32. Chapter Thirty-One
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MARGERY
W hen Daddy left with Matthias, Margery didn’t know what to do. He left her alone with Clinton and Dahmere, people she had just met a couple of minutes before. She was not comfortable around them, and yet Daddy had left her with them.
Several minutes after he left and the shock wore off, she started to make mac and cheese, something Daddy forgot to do. They had been busy talking. Or, well, everyone was talking to each other but her.
It had gotten so overwhelming being around all of them. They were all huge, intimidating men. She was a small woman who didn’t know them. And Daddy had left her with them. What if they decided to hurt her? Daddy was nowhere in sight to help her.
Daddy told her several times that he trusted them, but she wasn’t so sure. How long had Daddy known them for? Were they really his allies, or were they just posing to work for him and were actually spies ?
Margery knew she shouldn’t question Daddy. Especially since they had probably been with him for years. It was just hard because it was new to her, and it wasn’t to him. He had just thrown her in the fire and expected her to be okay.
How was she supposed to survive in this atmosphere when he wasn’t even here to protect her?
There was no doubt that Dahmere and Clinton could kill her over one hundred different ways before she could even get a word out. She was outnumbered, and it was starting to worry her.
“She has that face again,” Uncle Dahmere said.
Clinton suggesting she should call them uncle eased her a bit inside. It showed her that they weren’t all intimidating and scary. Her Little side craved to call them that out loud, but she was worried.
When wasn’t she?
Margery just didn’t want to be Little, and them make fun of her. She knew books weren’t the same as real life, but there had to be some truth in it. She had read several books where the Little had gotten made fun of. Margery didn’t want that.
“The look of her being terrified and thinking we’re going to do horrible things to her?” Uncle Clinton observed.
She briefly looked over at them to find them already staring at her. She quickly went back at her bowl of mac and cheese. It had come off the stove a minute ago, and she was waiting for it to cool down. Too many times, she had burned her mouth when she was impatient.
“At least she was a good girl and didn’t eat the food right as it came off the stove. Little girls tend to burn their mouths. That’s why Daddies are there, to help them and remind them,” Uncle Clinton chuckled.
Why was he chuckling? Nothing he said was funny.
“Back to the discussion,” Clinton said
“To her being terrified? There’s nothing we can really do about it. We’ve shown her that we aren’t going to hurt her. It’s just going to take time before she actually believes it,” Uncle Dahmere snarked back.
Margery wanted to turn around and tell them that she could hear them. But that’s probably what they wanted her to do.
“Maybe we can bribe her with cookies,” Uncle Clinton suggested.
“Her Daddy would be so mad.”
“Ethan, mad? Definitely not at her, but at us, yes. But he didn’t say anything about us not giving her cookies. He just said to watch her.”
Margery turned her body to the side a little, showing that she was actually listening but not directly looking at them. She loved cookies. If she could have it her way, she would have cookies for every meal.
“Ah, I see we got her attention with cookies. Maybe she’ll stop being rude and ignoring us,” Uncle Dahmere jabbed at her.
Margery spun around and glared at him. “What’s rude is Ethan kidnapping me, but you don’t hear me saying anything,” she snapped.
Quickly, she went back to her mac and cheese and took several deep breaths. She loved Ethan, Daddy . But it was so hard. She wanted to stay with him for the rest of her life, but was it wrong to ignore him kidnapping her and stalking her?
Part of her felt like it wasn’t because they were always meant to be together, but the other part of her felt like it was. It wasn’t normal for people to fall in love with their kidnappers. But it also wasn’t normal for someone to be taken by the love of their life they thought had died several years ago.
Everything about this was strange. None of the circumstances were ordinary. So maybe she shouldn’t judge herself so harshly about doing something that could possibly be wrong. Margery also thought that if Adalisa knew and believed her, she might actually be okay with it.
If Adalisa was okay, under certain circumstances, for a man to kill for her, then she had to be okay with this. Or so Margery thought and hoped.
But it would only really matter if Margery could live with herself. It all boiled down to that, and not if somebody else approved or not. Even though she loved having people’s opinions For this, she may not be able to.
She figured most people wouldn’t approve. But then again, most people wouldn’t hear her out when she was telling the story. They could cut her off right after she said kidnapped and killed .
Margery probably would have done that if Adalisa told her this scenario before it happened to her. She would have been horrified and told her to get help.
“Look, we got a reaction out of her,” Uncle Dahmere mused.
“Maybe not the best reaction,” Uncle Clinton replied.
