CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE ESCAPE
The noise disturbed my empty dream, but I didn’t stir.
Not even when the light turned on and his hands found me.
I kept my eyes closed, pretending I was still existing in that in-between I often lost myself in when he had thrown me in that cabin and solitude ate away at me.
The same in-between I slipped into when he kissed me, never focused on me.
Not truly. When he first kissed me all that time ago, I felt his selfishness, and I should have run the moment he pulled away.
He slipped inside me, using me like I was his favorite whore come to life to serve him. It had been like that from the very start, hadn’t it? When he first planted his cock between my lips and made me swallow him. When he stared me in the eyes as he choked me with it, until I couldn’t breathe.
I should have run the moment it ended.
Why didn’t I?
Rowe would still be alive.
He would be here.
June would be here.
Rowe would be here.
He would be here.
He would.
He truly would.
My Rowe would be here—
“I’m here now,” he murmured into my hair, gathering me into his arms. He carried me out of the dark, but even as he climbed the steps into the light, I didn’t see anything but the in-between.
Darkness everywhere. Darkness in my soul.
Where was the enlightenment he had assured me of?
The countless lectures and life lessons and rules?
No apatheia stirred inside me. Never once.
Not at all. What a lie. Plato, Socrates, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche—liars. Liars. Dirty liars.
At the height of my madness, I used to feel gratitude toward his soft touches and soothing words. I used to sob into his chest and delight in his assurance that he was still here with me, that he still wanted me. No tears fell from my eyes as he reminded me of this.
“I’m here,” he continued to say. “You have nothing to fear.”
Coming from the very man who instilled fear in me. Who kept me trapped in the open, with the door right there and no way to walk through it.
How many of us were out there, I wondered just then. How many hopeless beings stripped bare and broken and in this chasm with no escape?
Did any of you get out?
Did he break your minds before he broke your bodies?
He settled me down on the bed and brushed the hair from my face. He sprinkled kisses on my face. He was trying to bring me back to him. I felt numb and cold. Still in that in-between, I saw nothing but shadow and dark at the corners of my vision.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Those words came suddenly, and I listened to them. I listened to that quiet voice inside my head. Heard Plato’s words float around me, encircling my being, shocking me out of my numbness.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
I blinked out of the in-between and stared into Oliver’s concerned eyes.
His gaze lightened in response. “There she is,” he whispered, and his mouth was on mine, kissing me with his black passion.
I didn’t kiss him back. I just stared at him.
His eyes were closed. His arms were around me, holding me tightly to him.
He tried to push me back on the bed, but I felt my body stiffen.
I began to shake my head, breaking away from the kiss with flared nostrils.
My stomach swirled and nausea slammed into me.
My head went light as I dropped down and dry heaved.
“Daisy?” he said, voice laced with panic. “You’re hungry. You must be.”
He gathered me back into his arms and a minute later I was in the kitchen, and he was bringing a spoonful of warm soup to my lips.
I swallowed it down, knowing I needed to eat.
The second the warmth hit my belly, my body shuddered, and I sucked in a breath.
Old emotions threatened to emerge. The warmth that came from his doting on me.
The gratitude I refused to allow myself to feel was searching for the familiar empty pieces it always filled.
Reality is created by the mind. We can change our reality by changing our mind.
Plato’s words continued their torment, swirling among his other words around me.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
I blinked out of my daze and looked straight at him. He went completely still. I wondered if he was surprised that I’d so easily followed his direction, or if he saw something in my eyes that he didn’t expect. He collected himself, the tension lines on his face relaxing.
“How do you feel, Daisy?” he asked.
“Better,” I answered quietly.
At hearing my voice, he smiled brilliantly. The victory shone in him as he drew closer to me. His hands were on my legs, sliding up and down my bare skin. Soft and caring.
“I thought a lot about you,” he said. “I think we should go away during the summer. How about a cruise?”
“On the water?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t swim.”
“You wouldn’t need to.” He brought his hand up to stroke my cheek. Featherlight. “I just wanted us away for a short while. Somewhere unfamiliar. Though…there would be too many people on a cruise ship. I want you to myself, so maybe…somewhere on the water, but more secluded. Just the two of us.”
