by Amy Isan
Money for me?
"Come, Lily," he says. His accent still surprises me sometimes. He stands up and extends his hand. He pockets the picture and places the Polaroid camera on the end table. "Let's eat something."
"Yes, sir," I say, taking his hand. He helps me to my feet and we walk out of the studio. He clicks the lights off before we leave, but I catch the sight of the Polaroid camera still basking in the glow of a dimming lamp just before the door shuts.
— — —
He takes me back to the dining hall, the one I've been dreaming of since we first ate game hen there. The olive-skinned man pulls my chair out for me and lets me sit, before he pushes me in and rounds the long table to reach his seat. He didn't cuff me this time. Maybe he's starting to trust me?
Then again... none of the servants are cuffed.
After a few moments of silence, two servants bring some food out to us. The food is hidden under silver domes again, and we wait for the servants to leave. It's funny. I'm sure they see and make the food, but they're not allowed to see it presented on the table? I wait for Giovanni's signal, and when he raises his dome to reveal his food, I follow his lead.
Eggs benedict and one slice of toast, already jellied up. It looks marvelous, making the steak I ate yesterday look like junk food. I mean, you could be eating five star class filet and feel like it's complete trash if you're chained up. Like you're a dog tied to a tree trying to get a squirrel that's just out of reach. Kibble doesn't sound as good.
Giovanni takes a bite and then looks up. His eyes rest on me and I realize it's because I haven't even picked up my fork yet. I pick up my fork and take a bite, savoring the hollandaise and ham.
"Unbelievable," I say, swallowing the mouthful. "Sir."
"Eggs benedict has always been my favorite," he comments offhandedly as he slices into another bite. I think it's the only real thing I know about him right now, especially considering... everything else that we've done together. Or he's done to me. I swallow another bite and nod enthusiastically.
"Not for me, but I think I'm becoming a convert right now."
He finishes another bite. "You're learning. That's good."
I shudder, thinking of the hidden kitchen, filled with other women who weren't good enough for him. Good enough for... those men to buy?
"Sir...?"
"Yes?"
I try and breach the subject carefully. "What were those gentlemen doing in the photography studio?"
"They were some clients of mine. They asked to see my work, so I showed them. Why? What did you think they were doing there?" His voice doesn't sound suspicious, but I'm not really one to know if he's hiding something from me. If I'm decent at masking myself, he must be a master of it.
"To buy me," I admit. I stare down at my food, avoiding his eyes. I don't want to look into those stormy sea green eyes and see that I'm right. They might reveal the truth and crush me. He might break his mask for just a split second. I want him to lie to me.
"No," he says. "They weren't here to buy you, I don't know why you'd think that." He places his fork and knife down on the plate with delicate precision, but they still clink against the ceramic. "Lily, no one is going to buy you."
My hands are shaking, because I want to believe him. I can't though. It's that... or the kitchens. Isn't it? I shake my head and gulp. "I don't believe you, sir."
He raises his eyebrow at me, surprised. "You don't?"
"Monica told me that if a woman isn't suited for your purposes... they're relegated to become servants... sir."
Giovanni's face turns crimson and he stares past my chair, undoubtedly to the door that leads into the kitchens. He roars, making me flinch and duck my head down. "Monica!"
Immediately, there's a crash of sound in the kitchen. After a few moments of clanging glass and metal, Monica bursts out of the swinging doors, looking breathless. She smoothes out her dress and tidies up her hair, pulling it up and tucking it into a bun on her head. She crosses the room toward the table and stands next to my chair. Her gaze moves to me and she stares like I'm the one who is in deep shit. Giovanni quickly snaps his fingers.
"Monica, what were you doing yesterday while I was gone?"
"Keeping your new toy company, sir," she says. Not a hint of humor in her voice. I want to stab her with my knife while she isn't looking, but she probably wouldn't even flinch.
"Keeping her company, you say?" Giovanni says. He stands which pushes his chair back. It's quiet enough that I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. His hands are splayed on the table, and he's staring down at his half-finished plate. He raises his head and looks at Monica. "Or telling her that she was going to become a servant?"