She wanted to turn around and tell them to shut up. Why were they saying things like this? Why were they trying to get a reaction out of her? To get her to talk? Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?
She remembered Clinton saying they were trying to make her comfortable. Was this their definition of making her comfortable? If it was, they were doing an awful job of it. Who tried to get a reaction out of somebody to get them comfortable?
But as the seconds went by, she started to feel guilty. She shouldn’t have snapped at them like that. It wasn’t kind of her. Margery always tried to be kind to people, but it was hard when so many things were going on and she was so overwhelmed. Nothing was making any sense at all, and she was frustrated.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The guilt had started to eat at her for snapping at them. It had only taken a couple of seconds, but it had quickly grown.
“No, we’re sorry,” Uncle Clinton apologized. “He shouldn’t have egged you on like that. It wasn’t nice of him. He knew better, and yet he still did it. I’m sorry about that.”
“No, I’m just so overwhelmed I snapped when I shouldn’t have,” she rushed out.
She didn’t need Dahmere being mad at her. She needed him to know everything was okay between them so he didn’t come after her later.
“No. And don’t you dare say that it was your fault. He knew what he was doing, and it wasn’t okay. He could have gone about it in so many different ways and yet he didn’t. It’s not your fault that you snapped. It’s on him and only him. ”
She blinked several times, not comprehending what Uncle Clinton had just said. Was he serious?
“Tell her, Dahmere.”
“I really am sorry, Marg. I didn’t mean to make you angry. It wasn’t my intention at all. I was just trying to interact with you, and I didn’t know how else to besides saying that. It was my fault; not yours,” Uncle Dahmere crooned.
“I forgive you two.” Margery knew they were sorry.
Uncle Clinton raised his hands in the air. “You shouldn’t forgive us so easily. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong, so you really didn’t have to say you forgive me. But Uncle Dahmere, don’t accept his apology so fast. Make him work for it.”
“Hey! Don’t tell her that. I accept your apology. You can’t take it back!”
Uncle Clinton and Dahmere started to argue with each other. She wasn’t paying attention; they were talking so fast. She turned around and grabbed her bowl of now-cold mac and cheese. She wished she hadn’t reacted so it would have been warm to eat, but at the same time, she was kind of glad. She was growing a little bit more comfortable with them.
“Margery, we want to talk to you about something,” Uncle Clinton said.
She was pretty sure he was talking because Uncle Dahmere seemed to mess things up. He didn’t seem as well-versed in talking.
“You know when… Ethan is coming back?” Margery asked excitedly.
“Do you mean Daddy?” Uncle Clinton rose his right eyebrow .
Her eyes went wide, and she shook her head. She was not ready to call him Daddy in front of them.
“First, you do not have to be ashamed about calling him Daddy in front of us. We are both Daddy Doms, as well. But we understand if you aren’t comfortable saying that in front of us yet. Not everyone is,” Uncle Dahmere offered.
“Second, I remember you saying you were frustrated and overwhelmed. If you want to talk, we’re both great listeners.” Uncle Clinton gave her a smile.
She immediately shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“Why?”
She looked between Uncle Dahmere and Clinton. Were they seriously asking her that?
“Because you’ll just report to Daddy, and I don’t want that.”
Margery clenched her jaw as she realized she just called Ethan Daddy out loud. She wasn’t planning on doing that, and she hadn’t said it to Ethan’s face yet. She had only thought it.
Margery didn’t need Daddy to know what she was thinking either. She knew he was going to find out at some point. If he asked, she was willing to tell him. But until then, she didn’t want it getting to him.
“We promise we won’t tell him unless it is about safety or your well-being. Those two things are nonnegotiable. If we find you doing something that could harm yourself, you better bet we’ll tell your Daddy, and he’ll blister your bottom.” Clinton’s voice went deeper.
She was not expecting that from him. He seemed to be the more chill one .
“I don’t think she was expecting that from you,” Uncle Dahmere chuckled. “I’m pretty sure she expected that from me.”
“Good. That means it will be memorable and stick in her brain. She’ll know we won’t keep things like that from her Daddy. Isn’t that right, Margie?”
She nodded.
“Words.” Clinton raised an eyebrow. “I know your Daddy likes words, and I do, too. So, you better get used to speaking and not just nodding.”
“Right,” she whispered, completely overwhelmed.
He had taken a complete one-eighty, and she didn’t know how to feel about that. She thought he would be the carefree one. The one who would let her get away with things. But she should have known better. They were all going to spy on her for Daddy. There was no getting away with anything.
