Chapter 41 Grace
The next few weeks blur together in a haze of exhaustion and pain.
I scrub floors until my hands bleed, only for Felice to knock over some plant and spill soil over them moments before Mistress inspects. I’m then punished for my carelessness.
I polish silver until my fingers cramp and become useless, but when they’re presented they have great smears of grease all over them. That gifts me another punishment.
I’m given the heaviest baskets to carry, the dirtiest tasks, the longest hours. The other women lounge in one room after another, laughing behind their hands as I stumble under the weight.
“She is so strong,” Julie coos, her voice dripping with poison. ”Look at those arms, like a workhorse.”
Felice smirks. ”She’s built for labour, isn’t she? All that sturdiness.”
Their words slither under my skin, festering.
I eat less, not that I’m given much anyway. I want to shrink, to disappear, but it doesn’t stop the comments.
“Careful Dog, you’ll break the chair.”
“Maybe if you moved faster, you’d burn some of that fat off.”
I want to scream. I want to fight. The one time I was stupid enough to snap back, Mistress had me locked in my cage without food, and I ended up soiling myself because she refused to let me out even when I begged.
I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night.
They take turns, these women who share this space with me but hold me at arm’s length with their disdain.
Felice with her sharp nails, Julie with something colder, harder.
A stick maybe, or the tip of a knife. They poke and prod, leaving bruises that bloom like shadows beneath my skin.
I wake exhausted, my body aching, my mind frayed at the edges.
My mornings are a haze of chores while the other women watch from their chairs, their laughter ringing out as they sip tea and exchange stories.
They don’t lift a finger to help. Instead they sabotage my work, spilling water on the floors I’ve just cleaned, smudging the silver I’ve polished.
When the mistress inspects my efforts, she finds fault everywhere, and her punishments are swift and brutal.
Today, I’ve done something apparently so heinous I’m strung up by my wrists.
The metal cuts into my skin. My arms feel like they’re being torn from their sockets, and the pain radiates through my shoulders and down my back. Mistress stands before me, her face a mask of indifference. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t need to.
The cattle prod crackles in her hand, a sound that sends a jolt of terror through me.
The first shock hits my side, and I scream. The pain is electric, searing through my body like a wildfire. My muscles spasm, my vision blurs.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
Mistress doesn’t stop. She moves the prod to my stomach, my thigh, each shock worse than the last.
She grabs my leg, forcing the thing against my most sensitive part and the terror I feel then is indescribable.
I’m screaming, begging, tearing my vocal chords that have only just started to heal, but the words are lost in the haze of pain she inflicts on me.
Make it stop. Please make it stop.
My body convulses, my mind splintering under the weight of it. It feels like she’s burnt my insides, like I’m on fire and I need it to be put out.
I sob, hanging limply, my words turning to an incoherent mess as the door opens and the sound of his footsteps reach me.
“What is this?”
Mistress freezes, the cattle prod still in her hand, barely an inch from my bruised flesh.
Antonio doesn’t wait for an answer. He moves to me, his hands so fucking gentle as he undoes the shackles.
My body gives out as soon as I’m free, and he catches me, lifting me into his arms like I’m not the ten-ton heifer the other women want me to believe I am.
Antonio carries me through the halls, his grip firm but not unkind. I don’t understand what’s happening, why he’s helping me. After all they’re all acting on his orders, his instructions.
I tense as we enter a room with a massive tub. He sets me down gently, his hands lingering for a moment before he steps back.
I’m trembling, my body still wracked with pain.
This is the moment, isn’t it? This is where he tells me to strip the last of my clothing, where he pretends to be kind and then he fucks me anyway.
Only, he doesn’t.
Instead he orders a maid to run me a bath. To get toiletries, oils, and things a normal person would want if they needed comfort.
I open my mouth to speak but my mind feels too fuzzy, too confused.
What the fuck is this man playing at?
Maybe he wants me clean, maybe he doesn’t like to fuck his pets when they’re all stinking and dirty from scrubbing his precious damn castle all day.
Antonio stands for a moment, his expression unreadable before he suddenly turns and leaves without another word.
I’m alone. He left me alone?
I wrap my arms around my poor battered body, silently waiting for the water to fill enough. The maid returns with an array of luxury bath products, some I recognise from when my mother used to have daily baths.
The maid doesn’t say a word to me, doesn’t look at me. It’s clear she thinks of me the same way Antonio’s other pets do.
Once she’s gone, I climb into the bath. The heat of the water stings at first, and then it turns into a balm against my bruised and battered skin. I barely believe this moment is real.
I lie back, shutting my eyes, feeling as the tears silently fall.
I can’t do this. I can’t continue living like this.
The door creaks open, and fear explodes in my chest as I scramble up, covering myself as best I can.
Anya slips in. She glances behind herself nervously, then quickly shuts the door.
“What do you want?” I ask before I can stop myself and my words come out as a hoarse, haunting whisper with how damaged my throat is. “Have you come to torment me some more? Come to call me a fat pig, to laugh at my body? Or perhaps you’ve decided to try and drown me and be done with it.”
“I…” She shuts her eyes, shaking her head as if she’s actually capable of human emotions. “It’ll get better,” she says softly. “They’ll come around. We all started off like this.”
I don’t know whether to believe her. The words feel hollow, a comfort that doesn’t quite reach the depths of my despair. But I nod anyway, because it’s easier than arguing.
She disappears, muttering about not wanting to be discovered.
As I soak in the tub, I can’t help but wonder what Antonio’s motives are. Why did he stop Mistress? Why did he bring me here, wherever the fuck here is? And how on earth can I continue to survive all this? Can I continue to fight this?