by Amelia Wilde
I sit on a sofa designed to my exact specifications, to fit someone of exactly my height and stature, and watch through the window as Genie and her team do their work. There have been other women in Persephone’s exact position before. That’s why the rest of them are here, waiting to do my bidding. I tend to keep people around once they’ve proved their usefulness. I chuckle to myself at the joke. Almost everyone here, aside from a select few, is here because they owe me their lives.
Make a decision, pay the consequences. It’s simple. Persephone acts like she has no experience with consequences, but I can’t imagine that’s true. Demeter has never been the kind of woman to live and let live. It explains everything, from the farm-girl dress to the way Persephone blanches at the sight of an unfamiliar door. She’s been kept quarantined all her life.
Which makes her the perfect thing to be mine.
To make mine. She is a blank slate, waiting to be shaped.
This will have an effect, no doubt. Through the window, I watch as Genie strips off Persephone’s dress, leaving her shivering and clutching her arms to her chest.
“Oh, please. It’s not as if it’s cold.”
She doesn’t answer, obviously. I focus instead on her pink cheeks and the nipples poking out underneath her tank top. What the hell is that thing? What the hell was Demeter’s plan, to keep her virginal and dress her in nightgowns for the rest of her life? She couldn’t have run away to the city in those clothes. Ah—of course. Demeter didn’t just want to keep her safe, she wanted to keep her incapable. Well, she very nearly succeeded.
Genie demands the tank top next, and Persephone reddens, shaking her head. I could turn the sound up and hear the audio from the next room crystal-clear, but this silent-film shit is better. It forces me to pay closer attention to her body when I’m not distracted by the sound of her voice.
Good woman, that Genie. She only lets Persephone argue with her for a very short time before she calls the other women. I assume she’s threatened to hold her down and cut the clothes off, because Persephone strips in a hurry.
I can’t tell if this display of humiliation is quite real or if Persephone is playing some other game. She stares down at her feet, hands clutched in front of that sweet little pussy of hers, her cheeks a blazing red. But I felt how wet she got yesterday in the train, and again on the elevator. I saw how much she wanted me to fuck her.
Perhaps she gets off on the humiliation. She wouldn’t be the first in the world. But she would be the first to hold my attention like this. On a few occasions,I’ve directed Genie to teach the woman a short lesson. Now, I’m struggling to let anyone else touch her.
My phone rings, interrupting my view of the first bucket of water hitting Persephone’s naked skin. I catch a glimpse of her gasp and the way she raises her hands to her eyes to wipe the droplets away, and pull the damn thing out of my pocket.
It’s my brother.
The fucker.
“What do you want?”
“That’s some way to say hello, Luther.” Zeus sounds mildly disapproving, as if he has any fucking right to have the slightest opinion on how I answer the phone. “I’d think you’d have a more pleasant greeting for your brother.”
“I’m busy.”
“So that’s a no, then.”
“It’s a no to you, asshole. If you’re calling me just to be irritating, then hang up the phone now and spare us both the breath.”
The women in the next room have coordinated forces to scrub Persephone clean, standing there in the middle of the room. I can’t see the drain from here but I know they’ve arranged her over it. They lift one of her arms above her head, which has the delightful effect of lifting her tits along with it. Then the other arm. Hands on every part of her, none of them mine. I grit my teeth. Genie points to her feet, then points again, and with an expression of agony Persephone parts her legs so they can wash her there, too. I would do this myself—fuck, I want to—but I don’t want to give her the impression this early on that I care for her in any way.
Even if I do.
“—very rude,” Zeus is saying. “It’s obvious you’re not listening.”
“It’s obvious you didn’t have a reason to call.” I shift positions on the sofa. “Here’s some politeness for you. Goodbye.”
“Don’t hang up, Luther.”
