by Dark Angel
Oh God, this has to be some kind of test.
I'm naked and I feel weird sitting, naked.
What if TD is on his way here?
What if Damien is pimping me out? Maybe that's why he didn't fuck me.
I feel sick to my stomach and I see there's a bathroom in here.
Damien already out of sight, I rush to the bathroom. Waves of nausea roll over me, but I don't have the strong feeling that I can vomit. I can no more expel this hurt in my stomach than I can escape this situation. At least, for now.
I turn the faucet on and look at my face. I'm flushed pink and red, my eyes are puffy and dark. I look like the hell that I feel inside. But I see a fire behind the pain in my eyes. I know this now. I splash the water onto my face and turn off the faucet. Take a deep breath.
I will get out of here. I don't know how, but I'm going to find a way out.
I hear a door close and I jump. Okay, so I'm not so tough right now. But I will be. I'm working up to it.
Should I risk leaving this room? Calling out to see if Damien left?
I don't know what the consequences of disobeying or disappointing Damien are, but I won't let myself imagine them. Tentatively, I step outside of the room and head back to the foyer. I don't encounter Damien or anyone else on the way there.
I turn back after a cursory glance at the kitchen and no one is there. Every door is locked. But I seem to be alone. For how long, I don't know. I rub my stomach. It isn't as sick, but I'm not hungry. I have no idea what's in Damien's kitchen. I want to go in there and find a knife. But something tells me that I couldn't use it, even if I needed to, but taking it might make me look like I would...and I don't want to die stabbed to death.
Of course, despite everything, my brain tells me that Damien would never stab me.
"As if I could fucking know that!" I shout in defiance. I'm already breaking because I shudder now for fear that I'll be heard. No one is here, and I'm shaking. I'm cold now. I hate that I'm naked. I immediately pick up my clothes and put them on. The cold wetness from my earlier arousal, despite everything, makes me groan in frustration.
I'm wet now. I'm afraid, but I'm wet. Why couldn't I just hate Damien? Be afraid. I don't want to find him appealing. That terrifies me more than any possibility. I have been kidnapped. My parents can't just make me the property of someone else. I need to get away. I finish getting dressed and try the obvious solution.
I go to try the front door, but the instant my hand is on the door knob, the driver's voice bellows out, "No." That single word is all the warning he offers. It's because it's all he has to say. I’m not about to try and bust through that door. I saw the muscles on him. He was nice to me, but still…he’s a tough stranger in charge of keeping me in here. Posted at the door. That’s kind of insane.
Well, fuck. I'm not alone. But as long as I'm on this side of the door and he's on that one, I'm okay with that. I go back to my room and sit on the bed, letting my mind run wild with possibilities of how to escape.
Sarah
Over the next few days, Damien settles me into the odd reality of living with him. I think, for the first two days, about all of the schoolwork I should be doing. About how college means having a thousand things to read…and I’ll be behind.
Something sinks into my stomach the third day, between the regular time when I have dinner—whether he is there or only his chef—and before I go back to my room for the night.
I no longer think about school or think I’m going back. How could I accept so soon that I don’t have control of my life anymore?
It sickens me to admit it. But I know that I’m accepting this new life because in a twisted way, I’m living better than I ever did. In some way, I’m happier than I ever was.
Even when work takes Damien away for the day, a chef prepares my meals. An unseen maid cleans my clothes. The bath products and wardrobe he supplies, well they cost more than a semester’s tuition of the school I no longer miss. I don’t know how I can possibly feel this way. I should be horrified. Missing school. Missing my life.
I certainly don’t miss my parents, and I don’t have a problem with that. From what I’ve managed to piece together after long hours in thought and reflection, they owed Damien a large sum of ill-gotten money. But they had already spent it. So they sold me off to Damien like I was a chair or a desk. So what if they didn’t realize I wanted to get away and this was more an escape from them for me as much as I was a ticket to debt release for them?
The fact of the matter is that whether or not I—dare I say—prefer my life right now has no bearing on how wrong it was for them to give me away like they did.
Of course, I like this time because right now, nothing is happening. Damien gives me looks that are pure hunger when he thinks I’m not watching. I obey what he says and I say nothing. The first day, I was too nervous to realize we never said anything to each other. The next day, I was intentionally waiting for him to say something. I don’t know what to do at this point. I don’t want to escape the seemingly safe bubble of whatever transition period we are currently in. I don’t want to find out what comes next.
After getting used to this idea that he leaves…well, I know that I have to do something. I know my brain is catching up with this strange reality. I have to find out what his plans are for me. I have to find a way out.
There’s only one way to do that. I have to work with what’s around me. The only asset I have in this situation is that Damien leaves me alone. The chef comes and goes. There’s no chance of me escaping because the driver—or some guard—stays posted at the door. Damien doesn’t tell me his schedule, but if I can just do my snooping meticulously and quickly, I will be able to get away with it.
That’s right, snooping.
What? I’m still a woman, aren’t I?
