by Lucy Rodgers
But even as I say the words, I know they’re a lie. I was afraid to disobey. More afraid than I was of drowning. And that, I suddenly realize, is the most damning condemnation I can level against him. I’ve told him that although I’ve given him my life, I don’t truly trust him with it.
I want to throw myself at his feet, beg him for forgiveness, promise him that next time, I’ll do better. It’s too late for that, though. Something has been broken beyond repair, and truth is beginning to drag me back to earth.
He pulls me down onto his lap in a deck chair. With a sigh that carries a world of both patience and exasperation, he says, “I’ve known for a long time that you weren’t telling me the whole truth about how you came to work for Daniels. I promised myself I’d find out eventually, work you into trusting me enough to tell me, but after this, I know that was never going to happen. But now, you’re going to tell me anyway. All of it. Because I don’t for one moment believe you came here with any idea of what you were getting yourself into.”
I close my eyes, the nausea I felt when I first hit the pool deck rising to my throat again. I’ve already wounded him with my lack of confidence in him. Now, I’m about to destroy everything we’ve built in the past two months.
But God help me, it’s what I have to do.
The story comes out through my tears in halting, disjointed sentences. How I turned the wrong corner from the Instituto Technologico and looked Sinaloa’s most notorious drug lord in the eyes as he shot two of his rivals in an alley. My family’s certainty that Cantavares would soon discover my name and send someone to ensure I never revealed what I saw to the authorities. The desperate effort to pull together enough funds to smuggle me to the United States through the most expensive, most dependable pollero in Sinaloa, known as El Nariz for his formidable nose. How after two days of travel over bumpy roads, paying off multiple federales and passing through multiple checkpoints with ease, the drop house was busted by La Migra on the day I arrived.
Looking back, it all seems to have happened so fast, but at the time, every minute was excruciating as an hour. The constant fear, first of being caught, and then of what would happen after we were caught.
I explain about the judge and his order that I work for Maid for It in exchange for avoiding deportation. Ben’s eyes narrow even farther at this revelation.
“A judge ordered this? Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course, I’m sure.”
“In the courthouse? With bailiffs and attorneys and robes and all that?”
I don’t know what he’s getting at, but I nod.
He bites out a curse.
“Is that bad?” I ask.
His expression is black but he strokes my back gently, reassuring me. “It is bad, but not for you. You did nothing wrong.”
“So you understand why I couldn’t tell you the truth? You forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” He slides me from his lap and stands up. “I have work to do now.” He turns in the direction of his office.
“Oh,” I say, baffled. I was expecting something more dramatic to happen. Like for the sky to fall or the earth to stop revolving around the sun. His response—or lack of one—is an anti-climax of epic proportions. “What should I do?”
He looks over his shoulder at me, but I can see by his distant expression that he’s already gone. Where, I’m not sure. “Relax. Watch TV. Read a book. Enjoy yourself. God knows, you deserve it.”
As I watch him go, committing the outlines of his back and ass and legs and the fluid, easy way he moves to memory, the same panic that gripped me when I was thrashing in the pool threatens to overwhelm me. Although this time, I’m fairly certain I’m really going to drown.
Six days have passed since my tearful, poolside confession. In that time, I’ve been relegated to the position of a pampered houseguest. Travis informed me the following morning that Mr. Hardcastle would not require my cleaning or “other” services any longer. I am to make myself comfortable and entertain myself however I deem fit.
I am no longer my master’s slave. I am not even his Slut, his Whore, or his Cunt. Although I still wear his collar around my neck, it seems I am nothing at all to him anymore.
For the first three nights, I slept in his bed, praying he might come in one night, find me there, and, despite his anger and disappointment, fuck me one last time. My body craves his touch and his dominance with a hunger that borders on starvation. As the days wear on and I don’t even catch sight of him, I feel myself shriveling, shrinking as though from malnutrition or dehydration.
I remember my fear of that room like a childhood bogeyman, defanged and declawed. Where once it was the monstrosity I dreaded most of all, now I would welcome its torments if it would mean having my master back. If it would mean belonging to him again.
Sometimes, I put on my maid costume just to remind myself of who I was, of who I became. Perhaps who I always was. But it only makes me feel emptier than ever.
This morning, I dragged myself downstairs for breakfast a little after eight. Despite his inability to cook, Travis still manages to provide me with coffee and a meal each morning, and I manage to eat it by putting my head down and plowing through it despite the fact that everything tastes like sand.
I jump as a newspaper slaps down on the table next to my plate.
Ben!
He pulls out the chair catty-corner from mine and sits down in it. “Read the front page,” he says.
Well, at least he is giving me orders again. That’s progress.
I open the paper and see the headline midway down, above the article that I’m sure he wants me to read.
Helio Cantavares, Head of Sinaloa’s Most Powerful Drug Cartel, Killed by Authorities in Raid
The subtitle adds, “Entire Cartel Leadership Either Dead or in Custody.”
I don’t need to read the whole thing. My jaw drops along with my stomach, and I stare at him. “You did this?”