“Why the hell not? Does it ever occur to you that I might be preoccupied? I don’t sit around waiting by the phone like one of your...conquests.” I almost called them whores, but the women who are attracted to Zeus aren’t anything of the sort. If I cared, I might call them victims. But I don’t care. I gave up caring a long time ago.
“Of course you’re busy.” He sighs. “You’re always busy. Too busy to participate in the family...”
I snort a laugh. “Stop fucking with me, you monstrous waste of time and flesh.”
“You wound me.”
“You make me ill.” This is not just an offhand remark. I’m at least giving Zeus the courtesy of the truth. For all I’ve been...rough...with Persephone, there’s something different about my situation with her. For one thing, I have to keep her safe. Something happened when I brought her onto the train. Something I don’t want to admit out loud, and perhaps I never will. She’s a liability now, and it’s made all the more complicated by the fact that I can’t kill her. We’ve never met before, but I have the ridiculous sensation that I’ve known her all her life. Or perhaps it’s that her life has just begun.
She’s a danger to me, and I can’t kill her. I fucking won’t.
If only I could kill my brother without causing the family business to collapse.
But that’s neither here nor there.
“I’ll wait if you need to be sick,” Zeus says, almost tenderly.
“Goodbye.”
“Tell me, Luther.” Now he speaks quickly. I hate Zeus with every fiber of my being, but even hating him with this intensity can’t erase our childhood together. He knows when I’m going to follow through. “Did you take her?”
My heart slows, almost to a stop. Through the window Persephone is doused with another bucketful of water. One of the women is filling them again and again. They turn her so I can see her wet curls falling down her back. That. Fucking. Ass. I want her bent over my desk again. Need it.
Genie moves around behind Persephone and starts to work something out of her hair. Flower petals, dried up and dead. I killed them myself, the day that I finished this house.
“Damn it, Hades, listen to me.”
“Fuck right off,” I tell him genially, even though my heart has gone frozen and still. Someone in my staff is going to die for this. Someone must have seen us get off the train and leaked the news to Zeus somehow. This place is crawling with rats.
Or...is it, really? My livelihood depends on making deals with people who desperately need them, or at least people who desperately need me to not kill them. Is it fair? No. But the need to live doesn’t decrease for them. And I have them watched, of course I do. I’d know if there was a mole here. A traitor.
“This is a serious question.”
“No it’s not.” I let him hear every moment of my long-suffering sigh. “You haven’t even told me who you’re talking about. If it were that urgent, you’d have gotten straight to the point.”
“Demeter’s daughter is missing.”
“Oh? What a terrible pity. The little slut probably ran off to the city. Like mother, like daughter.” My pulse presses out against my veins, the blood too big for the space it occupies. It’s an obnoxious distraction from both things I’m trying to focus on. Like Genie leading Persephone over to a waxing table, and her eyes getting wider and wider as Genie explains what she’s going to do. I get to my feet and pace over to the window, swallowing hard. Half of me wants to run in there and throw all their hands away from her. Mine, I would growl, loud enough to scare the shit out of them. The other half is relishing her embarrassment and fear, even from here, and certain of one thing—she’ll know
better than to trust the people who work for me.
I am also listening to Zeus. I can almost hear his pathetic mind trying to decide if I’m only dodging the question or if I really have nothing to do with this. The moment lingers, expands. I’m going to die of a fucking heart attack, and that will be a great loss to everyone who still owes me. Zeus sure as hell won’t make their lives any better. They might think he will. They’d be wrong.
Genie is a professional, but Persephone shakes so badly she has to call the other women to hold her down. To spread her open so she has the access she needs. Genie must guess that there’s a window, because I catch the flicker of her glance in my direction. She must know that I watch her to ensure that the job is done correctly.
To ensure that it takes perhaps longer than necessary.
Persephone’s chest rises and falls, quickly, quickly, tears leaking down her cheeks. Genie applies the wax, the strip, and waits.
A heartbeat. Another heartbeat. She says something to Persephone, then rips it away.