At first, digging through Damien’s penthouse is utterly terrifying. I spend a ridiculous hour walking around and trying to look nonchalant while I try to figure out if cameras are watching me. If there are cameras, I don’t recognize any. I pick a single thing—a document tray in the foyer with a few envelopes, papers, stubs, and such things inside. I look at the entire stack as it is before I touch it. I memorize the placement. I remove one piece at a time, looking at it and then taking mental note of how to replace it at its exact angle. I start so close to the door that my only warning I am about to get caught will be that door opening and seeing me. My heart doesn’t calm down for hours after I finish snooping in that one spot, and I lie in bed that night having half-awake nightmares about being caught snooping.
In the nightmares, Damien decides that I’m too risky of an investment, and he decides to get rid of me. In the first dreams, he calls someone else to do it. When I finally fall into a fitful slumber, that’s when the true horror begins. In those dreams, Damien ends me himself. With his bare hands. I wake up sweating and wanting to scream out in horror, but I don’t want to draw any attention to myself. I want to remain calm.
The next day, four days into my captivity, I determine that if Damien leaves, I will snoop more. I test the doors when he’s on the way to the kitchen—they are all locked. Damn. I plan to check every day, regardless. Certainly they won’t all be locked forever.
But several days in, and I lose track of the exact count of days and go back to my half-imaginings on what Damien’s plans for me might be.
I realize that in every strange reality that I concoct, the real horror isn’t that Damien is going to do whatever I fear. It is that in order to enact the particular intents in each of my dreams, he's getting rid of me. I can’t help but fear leaving Damien’s custody. While I suppose it is better the devil I know, I deeply wish I didn’t so that I could stop myself from feeling a single iota of safety at the idea of Damien. He owns me. My parents handed me over to him. In what way is the man I should trust the man who takes me from my parents, humiliates me, and then practically ignores me in some macabre extended sleepover of nightmares? I know that the truth is that despite the
fact that Damien frightens me, and confuses me, ultimately, he intrigues me.
Despite reading every ounce of danger in his being. Feeling the intensity in his lust-filled stolen glances. Knowing that he knows I’m a virgin and clearly wanted to act on that, yet he doesn’t. Despite every logical piece of data in front of me, none of that computes so clearly as the fact that I'm attracted to Damien. On a primal, hungry level of my own I desire his attention. It’s strange. The amount of particular care put into my day-to-day existence is more attention than anyone has ever paid me in my life. Yet, he’s not speaking to me. Not touching me. Not looking at me unless he thinks I’m not looking. Why is Damien tending to my needs but keeping me at a distance?
When Damien arrives at dinner that night, I decide that despite my better judgment, I will break the silence. When I look up at him, my lips part to speak, and Damien finally says the fist thing I’ve heard spoken in ages. “Don’t speak unless I tell you to.”
I feel the air in the room shift. I didn’t speak, and I don’t speak now. How could I after the warning in his voice? I savor the sound of it, but a chill washes over me that I don’t shake for days.
Sarah
Another morning, another breakfast, and I’m timid and cautious. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel any more than I understand what I do feel. I push around my breakfast and finally eat it. When I dare look up at Damien, he’s almost done and he seems to be distracted. When I finish, he waves me up and I follow him toward the foyer.
“I won’t be back this evening,” Damien says, his hand brushing my back as he heads out the door, past me on the way to my room after breakfast. It's oddly domestic that we have this schedule, and him actually telling me about his planned absence, plus the touch, is nearly intimate. A thrill shoots through my blood, long after the door is closed, and he’s certainly long gone. I need to think about snooping. I tell myself I will, but first I hold myself and think about how I feel right now. Where has my good sense gone?
How can I allow myself to be excited by Damien? I know he is a danger. I tasted what that danger is like.... and I can't do this. My body has responded to him when I met him, but I'm not sure I can ever feel something so intense again and survive it. A fantasy, alone, is enticing. But I need to be able to get a real breather, get a game plan together, and get back to school. I think about school because I haven’t been thinking about it. I’m guilty for resigning myself to being some kind of captive, kept girl, instead of a college student with a life of my own. My parents, they gave me to this man. He thinks that he owns me now. He has no idea what I am.That I needed to get away from my home as well and so let myself be taken.
At least from here I'll find some way to escape. I'll make sure that I never have to deal with my parents ever again, either, because I can never trust them again. How they could do this to me, I can’t understand. It's all so surreal. I get frustrated with my reactions, but then I wonder if I'm being too hard on myself because of just how strange this all is.
I'm trapped here. At least Damien is a busy man. Because when he is away, when his staff isn’t around, and it's just me alone as the day is winding down and he isn't coming home that night, that's when I meticulously snoop. Don’t roll your eyes.
He’s a mystery. And sure he said no speaking. But he didn’t say no snooping.
I have to touch a thing and replace it exactly after I look at it. The kitchen, the dining room, not even the bedroom has anything useful or important that I’ve found. There has to be something important that I can find and that can help me get out of here.
Of course, I know where Damien must keep his important paperwork. The things that he doesn’t want me to see. While I think I'm doing an excellent job at covering my tracks, there's still a chance that he knows I go through his things whenever I get a chance. Even if he doesn’t know, he probably suspects.
