“Take as much time as you need,” he said, his voice gritty with tension. “Your job will be here when you get back.”
I don’t care if Aasif doesn’t really want me there. I don’t even care if someone forced him not to fire me. What I do care about is this feeling that it may have been Daimon who got to Aasif.
It’s ridiculous. Why would Daimon care if I get to keep my job? I’m flattering myself with thoughts that he worries about me. I’ve allowed myself to feel comfortable in his presence. I let him touch me and I allowed myself to touch him. But that doesn’t mean that he cares about my well-being.
The truth is that it was probably my father who threatened Aasif not to fire me. My father can be just as persuasive as Daimon. And my father may not be the most honest man or the best father in the world, but I know he at least does not want me to starve.
I know this from the monthly deposits made into my bank account. My father always deposits five hundred dollars on the twenty-seventh day of each month. He knows I don’t make much working at the gas station. And living in L.A. is expensive. Five hundred dollars is just enough to ensure that I don’t starve, but not enough for me to live comfortably, by any means.
My father didn’t think I would last in the real world, but he underestimated how well he’d trained me. Because my father didn’t just teach me how to fight my enemies. He also taught me how to outsmart them.
And I’ve been outsmarting my mother and father for eight months now.
I grab the bar that hangs from the doorframe leading into the bathroom and I do the usual fifty pull-ups. Afterward, I tape my hands under the stove light and head into the dark living room. Feeling my way around, I shove the coffee table out of the way. Then I take out my aggression on the punching bag hanging in the corner of the room for a good hour.
I live extremely modestly. I don’t have a gym membership. I don’t get my hair and nails done. I don’t buy unnecessary clothing and home furnishings. I eat just enough to maintain my weight while keeping myself trained. This is how I’ve been able to pay all my rent and expenses and still save every penny my father deposits into my bank account, plus a bit more of my own money.
I have to be ready to leave if anyone starts sniffing around here looking for answers about how I got this knife wound. Or if Daimon turns on me.
He said he’d come back the next day, but he never came before I left for work at eleven p.m. I got back from the gas station at 5:12 a.m. this morning. I’ve been working out for more than an hour. The sun will be coming up soon. He lied. Everybody lies.
I peel away the tape from my hands and toss it into the trash bin in the kitchen. Then I head to the bathroom to shower. I’ve removed the light bulbs from every fixture in the apartment. Even I am susceptible to temptation every so often. Removing the bulbs removes the danger of me falling victim to my own morbid curiosity.
I undress in the dark. The bathroom has the most natural light of any room in the apartment. The only thing covering the sixteen-inch square window opposite the mirror is a set of plastic blinds. A small amount of light seeps through the cracks on both the left and right side of the slats, but I’m okay with that. I need a little light to apply my makeup.
The moment I turn on the shower, I hear his voice. It’s so clear in my head, as if he were standing right next to me.
“I was right. You are beautiful.”
I resist the urge to look in the mirror as I reach for the handle to turn on the water in the shower. I’m not beautiful. No matter how many times Daimon says it, it doesn’t make it true. I have to keep reminding myself of that or I’ll lose my footing.
I step over the side of the tub and into the shower, then I slide the shower curtain closed. Shutting my eyes, I step forward and tilt my chin down so the water runs over the back of my head. The water slides down the sides of my face, collecting at my nose, lips, and chin. Streaming from me like a warm, cleansing waterfall.
After I wash my hair and face, I lather up my body in mounds of suds. Then I lean my head back and allow the water to rinse away my filth. Closing my eyes, I savor the warmth as it streams over the curves of my shoulders. Between the valley of my breasts. As I have so many times since Daimon was last here, I imagine his touch trailing delicately over every inch of my body.
I slide my hand over my slick belly and stop just short of my mound. I’ve wanted to touch myself from the moment he left my apartment, promising to return. But I can’t allow myself to think of Daimon that way.
I also can’t stop thinking of him this way.
I slide my finger between my legs and easily find my clit. Moving my finger in a gentle circular motion, I imagine it’s Daimon’s tongue, licking me clean.
I didn’t know much about sex until I left my parents’ basement and got a computer. I’d been touching myself for a few years by the time I moved out at the age of eighteen, but I didn’t know why it felt so good or that someone else could touch me and it might feel even better. But my computer introduced me to a whole slew of websites, which taught me everything from how to touch myself to what to imagine when I touched myself.
The novelty wore off after a few months on my own, and I hadn’t pleasured myself in more than a week until today. So imagining Daimon’s mouth on me is easy and my muscles quickly begin to convulse and contract at the thought of him pleasuring me.
A knock on the bathroom door makes me jump and I knock the top of my head against the shower head. “Ow! Who’s there?”
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
That voice. Even with the warm water drenching my skin, it still sends a shiver through me.
“How did you get in here?”
“Your door was unlocked and you didn’t answer when I knocked. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine!”
My door is never unlocked. I want to say this aloud, but part of me wonders if I left it unlocked by accident. Maybe I was subconsciously hoping he would let himself in. Our minds have a way of tricking us into acting on our desires.
Desire. Do I really desire Daimon in my home?