Persephone arches back on the table, biting down on her lip. It takes all of them to keep her in place. She lifts her head, and I can tell by the wide-eyed look in her eyes that she’s begging.
But Genie is a good employee. She knows better than to cross me. We have to keep going, her lips say, silent.
Persephone squeezes her eyes closed.
More wax. Another strip.
I am desperate, fucking desperate, to go into the room right now and shove my fingers inside of her. She’d be soaked, no question. Those red cheeks, those nipples—everything about her gives her most private thoughts away, as if she’d said them out loud.
The third strip.
She turns her head into the palm of one of the women holding her down and weeps.
But she doesn’t close her legs.
Fuck.
The scene draws all the blood down from my brain and into my cock, splitting my concentration in a very unpleasant way. I have to turn away from the window to finish the conversation. Conor stirs on the low bed in the corner and lets out the beginning of a whine. He thinks something’s going on—that I have to get out of here. I do, but not for the reason Conor thinks. I signal him back to his rest. I’m still fucking fine. Mostly.
“I’m far too busy to stand here listening to you breathe in my ear, Zeus.”
“She’s very upset,” he says, voice sounding far away. What I can’t figure out is why he cares. Zeus doesn’t care about anyone. That’s the core of his personality. That is why he has bastard children all over the city and even a couple of settlement agreements with women who had nothing to lose when they went after him. I’m sure he’s only biding his time when it comes to them, too. People flock to that man because they confuse beauty with trustworthiness. A smile with a kind heart. He slips those disguises on and off like a comfortable jacket, whenever and wherever it suits him. They can call me what they want—a killer, a monster, a sadist—but no one can ever say I hid it from them.
“It’s not my concern if she’s upset because her brat ran away.” Concern—who cares about concern? The only thing that matters to me is the deal I’ve made with Demeter. And she’d never go back on that, because she can’t. I don’t renegotiate.
That—and Persephone.
A prickle of unease wakes in the back of my mind. Demeter wouldn’t go back on our agreement. Would she? Demeter’s daughter is no longer a child. She can’t possibly have expected to keep her locked away in her home until she dies. And anyway, it’s too late now. I have her here. Unfortunately, turning away from the window has only made it harder to think. Imagining what’s going on a few feet behind me makes my heart pound. I turn my head and steal a glance. Genie has Persephone in the most humiliating position I could have imagined on the waxing table, and her face is such a delightful red color that I wish I could capture it in a painting. Her lips form one word, over and over. Please, please, please.
“What the fuck was that noise?” Zeus sounds disgusted. “Are you fucking someone?”
“You’re the only one rude enough to take phone calls when you’re using a woman,” I shoot back. But something else is happening behind my breastbone, something very unexpected. Lying about Persephone feels like a cousin to protecting her. Protecting her, as if she meant anything to me. The thought of her name on Zeus’ lips makes me want to drive my fist through his face, and he hasn’t even said it yet. I lean hard on the sill of the two-way mirror. I can’t take my eyes off her. A screeching alarm sounds in the heavy silence of my thoughts. A weakness, it cries. She is your weakness.
Fuck.
He sighs, irritated. “If you come by any information, you’ll tell me?”
I give him a pause to make him think I’m considering it. “Fuck no,” I spit into the phone. He’s still trying to talk to me when I stab my thumb down onto the button to cut off our connection. It falls to the floor with a loud clatter. I crush it under the heel of my shoe, again and again and again, until the plastic casing splinters and the wires inside come apart. What have I done, and what am I doing? What does this instinctive lying say about me now? In the end I sweep the shattered phone into one corner with the toe of my shoe, rage hardly spent.
Yes. Fine. I’ve created a small problem, a dangling thread that will irritate me until I cut it off at the neck. What the fuck do I do about Demeter? The question pales in comparison to the issue of Persephone. Because I can’t live without Demeter and what I buy from her.
