Chapter 23 Cal
Cal
Watching her eat makes me want to take her downstairs and fuck her all over again.
This time, I think I'll introduce her to some of the toys she doesn't remember enjoying.
If she thought she enjoyed what I did to her earlier, she is woefully unequipped for how much pleasure I can bring her.
And while the pasta I made her for dinner seems to be as good as sex for her, I am dying for another taste of her sweet pussy.
“What?” She asks after she slurps a string of spaghetti into her mouth, the end of it hitting the tip of her nose and splattering red sauce across her face.
I laugh as she scowls and uses the back of her hand to wipe it clean.
She's like a wild animal sometimes, and I can't help but find it endearing.
She's such a fucking breath of fresh air after I've spent my whole life stagnating.
When I first took her to my basement, I didn't realize that she would change me, that she would.
.. fix me? I'm not exactly the paragon of sainthood, obviously, but she seems to have quelled my murdery side with her mere existence.
While I didn't intend to wake her when I did, I'm glad that it happened, because her company these last few days has been a treat.
“Nothing.” I shake my head, hoping she doesn't press me for more. When she does, I sigh and switch tack. “Didn't you want some wine?”
The glass I poured for her still sits, untouched, next to her plate. Maybe she's more of a beer drinker, or maybe she doesn't drink at all.
“No.” She says curtly. “Why? Are you trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?”
When I don't immediately answer, she smirks a little. It's a good look on her... it seems somehow more natural than the quiet, docile persona she's been embracing for the last few days.
“If I wanted to take advantage of you, little doll, I'd simply roll over you and take you in your sleep. You sleep quite heavily.”
Her smirk slips, and for a second, I regret saying that.
But then her tongue flicks over her lips, and I watch her squirm, no doubt pressing her thighs together. So, she likes that idea, I guess.
“Have you?” She ventures, swirling the pasta around her fork before looking up to meet my gaze. “I mean, since I've been not sedated, have you…”
“No.” I shake my head. That would be a line I don't want to cross without knowing how she'd feel about it.
I'm not trying to scare the shit out of her or give her an anxiety attack.
I've seen her twitching and whimpering from the nightmares.
.. nightmares she eases from when I pull her body against mine.
It's how I know she's no light sleeper..
. the fact she doesn't stir but settles deeper when I drag her body to mine, caging her against my chest.
If my cock poking her in the ass all night doesn't wake her, I'm not so sure slipping it inside her would either.
“Do you think it would be like... earlier?”
I assume by earlier she means when I fucked her this morning before she took a nap in my arms. I admit, I helped myself to her tits, played with them to soothe me as she slept at my side, and my back ached from the damn counter.
I chose it to be sanitary before I knew this would go how it did, but I should have gone with a bed because keeping her there as often as I did wasn't fair to her. It must have been so uncomfortable.
“For me, yes.” I shrug. “For you, I don't really know. Probably.”
“Maybe we can try it sometime?”
I nearly choke on the bite of garlic bread I just shoved into my mouth, stunned by her suggestion. “You would want that?”
She's the one who shrugs this time. But I don't miss the pink flush over her otherwise ivory skin.
“Why not? I mean, no offense to you, but fucking you was the most interesting thing that's happened to me in... months.” She chuckles to herself about the innuendo as I appraise her, looking for any sign that she wants something more than what she's saying.
“You're bored?” I surmise.
I can't exactly blame her there. We've watched crappy reality television and horror films, we've ordered takeout and skirted awkward conversation about the best snacks, and then Dex has come to discuss work with me.
I'm not even entirely sure what she does during that time.
.. I didn't want to come across as too intense, so I've given her a lot of space.
The truth is, I only meant for her to outlast the last one by a couple of days, maybe a few weeks. I'd entertained the idea of leaving her chained in the basement but lucid, but since she's been awake, I haven't wanted to do that.
Of course, part of that has to do with Dex.
If he hadn't been there when she started to wake, if I hadn't shared my secret, would I have still helped her transition through the detox, or would I have just left her down there to get through it on her own and then used her the way she thought I would, like a slave for sex?
