When I woke up the next morning, I wasn’t surprised to find that I was alone in bed, I rolled over and saw the sheets on that half of the bed disheveled and wrinkled, though I hadn’t been alone for very long, the sheets were still warm. I sat up and stretched my sore body, rubbing my tired, sore eyes as I stood up. I was scared to see what was in store for me when I saw Brian this morning, last night’s warning still rang clear in my ears. I shivered, but still placed one foot in front of the other, holding my head up high and I walked through the house, listening to the noises he was making to help guide me. My pain and punishment was inevitable, whether I sought him out now, or he sought me out later, it would still happen, no matter what I would still be writhing in pain in approximately fifteen minutes.
When I finally walked through the threshold to the kitchen, I was surprised to see him singing along and dancing to whatever song was on the radio. I stood in the doorway awkwardly, not knowing whether I was supposed to enter, or turn around and pretend like I hadn’t seen anything. I had finally decided on the former when he spun around, mid word, spatula in hand, and saw me standing there. I expected him to march over to me and hit me for last night, or for watching him, but the blow never came, he simply stood up straight and flashed me a smile that under different circumstances, would have made my heart swoon.
“Good morning,” he said brightly, walking over to my slowly, as he got closer to me I couldn’t help but flinch as he leaned closer and placed a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Why don’t you go take a seat at the table, breakfast is nearly ready.” I hesitantly walked over to the small breakfast booth in the corner, sitting down onto the plush bench. My sun from the window hit my face and I couldn’t help but close my eyes and smile at the feelings that it brought up. The warm light on my cheek made me feel like I was outside, like I was free; the clinking of porcelain against table brought me back to reality. Brian placed an empty plate in front of me, filled my cup with orange juice, and placed plates filled with various breakfast foods in front of us as he took a seat in front of me. “I didn’t know what you liked so I just made a little of everything,” he said as I looked around at the food, he really had made a little of everything, every kind of egg imaginable, hash browns, home fries, toast, pancakes, French toast, sausage and bacon, and various chopped fruits. “Now, I don’t expect you to eat a lot, I figured we’d start off slow.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked him skeptically.
“Your eating, I don’t expect you to get better straight away, so we’re just going to start off slow, maybe have some toast and fruit, nothing too large.”
“There’s nothing to ‘fix,’ I’m not broken.”
“That’s not what I meant, please don’t turn this into a fight, Peanut,” he asked me with slight desperation in his voice.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked him, incredulously.
“Well, I’ve figured out what I’m going to do with you, I’ve figured out your real punishment, something worse than I could ever do to you physically.”
“Oh, you mean worse than taking my virginity, raping me, and making me black out for eight days?”
“Yes, worse than all that,” he said with a slight smirk on his face.
“What, then, what else could you possibly do to me?” I demanded, slightly fearful of his answer.
“You see, Peanut, I’m going to make you fall in love with me,” he said it as if it were the most simple and casual concept in the world, though the notion baffled me.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I could never love someone like you,” I spat at him, disgust laced into my words.
“But see, that’s where you’re wrong, you fell in love with Matt, didn’t you? Falling in love with me would be your ultimate torture, you’ll never hate yourself more if you fall in love with me. This is worse than physical pain, it’s mental, it will all be in your head, you’ll be hating yourself, destroying yourself after you fall in love with me,” he explained, making me feel sick to my stomach.
“You’re sick, masochistic, and sadistic, how could I ever love a fucking monster like you?” I screamed at him, pounding my fists on the table, standing up from my seat. Had he not have had great self- restraint, I know I would be on the floor by now, but he pretended like my words didn’t affect him.
“It’s bound to happen, see, we’ll be spending all of our time together, eating together, sleeping together, watching tv together, we’ll never be apart. It’s impossible to keep your teenage hormones in check. After about two weeks, you’ll see, you’ll be wanting me. In the meantime, I won’t lay a single finger on you. I won’t hit you and I won’t sleep with you, not until you beg for it, not until you can’t stand it anymore,” with those final words, he picked up a piece of bacon and stuffed it into his mouth, to which I promptly picked up my cup, throwing my orange juice in his face, and throwing my glass to the ground, making it shatter into a million pieces around his bare feet.
“Fuck you,” I spat, with as much venom as I could possibly muster, before stomping out of the kitchen.
The next few days passed in silence, I found a new room to sleep in, and that’s where I spent most of my time. If I ever had to venture out of my secure room, I would inevitably run into Brian, he would try to start a conversation with me, but my only response would be a stony glare. Though this only lasted for a few days, maybe five at the most, I wasn’t keeping track of time, the days were all the same, it was hard to tell just how much time had really elapsed.