And I can’t live without Persephone.
It’s an absurd thing to admit, even in the privacy of my own mind. It doesn’t suit me to feel this way about anyone or anything, even in some dim, vague way that disappears as soon as I look at it head-on.
On the other side of the window, Persephone sits up on the table, breasts heaving with every breath. And as I watch, she turns toward Genie, my name on her lips.
13
Persephone
Genie slips a dress that’s more of a slip, a nightgown, over my head, eyes sharp and lips pursed. She reaches down and tugs the hem into place. It barely covers my ass. It was made to barely cover my ass. I don’t bother asking if there’s a bra and panties to go with the set. Clearly, there’s not, and clearly, her orders came from Hades himself.
“Good.” She gives the rest of her team a crisp nod. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to assist with cleanup.” Genie flips over her wrist and her eyes widen at the time. “If you’ll come this way...”
I follow her without a word, because what’s the point? I’m officially nothing. My own embarrassment has burned me so many times that it’s surprising to discover, at every new moment, that I’m not just a pile of ashes. Sweep me up with a broom and set me free on the wind. But again, and again, every heartbeat reminds me that I’m still here. In this body that’s been waxed and stripped and buffed until I’m not sure I have my original skin left. They put lotion on my stinging flesh, every inch of it, and worked out all the tangles from my hair. I’ve never been so sensitive and so numb in all my life.
“This way,” Genie says, tone urgent. I pick up the pace. I’ve been staring at the floor, under the polished marble beneath my feet.
“Where are we going?” The question comes more out of resignation than anything else. I don’t expect her to answer. I think of Hades’ fingers in my hair, and how Genie probably heard me screaming, and didn’t do anything about it. Nobody will ever do anything about it again.
And how maybe, maybe—
No. I can’t let myself think that way, otherwise all my sacrifice will have been for nothing. It’s not a sacrifice if some twisted part of your soul enjoys it. And I don’t. I can’t. He’s evil, and he’s done so many horrible things already. I’m...I’m in shock, that’s all. It’s been a shocking turn of events. It’s not my fault if that makeover session made me think of him. I hated him then, too. I hate him now, and I love Decker. I say a silent prayer for Decker, to Decker, and let the memory of him standing in the fields carry
me through one breath, then another.
“To meet with Mr. Hades.” Genie’s voice breaks into my memory.
“To...meet with him?”
“He wanted me to prepare you for a meeting with him.”
I laugh, the sound surprisingly...real. Genie raises her eyebrows and picks up the pace.
“Is that what he calls it? He’s a very proper man.”
“He likes things to be a certain way.” Her silver hair bobs behind her in its bun.
The hallways of Hades house are proof of this. Every one of them gleams with a kind of blank perfection that makes the weird quality of the light seem less unsettling. That can’t possibly be for other people, so there is a man underneath that cruel facade that has feelings one way or the other. There must be. Genie takes me this way and that until I’ve lost all sense of where that prep room was, and then, abruptly, she makes a sharp right turn off the hallway, almost colliding with a woman in a black dress and white apron—one of the maids.
“I’m on my way in,” says Genie in a low voice. “Anything I can take for you?”
The maid nods, lips pressed into a serious line. “This.” She hands Genie a small silver tray with a phone, shiny and slick, in the center. “Thank you.”
Genie waits until the maid has scurried off down the hall to push open the door with one elbow.
It’s an office.
Hades’ office.
Genie goes directly to his desk and puts the tray down on the far corner, getting out of the way as fast as she can.
Hades sits behind an enormous desk, Conor off to one side, head bent over a stack of papers. The office...it’s too normal for him, all dark wood paneling and low lights. I feel like I’m seeing him stripped down to nothing in a room like this. The rotunda in the entryway of this...fortress is meant to impress people, but this looks like a truly private room.
“Mr. Hades.” Genie glances around for me, then gestures me forward, into the pool of light surrounding his desk.