My New Room
Holly
I’m almost certain my new room has a two-way mirror in it.
My sister was always paranoid about that in bathrooms and retail store change rooms and once told me she’d always do a fingernail test before changing her clothes to see if there was a gap between her finger and the reflection in the mirror. I don’t know if I did it right or not but there’s no gap and I think that means that this is a two-way mirror.
There’s another reason I think it’s a two-way mirror.
When Esmerelda brought me in and moved my new personal things here, she told me to undress in the bathroom only.
Why?
I’ve been given new paints, new sketchbooks, new puzzles, more new clothes. Everything I lost in the fire was replaced, including my Disney movie collection. But these are all DVDs. And I don’t have as many of them, but I’m told the rest are coming.
My room is almost completely white. White furniture, white bed linens. A very light beige carpet. There’s a white art desk that’s fully stocked. Big comfy reading chair in the corner, a wide windowsill that I can sit in, too. There’s a white vanity table on the wall opposite my bed, but the mirror is strange, built-in to the wall. And for me to be told to not undress in here makes me think that he can see me through this mirror. The other side of that wall is his bedroom. And that’s why I did the gap test.
I asked Esmerelda this morning how long I would be staying. She shrugged.
I leaned over and whispered, “The other girls still in the underground? Has he kept any of them safe like me?”
She gasped and pulled back and waved her finger at me, “Don’t ever ask such things. You’re safer if you don’t even think of such things.”
I deflated. I knew there were still girls here. I saw them arrive not long ago.
And I know he’s here today. I saw him arrive last night while I looked out the window. In a suit, breeze blowing his hair, his eyes traveling up to my window and piercing my heart. And I’m sure he’s still here because Esmerelda always has a different attitude when he’s here versus when he’s gone. She’s more relaxed when he’s not here. She’s all business, extra professional today.
He's dark and dangerous. Everything about the fact that he runs this place says villain, but I can't help but think that maybe there's a hero somewhere deep inside.
He's kept me apart from the others for a long time. No one is allowed to touch me. Few are allowed to even set eyes on me.
And after being in his arms, sleeping in his bed, smelling him, seeing how he saved me himself and now being here? After him visiting me at night when I’m asleep?
I need to make something happen.
It’s probably a bad idea but maybe I’ll break the rule about undressing in here. I don’t know what will happen, maybe nothing, but if I’m right about the mirror?
I just feel like I need to make something happen.
Something. Anything.
Stupid? Absolutely.
I’ve been following the rules. There haven’t been many but I’ve behaved myself completely since arriving. I knew it was wise. I saw things on my journey here and when I first arrived that let me know that the best thing to do was to behave and assess what was happening around me so that I could find a way to stay safe.
But I’ve got no patience, now.
I’ve been here such a long time. And since the fire, it feels like something has shifted and now I feel some weird zig zag of excitement then dread. Both. And it’s as if it has woken something in me that demands to know what’s next.
I’m anxious, I’m jittery. I can’t describe the odd sensation of feeling like I’m being watched but it’s no longer enough to be safe.
The fire happened and things changed so maybe something else happening might mean more change. Maybe I can get some answers. Move forward, wherever forward is.
***
It’s dark out. I’ve just finished dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs. I’m tired and full. But I’m also anxious.
I know he’s still here because Esmerelda was in a strange mood, the sort of mood she’s in when he’s not only here but when something is happening. Being the only person I see on a consistent basis, I think I’ve become good at reading her.
Twice, it has been someone else who looks after me, when she was away for some reason, maybe illness or perhaps vacation, I don’t know. But she and Dr. Jimena are it. These are my links to the world outside the four walls he’s put me in, unless I can engage him in conversation, find out what’s going to happen to me.
I can’t stay in this room forever.
I hope.
***
The lamp on the round white table beside my bed has given the room a soft glow. I walk to my shiny white armoire, open the doors and remove a nightgown. All my clothing has been replaced and my wardrobe consists now (as before) entirely of dresses and nightgowns as well as a few pairs of pajama shorts and matching t-shirts. I’ve got the prettiest bras and underwear. Lace, silk. Every color of the rainbow and beyond. Much of what I wear is white or pastel colors. I don’t get to select clothing; someone else chooses these things for me. I think of them like princess clothes.
