Chapter 62
The first thing I become aware of is the pain.
It’s a dull, throbbing symphony of an ache that plays across my entire body.
My ribs protest with a sharp twinge as I draw a shallow breath.
My thighs feel heavy and bruised, and there’s a mosaic of purples and blues I don’t need to see to know is there.
A deep, internal soreness echoes the violation, a ghost of the hands and bodies that claimed me last night.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, trying to push the memories back but they flood in, vivid and cruel.
The laughter, the rough texture of unwanted hands against my skin, the weight, the smell of cigars, and Antonio’s dark, approving eyes watching it all.
I am now lying so willingly in his bed.
The realization is a second, colder wave of pain. The sheets are impossibly soft and the mattress cradles my broken body, a cloud designed to soothe and seduce. The pillow beneath my cheek is a gentle conspirator, urging me to sink back into oblivion.
Part of me wants to. Desperately.
If I keep my eyes closed, I can pretend. I can exist in this hazy, pain-filled limbo where the only reality is the softness of the bed and the distant hum of a mansion waking up.
I can be a pampered pet, oblivious to the world and not a prisoner in the bed of the man who orchestrated her parents’ demise and death. The alternative of opening my eyes, facing the gilded bars of this cage, acknowledging the fresh, raw horror of my existence feels like too monumental a task.
My soul is too tired, too battered.
Reality is a cliff face, and I am clinging by my fingernails.
But then the other voice whispers, a thin, sharp blade cutting through the seductive fog.
He killed them. He betrayed my parents, he fucked my mother in Oblivion and he’s let his friends do the most disgusting things to me while I’ve acted like an actual whore.
The voice is my own, the one that used to care about things like justice and self-respect. It’s faint, frayed at the edges from months of his conditioning, but it’s still there.
It’s the part of me that should be screaming, fighting, clawing at his eyes. Not lying here, naked and sore in the centre of his decadent world, worrying about the texture of his sheets.
The conflict is a physical tear inside my chest.
One half of me is a well-trained dog, eager for a kind word, a scrap of affection from its master, desperate to please and avoid punishment. It remembers the bliss of submission, the reward that follows obedience.
The other half is a caged rabid animal, wild with fear and rage, throwing itself against the walls of its prison until it bleeds.
I don’t know which one is me anymore.
The click of the door opening is soft but to me, it’s a gunshot. I freeze, my body going rigid beneath the sheets. I don’t open my eyes. I can’t.
Footsteps, confident and quiet on the thick rug. The clink of fine china. A rich, savoury scent cuts through the sandalwood air; the smell of just cooked bacon, of fried bread and scrambled eggs. My stomach, a tight knot of nausea gives a treacherous, hungry lurch.
“Good morning, Dumpling.”
His voice is like warm honey, smooth and sweet and it wraps around me, both a comfort and a shackle.
I force my eyelids to flutter open. The world is blurry for a moment before it resolves into him. Antonio.
He is dressed in a crisp, white linen shirt and dark trousers, looking perfectly put together. The contrast between his pristine elegance and my own ruined state is a humiliation in itself.
He sets a heavy silver tray down on the bedside table.
It’s laden with a staggering amount of food.
Plates of crispy bacon, a pile of plump sausages, golden fried bread gleaming with oil, scrambled eggs rich with butter, and a stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup.
A tall glass of orange juice and a small silver pot of coffee complete the feast.
He smiles down at me, a tender, possessive curve of his lips. “How are you feeling?”
I try to speak, but my throat is dust-dry. I swallow, wincing at the rawness. “Sore,” I whisper, the word feeling like a pathetic confession.
His smile doesn’t falter. He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from my forehead, his fingers lingering on my temple.
“I’m not surprised. You were such a good girl last night.
You pleased me beyond measure, but you must be careful now.
You need to take it easy for a few days. Let your body heal.”
The words are so caring, so doctorly that they almost mask the horrific cause of the injury.
“Let’s get some food in you,” he murmurs, his voice coaxing. “You need to keep your strength up.”
He doesn’t ask me to move. Instead he sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. He picks up a fork, spears a piece of bacon, and brings it to my lips. It feels like the game begins again.
I open my mouth. The bacon is perfectly cooked, salty and crisp. I chew and swallow, offering him a weak, tentative smile. He beams, looking genuinely pleased, and my conditioned heart gives a little flutter of stupid satisfaction. Good girl.
He feeds me a forkful of buttery scrambled egg next.
Then a piece of fried bread, so rich it makes my teeth ache.
A sausage, bursting with fatty, spiced meat.
He alternates between the foods, a bite of this, a bite of that, never letting me drink until the grease coats my throat, and I have to cough gently.
With each bite, the meal becomes heavier, more oppressive. The sheer unhealthiness of it all begins to press on me. This isn’t sustenance; it’s a decadent, greasy spectacle. And then I hear it, a ghostly echo in my mind, rough and mocking.
‘Piggy.’
The man’s voice from last night. Heat floods my cheeks, a burning blush of shame. Piggy. The word echoes, syncing with the food on the tray. Is this what they see? Is this what he’s making me?
The conflict surges again. The need to please him wars with a sudden, desperate need for self-preservation, for a shred of dignity.