On what I believed to be the sixth day, I found myself becoming lonely, I was yearning for the presence of another human being, and this solitude was killing me. I opened the door to my room and sheepishly peeked around it, seeing no one in sight, gingerly I placed one foot in front of the other and tip toed down the hall and down the stairs. My ears perked up to the sound of a television, something I hadn’t seen or watched in nearly five months, I followed the noises down another hallway where I soon found a large open room, with a couch in the middle, two puffy armchairs beside it, all facing a television that was mounted on the wall. I silently walked over to him, sitting down gently on the couch beside him. I could tell that I had surprised him, he wasn’t expecting me to be anywhere near him, yet, there I was. He paused whatever game he was playing, and picked up an extra controller that was sitting on the coffee table, he handed it to me silently, stopped the game, adjusted the options and started a new match wordlessly, expecting me to know what to do.
I knew what the game was, it was Call of Duty, I had played it before with my friend, but I had never been good at it. Each time I got killed, Brian would snicker quietly to himself, and that only pushed me to do better. Each time he got killed, a slew of curses flew from his mouth, to which I couldn’t help but laugh at. By the time we had finished playing, he had started talking again, and it wasn’t even forced. I couldn’t help the happiness that I felt at the ability to converse with someone again. Even though I had forced the solitude upon myself, it was still a terrible idea. The solitude had only made my situation worse, it only made me crave human contact and the only human around was Brian. It tortured me inside to know that he was most likely right, that his plan would most likely succeed, and I already hated him for it. Though I wasn’t in love with him, and I would doing everything in my capabilities to ensure that didn’t happen, I still wanted to be around him for the sole fact that I was lonely in this house by myself.
The next few days were all the same, he would make breakfast, we would chat casually for a while, then we would part ways for the remainder of the afternoon until it was lunch time, then the routine would repeat itself, by night fall we would be cooking dinner together, though I mostly did the watching, and laughing in the kitchen, and right after dinner, we would always find ourselves sitting on the couch side by side watching whatever movie we had picked for the night. Brian kept his word to what he said, he didn’t lay a single finger on me, not when I broke a plate, or dropped a plateful of food, he didn’t try to convince me to come back to his room at night, and he didn’t try to force himself on me. As the days flew by, it started to feel less like a prison, I hardly even noticed that I was being held here, that I had no choice but to stay, with each passing day, I found myself being more drawn to Brian, only in a companion way, I felt no urge to kiss him or to touch him, I just wanted someone to talk to.
I was in the living room one afternoon, drifting in and out of sleep, watching some ridiculous movie that I didn’t even care to know the name of, when Brian walked in. “We company have coming over in a hour, so you might want to get dressed,” he informed me, moving my legs and sitting on the couch beside me.
“Who’s coming?” I asked him, though it doesn’t really matter considering I didn’t know any of the people he knew, I didn’t even know if we were still in America.
“Why does it matter?” He snapped at me, immediately I got off the couch and lifted my arms into the air in defence.
“Sorry, I was just curious,” I said as I turned to leave, “Someone’s a little touchy today...” I mumbled under my breath. The next thing I knew Brian was pushing me up against the wall, staring down at me.
“You forget who brought you here, Peanut. I think you need to be reminded who’s in control here,” he whispered in my ear. My heart beat picked up and my breathing hitched in my throat in anticipation of his next move. “I said I wouldn’t touch,” he said as his fingers played with the hem of my sweat pants, “but you’re just so tempting, I do wish you’d come around sooner.” I looked into his eyes to find them darkened, clouded with lust. “Now why don’t you go get dressed, put something nice on.”
“Okay,” I whispered back quietly, my fear controlling my voice.
“And how about we make a new rule, from now on, unless we’re going out in public, no underwear,” he chuckled to himself. He finally released me and back away, leaving me pressed to the wall. I struggled to get my shaky legs to move forward, out of the room away from him. As I was just leaving the room, he called out from his position on the couch, “Oh, and Peanut, don’t think you can fool me…” He trailed off, letting the silence fill in the end to his sentence.
When I got upstairs I had been able to calm myself down to a certain degree, though my heart was still beating rapidly, my breathing was normal and my head was relatively clear. I walked into the bathroom and started to work on the mess of hair that I had piled on top of my head lazily this morning. I unwound the elastic and let my hair fall around my shoulders in an awkward way. I reached under the sink and dug around until my hands landed on the straightener, immediately pulling it out and plugging it in. My hair and makeup took most of the time that I had been given, those were always the hardest things to fix. I didn’t want to impress him and I wasn’t spending all this time so I could attract his attention, I spend this time so that when I did see him again I wouldn’t get scolded for my messy appearance.
