CHAPTER TWELVE
ANTHONY
Aiden's dining room, in and of itself, was a work of the most calming form of art. Having known him for over ten years, I'd watched its many transitions, from a modestly decorated space into a gallery of the wicked - a feast for a man's weary and hungry eyes.
Gilded frames encased black and white photos; a hand, a breast, the ties that bound a young woman's body, and the exquisite detail given to the sated expression on her face. His muse was a beautiful blonde, her hair touched by a hint of fire red, not that you could see the color in the photo. In life, her blue eyes sparkled as perfectly as the finest sapphire, but in portrait, the color was erased to reveal the soul inside.
You knew Rebecca when you stared at Aiden's collection. You felt her and understood her. You saw what Aiden had always known about his courtesan.
"Master Anthony."
My thoughts had conjured her, it seemed. Rebecca stepped in through a door at my back, and I refrained from turning to glance in her direction. Seated on a leather topped stool, my back was bent forward, my forearms rested on my thighs and my head craned up to stare at the photograph of an angel.
"How many times have I told you to call me Anthony?" Keeping my voice soft, I made sure she would know she wasn't being scolded.
"But, you're a Master."
A bark of sad laughter burst from my lungs. "Not anymore."
With my head now bowed, I saw her shoes come into view. She stood close, but not so close as to seem inappropriate. She was Aiden's after all, and as such her touch was his alone, unless of course he allowed her to do otherwise.
"May I ask a personal question? One that might overstep my bounds."
Straightening my body, I gazed at her striking face. "Of course."
To Aiden, Rebecca was a courtesan he would never admit he loved, but to me she was an extraordinary girl, one who had earned my respect in so many ways.
She blinked, her throat working to swallow the anxiety she felt for asking her question. Her voice was soft, in fear I might shatter. "What happened with Elise?"
My hand scrubbed over my face. "Ah, beautiful. You do know how to cut a man off at the knees, don't you?" More soft laughter shook my shoulders, the sound pathetic and weak even to my own ears.
"Did I overstep?"
I shook my head. "No."
Fidgeting in place, she said, "I know she took her life. I know she was pregnant with your child at the time. I just don't know why. Why would a woman want to leave you?"
"Because I couldn't save her," I admitted, shame and failure pouring out of those words on a confession I'd never spoken aloud. Glancing up at the remarkable woman who feared nothing, I said, "Please, sit."
She lowered herself to her knees on the floor in front of me, her elegant hands folded demurely over her lap as she relaxed back, her feet tucked beneath her bottom.
She looked like a child waiting to be read a story, but unfortunately the only story I had to tell her was filled with the bitter truth of my greatest regret.
"You met Elise once, do you know that?"
Her eyes tipped up to meet mine before she lowered her gaze to the floor. Ever the patient courtesan, ever the perfect slave. Pressing my finger beneath her chin, I tipped her face back to mine.
"This is a story that's best told if I can look into your pretty eyes. Sadness and loss don't just bleed out of a person's words. They're contained in their body language, in their gaze, in the small changes in expression that dance across their face."
"I didn't know I met her. I feel even sadder to know that her death had been so recent. When I've overheard you and Aiden talking, I would have sworn her death had been a long time ago."
My lips pulled into a thin line, remorse painting the edges. "It happened roughly five months after the dinner party Aiden threw for you. You must remember it, especially considering you were the guest of honor."
Her eyes narrowed and I saw that spark inside of her that made Rebecca so special.
An anomaly among the courtesans, Rebecca's value was found in her physical and emotional makeup. Whereas she had a body that fed off both pleasure and pain, and whereas she had a desire for the submission she gave her Master, there was a spark of rebellion in her that would never be extinguished, a small part of her mind that even a man as adept as Aiden would never be able to touch. She was a Master and a courtesan at the same time. She was fire and ice, night and day, leather and lace.
Years before, Rebecca had been a young woman coming of age into a wonderful and sheltered life. From what Aiden had told me, she was timid and shy, but he'd somehow convinced her to allow him to escort her from an art gallery where he'd approached her so that he could buy her a cup of coffee.
Like many women, Rebecca had fallen for his good looks and sleek appeal. She never looked deep enough to see the predator that existed beneath the polished surface. It had been as simple as a dash of clear liquid in her drink when she'd excused herself to go to the bathroom. She woke in a dark room and the rest was history.
After obtaining her, Aiden had used a firm hand, but he'd also set up the most elaborate display on the night he presented her to the other Masters in our Society. Chaining her in a frame that had been built specifically to hold her weight, he'd left her hanging on the wall, naked and ashamed, while the Masters dined at the table in front of her.
"I guess I can't say you met Elise. You were a little distracted by what Aiden had done to you. But on the night he made you a piece of living art, she was the courtesan I brought with me.
