41. Sable
SABLE
A full month has passed since I arrived at Bellthorn University. The music starts early today, and I hum under my breath even in the dark.
“I’ve heard that one before,” I whisper to my empty room.
The music is beautiful, but sometimes the sensation right in my chest is too intense.
I think of sunny days, happy things I can’t have.
The torrential rain that welcomed me on my first day is a frequent visitor, and I wonder if today will be any different.
The choice of song suggests so, but hope is the cruelest torment of them all.
A few minutes later, the lights kick on, and my gilded prison is illuminated.
The ceiling is the same black stone as the last thirty days, the closed doors still feel mysterious and ominous even with the lights on full blast.
Every morning, Parker comes to my room for our run, only because I caved, begged, and sucked his cock for an hour.
The rotation changes every other week, and I’m not sure if it’s to keep me from adapting to a schedule or if there are occasions when they actually take their education seriously.
Parker is the easiest in some ways. The fact that he doesn’t even pretend to try in class takes some of the pressure off me.
The one girl in his math class has offered to help me catch up, but Parker snatched me away before I could even answer.
Hadrian’s days are strange. We eat all three meals together, and while he seems to enjoy my company, he never stays too long. He’s a fancy motherfucker, and I eat incredibly well on his days, but hours of the time are spent alone, wondering why I’m not good enough for the rest of his day.
Orion has become so predictable that I almost enjoy him.
He’s going to humiliate me, sure, but I’m going to come harder than the last time if he has anything to say about it.
He tries his pathetic best to break me and fails.
Each time it happens, those eyes are full of fury and desire.
The two emotions are one between him and me.
One day each week, I’m alone, though now food arrives at my door delivered by the Bellthorn kitchen.
It’s not as fancy as the meals Hadrian sends, but it’s nice anyway.
It’s also my favorite day, when I get time to myself without those guys breathing over my shoulder.
It’s Friday, and I’m waiting for Lex today.
He hasn’t removed the collar around my neck in all this time, and I think I’m developing a rash.
He says I’m not and that he has enough training to tell if I am.
He walks me on the damn leash every time it’s his turn.
At this point, it doesn’t even bother me anymore.
There’s something in the way he looks at me when it’s around my neck, like he wants to pounce and eat me whole.
I think he means to humiliate me with that, but these days I’m soaked between my thighs every time he pulls on the leash, and he fucks me so often I’m starting to think it’s just for his enjoyment.
A knock interrupts my thoughts. I don’t understand why Lex would knock.
He knows I can’t answer, and he’s not a weirdo like Orion.
I push myself to get up, surprised when I’m wobbly on my feet.
Damn, I slept for so long, and I’m still tired?
Pain that is too similar to the first night run on the inside of my legs, but this time I just slept.
There were no visitors. I’ve been having the best nights of sleep this month, dreamless heaven instead of the tossing and turning that I’ve had since the accident.
I grab my robe at the end of the bed and put it around me.
Before I can tie the knot, the door opens.
It’s not any of the assholes, but strangers dressed in uniform carrying boxes.
“Excuse me?” I say, but they don’t even spare me a glance.
I watch, baffled, as four men enter the room without looking at me, bringing boxes and boxes until the floor is lined with them. “What is this?”
No one answers, and eventually I take matters into my own hands. Opening one of the boxes, I move tissue paper to the side and find clothes. A lot of beautiful clothes. Bellthorn clothes, but all perfectly my size.
“I have clothes,” I whisper to myself.
“Not the right ones,” Lex says from the door, and my eyes dart to him.
I take a particularly detailed dress in my hands. It’s heavy with dark pearls hand-sewn to the bodice and a work of art. “This isn’t your doing.” In my heart, I think I know exactly who did this.
His eyes shine, and he shakes his head slowly. “Nope, I have absolutely no design aspirations.”
“This is…” I open yet another box. “He didn’t make these,” I insist, refusing to believe Orion would spend that kind of time on me.
“You would have to ask him.”
Tears burn my eyes, threatening to fall and make a fool out of me. This new wardrobe is not just expensive clothes with known labels, it’s well-thought-out artistry.
“Get dressed, Sable,” Lex tells me, but his voice is softer.
Shaky steps lead me to the bathroom, and I lean over before I turn on the cold water in the sink and wash my face. My own blue eyes stare back at me, and the silly tears finally fall. I laugh at myself and wipe the tears with the back of my hands before jumping into the shower.
Surprisingly, Lex lets me find a dress from the new collection and doesn’t rush me.