Monica gapes and says nothing. She turns and looks at me with a fury on her face I've never seen on anyone before. Giovanni slams his fist on the table and both of our plates rattle from the force. It shouldn't be possible to rattle a table so massive. Monica stares back at him, her cool composure vanishing.
"Get the fuck out of this house, right now."
"Sir! Master!" she begs, collapsing to her knees, her face draining. My words coming out of her mouth. She clasps her hands together on the table and begs. "Don't make me go! What will I do?"
"You'll stop undermining me. You'll stop antagonizing my special guests."
"Special?" she says, her voice cracking with her bitten back sobs. She wipes off her face and grows stern again. She rises to her feet and grabs my knife from my plate before I can react. She holds the serrated edge to my throat and grabs my hair, yanking me to my feet and dragging me away from my chair. Shit. Shit, I should have stabbed her when I had the chance. I don't know what to do, but I'm sure she's not bluffing. The metal has some hollandaise on it, and I can feel her wet face against my neck. "What's so god damn special about her, huh!"
Giovanni raises his hands to try and calm her, but he only angers Monica more. She digs the blade into my neck, and the sharp edges break my skin. I let out a strangled cry. "You told me I was special, Giovanni! Now you're taking this whore all over the house, showing her off, making us clean her. You said I was the last one! That you had found the perfect woman."
"I was wrong, clearly," Giovanni says. He sits down and folds his hands together, looking contemplative. "You have no soul, Monica."
"No soul?" Her grip loosens on my hair, and I take the chance to throw my head back and knock her backward. She stumbles away from me and drops the knife. I sweep it up with my foot and pick it up, before pointing it right at her. She's holding her nose and blood drips between her fingers. "You fucking bitch!"
Giovanni speaks again, his tone unaffected. "Monica. I told you. Leave."
"No! You can't make me leave! I have to make sure the servants are obedient. I have to take care of you! Who cares about my soul? You can have it! It's all yours! You've always had it!"
"There's nothing to have, Monica. Get out before I do something we'll both regret."
Monica rushes at me and I manage to dodge her and she runs right into the table. She slams into it with all her force, before crumpling to the floor and gripping her stomach. Giovanni climbs over the table, his shoes loud on the surface, and he descends on my side. He picks up Monica by the arm and lifts her to her feet. "Time for you to go." He pushes her toward the exit.
She just glares at him, her eyes switching to me as she walks out the door. The front of her shirt is covered in dried and fresh blood. Her face is bruised and wet. I'm still holding the knife with a death-grip. My heart is pounding in my ears, half from what Monica did, half from what Giovanni was telling her. Her soul? Is that what he wanted from me?
Monica leaves the room through the double doors, and Giovanni turns to me and grabs my wrist. My hand feels frozen. He massages my forearm until I relax and the knife clatters to the table. He touches my chin and turns my face to look at my neck. I can feel blood dripping down my neck, but I'm not in too much pain. Still holding my face up, he grabs my napkin and puts pressure on my neck. "Hold this. W
e should have the doctor look at it, to be safe."
"No, sir, it's okay."
His expression darkens. "No, it isn't." He yells for some more servants and two women come out from the kitchen. "Take her to her room, I'll have the doctor come tend to her soon." The women nod and hoist me up. Giovanni's eyes follow me all the way out of the room, and for the first time, all I can see in them is pain.
CHAPTER 10
Only minutes after the servants dropped me off in my room, Giovanni showed up with a doctor in tow. Does the doctor live on the island, or in Giovanni's house? It doesn't matter.
"Lily, this is Dr. Garcia," Giovanni introduces him.
"How are you today, Lily?" Dr. Garcia asks. He sits down next to me on my bed and opens the small bag he has with him. He leans in close and takes my hand off my neck. The napkin is sticky with blood, and there's so much of it. He takes the napkin and tosses it aside and peers close to my neck. He pulls out a gauze pad and wipes my neck with it, and with each swipe I feel the blood start pooling again.