I select a pale pink silky nightie that falls just above my knee. It’s my new favorite, I got it a few days after the fire, and I wear it every time it gets washed. It’s from Victoria’s Secret and it’s like a long t-shirt but has a deep scoop and I like the way it clings. It’s feminine and feels great. I place it at the bottom of the bed and face the suspected two-way mirror. I undo the buttons on the bodice of my dress, which is a long spaghetti strap maxi dress of a light fabric in mint green. I’m staring at the mirror as I undo the little pearl buttons, which go straight to my belly button. Once they are all undone, I shove the fabric off my shoulders and it falls, pooling at my feet. I’m in a baby blue silky bra and matching panties. They’re bikini cut, silky and small, cut high over my hips. I inspect myself in the mirror. I’m tall and slender, but I’m a little bit busty. I have long legs and small feet. My sister Angie used to tell me I had a ballerina’s body. But I’m really not at all graceful. I’m kind of the opposite of graceful.
I gather my super long blonde wavy hair over one shoulder and turn my back to the mirror and unfasten my bra. I let it fall. My heart is racing. Maybe he’s not even watching. But it feels like he is. And I hope he is. Gosh, I hope it’s not some security guard.
It’s only my bare back, me in undies the size of a bikini so it’s not all that bad, is it?
I slowly bend over at the waist to fetch my nightgown, lift it, and drop it over my head, pushing my arms in. It slides down my body into place. I quickly reach up and hook my panties with my thumbs and pull them down and let them drop. No one, if anyone were watching, could see anything as my gown was shielding my behind.
I carefully bend at the knee this time and pick up my clothes and carry them to my bathroom and drop them in the lined white wicker laundry basket that’s in there. I catch my reflection in the mirror. My face is nearly as pink as my nightie. I deep breathe. No one can see me in here; the bathroom mirror is on the outside wall. Unless there’s a camera. No. I don’t think there is, otherwise why tell me that I can only be undressed in here?
I wash my face, brush my teeth, lotion up my arms, hands, legs, and feet, and then I turn out the light. I go back to my room and climb into bed, getting under the covers and then leaning over to turn out the lamp. When I do, I look right at the mirror.
“Goodnight, Alessandro,” I say.
And then I turn my back so that I’m no longer looking at the mirror. My heart races for a few minutes and then, when nothing else happens, I finally fall asleep, more than a little bit disappointed.
***
“Don’t you ever do that again. Do you hear me?” My throat is in his grip as I wake with a jolt. He’s hovering over me. The light is on.
I gasp and grab his wrist with both of my hands. I can breathe, he’s not crushing my windpipe, but he’s making a point. I’m immobile.
He’s angry. So very angry. And beautiful. God, he’s beautiful.
“I’m fucking warning you!” he clips.
I nod a bit but it’s only a bit because I can’t move much within his grip.
His grip loosens. His anger doesn’t. He leans forward so that his face is no more than three inches from my face.
He smells like alcohol. And outside. And like the smell I’ve been dreaming about since the night I slept in his bed.
He backs up, storms into my bathroom, and comes out with something blue in his hand. He slams the door without looking back at me and I hear it lock.
I am so frightened that I don’t even move. I lie there for hours, statue still, before sleep finally claims me.
***
In the morning, I wake up, intentionally avoiding looking at the mirror, and go to the bathroom and look in my basket, which only had yesterday’s clothing in it when I went to bed. Upon closer inspection, I find that my blue panties are gone. I suspected that’s what he took. In a squat, my hand covers my mouth as I blanch at the truth of it.
Not long later, I’m back in my room. Esmerelda knocks her signature knock and then she’s inside with my breakfast, but her face is like stone.
“Good morning,” I greet, but I say it carefully, seeing the look on her face.
“Holly.”
“Will I have my walk this morning or this evening?”
“No walk today.”
“A swim?” I ask, sitting at my desk, which is also used for my meals. She puts the tray down.
“No swim, Holly. He says you’re to stay in your room today.” She’s not making eye contact.
