Isolation.

Control of outside influences.

Regulation of food and water.

Lack of distraction.

Physical and mental control.

The beginning of Grace’s transformation.

By next Sunday, she’ll be sure of one thing. I’m her god. I’m her demon, the ruler of her soul. I’m her only chance.

I give her some time to heal and acclimate without distractions. I limit my time with her, bringing her meals and having short discussions about her health and the cleanliness of her room. I don’t touch her. I want to. Fucks knows I think of nothing else. But she comes first, before my cock, before her own pleasure.

She starts eating more. Her ankle gets better. She catches up on sleep. At my insistence, she leaves a message on her mother’s voicemail saying that she’s fine. She’s sober and staying with a friend. She’ll be in touch soon.

She asks if she can leave her room. I tell her no. She insists. My answer is the same.

Old habits die hard. She still thinks she can do this her way. She can get the money, maybe even see me hang in our own private gallows without letting me affect her. She can fake it. Outlast me for as long as it takes.

But soon she’ll start to live, breathe, and dream me. One morning she’ll wake up, and her parents will feel hazy and distant. She won’t remember Isaac’s face. Even her precious James will be gradually fading from her mind. She’ll try to cling to him, but her thoughts will be shattered by the smell of my come on her fingers. She’ll hear my footsteps and her nerves will stand on end.

Soon she’ll realize. A two-year old memory can’t compete with the devil in her doorway. As long as I control her tears and her pussy, I’m number one.

It’s day three. A cold rain is falling. When I get home from work, I turn the thermostat down so Grace will be slightly uncomfortable, racked by the occasional shiver and unable to block it out with books, music, or television. When I finally touch her chilled skin, my body heat will feel like the life-giving force it is.

It seems cruel, even to me. But her defenses are strong. I need strong tools to break them down.

I suffer with her. I eat what she eats, sleep when she sleeps. I make my bed every morning, just as I insist she makes hers. Every day after work, I strip down to boxer briefs and deny myself any distractions. The floor is like ice under my feet. I sit against the wall outside her door and let her feel my presence. And I know she can feel it. I know she senses me.

This is what my grandfather and years in interrogation rooms taught me. True power is in the small things, the subtle mindfucks. You don’t change people. You help them change themselves.

When I’m done with her, I want nothing between us. I want her to be so raw and honest, she admits what we both know. I don’t want to force it out of her. I want her to look me in the eye and tell me.

That she knows what happened. That she lied to me. She lied to everybody.

That’s what I want for my thirteen million. More than her body, exquisite as it is. More than a merger that will make me criminally rich. More than her obedience, or even her virginity.

I want what’s real. I want the truth.

I start leaving her alone for hours. Whole afternoons. An entire night and half the following morning. But never a full day.

She always has me. It just doesn’t feel like it.

At first, she pounds on the door. “You can’t do this!” she screams. “This wasn’t part of the deal!”

For two days, the shouting is incessant. It starts when I’m leaving for work and as soon as I come home. I can’t blame her. She gets five minutes of me every day. No more. Just enough time to drop off her meals and make her crave more of me.

When the shouting phase is over, she cries. At first her tears are angry and spiteful, then quiet sobs I strain to hear down the hall. Tiny echoes that nearly crush my resolve.

I almost snap. I almost open the door and tell her she’s free to run back to the parents who failed her. To the man who would rape her.

It isn’t just her will being tested. It’s mine. Better that I hurt her than Isaac. Better that she hates me than hurts herself.

On the fifth day, her tears stop. And on the sixth, she starts to sing.

I almost think I’m imagining things. When I first hear her soft, aimless humming, I stop in my tracks outside my bedroom door. It’s such a pretty sound, a window into a Grace I’ve never seen. And it’s proof of what I know.

Given time and isolation, a person will reach into their soul for something to live for. Who they truly are will come out.

She sings songs I’ve heard on the radio. She hums arias. She belts soul songs. And for long hours, she goes quiet. Just when I think she’ll never make another sound, she sneezes, or says my name in a sharp singsong voice. “Bra-am. Asshole. I’m hungry.”

