Chapter 22 #2
My ankle no longer hurt; it had moved on to just feeling weird sometimes. I had started using the cuff less as a thing to fight and more as a thing to ignore, which was probably bad, but there were only so many indignities a person could actively resent at once before the brain started outsourcing.
“She’s more responsive to layered stimuli than simple novelty,” I continued. “The color-change triggers aren’t just about surprise. They’re about complexity. She likes having something to solve.”
“Like you,” Tobias said, looking into the tank with a soft expression.
My head snapped toward him. “What?”
Tobias didn’t flinch.
“You like complexity,” he said. “You dislike newness for its own sake, but when a situation evolves in an interesting way, you become more animated. As though you require challenge to remain engaged.”
I wanted to spit something back at him—some clever insult, some barb about how he was only interested in people he could keep in a tank.
Except the way he said it was so… not judgmental.
Not even cold. Just factual. Like telling me the water temperature was exactly right, or that my pulse had spiked.
I looked away, tracking the cuttlefish as she undulated in the open water, her skin rolling with color as she approached the new enrichment.
“Maybe,” I muttered.
Tobias’s mouth twitched, the barest suggestion of a smile. “Have you named her yet?” he asked softly.
My chest did something tight and irrational at the question.
“No,” I said, watching the cuttlefish flash a warning pattern and then go suddenly so pale she practically disappeared against the sand. “I haven’t figured out what fits.”
Tobias’s gaze tracked from me to the tank so transparently I wondered if he was trying to show me his process as it happened, like a tutorial on how to get inside my head.
“You struggle with naming things,” he observed.
I snorted. “I didn’t struggle with Puff Daddy.”
He gave a slow blink, which I’d learned was his version of an amused sigh.
* * *
I lost track of the days in the concrete room. I tried to keep count at first, carving faint lines with a plastic spoon on the underside of the cot, but after a couple weeks the marks blurred together. At some point, I stopped bothering to count.
My ankle healed, mostly. I could walk laps around the room without limping, though the joint occasionally hummed with a low, spongy ache if I rolled it too far.
I did those laps every time the panic set in.
I’d shuffle from the bed to the door, fist the handle, test the hinges, then circle back.
It didn’t matter that I’d already mapped every inch of the cell, the repetition made it possible to breathe.
It was a Wednesday. I know because I’d counted three cycles of the laundry routine, and Ben always brought fresh towels and linens in on Wednesdays. I was lying on the cot, just blankly staring up at the ceiling, when the lock clicked and the door swung open.
Tobias stepped inside, carrying a tray with a steak dinner on real china and a glass of wine. He set the tray down on the folding table, then didn’t say anything for a long time, just looked at me silently.
I sat up, squinting in the overhead light. “Wow, why so fancy?” I ribbed.
Tobias’s mouth twitched. “I thought you might enjoy a nice meal, after the last few weeks.”
I eyed the steak. It was pink in the middle, juices soaking the mashed potatoes, a sprig of rosemary for decoration. My stomach cramped at the smell. Tobias had been in no way starving me, and I was pretty sure that he’d even cooked most of my meals, but he was right. This was nice. Nice nice.
“What do you want?” I asked.
He sat across from me. “You should eat first.”
I glanced at him with curiosity. “You’re not eating too?”
He smiled. “I already had my plate, but if you’d like, I can eat with you more in the future.”
I shrugged, then tore into my meal, barely chewing, letting salt and fat and iron soak into me. I moaned at the first taste of the steak, not even letting myself be embarrassed by the sound. Tobias poured two glasses of wine and drank with me.
He let me finish the steak before he spoke again.
“I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition? Fuck, Tobias. Please tell me this wasn’t my last meal.”
Tobias flinched. Actually flinched, like I’d slapped him. “No. God, no.” He set his wine down, hands trembling slightly. “I would never… I hate that you’re down here, Cove. I hate it.”
“Then let me go,” I said quietly.
He looked away, jaw tight. “I can’t.” When he turned back, his eyes were different - not cold, not calculating. Desperate. “I know what I am. I know this is wrong. But I can’t… I can’t let you leave.”
The silence stretched between us. I could hear the distant breathing of the filtration system through the wall, the same rhythm that had become my only clock.
“Then what is it?” I asked. “What do you want from me?”
Tobias leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He looked exhausted, I realized. Older. The polished philanthropist facade had cracked somewhere in the weeks I’d been down here.
“I want you upstairs,” he said. “I always have, but… it wasn’t plausible at first. I want you in a real bedroom. Your bedroom, with your own bathroom, where you can simply look to the windows if you want to see the ocean. Books. Music. Whatever you need.”
I laughed, but it came out hollow. “In exchange for what?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His fingers traced the rim of his wine glass, round and round.
“I’ve been researching,” he said finally. “Reading. Watching. I want to understand… what it is I want from you. Because I don’t fully know. I’ve never…” He stopped, throat working. “I’ve never done any of this. With anyone.”
“Any of… what, Tobias?” I asked cautiously.
Tobias sighed, not meeting my eyes. “I’ve never touched anyone. Never wanted to. Not until you.” He looked up, and there was something almost pleading in his expression. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to take anything from you that you don’t give. But I want to explore this. With you.”
“Explore what, exactly?”
“Your body,” he said, his voice steadier now.