"Well," I look at Giovanni, who nods. "I just got stabbed with a knife. Otherwise... good."
"That's good," the doctor says. "Just a couple of lacerations... five... six it looks like." He takes a bandage and peels it from its wrapping, and wipes the blood away. "No, seven lacerations. None are a threat though. One more cut and your carotid artery would've been split open... I wouldn't even be here tending to you if that happened."
"Will they scar?" I ask, looking to Giovanni to see if that's the right thing to ask. Is that what he's worried about? I don't even know what he's thinking anymore. Was him telling Monica off a confession that she was right, or a defense? It sounded... accurate enough.
"A little bit," Dr. Garcia says. "At least, you don't need stitches. And you're not dead." He pulls the bandage off my neck and wipes down the wound with some antiseptic. The burning sensation lasts for only a couple of seconds, but it magnifies the pain by ten for that instant. He opens a new bandage and applies it to my neck. "Hold this here," he says. He takes some medical tape and fastens the bandage in place, before letting me let go. "That should work. It isn't the most graceful looking thing, but it'll keep it from getting blood all over your clothes."
"Thank you doctor," Giovanni says. The soft-spoken doctor rises to his feet and shakes Giovanni's hand. "Not a problem. You know where to find me," he says before slipping out of the room.
Giovanni and I are alone now. I want to ask him questions, make him elaborate on what Monica was claiming, but I can't bring myself to.
"I didn't get to finish breakfast, master," I say.
He frowns and turns to the door. Before I can say anything else, he's out and gone. I rest my head back on the pillow and lie down. A few minutes later, I hear the stomping of feet as they rush to my door. The door opens and Giovanni steps inside my room, the silver platter in hands. He crosses my room and hands me the platter. It's still warm, and he even brought my fork, too. He hands me his knife. "Yours was covered in blood."
"Thank you... sir." I take it from him and continue eating. There isn't a lot of food left, but every little bit helps when I feel like I've been starving the last couple days.
"Anything else you need?" he asks. I look up at him, stunned. Did he actually ask me if I needed anything? I have the compulsion to ask for more food, but I shake my head in shock. He continues, "You can have the rest of mine, or I can have the kitchen whip up some more."
"That... would be heavenly, master." I say. He nods and disappears from the room to let me eat.
What happened? I barely got hurt and he's suddenly... protecting me? Was he always trying to protect me? I don't know what to think anymore, especially after what just happened with Monica. I finish my plate and I set the platter aside on my nightstand. After a few minutes, a servant comes in with another platter of eggs benedict, and I thank them. I finish off the second serving quickly, only hindered little by the pulsating throb of my neck. Not having Giovanni's eyes on me makes it easier to focus on eating, that's for sure. My eyes can't stray to his body, and my voice doesn't shake from my heartbeat.
I set both platters on top of each other and put them on the floor. I'm sure I'll trip over it at some point in the day, but right now, I just want to sleep. My stomach is full, my neck is sore, and my mind is swirling. I shut my eyes and am out in an instant.
— — —
With sleep, comes strange dreams. Dreams in a place that looks like Giovanni's mansion, but it's overgrown and old. Where the courtyard has vines curling up the rafters to the second floor and spilling into the rooms. Giovanni and I are the only ones who live in this mansion, unable to care for it anymore. Why? I look at my hands and see them wrinkled and old. Giovanni's hair is silver, and his face gives me a lined smile when our eyes meet each other. He lifts a Polaroid from nowhere and takes a picture of me, the flash blinding me. I start to call out for him to quit it, but when the light fades, I'm not in the mansion anymore. I'm among the rows and rows of flowers outside. The garden he must have chosen. A garden full of flowers, tender things that require love and care. Is that what he's providing to me? Love and care? Or... abuse and hate?
A monster wouldn't dash to get me food, to get me a doctor, unless he was a special kind of monster. I don't know what to think. Maybe he isn't a monster at all...
