Larissa
Breakfast is less like a meal and more like a still life prepared by a god.
The center of the table is a tower of fresh fruit. Honey-gold apricots, juicy peaches, figs split open to reveal their ruby hearts. Below it are tiny, perfect wild berries that Daddy explains were fresh-picked this morning. There are pale, champagne-colored raspberries, blueberries, strawberries…
Fresh-squeezed orange juice glistens in a glass pitcher.
Warm pastries filled with pistachio cream. A loaf of dark bread studded with walnuts and more figs. Soft-poached eggs in truffle cream, ribbons of smoked salmon, baby potatoes roasted in rosemary and sea salt. Butter. Jam.
Crystal glasses and warmed serving dishes. Every day with him feels like a celebration.
“Finger yourself.” He orders as he reaches for the fork, cutting into an egg and bringing it to my lips. “Food is pleasure.”
He’s repeated this process in some way at every meal. Last night it was sea bass with roasted root vegetables and crème br?lée for dessert.
I petted and played with myself under the stars as we ate on the terrace. He helped me, of course, with fingers and lips, until I nearly lost consciousness sipping Turkish coffee, spilling it on the back of his neck and leaving a deep red mark.
He didn’t scold me, he just set the coffee down, spread me out on the table, and finished his own feast.
This morning is more of the same, with him feeding me, choosing different flavors and textures, his green eyes lighting up when I moan in pleasure, working my slick little button of pleasure faster and faster as I chew and swallow.
I grab a pastry, tearing into it without one second of thought about calories, carbs, or shame.
With the other hand, I pick up my fork and jab a quail egg, chewing and swallowing and chasing it all down with half a glass of orange juice, all while still playing with myself, and when I look up, Sebastian’s face is glowing.
“I’m so proud of you, baby.”
My cheeks burn as I spin my fingers over my clit. “Thank you.” A tiny belch bursts from my lips, and I slap my hand over them, but Daddy just chuckles.
“Good girl.” He reaches out, joining my hand with his between my legs until I’m panting, moaning and gushing.
“Where do all the leftovers go?” I ask after coming down from the orgasm as he sits back, looking smugly satisfied with himself, shoving his slick fingers between my lips for me to suck off the evidence of my climax.
“Suck,” he says first as his digits push over my tongue. “The staff eats what they want, then I have a charity kitchen in town. They take the leftovers there after every meal, and anyone can come and eat what they want. I don’t like waste.”
Satisfied I’ve eaten enough, he takes my hand and leads me from the table, out of the grand French doors, onto the terrace, and down beyond the tiered gardens designed so that each flight of stairs brings new scents and new colors.
Something has changed between us. I sense it, and my heart soars, because he’s no longer treating me like a project, but like the little girl he wants to see thrive.
He teaches me the names of plants he loves, and how to tell them apart, and I link my arm in his as we reach the vast lawn that curves around to the orchards.
He’s watched me paint, and I’ve told him all about my dream of going to college. How I want to learn all about the great masters, the secrets of what makes something a masterpiece over just a painting.
The contentment I feel here overwhelms me. I’d have to leave to go to school, but maybe, somehow, we could work something out where I go to school on the mainland. My dreams feel like they are within reach for the first time in my life.
And I’m just about to risk it all by kissing him when a voice from behind catches my attention.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Sebastian stops walking and turns to find the butler I’ve only glanced two or three times coming down the terraced gardens behind us.
“What is it, Graves?” Daddy asks.
“Telephone call for you, sir. I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your walk with Miss Bianco, but it’s your brother.”
Daddy snarls. “What the fuck does he want?”
I almost see the butler roll his eyes as he replies. “I don’t know, sir. He told me he wouldn’t discuss his private business with the hired help.”
“Motherfucker. Fine.” He holds out his hand, and Graves hands him a cordless phone, and for the first time I realize I’ve never seen Daddy with a cell phone. And somehow, I can’t imagine him carrying one. “What do you want?” he says into the receiver as he turns away from me.
