Blue Velvet

by Linnea May

  He took care of me much better than one would expect of a kidnapper. I never called him out on it, just as I never mentioned that he called me by my name. We both know he did it and that it means something, just as we both know subconsciously that his gentle, concerned caregiving means something.

  It may be my way out, my ticket to freedom. If he accepts that whatever it is that we’re doing is growing into something bigger, then we might be able move on from this. I have no idea exactly what that something different could look like, though.

  Could we ever be a normal couple? Probably not, considering how we met. But would I even want that?

  Normal. I’ve never known normal, and it has never been me.

  He has feelings for me, feelings that are stronger than they should be between a master and his slave. He doesn’t have to say it for me to know.

  He’s not ready to admit it, nor is he ready to hear that I’m right there with him.

  He’s not ready to hear that I’m ready to forgive him.

  This is where we’re at. We’ve spent three weeks together, so close to each other that it would wreck most couples, even those that have known each other for years, and we’ve only grown stronger.

  He still locks me up every time he leaves the house. He only leaves occasionally, always returning with groceries and something nice for me, something to wear, something to pretty myself. I thanked him profusely when he gave me my make-up back. As silly as it may sound, I really missed having it.

  “It’s a part of you,” he said when he gave it back to me. “A side of you that I haven’t seen in a while, so maybe it’s time to refresh my memory.”

  He always does that. Every time he does something nice for me, he phrases it as if he’s doing it for himself.

  I still don’t know what he does for a living, but it sure doesn’t seem to be an average nine-to-five, five-days a week job. He often works from home, too, which ends up being the perfect time to dole out any punishments I’m due. Once I was locked downstairs spread-eagle on the St. Andrew’s Cross, with a vibrating plug stuck up my ass, agonizing over the agitative pulsations that never quite took me over the edge. He watched me for a while, but then he left the room and only returned when he was done working.

  He’s out again right now. I don’t know where he went, but I heard him drive off a while ago. When I saw him for a few minutes this morning, he seemed stressed, absent, so much so that he forget to cuff my ankles together when he brought me upstairs for breakfast. I didn’t point it out to him, just like I don’t mention a lot of things these days. It’s as if I’ve put myself on hold, waiting for something to happen, for something that will break us free from this routine.

  But I don’t know what that is.

  The only possibility that comes to mind is if there’s a search underway to find me. I haven’t had access to the news for almost three weeks now, so I don’t know if I’ve been reported missing. My client must have reported that I was missing to the agency by now, right? The agency must have tried to contact me, and when I didn’t respond or show up, they must have started looking for me, right?

  They must be looking for me.

  A wave of cold terror tingles down my spine every time I consider the possibility that my family might have been contacted about my disappearance. My sister is the only one who knows that I’ve been working this job since college, and she’s always been kind enough not to mention it in front of my parents. I still don’t want them to know. Not because I’m ashamed, but because I know it would only make our relationship worse than it is already. We don’t need that. It’s okay the way it is. They live their lives, I live mine. Sometimes, I decide to visit them for Christmas, sometimes I don’t, and everybody is fine with that.

  They have never asked me about what I’m doing with my life. As long as I’m alive and able to pay my own bills, they’re fine. Knowing that I willingly sell my body, despite insisting on getting a college education even after they ridiculed the idea all my life, would only infuriate them beyond belief. Maybe it would even make them laugh. Maybe it would only give them more reasons to spite me and make fun of me.

  I don’t want them to know.

  But if there’s an ongoing search for me, which there must be by now, then it’s safe to assume that they know all about my life by now. I can’t shake the feeling that this is another reason for me to accept the current situation that I’m in. As long as I’m here being held as his captive, I won’t have to face the world outside. I don’t have to face my family. I don’t have to worry about anything other than pleasing him - and receiving pleasure in return.

  And damn it, he’s good at that. He has me wrapped around his finger, bending at his will with a smile on my face.

  He has his own ways of showing his affection to me, ways that may be weird to others, but are heavy with meaning for those, like me, who have an understanding of this lifestyle. My heart almost burst out of my chest when he closed a collar around my neck a few days ago. It’s not a permanent collar, and I could take it off at any time if I wanted to, but I don’t and I don’t want to. It’s symbolic that I’m his possession, and I treasure it, feeling desired and scared at the same time.

  There’s a leash attached to the collar, one that he uses to guide me, choke me, and sometimes just to pull me in closer for a kiss. He wants to see it on me every time he walks into the room, and he wants me to hold up the leash, presenting it to him using both hands as a gesture of handing over control to him.

  I feel even closer to him now, but I still don’t know his name. In my head, I sometimes call him J, because I’ve been told that it was the first letter of my client’s name. I know it’s not his name, but it’s the only thing I have - next to referring to him as my master. That’s what he is to me, my master, but I don’t feel this title really entails who he is and who we are together.

