Rebecca

 

He kept his word.

I waited for him to come to me, but he didn’t. Ramona quietly cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, humming a tune, oblivious to the confusion in my chest. I didn’t understand what Anatoly needed or wanted. And at this point, I worried the only thing that held us together was the agreement between us forcing him to keep me. This was not how this was supposed to go. I wanted fear, control, a complete loss of my senses. Not a Dom who was so haunted by his past he couldn’t let go. He’d asked for this. He’d signed up for Infidelity to pair him, just like I had.

I wrapped myself with my anger and stalked off behind him. I’d get more from him than his nights, or nothing at all. He’d gone to the open office and sat, leafing through a book as I came in. He must have heard me because his head lifted and he stared at me in shock.

“Are you afraid?” I asked him.

“Go, Rebecca. I am not in the mood to play with you.”

“This isn’t a game, Anatoly.”

I shouldn’t have done it. I wore nothing but his collar and his cloak. I should have been on my knees and silent, waiting for his direction, but I couldn’t. He wasn’t going to pass me off like a play thing, like I didn’t know about life and death. He knew my history, knew I’d lost my husband as well.

“You were a corporate woman, Rebecca, living life in an upscale condo with a happy marriage. You didn’t bend over and expose your pussy to his hand, and you damn sure didn’t bow. This is nothing but a game to you. A retaliation to having your old life stripped from you, and instead of dealing with it, you’re running away. My wife was my life, and my son? My fucking soul. Run along. I’ll deal with you tonight.”

Before I realized what I was doing, I lifted my hand high into the air and slapped him with everything I was worth. “Joshua was everything to me,” I hissed as I quickly backed away.

An angry, red handprint brightened his face, and he gritted his teeth. It took two steps with his long legs to eat up the distance between us, but I stood my ground. I wouldn’t be intimidated by him. He’d earn the right to make me afraid, to crave the darkness, or he’d kiss my ass.

“You’ll pay for that tonight, I promise you.”

“Fuck. You,” I threw at him.

“Oh, you will. Leave, Rebecca. I’ve got work to do, and you’re boring me.”

Without another word, he spun on his heel and left me standing in the center of the room. Suddenly, realizing I was only in a cloak and collar made me feel cheap and worthless. I hated him, and I hated that feeling.

Head held high, I left the room with as much dignity as I could, closing his door on my way out. It took only a few seconds before I was in my room searching for a closet. I had to have clothes somewhere. If Ramona told me I could wear items in the gym, they were provided for me. It took a few minutes to find the closet amid the bathroom door and recessed doors for toys, but I did. The pithy amount of clothes hanging in the walk-in space would have made me laugh had I been in a better mood. I had just seven different workout outfits, one pair of jeans and a shirt, along with two garment bags. Judging by the length of them, I figured they housed elegant dresses for the occasions when Anatoly planned to take me into public.

I sniffed at those and pushed them to the side before grabbing the jeans and shirt. I wasn’t going to stay in my bedroom like a good little toy and wait for night to fall. In fact, I didn’t plan on being in this room when night fell. I’d take time exploring my environment, and maybe learning a bit about the churlish man I’d been attached to.

Dressed, and still filled with anger, I stalked out of my room. To get my bearings, I went into the gym Ramona had told me about. There was a full-circuit range of equipment pieces, as well as two treadmills, a cycle bike, and mats on the floor for stretching, Pilates, or yoga.

At least I won’t lose my figure.

I left that room and peeked into the pool area. There was a bit of a hall that led to the glassed-in area, bringing the outside world in but still allowing one to be able to swim year-round when the weather got bad. The final room to the right was a large screening area for movies. There were full-service recliners, with cup holders and larger holes for popcorn bowls, set up in two rows of five in front of the screen.

That done, I headed back through the foyer and kitchen. The only place I hadn’t seen inside was the left wing of the house, and I was intrigued. The first door I came to was a large bathroom, fitted with red and black decorations. It was a bit darker than the rest of the house, but it had a richer feel. It felt more like it had been designed around someone’s favorite colors instead of inviting company. The next room looked like a mini-museum, with figurines in glass boxes lining the walls on shelves. In the first one was a zombie-looking creature, with a large, yellow flower sprouting from the side of its head, but instead of it looking silly or even pretty, the inside of the flower was blood-red with appendages that looked like tongues curling outward. In another, a woman with a thick, dark braid over one shoulder, scaled a gnarled tree, a bow slung over one shoulder, and makeshift arrows poking out on top. She almost looked like Raven, but there was a hardness to her features that Raven hadn’t had in the portrait.

Posters covered the walls, and I recognized the SurvivorBlack video game covers. Each one had grown in greater popularity, flooding the airway with ads before each release. If Anatoly was the man behind those games, I couldn’t help but be impressed. And the way this room was set up, with models of things from the game, it was safe to say he was. I looked over more of his work, surprised at the detail and care put into character design. The precision and expertise it took to create something like this was massive. On the back wall hung a bachelor’s and master’s degree from MIT.

Gorgeous, broken, and intelligent.