“Well, not directly, but yes, I saw to it that it happened. You can go home now.”
“How…?”
“You don’t need to know the details. Just that I knew the right people in the right places to get the job done.”
“But—“
“No buts. Turn to page three now.”
What I see when I get there makes me gasp: a picture of Evan Daniels in handcuffs. The caption beneath reads, “Evan Daniels, CEO of Daniels’ Enterprises, was arrested yesterday on allegations that one of his businesses, Maid for It, was a front for a human trafficking network that turned unsuspecting women into sex slaves. Also arrested was Judge Mitchell Van Cleve, who apparently assisted Daniels by holding sham trials in which victims were threatened with deportation if they refused to work for Daniels. Maid for It billed itself as a sort of ‘mail-order bride’ service matching wealthy men to foreign women who were willing to become their live-in maids and mistresses.”
Swallowing, I look back up at Ben. “None of that was real? The immigration raid, the trial?”
He shakes his head. “It was all a show for your benefit.”
“So, when my family paid El Nariz to get me across the border safely, he knew all along I would become a slave when I arrived in the US.”
“I’m afraid so.” He frowns. “I’m still working on getting him taken care of, but with Daniels and Van Cleve out of the picture, his business should plummet soon. He got paid a premium at both ends of the deal.”
I set down the newspaper, dizzy with what I’ve learned. What a fool I was, my family was, to trust a pollero! We should have known better.
And why hadn’t I realized there was something wrong with the raid and the trial? It all seemed so real, but in retrospect, I should have known something was off. A judge ordering me to work for a specific company in exchange for being permitted to stay in the country? Without a green card or a Social Security Number? I may not fully understand the US legal system, but I know enough to know it doesn’t work like Mexico’s. And what happened
in that courtroom was Mexican in feel, not American.
Ben reaches out and lays a hand over mine. I realize I’m trembling. With rage. With humiliation. With self-disgust.
“You were running for your life. Few people in your position would have questioned what happened, and even if you had, what would you have done? Run to the police? Called the Mexican consulate?”
I sigh. He’s right. Like always. So perceptive, my master who is no longer my master.
“And now I’ve made it possible for you to go home to your family, where you belong. I learned while I was tracking down Cantavares that you used to teach English and English Literature at the college in Sinaloa. They haven’t filled your position yet, apparently. And your family is desperate for you to return. They miss you terribly.”
“You’ve spoken to my family?” I want to ask if they know what’s happened to me, if they’ll be ashamed or embarrassed by what I’ve been through, by what they inadvertently put me through.
“Not directly, no. I doubt they would take kindly to me if they discovered I’d spent the last two months treating you like my property and effectively raping you.”
A fierce burst of anger singes my veins. “You didn’t rape me. It was never rape.” I love you.
“I’m afraid many people wouldn’t agree with you. Especially the people who love you.” He removes his hand from mine and stands up. “You were never meant for this life, Gabi. I may have been able to make you want me, but only because you were too frightened to resist.”
“That isn’t true. I was never afraid of you. Not really.”
“I should have known right away you were too good to be true, but I was selfish. You were so beautiful and so submissive, I wanted to keep you. But you were also so afraid I’d send you away, and that didn’t make sense. None of the other maids Daniels sent were afraid of that, and I believe it’s because none of them were coerced as you were, that they came to the US of their own volition. Somewhere along the line, Daniels must have started running out of willing victims and so he started recruiting unwilling ones as well, you among them.”
I nod, but inside I’m a riot of emotion. I can go home! Back to my job, my family, my friends. Back to everything that’s beloved and familiar. But to do that, I have to leave my master.
I’d rather cut off a limb.
I’m ready to get on my knees, to throw my arms around his legs, to beg and plead with him to let me stay. It’s worked before. Why not this time?
But before I can even start to get off my chair, he holds up a hand. “You need to go home, Gabi. Nothing you can do or say will change my mind on this. Right now, you see me as the person who saved you—first by letting you stay when your life was in danger and now for eliminating that danger. And what we had—the master/slave bond—it’s very powerful. You had no experience with anything like it before. You can’t make a rational decision about where you belong under those conditions.”
“I do know what I want,” I protest. “I want you. I want us. I even want the…the playroom.”
That makes him raise an eyebrow. I can tell, for a second, I’ve almost gotten through to him.
“Please, don’t treat me like a child,” I plead.
He looks at me for a long time. At last he opens his mouth, and I have a glimmer of hope. He’s going to let me stay.
But what he says is, “I’m not treating you like a child. Since you’re still wearing my collar, I’m treating you like my slave. And your Master says you need to go home.”
I bow my head, blinking back tears. Even now, I can’t defy him.
A rustling sound tells me he’s gotten to his feet, but I don’t dare look. I imagine he’s leaving me alone again, but instead, I feel him push aside the hair at the back of my neck.
I tense, every muscle in my body going rigid, poised for flight. I know what he’s about to do. No, no, no.
But it’s already too late. The key is already in the lock, the lock is already turned, the hinge is already open, and the glorious, defining weight of the collar is gone.