“May I come inside?”
His question stuns me. I can’t have heard him correctly. No, I’m definitely hearing things. I won’t even respond.
“Alex?”
Oh, heavens. The way he says my name.
“I’m coming into the bathroom.”
“Why?” The word escapes my lips sounding more like a shrieking cry than a question.
“So I can be near you.”
I don’t know how to respond. I’ve never heard a more beautiful sentence in all my life. And this very thought fills me with shame.
I turn the shower off and listen as the water drips from my hair and body onto the floor of the tub. Both of us are silent as we await my response or the next words out of my mouth. It is clear that the next move is mine.
I cross my arms over my chest and clear my throat. “Can you please hand me the towel on the rack?”
I hear a soft rustling as he lifts the towel off the rack on the wall. I consider jutting my arm out through the shower curtain, but I decide against it. Let him figure out a way to get the towel to me. Though the sun is just beginning to rise, barely shining the faintest hint of gray morning sunshine through the cracks in the blinds, not enough light reaches the shower for him to see anything. Right now, I’m nothing more than the shadowy outline of things he’s already seen on a hundred other women.
The shower curtain flutters as he grabs hold of it. Then he slowly pushes the curtain completely aside. He takes a step back and holds up the towel, beckoning me to come to him.
I draw in a slow breath and release it as I let my arms fall to my sides. I watch his face as I step out of the tub, but I can’t see his expression in the shadow of that damn hood. He’s about to close the towel around me when I reach up and push his shoulders back.
“What are you doing?”
“The sun’s coming up.” I keep pushing him u
ntil we’re both in the corridor and I close the bathroom door behind us.
I don’t want to see him just as much as I don’t want him to see me.
I breathe an audible sigh of relief as the darkness conceals us both.
“You’re a little bit crazy, but I like it.”
“A little bit?”
He laughs and I can’t help but laugh with him. A moment later, we both fall silent and now the next move is his.
He reaches forward with the towel and brushes it across my cheek. He does the same to the other cheek and I stand frozen as he continues to dry off my face and move down to my neck. He swipes the towel over my shoulder and I let out a stuttered breath.
He pauses a moment, then he grabs my other shoulder and turns me around. He drapes the towel over my head and uses it to squeeze the water out of my hair. Pulling the towel off my head, he gently brushes my hair over my shoulder, exposing my nape.
His fingers graze the back of my neck and goosebumps sprout over my skin as he trails his fingertips over my shoulder and down my left arm. He steps forward so his chest is pressed against my back, then he leans over and brushes his cheek against my ear. Laying his hand over the back of my left hand, his fingers lace through mine and my entire body relaxes.
“You’re skin is so soft,” he whispers, his lips brushing against my earlobe. With his fingers laced through mine, he brings my left hand forward and holds it against my abdomen. “I want to touch you.” He slowly begins sliding both our hands down my damp abdomen. “Here, in your bedroom. Come.”
With every step I take, leading him through the darkness, the alarm bells in my mind are sounding louder. Warning me to think.
Think, Alex!
But, for once, I don’t want to think.
I want to feel.
When we enter the bedroom, he closes the door behind him. There’s no need for this. It even feels a bit sinister. But I’m not afraid.
“Turn around.” I turn away from the bed to face him and he holds out the towel to me. “Dry yourself off.”
He doesn’t ask me to please dry myself off. It’s not a request. It’s an order. A stern command delivered gently in that beguiling voice.
I take the towel from him, reveling in my own sexual magnetism as I caress my body with the soft cotton. He can’t see me very well, but he can see the curves of my body as I move. Wiping away the beads of water on my skin as another kind of moisture gathers between my legs.
“Lie down,” he says once I’ve dropped the towel to the floor.
I sit on the edge of the bed first and he steps forward, invading my space. He gazes down at me and I know that underneath that dark hood, his dark mind is relishing this position of dominance. Because something tells me that he knows I wouldn’t give him this unless I wanted to. If I didn’t want to, he’d be dead.
I smile as I lie back, resting my head on the pillow and swinging my legs onto the comforter. As if he knows where I put it, his hand reaches sideways and feels around the surface of the nightstand until he finds the black feather he left with me on his last visit.
He sits on the edge of the bed. “Give me your hand.”
I try not to smile. Even though he can’t see my face, I know he can feel my energy. And I know he’s asking for my hand rather than taking it so that he knows he has my consent and cooperation. I want to tell him he needn’t order me around. He can just do with me as he pleases.
But I must be patient.
I hold my hand out to him and he takes it gently in his. He holds my hand face up and I flinch when the tip of the feather quill comes in contact with my palm. He traces the quill over my skin and down to each fingertip, one at a time. Then he begins writing something on my palm.
M-A-C-H-E-R-I-E. Ma chérie. My darling in French.
Then he presses his lips to my hand and I draw in a sharp breath. Something about his lips on my skin makes me emotional. My skin has been my enemy for nineteen years. But when he puts his lips on me, it’s as if all my enemies have fallen and the two of us are the only ones left standing.