My anger with him waned. A man like this—surrounded in fantasy worlds and computer code—had everything taken away from him. I wondered if it made it harder for him than a normal person. His world was a place which didn’t exist, creativity flooding his mind, and his loss would rock him across planes I didn’t understand. I sighed as I left the room. Maybe I had been harsh, but so had he. We were both souls trapped in the past, and it should have been easier for us to come together. But we hadn’t. We circled and poked, had moments of cohesion, and then we splintered apart again. I wondered if we’d break each other rather than help.

Reaching the next room, I frowned when I found it to be locked. The door was too ornate, with glittering stars and The Milky Way painted on the surface, to not be used. I could feel it was important, and I wanted to find out what was inside. I looked both ways to see if anyone was in the hallway, then headed back to the kitchen. Anatoly wasn’t anywhere around, and I figured he was still in his office. The house was quiet. Where Lev and Ramona may have been, I wasn’t sure, but I was thankful they weren’t around. I flipped through drawers until I found one filled with utensils and picked up a butter knife. It wasn’t always the best option, but I’d locked myself out of a few places growing up. I palmed the heavy piece in my hand and went back to the locked room as silently as I could.

My heart pounded, and each step I took seemed louder than the last. I swore any moment Anatoly would appear and drag me from my goal. But I was sure this was Mikhail’s room, and I wanted to learn about the little boy who was gone too soon. Once I reached the door, I leaned against the wall next to the handle to block what I was doing and slid the knife between the door and the door jamb. I jiggled the knife until I felt the resistance of the latch, and then pressed inward toward the door itself. The knob was still locked, but I could push the door open with ease. Once I was inside, I closed the door behind me but unlocked it so I didn’t have to fiddle with it again.

Mikhail’s room was a study in youth, with pictures of superheroes and firetrucks. Nothing had been touched in his room. The air was stale, but everything was spotless. Someone came in here every day to clean it and love the memorabilia. His bed was a queen-sized race car bed with a steering wheel at the foot. I twisted it, and the four wheels at the base of the bed turned with it. A little boy who loved cars and superheroes. Perhaps he got that from his dad, if I could surmise that from the multi-car garages he had surrounding his home.

I fingered over the brightly colored comforter on his bed with a brilliant-red race car with big eyes and a yellow lightning bolt. Superman guarded the bed in the shape of two lamps, one on either side, and I felt my heart crack. Too young to be gone, and yet here long enough to leave such a gaping hole. I couldn’t fathom what Anatoly felt like, if he could step foot into this room, or if he let Ramona to cleaning this space.

My gaze was drawn to a collage of pictures taking up a big chunk of the wall next to the door. Family portraits blended from one to the other, and tears pooled in my eyes. My throat ached; I couldn’t form a sound. Anatoly smiled, dazzling even, as he held Mikhail on his shoulders. Their matching eyes glittered in the sun. In another picture, Raven held a sleeping baby Mikhail in her arms, and Anatoly wrapped them both tightly in his arms.

There’d been such love between the three of them. More than a Master/slave and a child. More than a husband, wife, and parents. Maybe he was right, in so far as his pain lanced in ways I couldn’t understand, and everything he was going through wouldn’t be fixed by just having me here. Maybe we both needed to adjust and find a way to make things work over time. I sighed, pulling away from the wall.

“This door was locked.”

I jumped at Lev’s voice. “What is it with people in this house and sneaking up on people? How hard would it be to make noise?” I argued.

Lev rolled his eyes. “Says the woman who broke into a locked room. Get out, right now.”

Chagrined, I slipped past him and left the room.

“I won’t tell him you were in here, but don’t come back again. There are things better left alone,” Lev warned me.

“I just wanted to get to know him. He doesn’t talk much.”

I was a person with emotions and scars. I wasn’t meant to simply sit and wait for Anatoly to want to bend me over and walk away after he was done. Just like he’d lost so much, so had I, and I needed him to see me as a real person.

“Why do you need to talk to him if you’re his pet?” Lev asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I glared at Lev. “I’m not just here for sex.”

Lev grunted. “I wonder about that. Anatoly doesn’t do relationships.”

“That’s what I’m trying to help him with.”

Lev sighed, walking down the hall. “You don’t understand, at all. Raven met Anatoly in college, his senior year. He’d already started work on the first SurvivorBlack game, and she was nothing more than a sub he’d contracted through a local club. But she liked to play video games. She morphed into his beta tester, and then one day he woke up and realized he loved her. That’s Anatoly. He sits back, studies, and learns everything he can about you without asking a single question, and when you fit into his life, he collects you.”

“Are you saying he didn’t love her?”

He shook his head. “I’m saying he loved her the only way he knew how to, by compartmentalizing her place in his life until she was as necessary as breathing. Mikhail made them a family. When they died, he swung back into Master and designer. His world is cleaner that way, black and white.”

I felt his warning without him saying more. “Anatoly won’t ever love me, and I’m nothing more than a piece in the functions he needs.”

“Remember that and you’ll be fine.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not looking for love, isn’t it?” I tossed back. But Lev was already gone.