by P. J. Fox
Other than that, they’d shared the road with other pedestrians and a few cyclists. Now that they were further into the bowels of the town, they had the road almost completely to themselves. Tourists didn’t come here; the laundry lines strung between buildings testified to that. But the town—a name that Ash had said, but Belle couldn’t pronounce—was clean enough even here. The houses were a little down at the heels, but well-tended.
She felt like she’d been transported back in time. As though any moment, a cudgel-carrying city watch might appear. Or a knight on horseback, his sword slung at his side. What would she be in such a world? What would Ash be?
Occupied with such musings, she didn’t question where they were going. Merely enjoyed the scenery. Ash, too, seemed contented with his own thoughts and walked beside her in silence.
The cobblestone streets were only slightly uneven, the product Belle thought of frost heaves. Growing up in Maine, she was well familiar with those. And with the suspicious-but-curious stares of the locals. Small towns were the same all over the world. There was no way to pretend that you fit in, either, no matter how you dressed; these were people who’d grown up knowing each other, and would know you for a stranger.
Belle remembered one particular gravestone, that had been about half a mile from her first house. It was in one of those small, gated cemeteries that had once been near the back of someone’s field but were now directly by the side of the highway. She used to walk there, sometimes, studying the gravestones and imagining the stories behind them. She never told anybody; they would have thought her morbid. But she wasn’t interested in these people’s deaths, or in the fact that they were dead. She was interested in their lives.
He moved here when he was one, the stone had read. He died when he was a hundred and one. He was almost one of us. That was how Belle had always felt, in each of their homes: almost one of them. Almost, but never quite. Too new, too different. And cursed with a father that the whole town either pitied or hated. Whichever town it was.
“What are you thinking?”
“That the lack of cars completes the illusion.”
He considered her response. “I’ve often wondered if I were born in the wrong age.”
They passed a cat, curled up on the lid of a rain barrel. Peering down the narrow alley between houses, Belle was struck by a sudden and unexpected view of the mountains. As though this whole town were a stage set, ready to be struck and carried off at a moment’s notice. In that respect, too, the town reminded her of her home. In so many places there was a thin veneer of civilization—traffic lights, post offices, all the things you’d expect—and then nothing. On one side of the houses were sidewalks and on the other side, mountains. Moose appeared at intersections in the pre-dawn light, confused.
She shared as much with Ash, who nodded thoughtfully. “I should like to see this place,” he said.
“Julia Cove?” The one place, she supposed, that she’d ever thought of as home.
“You make it sound so interesting.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Then I’m leading you on,” she said, “because it’s not.”
“Oh, but it must be. It produced you.”
She turned. She didn’t want to hear this. Even worse than his open acknowledgment of her as his—his property was this. This pretense that there was something more.
He didn’t care about her. She mattered about as much to him as an old pair of shoes. He wasn’t courting her, and this wasn’t a date. He wanted her to care about him, or at least to pretend to, because that would be convenient for him. And meanwhile he was—what? Practicing his seduction skills on her, so they’d be in top form when he met a real woman?
He stopped. She stopped, too. But she refused to look at him. Instead, she found herself staring at a wall. At a plaque, actually. There were two dates carved in a square of gray-veined marble along with the words Vlad Dracul. She didn’t need to know the language to understand that she was looking at a house, which at least claimed to be the birthplace—or death place, perhaps—of Vlad the Impaler.
“He’s a folk hero, here.”
“He was an evil man,” Belle countered.
“Many of the best leaders have ever been evil men.”
“He impaled a hundred thousand people.”
“At least. Most likely more. There are well-documented accounts of the Ottoman army turning back in fright when it encountered tens of thousands of rotting corpses on the banks of the Danube. He used to host dinners among his victims, feasting while they moaned.” He paused, considering the plaque. “An effective tool of psychological warfare, forcing one’s more…reluctant allies to dine amongst a forest of stakes. To demonstrate, even as they were treated—superficially, at least—like allies, what would happen to them if they failed in their support.” Ash sounded frankly admiring, which turned her stomach.
“Which is exactly what you’re doing to me.” Belle spoke before she could stop herself.
“What?” He seemed genuinely taken aback, which upset her more.
“This.” She gestured. “Is a lie.” She realized that she was on the verge of tears. A hateful admission, in front of this man. And why was this happening, now of all times? She needed her wits about her, not to dissolve into an emotional mess at her first taste of freedom in—in what seemed like years. A lifetime. This whole experience had been too much like real life, only serving to highlight what she didn’t have.
“You don’t care about me. I’m nothing to you. A thing.” And he wanted her to pretend differently, for his own obscure reasons, but she wouldn’t.
“This is truly how you feel.” His voice was flat.
She glared back challengingly. They were alone in the narrow street; the last few stragglers aside, tourist season was over. Even amidst the warmth, she could taste fall in the air.
“I haven’t taken you out enough,” he said.
“What?” Now it was her turn to be stunned.
“I thought….” He made a slight, offhanded gesture. “You ran.”
