3. Zoe
Chapter Three
ZOE
M ine?
Why?
I stare at the bedroom I have been given in my new owner's estate, tugging at his shirt—the one he took off to give to me when he noticed I was cold in his car.
Why would he give me his shirt?
I also wondered why he wasn’t saying anything or asking to sample his purchase.
I thought about the fact that I had never been owned for more than a few nights, and then, somehow, he bought me for himself. For life.
I flip my eyes from the queen-size bed covered in black sheets to the window behind it. A glass wall gives a view into the expanse of New York, one I have never been privileged enough to see.
Except for the whiskey-gold lights arranged around the floor and ceiling, my bedroom is completely black. The color scheme is the same as the charcoal-dipped exterior, with more whiskey-gold lights lining the rails of the staircase.
He cannot be handing this bedroom to me. I’m a slave. The only time I’m glamorized is when I have to perform on stage. It’s the only time I’m worthy of anything flashy or fancy. Not expensive, just eye-catching so I can make more money for my owner. Former owner.
This is not for me. I shake my head, taking a step back, refusing to accept this space as mine. It’s new and clean. It’s not a place for me.
I cringe at the neatness of it.
I can sleep in the garage or somewhere else. If he is giving me this, what would I have to do to earn it?
My former owner made me work and owned my body because it was a way to pay for the food I ate, the water I had access to, the mattress, and the four walls I was given. Still, I could never pay off their kindness.
What would I have to do to earn this ?
I can feel his eyes on me as I step back again. His breathing on my neck spikes the hairs on my skin.
I gulp down nervous knots in my throat and take a step forward.
I turn to him, clasping my hands in front of me, feeling out of place since I’m still in my costume and this is not a stage. Or could it be what he wants me to be? A stripper. I can be that. I have been trained to be that.
I take cautious steps towards him, hearing the sound of my clattering heart and berserk pulse. He hasn’t said anything to me. He has been quiet. I don’t like quiet. It forces me to think. It forces me to remember. It forces me to accept reality.
I stop in front of him, not sure what to do with myself or what to do for him.
I do want him to say something. I want him to give me something to work with. Tell me what to do. Give me an order. State the rules. Lay out the punishments.
Tell me how many times I will be allowed to eat in a week or how many times I will be allowed to bathe with warm water. I want him to tell me something.
I lift my eyes from his black dress shoes, trace the seam of his black slacks, the loop of his black leathered belt, the black-stoned cufflinks hooking the collared sleeve of his black dress shirt, the rings on his fingers, the traces of tattoos that disappear into the sleeves of his shirt, back to the black-stoned buttons, and then I pause when I get to the small opening around his neck.
It is not that I find his scars scary, but I wonder if he wants me staring at them.
I want to throw my head back down and keep my eyes on the floor, fearing that I will get punished for this, but again, I should frame his face, even if for the last time.
I suck in air charged by the poignancy of his scent. It’s strong. It’s black. Bold. Daring. Evoking. Provocative. Like him.
I lift my eyes from the slashes of burn marks on one side of his neck, watching the division on his full, perky pastel-pink lips, with one side shrinking from the scars, stretched in a glossy slash.
I keep going, tracing the swipe of the burns until I meet his eyes—dark eyes, black as the color of his hair and aura.
But in them is a pull of familiarity like I have looked into those eyes before. I would remember him if I had seen him somewhere. It would be hard to miss remembering someone who makes something that is supposed to be bizarre and hideous so divine.
It’s like an eclipse on his face. It’s like war in his eyes.
He wears his scars in a way that makes me unashamed to have mine. He wears them beautifully. And he is beautiful.
I drop my eyes, then flutter my lashes to send the thought back to wherever it came from.
More silence.
Deafening. Brain-screeching. Mind-chugging.
We stay breathing, and with each breath I draw, I feel like clawing at my skin because of how the silence crawls on me.
“Food will come,” his voice is the same as everything about him. Black. Only this time it feels the same as molten, still retaining the heat but clogged already from the absence of fire.
It makes me shiver. He makes me shiver.
“Eat and go to bed, it’s been a long night,” he turns to leave, but I catch up quickly.
“Please, music,” I shrink as I feel his eyes on me, and I don’t wait for him to ask why, “I can’t sleep without noise, please,” I explain anyway. “Master?” It’s a question because I don’t know what he would want to be addressed as yet.
“Alexa,” he thrums, the timbre ricocheting in my clattering bones, “Play something… classical.”
A sound booms through invisible speakers, and I shudder, darting around searching for it. Then the music comes. Classical is my favorite.
Tears swell in my chest and mound my eyes as the song fills the room.
“Tell Alexa whatever you want to listen to,” he spins and struts with glacial steps out of the bedroom that is supposed to be mine.
I sit on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest as the soft harmony forms a bubble wrap around my worn-thin frame. I feel like a fabric that has been overworn and patched too many times, and at any point, I will turn chafed between the hard crush of fingers.
I drop my head on my knees and hug myself, marking this position as mine because I’m not leaving this spot. Everything else feels too good to be real.
He feels too good to be real.
But more than that, he feels familiar. Like the missing piece from the center of a puzzle. Like something I’m missing. Like someone I’m missing.
He might be a good thing—the first in fifteen years.
He might be the worst thing to happen to me yet.