He was right when he told me his punishments would be worse than anything I might experience in that room. Nothing could be worse than being free.
“Aeromexico Flight 934 to Culiacan will now begin boarding. Please have your boarding passes and passports ready for inspection at the gate.”
The loudspeaker announcement repeats in Spanish while I rifle in my handbag—Coach, a parting gift from Travis of all people—for the Mexican passport Ben procured for me. I can only assume he has as many important clients to the Mexican government as he does to the American, because it’s the genuine article, not a fake, delivered by a high-level representative from the consulate who arrived in a liveried limo.
“We will begin our boarding with passengers seated in first class.”
I stand up, sling the bag over my shoulder, and grab the handle of my rolling carry-on bag. My feet are leaden as I thread my way through the throng of coach passengers who crowd the path to the gate, waiting to charge when their “zone” is called. I fall in line behind a tall, neatly dressed businessman with graying hair. The gate attendant is scanning his boarding pass when the full import of what I’m about to do comes crashing down on me.
Once I get on this plane, I’ll never see Ben again. Never touch him, never kiss him, never suck his cock, never sit in his lap on the pool deck while unsuspecting passersby watch us fuck. Never feel him trail his fingers through my hair as though he’s discovered some mysterious new element or lie in his arms while he falls into one of his all-too-rare, all-too-brief slumbers.
Even if he’s right and I would never have chosen to become his slave if not for the threat of deportation and death, those threats no longer exist. Cantavares is dead. And there’s no reason for me to worry about deportation. If Ben can get me a legitimate Mexican passport in two days, he can get me a visa to stay in the US at the snap of his fingers.
Free will. I have it again.
And there is no way I’m getting on this plane of my own free will.
“Miss,” the gate attendant says expectantly, holding out her hand for my documents.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I find I’m in need of the ladies’ room.”
The attendant gives me a sympathetic look and points to the left. “The closest one is that way, miss.”
“Thank you.”
I walk as sedately as I can in the direction of the ladies’ room. As luck would have it, it’s also the same direction as baggage claim and the exit. Once I’m past the entrance to the restroom and out of sight of the gate, I break into a jog.
Ben was right when he said I needed to go home. He was just wrong about where home is.
I swing the door to Ben’s office open, knowing that’s where I’ll find him. It’s his retreat, his sanctuary, and the only place he’s going to be on a day like today.
I’m not wrong. He’s sitting in front of his computer, but he’s not working. Instead, he’s looking at a picture on the screen.
My picture. The one Evan Daniels had taken of me for the Maid for It website. The website is long gone, shut down on the day Daniels was arrested, but Ben managed to save my photo.
Confidence swells in my chest. He didn’t send me away because he didn’t want me anymore, but because he did.
I’m not sure if it’s the sound of the door opening or the sudden flood of light as the summer sun cuts through the interior darkness, but he shifts in his chair, disturbed by the intrusion.
“I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed, Travis. I don’t need a fucking nursemaid.”
My lips tug at the corners. “How about a maid to fuck instead?”
His reaction is every bit as dramatic as I expected. He swivels his chair around violently. For a second, I think he’s convinced I’m a hallucination, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize I’m flesh and blood.
He stands up, his expression menacing. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on a f
light to Mexico.”
“I decided not to go.”
In two steps, he’s looming over me. “It wasn’t up to you to decide.”
“Yes, it was,” I say evenly, despite the fact that I’m trembling, half with fear, half with arousal. Or maybe they are the same thing.
“I’m your master. I ordered you to go home.”
I could argue that since he took off my collar, I’m not his slave anymore, but I don’t. Instead, I say simply, “I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
I blink up at him and shrug. “I realized that this is home. You are home.”
That takes him aback, at least for a few seconds. He grabs my shoulders, probably to shake some sense into me, but as soon as his hands close around my flesh, his eyes darken and his nostrils flare. We’re both reminded of all the times we’ve done this before, the times he’s exerted his power and I’ve submitted. Only neither of us is thinking about me leaving. We’re both thinking about him pushing me down and fucking me senseless.
His lips thin. “You’re not going to change my mind about this, Gabi. You’re going back to Mexico if I have to tie you up and put you on the plane myself.”
“Then I suppose that’s what you’ll have to do.”
He tightens his fingers on my shoulders, and I wince.
“You’re not going to cry and plead for me to keep you like before?”
“Would it make a difference if I did?”
He pauses, a flicker of indecision crossing his features. “No.”
But in that space, I see opportunity. Hope.
“Then you had better go get the rope.”
“Don’t test me, Gabi,” he warns.
“I’m not testing you.” You’re testing yourself.
He releases my shoulders and a tense silence dances between us. We’re both breathing fast, both angry, both aroused. I don’t have to look down to know he’s sporting a healthy erection.
“Fine,” he says at last. “You can stay. On one condition.”
My stomach tightens, not only because his tone is ominous, but because it was too easy. Swaying him should have taken a lot longer, a lot more effort.