Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
The Apartments is a fancy building owned by Christopher, twelve stories of pale brick and enormous windows in the Embarcadero. The building has its own underground parking—as it must, for people like us—and I punch in the code and pull in.
Beside me, Giselle is perfectly quiet, sitting like some sort of doll in her seat, staring straight ahead. I park, then go around to get my bag from the trunk before opening her door and handing her out of the car. She’s holding the coat I gave her to her chest like some sort of security blanket.
“This way,” I tell her, leading her across the concrete floor, her heels clicking as I take her to the elevators. Removing a key card from my pocket, I press it to the sensor on the smaller elevator on the right—the private one that goes only to the penthouse—and we step in.
As the elevator moves us smoothly upward, she steps closer to me, until she’s pressed up against me. I can feel her shivering.
“You cold? You can put the coat on.”
She just shakes her head, the smallest, most subtle movement, and I realize she’s a bit in shock. Well, so am I. But now ain’t the time to ask m’self what the fuck I’ve done.
The doors slide open to a foyer all done in slick white-and-gray marble.
There are fresh flowers on the console table, and over the table is a huge mirror.
I catch my reflection in it: my thick, black hair is a bit in disarray.
My dark eyes have darker circles under them.
I’m not vain. But I’ve never seen myself look this bad, except maybe right after Madame Alice died and I was left with the responsibility of the girls. I give myself a bit of a shake.
Stop the fucking brooding.
I tap the key card again on another sensor next to a pair of French doors, and they swing open. I step through, but Giselle has paused behind me. I give her a nod of my chin to follow.
She does, of course, ever the good Girl despite what must be massive confusion, her heels clicking once more on the pale wood floors as we step into the living area of the penthouse.
I was here a few times before, delivering clothes or supplies or sometimes a slave or two when Damon or Christopher was using the place. I’d forgotten how fucking grand it is. Or maybe I didn’t notice because I’m used to the rich Masters being in places like this.
But now it’s all mine for a while.
Fucking weird, ain’t it?
Giselle stops and stands uncertainly at the edge of the black-and-beige Persian rug, blinking fast. I can feel the nerves coming off her like a wave of heat, even from a few feet away.
Me, too, my Girl. Me, too.
But I can’t expect her to have any confidence in me if she sees how fucking shaky I am.
I set the bag down on the floor and move past her to the floor-to-ceiling windows that look over the city.
The lights below sparkle like tiny diamonds, and the fog is moving in, covering the moon and the night sky.
Classic San Francisco. I lay my hand on the glass and it’s cold to the touch.
I want to strip her down and fuck her up against the cool glass, but that needs to wait.
Doesn’t it? And I remind myself again that I really have no bloody idea what I’m doing here with her.
But I can’t just keep dressing her and undressing her.
As much as I enjoy the hell out of some good, hard mind-fuck, this whole thing is fucking with my head as much as hers, and I’m here to…
what? Work my way through this? To what fucking conclusion?
I hate to admit that I’m just as confused as the slave Girl I yanked out of the safety of her home and her routine, but it’s the goddamn truth.
I run a hand through my thick hair and sigh quietly. Me, fucking sighing.
“God damn it,” I mutter as I stalk over to the sleek marble bar against one wall and pour myself a finger of good gin over ice. I know Robert called over here to have the staff stock the bar for me. Good man, Robert.
And I am a very, very bad man. Bad in ways I never thought I’d be. Bad at doing my job, for fuck’s sake.
I hear a small sigh from her and turn to see she’s raised one hand to her mouth, as if trying to hide from me.
But we’re trained well to observe every single expression and shift in breathing.
Even Giselle knows I haven’t missed it, as distracted as I am from the turmoil grinding through my brain at a thousand miles an hour.
I take a long sip of the gin, savoring the bit of a burn as it glides down my throat, taking a moment to let it warm my insides before I reach out to her, silently commanding her to join me.
She gives a small nod before stepping onto the carpet, gingerly, as if I’ve invited her into a pool of quicksand. Maybe I have.
“Let’s sit down,” I tell her, moving toward the long ivory suede sofa and settling in the middle.
She pauses, then sits beside me with her usual grace, sinking down onto the sofa as if she were made of water.