I was just sifting through the variety of hanging dresses when he came and knocked on my door, “You have five minutes, Peanut, they’ve just arrived and we don’t want to keep them waiting too long, now do we, darling?” He said through the door loudly, using a sickly sweet voice just in case his guests over heard him. I quickly pulled a random dress off its hanger, discarding my clothes and slipping it over my head, I grabbed a pair of relatively tall shoes and slipped into them before walking to the door and opening it. “Now did you follow my rule?” He asked me, pushing himself away from the wall, I blushed profusely at his question. I didn’t know how he had gotten changed, especially if this was his bedroom, but nevertheless, there he stood in a nice black suit with a thin black tie. When I didn’t answer him, he took a step closer to me, “Do I need to check? You know I wouldn’t mind,” he smirked at me. Without another word, I reached under my dress and slipped my underwear down my legs, picking it up off the floor and throwing them into the laundry hamper. “Good girl,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me out of the room.
When we entered the living room downstairs, I was surprised to see that there were only three people waiting for us; a middle aged man in a firmly pressed blue suit, holding the hand of a middle aged woman in an elegant cocktail dress, and beside them sat a boy around my age with his arms crossed over his chest. I could tell that this was not how he wanted to be spending his evening, but for whatever reason, his parents had dragged him along. The family stood up as we entered the room, “Ah, Harry, I hope we didn’t keep you too long,” Brian greeted them, shaking each of their hands. “And this must be Andrew, it’s a pleasure to have you here,” the only response he got was a curt nod from the boy.
We chit chatted for quite a while until finally, it was time to discuss what the family had come for. “Now Brian, my boy’s not especially bright, he doesn’t excel in school, but he is quite strong, and I do believe that he would be a great virtue to your business,” the man, Harry, said and for the first time I was picking up on their British accents. At the mention of his “business”, Brian immediately turned towards me.
“Holly, why don’t you go into the next room?” I was about to question him, but the look in his eyes told me not to.
As I was leaving the room, I heard Harry question him, “Does she not know?”
“No, of course she does, but this is not the sort of thing you speak about in the presence of a lady,” Brian responded sternly, ending that portion of the conversation instantly, and the rest was drowned out as I entered the kitchen. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water. I took a sip and stared out the window into the dark yard. I closed my eyes and only then did I realize how tired I was, the longer my eyes were closed, the further away reality was, I didn’t even hear when someone else entered in the room.
My attention was brought back to the room when I felt a pair of unfamiliar arms snake around my waist and a pair of chapped lips sloppily kiss my neck. “So, are you my reward for joining the business?” The voice smirked into my ear. He turned me around and I saw that it was Andrew, I didn’t have a chance to say otherwise before he smashed his lips onto mine, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I placed my hands on his chest and used all of my strength to push him away from him.
I brought a shaky hand up to my mouth, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I spat back to him as he quickly re- advanced on me.
“It’s okay, I know you’re one of Gates’ girls, I don’t judge you because what you do,” he said before he started kissing me again. I struggled to get away from him, but he pressed his body against mine, trapping me against the counter, through the fabric of his dress pants I could feel his growing erection. He slipped his hands under my dress and brushed against me, smirking at what he found, “No underwear either? Wow, they really wanted me to join.”
“Get off of me,” I spat at him, struggling even more as he reached down and pulled down his zipper. He used all of his strength to push me down to the floor, making me lose my balance and tumble down, throwing my glass to the floor accidentally. In an instant he was back on top of my fighting body.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Brian screamed at Andrew, running over to him. He pulled him off of me and punched him in the face, making his nose crack and blood spurt out of it.
“Fucking bastard!” Andres shouted as he held his nose in pain. Brian them turned to me and picked me up off the floor, hugging his body against mine.
“Are you okay?” He asked me, taking my face in his hands and staring into my eyes, taking in my disheveled appearance. “He didn’t, did he?”
“No,” I whispered, letting more tears flow down my cheeks. He pulled me to him, wrapping his arms tightly around me as I buried my face into his chest.
“What the fuck happened here?” Harry demanded.
“Your bastard child tried raping my fiancé, that’s what happened!” Brian screamed at him.
“I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding, Brian.”
“There was nothing to misunderstand, I came in to find him pining her to the floor.”
“Are you sure she didn’t come onto him?” harry snorted.
“Get out!” Brian screamed at him, in a deadly voice, which made the family scamper from the house, leaving Brian and I alone in the kitchen.