The butler gives me a reassuring smile as Daddy walks off into the garden, clearly not wanting me to overhear the conversation.
“I’ve seen you around, miss,” he says in a strange accent that isn’t quite American, nor quite European.
“And if it’s not too bold of me to say so, it does my heart good to see the master so happy. I hope you’ll be sticking around.”
With that, he nods, turns, and heads back toward the house.
“I hope so, too,” I mutter as I watch him go, then overhear Daddy as he raises his voice.
“When she’s ready, Hoover! I’ll do my job!”
My heart skips a beat.
He’s still planning on sending me back?
How can I go back to that life? How can I leave this place, and leave Daddy, and go back to Hoover and Robert and Mom?
I glance around at the gardens of flowering Hibiscus, at the lush tropical greens with paths carved into them, leading to the translucent, turquoise water. No other houses, no other places.
My easel is still set up next to the trellis, the canvas filling up with strokes of the brush and the girlish hope that this was going to be home. That this…that Daddy was something different.
God, so much pleasure. The feel of him inside me, around me, everywhere with me. I’ve been drowning in him, and my heart punches at my chest.
The scent of ocean and summer swirls around me. A hint of his cologne on me as well as the savory scent of sex from between my legs.
I’ve been just another girl. Another project for him.
He does this with them all.
Of course he does.
The depth of my stupidity crashes over me like an avalanche of shame.
I don’t know what to do, but I know I’m not staying here to be molded and rehabilitated and sent back to a life worse than death. That’s exactly what I escaped. A fucking arranged marriage and nothing for myself.
I run toward the house, my feet slapping on the marble inside as I turn toward the hallway leading to Sebastian’s suite, where he took me and fucked me and bathed me, and made me feel like I was special.
Different.
Lies. All lies. God, he’s good.
So good at his job. I push open the door, then pause and turn. The door on the opposite side of the corridor is closed, and there’s a sign neatly attached to the wood.
Sebastian’s Office. Strictly no entry.
Somewhere inside me, the same rebellious Larissa comes to the front, and I huff as I push the door open. There’s no lock, no resistance. I guess everyone just knows to follow Sebastian’s orders.
Well, not me. Not this time, Daddy.
Inside, I roll my eyes at how much like him this room is. There’s hardly any furniture. No artwork on the walls, no flowers in vases. The window looks out on the gardens and the ocean beyond.
His desk is very plain and very empty, just a computer, a notebook and…
My eyes drift over the words on the plaque that sits on the edge of his desk, and my heart jumps into my throat. It’s all been lies. All of it.
He never cared about me. Not in the way that I wanted him to.
He’s just been treating me like he treats all of the girls who come through here, giving me what he thinks I want because it’s the easiest way to train me.
Men wait years for one of his girls? I bet they do. Every ounce of fight has been taken from them until they’ll do whatever they’re told like zombies walking through their own lives.
I pick up the plaque and hurl it across the room, hearing it thud against the wall, and watching as it bounces, unharmed, to the floor.
The scream tears out of me as the words are turned my way yet again, mocking everything I thought was happening between us.
“No attachments. No exceptions.”
***
Tears sting my eyes as I run back through the garden. There are muted voices behind me, but I don’t care.
I don’t care about any of it anymore.
I clutch the plaque as I pant and race down the path toward the cliffs and the beach. How could he send me back?
No attachments. The words are carved and burned into the wood in my hand as I struggle through the sand.
He never cared about me. He cared about his payday.
There’s a shore opposite, miles away across the water, dotted with houses, each one a palace, but none that even come close to what Sebastian has here.
“How could you?” I scream into the wind, my vision blurry as I read the words on the plaque again, feeling betrayed and alone. Then angry. Angrier than I’ve ever been. “How dare you?”
I raise my arm, and with a scream of rage, I fling the plaque into the ocean.
Plop.
The waves take it from there. Pulling it down, and a small, hateful, pre-Daddy smile curls my lips.
Then I laugh. The sarcastic, rebellious girl who arrived here is reborn inside me.