What did I have before? A cheating boyfriend? A loser's job? No money? Now I'm in Italy, or some island near it, and a man with an impossible cash-flow spanks me. He ties me up. He leaves me to think on things. What did I have before? Freedom? Or Routine? Is there a difference between Routine and Prison? What about being a servant and slavery? Suddenly the gardens all wilt and die at once, like a time-lapse of pictures, and servants appear to form a line leading into the house. Were they always there, or did the flowers block what I could see?
Giovanni's hand is on my back, and I turn to look at him. He's young again, and he kisses me on the lips. I feel myself sink into that kiss, like the earth beneath my feet just turned into mud and I'm disappearing into it. If I don't fight it, it'll swallow me whole. He releases me from his embrace and I'm up to my hips in the muddy hole. He stares down at me, secure from his grounded location. Is this my life... without him?
I wake up. The bed is cold and wet with my sweat. I wipe my forehead on the pillow and turn over to open the window and let a breeze in. The moonlight shines against the bars. The stacked silver platters are gone, and there's still no clock in this room.
Time hasn't really mattered since I got here though. Is that another part of Giovanni's game? To make me so reliant on him, I couldn't even imagine anything else?
If she had told me everything the first day I was here, I might have believed her. One nagging memory of Giovanni's charm would have made it easier, and that was his reaction to me touching him through his pants in his hotel room.
Now, I have even more evidence that it isn't the truth. The spankings, the pleasure, the way he brought me food and tended to my injury. Giovanni may not be human, but he isn't a monster either. Or... maybe he was one and has become the other.
I rise from my bed and am surprised that I'm not chained to it. Of course, whoever took the dishes could have chained me up, but must've been told not to. I can't sleep in this bed anymore, the mattress feels too chilled.
Maybe... Giovanni will let me sleep with him? It's worth a shot...
I go to my door and the handle moves with little force. The courtyard is bathed in moonlight, giving an eerie glow to the stone floor. It isn't overgrown with needle vines or rose bushes, but tenderly trimmed and cared for. Bushes that would be wild have been cut back into squares or spheres.
I try and be quiet as I make my way down the right hallway and to the front stairs. I already know they don't creak, so I rush up them as if there's a ghost from my room nipping at my heels. My past following me up the steps. The chill in the air is worse up here, from the open roof. I'm surprised my room wasn't even colder.
I make my wa
y to the opposite end of the second floor and head toward Giovanni's room. The double doors are closed, but surely not locked. I reach them and catch my breath, not even realizing that I was walking so fast. Am I that excited?
I try one handle and find it's locked. So I can't even ask him. He's locked me out. My face burns and just before I turn to head back to my room, I try the other handle and find that side unlocked. A single door of the two swings into the darkened room and I can tell one thing is certain: Giovanni isn't here. The moonlight strikes his bed at an angle and makes his nicely made bed look like it's a showroom model. Well, except the chains and metal strips.
Where is he then?
I try and think of the dozens of other rooms in the house. Is he with another servant? Can't I satisfy him even with my injury? No way. Getting another woman? Not possible.
I think hard about where he could be...
The sleeping bag in the room above mine is the only other room I've been in that wasn't shown to me by anyone. I turn from Giovanni's hallway and dash down the carpet until I reach the courtyard again. I make it to my corner of the courtyard and stand in front of the door. I steady my shaking hand and grasp the knob and turn it slowly.
Bathed in moonlight, the sleeping bag isn't empty this time. Resting on his back, his suit still on and no doubt in some pain from the hardwood floor, is Giovanni. I walk closer to him and kneel down, before touching his face.
He mutters and opens his eyes, looking surprised and confused when he finally looks up at me.
"What are you doing in here?" he asks, sleep still stuck in his throat.
"I was going to ask you the same, sir. I went to your room and you weren't there."
He looks away from me and up and out the iron-barred window, so similar to mine.
The Italian photographer exhales deeply, like he's unweaving a tight knot that he's been trying to unthread for weeks. "This is where I go to sleep when I feel guilty."