“Good girl,” Uncle Clinton praised. “Now, what’s upsetting you? Maybe it’ll help you to speak about it. Clear things up.”
Margery didn’t know about that. Part of her wanted to. She didn’t want to risk them telling Daddy. She didn’t need him knowing that she was still struggling with whether to stay or not. He would surely tie her to the bed and make sure she didn’t go anywhere.
Not that he was giving her much of a choice, but she could probably find someone to help her be able to leave. Or she could leave whenever Daddy was gone, and she had people watching over her. They weren’t going to follow her into the bathroom, so she was safe.
“Are you going to talk to us?” Uncle Dahmere asked. “We give good advice. We promise we won’t tell your Daddy unless it is causing you harm mentally or physically.”
And that was where she was hesitant. It wasn’t technically causing her any physical harm, but it might be causing her stress. She was just trying to figure everything out.
“Come on, girly. You’re in a safe place,” Uncle Clinton began. “I wouldn’t lie to you. You are safe to talk to us. It’s not good for you to hold in all of this and make you super anxious. At that point, we will have to tell your Daddy so he can help.”
Her eyebrows went up as she stared at them. They were giving her an ultimatum. Did she tell them with a slight chance that they would tell her Daddy or them tell her Daddy that she was stressed? Either way it wasn’t looking good for Margery.
“Fine. Since you’re not really giving me a choice anyway.”
“It’s all for your health. We just want what is best for you. We know we aren’t your Daddy, but he isn’t here right now, and we are your uncles. We have an obligation to keep track of you and make sure that you are okay,” Dahmere explained.
It did make sense, but it still wasn’t fair. She just never had so many people who actually cared about her. Her parents did when they lived in New York while she was in high school. But once she graduated and found a job, they moved and hadn’t contacted her since.
So maybe her parents caring about her was a stretch. They tolerated her and made sure she had what she needed, but besides that, they didn’t really care. Sad, but it was how life was. Not everyone was in her corner. A lot of people weren’t.
“Come sit down. I’ll make you some hot chocolate, and you can talk to us.” Clinton patted the seat next to him.
Margery eyed the chair for several minutes. Was she actually going to do this? Was it better to do this than have them tell Daddy? She didn’t know and hadn’t really thought about it. What if Daddy didn’t do much once they told him?
That would still put her in a dilemma. Maybe by telling Uncles Clinton and Dahmere, they could help her. She wouldn’t know until she tried.
“Come on, girly. Uncle Clinton makes an amazing hot chocolate. You don’t want to miss out.” Uncle Dahmere gestured to the chair
“I do love hot chocolate,” Margery confessed.
“And you love talking to us and telling us how you’re feeling.” Clinton gave her a big smile.
“I don’t know about that part,” she mumbled.
Who really liked talking about why their emotions? She didn’t, but here she was, ready to tell them things. Maybe it was for the best.
Margery walked over and sat on the chair. Her whole body was rigid next to Uncle Dahmere. She was so small up against him. He could sit on her, and a second later, she would be dead. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but there was no way she would be getting out.
“Relax. I’m not going to bite,” he calmly said.
She forced her shoulders to relax as she leaned back in her chair .
“You can start whenever you want. To make it easier, how about you tell us why you’re frustrated,” Uncle Clinton suggested as he made her hot chocolate. “Do you want any hot chocolate, Dahmere?”
“Sure.” Dahmere nodded.
She took a deep breath as Dahmere looked at her. It was now or never.
“I’m confused and can’t make up my mind,” she whispered.
“And why are you confused? I’m assuming not being able to make up your mind is why you’re confused. But tell me if I’m wrong.” Uncle Dahmere looked away.
Could he tell how nervous she was when he looked at her? She didn’t know, but she was grateful he turned away.
“I’m confused about…” she sighed. Was she really about to tell them her dilemma? “You’re going to think it’s dumb.”
“No, we won’t,” Uncle Clinton said as he handed her the cup.
She rolled her eyes and nodded. If they laughed or said it was dumb, then she was going to walk out with her hot chocolate. She didn’t need that in her life, especially right now.
“Ethan is a bad guy. Yes, I’ve known him since we were kids, but he’s changed. He faked his own death. I thought he was dead for eighteen years. I love him because I never stopped loving him, but it’s different, and it’s hard. He stalked me, kidnapped me, and put me through so much. He has killed two people for me, and he does illegal activities. Can I live with myself if I’m with him? Or should I leave?”
She took in a deep breath and stared at them. Both of them blinked several times but didn’t say anything .