She ran nowhere. Around in circles. “It’s not the same as being free.”
He pulled her to him. Startled, she didn’t protest. She didn’t understand what was happening—what had been happening. His fingers dug into the flesh of her arms. She was reminded, again, of how strong he was. He could crush her head against the wall of the house behind her as easily as she could crush an egg. A wall that had been built, generations ago, of dressed stone and that had withstood the test of time like nothing in Maine ever had. A wall behind which one of the world’s most famously evil men had once slumbered. Had he dreamed, she wondered?
“Belle.”
She had to tilt her head back to make eye contact. Their noses were almost touching. His expression was cool but deep within his eyes, something burned. She’d always likened their color to the gray of a winter ocean but now they were the color of smoke. She wanted someone to pass by, to break the spell, but no one did.
“I want you to be happy, too.”
“This….” She trailed off. “This…is almost like real life.”
“This is real life.” There was a surprising vehemence to his tone, although his words were quiet. And then his lips were on hers, demanding, and she was kissing him back. All the pent-up rage and frustration poured out of her in this simple animal act. She wasn’t being rational; she barely knew what she was doing. She hated him. But, strangely, tangling her fingers in his hair as she opened her mouth to his felt like a release.
He wasn’t gentle. His lips were bruising, his touch demanding. He forced her up against the wall as he forced his tongue inside her mouth, exploring. This wasn’t the calm, jaded man who’d controlled their interactions almost from the beginning but someone else entirely: fevered and almost desperate as he claimed her body with his own. She found it difficult to breathe, trapped as she was between two unyielding forces. He was as hard as the stone behind her. Everywhere.
His hand slid up into her h
air, loosening her casual bun. When he spoke, his lips barely left hers. “I refuse to let you go,” he breathed. “I want you to want to be here, with me, but it doesn’t matter if you do. I’ll keep you locked up in the closet if I have to.”
“It doesn’t matter?” she echoed.
“I’m a selfish man,” he replied, regaining something of his usual detachment. “It would of course be more convenient for me if you wished to remain. On that score you are correct.” He pulled back slightly, although he was still very close. His presence was at once overbearing and overwhelming. “But it doesn’t matter if you do. You’re mine, regardless.”
“And if I don’t wish to be?”
A small quirk of the lips that might have been a smile and might have been something else came and was gone. She almost would have called it a spasm of pain, if she hadn’t known better. “I couldn’t admit this to myself at the time, but I would have stolen you straight from the club. What happened was…unfortunate for you, admittedly, but a boon to me.
“I saw you and I knew I had to have you.”
“I felt you watching me.”
“The only girl who’d bring lectures on ancient Sumeria to a club.”
“Journal articles,” she corrected him without thinking.
“Indeed.”
FORTY-FOUR
“So,” she said, “you never told me about your first time.”
Only that it had been, in his words, confusing. She’d been curious ever since. She didn’t couldn’t guess at what had given her the courage to ask now. Or, for that matter, why she hadn’t had the courage before. It wasn’t as though Ash were opposed to questions. He seemed to rather enjoy them. As, she supposed, most narcissists must.
They were back in the car, having returned from their walk. Neither of them had spoken much, although this time she’d taken his arm when he offered it. She’d thought about what he’d said: that this was real life. The sense of unreality was back and stronger than ever. Had she really been a different person, only a few weeks ago?
He’d tipped the valet, who’d been pleasant enough. He’d held the door open for Belle again. Belle wondered, briefly, where the car had been during their excursion. It seemed impossible that such a thing would just be parked. Like a regular car.
And now they were on their way—home?
She almost wanted to laugh.
Instead, she found herself talking.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said, his eyes on the road. But he didn’t seem upset that she’d asked. She was right, she decided; he did like questions. And didn’t she, a small voice asked?
Didn’t everyone?
She put on an expression of mock surprise. “You—reluctant to talk about yourself?”
She didn’t know why she was teasing him. She’d never understood the effect he had on her. Had, and was continuing to have. But one thing she did know was that she was sick of analyzing: him, herself, and her response to every little thing. She wanted to let go. To stop being so nervous all the time. To stop castigating herself for not being enough of a victim.
She wanted…to take back control.
Not to run.
But to acknowledge, finally, that this man was her equal. He wasn’t a figure to be feared. He had no power over her but what she gave to him, regardless of what he did. A person couldn’t control their fate; hadn’t being kidnapped taught her that? But what they could control was how they reacted.
She was who she was, and she refused to change.
He wasn’t a stranger. He had been, at one point. And he still should be; however long she felt like she’d known him, in truth she’d only known him a few weeks. And yet she suspected that she knew him as well, or better, than anyone. Perhaps because she was only a slave, he’d allowed her into his inner world. She’d heard his thoughts on any number of topics, some of them exceedingly personal. And he, in turn, had heard hers.
They’d had sex. Often. They slept in the same bed.
Was she as powerless as she believed?
