Wilt

by Rae, Nikki

  I hadn’t been aware there was an elevator at all, let alone the need for one. The house I’d seen was only two stories and no one had used this thus far. That told me one thing: It wasn’t taking us up, it was taking us down.

  He paused for a moment, making sure I was once again steady on my heels. “Have you ever used an elevator before, Miss?”

  I shook my head. On the rare occasion I was taken out of my closet of a room, I was always to use the stairs to remind me of my place.

  “Truly nothing to be scared of,” he reiterated. “Just a quick trip and we’ll be there.” He squeezed my fingers.

  Though I didn’t know where “there” was, at least we weren’t leaving the safety of Lyon Estate. There was something comforting in the fact that this was Master Lyon’s home and therefore any guests had to follow his rules.

  He ushered me into what I assumed was the elevator car and then I heard the same sound of the gate shutting. Even though I was prepared for it, the movement as it started made me stumble and Mr. B helped me lean against the cool surface of the wall.

  I stood still, the elevator descending and my stomach trying to follow it. It was an odd sensation, falling without moving, not knowing what would happen when we reached the bottom.

  All too soon, we came to a halt and I managed to maintain my balance this time.

  “Very good, Miss Doe,” Mr. B encouraged and though it was a slightly weaker version of what I experienced with Master Lyon, a certain pride filled me at his approval.

  He led me out of the elevator car and I immediately felt that it was colder here than it had been anywhere else. I paid attention to the smell next. We were definitely underground. The time I’d spent in punishment chambers and the like told me to search for the damp scent of a dungeon, but I found none.

  “Just this way,” Mr. B said, guiding me forward.

  I had some trouble not imagining a dark corridor filled with cobwebs like in Edgar Allan Poe’s Cask of Amontillado, but my posture, the hood, the rope, and the collar all worked together to remind me that as long as I obeyed my Owner, even if we were in a dungeon, no harm would come to me.

  Everything in our world had meaning, even if it seemed small. He’d marked my back, dressed me this way to reassure me that I belonged to him; to show others this fact.

  “You’re doing so well, Miss Doe,” Mr. B said in a tone gentler than he’d used the entire time.

  I didn’t think I’d done anything special so far, but the reassurance was a small comfort I chose to absorb.

  “Now,” he said, back to his usual professionalism as we came to a stop. “I’m about to open the door, Miss Doe.”

  Another door. By now, I had long ignored the shaking in my arms and legs, the weight of the knot in my stomach, and my saliva drying on my chest and soaking into the fabric of the hood. However, in an instant I became acutely aware of it all.

  Perhaps Mr. B sensed my distress. “It’s going to be all right.” He was much closer, nearly whispering in my ear. “Just trust Master Lyon and then I will take you back to your room for a good book and some tea.”

  It sounded patronizing if one wasn’t listening intently. He didn’t know what to say, and this was the closest he could come to letting me know I was coming back from wherever I was about to go. We would sit in the study, drink tea, and read; it had been our routine before I ran and there was an odd comfort in something so mundane. Still, it was hard to hold on to when the doors finally opened.

  I told myself not to panic, breathing deeply through my nose. Through the fabric, I could smell a mixture of food and alcohol and then the sounds started flooding in.

  Clinking glasses, laughter, and the soft mixture of talking in multiple languages. Some I recognized as French, Spanish, English, and German. The last one stood out most of all, and I searched for Master Jäger’s voice through the hood but couldn’t find it. That didn’t mean he wasn’t here, but surely if he saw me he would have made a scene. He wasn’t one to watch from afar.

  I was just beginning to pick apart each individual conversation when my Owner’s voice drowned out everything else.

  “Marius!” He was too enthusiastic yet convincing enough that Mr. B and I were most likely the only ones who noticed. I was scared to the deepest reaches of my nerves, but his voice made me a fraction less so.

  Mr. B led me forward as the rest of the sounds around us filtered back in. It wasn’t long before I heard him, much closer this time, order, “Kneel.”

  I did as I was told immediately, the room suddenly too warm, the hood and gag too suffocating, the ropes too rough.

  “Breathe, Doe.” He whispered this so close that if it wasn’t for the fabric covering my face, his lips would have touched my skin.

  Slowly, I inhaled through my nose the deepest breath I could manage. No praise or reassurance came and I felt a pang of disappointment. Instead, he went back to the conversation he was having before I arrived.

  “Wie du gesagt hast.” As you were saying; he spoke in German and although it made my stomach sour associating this language with him, I was grateful I could understand it.

  A woman’s voice answered, “She’s lovely, Master Lyon.” Again, in German. She sounded a little older, voice deeper than mine, and in an instant I had some semblance of what was going on: Owners were gathered here—maybe with their charges and maybe not—and the privileged sitting near the host were most likely from Wolf Manor.

  I bit down on the rubber in my mouth and it was almost as comforting as letting out a scream.

  “Vielen Dank.” Thank you.

  “I so wished you could have had the pleasure of meeting my Oskar,” the woman lamented.

  “You know the rules.”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “No one under eighteen at a Lyon party.” In the background, I could hear more voices competing for my attention but I concentrated everything on the people next to me. “I respect your…preferences, but my Oskar is sixteen and so well behaved.”

  Master Lyon was silent, but I felt his hand on my head. If it had been anyone else, the action may have reminded me of the way one would pat a dog.

  “Well,” the same woman went on when he still hadn’t responded to her, “I’m impressed.”

  Then they stopped talking and shortly, the smell of food wafted closer, became more intense and defined. “Thank you, Marius,” Master Lyon said.

  I closed my eyes behind the hood as if it could offer me more protection, focusing on whether I could hear them chewing over the emptiness of my own stomach.