  I’ve been standing at the window like a dog waiting for its owner to return. I have to stand on my tiptoes and stretch as far as possible to see outside the tiny windows. The frosted glass makes it impossible to see anything clearly. I can only perceive movement and shadows, but the driveway is close enough that I’m able to hear every time he leaves and returns to the house. He always comes to see me right after he comes back, and I always greet him in the way I’ve been trained. The position he wants me to greet him in hasn’t changed, and neither have many other things between us.

  But I have changed, not only emotionally, but physically, too. The bleach blonde in my hair is starting to fade. It was a cheap treatment, and I should have known that it wouldn’t last the entire thirty-nine days, the original amount of time I was to spend with the client who wanted a blonde. My dark red natural-colored roots are starting to show more every single day. As my hair claims back its natural state back, I feel more like myself every time I look in the mirror.

  He has noticed it, too. There was a warm smile on his face the first time he pointed it out to me.

  “I was looking forward to this,” he said, curling a strand of hair around one of his fingers. “To see what you really look like.”

  I’m flattered that he likes my red hair because I’ve always considered it an essential part of me. I used to hate it, because it’s one of those things that people constantly point out to you, and kids have a tendency to make fun of it. But the older I got, the more I started to like it. The fact that he likes it, too, feels almost feels like an admission of love for who I really, truly am. But it’s an admission I know he’s not ready to make officially.

  My heart jumps when I hear his car rolling up on the driveway, and a broad smile appears on my face. I can hear the door closing. I can hear his steps coming toward the house, I can hear him unlocking the door, I can hear him enter, the door closing, and then his steps fading until he makes his way down to the basement.

  I move away from the window once he’s inside the house to get ready to present myself to him when he comes downstairs. The time between him closing the door and his step
s sounding on the stairs that lead down to the basement varies, but it never takes too long.

  Today, the wait is longer. I can’t hear him moving around in the house, but after a while, something else draws my attention.

  I can hear another car coming up the driveway.

  29

  Loran

  Meeting my brother is always infuriating. My hands are clenching around the wheel the entire drive home. I told him to leave me alone with this, and his response is to blackmail me? Is he fucking serious?

  I’m beginning to feel like an idiot for helping him out all those years ago. I was the idiot who took the blame for his tax fraud by acting as his bookkeeper and the main IRS point-of-contact for the business when he failed to file and pay his personal income taxes. He was stealing money from the payroll tax account, big fucking amounts of money. There’s no excuse for what he did, especially because it almost ruined our family’s business. By redirecting all the blame to me, I saved his neck and received what was left of his generous trust fund, in addition to his blood promise about discretion in regards to my dark desires that have gotten me into trouble more than once.

  Maybe it was mistake, even though it left me with more money than I had before and more than he has today. Our deal enabled me to have the financial means to build something of my own, a business that’s unrelated to my family and closer to my interests. Marketing automation software is something I understand, something in which there’s a lucrative future. It wasn’t easy to build, but it’s my own, a successful business that’s growing daily.

  And now he’s fucking threatening to bring all of that down, even though it’s hard to see how on Earth he thinks it could be done. I know he’s looking for something to hold over my head, and it annoys the fuck out of me that I was stupid enough to bring myself into a situation where there’s actually something to be discovered in the first place. Something that could destroy my business and my entire life.

  Well, it’s not exactly something, but someone.

  Someone who’s already taken so much from me, even though I was the one who took her.

  If she ever gets out of my house, if she’s ever discovered by anybody, if she ever speaks to anybody about what I did to her, then I’m done. My brother would have an easy job of it, if he’s the one to find out about her first.

  Of course, that will never happen.

  I can feel my mood lighten when I approach the house, knowing that she’s waiting for me inside, her green eyes filled with that adoration I’ve fought so hard to deserve. The collar around her neck has only made her more delicious to me, and the way her natural hair color is coming back, a little bit day by day, is the most beautiful sight. It’s almost as if the transition is a visualization of her transformation as she spends time with me, like the true Ruby is slowly reappearing from underneath everything that masked her true self when I first met her.

  I’m calm by the time I drive up the driveway, slowly approaching a house I never thought would feel as much like home as it does now. I’ve never spent as much time here as I have during the past three weeks. And I’ve never spent this much time with any other woman before.

  She’s changed so much. And so have I.

  Ruby might be the end of me, but I’m sure as hell going to enjoy every single moment I have with her until then.

  I get out of the car and hurry up the stairs to the front entrance, ideas about how I’m going to spend the rest of the day with my little toy bouncing back and forth inside my head. She has been a very good girl lately, only giving me reasons to punish her by choice, teasing, and playing, testing her limits. If I don’t watch out, she’ll turn into a little brat soon. She’s just so goddamn good at playing with my head. Seeing her laugh gives me just as much satisfaction as seeing her moan and cry. I always thought that tears of pain were the most beautiful thing on a woman’s face, but that was before I saw Ruby’s dazzling smile.