He wouldn’t let her go, this was true. He would, by his own admission, sooner lock her in the closet than release her back into the world. He wanted, not to admire her from a distance but to control her every movement. And this—her lack of ability to simply get up and leave, whenever she chose—had come to dominate her perception of everything else. To the point where she saw even Luna as her captor. Poor, pathetic Luna who could barely get out of her own way and that on a good day.
But, slave or no slave, Belle wasn’t invisible. Ash had told her, last night and again this morning, that she was more to him than some ornament. That he’d give her whatever she asked, as long as it kept her with him.
It was, Belle decided, time to test that theory.
The simple fact was that here she was, in a car that cost more than most Hollywood actors’ houses, dressed in clothing that cost more than what her mother could earn in two weeks, riding through the most glorious landscape she’d ever seen in some of the most glorious weather she’d ever seen, with a man who wanted her. Who wanted to take care of her. To shower her with presents. To tell her how much he needed her.
This wasn’t what she wanted, but the truth was, she didn’t know what she did want.
Her life had been at a crossroads the night they’d met, although she hadn’t been willing to admit as much to herself at the time. At least not consciously. Ash wasn’t the kind of man she dreamed of, growing up: he was vain, spoiled, and selfish. She didn’t care about money and money, she sometimes thought, was all he did care about.
And yet she had to admit that she did find him attractive. Had the first time she’d seen him, although the effect had been spoiled by her unease. And by, later, his opening his mouth. She’d been immediately put off by how confident he was. In his own place in the world and in his right to everything in it. That he’d been flirting with her hadn’t even occurred to her at the time; what would someone like him want with someone like her?
But the answer to that was obvious, wasn’t it?
He was entranced by her, because she was different. She wasn’t foolish enough to link his brand of fascination with some kind of emotional investment. She wasn’t sure that it was possible for two people, in their relative positions, to feel anything real for each other.
Even so, there was some bond between them. Even if it was only the bond of shared need. He needed someone with whom he could express this dark and deviant part of himself and she needed him to not hurt her, or outright kill her.
Had they passed the point where he would? She didn’t know.
All she knew was that she was sick of running. Sick of running, and in need of a rest. If this afternoon’s experiences had proved anything, then they’d proved that. She simply couldn’t maintain this level of effort, this level of vigilance, forever.
She glanced over at him. He was relaxed in his seat, one hand resting casually on the wheel and the other on the shift knob. Only his eyes betrayed his concentration. He was a confident driver, without being showy.
She knew the breed, just as she knew the others: boy-men who took their mufflers out to simulate the sounds of a larger and more impressive engine. They drove old Pontiacs with bolted-on spoilers that couldn’t be adjusted and smelled of Axe. Then there were the middle aged men with Corvettes, cars they’d saved up their entire lives to buy and then didn’t drive. With chromed up wheels and paint jobs that cost more than Pontiacs, they rusted in their driveways like so many oversized Hot Wheels toys.
Ash was nothing like the men she’d known, either in Maine or once she’d come to Cambridge. With his bespoke shirts and exotic colognes, he was what her father would refer to as a three dollar bill. She was reminded of a term she’d learned at school: Horatian. A term used by Lord Byron and his cronies, referring to a bisexual man. Presumably a dig at Horatio Hornblower; according to Belle’s father, the British navy was at the time full of three dollar bills. And was still, today.
But Ash exuded a kin
d of raw masculinity that they hadn’t, that the men she’d grown up with hadn’t. They’d relied on props like cars and chewing tobacco, associating themselves with traditionally masculine things to give others—and themselves—the illusion that they were masculine. They were terrified, down to a man, that someone would notice they weren’t.
Whereas Ash…was simply himself.
“You,” he said, “have been a vicious little minx all afternoon.”
“Then I suppose,” she said, affecting an air of innocence, “that you’ll have to punish me.”
“Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“What’s your favorite form of torture?”
He glanced over at her, surprised, before returning his eyes to the road.
“I mean…is it caning? Hearing the sharp crack of wood against flesh? Or is it the more intimate act of spanking, feeling that same flesh warm under your hand as the blood pools beneath it? Or is it the color of bruises you like, the visible proof that you’ve left your mark?”
“I have a paddle, the head of which is a Josephine knot. Lovely thing, really. The handle is a French grapevine braid.”
“Josephine?” she echoed.
“Because that’s how the knot, which resembles a four leaf clover, is known in polite seafaring circles.” He smiled slightly. “If such things exist. Which I rather think they don’t.”
“So the big, burly sailors were paddling each other?”
“There’s something erotic, don’t you think, about running a gauntlet?”
Belle was familiar with the term, which referred to a now-outdated practice of the navies all over the world. The gauntlet referred to two matching rows of soldiers who faced each other, often with each soldier bearing a weapon. That weapon could be anything from a flogger to a sock filled with soap, or coins. The penitent had to run between the rows. A subaltern walked in front of him, holding a blade to his chest, to prevent him from running. If the condemned was able to exit the gauntlet, then his faults would be deemed paid and he would rejoin his comrades with a clean slate.