Chapter 5 #2
"Every culture's got its version of the monster who looks human. Who walks among us. Who is us, just without the social conditioning that makes us pretend we're not capable of terrible things."
My voice drops. Gets quieter. More dangerous.
"But those monsters?" I gesture vaguely toward the window, toward the world outside this cabin. "Those legendary, mythological, historically documented monsters that humanity spent centuries warnin' each other about?"
I let the silence stretch.
"Those monsters never met Giovanni Bavga."
Her expression changes.
Not the trained-submissive mask crackin' with a flicker of discomfort.
This is somethin' else entirely.
The shift happens so fast I almost miss it—one second she's sittin' there with that practiced patience, the next her eyes narrow and her jaw sets and I'm suddenly lookin' at a completely different woman.
She glares at me.
Proper glare. The kind that could strip paint.
I feel a grin spread across my face before I can stop it.
There she is.
The laugh escapes before I can contain it—a quick bark of genuine delight.
"Oh, grand. There's the fire."
Emmaleen doesn't move from her position on the couch. Doesn't stand or shift or do anything theatrical.
Just sits there.
But when she speaks, her voice is low. Controlled. Each word delivered with surgical precision.
"You're finished?"
I lean against the wall, still grinnin'. "Depends. You plannin' on contributin' to the conversation now or—"
"Because I've been sitting here—naked, I might add—listening to you perform your one-man show about monsters, and mythology, and Giovanni's psychological profile, and I have to say...
" She pauses. Lets the silence sit there just long enough to make me wonder where she's goin' with this.
"It's impressive. Really. The way you've managed to catalogue every flaw, every pattern, every dark tendency like you're narrating a true crime documentary for an audience that asked for your expertise. "
Her tone hasn't risen. Hasn't sharpened.
She's just... speakin'. Plainly. Calmly.
But somethin' about the way she's stringing words together makes my grin falter slightly.
"Except here's what's interesting about men like you.
" She tilts her head. Studies me like I'm a specimen under glass.
"Men who rescue women they've decided need rescuing.
Who break into houses, and throw people in trunks, and drag them to remote cabins while congratulating themselves on their superior moral clarity. "
I open my mouth.
She talks right over me.
"You think you're the hero. The one with perspective. The only person in the room capable of seeing the situation clearly because obviously—obviously—the woman involved couldn't possibly understand her own circumstances well enough to make informed decisions about them."
The words land soft. No heat behind them.
Which somehow makes them worse.
"You've known me for what—an hour?" She doesn't wait for me to answer.
"In that time, you've determined I'm a victim.
A slave. Someone who needs to be saved from herself because clearly my judgment is compromised and I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome, or bad faith, or whatever intellectual framework you've decided explains why I couldn't possibly want what I actually want. "
She shifts slightly. Still not standin'. Still perfectly composed.
"You catalogued Giovanni's flaws like you were reading from a checklist. Daddy issues. Control issues. Emotional manipulation. And I'm sure you're right about all of it. I'm sure your analysis is thorough, and well-researched, and backed by years of personal observation."
Her eyes don't leave mine.
"But here's what you haven't done." Her voice drops even lower.
"You haven't asked me a single question about me.
About what I think. What I want. What I've chosen.
You looked at a collar and made assumptions.
You saw submission and diagnosed pathology.
You decided I was broken and Giovanni broke me and now you're the knight who's going to fix everything by removing me from the situation. "
The silence stretches.
I'm not grinnin' anymore.
"It never occurred to you," she continues, "that maybe—just maybe—I have agency. That I walked into that house with my eyes open. That I stayed because I wanted to stay. That what looks like captivity from your perspective might actually be freedom from mine."
She lets that sit there.
"But no. You're too busy being the smartest person in the room to consider that the woman sitting naked on your couch might actually understand her own life better than you do.
Too busy performing your intellectual superiority to wonder if maybe your rescue mission says more about your need to be the hero than my need to be saved. "
Fuck.
"Men like you..." She shakes her head slightly.
"You're exhausting. You really are. Because you don't even realize you're doing it.
You genuinely believe you're helping. That your analysis is objective.
That your intervention is necessary. You've convinced yourself that taking away my choice is somehow giving me freedom. "
Her expression doesn't change. Doesn't harden or soften.
Just remains perfectly neutral while she systematically dismantles every assumption I've made.
"So let me be very clear, since apparently I need to use small words for you to understand.
" She leans forward slightly. "Your stories about monsters don't scare me.
Your warnings about Giovanni don't enlighten me.
And your philosophical lectures about power dynamics don't make you look smart—they make you look threatened. "
That last word hits different.
"Threatened by what?" My voice comes out rougher than I intended.
"By the possibility that I might actually know what I'm doing.
" She settles back. "That I might have looked at all the same information you have—all those patterns, and flaws, and red flags—and still chose to stay.
Not because I'm broken. Not because I'm confused.
But because I decided this is what I want. "
The cabin feels smaller suddenly.
"And that possibility terrifies you," she continues, "because if I'm not a victim, then you're not a hero."
Christ.
"So here's my question for you, Sir." The title drips with something that isn't quite sarcasm but isn't respect either. "Are you going to keep talking at me like I'm a problem to be solved? Or are you actually going to listen when I tell you what I want?"
She waits.
I let her.
Because if this woman thinks she's just delivered some mic-drop moment of feminist critique that's supposed to make me apologize for havin' the audacity to notice she's wearin' a fuckin' collar—
Right.
Grand.
Let's do this properly then.
"You want me to listen?" I start to pace again because stillness isn't an option when my brain's spinnin' this fast. "You want me to actually hear what you're sayin' instead of performin' my intellectual superiority?"
I stop. Turn to face her directly.
"Fine. I heard you. Every word. The whole speech about agency, and choice, and how dare I assume you need rescuin' when you've made an informed decision to stay with a man who keeps you locked in a dungeon wearin' nothin' but a collar and bruises."
My voice drops lower. Gets quieter.
"And you know what I heard underneath all those perfectly crafted sentences? All that righteous indignation about bein' patronized?"
I let the silence stretch.
"I heard every woman who's ever called into a reality TV confessional cryin' about how 'he's different with me' and 'you don't understand our connection' right before the producers roll footage of him screwin' someone else in the hot tub.
Every episode of True Crime where the detective interviews the neighbor who says 'she seemed so happy' three weeks before they find her body in a shallow grave. "
Emmaleen's jaw tightens.
Good.
"You think you're special?" I'm properly wound up now, words tumblin' faster. "You think your situation is somehow exempt from every documented pattern of abusive relationships because you read some books, and signed a contract, and decided this time it's different—this time it's consensual?"
I laugh. It's not a nice sound.
"Newsflash, love—every woman in every fucked-up dynamic throughout history thought she was special too.
Thought she was the one who could handle it.
The one who understood what she was gettin' into.
The one who chose freely despite every external observer wavin' red flags the size of fuckin' Texas. "
She's glarin' at me proper now. Eyes flashin' with somethin' that's definitely not trained submission.
I lean in.
"You want to talk about agency? About informed consent?
Let's talk about how you just spent five minutes defendin' your choice usin' every single piece of therapy-speak Giovanni probably fed you durin' aftercare.
'This is what I want.' 'I have agency.' 'I'm not broken.
'" I do a mocking falsetto. "Classic DARVO—Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
He hurt you, and now you're attackin' me for pointin' it out while reversin' the dynamic so suddenly I'm the one threatenin' your autonomy. "
Her face goes pale.