“See, you probably think it’s dumb. He put me through so much, and he’s a bad person. Is it wrong for me to be turned on and love him even more? This isn’t normal. People who get kidnapped are normally taken by random people and not a person they thought was dead for almost two decades. I feel like I’m crazy for wanting to stay with him. Dumb for thinking about it, but part of me still always will love him.”
Uncle Dahmere and Clinton stayed silent. Margery took a long sip of her hot chocolate and sighed in contentment. It was amazing. She wished she could curl up in a blanket and read her books with this hot chocolate. It sounded so amazing right now.
“I just don’t want to make the wrong decision. What if I decide to leave and I regret it for the rest of my life? What if I decide to stay and I can’t live with myself because he has killed people, will continue to kill people, and does illegal things?”
At this point, she was going to continue to speak until they decided to say something. Maybe this is exactly what she needed. A place to rant and get everything off her chest.
She did it with her Jonesy, but he was a stuffed animal. This was different. They were two people who could respond and give their input on things—if they decided to speak.
The more she talked, the less she felt like they were actually going to respond. They just kept looking at her with blank expressions. Maybe this was a mistake instead of something that was supposed to help her.
“Maybe I’m just thinking too much about it, or maybe I’m not thinking enough about it. Perhaps I’m missing something that I wasn’t before. I don’t know what to do. I honestly just want somebody else to make the decisions for me..”
She took several deep breaths in and waited for them to say something. She had given her peace, and now she was waiting for their feedback. What they were going to tell her. But as the seconds went by, they didn’t say anything.
“Are you going to continue to look at me, or are you actually going to say something? You were the ones that wanted me to tell you what was going on. Now you don’t have anything to say?” Margery raised her voice.
Margery knew she was being slightly rude, but she couldn’t help it. They were the ones he wanted her to talk to them. But now they weren’t saying anything.
“This was a mistake. A complete waste of time,” she announced as she sat her cup on the counter.
“Wait. Give us a couple of seconds to think. We don’t want to give you a willy-nilly response. That wouldn’t do you any good,” Clinton responded.
She wrapped her hands around the cup again and tried to relax in her chair. It was so hard because she had given them so much information.
Margery honestly couldn’t believe that she had said all of that. Was it stupid of her? Were they going to give her bad advice?
“Have you talked to anybody about this?” Uncle Dahmere asked.
She looked down at her lap in embarrassment. The only person she had talked to wasn’t really a person. It was her stuffed animal who couldn’t give her a response back.
“Just Jonesy, my stuffed zebra,” she mumbled. She didn’t want to look up and see the disgust on their faces.
“You don’t have to be afraid of mentioning your stuffed animal. We’ve been around a lot of Littles. We’re not going to think of you any less because you have one,” Clinton gently comforted.
“What did Jonesy say?” Dahmere asked.
“To trust my gut. Didn’t really say much else. I kind of got interrupted, so I couldn’t finish my conversation,” she said.
Not that finishing it would have been any good. It probably would have ended the same way it started. She didn’t actually know if it would have ended like that, that was only her assumption. Maybe Jonesy would have surprised her with a completely different answer.
“And did you agree with Jonesy?” Clinton asked.
She shrugged. “It’s complicated. My gut is telling me to stay and that I can live with myself, but my brain is telling me that it’s wrong. That I shouldn’t be even considering it. I mean, my friend agreed with part of it. Daddy sent me a card with a picture of guy’s body. Said something about how he touched me, so he was dead. It turned me on, and I asked my friend about it. Asked her hypothetically in a book situation if it was okay,” she rushed out. “She said in a book it was perfectly fine, but in real life, it depended on the situation. I couldn’t tell her it was real life because she didn’t believe me that I had a stalker.”
Margery didn’t know why she went into so much detail. She didn’t know why she kept telling them the things he had done that turned her on. It wasn’t information that they needed to know. Daddy probably wouldn’t be happy with her for telling them his actions turned her on. It was kind of private.
“Okay, and your brain is just telling you it’s wrong because of social norms? Or is it telling you it’s wrong because you hate it?” Uncle Dahmere moved his hands up and down.
She opened her mouth but quickly closed it. She hadn’t thought about it in that way. Was her brain just telling her it was wrong because social norms told people how to behave?
Margery knew killing was bad, but this was different. He wasn’t killing innocent people. He had killed a rapist who had hurt several women and almost hurt her. He had killed Max, who said those weird things to her in the cabin. Margery was pretty sure if she stayed with him, something bad would have happened.
She didn’t initially get that vibe from him but toward the end, as he said a couple of weird things toward her, it definitely became clearer.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
That question really stumped her.