My stomach dips. I’m being punished. I used to spend all my time in my room, but once I moved to his house, that changed. And I love it. Walking the property, through the pretty gardens, swimming in the pool, sitting under a tree with my sketchbook while Esmerelda does some task for the kitchen outdoors by the kitchen entrance. Shucking corn, snapping peas, peeling potatoes, something…
“Oh,” I’m crestfallen. I love my room. It’s lovely. It’s big. I have a big window. But I love going outside.
“Lunch is salad and chicken. Dinner can be fish and rice or vegetable stir fry. Or, there’s spaghetti left from last night?”
“More spaghetti, please.”
“Okay, Holly.”
She squeezes my shoulder and leaves. That’s the first time she’s done that. She must know I’m in trouble.
I look at the mirror.
I don’t know if he’s there right now. I only know that I’m being punished.
I blink at my reflection a few times, wondering what he sees when he looks at me, wondering if what I did last night will have far-reaching implications.
I dress for the day in my bathroom.
All day, I avoid looking at that mirror. I spend time at my art easel, at my desk, in my big comfy reading chair by the window. But it feels like he’s watching and it feels like his anger is penetrating that mirror.
***
It’s the next day. Esmerelda told me at breakfast that we can go outside after dinner for a swim and my mood lifts but the day drags as I anxiously await time out of my room.
We pass him in the hallway; he’s leaving his bedroom. I’m wearing a black bikini but I have a white cover-up on over it. He glares at me with anger for a nanosecond and then says something to her in Spanish and she grabs my hand and leads me back into my bedroom.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“We have to wait thirty minutes.”
We sit down on my bed.
“He’s angry with me,” I say.
She gives me a sharp look, which surprises me a little.
“And me.”
“You?”
“When the beast is woken up, things change.”
I stare at her.
“What do you mean?”
“The fire woke the beast up. And I think you’ve done something to wake him further. Don’t poke a monster that is …” she searches for a word, “docile.”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“It doesn’t have nothing to do with me. But I chose that bathing suit for you. He was busy so I couldn’t get his approval before the last order to replace some of your lost things.”
“Why am I here?” I cry out, knowing my eyes are pleading. “Why?”
She shakes her head and takes my face in both of her hands and looks at me with sadness. “I’m sorry, chickadee, but please don’t ask questions. You know I can’t say nothing. You’re a smart girl. I think you know deep down all the answers to your questions.”
I pull my lips tight, feeling exasperated.
“You been such a good girl. I know you grow tired of here,” she gestures around the room “Please, please Holly, continue to be a good girl.” She pats my hand.
I don’t get it. Or I do. But I don’t want to. I’m sure my eyes must express that.
She brushes my hair behind my ear with her hand and whispers, “Be good. It keeps him good. We can go swim soon. Just wait. And put on your bathrobe. We can see through that cover-up.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” I say, but that’s not totally true.
She gives her head a shake and looks at the floor and squeezes my hand again.
Here’s what I know:
I was walking home from the store. Mom had me take a pocketful of pennies and nickels and dimes and sent me for a can of concentrated orange juice. She always drank orange juice after a big bender and she’d had a big one the night before.
I’d hidden in my room with a chair propped under the doorknob during that party because there were at least four men partying with my mom, and some of them had been at my door making lewd remarks, trying to coax me out after she passed out. Two of them were bikers with rabid-looking dogs on their biker vests.
I’d only been home two days from my Gran’s. Gran was still in the hospital and family services had sent me back to Mom. I’d been thinking that I should try to get word to my sister, Angie, that our plan backfired. I was walking home with that can of orange juice thinking maybe I should buy a ferry ticket and get out of Juneau, try to catch a train somewhere so I could try to get to South Carolina, to the farm that her dad’s friends were looking after for her. She’d left me a credit card she left me for emergencies and I didn’t want to ring up a hefty charge for a flight. Plus, I didn’t know if I’d have a hard time getting on a plane without an adult what with my age.
This was only a few months after Angie had gone away to Asia to teach, so I knew it’d take ages for her to figure out I was gone. We’d been Skyping semi-regularly but just before Gran got sick she’d gone a few days without answering. And I hadn’t been back online since getting sent back to Juneau from Anchorage, because my mom hadn’t paid the internet bill.
