by S. N. Graves
This was therapy too. If she could just keep putting one foot in front of the other, face him, survive him, then she could beat him. Finally and forever. One foot in front of the other, a slow trudge, and she was there. He walked in front of her, up his landscaped drive, then opened the door for her. He held it in a mock gentlemanly fashion, polite enough to contain his chuckle behind his gleaming teeth as she slogged across the threshold.
All she had to do was count the steps until this was over.
He closed the door and came up behind her to rest a hand on her shoulder. “You need a drink…maybe a bath too. You smell like wet dog.”
“What do you expect? I have you all over me.”
He snorted a response, dismissing the insult as he might a petulant child. Then he moved past her to ascend the stairs with ambitious strides that left her glaring at his back and straining to keep pace.
Sam soon settled for just keeping him in sight as he led her through a maze of hallways and open rooms. The decor of the home interior was opulent, spotlessly clean; it looked painfully unlived in, which was no wonder considering its sheer size. Sam could never be comfortable in a home like this, but once more she found the house fitting for the man. It was Arles—theatrically elegant and frightening on the outside, barren and empty on the inside.
He disappeared into one of the rooms at the end of a long, dimly lit hallway, and she peeked inside around the edge of the door. It had the look of an expensive hotel room, the kind of place one paid big money to use for a few weeks at a resort. It was a good bit larger than her whole house.
He went about turning on music and pouring himself a drink from the bar in a manner that seemed purely ritual. Once the glass was empty and another poured, he turned and took note of her again. When he caught her shivering and propping herself up against the door frame, waiting for him to direct her to her room, he had the audacity to appear surprised that she was even there. As if her presence was so insignificant it was utterly forgettable.
“Get undressed and out of those wet clothes.”
“Why?” She had a pretty good idea why. This was another test. “I don’t think—”
“Did I ask you to? No. You have lost the privilege of thinking until further notice. I don’t care what you think or don’t right now, save for one thing.” He crossed the room, a hungry cat intent on a cheese-fat mouse, extending a single elegant claw to rest on her twitchy little nose in illustration of that one fine point. “You do as you are told until we come to an understanding. Think you can handle that?”
She narrowed her eyes, but didn’t respond. Rather she brought shaky hands up to work the clasps of his jacket free. It wasn’t as if he could humiliate her any more, not after the car incident. As he stepped away to give her space, she entered the room. The jacket was the first to go, tossed to the floor, followed by her pants and the bunny undies to add to the soggy pile. When she was through, she knew he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. She had his full debauched, leering attention. Even crossing her arms over her chest didn’t help alleviate the violation of his piercing stare.
“Happy now?” she asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” Sighing like some blissful frat boy, he gestured to a door off at their side. “There is actually a bathroom…just to the left there. That’s more what I meant. Undressed, bathed, but thank you for that. It’s nice to get a good look at what I am paying for.”
She closed her eyes, and made a mortified beeline for the bathroom where she slammed the door nearly in time to miss his chuckling.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she stripped off her wrist-comm and dropped it beside the sink, then stepped into the shower. She turned the hot water on full and gave the cold valve a little tap—just enough to keep her skin from being melted from her bones—and let the steady stream hit her shoulders and spread. It heated quickly, scalding her skin pink within seconds.
For some time she didn’t bother to wash. The burning sting and then the satisfying numbness that followed under the stream were enough. There was no washing Arles away anyhow. She could feel his touch crawling deep beneath her skin and knew no measure of scrubbing would chase him out. It was only once the water had begun to cool that she took up the bar of soap and tried to get physically clean, scouring the blood and smell of him from her skin.
The rest of her would just have to remain soiled.
She finished and stepped out onto the fluffy white rug, then wrapped a towel about herself and secured it well. When she looked up, she caught the blurry image of herself standing there in a full-length mirror beside the sink. She picked up another towel and scrubbed it over the glass until she could make out the details of her face, and then turned her attention to that gaping hole in her shoulder.
Even working with animals all her life, she’d never seen a fresh bite like that. It was ghastly, red, and throbbing with heat…but not pain. Maybe she was going into shock? She pulled down another towel and dabbed at it, but the white fabric came away mostly clean. She could see the muscle, see the blood, a fresh scarlet splash against her skin, but nothing oozed, no leaking.
Looked more like a wound given postmortem—to a cadaver. Hell, maybe she was dead? Turned into a zombie a day before she almost certainly, maybe, would have committed to a proper diet. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the tits—fat forever.
“Got you something to warm you up. And hopefully settle your nerves.”
She gave a startled squawk and her feet slipped on the tile as he appeared right next to her. She grabbed the sink to keep from breaking her neck, but still cracked her knee hard against the floor.
He caught her under the biceps and lifted her, holding her steady, then offered her the glass of liquor he’d brought with him. “Have a drink and relax. I’d like to see you in better spirits.”
“You want to see me more pliable.”
“That too.”
She pulled free of him and dropped onto the closed lid of the toilet, suspiciously eyeing the glass in his hand. He was probably trying to drug her. She’d wake up tomorrow feeling all sorts of vile and have no memory of how she got that way. Perhaps it would be a blessing. “I don’t drink.”
