Chapter 21
Grace
I don’t understand why he’s being so cruel. What have I done to deserve this?
This isolation.
This brutal loneliness.
I have been lonely my entire life, most often while in the company of other people, but this is taking it to the next level—a level I never wished to see.
He was right. I wanted him. I wanted him three days ago, when he promised he’d open the shutters for me if I pleasured myself in front of him, and I still want him now.
And, for reasons that are beyond me, he refuses to give himself to me, in any way. He hasn’t asked for anything. He barely looks at me when he comes into my room to bring me food. He doesn’t scold me when I don’t eat, and he doesn’t praise me when I do. He doesn’t command me to do this or that, he voices no expectations, no demands, no interest.
It seems he no longer wants me.
And he didn’t keep his word. He never opened the shutters.
Every time I reminded him of our deal, he just turned away from me, his lips firmly pressed together as if he forbid himself to speak to me.
I don’t get it. I’m left all by myself, wondering what changed, what I did wrong to bring this change upon us—and what I could do to make him look at me again. Even the fear of being raped was better than this.
I never thought I could ever crave anyone’s attention with this painful intensity, especially not his. I’ve never found myself on an emotional rollercoaster like this before, elated with release, frightened by his ominous threats, jolted by pain and high with craving.
I’m tired. I am so tired from all the brooding, the doubts, the anxiety that dwells when I lose myself in a downward spiral of harrowing thoughts. I’m tired from having to wonder what all of this is about, why he kidnapped me in the first place, why he said the things he said, why he did the things he did, and—most of all—why he has stopped doing them.
I don’t know anything, but I feel too much. I’m consumed by emotions, feeling deeply but unable to make sense of those feelings. I sweat, I tremble, I lay still, soaking in the bathtub for hours until my skin gets wrinkly and my head dizzy, so I can get some sleep and make the time pass.
But I never cried. Until today.
The breakfast tray is still on the table, untouched, because I couldn’t bring myself to eat.
The smell of coffee is still lingering in the air, but it’s not enticing to me at all. I retch at the thought of putting anything but water down my throat, and even that made me sick to my stomach.
I didn’t even see him this morning when he brought up the food, because I was in the bathroom when he charged into the bedroom, and I didn’t bother to show my face—nor did he ask to see it. I might as well not exist to him.
And now he’s gone again. Like he is for most of the day.
I’m curled up under the covers, wearing nothing but the collar with which he keeps me chained to the bed. For days, the bathrobe has been my sole item of clothing, the only thing that protects me against the cold and his hungry eyes. But here, underneath the thick covers, I no longer feel the need to wear it. I feel closer to myself without it, completely bare and in touch with my own skin.
He’s probably watching me from somewhere, I know he can. I found the hidden camera on the chandelier above the bed a couple of days ago, giving it the middle finger before I stuck my tongue out. There might be others, maybe hidden inside the mirror in the bathroom or God knows where else. I don’t care. He has already seen all there is to see, so there’s no point in worrying—just like there’s little point in hiding.
I do it anyway, tracing the lines of my scars with my finger as I lay curled up in my fabric cave, while tears are running down my cheeks. I have been crying all morning, violently at first, as if someone had punched me in the chest, evoking an ache that was incomparable to anything I had felt before. I sobbed loudly, my whole body shaking under savage tremors when it all became too much. It hit me suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. I had taken a shower, looking at myself in the mirror, my hair still damp and droplets of water still pearling on my shoulders, when it happened. I erupted under vicious heaves, gasping for air when the crying was at its worst, and mewling in agony when the crests of pain subsided, if only for a few moments.
I must have been crying for hours, and the tears are still coming. But they are silent now. It feels like there’s nothing left inside of me, nothing to grieve, nothing to feel—nothing to yearn.
I almost feel relieved. Relieved and oddly comfortable, here, inside my cloud-like refuge, reconnected with myself and safe from his eyes.
But never save from him.
Something is up. I can tell right away when I hear his steps approaching down the corridor outside of my room. He’s walking fast and audibly so. Despite my exhaustion, my pulse speeds up, and my eyes widen as a surge of adrenaline rushes through my veins.
I tense, when the door flies open in an unusually loud and hasty manner.
“Grace!”
His voice is harsh and aggravated in a way that I haven’t heard before.
“Get out from under there,” he barks, his steps approaching the bed. “You need to tell me right now what the hell is up with your-”
He breaks off mid-sentence upon seeing my face, after he tore the covers away and finds me on the bed, curled up like a frightened street cat and looking up at him through teary eyes.
His expression derails, a blend of shock and confusion competing with the anger that must have been there before.
Anger that has now become mine to feel. The mere sight of him fuels me with hot rage and an unyielding desire to lash out at him, the apparent source of all my suffering.
“I don’t need to tell you anything,” I hiss in a whisper, as I slowly unfold myself to sit up. “You can do whatever you want, beat me, rape me, torture me. I don’t fucking care.”
He frowns, looking like he’s about to scold me for using such foul language, but when his lips move to speak, I hurry to leapfrog him.
“I’m done, sir. I’m so fucking done with your psycho mind games!” I yell at him, reveling in the way he takes a step back when I jump on my two feet, now looking down at him as I’m standing on the mattress, my index finger raised and pointed at him. “You think you can just waltz in here and demand for me to tell you whatever it is you want to know now, after you turned your back on me like I was an unwanted pet? After you humiliated me, teased me, played with me, hurt me, and lured me to believe that there was even the tiniest shred of human decency inside that psychopath head of yours?”
A new wave of tears wets my face as I scream at him, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t even say a thing when I’m forced to take a break, taking a deep breath to fuel myself with oxygen, before I approach him until I’m standing on the edge of the bed, towering above his dumbfounded face.
“You must think I’m very, very stupid if you believe I don’t know what it is you’re doing here,” I snarl, narrowing my eyes as I pin him down with an unyielding stare. “You threaten me, you hurt me, but then you say and do all the right things to keep me wrapped around your little finger, just so you can prove that you know better than anyone else what it is that I truly crave.”
He doesn’t react to my words in any way, just keeps looking at me with that astonished and helpless look on his face, neither happy nor discontent. His apathy is driving me mad—and maybe that’s just what he wants.
“I know what kind of game you’re playing,” I go on. “And I salute you for doing it so well. I almost fell for it, because you’re good at this. You’re damn good at being a sick psychopath. But I’m no longer playing along. Not after you broke your word. Not after you let me rot in here for days after denying yourself to me and-”
“So, I did the impossible,” he interrupts me, a victorious smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
I pause, shaking my head in bewilderment. “The impossible?”
“I said and did all the right things,” he repeats. “I had you wrapped around my finger, because I knew how to get inside your head—even though you claimed that there was no way in, that no one would ever understand you. You said that, didn’t you?”
He’s no longer smiling, as he gives me time to respond to his assertion, but regards me with an attentive gaze, curious almost, as if he just wanted to check whether he heard me correctly before.
I don’t know what to say, and just find myself standing in front of him, finger raised and brows furled while I stumble through the pitch black void of my mind.