I finally decide on something light and soft.
They've dressed me in so many white ensembles that I’m excited to see myself in gauzy black, and it’s just as beautifully worked as the others.
Once I’m ready, Lex looks me over and gives me a nod.
Then he turns on his heel, and I’m left to follow.
“You never even told me what books I should grab.” I pant as we exit the halls.
“Don’t worry about that today.”
“Oh, but I do worry,” I complain. “Your classes are already impossible to follow, Lex. Sitting there looking like an idiot and not even trying to learn something is worse. At least if I have a textbook, I look like I have the good sense to be more than your whore.”
He laughs, but cuts the sound short. “You don’t need a textbook in the turret.”
That tells me absolutely nothing, but Lex doesn’t care.
He guides me through the less-traveled path, following him through impossibly narrow corridors and spiral staircases.
I gasp behind him. His steps are two of my own, and since the first day he brought me inside, he hasn’t slowed them for me.
Finally, we reach the end of the stairs.
Large windows span the floor, revealing the most beautiful view of the woods in front of the castle.
“Oh God, look at that,” I say, doing my best to marvel inside this hellhole.
“Here,” he says, pushing a door open and tugging the leash to usher me along.
I don’t go so easily anymore, and I know he won’t actually pull that hard.
I’ve learned Lex is more bark than bite.
My eyes linger over the mountains and the lush green of every tree before I turn away from the window and follow him in.
It’s not a classroom but a circular room in the exact shape of the giant turret.
Right in the center of the room is a depression and a drain.
Almost too conveniently. A metal table and a corpse sit beside it.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“How should I know?” he replies as he grabs a pair of blue gloves and snaps them into place.
“I assumed you killed him.”
He flashes me a smile. “Not this one. Gloves.”
I roll my eyes as I obey him. Just a little curious to see where he’s going with this whole thing. I reach for the glove box, taking two and putting them on even though they definitely don’t fit me.
“Don’t you have anything smaller?”
“No. You’re… tiny,” he says with a twist on his face, his eyes flashing something dangerous as if he resents me because I don’t have a gigantic hand like him.
“Scalpel,” he says, eyes on the body and his hand flat out, waiting for the instrument.
I snort. “Do you think this is an operating room?’
“You’re my assistant.” Irritation warps those controlled features of his.
“That’s why you brought me here?” I say, putting the scalpel in his hand with a flourish. “To play assistant?”
“I brought you here because you follow me today,” he replies, eyes on the chest as he slices it open. “And if I have to bring you along, you might as well make yourself useful.”
Lex puts the blade to the corpse and applies some pressure to his cut.
I guess you don’t need to be as delicate when the subject is already dead.
This time, he doesn’t attempt to include me and just reaches for a weird instrument that looks like a medieval gyno tool.
When he twists the screw, the ribs open, and we get a view of the organs inside.
I’m not shy, and I go on my tiptoes for a better look.
Biology never really attracted me, but I’m curious enough.
This is the first time I’ve seen a dead body in front of me.
I saw a person die before, just not the after, never having gone to Dad's funeral and Mom being cremated. This isn’t nearly so tragic, and a detachment exists when they are gone for so long.
My rational brain keeps reminding me that this was a person, but in some ways, it’s not anymore. It’s just meat.
“Not squirming, I see,” he observes.
I chuckle. “Oh Lex. This is nothing.”
“Nothing?” he asks.
“I watched my father drown and didn’t even try to save him.”
His jaw ticks. My condescending tone clearly hits a nerve, but I’m feeling extra sassy today.
Lex doesn’t say anything. Instead, he starts working on the corpse, removing its organs and handing them over to me, as if I should know what I have to do with them.
I don’t scare away. When he hands me the stomach, I just smile and put it down on a tray.
“Weigh it first,” he grits.
“Is this an autopsy?” I ask, moving the organ to the scales before placing it back on the tray.
“What do you know about autopsies?”
I shrug. “I watch crime TV shows like any other girl.”
Usually, his expression of disgust to every human that comes in contact with him is all I need to know I should keep my distance, but he’s trying so hard to give me the grossest parts of the job, it makes me wonder. Why are they all so determined to scare me? Is that the game? Or a kink?
Again, I have to ask myself if watching me break was the endgame, why not choose some other girl who hasn't escaped death? I feel very smug, sure that I won’t crack in front of him, and it’s my fault to ever feel this comfortable.
The next words out of his mouth are the only thing that could make me crack.
“So did you let your father drown on purpose?”