  I head upstairs before joining her in the basement, changing out of my clothes and washing my face. Both actions help me wash away the remnants from the horribly annoying meeting with my loser brother.

  If I was any more of a silly idiot, I’d be whistling as I make my way downstairs. The effect she has on me is undeniable, and as good as it feels, it’s also troubling as fuck.

  She’s standing in position when I open the door, her vibrant green eyes fixated on me, holding up the leash that’s attached to her collar in both hands, and wearing nothing but a black negligé that shows off her round tits. I couldn’t wish for a more perfect toy.

  The only thing that’s unsettling is the look on her face. It’s unusually serious and tense.

  “What’s wrong, my toy?” I ask, as I approach her in wide but calm steps.

  She looks up at me as if I was hiding something from her, as if she suspected me of being up to something.

  “Nothing,” she whispers, but I know it’s a lie.

  A moment later, we both hear it. The front door opens, and it’s followed by the thud of heavy steps as someone walks into the house.

  I can’t believe this is happening, but she’s the one who’s faster, using a moment of confusion on my part to dash past me, exposing yet another weakness. I’ve failed to lock the door behind me, allowing her to swing it open before I’m able to grab her.

  The sounds of her screams for help fill the air by the time she’s running up the stairs.

  30

  Ruby

  I don’t even know what I was thinking. I’m running up the stairs, yelling for help without any idea of what exactly I’m doing.

  To be honest, I didn’t think it would work. I didn’t think that I would get past him. I expected him to grab me before I could even reach the door, but it turns out that he was just as surprised as I was to hear the front door opening. I could see it on his face. He was not only surprised, but shocked. That means he didn’t expect anyone to follow him here, and that also means this could be my chance to escape.

  Even though I don’t know if that’s what I truly want anymore.

  I’m taking the stairs two steps at a time, flying up the stairs so fast that I almost end up running into the wall opposite them when I finally reach the first floor.

  I turn to the front door, and am met with the face of a tall man with equally dark eyes as my master’s. He looks to be a few years older, and his hair looks very different. It’s a lighter color and already beginning to turn gray at the temples. He’s not quite as handsome as the man who’s held me captive for the past few weeks, but the similarities are enough for me to believe that I’m standing in front of my master’s brother.

  “What the fuck!” the man exclaims when he sees me appear in front of him.

  His reaction makes me remember something that I didn’t take into account when I fled up here. I didn’t even think about my appearance. I totally forgot about the collar, the leash, and the fact that I’m barely dressed. I look like a sex slave, even to the untrained eye.

  My master closed in on me rather quickly. He emerges right next to me just a moment after I reach the first floor, his hand closing tightly around my upper arm as he pulls me close to him. I let it happen, but my eyes are fixated on the stranger who walked into the house.

  “He...,” I stammer, unable to finish the word.

  Help me. That’s what I should be saying. He’s kidnapped me, and I’ve been locked up in dungeon basement for the past three weeks. Help me get out of here.

  But the words don’t come out of my mouth. For whatever reason, I can’t get myself to say them.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” my master barks at the man, still holding me in a tight grip.

  The man’s facial expression changes into a sinister smile.

  “Holy shit, Loran,” he says, as he slowly approaches us. “What have we here?”

  He’s pretty tall, but not as tall as the man who’s been my world for the past three weeks.

  The man whose name I just heard for the very first time.<
br />
  “Loran,” I whisper absently, detaching my eyes from the intruder to look at him instead.

  His face is tense. He’s pressing his lips together, and he’s evading my eyes, staring instead at the man who’s coming closer to us. His expression is full of hate and anger.

  “What’s this, Loran?” the guy asks, and now I’m looking at him with a similar expression. He’s referring to me as if I was an item, not a person.

  “Another little slave you have chained up in here?” he adds, his eyes flickering wickedly.

  Despite not being the target of his threatening glare, I find myself worrying. Worrying for my safety just as much as his - Loran’s.

  The guy stops right in front of us, my master’s hand still closed around my upper arm and holding me close, as if he was afraid to lose me, while the guy continues glaring at us. His eyes move back and forth between the two of us, until they rest on me. His eyes narrow to evil little slits, and he hisses, “Who are you? What’s your story?”

  “Leave her out of this,” Loran growls.

  “Leave her out of what?” the guy asks, jutting his chin forward as if to challenge him. “If I’m not mistaken, she was the one who just fled up the stairs and straight into my arms in search for help?”

  He pauses and turns to me. “Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”

  A cold shiver of loathing is running down my spine. I can feel both their eyes on me, but Loran’s are the ones I choose to look at. He looks tense and apprehensive, and for good reason. This is my chance, this is why I ran up here, this is what I’ve been waiting for, for weeks.