She’s still holding the coat close to her body, and I take it from her.
She resists for a brief moment before letting it go.
Can’t blame her. I’d fucking like something to hang onto right now, too.
I lay the coat on the sofa behind me and clear my throat.
“So. We need to talk some more.”
“About what?” she asks, then lowers her eyes as if she’s unsure that she’s currently allowed to speak.
I take her hand, and it’s small and warm in mine—warm in a way it hasn’t been since we were still in London. Warm in the way a woman’s hand is, rather than the hot skin of the slaves.
“I need to ask you again, if you’d had any choice after we lost Madame Alice, any choice at all, what would you have chosen?”
“I chose what was offered. The best-case scenario at the time.”
“That’s not what I asked, and you know it,” I insist.
She lowers her lashes for a moment or two, and when she raises her gaze to mine again there’s resolve in her beautiful eyes, and her cheeks are flushed. She looks almost angry. Not that I blame her. I know she’s angry with me. Maybe I’ll find out exactly why now.
“Gilby… You know what I would have wanted. I’ve said so. I told you then, I told you when you asked me before.”
“I need you to be more detailed. Tell me exactly what you would have wished for.”
A small smile on her face, then, “You truly are a sadist, aren’t you?”
I shrug. What can I say to that?
“Well,” she starts, then pauses. “If I were living in a fantasy world of my own making, I would have wanted to come to America with you and Sandrine. I would have wanted to be accepted into The Training House. I would have wanted the training offered to me by Master Damon and everyone he turned me over to. But I would have wanted to do so while still belonging to you. I would have wanted to sleep at the foot of your bed each night. I would want you to have beaten me and fucked me and punished me because… I would want you to have done these things because you loved me. Because you chose me,” she says, her eyes brimming with tears.
But to give the girl credit, she doesn’t turn away.
“Christ, Giselle. You know I would have done that if I could.”
“Would you? It’s been so many years since you’ve told me that, since you’ve given me any assurance that you still think of me, even.
I have been so fulfilled in my service to the House, but Gilby, I haven’t known if you still cared all these long years, or if you stopped caring.
If you locked that away in your heart somewhere and simply… forgot.”
“Giselle.” My chest pulls tight, and it’s hard to take a full breath.
“How could I ever forget? How could I forget while we lived under the same damn roof? While you were always just in another room? Do you think I stayed in my rooms downstairs not thinking about you while other Masters and Mistresses worked you? Fucked you? Do you think I didn’t wish every damn time that it was me with my hands on you?
And it’s not fucking jealousy. No, that bullshit doesn’t fly with me.
But it was fucking envy. That’s different, you know. ”
“I do. Just as I envied every slave you worked over, fucked, berated in the way only you can. Boys and Girls alike. I envied even you using your terrible billy clubs on them, as much as I hate them. As much as they scare me even as I crave them. Oh, I know I’ve been silent all this time, but I’ve found it gives me the advantage of using my other senses to take in the world around me, and our world at The Training House is so very small.
I know everything that goes on. I hear the Masters talking.
I hear the slaves whispering. I hear the opening and closing of a door.
I know the sound of the cabinets where the implements are kept.
I know the sound of chalk on the chalkboard in the classroom.
The way the House creaks when the garage door is opened.
The feeling of emptiness when you leave the House and drive off to…
wherever you go. I feel it every time you aren’t near me.
And I hate it. And sometimes…sometimes it makes me hate you,” she says, finishing on a whisper.
It takes me a minute to try to process her words, but I only get so far. It’s too much to take in. Finally I say, “This is why you’re angry with me.”
She nods, the tiniest movement of her head. “Yes. This, and other things.”
“What other things?” I demand, not really wanting to know.
“I’m angry that you didn’t have the confidence to care for Sandrine and me in London, or in Paris. We could have gone anywhere. You could have found work in our world.”
“I did. I found work here, with Master Damon.”
“You could have negotiated our contracts differently. He wanted us, Sandrine and me. You could have negotiated to have at least some share of me,” she declares, a fire burning in her eyes, in her pink cheeks.
I’m honestly shocked. Does she really think that was a possibility?