I pull back slightly as he brings another sausage to my lips.
“Master,” I murmur, my voice small, “I, I shouldn’t.”
His hand pauses. The tender concern on his face solidifies into something else, something colder. The smile is still there, but it doesn’t reach his eyes anymore. “What was that?”
I shrink back into the pillows. “It’s just all this fat and grease. I don’t want to…” I can’t say it. I can’t say ‘get fat’ because I already am.
He lowers the fork, his head tilting to the side in that bird-of-prey way he has.
A clear sign of annoyance. A warning I have learned to heed.
“You let me worry about what is and isn’t good for you,” he says, his voice dropping to a soft, dangerous register.
“I decide what you need, and I like you this way. Soft. Round. A beautiful, well-fed thing. And if you are fat, then I like you fat.”
The word hangs in the air, brutal and final. It’s not an observation; it’s a decree.
A sliver of defiance, sharp and bright, makes me whisper, “I don’t want to get fatter.”
The air in the room chills by ten degrees.
His eyes narrow, just a fraction. The affable mask is gone, replaced by the true face of the man who owns me.
“You will be as fat and as beautiful as I choose for you to be, Pet. That is my decision. Not yours. Your only decision is whether you accept my gifts gratefully, or whether you make this difficult for yourself.”
The threat is velvet-wrapped, but the iron inside is unmistakable. The caged animal inside me whimpers and retreats, leaving the well-trained dog to cower.
Obedience is safety.
Obedience is easier.
I look down at my hands, clenched on the duvet. “I’m sorry, Master.”
“That’s my good girl,” he says, the warmth returning to his voice as if a switch was flipped. He brings the fork back to my lips. “Now, open up.”
And I do.
I open my mouth for the sausage, for the fried bread, for the bacon.
He feeds me methodically, relentlessly. The initial hunger has long since been replaced by a bloated, uncomfortable fullness.
My stomach feels stretched and tight, a hard ball of lead under my ribs.
Each new bite is a struggle, a nauseating effort to chew and swallow.
“I’m full,” I plead softly after swallowing a particularly greasy piece of potato cake I didn’t even see him add to the fork. “I can’t, Master, please.”
“Shhh,” he soothes, scooping up a last forkful of eggs. “Just this last bite. For me.”
Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, but I open my mouth and take the food. I am beyond full. I am impossibly, painfully full. The physical discomfort is a perfect mirror for the emotional suffocation.
He is stuffing me, filling me up with his control until there’s no room left for me at all.
Finally, he seems satisfied. He sets the fork down with a soft clink and dabs at the corners of my mouth with a linen napkin, as if I am a child.
“Say thank you, Pup.”
“Thank you, Master.” I whisper back in an emotionless, soulless voice.
He leans in and presses a kiss to my forehead. His lips are warm, his touch gentle, and it makes me want to scream.
“You are becoming such a perfect pampered little thing,” he murmurs against my skin, his voice thick with possession and pride.
A sob catches in my throat, choked by the food and the fear. “I don’t want to be a pet,” I whisper, the words barely audible. “I’m a person, too. A human being.”
He pulls back and looks at me, not with anger but with a patronizing kind of pity.
He tuts softly, shaking his head. “You must be more tired than I thought. Talking nonsense. You need to rest. Properly rest.” He stands, straightening his shirt.
“The servants are at your beck and call. Summon them if you want anything. More food, a bath, anything at all. I’ll have lunch sent up. ”
Christ, he’s dismissing my humanity as a symptom of fatigue. Erasing it.
From his pocket he draws a long, glittering object. A bracelet. A tennis bracelet, paved with diamonds that catch the morning light and throw rainbows across the walls and the ceiling.
Gently, he takes my left wrist. His grip is firm, but not painful as he fastens the clasp the diamonds feel cool against my feverish skin. The weight of it is surprising, substantial.
“There,” he says, admiring his work. “Every time you look at this, you will remember how much you have pleased your master. You will know what a good girl you are.”
I stare at the bracelet.
It’s beautiful.
It’s horrifying.
A reward for whoring myself out to his friends. I blink as my vision swims with more tears. I want to rip it off, to claw it from my wrist until the skin bleeds, but I don’t move. I am too afraid to argue. Too afraid of the consequences, too afraid of the cold look in his eyes.
He sees my compliance, my silence, and smiles.
“I have work to do,” he murmurs before he leans down and kisses me once more, this time on the lips.
The silence that he leaves is louder than any noise. I am alone. Alone with the throbbing ache in my body, the leaden weight in my stomach, and the cold, glittering shackle on my wrist.
A wave of nausea, real and potent, rolls through me. It’s not just from the food; it’s from the sheer, monstrous absurdity of my situation.
I am here. In his bed. Wearing his diamonds. My body aching from the entertainment I provided for his buddies.
And I let him feed me.
I thanked him.
Shame, hot and acidic, burns my throat. I stumble to the bathroom, collapsing to my knees on the cold floor in front of the toilet, my body heaving.
But nothing comes up. My stomach is too full, too tight, refusing to relinquish the bounty my master forced upon it.
I am denied even that small act of rebellion.
So instead, I dry-heave until tears stream down my face, until my bruised ribs ache with the strain and I can no longer do anything but sob.