by Maren Smith
Inside, my internal clock is panicking, even though I am safe now. At least from the sun. I should have been in bed a long time ago. Once upon a time, vampires slept in coffins as a way of hiding from mortals during our most vulnerable daylight hours. A dead person lying in a bed tends to stir alarm. A dead person in a coffin, now that’s just business as usual. It’s also gone on for so long, that most of my contemporaries still do it.
I, however, never liked the claustrophobic necessity of coffins or even tombs. I have a normal king-sized bed down here. My floors are concrete, the ceiling vaulted, and the air is constantly circulating so it never smells musty or enclosed. It’s clean and tidy, and I like the illusion of space.
I can already feel the heaviness of daytime leeching the strength from my body as I kick off my shoes and put myself to bed. I gingerly touch the tender spots on my face as I lie back, but no sooner does my head touch the pillow than does my own weariness forcibly take over.
With any luck, I’ll dream of something restful, and not the incredibly troublesome being upstairs in my bedroom.
Merris
The fit I threw the minute Aleron walked out and left me here, a prisoner in his bedroom, was as brief as it was futile. My ribs hurt, but more than that, it’s been a long night and I’m exhausted. The chain and restraints piss me off, but I’m just too tired to do anything more than fall face down into bed and—all right, I sulk first, but then I sleep.
I don’t know what time I eventually wake up to the subtle jostle of the doorknob turning, but I know it’s no longer morning. My head throbs and my mouth is dry as cotton swabs, like I haven’t had water in forever. I don’t know if that’s a result of getting shot, my thoroughly screwed-up sleep schedule, or the fact that I haven’t had so much as a sip of anything for more than twelve hours now. And yet, the instant I see that elderly Mexican woman poke her head in to look at me, I forget everything but her.
Seeing I’m awake, she comes into the room far enough to put the lunch tray she’s carrying on the floor.
I scramble onto my knees, thrusting my chained wrists out at her. “Help me!”
Laughing, averting her eyes, seeming horribly embarrassed, she rattles off in Spanish, “Gracias pero no. No me impliques en tus juegos sexuales.”
I have no idea what she’s just said, but she only shakes her head, patting at me with a staying hand, and quickly retreats again.
On the food tray, she’s brought me two bottles of water so cold that condensation is already beading up on the plastic surface. There’s also a glass of orange juice, what looks and smells like a sausage-spinach omelet, and buttered toast with two aspirin tablets next to my plate.
I could be an absolute bitch and throw that tray and all its contents after her down the hall, but I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, and my absolute-bitch-bone is severely underdeveloped.
I have more than enough chain to retrieve the tray, and trust me, nothing could ever taste half as sweet as the orange juice I swallow as I knock back those aspirin. I eat everything she brought and finish my meal with an entire bottle of water. The other I hoard, just in case this was the only meal Aleron the Dick Vampire, and my new prison warden, intends to give me.
The throbbing in my head gradually eases. So does the pain in my side. I think I doze off again, and when I snap awake sometime later, the room is slightly darker. The sun’s position is over the house now, and my bladder’s saying I missed certain key functions the first time I woke up. Fortunately, my chain is long enough to reach the bathroom where I take care of business first and my ribs second. It really was just a graze, although it doesn’t make it feel any better as I daub it in antibiotic and try to put a bandage on it.
My chain is also long enough to reach his walk-in closet, where I shamelessly justify my snooping with the knowledge that if he didn’t want me in here, he wouldn’t have taken me hostage to begin with.
I don’t understand how Aleron thinks. Not at all. In the living room, he has veritable shrines set up to his hats, watches, and eclectic art collections. In his bedroom walk-in closet, he has thirty of the same kind of shirt, twenty of the same kind of trousers, eight near identical jackets and eight shoe boxes stuffed with the exact same kind of shoe—black leather, black laces, polished to a shine. It’s insane. I can’t even begin to compare this to a real closet. For as big as it is, most of the rack and shelf space is entirely empty.