Four men, two of which had been the bikers at my Mom’s the night before, rushed out of a van two blocks from home and pulled me in, slapped tape on my mouth and a hood over my head and then tied my hands and feet as we’d zoomed off.
I was in that hood, my mouth taped, a long time. At one point, I was in a massive building, an airplane hangar, I guess, and the hood was off. For a split second, I saw a man who looked Spanish or Italian, maybe, and he blindfolded me. I heard a lot of laughing but stayed frozen still. My hands and feet were tied so it wasn’t as if I could even go anywhere. I felt something poke me in the arm and then I was sleepy.
I was transported somewhere else and then I was showered by two women, in bathing suits. I felt weak, maybe I was drugged. I knew I’d peed my pants. I’d been holding it so long and must have wet my pants when I was unconscious. I was limp. After being washed, I was fed a bowl of soup and some clean but very slutty clothing was put on me while someone primped and put makeup on my face. I was put into a room with a bunch of other girls who were all dressed just as slutty.
I had bright red lipstick on and lots of eyeshadow, fake eyelashes that were driving my eyes a bit crazy, my hair teased and hair sprayed to maximum volume. I was in a shiny short silver spandex dress and red spiked heels higher than I’d ever worn. Higher than even my sister had worn and she used to dress to the nines when she went clubbing.
I still felt woozy. I was also petrified out of my mind. And I knew I had to cooperate. I knew I was in danger and my best bet was to just behave so I wouldn’t get in more trouble.
I wore a name tag with a number 19 on it and was referred to as that number as a man who walked around the room talking with a camera in our faces held my face to the camera and said, “Pucker your lips, nineteen. Completely fuckable young little white bitch, gentlemen!” And then he said a bunch of stuff in Spanish and then said it again in what sounded like Chinese or something like that.
When he moved to the girl beside me, a Spanish girl so beautiful she could’ve been a supermodel, he grabbed her by the boob and she started shouting and slapping him. That girl was shot in the back of the head. Right beside me. I felt something wet splat onto the top of my foot as she collapsed. Her blood. I had her blood on my foot and it was on my foot until I found myself in Alessandro’s basement many hours later.
It was a nightmare come true. Worse. I couldn’t have even dreamed this up.
Myself and three other girls were first taken to an office after the auction while the man with the camera took an envelope from a man in a suit. We’d been on our knees during that time.
We were walking down a hallway, right by the opened door to the outside, as per the directions of the man who’d paid for us, when I tripped and my shoe fell off. The girl behind me grabbed my shoe and hit the man in the suit in the head with the pointy part of it, about to run out the opened door.
Guys with machine guns strapped on their shoulders caught her and dragged her back. One punched her in the face. The man in the suit then made all three of us leave our shoes behind.
We were then led into a dark and foul-smelling alleyway and put into a passenger van. We had on ankle cuffs that were attached to our seats. The journey was several hours until we arrived at the place I’m at now.
Only, I wasn’t in the house to start with. I wasn’t in the servants’ quarters, either. I started out in the underground place. We were led into a stone building the size of a big barn. Inside there was a door that hid a staircase that led to an open empty room with just an elevator. We went in and it took us two levels down, underground to an open space barracks-style area with dozens of bunk beds and a locker room-like shower.
I was told by a girl in that van beside me, in a broken English whisper, that we were being trained to be sold as pleasure slaves to wealthy men, that we could be sent anywhere on the planet.
The suited man with the driver was all business. Serious man in, I’d guess his mid to late 40’s, a serious suit, looking at us as if to warn us not to give him any further trouble. The girl who’d hit him in the head with my shoe? Her eye was swollen shut from the punch she took. I was just glad that they hadn’t shot her, too.
For the several hour-long journey, I’d tried hard to keep my cool and not think about the blood on my foot. I was failing at both.
When we were taken into a building and down an elevator, we were then lined up against a dark brick wall. An older lady in light blue scrubs said something in Spanish and the other three girls started to take their clothes off. The one who spoke English told me, in her heavily accented English, “Undress or they would beat you.”
