Chapter Twenty-Two
“You’re a fool. An idiot. You’ve avoided any kind of attraction or connection for how long? Ten years, that’s how long. Ten years, Elisa. Why are you letting this…this Ross in now?”
“Shut up,” Elle muttered under her breath as she put the finishing touches on a way too ambitious Black Forest cake. She’d been soaking a batch of Michigan cherries in kirsch for a while, for reasons that were unclear until that morning, when she’d woken in a panic over her ‘private dinner’ invitation.
The Monster’s evil voice had, of course, been the first thing she was aware of. “You couldn’t make a proper genoise if your shitty life depended on it, you know.” His tone would be solemn, as if He were delivering sad, but necessary news. He rarely, if ever, raised his voice.
By the time He’d turned from her Dom to her abuser, He’d had her so well-trained that yelling wasn’t ever necessary. His declaration of her horrible cake-making abilities would likely be followed by a reminder that He’d dragged her sorry ass with him from Paris to Chicago. And that she’d repeatedly failed Him ever since—in every sense. She was no longer any use to Him in the bedroom—unless He was drawing blood, or her loudest, most agonizing screams. She’d been declared utterly useless as His so-called sous-chef so He’d demoted her to pastries at the famous restaurant that had hired them as a package deal.
But she knew damn well that one of the two things she could make the shit out of was a melt-in-your-mouth Black Forest cake. And by hell she was going to do it today. The other thing was beer. But that had come much later in her life. Her life on the run. Her life taking every other second to look over her shoulder, to follow The Monster in the news, see what He was doing, what restaurant He’d saved, which buxom, D-level starlet was hanging off His arm.
As she rolled out of her bed and put her feet on the cold floor of her apartment, she allowed herself a split second’s worth of happy anticipation. She had an actual date. One she wanted. Not that she hadn’t wanted to go out with men in the past almost-eleven years. She just hadn’t wanted it enough. Ross Hoffman was more than enough.
She wanted him, bad. And while that terrified ninety-five percent of her, the other five percent was getting loud and persistent. So, here she was—the day of her first date in years, all tingly like a schoolgirl.
Sighing, she rose, stretched and took a quick shower to try to wash away the dread and fear that was rushing in behind her happiness, threatening to smother it with a blanket. An hour later, she’d shopped and unloaded all the ingredients, having managed to use thoughts of recipes and dinner to force both The Monster’s voice and the sound of her own, nagging Oma-voiced consciousness out of her head.
Stepping back as far as she could in the miniscule kitchen, she admired her handiwork. The cake was magazine cover-worthy. She straightened one, ever-so-slightly crooked cherry by its stem, then placed the cake stand on the kitchen table so it was out of the way.
Still in her cooking trance, she cleaned up, then glanced at the time to determine how she’d go about the dinner prep. Since she’d gone super-heavy with the dessert, somehow convinced that a Bavarian boy like Ross would devour a Black Forest cake cooked like his Mutter used to, she’d decided to go meat-free for the meal. As she stared at the butternut squash, second thoughts almost forced her to throw on her jacket run out for a steak. She had miniscule grill on her equally tiny balcony she could use to prepare it.
No. Everyone loved her homemade ravioli and Herr Hoffman would just have to forgo his not-quite-dead cow flesh for one night. Elle gnawed her fingernail, as the two voices kept up their low-level murmurings in her head. Both voices were reminding her of the same thing, essentially. But while one was looking out for her, the other was berating, chiding and threatening.
“Shut up,” she said, firmly as she tossed together the ingredients for the pasta, squeezing them through her fingers in a way that brought back more memories than it suppressed. As she draped a damp towel over the bowl and set her phone timer so the dough could rest, she realized that, for the first time in many years, she’d maintained her general happy feeling for almost four hours straight.
A record.
“Bitch,” The Monster’s voice was so loud she winced and pressed her floury hands over her ears. “Whore. You’re nothing but a convenient hole for the Viking. He wants to see what it feels like fucking someone so small. Nothing more. He’ll scrape you off his shoe soon enough. Just like I did.”
“Perhaps,” she said out loud into the kitchen in German. “But I want to see what it feels like to have a real man between my legs for a change. A man who kisses like that one does. So fuck off, you god damned freak. Get the hell out of my head. Now.”
She ducked on reflex, as if avoiding a blow to her face. She’d had her nose broken no less than three times by The Monster. Had stitches in her scalp twice. Nursed broken ribs, a shattered ankle and a concussion—among other things—the first time she’d tried to escape their vast flat overlooking Lake Michigan.
But no blow came. The Monster had not followed her the second time, for reasons that had made her frantic the first couple of years as she’d looked over her shoulder while learning how to brew beer on the west coast of America. Then she’d settled into a steadier emotion—a low-lying anxiety that never left her, no matter how normal she might feel.
After rejecting the trip down memory-hell lane that had been the last years of her life, she stood, hands on her hips and yelled the last words again for good measure, “Get the hell out of my head, you god damned freak!”
The silence in her space after that was almost as deafening as her caterwauling. And it was the most glorious sensation she’d ever experienced. It was nearly, but not quite, as good as an orgasm. Something she’d not allowed herself since managing to slip past the front desk guard of the Chicago building with her passport and a bit of cash, after lacing His evening Scotch with the pain pills she’d been saving for months.
But no. No more of that. She had a date. A real date. With a real man who wouldn’t hurt her. He’d already promised that much.
“Little fool,” her Oma’s voice whispered. But she shut that down by cranking up her favorite rock and roll oldies station on her phone, streaming it through a cheap, Bluetooth-enabled speaker. “All men hurt, one way or another. You know that better than anyone. When will you learn?”
“Shut up,” she repeated, as she began washing the fresh spinach she’d chosen at the farmer’s market, picking out the dirt and pebbles, then setting the mound of rich green leaves on a towel to dry. She surveyed the kitchen with its broken dishwasher, four-burner electric stove of which only two worked, the single, stainless steel sink and the ancient white fridge. The three-layer cake with its homemade whipped cream frosting garnished with the brandy-flavored cherries livened up the table. The mound of green spinach, two fat butternut squash, and her bowl of ravioli dough took up all the available counter space. And she was happy.