Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Eden
I've lost track of the days.
It's been—what? A week? Two weeks? More?
Time has stopped meaning anything.
Stopped being something I can measure in sunrises and sunsets and the passage of hours marked by clocks on the wall.
Now time is measured differently.
In training sessions that blur together into one endless cycle of commands and compliance.
In orgasms given and received until I can't remember which is which anymore.
In the slow, steady erosion of who I used to be, piece by careful piece.
Morning training at ten a.m. sharp.
Afternoon practice at three.
Evening "rewards" that feel less like rewards and more like the systematic dismantling of my resistance, my sense of self, everything that made me Eden Finch instead of just another acquisition.
Every day the same routine.
Every day something different shifts inside me.
Every day I lose a little more of myself and find something else in its place.
Something that scares me more than the loss itself.
I wake up in Vaughn's bed—in our bed, though I hate that my mind has started using that possessive, has started thinking of this space as ours instead of his—and for a moment, just a brief, disorienting moment, I don't remember where I am.
Who I am.
What I've become.
The confusion is almost peaceful.
Then I remember everything.
The auction where he bought me for two million dollars.
The escape attempt that lasted barely three and a half hours.
The hunt through the freezing woods.
The way he found me and dragged me back and showed me exactly what happens when you run from Vaughn Sutherland.
The training.
God, the endless training.
The way my body has learned to respond to him with Pavlovian precision, like a bell that rings and I salivate, a command given and I obey before my brain catches up to what I'm doing.
The way I crave his approval like oxygen, like water, like something essential to survival.
The way I've started to forget why I wanted to run in the first place.
That's the most terrifying part.
Not the training itself, not the commands or the performances or the way he's systematically breaking down every wall I ever built.
But the forgetting.
The way the Sanctuary feels more and more distant, more like a bad dream than a reality I lived for twenty-three years.
The way freedom feels less appealing than it used to, less urgent, less necessary.
The way staying feels easier than the thought of leaving.
Today is—I don't even know what day it is.
Wednesday? Thursday?
Does it matter when every day is the same?
Vaughn is already awake.
He's always awake before me.
Always showered and dressed before I even open my eyes, sitting in the chair by the window with his laptop balanced on his knee, working while I sleep.
Watching me sleep, probably.
I've caught him at it more than once.
Caught that intense gaze studying my face like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve, a problem that requires his complete attention.
"Good morning," he says without looking up from his screen, his voice calm and measured like always.
"Morning." My voice is hoarse from sleep.
From screaming during last night's session when he made me come three times in a row until I was sobbing and begging him to stop.
From begging—God, from begging in explicit detail—for him to let me come the fourth time.
He made me ask.
Made me use words I'd never said out loud before.
Made me describe exactly what I wanted, where I wanted to be touched, how I wanted to feel.
And I did it.
Hated myself for it with every syllable. But did it anyway.
Because the alternative—him stopping, him withdrawing, him leaving me empty and wanting—was worse than the humiliation of begging.
When did that happen?
When did his touch become something I need instead of something I endure?
"We have training in an hour," he says, still focused on his laptop. Business emails, probably. The rest of his life continues even while mine has narrowed to this room, this routine, this slow dissolution of self. "Shower. Eat breakfast. Wear what I laid out for you."
I look toward the chair near the bathroom door.
There's something draped over it.
Something black and delicate that definitely isn't my usual jeans and sweater.
Something else entirely.
My stomach twists with anticipation and dread in equal measure.
"What is it?" I ask, though I'm not sure I want to know the answer.
"Something for today's session. We're progressing to the next phase."
Progressing.
Like this is a project with milestones and benchmarks.
A curriculum with learning objectives.
A syllabus of my own degradation mapped out in careful detail.
I suppose it is.
The black thing turns out to be lingerie.
Not the practical cotton underwear I've been wearing since I arrived here.
This is something else entirely.
Something expensive and delicate and designed for a purpose I understand all too well.
A black lace bra that's somehow both covering and revealing at the same time.
Matching panties that are more lace than fabric, more suggestion than coverage.