I smiled softly. “I would love that, Oliver.”
His eyes brightened at my responsiveness. He dropped his head to mine and kissed me. He wanted to be rough. I felt his being shudder with the urge to grab me. The moment he brought his arm around my waist, squeezing, I let out a sharp yelp. He instantly pulled away. “Daisy?”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, shakily. “I’m just hurt.”
He nodded. “I should take it easy on you tonight.”
“Thank you,” I said, voice heavy with gratitude.
“Anything for you.”
He let me go and fed me more soup. I swallowed every mouthful down and smiled sweetly at him. Oliver’s eyes burned along my skin. They lingered on my mouth and then ventured to my bare legs where the fresh bruises were.
He wasn’t going to address the bruises or what he had done.
It sat under the surface, gathering like all the other transgressions.
In Oliver’s mind, it didn’t happen, and if it did, it was my fault.
To appease him, I let him think it was my doing.
That he was the one that needed to forgive me for overstepping.
It was such a beautiful shade of fucked up that I had been so close to accepting. A sliver of me held back completely. Had I been the slightest bit weaker, I would have been his perfect creation.
I allowed him to think I was.
Though today’s slip-up would cost me.
After Oliver fed me, he carried me like my saving knight to our ensuite bathroom. I emptied my bladder and then he washed me in that reverent way I had come to know. I smiled at him, accepting his touch, leaning into it. I let him know that I was grateful to have him.
When we were finally done, he slipped a clean black nightgown over me. He led me into the bedroom and spoke. “Take a seat at the edge of the bed, Daisy.”
The demand was taken with ease. I didn’t flinch knowing what it meant to sit at the edge of the bed.
I simply did as I was told and waited. I looked down into my lap, listening intently as he roamed around the room, gathering the chain that was piled discreetly behind the front of the frame.
I blinked quickly up at him as he shoved his hand into his pocket next and removed the cuffs I’d worn in the basement.
I looked back down into my lap, and his voice rang out, easy and soft.
“I don’t need to tell you why this comes on.”
I shook my head.
“Good.”
It came on because I needed punishing and his trust in me wavered. It was a reminder and a threat that the lesson room would offer much worse.
It also came on because he would have to leave me unsupervised as he tended to whatever was more important, and it must have been important for him to leave my side after I’d fucked up so monumentally.
It had been so long since he did this. It dawned on me then how much progress I had undone. The thought of clawing it back—of appeasing him in every way for who knows how long now—almost made me whimper with hopelessness.
He took my left hand and cuffed my wrist. He attached the other end to the chain ring and then let it go.
“Lay down and get some rest,” he said next. “I have to finish up one more task in my office, and then I’ll be back. I’ll remove the cuffs after we revisit some important lessons. I’m doing this for you. So that you can see the impact of your choices.”
I nodded and rested on my side of the bed. Oliver took the blanket and draped it over me. He ran his fingers through my hair and then kissed my temple, murmuring, “You are so perfect.”
I smiled at him in response but swallowed the token I love you. He seemed to wait for a beat, like he was expecting to hear it. Thankfully, he didn’t push it. He pulled away and walked out of the room. Switching off the light, he shut the door, and I was alone.
I’d known almost instantly that there was something wrong with the cuff. When I moved, it didn’t tug on my wrist. It felt looser than ever. This moment of realization sent a bolt of shock through my body. I didn’t react, though. I just lay there, thinking.
It could be a trap, I reasoned quickly. He might have left it loose to see what I might do. But it had been years since I’d tried to escape him. When Rowe had died.
And I was broken.
Because the thought of doing anything stupid like leaving was preposterous.
Where would I go? How could I outrun him?
It felt like an impossible thing, but I was dangerously honest with myself. I thought about escaping Oliver every single day. More than once. More than ten times. I lacked courage for so long, and then I was flat out terrified.
But terror didn’t stir me now. And courage? Well, I didn’t feel courage, but I felt something akin to not giving a flying fuck and it made my body tighten with anticipation.