Another morning, another breakfast, and I’m timid and cautious. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel any more than I understand what I do feel. I push around my breakfast and finally eat it. When I dare look up at Damien, he’s almost done and he seems to be distracted. When I finish, he waves me up and I follow him toward the foyer.

"I won’t be back this evening," Damien says, his hand brushing my back as he heads out the door, past me on the way to my room after breakfast. It's oddly domestic that we have this schedule, and him actually telling me about his planned absence, plus the touch, is nearly intimate. A thrill shoots through my blood, long after the door is closed, and he’s certainly long gone. I need to think about snooping. I tell myself I will, but first I hold myself and think about how I feel right now. Where has my good sense gone?

How can I allow myself to be excited by Damien? I know he is a danger. I tasted what that danger is like.... and I can't do this. My body has responded to him when I met him, but I'm not sure I can ever feel something so intense again and survive it. A fantasy, alone, is enticing. But I need to be able to get a real breather, get a game plan together, and get back to school. I think about school because I haven’t been thinking about it. I’m guilty for resigning myself to being some kind of captive, kept girl, instead of a college student with a life of my own. My parents, they gave me to this man. He thinks that he owns me now. He has no idea what I am. That I needed to get away from my home as well and so let myself be taken.

At least from here I'll find some way to escape. I'll make sure that I never have to deal with my parents ever again, either, because I can never trust them again. How they could do this to me, I can’t understand. It's all so surreal. I get frustrated with my reactions, but then I wonder if I'm being too hard on myself because of just how strange this all is.

I'm trapped here. At least Damien is a busy man. Because when he is away, when his staff isn’t around, and it's just me alone as the day is winding down and he isn't coming home that night, that's when I meticulously snoop. Don’t roll your eyes.

He’s a mystery. And sure he said no speaking. But he didn’t say no snooping.

I have to touch a thing and replace it exactly after I look at it. The kitchen, the dining room, not even the bedroom has anything useful or important that I’ve found. There has to be something important that I can find and that can help me get out of here.

Of course, I know where Damien must keep his important paperwork. The things that he doesn’t want me to see. While I think I'm doing an excellent job at covering my tracks, there's still a chance that he knows I go through his things whenever I get a chance. Even if he doesn’t know, he probably suspects.

That's why he keeps the study locked every day. I saw him close and lock one of those doors the other day, and the brief flash of a deep cherry wood desk informed me of the room’s identity as his study. I knew then that I would need to get into that room. I could never break in. I have literally none of those kinds of skills, particularly to break in a way that would remain undetected. I would have to be able to get in some other way.

So, when he was gone, I undertook my snooping ritual, attempting to find anything and everything that might help lead to my freedom. I wasn't going to lose my whole life without putting up a fight. I was locked in the house, the doors and windows all locked so that I couldn't get out. I wondered what I would do if his home was on fire. Would I die in here because he'd locked me up? I had a truly morbid thought, wondering if things got worse...if I should...no, I was fighting to live and I didn't want to die. I may have been trapped in here now, but I was going to find something. A way out. Paperwork. A secret. Anything. I couldn’t decide if I was more or less horrified that my guard at the door would probably save me, should the condo go up in flames.

After so much searching, knowing most days that he would be home soon, I knew that perhaps I’d lied to myself thinking that I would be able to find a way out of Damien’s clutches. I had thought that if I simply put in enough time, eventually I would find a way to my freedom.

So every day I tried the study. I hadn't tried it yet, today, because I'm so disheartened when I look at the same things every day. I've tried the same ways out, and nothing has worked. Still, I need to wiggle the door handle and see if it'll open.

And that's when I realize that the damn door has been slightly ajar all day. Perhaps Damien was in a hurry that morning and had forgotten to lock that door? To even close it? I don't know what he's done before breakfast, but I’m not wasting this entire day when that damn study is open right now.

Walking inside to the study, I smell cigars, bourbon, leather, and wood. It's a den of male pleasures. At least, the kinds that don't involve a girl. I wonder if Damien has fucked women in here.

He's probably fucked countless women all over this house.

Was I next? While he'd turned me on before, I'm now terrified at this notion. I can't help but be frightened. Damien is a menacing, intimidating figure. His very presence fills me with a sense of foreboding, and when he's not around, I feel like he's in every shadow, and somehow also in every shard of light that enters the space I'm in. It's not just being in his house or being his prisoner, even, that makes me feel like I have to keep myself on my toes at all times. There's a power surrounding him, even when he isn't here, that stirs me toward fear. 

The longer Damien doesn't touch me, but looks at me longingly…the more my arousal mixes with fear. Neither of my reactions to Damien entirely go away. They don't replace each other, either. Instead, my anticipation, longing, and terror all creep inside me like scars on my mind that keep me from being able to breathe. I imagine a black smoke fogging my lungs, curling around my heart, and never relenting a moment of sanity to me.

Going through the files for hours isn't going to be an option. Before, Damien wasn’t going to be home all night, and I’d gone crazy, and now it's past midnight. Who knows how early he will be back to the penthouse? I can't take any chances. I need to find something and get out because no way am I going to be able to get another opportunity to go through the papers in his study if he catches me in there in the twilight hours or into the morning. I need to not let this moment over-excite me and lead to me getting caught. I have to be the same level of meticulous with this room that I've been in every other room in the house. In fact, I probably need to be more careful in this room.

That's when I see tickets. Between all the manila folders with relatively mundane financial and real estate holdings, there are tickets of some kind that pertain to me. I don't quite understand what I'm seeing, but there's a basic physical description of me, my birthdate, and my height and weight, inside the folder with the documents labeled as tickets. I don't know what this means, but I know this is key. Somehow, I've found this ticket to both my current imprisonment, and the freedom I know I have to fight for.

I have to be on the lookout for Damien's every move, for any other openings. That way, I'll be able to get my freedom.

Taking a final look at them, I commit them as much to memory as I can; I try to piece everything back together. I can’t scuttle from that study fast enough.

As I leave, I don’t know if I should close the door or not. I decide to err on the side of making it looked untouched and to try and keep the door the same level of ajar as it was before.

Crawling into my bed, finally, I can breathe. I'm exhausted, and yet wide awake. I finally fall asleep not long before breakfast. In my nightmares, I have the ticket tattooed all over my body and can’t hide it from Damien. I wake up before he reacts, and I’m glad. I can’t take much more of this restless sleep. My mind is in tatters from the anxiety.