time to read for fun. I spend an entire day studying Hieronymus Bosch’sLast Judgment. I spend another on Rothko’sUntitled (Red).
I wear my lifeline, keeping it fastened to my right wrist, even though no one will ever call me to any room in the house. No one will ever demand I offer up my body.
One night, I get a flogger from Master’s closet, the one with the spiked steel tips. I try to strike my nipples, but I can’t build enough momentum. My clit takes one blow sharp enough to steal my breath, but once I know the pain to expect I can’t find it again. It’s a waste of time to sling the leather strands over my shoulder. I feel nothing when the metal claws my back.
I try some of Master’s tricks. I can make my eyes water by clamping binder clips onto my clit and nipples. But no matter how determined I am to keep them there, how hard I bite my lip, how deep I dig my nails into my bleeding palms, I free myself before Master ever would.
I use the giant dildos. Butt plugs too. I never let myself use lube, not even spit, because Master would not approve. No matter how I force my pussy or my ass, I can’t generate one thousandth of the pain Master could deliver with a single twitch of his little finger.
But that’s what I need: Pain. Something to remind me I’m alive. Something to tell me everything happened for a reason. Something to say this is why I killed a man, why I gave myself to his brothers without fighting, why I lost Trap and will live the rest of my life lonely and alone.
Alone except for Ursula.
After the first week, I think of one more thing to try. I find Ursula in the kitchen and ask, “After lunch? Will you help me in the shower?”
She nods gruffly and goes back to making our Cobb salads.
When we’ve eaten—just a few tense bites for me—she follows me upstairs. She runs the water while I take off my smock. She shakes her head at what she sees, then frowns and reaches for the familiar plastic jar: Brazilian Bikini Wax.
The warm wax is more soothing than arnica. When Ursula rips off the papers, I literally see stars. Every nerve from my knees to my navel sings a long-forgotten note. My muscles scream for mercy.
After, when she lets me rinse with cool, clear water, I feel like I’ve been born again.
That night, Ursula is extra-jumpy at dinner. She’s made sauerbraten and spaetzle, braised red cabbage and three types of potatoes. I manage a bite of everything, but I push back from the table while she’s still organizing bottles of mustard on a tray.
“You cannot go!” she says.