I did. I was standing there, trying to cover my chest with one arm, my crotch with another, feeling like my heart was going to leap out of my chest. I still had blood on the top of my foot from that dead girl and I was petrified.
“How old are you?” The English-speaking girl asked after the older lady who wore a stethoscope barked a question at her in Spanish.
“Fifteen,” I said.
The girl translated.
I heard collective gasps from the other girls but a chuckle from one of the guards who eyed me in a way that I knew, even in my limited knowledge of sex, was with lust.
“Sixteen in a few weeks,” I’d added.
Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.
I was painfully shy. I was sheltered. Mom never took me far and other than school, the only time I went anywhere else was with my half-sister. She took her job as big sister seriously.
Angie and I had a lot in common. We shared an addict mom and both of us had our dads die on us and leave us with Mom. She’s a redhead and I’m a blonde, but we both have Mom’s sapphire blue eyes. We both regularly got complimented on those eyes. My sister’s bestie called them Gilmore Girl eyes.
The lady threw a towel at me and I covered up with it. She pulled me by the arm out of that bathroom, down a hall, and I was put into a small medical exam room.
I sat there a while until I met, and was questioned by, Dr. Jimena. About early thirties, I’d guess. Pretty. Excellent English but with a thick accent. Dark long hair pulled back in a ponytail. Dark eyes. Kind eyes.
“Holly Noelle Mooney.”
“From?”
“Juneau. Alaska.”
“Age?”
“Fifteen.”
“When sixteen?”
“December 26.”
“Virgin?”
“Errr… yes.”
“Any sexual activity?”
I shook my head.
“Anyone put anything in your vagina?”
I shook my head again.
“Your ass?”
I gasped, horrified, and shook it again.
“You ever touch or suck a man’s penis?” She was impatient.
“I’ve never seen one, other than on TV a couple times.”
She asked me how I came to be there. I told her what I knew.
She listened and took notes like my story was all the same. And then she did a gynecological exam, which was a little bit painful.
I then had another shower, alone, and watched the blood from my foot go down the drain. I was given a pair of simple grey jersey shorts and a white t-shirt, black thong flip flops, no bra or underwear, and I was put in the bunkbed-filled dormitory with not only the other women I’d come with, but several others. They all looked at me. Mostly with sadness. A few of them had what I can only describe as dead eyes. They weren’t optimistic about their fates. At all.
We were fed dinner of soup, salad, and bread at a long table in the dorm. I then went to bed as the other girls did after orders were barked at us in Spanish.
Ten minutes after the lights went out, a guard came in and I witnessed him rape the girl who spoke English to me. We were both in bottom bunks beside one another and it happened right beside me. I was completely petrified. I didn’t move a muscle the entire time.
His eyes were on me the whole time he did it. Holding her down on her belly, his hand on the back of her neck, pinning her, having sex from behind, slapping her face and shouting at her while looking at me and ramming into her. She cried softly and brokenly into her pillow after that. I quietly cried, too. As quietly as I could. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself.
The next morning, I woke up to shouting. I opened my eyes and I saw the man in the suit who had brought me there. He spoke low and angrily in Spanish to a group of men who were all standing very near my bunk.
The man in the suit shot the man who raped the girl right in front of all of us. He shot him right in the forehead in front of half a dozen guards who had all lined up to watch.
I let out a scream in shock and then quickly covered my mouth with my hand.
The suited man looked at me a beat and then said something in a sharp tone and they all followed him out. The dead man was left on the floor.
I felt eyes on me.
The English-speaking victim started to whisper in her broken English.
“He kill him for looking at you while he fuck me.”
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. ”Anyone can rape anyone but you. Anyone can’t look at you. Ever. Special not while fuck someone else.”
I didn’t know what that meant.
“Thank you for telling me,” I squeezed her hand, “I’m so very sorry he did that to you. Are you okay?”
She shrugged sadly and said, “This is life now.”
That was when Dr. Jimena came in and with two guards, took me up out to the ground level, across the compound to the servants’ building. I trembled like a leaf the entire time, not knowing what was happening, not knowing if I’d be killed, sold, raped, what?