There’s a huge wardrobe-style cupboard in the very back. My chain is only just long enough for me to open it with the help of a wooden hanger. I expected to find it empty too, but instead, it’s packed full of bondage and implements of sexual torture the likes of which I haven’t seen anywhere except what is occasionally used for comedic relief on television or in the movies.
This isn’t exactly the social circle I roam in.
Mostly because I don’t really have a social life. Apart from a few Facebook friends and people I work with, Jez was the whole of my world.
Nothing in my experience gives me any way to relate to what I’m seeing or the situation that I’m in.
Out in the main bedroom, I hear the door open again and the elder Mexican lady comes back in to fetch the lunch tray.
“Wait!” I try to catch her. “Help me, please!”
But showing her my wrist restraints only makes her shake her head again.
“No.” She blushes furiously, averting her gaze. “No quiero meter ni hablar contigo ni me interesa tus juegos sexuales. No sex games, por favor.”
Sex games? What? I stand there dumbfounded. “I’m not playing… really?” I shake my chains at her. “Call 9-1-1!”
But she’s already gone, having closed the door behind her. As far as rescuers go, she’s pretty useless, but she did bring me a fresh bottle of water. It’s sitting on top of the dresser by the door, already gathering moisture. It’s comforting to know I’m not going to be left here in neglect until Aleron decides to come back for me. On the other hand, I really don’t think I’m content to wait around until then, like some wilting flower in need of rescue. I’m a modern-day woman, damn it. I’ll rescue myself.
I clamber up onto the high four-poster bed, but trying to stand on the mattress is like trying to stand on a cloud of jello. It’s very soft and kind of wobbly, although the bedframe itself is heavy enough not to move. Sinking into softness all the way up to my ankles, I gather all the slack out of my chain, plant my bare feet against the mattress and pull. The iron bedframe doesn’t break, and neither does the chain. I’m not sure why that surprises me.
Hugging my protesting ribs with one arm, I flop down on my butt, brace both feet against the footrail and promptly spike myself in the toes because the entire wrought-iron frame of the bed is made to look like a rose trellis, complete with black vines and flowers, and even thorns. Lots of thorns, spiking out all over everywhere. I destroy the bedding, ripping back the blankets and wadding them into a thick wedge just so I have a place to put my feet where they won’t get punctured as I throw the whole of my bodyweight into pulling on that damn chain. Aleron padlocked the end around two twists of wrought-iron vine and a swirly, thorny loop, and nothing is budging no matter how hard I pull. The lock the chain is bound to is frustratingly solid and so is the rail I’m attached to.
The soft flesh of my fingers aches long before I stop.
I need more leverage.
I’m an ancient Egyptian in the oasis of this bedroom, looking for a fucking fulcrum, and I finally find one. A lattice of trellis bars with thorn-like prongs make up the roof of this bed and hold the heavy canopy curtains in an elegant arch more than four feet above my head when I’m standing on the mattress. If I can lasso some excess chain up over one of those thorny barbs, then like a rope and pulley system, I can increase the force behind each pull, hopefully enough to break free.
The only problem, this bed was made for a giant and my reaching fingers are too short to reach even the lowest thorn. If I stand on the footrail, I might have a chance. Unfortunately, there�
�s a thorny problem with that. Even had I not left my shoes in the bathroom when I tried to call in southern Arizona’s Finest to rescue me, I’m pretty sure I’d break both ankles the second I tried to climb up there in heels.
Aleron has shoes in the closet.
Hopping down off the bed, I run to grab a box. It’s like playing dress-up in Daddy’s Sunday shoes. Even tied down as tight as I can get them, my feet are tiny in these things, but I’m determined. I’m going to make them work.
Except they don’t work. Yes, they protect my feet from the thorns, but the vining footrail isn’t very wide. Worse yet, the thorns sink into the thick soles of his shoes as I pull myself carefully up against one post and stand on the footrail. There’s not time even to turn around before I’m stuck and when I try to lift my foot, pulling up on the oversized shoe to free it, I lose my balance. It’s either leap free of both the stuck shoes and the bed, or break my leg on the way down.
