"No. An artist of your level is good, but not worth what I paid. As you said the week we met, I could have hired you exclusively for far less."
"What are you afraid of?"
"That someone will use you against me."
"They would have to break in."
"Later. Once you are free."
I shrugged. "What would you care?"
"I would care."
"Why won't you explain?"
"I will, someday."
"I will try to accept your offer. I will try to give you another chance. I do not believe this conversation is over."
"Thank you." She raised her voice. "Maria, it's safe to come in."
I turned, and Maria entered the room. She was carrying an ice bucket with ice and two more cans of soda. We refreshed our drinks, and I even poured more blood for the vampire.
"What time is it?"
"Four-fifteen," Maria reported.
"I would like to go to the gym after the movie."
* * * *
I recovered. She let me wear the clothes for the rest of that day and all the next, and she doted on me continuously, but then when it was bedtime, she told me, "I want the clothes back. They are horrible, anyway."
We were in her room, sitting in front of the fireplace. I stood up and stripped out of them, folding them neatly and leaving them at the end of the sofa, then sat back down stiffly. She reached out and caressed my shoulders.
"You know, there are more socially acceptable ways to find a girlfriend."
She guffawed.
"I'm serious!"
"I know you are. Your wit is back. It pleases me."
"Bite me."
She grew still. "Do not take that tone with me."
I turned to face her. "I gave you the clothes and I am upset about it. I want a reward."
"Do not turn petulant, Melissa. It is unattractive. You will get rewards when it pleases me to give them."
I turned away to face the fire. I was embarrassed. She was right. I'd been acting like a brat, and I'd been doing it because I'd been getting away with it. I'd been testing limits, and I was suddenly angry with myself for having done so.
"Thank you."
There was a moment of silence before she said, "For what?"
"I was being a bitch. It was ugly. I hate ugliness. You caught it before it grew worse."
She leaned forward and put an arm around my shoulder. It felt nice, and I leaned against her.
"I don't know what I'm doing. I hate you."
"I don't think you do," she said.
"I should hate you."
"Probably but I don't think you do."
I stared at the fire for a while.
"What is to become of me?"
"You will have a difficult time, and you will be changed by it. Some of those changes will be good. Some will not. You will survive."
"Survive? Is that my goal? It seems a poor goal."
"I want you to draw again. I want you to paint again."
"I see no beauty."
"Then I will help you find beauty again."
"Not now. Not if it's going to be destroyed again."
I turned to her. "I see ugliness."
"You say that while looking at me."
"It was not meant that way."
"All right."
"I am afraid if I paint, I will be locked painting ugliness. I think of a flower, and in my mind, I paint it drooping and dead. I think of myself, and I paint me in a coffin, my face white and my hands crossed. I think of you, and you are drenched in blood from your thousand years of victims."
She turned away.
"You have killed to survive."
"Yes," she said.
"Why is your life more valuable than those of the humans you kill to eat?"
"I have never killed to eat, Melissa." She turned back to me. "It has been close a few times, but usually because I have been so upset or so desperate, and perhaps some died later because they were weak when they needed to be strong. But I have never directly killed for food."
"Can most vampires say that?"
"Young ones. It is easier now. Those older than two hundred years? No, very few."
I faced the fire, staring into the flames.
"Do I begin wearing the leash again tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Have I lost the privileges I held?"
"No."
I held my hand out to her and she took it in hers. "I am so broken, m'lady."
"Dented only. Not broken."
I turned to her, and I knew the tears welled in my eyes. "It is broken to want to be held by you, after what you did."
She took the request for what it was worth, pulling me into her arms and rocking me slowly.
"Will you carry me to bed, m'lady?"
"Yes, my lovely blood slave."
I didn't even mind that she called me that.
She gently picked me up, and I wrapped my arms around her neck, laying my head on her shoulder. She easily carried me down the hall and set me in my bed, pulling the covers over me.
"Are you anxious to leave me?"
"No."
"Will you hold me until I sleep?"
"I would like nothing more." She slipped into the bed with me, and I rolled over to lay my head on her, one hand across her chest.
"You don't have to pleasure me if you wanted to taste me. I don't deserve it."
She took my hand, lifting it to her mouth, and rubbed a sharp fang over a finger before putting it into her mouth. She sucked, and I knew all she got was a taste, and I got a tiny taste of pleasure.
I lay there for a while as she spoke soothingly. Just before I fell asleep, she said to me, "You will see beauty again, but it may be the path to beauty is through pain."
* * * *
The next day, things returned to normal. That is such an odd thing to say, as there was nothing normal about my situation, but they returned to the new normal. I showered and ate, I read for a while, and then I exercised.
In the early afternoon, Lady Dunn appeared in my room. I looked up, surprised to see her, then moved to my kneeling position. I was slow, but she smiled. I hadn't knelt to her in weeks. She stepped forward but stopped me from bending down to kiss her feet. She kissed the top of my head and caressed my cheek instead.
"I must go out tonight," she announced. "Would you care for my company until dinner?"