That's why he keeps the study locked every day. I saw him close and lock one of those doors the other day, and the brief flash of a deep cherry wood desk informed me of the room’s identity as his study. I knew then that I would need to get into that room. I could never break in. I have literally none of those kinds of skills, particularly to break in a way that would remain undetected. I would have to be able to get in some other way.
So, when he was gone, I undertook my snooping ritual, attempting to find anything and everything that might help lead to my freedom. I wasn't going to lose my whole life without putting up a fight. I was locked in the house, the doors and windows all locked so that I couldn't get out. I wondered what I would do if his home was on fire. Would I die in here because he'd locked me up? I had a truly morbid thought, wondering if things got worse...if I should...no, I was fighting to live and I didn't want to die. I may have been trapped in here now, but I was going to find something. A way out. Paperwork. A secret. Anything. I couldn’t decide if I was more or less horrified that my guard at the door would probably save me, should the condo go up in flames.
After so much searching, knowing most days that he would be home soon, I knew that perhaps I’d lied to myself thinking that I would be able to find a way out of Damien’s clutches. I had thought that if I simply put in enough time, eventually I would find a way to my freedom.
So every day I tried the study. I hadn't tried it yet, today, because I'm so disheartened when I look at the same things every day. I've tried the same ways out, and nothing has worked. Still, I need to wiggle the door handle and see if it'll open.
And that's when I realize that the damn door has been slightly ajar all day. Perhaps Damien was in a hurry that morning and had forgotten to lock that door? To even close it? I don't know what he's done before breakfast, but I’m not wasting this entire day when that damn study is open right now.
Walking inside to the study, I smell cigars, bourbon, leather, and wood. It's a den of male pleasures. At least, the kinds that don't involve a girl. I wonder if Damien has fucked women in here.
He's probably fucked countless women all over this house.
Was I next?
While he'd turned me on before, I'm now terrified at this notion. I can't help but be frightened. Damien is a menacing, intimidating figure. His very presence fills me with a sense of foreboding, and when he's not around, I feel like he's in every shadow, and somehow also in every shard of light that enters the space I'm in. It's not just being in his house or being his prisoner, even, that makes me feel like I have to keep myself on my toes at all times. There's a power surrounding him, even when he isn't here, that stirs me toward fear.
The longer Damien doesn't touch me, but looks at me longingly…the more my arousal mixes with fear. Neither of my reactions to Damien entirely go away. They don't replace each other, either. Instead, my anticipation, longing, and terror all creep inside me like scars on my mind that keep me from being able to breathe. I imagine a black smoke fogging my lungs, curling around my heart, and never relenting a moment of sanity to me.
Going through the files for hours isn't going to be an option. Before, Damien wasn’t going to be home all night, and I’d gone crazy, and now it's past midnight. Who knows how early he will be back to the penthouse? I can't take any chances. I need to find something and get out because no way am I going to be able to get another opportunity to go through the papers in his study if he catches me in there in the twilight hours or into the morning. I need to not let this moment over-excite me and lead to me getting caught. I have to be the same level of meticulous with this room that I've been in every other room in the house. In fact, I probably need to be more careful in this room.
That's when I see tickets. Between all the manila folders with relatively mundane financial and real estate holdings, there are tickets of some kind that pertain to me. I don't quite understand what I'm seeing, but there's a basic physical description of me, my birthdate, and my height and weight, inside the folder with the documents labeled as tickets. I don't know what this means, but I know this is key. Somehow, I've found this ticket to bot
h my current imprisonment, and the freedom I know I have to fight for.
I have to be on the lookout for Damien's every move, for any other openings. That way, I'll be able to get my freedom.
Taking a final look at them, I commit them as much to memory as I can; I try to piece everything back together. I can’t scuttle from that study fast enough.
As I leave, I don’t know if I should close the door or not. I decide to err on the side of making it looked untouched and to try and keep the door the same level of ajar as it was before.
Crawling into my bed, finally, I can breathe. I'm exhausted, and yet wide awake. I finally fall asleep not long before breakfast. In my nightmares, I have the ticket tattooed all over my body and can’t hide it from Damien. I wake up before he reacts, and I’m glad. I can’t take much more of this restless sleep. My mind is in tatters from the anxiety.
Sarah
For a full week after I find the tickets, Damien is home at the condo every day and night. If he has to work, it must be what he does in his study. No longer absent from the condo, Damien is torturing me. I mean, he tortures me by not talking to me; he tortures me by not touching me, kindly or otherwise. I'm totally silent the entire week. He never tells me I can speak, and I don't want to find out what happens if I disobey him.
Well, I don't want to find out what would happen to me or how Damien would react…at first.
After a full week of eating the food his chef prepares, wearing the clothes he brings me, and sleeping in the bed in the room he says is mine...and I'm starting to wish I wasn't being such a good girl.
Those are the only things he's said to me.
Two seconds ago, he says I'm being such a good girl.
And now, after a week of going crazy, I don't want to be good anymore. I want to be bad. Do I want to be bad enough to see how dark Damien might go? Not yet, but another day of silence and I might reconsider my gentle nature and how I'll break this silence.