He thought he knew me? He doesn’t know the first thing about me. This is the real Larissa. This is who I am. Not his obedient babygirl, ready to be sent back to Hoover. If he wants to make me into that girl, it’s clearly going to take a lot longer.
As I turn from the waves, his face flashes behind my lids.
Daddy’s face. Sebastian. My uncle.
Sort of. But more than that. So much more.
I remember him giving me a room painted yellow like Belle’s dress, just because he knew I would love it. I remember Maria talking about how a mother should be. I remember…
I remember Daddy laying me down in his bed, spreading my legs, and giving me everything.
“What have I done?” I yell to the sky, the seagulls circling above. “Oh my God, what have I done?”
The plaque belonged to him. It wasn’t mine to throw away.
Throwing away something that belongs to him surely will not convince him to keep me here. What if I misunderstood?
God, I’m impulsive. I’m not that strong, I didn’t throw it that far out…
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter, turning back around to the sea.
Before I know it, I’m up to my thighs, the saltwater darkening the hem of my yellow dress. I should never have even been in his office. The sign said so.
I’m disoriented in the water, but when I look back to the shore, I think I’m at the place where it went in.
I suck in a deep breath, counting to five, and then plunge under the oncoming wave.
The shock of the water draws in my breath as I reach and feel for the sand at the bottom.
But my clothes swirl up around me. I can’t reach down far enough.
Before I can rise and take a full breath, another wave jolts me back under, turning me like a helpless leaf under the water. It’s dark, loud, I’m choking, and I’m turning over and over, the weight from my clothes dragging me under.
The saltwater burns, the water tugs at my feet, a current grabbing at me as I flail, trying to break free, but it pulls harder, harder, dragging me helpless into the darkness.
I’m gagging and kicking in a frantic attempt to find the sandy bottom. But there’s nothing. Only water.
I’m back under, the sense of impending doom causing my arms and legs to thrash as the power of the ocean laughs at my feeble attempt to control it.
I’m going to die out here…
I have no sense of up and down, or from which direction the light is coming. My last thought is of so many things I wanted to do, how I just discovered something as close to love as I ever knew.
Someone who has grabbed me by the heart in such a short time, a mere stranger, and taught me a depth of care so complete, I’m ready to give myself to him for all time.
He dragged me under the same way the ocean is now.
My final emotion is fear, a frantic last attempt to find the surface. Instead, my hands hit something solid…
Hands, fingers, and flesh. I grab and thrash until my face breaks into the light, coughing up water and sucking in oxygen.
Thick arms drag me upward as I bob helpless in the waves. I blink stinging water out of my eyes, finally focused enough to see the familiar cut of that square jaw, the precision line of onyx hair around his ear.
Sobs mingle with the coughing, and I grip his forearm. He has me under my arms, swimming and dragging me next to him.
As we reach the shore, he pulls me into his arms, and we crash onto the sand as he breathes heavy, his words a frantic panic.
“What were you doing?” he barks, something close to a sob breaking his voice. “Why would you do that to me?”
Do that to me…
I’m sobbing too, my dress soaked, lungs on fire.
I’m frightened and relieved, and a part of me is disappointed… Disappointed in myself, for upsetting him, for putting myself in danger, and him as well.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I plead, pushing myself against his chest. “I had to—”
As we sit there, holding onto each other, the surf lashes around our feet, a strong wave pushing the water up to where we lay.
Leaving behind a wooden plaque.
No attachments. No exceptions.
“This?” Daddy’s voice hardens as he looks at the ocean’s delivery.
“I’m sorry.” I plead. “I just… I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave you. I never want you to send me away…”
He lets out a growl and grabs the wooden plaque from the sand. I shrink back, not sure what’s coming next.
And then he raises the plaque, shakes his head, and tosses it out into the oncoming waves.
He holds me close, kissing my wet hair, ignoring the salt and sand that cover us both.
“Never,” he growls. “I am never, ever letting you go. You’re my babygirl, my exception to the rule. I love you, and you’re staying here with me.”