"Yes. Did you have anything specific in mind?"
"I do, but it starts with asking what you would like to do."
"Something I want and something you want?" I proposed.
"Yes."
"Racquetball? I will play very poorly."
"I would love to play."
She leashed me, as she had said she would, and led me to the gym. I indeed played poorly, and when we played a game, I scored no points, and thus owed her. We had decided that she should win more than foot rubs all the time, so I asked her what she had won.
"A kiss on the cheek," she said.
"That is all you want?"
"I want a great deal. It is all I want for winning. It is of great value to me."
"Then you shall have it." I moved into her arms, and then I took my time, wrapping my arms around her neck before moving closer, finally pressing my lips against her cheek. I kissed it once, then the other side, then the first side, each kiss soft and lingering. She hugged me tightly when I was done, then led me back to the shower and watched while I cleaned. She leashed me again, and I asked her what she wanted.
"A walk outside."
I smiled. "All right."
She led me to the back door. There was a closet near the door, and she opened it, showing me my clothing. There were shoes, stockings, a skirt, and a blouse. They were plain and simple. I stared at them and whispered, "Thank you."
"I would like to dress you, and then undress you later."
And so I stood while she pulled all the clothing onto me, a big human doll, but she was sweet and gentle, and I didn't mind. T
hen she took my arm with one hand and the leash with the other, and together we stepped outside.
We roamed the grounds, not talking. I stopped and looked at the house, and thought of drawing it. The windows became eyes, and at the end, the bushes were claws. The door we used for our walks was a twisted maw.
I turned away.
We eventually stepped into the garden, all the beautiful flowers. We arrived at the middle, and she released me, sinking to the earth, perhaps expecting me to join her. Instead, I stepped to the flowers, tulips, and I stared at them, thinking of a painting. But the tulip became ringed with teeth, and there was blood dripping down the stem.
I didn't tell her what I saw.
I turned to her and buried my face against her shoulder.
We stayed there for a time, and then she said, "I am sorry. I wish I had more time."
"Will you come to me tonight when you return?"
"It will be very late."
"Will you sample me before you go?"
"No. I must remain on edge."
We stood, and she collected my leash. "Do you need to tug?"
"I would not want to hurt you."
"Do you need to tug?"
"Yes."
I intentionally pulled away, inducing the first tug, and after that, she led me to the house that way, then removed my clothes and brought me to my room. She tugged me into a kneeling position and removed the leash.
"You have a new privilege. Ashlyn may bring you to the theater the nights I am not home. However, you may not go alone."
"Thank you."
She kissed my hair and then she was gone.
Ashlyn appeared a short while later, knocking at my door before letting herself in.
"Movie night?" she asked.
I smiled. "I'd love to."
"Mom says we can eat in there if we want, or we can eat up here."
"Your choice."
"Let's eat there, then we have time for at least two movies."
"All right."
"Great! Let's go raid the kitchen."
Maria had two trays ready for us, but she declined joining us. I let Ashlyn pick the movies, "as long as they aren't too stupid", and together we laughed. We watched two, but then she said, "I'd stay for one more, but it's late."
"Thank you for bringing me," I replied.
"You're welcome."
We'd already cleaned up from dinner, so it was only a matter of walking me back upstairs. "I am to lock you in. I am sorry."
"Don't be. I wasn't going anywhere, anyway."
* * * *
The next day, I sat down with my sketchpad. I did drawing after drawing, ten, twelve in all. I drew flowers, and they were ringed with teeth, or shredded by some flower-eating machine, or were impaled through my own body.
I drew a bird, and it launched itself at a bunny rabbit, ripping the hapless creature to shreds.
I tried just to draw some simple shapes, but they turned into knives or broken mirrors.
I stood at the mirror and did a self-portrait, but when I was done, my eyes were sunken, my cheeks hollow.
And I had fangs.
I hid everything, then ran to the gym and began exercising. I exercised until I couldn't move.
* * * *
The next day, I drew again. I drew a baby, and then I realized it was decapitated. I brought out the big guns.
I drew an angel, and it was the angel of death, drawn in great detail, standing atop a pile of corpses. All of the corpses looked like me.
I bent over the paper and cried quietly.
* * * *
Two days later, carrying my sketchpad, I went in search of Lady Dunn. She was not in her bedroom, or at least she was not answering my knock, and I was not so bold as to enter. I wasn't allowed in the wing with her office, so I headed to the kitchen. I wasn't allowed there, either. When I stepped in, Maria said, "You can't be here! Go now and I won't report you!"
"I'll report myself," I said. "I am looking for her. Do you know where she is?"
"Her office."
"Is she alone?"
"She is now. She wasn't earlier."
"Thank you."
I turned around and violated my restrictions for a second time. I knocked at her office door and was bade to enter.
She was seated behind her desk, and her expression clouded when she saw me.
"I must confess to two violations of the rules," I told her immediately. "I have been to the kitchen, looking for you, and then I came here."
"Come in," she said. "Kneel."