As it is, I nearly bean my forehead on the dresser and the chain makes a horrible clatter catching on various thorns all the way down to the floor.
The shoes are now speared to the footrail and stuck fast.
Okay, Plan B. I’m going to have to rodeo this bastard.
Only now it’s not as easy as just climbing back onto the bed, not unless I want the chain that follows me wrapped around a bedpost. I have to get back up over the spikey footrail the way I fell, or I’m screwed.
There’s thorns everywhere. Who would ever sleep in a bed like this, much less commission its creation?
Duh… vampire. What does he care if the occupant gets pricked, when every cut’s a midnight snack?
I grab the blankets, folding each down into a dense square barrier that would be a whole lot thicker if only I lived in Alaska. In Arizona… blankets are only a thin suggestion. But I pry the shoes off the thorns on the upper part of the railing, and put them on the lower part so my feet have some protection and, using both pillows, I very carefully climb back over the railing the way I’d fallen.
I cut and scratch myself in half a dozen places, including the palms of my hands when the thorns puncture right through the blanket and pillows, but I make it up and over.
I’ve got to get out of here. I really don’t want to have to explain to Aleron what I did to his shoes.
Pulling the length of chain back up onto the bed, I adjust the excess until I’ve found the middle of it. Searching the iron rose trellis above me, I pick a thorn that’s curved at enough of an upward angle to prevent it from accidentally slipping off. It’s going to be tricky. The velvet canopy is heavy across the top. So, I’m going to have to throw hard enough to smack the cloth up and, hopefully, get the chain to loop onto the thorn, rather than simply bounce right back and hit me in the head or face.
I start throwing.
I hit myself twice, but I’m determined and—shockingly—on my eleventh or twelfth attempt, I actually hook the chain.
Right in the center of a single link.
Which promptly slides straight down onto the curving thorn, becoming stuck there.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shake the chain, trying to ripple it back up and off. As near as I can tell, though, I only stick it farther. I didn’t even manage to get the chain caught up there in the middle of its twelve or fifteen-foot length. Oh no, I’m hooked to the roof of this thing, chained by the wrists on a leash that’s only four or so feet long.
I can’t even sit down anymore now without stretching my arms to their absolute limit.
Damn it.
Chapter 7
Merris
I feel like a fish, dangling from the fisherman’s line, with absolutely no hope of rescue and nothing to do except watch through the crack in the bedroom curtains as the sun slowly sinks.
I can’t even see it anymore. My window faces east. But I can see the hue of the sky changing colors, gradually deepening, the baby blue of this beautiful day turning the color of a bruise as it darkens. I have no idea how long I’ve hung here, alternately switching between standing and dangling with my arms pulled straight up. I think it’s been hours, the molasses-slow passage of time occasionally punctuated by the increasingly mortified housekeeper wandering in and out.
I don’t know which of us my change in predicament has embarrassed more. The first time she saw me in it was when she brought a supper tray. She looked at the chain, at the thorn, shook her head as she looked at me, and then climbed up onto the bed alongside me.
“Help me,” I begged, but she only put half a turkey sandwich in my right hand and an uncapped water bottle in my left, and climbed back down again. “Don’t go!” I cried.
“No involve sex games!” she replied, almost as desperately.
And so, with nothing else to do, I ate my stupid sandwich, drank my stupid water, and I hung there while slowly the sky got darker. The purpling bruising hue turned grudgingly inkier and the shadows inside my room grew longer. I stood up. I sat down. I wished I’d been smart enough to turn a light on, because now I was sitting in the dark.
I also wish I’d not drunk so much water or had the foresight to visit the bathroom before hanging myself up like this. I really have to pee.