“Sam, come on.” He put the glass on the sink counter just within her reach, then lowered to a crouch before her, settled partly between her thighs. His hands came to rest on her knees, only to inch higher as he massaged her scalded flesh with his searing touch. “This doesn’t have to be so hard. It doesn’t have to be agonizing. I don’t want to be the bad guy here.”
Sam forced her knees together and turned her gaze heavenward to the crannies of the ceiling spackle. She let her thoughts wander as far from him as she could manage, doing her best to pretend he wasn’t there, and hoping he’d get bored enough to back off. Her bathroom at home was her one place of solace—bathing, hot showers, time spent in the water and away from the world. Without it she’d go mad. He could ruin that feeling of safety in a matter of seconds if he so desired. Molesting her against the sink would sufficiently kill the future warm fuzzy feelings a leisurely bath could provide.
A moment of silence passed, and then a moment more, before he ran his hands delicately over the moist curves of her calves. “You just hate me to the very limits of the word, don’t you?”
Her jaw tightened. “You have no idea.”
“Fine, you want bad…I’ll give you bad.” He rose and planted a hand on either side of her hips, pressing his cheek to hers affectionately, then turned his head to nuzzle her ear. “We need to get a few things straight, little sister.” The title held more than a bit of taunt, but there was no doubting the serious warning in his voice. “Your life with me can be hell. I’m good at making hells. Comes with having a law degree. Or you can make me happy, do as I say, smile as much as possible, and convince me you’re enjoying yourself as much as I plan to. You manage that, and you’ll find living here not as intolerable as you suspect it will be.” He pulled back and met her glare. “Smile.�
�
She bared her teeth. It could have been a smile, but one glance in the mirror proved it looked more like she was about to eat his face. She actually considered that, what with how close he insisted on being. After an age of him just staring back at her with that large and painful grin on her face, she raised a questioning brow.
His own smile was genuine, if not a bit disappointed. Leaning forward once more, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m going to need you to work on that.”
Sam allowed her face to return to a more relaxed scowl, and she again considered the drink he’d brought her. “Is it drugged?”
“Does it matter?”
“Just fucking tell me.”
“It’s a little strong, but I figured you could use it.”
She reached past his arm and curled her fingers around the tall fluted glass to bring it between them. She didn’t have to put it under her nose to smell the high concentration of alcohol in it. “What is it, lighter fluid?”
“Vodka mostly. You can smell it?”
Vodka didn’t have a scent. She’d had sips of it before. He had to be lying. “It reeks. Like sticking my nose in gasoline.”
“Well, don’t stick your nose in it. Drink it. It’s fruity and smooth. You’ll like it.”
She gave it a final sniff, and then tipped up the glass to swallow two hard and fast gulps. It was sweet, but burned like hell. That tingling sensation took her breath away, and she nearly spilled the rest of it as she coughed at its bite.
“Told you it’s strong. Probably want to take it a little slower.” With that, he stood, moving to the side to allow her passage back into the main room. “Come. Had your dinner brought to the room…unless you’d prefer I serve you in the bathroom?”
Sam could practically feel the alcohol already going straight to her head as she abandoned the toilet seat and reached a fumbling hand for her wrist-comm. It wasn’t there. Shit. So he planned to completely cut her off from the world, eh? She brought the glass to her lips and forced down another swallow before shuffling out of the bathroom.
Arles was close behind her, ushering her to a table in the center of the room, on which a single place was set. A bowl of greens and exotic leafy things that she could only guess was a salad, grilled vegetables and rice—topped with a massive piece of meat.
“Sit, eat. We’ve a lot of catching up to do.”
“There is a dead thing on that plate.” She wasn’t eating that slab of flesh. It looked genuine, and that meant something had died to put it there.
“It’s a steak. You need it. You’re killing yourself.”
“I’m not eating that.” And she wasn’t touching the rice that mingled with it.
As she lowered into her chair, she pulled the salad to the edge of the table and peeked into its leafiness, almost anticipating big fat bugs to come crawling forth as it was disturbed. A few pokes with a fork and she was satisfied there was nothing living or once living tainting the bowl. “I don’t eat meat.”
He allowed her several bites of the greens before he rounded her, taking a chair and dragging it closer. When he sat, their knees could touch with but the subtlest of movements. “Did your father put you on to this? Did he encourage you not to eat meat?”
“Let it go, Arles. Not happening.” She put the salad down and brought the glass to her lips, draining half of it cleanly before setting it back to the table. She needed to be a lot more wasted if he expected her to swallow that dead…whatever it was, without retching.
“How long has it been? More than a year since you’ve had real food? Tell me.”
“A long damn time, okay? Meat is awful, and cruel and…I’m not eating it.”
“Your body is built to consume and digest meat. Without it, you become a sickly herbivore, prone to passing out. You will die.” He picked up her steak fork and knife and cut away a small piece of flesh before offering it up to her as he might a child refusing to eat carrots. “You are going to eat it. Just be thankful it’s not bloody as all hell.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then you’re in breach of contract.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Arles. They make cruelty-free food. You can even buy it steak-shaped if it makes you feel better. I know that takes all the fun out of it for you, but I am not eating that.”