“It's nothing against you.” She says, almost apologetically. “It's just... I may as well be a cat. I sleep and eat and watch some TV. It's not exactly mentally stimulating. I mean, don't you read? You have no books anywhere in this house.”
“I... don't read.” I say slowly. It's not something I've spent a lot of time thinking about, but now that she's mentioned it, when was the last time I picked up a book?
High school literature? I'm acutely aware of how unrefined I must seem to her now.
“Is that what you liked to do? One of your hobbies?”
“One of them.” She takes a sip of her wine, finally, as if that will curtail the conversation. But I want to know what other hobbies she had... what else I can do to keep her from boredom.
“What are the others? Maybe I can get some stuff together for you and—”
“Sex was one of them.” She says without even missing a beat.
“I…” I laugh, not even sure how to respond to that.
“I'm not a whore or anything.” She rushes out. “I just... like to feel wanted.”
I don't give a damn who she's slept with or how many people. In fact, it's a point of pride for me that I am apparently the first man who's ever had the pleasure of making her come.
“You said you can't orgasm. But sex was still a hobby for you even without finishing every time?”
“I sound like a bit of a slut, don't I?” She shakes her head. “Sorry. It's just... well, my accuracy rate for getting men off is a hundred percent. There's a little bit of power to be found in that.”
“You like power?”
She considers the question for a minute. “Sometimes, yes.”
I get that. I crave power, control. It's the only thing that satisfies my dark side. But he doesn't always have precedence. Sometimes I appreciate other people, namely Dex, doing the decision-making and just telling me where to show up.
There's a lull in our conversation where neither of us can seem to think of anything to say, and she drinks her wine like she's trying to chug it.
Her calling herself a slut reminds me of the scars on her thighs. I want to ask about them, but I can't think of how to do that.
Oh, speaking of sluts, why did you carve that word into your skin?
I'm sure that would go over well.
“Why haven't you tried to run?” I ask suddenly, the words falling right off my tongue without my permission.
I didn't even think of them before I said them, but now that I have, I'm curious to know the reason.
“From you?” She asks. “Because where would I go?” Her laugh is sad, but it's covered by sarcasm and indifference.
“Back.” I shrug. “To where you were before you were taken.”
“There's nothing for me back there. An empty apartment, a dead-end job that I probably don’t have anymore since my kidnappers didn’t exactly let me call in sick.” She laughs a little. “The only person I care to see again isn't there, so there's no point in moving backward, is there?”
It's a surprisingly well-adjusted sentiment.
But it isn't lost on me that her reaction to me hasn't been normal.
She protested me by refusing to talk for a while, pretending she was asleep when she wasn't, but she hasn't so much as tried to go to the door.
.. the door that she could easily walk out of if she wanted to.
Of course, if she did, I'd have to chase her down and kill her before she could tell anyone about my newest hobby.
But still, the fact she hasn't even screamed for help... Is she trying to reverse Stockholm syndrome me? Because I think it may be working.
Or maybe you're just not as awful as you think you are.
It's my brother's voice in my head that tells me I'm not entirely the monster. It's my father's voice in my head that tells me I'm nothing but the monster.
My own voice doesn't speak to me, which is just as well since my head is full with the rest of them.
“Tell me about your brother.”
I say it before I've really even thought about it.
She told me how they were taken, but nothing more about their relationship.
I know they used to watch horror movies together, the same as she and I have done, but I can't imagine she's using me as a stand-in for her brother.
Not when I've been fucking her religiously since I took her out of the box she was sent to me in.
Her eyes round with shock and a little bit of horror, like she can't believe I'd go there. But she told me about his existence the first night we consciously shared a bed, so I figured it was a fair game topic.
“You said he was always there for you.” I explain. “Mine was too, when we were young.”
“You have a brother?” She asks, ignoring the question still as she looks around like he may materialize.
“Had.” I correct. “He died.”
She stares at me like she's trying to decide whether to believe that. “What happened to him?”
I think about the answer for a moment before I give it to her.
“I killed him.”