Dr. Jimena deposited me into the small bedroom that became my room until the night of the fire and said, “Be smart, Holly. Be good. Behave. Follow the rules and that’s how this will go best for you. Understand?”
The seriousness on her face, what I’d seen so far? I knew I was somehow lucky to be being taken and put elsewhere. The guard who raped that girl wanted it to be me instead. But because I was off limits, I was still a virgin. And because of that happening, I was separated from the others.
Dr. Jimena put me in the second-floor bedroom with adjoining private bathroom saying, “Their training starts today. Yours does not. For now, you wait. Be good. Listen. Do what you are told and don’t try to get away. Never try to run away or you’ll be killed. Understand?”
I’d nodded, “Are there other girls off limits, too?”
She shook her head, “No.”
Why wasn’t I being trained as a pleasure slave? Was it because I was too young? They had scruples, I supposed? I didn’t know but I counted my blessings. Later that day I met Esmerelda and the man in the suit came back while another man put in the wall intercom.
Today, thinking back to that day, I know I was silly to disobey the rules, to blatantly provoke him.
Would he send me down there as a punishment? Would he decide training could start and then send me to someone else?
***
After sitting in my room for a while, daydreaming about the past, Esmerelda abruptly rises and decides we can go to the pool. I don’t see him at all on our way.
It’s good to be out in the sunshine again. I float, on my back, staring at the sky for a long time, allowing myself to think about my sister, wondering if she’s back from Thailand, wondering if our mom is wondering what happened to me.
I haven’t let myself dwell on thoughts of home for a long time. I thought about my sister daily. She was one of the first thoughts I had every day since being here. But, I never let myself delve too deep, otherwise I would get sad, or anxious. I knew it wasn’t productive and after two years, I’d kind of tried to make peace with where I was and how much worse it could be.
But today, I let myself think about my life and about the people from before here.
Ang would look for me. She would call the police as soon as she knew I was missing. But the trail would have been cold by the time she figured out I was gone. How long would that have taken? How much did she worry? She loved me. She worried about leaving me behind and that was why she tried to arrange for me to be with Gran. She’d feel so bad. I’ve been on this track of thought many, many times since I’ve been here. I know there’s nothing productive about it, but I can’t help but occasionally let my mind go into that loop. That sad, sad loop.
I stare at the clouds a while, floating some more, until Esmerelda tells me it’s time go to back to my room.
***
It’s a long time of tossing, turning, and I even try to read for a while.
The book has some romance in it and it doesn’t get explicit, but it’s kind of sexually tense and I’ve been picturing Alessandro as the hero, me as the heroine. I can’t help but feel squirmy. I’m almost sure I can smell him. The hero and heroine finally kiss and it’s described so passionately I’m almost squirming. I read the scene again. And a third time.
I put the book down and I turn the light out and then slip my hand into my panties, thinking about the fact that he took my other panties. What did he do with them? Did he touch himself while he held them? Did he rub them on himself?
My fingers graze down there and I think about him rubbing the panties on his nakedness, his face in a sexy expression. His muscles flexing. I feel that I’m slippery between my folds. I’ve had orgasms and I’ve had them picturing him a number of times. The last one I had was a few days ago, before moving to the room I’m now in. It was after I’d watched him stretching, doing some sort of martial arts moves.
His body was shiny with perspiration. He looked like his tanned skin was glistening in the sun. He had a bit more than a five o’clock shadow and his hair was damp with perspiration. He wore a pair of black basketball shorts, socks, and running shoes and I watched the muscles on his arms, abs, and back ripple as he stretched, as he did spinning kicks, as he punched the air.
And then he was doing push-ups. And then pull-ups on a pergola that was near the pool. I was aroused, watching him. I saw his eyes move to me in the window once, maybe even twice.
I’m once again thinking about those images as my fingers glide between my folds. My other hand moves to my breast and I pinch and roll my nipple through my nightgown.
And then it dawns. What if he’s watching me right now? My room is dark so surely, I’m safe, right?
What if he’s standing at that mirror on the other side of the wall? What does he look like naked? What if he’s naked, watching me touch myself, touching himself? Does he still have my little blue panties? A surge of sensation flashes all through me, like a lightning bolt.