“You don’t make meat. That laboratory shit is toxic. Your diet is killing you.”
“Better me than some poor cow.”
The loaded fork sagged in his hand. “Poor cow? You shitting me with this?”
Sam snarled, staring him down as he nudged that fork at her lips again. He wasn’t going to quit. He would badger her until she cracked or he made good on his threats to report Dad. She had to man up. This wouldn’t be the worst thing he’d force her to endure by a long shot. If she wigged out now, she’d not make it through a night, much less an indefinite imprisonment. She could do this. It would blow, but Arles wasn’t going to unhinge her that easily.
She opened her mouth and snapped at the meat, yanking it from the fork with her teeth. Swallowing was a whole different matter. She couldn’t muster up the stomach to actually start chewing, and as she felt the juices slide down her throat, she fought to disconnect their flavor from the big-eyed creatures they came from.
While she agonized over the first piece, he cleaved off another. “When did you become such a bleeding heart for animals anyway?”
“I got educated.” She gnawed the flesh, but it just didn’t break down into something she could comfortably swallow, so she spoke around it. “And seeing you wearing my dog’s guts probably didn’t help.”
Actually, her aversion to meat had come about in college after watching eight hours of student video on organic meat factories. She now had a difficult time even eating the lab-grown variety without getting sick to her stomach. Where the reference to Caine, her long-gone Rottweiler, had come from, she hadn’t a clue. Hadn’t thought of him in ages, but the stricken look on Arles’s face was worth the memory.
Arles had turned practically ashen, but anger quickly replaced that dazed look in his eyes. For the first time that evening, she had managed to smack the calculation from his face in favor of real fury. It wasn’t a pretty thing. In fact, his face could turn so purely hateful so quickly it inspired the notion that those gnashing teeth might tear into her again. “That’s a load of shit. Eat your damn meat.”
She took another gulp of her drink. “You seriously need to get these mood swings checked out. Someone might start thinking you’re a little craz—”
He shoved another morsel of steak into her mouth.
Once it was on her tongue, she held it there, loathing the idea of it squishing against her palate as had the last, so she endeavored to swallow it whole. She winced as she struggled to choke it down. Her face grew hot with the effort as he refilled her glass and pushed it toward her. It was the same toxic mix he had given her earlier, but it helped wash down the insidious beef and left her coughing away her composure.
He was silent for short while then, seeming to collect himself slowly as he sipped at his own drink. She returned her attention to the salad, nibbling at tomatoes and greens in silence until he leaned in toward her once more. “Tell me something. Something about back then. I know you say you have no memory, but I hardly believe that. You have to remember something. It isn’t possible he just…erased everything. Tell me something about it.”
“I liked cereal. I used to watch animation. Before it was declared seditious.” The reply came out with no thought. “Had a lot of toy horses, which you beheaded, I might add. Just before you shaved my stuffed animals and switched all the heads on my dolls.”
“I was a child. And a boy.” He shrugged. “Girl toys were always more interesting inside out anyway. Tell me something that matters. Memory or no memory, you certainly had a lot to say in court. Why? How much of that did you believe and how much was fed to you by Daddy’s lawyer?”
“You were there. You tell me.”
“I was…in the courtroom, but not inside your head.”
Two more red veggies were uncovered and stuffed into her mouth to stifle the drunken giggle threatening to escape. It left her feeling a bit like an amused chipmunk, which she suddenly found hilarious. She barely got them chewed and down her throat before the laughter bubbled up. When she managed to control herself, she washed the food down with more drink.
“I’m beginning to think you’ve had enough.” He took the glass from her hand with some struggle and set it far down the table. She stood and reached for it, and realized just how right he was.
The movement made the room shift under her feet, and she had to accept his steadying hands as she settled back into her seat to keep from falling to the floor. The whole revelation that she was shitfaced drunk was all it took to make her laughter a hysterical spectacle, which he took in while reclining in his seat and observing her like a bizarre form of entertainment. That bugged her, his staring at her as if it wasn’t all his fault she was wasted. She hadn’t even noticed she’d picked up the fork until he darted to the side to avoid being skewered by it as it whizzed past his head. “Bastard.”
“Bitch.” If not for the smirk and genuine lack of hostility in his gaze, she might have been offended. As she was, the filthy word only inspired snorting giggles.
He sighed in visible exasperation and rose from the chair, taking the alcohol source with him to set it on the bar. She had the distinct, satisfying feeling she was ruining all his fun.
Until he returned to stand behind her, resting his hands on the back of her chair. “What about now? What keeps you doing what you do every day?”
She went still. She didn’t like him where she couldn’t see him, but strangely she didn’t feel as anxious that he was close as she usually did. Must’ve been the alcohol. She started to respond, then remembered last second to swallow the food in her mouth. It was hard to get her thoughts together, though, what with him looming out of sight, and so she tipped her head back to press against his hands.