“It’s okay if you don’t know the answer. It’s something for you to think about,” Clinton offered.
She looked down at her almost empty mug of hot chocolate. Margery hadn’t even realized she had been sipping it while she was thinking.
“Do you want to talk through what’s going through your head? Sometimes, people need to talk through it to get to what they want. But some people just need to think in silence. You tell us what’s best.” Clinton patted her hand a couple of times.
“I know killing is bad. I know you guys don’t kill innocent people. You guys kill the people who are bad. I just, you’re killing people. I know it’s not all bad, but at the same time, it is. What am I supposed to do with that information? Will people ask me about it if I see them? Will I have to lie for the rest of my life? There are just so many questions and considerations, and I don’t know. I am at a loss.”
While their questions were kind of helping Margery think, she was still struggling. She just wished she could have them make the decision for her, but they weren’t going to do that. She didn’t expect them to since they had only known each other for a couple of hours. It was asking too much, and she also felt like they would side with Ethan. They were loyal to him. And they should be.
“People won’t know unless you tell them who he is. You don’t have to tell them his last name. You can just say Ethan, or if they are in the lifestyle, you can say Daddy. You’ll still be able to make friends. Just because you’re with him doesn’t mean you have to be confined to this house,” Uncle Clinton told her.
“Yeah, I bet if you stayed, he would give you some guards, and if you ever wanted to go out, you could. I’m not going to lie. He’ll probably say you can’t leave without him for a little while. But he just wants to make sure that you are safe and that you’ll come back to him,” Uncle Dahmere added. “But he’s not going to hold you hostage for the rest of your life. He knows you wouldn’t do well with that.”
She sighed and slumped further into the chair. They were saying all the right things for her to want to stay. It was all things she knew would happen, but they had just solidified it.
“Those are the good things. Some of the not so good things, I mean, I don’t necessarily see them as bad, but other people might. He kills people, bad people. He sells drugs. He has people who manufacture drugs. He hosts underground fighting and owns people,” Dahmere chuckled.
“But you can also say that those things are good. He employs people to make the drugs. People who didn’t have jobs before. The underground fighting, he helps people with jobs. Sure, they get hurt some, but they also earn a ton of money and get a lot of rest. There are good and bad sides to everything,” Clinton added. “It’s just how you look at it. You can either decide to look at the worst of it all, or you can decide to look at the best. It’s up to you and how you ultimately want to look at it.”
All the things they mentioned were bad. They were really bad, but Uncle Clinton was right. It was how she looked at it.
“And your thoughts might change over time. We can’t tell you what it’s going to be like, but we can tell you that it’s going to change. Some days, you’ll be perfectly fine, and other days, it might be harder to accept everything. We go through the same thing. It’s not just you,” Clinton gently said. “I just want you to know that. And I bet it would be the same if you decided not to stay. You would probably go through days of thinking it was the right decision and days of thinking it was the worst decision ever. You just need to think about which one you are going to regret the least. ”
Tears of frustration formed in her eyes. How was she supposed to make that decision? Did they know how hard it was going to be?
“There’s no need to cry.” Dahmere placed his hand over hers. “Everything is going to work out. I can just say that you should go with your gut. That’s what your Daddy does, and about eighty-nine percent of the time, he’s right.”
“Just eighty-nine percent?” She found herself chuckling.
“Yeah, just eighty-nine percent.”
“He’s totally downplaying it. Add ten to it, and that’s where your Daddy’s at. His gut is normally right,” Clinton said. “I say to trust your gut, but it’s ultimately up to you. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it is. We can’t make the decision for you, but we can give our input and listen. But we’re not going to sway you anyway. That wouldn’t be fair.”
She gave them a wobbly smile before looking down at her lap. Making decisions was so hard, decisions that really mattered for the rest of her life.
“Now, do you want some more hot chocolate, or do you want to just sit and relax? You won’t hurt our feelings if you want to go back up to your Daddy’s room and chill. We know it’s been a very hard few hours—a lot of tough discussions. Sometimes, you just need to be by yourself.” Clinton turned his back to her for a couple of seconds.
Part of her wanted to be left alone so she could think about things. Her mind tended to go to the worst whenever she was alone. It was hard for it not to. But before she could answer, the door opened, pulling her from her thoughts and the question .
Four men walked through the front door.
Daddy, Matthias, and two men who she didn’t know. The first thing she noticed was Daddy’s red shirt sleeve.
“Dahmere, come, I need you to take a look at this wound,” Daddy blurted out.