Thigh-high stockings with wide lace bands at the top.
A garter belt with delicate clasps I don't even know how to attach.
I stare at it all laid out on the bathroom counter, my stomach churning with something that feels uncomfortably close to anticipation beneath the dread.
This is what he wants me to wear.
What he's going to make me model for him during today's session.
What I'll be wearing while he touches me, commands me, trains me.
What I might be wearing at the showcase in front of all those men.
The thought makes me want to vomit.
But I pick up the bra anyway.
Because what choice do I have at this point?
What power do I possess to refuse him anymore when my body betrays me at every turn?
The bra fits perfectly.
Of course it does.
He knows my size down to the millimeter.
Knows my body better than I do at this point—has studied every inch, mapped every response, catalogued every reaction.
The black lace against my pale skin looks—
I don't want to think about how it looks.
The panties are barely there.
Just strategic lace and delicate string and the illusion of coverage without any actual modesty.
They make me feel exposed even though I'm technically covered.
The stockings—I've never worn stockings before in my life.
Never worn anything like this.
At the Sanctuary, we wore long skirts that brushed our ankles and high necklines that showed no collarbone and nothing that might inspire lust in the men around us.
This is designed to inspire lust.
To showcase.
To display.
To transform a person into an object, a body into a commodity.
To make me into what I am now—property.
The garter belt takes three tries to figure out.
The clasps are tiny and my hands are shaking and I can't seem to make them attach to the stockings properly.
Finally, I get it.
The stockings stay up.
The whole ensemble comes together into something that looks—
I force myself to look in the full-length mirror.
The woman staring back at me is a stranger.
She looks beautiful in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
In a way that feels fundamentally wrong.
Her body is displayed like art in a gallery.
Showcased like merchandise in a store window.
Every curve highlighted by the strategic placement of lace, every asset presented for maximum visual impact.
She looks like someone's fantasy brought to life.
Someone's property prepared for display.
She looks like she belongs to him.
The realization makes tears burn hot behind my eyes, threatening to spill over and ruin whatever composure I'm clinging to.
I pull on the robe he left—his robe, white terry cloth and soft from countless washings—and tie it tightly closed with shaking fingers.
At least I don't have to walk through the house like this. At least not yet.
At least Mrs. Silva won't see me dressed like—like this.
Small mercies, I guess.
Breakfast is excruciating.
I sit across from Vaughn in the formal dining room, wearing his robe over the lingerie that feels like it's burning against my skin, unable to eat the food Mrs. Silva prepared.
Scrambled eggs and toast and fresh fruit arranged beautifully on fine china.
Coffee in a delicate cup.
Orange juice in crystal.
All of it might as well be sawdust for all I can taste it.
My stomach is too tight with anxiety about what's coming.
Too knotted with anticipation I don't want to feel.
Too twisted with the knowledge that some part of me—some small, treacherous part—is curious about today's session instead of just dreading it.
Vaughn watches me over his coffee cup, those ice-blue eyes missing nothing. "You're not eating."
"I'm not hungry."
"You need to eat. You'll need energy for today's session. It's going to be more intensive than previous days."
More intensive?
The words send a shiver through me that I can't quite identify as fear or something else.
"I don't want to do today's session," I say, but the argument sounds hollow even to my own ears.
Automatic.
Like lines from a script I'm supposed to recite but no longer believe.
"That's not relevant to whether it happens. You agreed to train. So, we train. Every day until the showcase."
I set down my fork with more force than necessary, the silver clattering against the porcelain. "I've been training. For days. Weeks. I've lost track of how long. How much more do you possibly need?"
"As much as it takes to ensure you're ready. The showcase is in one week, Eden. Seven days. You need to be perfect."
One week.
Seven days.
One week until I have to perform in front of those men.
Until I have to kneel for Vaughn while they watch and judge and assess.
Until I have to prove beyond any doubt that I'm his, that I belong to him, that I'm well-trained and obedient and everything an acquisition should be.
One week until everything I've been avoiding becomes horrifyingly, irrevocably real.