He lays my hand down on the bed, then he turns the feather around and traces the soft vane of the feather down my temple and cheek. I try to keep my breathing even, but I know he can see the rapid rise and fall of my chest as he traces the feather down the side of my neck and over my collarbone.
“You have a gorgeous figure,” he murmurs, tracing a line over my shoulder then back toward my neck.
The feather lands in the hollow of my throat and he drags it slowly down the center of my chest, stopping when it lands between my breasts. I hold my breath as he lightly slides it over the swell of my left breast and stops, dangling the soft tip of the feather over my bare nipple. He leans forward and blows on the feather so it tickles my skin, sending an aching chill through my body.
“Do you feel that?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“Does it feel like your heart is pulsing between your legs?”
“Yes.”
He circles my nipple with the feather, over and over until the ache between my legs is so painful, I can’t take it anymore. I arch my back and shake my head, unable to speak my protest. He drags the feather across my chest to my other nipple and tortures me again.
“Please,” I plead.
“Please, what? What do you want me to do?”
I exhale a stale breath. This is it. This is my chance to feel the pleasure I’ve been dreaming of since I left my parents’ house.
“Please … You don’t have to be so gentle. I can handle whatever you give me.”
He pauses for a moment, then he delicately tucks the feather between my swollen pussy lips, sending a pleasurable shock through me.
“We’ll see about that. I have many things I’d like to do to this tight little body of yours. Many of which I’ve learned are still considered crimes in some parts of this country.”
I suck in a sharp breath as he leans over and gently presses his lips to the soft flesh above my navel.
He chuckles softly. “Don’t worry. I have no desire to hurt you,” he murmurs, tracing his fingers over my leg. “I only wish to leave you shivering with pleasure. Goodnight, chérie.”
And then he’s gone. Again.
Leaving me to question not just my sanity, but also my next move.
Chapter Six
Eight Months Ago
The moment I enter the kitchen, the smell of ground beef browning in the pot on the stove makes my stomach turn. My father refuses to allow me to be a vegetarian while living in his house. It has nothing to do with my principles or humanitarianism. It’s just the smell of meat that makes me sick. Plain and simple. But that’s not a valid reason for my father. He doesn’t want me to be some “pansy liberal” who can’t defend herself.
Such a stupid copout. There’s no doubt I can defend myself. I can do more than that. After twelve years of intense training in hand-to-hand combat, I’m practically a weapon of mass destruction by now.
My mother stands over the stove with her wooden spoon in hand as she stirs the meat in the pot. I have evil fantasies about my mother sometimes. I’ve thought of locking her in her bedroom more times than I can count, just to see how she likes it. I’ve imagined her wasting away in her room because all I give her to eat are slabs of raw meat.
I shake my head to clear away these sick thoughts. The biggest mistake my parents made was allowing me to watch television. They allowed me a window to the outside world. That window helps me know that these thoughts of torturing my mother are not normal. And I know that their keeping me in a basement and training me to be a killing machine is also not the way most children are raised.
And I’m not a child anymore.
“Mom?”
Her unnaturally red hair is pinned up in a bun on the back of her head. She glances over her shoulder then turns back to her pot.
“What?”
I draw in a deep breath and try not to let my emotions get the best of me. “I’m moving ou
t.”
Her hand stops stirring and her body freezes. “What?”
“I’m leaving. Tonight.”
She lets out a puff of laughter and continues stirring. “Yeah, right. Set the table, Alex.”
“No.”
She pauses for a moment before she turns around to face me. “Set the table, Alex.”
“No. I’m leaving.”
“You’re not going anywhere looking like that.” She looks me up and down, a wide smile forming at the sight of the blotchy skin on my arms and face.
“I’m leaving tonight. I’m not going to pay to live in a basement.”
She rolls her blue eyes and turns back to the stove as the smell of burned meat begins to billow behind her. “Fine. You’ll begin paying next year.”
“No!” I shout. “I’m leaving tonight!”
She spins around and I duck as she hurls the wooden spoon at my head. “You’re not going anywhere!”
“I can kill you right now!”
“Go ahead and try! You think your father will allow it?” Her eyes widen with delight as she beckons me with both hands. “No one knows you exist! No one will miss you when you’re gone.”
I glance at the wooden spoon on the floor behind me and imagine driving the handle into her chest. She’s lucky I have no desire to make things even more difficult for myself.
I turn on my heel and march toward the living room. My father is sitting on the sofa. The TV screen goes black as he turns it off.
He glares at me from across the room. He heard.
“Sit down,” he says, nodding at the other end of the sofa.
I grit my teeth and take a seat. “I’m not changing my mind.”
He stares straight ahead at the wall in front of us. The wall covered in pictures of my mother and father when they were teenagers. When they got married. When they went to Jamaica, Mexico, and Europe without me. Not a single picture of me anywhere.
“I know you can take care of yourself, princess,” my father begins. “I’m not worried about that.” I cross my arms over my chest as he turns to me and looks into my eyes. “But no one will ever accept you. Not like that.” He looks me up and down the way my mother just did. “The world is cruel, princess. But if you want to leave, know that we’ll always be here whenever you want to come back.”