“I want to learn you. What makes you react, what makes you feel good. I’ve purchased…
toys. Devices. Things I can use on you.” He paused, swallowing.
“I don’t expect you to touch me. I don’t expect reciprocation.
This would be for my… education. And hopefully, for your pleasure. ”
I set my wine down, suddenly needing both hands free. “You want to experiment on me.”
“I want to know you,” he corrected, sharp enough that I startled. “It’s not—it wouldn’t be an experiment.”
“What kind of toys?” I asked, hands trembling.
“Vibrators. Plugs. Things for preparation, if we ever…” He stopped. “I’m not interested in penetrative sex. Not yet. Maybe not ever, I’m not sure. I just want to watch you. I want to learn how your body responds. I want to make you feel good, even if the circumstances are… wrong.”
Is he asking me to be a pillow princess in exchange for more freedom???
“And if I say no?”
“Then you stay here,” he said, and I heard the pain in his voice. “And I keep visiting. And I keep hating myself. And nothing changes.”
“That’s not much of a choice.”
“It’s the only one I can give you.”
I took a deep breath. “I want my job back.”
Tobias looked up, hope flickering across his face before he carefully extinguished it. “If I agree to that, I’d need you to wear an ankle monitor. With that, I’d feel comfortable with you moving throughout the house.”
“You’d really let me work again? Just like… before?”
He nodded. “Unrestricted access to all tanks, just like before. Day shifts, same as before. Remote monitoring on your laptop or in your office.” Tobias exhaled. “I know it’s not the same, but… it would be normal. Or as close as we get.”
“Fine,” I said, so fast the word surprised even me. “Yes. I want… I want that.”
Some emotion twisted across Tobias’s face. He looked away, as if ashamed of how much hope he’d let show. “Sunday morning. I’ll come get you. We’ll start then.”
After he left, I did not sleep. The food and wine sat in my belly like a warm stone, and I paced, not laps now but from bed to table and back, gnawing on every stray detail.
The words spun, a kaleidoscope of hope and revulsion.
I went over it again and again in my mind.
An unknown amount of time later, maybe hours, maybe minutes, I convinced myself that he’d offered me the deal of a lifetime.
It wasn’t as if he was asking to fuck me or have me on hand for blowjobs. He just wanted to touch me. He wanted to use toys to pleasure me.
All he wanted was permission to please me.
It was a new horror to realize how selfish that sounded, even as I rehearsed it in my head to make it sound like consent.
Maybe it was. Maybe this time, I’d get to be wanted, and not for my labor or my body as a rung in someone else’s career, or as a point of leverage over me.
Maybe for the first time, being wanted was all that was on offer.
I wasn’t sure the distinction mattered, not in the long run. But I clung to it with desperation.
I counted the days again, waiting for Sunday, this time not in notches but in a simmering stewpot of anticipation and dread.
Ben visited me twice, once to replenish snacks, clothes, and toiletries, and once with a set of measuring tape for the ankle monitor fitting.
He was professional but not cold, and I sensed his discomfort like a tuning fork sympathetically vibrating with my own. If he judged, he didn’t say it.
Ben was, in many ways, the closest thing I had to a friend in the house, which was a horror in itself.
He administered the fitting with great care, like tending a wound, apologizing for every pinch of the flexible tape against my skin.
The device itself, packed in sleek white cardboard, looked less like a shackle than I’d imagined—compact, smooth, silicone where it met the flesh.
Its blinking blue LED felt, perversely, more like reassurance than condemnation.
Ben explained its functions in a voice stripped of inflection—GPS, heart rate, painless vibrations for notifications. At intervals, the device would require me to stand still while it authenticated my vitals, a small biometric proof-of-life.
I stared at the thing, then at Ben. “Is this really necessary?”
Ben zipped the tape measure closed with a flick.
“It is,” he said. “He’d have gone for something more restrictive, but I talked him down.”
“You make it sound like you saved my life,” I said, not sure if it was a joke or a plea.
Ben’s lips twisted. “Maybe I did,” he said.
He met my eyes for a second, then looked away, packing up the tailoring kit with rigid, precise movements. “You know he’s never had anyone like you here before. Not even close.”
“What does that even mean at this point? Someone like me? A good caretaker, a victim of kidnapping, someone he wants to “play” with? There’s like a million different options.”
Ben chuckled before saying, “Honestly, all the above. I meant more along the lines of someone he’s so obsessed with, but the others work too. Did you know you’re the only aquarist he hasn’t ended up killing?”
“Wha—What am I supposed to do with that information?!” I snapped, and the involuntary quaver in my voice shamed me.
Ben shrugged, gathering the used strips of tape, the empty snack wrappers. “Don’t do anything with it. But remember he’s learning. He’s not as in control as he thinks he is.” He paused. “In regards to romance, I mean. Not the murder stuff.”
“Fuck off.”
That night I didn’t bother with the cot. I dragged the blankets and pillows over to the corner and made a nest, curling up with the monitor still boxed at my side. I put my ear to the concrete, listening for the ocean.
I didn’t hear it, but that didn’t stop my lips from softly quirking up.
It didn’t matter if I couldn’t hear it now, because tomorrow, I’d both see and hear it. I would be free to stare at it for hours on end if I so wanted.