I knelt where she pointed on the other side of her desk from her. "Why have you violated the rules?"
"I desperately need your help, Lady Dunn." The tears began to flow before I was done.
"Melissa, what is wrong?"
"May I approach?"
She nodded, so I stood and set the sketchpad on her desk, then I returned to my position, kneeling on the floor.
"Look."
I watched her as she opened the pad. She began looking through the drawings.
"These are brilliant," she said. "Dark, but brilliant."
She looked through all of them, lingering on some longer than others. When she was done, she looked up. "I do not understand."
"You once promised me something," I said. "You promised me that if I came to you, you would help me. I am coming to you. You must take me to the garden, surrounded by the flowers I can no longer paint, and you must bleed me. You must bleed me until I lay limp and dead."
"No!" she screamed. "I won't do it!"
I bowed my head, the tears falling down my cheeks.
"They are horrible," I said. "They are all so horrible. It's all I see. Horror after horror. You promised. You promised. You must do it."
"No!" she screamed again, and then she was around the desk, standing in front of me. "I won't."
I knelt there for a long time, or so it seemed, and then I said in a dull voice, "I knew you lied to me. I knew your promises were nothing. Give you a chance? Ha." I stood up. "If you won't do it, then I must do it myself."
I fled.
But of course, she was so much faster, and she stopped me barely outside her door.
"Let me go!" I screamed. I yanked my arm, and she released me, and I ran, but she pursued me. "Let me go! Let me go!"
Instead, she pulled me to her. "Stop it! Melissa, stop it!"
"You saw! You saw! It's gone, it's all gone. Oh god, it's all ugly." I sobbed for a moment, then I pushed away. "Let me go!"
I surprised her, and again I ran for my room, and this time she let me go, but she anticipated my destination, and she was waiting for me when I stepped in.
"What do you think you're going to do?"
"Smash the mirror and slash my throat so badly you can't heal it."
"How?"
"With that chair."
"Fine," she said. "Go ahead. But if you can't do it, then you will listen to me."
"Fine." I grabbed the chair with two hands and, screaming, I ran into the bathroom. I threw the chair against the mirror.
And watched it bounce off and knock me in the face.
"Damn it!" I grabbed the chair and began repeatedly bashing it against the mirror, and it refused to break. Soon the chair began to fall to pieces, and soon all I was holding were two of the legs, and I continued to bash them into the mirror, over and over, sobbing.
The vampire stepped into the bathroom, captured my wrists, pulled the remnants of the chair from me. She pulled me into her arms.
"Do you think none of us have ever had a suicidal blood slave before?" she asked gently. "We wouldn't possibly make it that easy to acquire a piece of glass."
"Please kill me. Please. I can't live without it. I can't!"
She held me tightly to her chest.
"Listen to me, Melissa. You will paint beauty again. I absolutely promise you."
"You can't promise that. You can't even promise not to hurt me."
"I need you to do something. I need you to dr
aw and paint what you see right now."
"I'll never earn the paints."
"You will. A few more weeks, and you will. You just need the rest of your strength back, and you need to trust me."
"Trust you. Trust you. Trust you. That's your line? You did this to me, but I'm supposed to trust you?"
"Yes. In the meantime, you are going to draw ugliness and despair. The world needs to see it."
"Why?"
"I don't know why. I just know in my heart it does."
I pushed away, and she let me go.
"You promised you would help me!"
"I am helping you. But we're doing it my way first. I am going to show you more ugliness, and you are going to draw it, and you are going to earn the paints and paint more ugliness. But then I will bring you to beauty and joy. I promise."
"Your promises are hard to trust."
"I know."
"If I do what you say, and I still see no beauty, you will give me my death."
"It will crush my heart, but yes."
"One month."
"Three years."
I stared at her.
"Three years. Three years of your life, and I promise you, you will paint beauty again."
"You have done this to me after just two months, and now you want three years." My throat closed, and it was all I could do to even breathe, but I pushed back the fear. "You saw what I produce now. If that is what I see now, what am I going to see at the end?"
"Please," she said, "Melissa, I am learning."
"You've had hundreds of years to learn how to treat someone like a human being. I believe there's an adage about old dogs. You get your kicks out of it."
"Melissa," she said, "it hasn't been that bad."
I stared at her, suddenly calm. "You accepted applause for subjugating me. You accepted applause for turning me into nothing but a walking meal. You then showed everyone how you had tamed me, your pet artist, fallen from grace for trying to help an old lady." Then I was screaming again. "You destroyed me, and if you weren't a heartless bitch, you would have the grace to feel guilty for it instead of pride." My voice rose even higher as I began beating against her chest. "You promised to help me!"
I expected her to fly into a rage. Instead she captured my hands and pulled me to her, holding me tightly. "Melissa," she said, "you're through the worst. You can survive this."
"I don't want to just survive! Is that my hope for life? To survive? I am to survive, but never see beauty again. A worthless shell of a human being?" That has said quietly, but then I said forcefully, "I'm not interested!"
Blood Slave Page 18