Ruby

 

 

 

He called me by my name. He's never done that before.

His voice still echoes in my head, that beautiful sound filling my heart as it fills my mind.

Ruby.

Ruby is my real name. I never considered taking an alias for my job. It's a part of me, what makes me the person I am. Why would I take a different name?

Until now, he refused to call me by my name. He didn't even want to hear it or know about it.

Those few seconds of free-falling seemed to stretch into an eternity. It seemed so long, in fact, that it allowed me enough time to envision what would happen to me once I landed at the bottom, the bones that would be broken, the possibility of having my head split open.

But it all faded instantly when he called out my name, and I saw him reaching out his hand in a failed attempt to save me from falling.

"Ruby!"

Nothing else mattered in that moment. Suddenly there’s no fear, my face fixated on his, seeing my name on his lips, but yet I doubted myself at the same time.

Did he really say it? Did he really call out my name? What does it mean?

A split second later, my mind is drawn back to reality, to me falling down the stairs. I helplessly flail about as I try to catch myself, stop the forward momentum of the fall, and swallow the sharp pain from my back hitting the wall, but I realize it won't be as bad as I feared.

I'm lucky. The fact that I'm bouncing against the wall and trying to hold onto something that isn't there, cushions my fall enough to allow me to take control, at least to some degree. I'm successful at managing to redirect my fall, no longer tumbling backwards but dropping forward, though I’m sure I’ve sprained my ankle in the process.

I land at the bottom of the stairs. My ankle is on fire, and the sensations coming from my thighs and calves confirm that my lower body will be a colorful rainbow of purples, black, and blue tomorrow. There's a moment of complete silence, during which I sit on the floor, staring ahead in disbelief as I try to fathom what just happened.

His heavy steps hurriedly thudding down the stairs behind me reinforces his concern. Our eyes meet as soon as he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

"Are you okay?!" He’s breathing heavily and his eyes are huge and panicked when he drops immediately to his knees beside me. "Did you break anything? Is anything hurting? What's hurting? Talk to me. Don’t move."

I'm trembling. My eyes slowly shift from my hands up to his dazed face, then back to my hands, and next to my legs. I'm sitting in a very awkward position to say the least, my legs sprawled out at an angle suggesting that I might've broken or twisted something. I'm pretty sure my ankle is the worst thing affected.

I try to gather myself, pulling my legs closer to my body. My face contorts in pain when my foot drapes over the last step.

"What?!" he rushes. "What is it, toy?"

There it is. Toy. Now that he's no longer in a state of shock, I'm no longer Ruby.

"My ankle," I whimper. "I think I might have sprained it."

His eyes dart over to my foot, quickly scanning it as if to make sure it's not twisted in an absurd way, and then he gathers me up from the floor, gently picking me up as if I was a child.

And this time, I'm not fighting him. I wrap my arms around his neck, and from how I’m positioned against his strong chest, I can feel his heart beating so fast that it almost scares me.

Much to my sorrow, he doesn't carry me back upstairs, but follows through with his original intention. He effortlessly opens the door to the dungeon, making sure that I don't bump against the wall or the door as he takes me into the room, my cell.

He carries me over to the mattress, lying me down as carefully as possible, but I still groan in pain when my back meets the mattress.

His eyes widen. "What? Does something else hurt?"

I shift a little, changing my position to reduce the pressure on my lower back. It seems I've bruised that area, as well.

"My back," I say. "I must've hurt it when I bumped against the door."

Our eyes meet, and the way he looks at me almost makes me cry. He's so strong, so big, so secure, my master, the man who controls my every move, and now he looks as if he's completely lost. As if he's the one that was just broken, and not me.

"How strong is the pain?" he asks. "Can you breathe? Does it hurt to breathe?"

I shake my head.

"And your foot, how bad is that?" he probes. "And anywhere else? Do you have something else that hurts?"

"Pretty sure it's just a few bruises and possibly a sprained ankle," I say, narrowing my eyes as I look at him. "You won't have to call a doctor and explain to anyone how you threw your captive down the stairs when she tried to fight being restrained, don't worry."

It just occurred to me that this might be his biggest worry. That he might fear calling a doctor or taking me to a hospital because I'm seriously injured. I wonder if he'd even consider doing that. After all, it would bring this whole game to a quick end - and he'd wind up in prison.

His expression changes, and before I know it, he's back to the version of himself that I'm most familiar with.

"You could've gotten seriously hurt!" he yells.

I flinch at the tone and volume of his voice, but I’m quick to recover and shoot him a comeback.

"You're saying that as if it was my fault!"

"It was your fault!"

"What?!" I cry out. "How is it my fault when I merely reacted instinctively to you dragging me back into a dungeon that I don’t want to be in?"

"I told you, you shouldn't fight me!"

I gasp with indignation, trying to sit up from my horizontal position so that I‘m eye-level with him. I'm soon paralyzed by a stinging jolt of pain that lands me back on the mattress.

He lets out a sigh, placing his hands on my shoulders to encourage me to remain where I am. As if I had a fucking choice.

"Well, at least now I'll be easy to handle for you. Immobile and unable to run, even if I had a chance."

I glare at him, meeting his face just in time to see his expression break.

He looks hurt, devastated.

It's another one of those moments when I wish I could take back what I said. He's cruel, a psychopath.

But he's not a monster.

"This is not what I wanted," he says in such a low voice that it almost breaks my heart. He doesn't have to elaborate for me to know that he's not simply talking about what just happened.

He's talking about all of this. About almost everything that has happened since he took me.

But the sorrowful expression disappears almost as quickly as it appeared.

"This doesn't give me anything," he hisses, gesturing toward my body. "I don't enjoy hurting you like this. I don't fucking enjoy seeing you like this."

I bite my lower lip.

"You didn't do it on purpose," I say. "It was an accident."

I reach up to his face, placing my hand on his cheek, and he lets me. He even leans into it for a second, but retreats quickly then as if I slapped him.

"You were right," I whisper. "I like this. I like what you're doing to me."

Our eyes meet, and he reaches up to my hand then, gently removing it from his face.

"But I don't like this basement," I say. "I don't want to be down here. I hate being locked up in here all by myself, every day, all day long."

My attempts to fight off the tears are futile. I assume that's one thing we have in common: the inability to allow ourselves to show weakness in front of the other.

I know I'm just churned up by the accident. I was in shock, and now that I'm recovering, I'm bereft of my defense mechanisms to keep the dark thoughts away. They come swarming at me all at once, filling me with despair and hopelessness.

"I don't like this fear," I mumble. "I don't like not knowing what will happen to me. I don't like the uncertainty of this. I don't like fearing you as much as I do. I want-"

"Hush," he interrupts me, placing his index finger on my lips, and only worsening my anxiety.

I close my eyes, trying to calm myself. The first wave of tears is rolling down my cheeks.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he whispers. "I'm not going to end you, toy."

"But what are you going to do?" I ask pitifully, opening my eyes so I can meet his gaze.

A dark smile plays around the corners of his mouth, frightening me even more.

"Just promise me you'll be a good girl from now on," he says. "Just be a good girl for me - and no harm will ever come your way."