"I'm sorry, I don't remember her."
Grinning, I pulled my hand from her chin, and shook my head. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that I didn't notice how depressed she'd become. It was my job as her Master to know every tiny detail about her, to have noticed that she was no longer as happy in the lifestyle as she'd once been. We were in love, Elise and I. Or, at least, I believed her when she told me she loved me. So much so that I purposely stopped her birth control. I wanted a child. I hoped for a son. And that's exactly what she would have given me if..."
My voice trailed off, the weight of the truth slamming into me like a runaway train. It crushed me beneath its boxed cars, tore my soul apart by steel tires. I exposed all of those shredded parts when I spoke of Elise in this way.
"A Master does his job by knowing his slave better than the slave knows themself. We read what a person is saying through non-verbal cues. We know when they've been pushed too far, and we know when they need to be pushed farther."
My eyes met Rebecca’s, her attention so rapt it made me appreciate her even more than I already had. "I missed the signs that Elise was unhappy. I missed that she felt insecure in the life she had. And I missed that she didn't want to bring a child into a lifestyle she never learned to fully trust."
Rebecca remained quiet, tears shimmering in her blue eyes for the heart of a man that had been shattered on the rocks below a seaside cliff. Filling in the desolate silence, I said, "She threw herself, and my unborn son, off that cliff, and when she did, she watched me run in her direction. Her eyes said goodbye as she fell backwards, and I was too late to stop her."
Sorrow chased a tear down her cheek, leaving empathy behind as a shimmering trail that led to sparkling sapphires stained red by the truth of my tragedy.
Blinking away what welled in her vision, she broke eye contact with me to gaze down at her fingers. I didn't blame her. The weight of my failure was almost too much to bear.
"Is that why you doubt yourself?" she asked, her voice gingerly stepping over the thin ice of my sorrow that cracked with every word spoken between us.
"That is why I no longer train courtesans. I became too sure of myself, and in that arrogance, I committed an unforgivable error."
Toying with her fingers, she said, "You should make it up to her - to yourself - by fixing a mistake that wasn't your fault. Where you failed Elise, others failed Sera."
Her head pulled up, her eyes alight with steadfast determination. "You were fast enough to pull her from the cliff this time. If anybody can help a woman who doesn't know how to help herself, it would be a person who can read her like an open book."
"Sera is fractured," I explained.
"So then be the glue that puts her back together. Isn't that what you and Aiden do? Break people down? Rebuild them?"
"But I failed-"
"Once. You failed once. It doesn't mean you'll fail a second time. Maybe you need to teach her the same lesson Aiden once taught me."
Amusement pulled at the corner of my lips. "And what was that?"
"The first time he let another man have sex with me, a man I hated, in fact..."
I knew just what man she was talking about. I'd been there that night, but the trauma seemed to have blurred the lines of her memory. As punishment for her rebellion, Aiden had sold the use of her body to a man that had hurt her for many years of her life. A man within the Society who had known her long before she was chosen to become a courtesan.
"...while that man fucked me from behind, I was laid over a small bench. I would have broken apart completely during that moment if my eyes hadn't been held to Aiden, if he hadn't been strong enough to pull my focus to him keeping me there until the pain and humiliation was over. He had been my glue. So while Sera is fighting her memories, while she's destroying herself running from, or facing, whatever has scarred her so deeply, perhaps you can keep her focus on you. That way you'll be able to hold together all the fractured pieces."
My mother once warned me that if you speak of the devil, he would appear. That statement was never truer than when Aiden stepped through the doors into the dining room. Casually leaning a shoulder against a wall, his expression hinted to the concern I knew he had for me. Refusing to acknowledge it, he said, "Should I be concerned that my courtesan has snuck off to spend time with another Master?"
Rebecca lit up at the sound of his voice.
"If it had been any other Master," I answered, "I don't think she would have snuck away. And I'm hardly a man who is cause for concern."
"Are you ready?" he asked, his words measured.
Nodding my head, I stood from the stool and stretched the muscles of my back that had grown tired from the slouched position I'd held. I'd asked Aiden for assistance after Sera had refused food. Planning to force feed her, I'd expected I'd need Aiden's strength to hold her down while I forced the nourishment into her body. Not just his physical strength, but also his iron will. There was no use lying to myself. I knew I was faltering.
But after the conversation I had with Rebecca, a new idea crossed my mind.
Rebecca hadn't been wrong to bring up what Aiden had done to her at that dinner so many years ago. It was just the bit of insight I needed to finally answer the question of what should be done to help Seraphina.
As I brushed down the wrinkles that had taken residence in my slacks, as I pulled at the cuffs of my shirt to set the sleeves back to their proper position, and as I glanced down at the example of what a true courtesan could become, I made a decision I thought I'd never make after Elise.
I decided to become a Master once again.