I look at the mirror as I climax. I can make out my own form, though the room is dim. My fingers quicken their pace and I rub hard on that knot of nerves and then it goes from happening to huge. I come huge. Bigger than ever.
I know the basics of sex. Angie talked to me about it. I’ve read some romance novels, watched a lot of Rated-R teen movies. I had Sex Ed in school. I saw that girl get raped my first day here.
I haven’t been touched by a man yet but I’m thinking about sex a lot the last few months and even more so since I was moved into his house, close to him, seeing him on a semi-regular basis.
I’ve been touching myself since before I got here. I didn’t do it much in the first few months here but now? Now, I’m doing it just about every day in the shower.
Although I’m under the blankets, my back arches and my mouth opens when I let out a rush of breath and a little “ahh”. I flick the lamp on and look at the mirror.
I chew my thumb nail with nervous energy.
He probably didn’t see me. Or hear me.
I hope.
He might have gone out when I went for that swim and might not even be back yet. Maybe it’s just an ordinary mirror.
Right. Not! I know it’s not, particularly after what happened the other night, but I’m feeling a little panicked so I’m in denial. My room was dark.
It’s fine.
I yawn and sated sexually apparently equals sleepy for me, so I stress another minute or two and then I close my eyes and begin to drift off, snuggling into the pillow, thinking about him.
***
The blankets are yanked off me. I jerk and sit straight up.
“You just changed the game, little flower.”
He’s standing there, at the foot of my bed, and the lights are on, blinding me. But I can still make out the rage on his face. It’s not just rage; it’s something else, too. Pity, or something.
“You did this. Remember that.” He points at me.
“Wh-what?”
“You know what. Don’t play stupid. You flipped a switch and made that ache turn to a throbbing heat that is squeezing my fucking cock around the goddamn clock.”
I’m in a bit of shock. He eyes me up and down.
“I…” I don’t know what to say.
My heart is racing.
“You ready?” He starts undoing his belt. He’s in suit pants and an untucked, half-unbuttoned black tailored shirt. He yanks the belt out of his belt loops and whips the footboard of my bed.
I gasp and pull my feet up. He didn’t come close to hitting me but I want to slink away.
“I didn’t think so. You’re not fucking ready. You’re not ready for me to spread those petals and deflower you. Don’t fucking play dangerous games, little girl.” He climbs up and hovers over me, his nose an inch or two from mine. He’s balancing on his knees, which are on either side of my hips, also on his forearms, which are near my chest.
“You like playing dangerous games, Holly?”
I love the sound of my name on his lips. My eyelashes flutter or something as I feel the vibration of my name in my chest.
“You know I see you. Don’t try to play stupid. And don’t even play. You won’t win. You don’t even know the game you’re trying to play.”
“The light was out,” I stupidly defend.
He’s gritting his teeth, eyes narrow and on me.
“Why am I here? What are you going to do with me? I’ve been here so long and I just… what’s gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? I can’t take not knowing.”
He smiles. But, it’s kind of arrogant. No, not kind of. It’s really arrogant. But then it melts into something else, it’s as if he’s had something cross his mind that he’s disgusted about.
I squirm a little under the heat of him. He’s not touching me but I’m caged and I can feel his body heat. He smells incredible. I feel like my nipples are reaching for him. They’re pebbling, as if I’m cold. I’m not cold. It’s really warm in here and really really warm underneath him.
I suck on my lower lip and blink a couple times.
He snarls at me and backs off. He’s standing at the foot of my bed, glaring at me. He points at me, his face a sinister warning.
He backs up, running his hands through his hair, and then he leaves, switching the light off on his way out. He slams the door and I hear the lock turn.
***
It’s morning. His belt is on my bedroom floor, so I put it on my desk. It almost feels like it’s got an electrical current running through it when I pick it up. I briefly debate hiding it, keeping it, but Esmerelda is there before I get a chance to do that.
When Esmerelda brings my breakfast, her eyes land on it and then move to me, horrified. She doesn’t say anything. But, we exchange looks. She takes it when she goes.