Chapter 39 Tiff
My original plan, once I agreed to try to escape with Jason, was to play it cool for a few days.
I knew Carter would be more alert after Jason’s introduction.
I knew that trying immediately for the card was a risk.
The best I could do was to act as if everything was normal.
Then again, that could’ve been due to my desire to have Carter milk my tits, while he fingered me or ate me out.
I wanted to drag a few days of my wicked prince charming fantasy a little longer before I left.
My original intention didn’t matter. I couldn’t hold myself back.
The first night, I was brought to his room from the Ranch.
I savored being milked and worked up until I couldn’t even think of asking Carter to fuck me.
He exhausted me. The day after Jason’s arrival, when he refused to fuck me again, after our ‘unprofessional’ milking, I pressed him for the reason.
He didn’t give me one. I broke. I was too angry to keep it in.
“So Jen was good enough to fuck, but I’m not?! Fine for you to eat me out, finger me, use toys, but not good enough for your cock?!”
Carter gritted his teeth and got close, not close enough to touch, but almost. “I didn’t fuck her.”
I didn’t believe it. Jason knew Jen’s name and what she looked like. She wasn’t at the ranch; she disappeared long ago. She was obviously dead.
Why would Jason lie about Carter fucking her, then tell the truth about her murder?
We argued, first just heated and loud, then ugly.
Finally, Carter slammed his desk and threw down a stack of journals and ledgers.
Some were cheap, some were leather-bound, and some I didn’t even want to see the price tag on, but they all looked used.
“What’s that?” I asked, too exhausted to be pissed anymore
“You don’t believe me about Jen? Fine, but you should read these.”
“Why? What do they have to do with anything?”
“You want the truth, don’t you?” He asked. When I nodded, he continued. “These are filled with the truth, with all the answers you want.”
“Why can’t you just tell me the answers, Carter?”
“Because nothing is that easy, Tiff!” He shouted, frustrated, walking away from the desk. “Hearing it is one thing. Finding out for yourself? Piecing it together? That’s another. These journals speak for themselves.”
“How do I know they’re real? How do I know anything about you is real and not some manipulation?”
That seemed to me like a fair question, considering the fake ‘farm’, the painted scenery, the mimicry of suburbia.
It was just illusions on top of illusions.
Carter recoiled. Despite our fight, that gave me pause.
It also gave me a chance. His security card was on the table behind him.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm the urge to take it and run.
After a pause, he said, “I’m no storyteller, or creator… just read it, look at the dates, the handwriting … you’re smart. You’ll see…”
I nodded and opened my arms, moving towards him and conceding. “Okay. I’ll read them. I just need some time, Carter. Alone, maybe.”
He nodded and allowed me to hug him. I took the opportunity to swipe the card. As we broke the hug, he departed, leaving me alone in the room. I stashed the card under the bed. I looked at the journals. Was there any point in reading them now that I had decided to leave?
But, what if what’s in them changes your mind?
The lovestruck side of me asked. I wanted to shut her up, but she’d made my months in Carter’s control bearable.
I owed her the benefit of the doubt. I sat at the desk and opened the first journal.
I decided to start with the leather-bound one.
It was immediately clear this was written by Carter’s father.
It was filled with the notes he took while he established this facility.
A mix of numbers, calculations, and meeting details with the occasional personal entry.
He mentioned Carter by page two, saying he had to bring him back from India.
By then, I was intrigued. I read on and on.
I forgot to eat, though a worker came to bring me a meal and a glass of milk at some point.
Carter didn’t show up until the evening.
The clock at his table said it was almost eleven PM when I finally started to feel sleepy, but I wanted to keep reading.
Each page brought more questions and each answer prompted another mystery.
Each time I could add a piece to the puzzle of Sunshine Farms and Carter’s life made everything more bleak and more surreal.
Disgust, fear, and rage all boiled inside me.
Carter was right. He couldn’t have faked this.
There was too much detail, it was too consistent with the most cruel, wicked, and bizarre thoughts I’d ever read.
He didn’t come back the next day. I was given breakfast, I bathed, then jumped into reading again.
I finished the business ledger and turned to the diary.
Then the next and the next. I couldn’t stop.
The more I read, the more the pieces started to fall in place with the previous, and a growing, inescapable realization dawned.
My eyes were teary, my heart ragged, and then my eyes went to the mattress where I hid the key card. My thoughts went to Carter. To Jason. To those pages. I knew what to do.