The house goes quiet. Not that the elderly woman who’d been taking care of me all day had made a lot of noise, but occasionally I heard her. I know she cleaned up the mess I made with Aleron’s bust. I also heard a vacuum in the distance. One of the times she brought me water, she puttered through the room long enough to clean the bathroom and, although she looked longingly at the bed, she left again without touching it.
I could maybe understand it if I thought she was frightened. Does she know she’s working for a vampire? Surely, she has to know something about this whole situation is odd. She has to. But now, every time I see her, the impression I get isn’t one of fear. It’s one of incredible embarrassment.
I’d like to think if I’d walked in on something like this, I’d let a ‘fish’ go, but there’s no telling what Aleron’s told her or how often that poor woman comes to work to find something like this going on.
The thorns are on this bed for a reason. The nape of my neck prickles as I regard them in the failing light and try my best to pretend my nipples aren’t prickling too. What in the hell does he use them for, and am I about to find out?
The longer the silence stretches on, the worse the prickling gets. This right here is why wild animals would rather chew off a paw than keep waiting. With each new star that winks on, I’m getting closer to that moment when I know Aleron is going to come for me. Surely, he has to be awake by now.
What’s taking him so long?
My ears prick. Was that a whisper of sound I just heard, the soft scuff of a hard-soled shoe on polished stone floors?
I was wrong. This is why animals chew their paws off. This, this heightening sense of impending doom that now crawls up my back to dig with thorny claws into that warning spot between my itching shoulder blades. I tug. It’s pure reflex, and quite hopeless. If I could have worked my hands free without dislocating both thumbs, I would have hours ago.
I’m a wimp when it comes to pain.
—Aleron’s arm slipping around my waist, pulling me back into the embrace of his hard body as his other gloved hand slides down between my legs, pricking my mons, my folds, my clit in the most exquisite combination of ecstasy and discomfort—
My traitor’s body doesn’t care how long I’ve hung here. All of a sudden, all I feel is the aura of him, pausing at the other bathroom where he lingers—to shower, to warm his skin long enough for his hands to feel normal when he touches me?—before continuing on to the kitchen.
I smell coffee. The unmistakable sizzle of bacon. Toast.
He’s wending his way closer, coming to me now, and I feel it with such seductive certainty that even without a whisper of sound to betray him, I know he’s there a half second before the door latch turns.
The door pushes open and there he is, haloed in shadow. As far as I can tell, ther
e isn’t a single light on anywhere in the house, and yet I know he can see me. I can damn near hear the quirk of his smile a half second before he turns on the bedroom light. He has a breakfast tray for one balanced in one hand, and the look on his face is completely unsurprised. He looks at me before his gaze follows the chain up to the ceiling.
“In about two seconds, I’m going to pee your bed,” I say. I’m trying not to sound petulant, but I am not amused.
Putting the tray on the dresser, he climbs up onto the bed, fishing a set of padlock keys out of his trouser pockets. He takes each of my wrists in turn, freeing me from the cuffs and sparking such a thrill from his touch alone that I am instantly and irrationally annoyed.
“Pervert.” Jumping off the bed, I run to the bathroom with his low chuckle teasing me all the way. “What did you tell that poor woman?”
“That you and I have a bet going on whether or not you could break free before nightfall.”
“Bullshit!” I call through the closed door. “She thought we were playing sex games!”
“That’s because I asked her not to be here when I ‘got home,’ since I didn’t plan to be quiet about taking my prize once you’d failed. Have you any idea how much a pair of Brunello Cucinelli shoes cost?”
I emerge from the bathroom after washing my hands. “Like you don’t have seven more just like them in the closet.”
“That’s hardly the point.” But he’s still smiling, shaking his head, chuckling at the condition of my chain and the bed even as he pries his shoes off the thorns. He looks at the holes in the soles.
“I hope it rains every time you wear them.” Folding my arms tight across my chest, I glare at him.
He’s not offended. He does, however, throw the shoes in the bathroom garbage. “Are you hungry?”