Chapter 8
Victor
This is so wrong.
I’m so out of my depth when it comes to Sevastyan. My body wants to go with the flow and explore this unexpected spark between us, while my brain is very aware that I’m trapped by a madman who might just kill me tomorrow.
After our bath, he cooked pad thai and fed me while we watched a nature documentary on his massive flat-screen TV.
He let me choose a book from his vast collection hidden behind a wall to preserve the minimalist aesthetic, and seemed pleased with me choosing a monography on the history of different pigments.
But then he led me all the way back to the cell masquerading as my bedroom, and tucked me into bed as though I wasn’t his prisoner but a new lover staying the night.
I read the book to distract myself, but there are no windows or clocks, so I don’t really know how much time has passed. I lie in the dark, trying to focus on my dire situation instead of the way he kissed me. As if I was the only thing that mattered to him in that moment .
And yet... he’s a stranger. A stranger who never leaves this villa, who has traps set up everywhere, and who not only keeps me naked but also coerced me into sex.
It doesn’t matter that I liked it. I’m in no position to say no to any of it, and backing away from fucking my ass doesn’t make him a consent king.
He’s a fraud, and all the niceties are a veil covering his real intentions. And even if he doesn’t have any ill will toward me, I can’t know that. Rolling over and taking it all would be... suicide.
I can’t stay here.
I glance at the camera, but he can’t be watching me all the time, can he?
He must sleep. It’s late spring. I might be naked, and my hands are bound, but as long as I make it off his property, I’d be able to get far away, maybe wave down some driver if I’m lucky.
I wouldn’t even need to tell anyone about Sevastyan and his torture room.
I just can’t stay and live here in terror.
Even if I am his new muse, even if I continue giving him pleasure, the novelty of my presence will wear off and then what?
I know what, and I don’t like it one bit.
I get up and start pacing the room. I did this last night already, but I surely couldn’t have explored all options.
The ensuite hides no secret passages, no matter what I press or lean on, but as I think back to the way he watched me, as if he saw parts of me nobody else noticed, I have to scold myself for thinking about that crap in the first place.
Of course I’d like to be the muse of the great Sevastyan. Of course I want to have sex with a man so ridiculously handsome he doesn’t seem real. But at what cost? I might be the trigger for his new artistic awakening, but that doesn’t mean he won’t discard me as soon as I stop being exciting .
Rolling my body against the wall, I finally reach the door. I press on the handle, ready to move on, looking for other ways to leave my cell, but it budges under my weight, and then I’m falling forward, out into the dark hallway.
He must have… not locked it when he left.
Maybe I really am so intoxicating that his head was in the clouds. Or, he thinks I’m such a scared little mouse he doesn’t even consider my escape an option. That wouldn’t be completely wrong, since I had a panic attack as soon as he pulled out those pliers.
I do want to live though. Even a mouse has self-preservation instinct.
I slowly push open the door, and the dark corridor is perfectly silent.
My heart rises to my throat when I recall the bolt going through my calf.
I’m still limping, and the wound still hurts, but I can walk.
Even if the front door isn’t open, maybe I could break a window.
I don’t know. I’ll think about it when I get that far.
For now, I’m a ghost, creeping through the corridor on tiptoes, afraid even of the shadow trailing me. It’s a cloudless night, so the moon is aiding my escape.
I haven’t yet seen the room where Sevastyan sleeps, but it’s so very quiet he must have dozed off.
I can leave. The corridors in this place are quite the labyrinth, but I’ve made conscious attempts to remember where everything is, and while I’d rather not hitchhike naked, maybe the pitiful nature of a young guy freezing his ass off somewhere in the woods would raise my chances of getting help?
Each shadow feels like a threat, but I’m alone.
Nothing disturbs my journey through the house as I seek the flight of stairs that will bring me to the highest level of the building.
I recognize the somber corridor where Sevastyan lured me that first night, but once again, there is no trace of him.
My healing calf aches when my mind goes back to the shocking moment when the bolt pierced my flesh.
I don’t see any secret compartments open.
No bolts. No poisonous gas. Just me and the quiet.
Maybe his warning about traps in the house was meant to instil a sense of paranoia?
My heart beats faster when I spot the front door. My hands are sweaty, I can’t get my breathing under control, and all my senses scream ‘go back!’. But that’s the coward in me. I carefully walk forward—
A tile shifts under me, and it’s too late when I realize my foot has dropped into a hole in the floor.
Next thing I know, a rope snaps around my ankle, and I’m yanked up with the force of a giant picking up a human for his dinner.
I can’t help it. I yelp when the floor approaches my face.
But I don’t hit it, instead dragged up to dangle by my leg.
It should hurt, but my limb is somehow still whole as I attempt to steady myself. Heat rushes to my head when I imagine him finding me like this on his way to make coffee in the morning. And fuck, he’ll kill me, I know he will!
Frantic, I attempt to swing my upper body so I can reach the trapped ankle, but every muscle screams in protest.
I’m about to try it again when the unmistakable tap of feet on stone tiles makes me freeze.
I grit my teeth and make another attempt for my foot with my bound hands, tears of panic already streaking down my face.
I am done.
He’s gonna fucking flay me here.