She doesn’t know how much time I spend, inches away in the hall, mentally recording what she does. The video camera in the corner of her ceiling documents her voice and movements. It keeps me in constant touch. Even when I’m away, I’m always with her.

I sit in my office at work watching her on my laptop, memorizing her routines. Getting to know her the way I never could over dinner, or even in bed.

She likes to sit with one leg folded under her and one knee drawn up to her chest. She stretches her arms toward the ceiling when she wakes up, lightly scratching one and then the other.

Her favorite food is any kind of cereal. She munches it in bed, and drinks the milk out of the bowl when she’s done.

She stands in front of the bathroom mirror for hours, brushing her hair with the brushes Coral left. Leaning close to the glass, she practices lining her eyes with black liner. She puts on red lipstick, then wipes it off with tissue and frowns at herself.

She’s a girl playing dress up. Killing time. Changing into a femme fatale before my eyes.

She burns off energy by walking around her room in circles. Sometimes she skips, and the robe flies out behind her like a sail. She’ll be getting exercise privileges soon, when she’s stronger and gains a few pounds. Good girls who eat and obey get rewards. I tell her that one morning while she’s eating her yogurt, and she flips me off.

One day she jumps up to try to see out the window. When she can’t, she pulls the bed across the room. It’s heavy, but she pushes and pulls until it moves. She stands on it, reaching for the sill, but it’s still too high. She slumps back onto the bed and sleeps for a while before pulling it back.

She likes to touch her pussy in defiance of orders. I won’t punish her, not yet. If I punish her she’ll know I’m watching. I don’t want that. I’m learning too much about her.

I’m learning that she likes to lie on her stomach when she comes. Like a sweet young girl.

She parts her legs just enough to tease me, but not enough to show me her cunt. The silk robe covers her beautiful ass to the tops of her thighs. I sit in my office with my cock expanding to obscene thickness in my hand, and watch her. She slips her hand under her body and raises her ass toward the camera.

Fuck. I need her to show me her pussy. Perform for me, you lonely little virgin. Pull up your robe and give me that perfect ass. I still haven’t seen it. I need to. Now.

I push my pants down to my knees.

Mouth salivating to lick her, I jerk my cock. She’s thinking of how big it felt in her little fist. I know it felt big, because her eyes were wide open and her heart was pounding. She couldn’t stop staring at it as she stroked.

Right now, she’s remembering how much come I laced across her hands. Or maybe she’s thinking of him. A bolt of jealousy sears through me, making me even thicker and harder. It makes no fucking sense, but the jealousy feels good. I want her to think of James so I can rip him out of her mind. I want to replace him, to fuck her so hard even his memory rots away.

Pumping my fist, I watch her hips lift off the mattress. She must be glistening, her thighs and belly soaked. She whimpers and twists her head from one side to the other. Her eyes are covered by her hair. Her legs are shaking.

Sweet little slut. She’s never been fucked, but God how she wants it.

I look at my murderously huge cock and then back at her. I imagine nailing her from behind, parting those cunt lips the way I did when she was unconscious. But this time I wouldn’t stop. I’d give her my crown first, then my shaft, then my big, heavy balls right up against her ass. I’d paint myself with her juice from my chest to my knees. I’d plunder her virginity and lord it over James for all eternity.

Fuck him for the shit he did. This is what he gets. His fiancé fucking herself on screen while I watch.

Her legs tense up. She’s getting close. I jerk harder. My breath is heavy and my balls start to pulse.

Jesus fuck. I can’t hold back.

She smothers her cry in the pillow as she comes with me. Live, right now, while ribbons of cream spurt across my thigh twelve miles away.

I lean my head back and groan. My whole body fucking explodes.

It’s not the first time I’ve come for her. But this time, she wasn’t just a picture in my head. She was real.

She’s waiting for me at home. My slave. Her life is in my hands now. One day soon, mine will be in hers.

I wipe up my come and sit back to watch her some more. She pulls her hand out from under her body and turns on her side. Her big eyes blink. She sighs, and her pretty bare feet stretch out.

Then she puts her index finger in her mouth and sucks off her wetness. I lose my fucking breath. I rewind those three seconds all afternoon, and watch them again and again.

This is the private life of Grace. And I’m seeing it all.