Rosalind
I could barely sleep last night. I don’t understand him at all. Oh, I get Nikolai is dangerous, probably the most dangerous man I’ve ever met, and the more I think about it, the more I’m sure he and his friends are
mafia or organized crime. In what, exactly, doesn’t matter.
What matters is he’s not letting me go. He’s got some crazy plan about revenge and a man who he says is my father, a man my mom apparently spent her life running from. A man I’ve never met.
Nikolai is a monster. I hate him.
Yet, his touch is electric, makes me melt and lose my mind. He makes me want him when I shouldn’t. When he took control, when he spanked me… I put my fingers to my burning cheeks, even as my hair sits wet and cold around me from my shower this morning, a shower I needed because when I sleep, my dreams were infected by Nikolai.
When he spanked me, it crossed some kind of line into pleasure, into something I wanted. “What is wrong with me?” There’s no answer.
He sent me a book. Good Manners for Young Ladies by Mrs. Edward Pattison, published in Eighteen Seventy-Eight. God only know where he got it from. Maybe his library for imprisoned girls? Gallows humor is probably against Mrs. Pattison’s teachings.
I pull my towel a little tighter around me, glancing nervously at the tiny camera. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. Is he watching now? I swallow. Hot and cold, that’s this man. He’s either cold, smooth ice or he’s a blast of a solar flare, burning me into a crisp.
Thing is, there’s that part of me I can’t deny, the one I can’t pretend isn’t there, that wants to be burned by him.
Two days ago, I’d have been shocked. Four, I would have checked myself into the closest psychiatric hospital. Now? There’s no option but to admit a small part of me throbs with need for his touch. For what he can do to me. The pleasure he can give or deny.
I don’t like him. I can’t. Still, he’s compelling. He burrows deep into me and makes me wet and aching, just for him. He’s experienced. I’m not. That’s what I tell myself, over and over, but there’s a tiny voice whispering that there’s more to it. I want to please him. Pleasing him might just give me a chance to get out of here. And…
I suck in a breath. I have no idea what he wants from me, how to please him. It’s like he wants to fuck me and yet doesn’t. He tells me he’ll hurt me, he humiliates me, and then he gives me his jacket like he doesn’t want others looking at me. He gets me off without asking for anything in return, without asking me for permission, like he knows what my body wants. He turns it on and off like it’s nothing at all.
It’s driving me around the bend not knowing what it is he wants. I hate it.
I hate him.
I hate everything.
I almost scream when there’s a knock on the door. I turn as the maid comes in, her eyes not on me as per usual, doesn’t utter a word. Behind her is the big man from last time.
He looks at me, seeming indifferent to me and my state of dress. He doesn’t spare me a second glance. He sets down a few bags and boxes while she places the tray on my bed. They go without a word, the key turning in the lock again.
I look at the tray. No food, but there’s another rose on the silver surface, and a folded note.
Slowly, I move towards it, wanting to crush and destroy the rose, but something stops me. “Maybe later.” I push the flower out of the way and pick up the piece of thick paper, opening it.
Rose,
Get dressed and knock on the door. Someone will bring you down to join me.
-N
My heart thumps. Join him? I’m allowed out? It’s daytime, so my head is suddenly bursting with plans of escape, but I make myself slow, taking a breath.
I need to dress. He gave me clothes. I’m shaking as I open the packages. No underwear, but there are pretty dresses, another slip, no shoes. There’s a floral number and a red one. I choose the floral, since it’s day, and pull it on. It’s fitted in the bodice, with a loose, above the knee skirt and a sweetheart neckline with cap sleeves, buttons running the length of the front.
I dry my hair and dither over makeup, but in the end, I just sweep on a little mascara and a tinted gloss he got me.
Then, I knock.
The key turns and the big man opens the door, gesturing to the stairs. “Dining room.” That’s all he says. For a moment, I stand, unmoving.
Then, realizing I’m being given the tiny bite of freedom to go by myself, I do just that, almost running down the stairs like some pathetic creature who thinks the bigger cage is actually freedom.
It’s almost like being free, but not quite. I pour my eyes over everything as I go, knowing I’m being watched, careful not to move my head too much. I catalogue my surroundings, looking for something, anything, that hints at a way out.
There are panels of stained glass on either side of the big door across the foyer that stream in sunlight. No guard, but why would there be? The small sleek box that I’m sure is an alarm will definitely be armed.
Taking a breath, I turn and head to the dining room. There are other doors, another hall I pass as I go. Everything is quiet and still, like the house is waiting for me.
The door’s ajar and I knock, the sound timid even to my ears. While Nikolai lights the kind of fires in me that turn my world into ash, he’s also a creature of the dark, from a world I don’t understand, one I don’t care to. He’s a monster and I need to remember that.
“Don’t just stand there.” His voice threads through the open door, curling around me in a burst of warmth and intimacy that’s all in my head. He’s been down between my thighs. Fingers inside me, tongue in my mouth. Lips on my skin. He’s seen me, touched me, made me sing in ways no one ever has before. Beyond just naked flesh, he’s seen me when I haven’t wanted him to, seen me in ways I’ve never seen myself.
Really, it’s just cool, bored, and non-committal.
“For fuck’s sake.”
I pull myself together at the faint aura of annoyance in his tone, like I’m testing his patience.