  “I told Master Jäger,” she continued—mouth half-full by the sound of it—and I forgot my hunger at the mention of his name. “I told him if anyone could tame this girl, it would be you.”

  I wasn’t sure how much of the truth this woman knew. Did she simply know Jäger and was left completely unaware of why Master Lyon had “tamed” me? Did she know about his wife, or who my Owner really was?

  “Well, I assume he will be pleased when he sees her,” she concluded.

  Even though I had a trail of saliva dripping from my mouth, down my chin, and pooling where the hood met my chest, my throat was incredibly dry. So she did know: It wouldn’t matter to Jäger how much my behavior pleased him if she believed I would forever belong to the man in front of her. Did the rest of the people assembled know as well? How corrupt could an already corrupt society become? How deep did this disease go?

  “I’m sure he will.”

  They were quiet, the sound of silverware against china filling the gaps around me. I could hear other guests laughing, drinking; someone had started playing a record as well, for its grainy melody couldn’t have come from anywhere else.

  “When do we get to see her pretty face, Master Lyon?” It was another female this time, younger, sitting on the other side of my Owner if I had to guess.

  “In time,” he said easily, flowing through the conversation. “I was waiting until we were finished eating to feed her.”

  The women gig
gled, probably flirting with him now that they had been reassured all was well and I was still less than his—I wasn’t a threat to them.

  “How polite of you, Master Lyon,” the older one said.

  More silence followed as they finished eating, knives and forks, chewing.

  The younger one spoke first. “Here you are, Master Lyon,” she said.

  There was the scraping of utensils on plates as if someone were clearing them, emptying the remains in the trash, but I knew what was really happening: They were offering me their scraps they so kindly had left me when they could have eaten their entire meal and left me with nothing.

  Without ceremony, the hood was ripped off my head, blinding me with the diffused light even though my eyes were still closed. I squeezed them shut even tighter, directing my head towards the ground before I blinked to adjust to the difference.

  I saw a white marble floor similar to the foyer beneath my knees, a crystal plate with uneven bits of meat and vegetables between them.

  “Are you hungry, Doe?” my Owner asked, making my heart race faster than it already was.

  He wore a casual black suit, forest green shirt unbuttoned underneath with no tie. I could just glimpse the beginning of his scars before my eyes traveled up to his face.

  I took in his gaze first, as it was completely trained on me. His hair was neatly combed, knotted at the back of his head. My pulse steadied when I saw Elliot behind his eyes—the human in him.

  I nodded, unable to answer out loud.

  As if he found it far funnier than what was appropriate, Master Lyon smiled in their direction. “See?” He over exaggerated his enthusiasm as he turned so I could partly see who he was talking to.

  The older woman behind him stood from a plush white armchair and came over to us, followed by—I assumed—the younger one I’d heard as well. I couldn’t make out her image just yet, but the older woman looked to be in her forties with dyed red hair, too-dark makeup and a dress that was too tight. As my eyes shifted to the younger woman—mid-twenties, I estimated—I took in her sharp features that made her look like a bird and blonde hair so dry its curls wouldn’t quite keep their shape. They both wore elegant clothing, the younger one less covered up, the lime green silk highlighting every bone in her chest.

  Master Lyon turned back to me once he was sure he had their full attention. “You’ve made a mess of yourself.” His tiny smirk indicated that he was enjoying this despite the occasion. Reaching behind him, he picked up a white cloth napkin from a wrought iron table with a glass top which sat in front of the chairs they’d been sitting in. The lights were actually dim once I’d adjusted to them and I could see him through a warm, diffused glow. The wall behind them was a floor to ceiling wine shelf and out of the corner of my eye I could see that the walls on either side of me were more of the same. A wine cellar. Not a dungeon. I took a slow, deep breath as he wiped the drool on my chest and then my face. He rolled his eyes just as exaggeratedly before tossing the napkin aside and reaching behind my head to remove the gag. My jaw had become accustomed to staying open and when I tried to close my mouth it ached. Once it was off, dripping with my saliva, he threw it to where he’d disposed the napkin as if it disgusted him and someone would clean it up later. Hopefully that meant he was discarding it for the night and wouldn’t put it back in my mouth.

  “We don’t want to ruin your pretty makeup,” he said in English, and I saw that this amused his two spectators; they were impressed that he could speak many languages and that he deliberately showed me the kindness of using my native tongue when he spoke to me. I wanted to throw up.

  Unable to speak even if I’d been allowed, I stared back at my Owner, playing the part of the shy, submissive girl every Suitor dreamed of.

  “She’s stunning,” The bird-faced woman said, not bothering to show me the same curtsey—a subtle way of letting me know she wouldn’t respect me more than what would please my current Owner.

  “You may look at her, Doe.” He stuck with English, though he sounded almost absent-minded.

  Blinking a few times, I concentrated on the lingering impression his touch had left on my lips and guided my eyes upward. Now that I saw her head-on, I could tell that she was almost pretty; thin, tiny, and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose that she had tried to conceal with makeup.

  “Oh, Master Lyon,” she said as if he’d unveiled a personal gift for her. The woman’s lips trembled as she turned to him. “May I?”

  I had become aware of the warmth of the food between my knees and my stomach hurt.

  “Let the girl eat, Mia,” said the older one chided.

  Mia gave Master Lyon an exaggerated pout while the other woman giggled in an attempt to appear younger. This was most likely because she thought that was what he liked.

  I struggled to keep my expression kind and placid as the hollow in my guts transformed into something heavy; too much for me to carry for much longer.

  They each took their seats again and Master Lyon followed, but not before angling me and my plate like a statue in their direction so they could both witness me eating from the floor. Mia scooted closer to him as if it was natural, moving his arm so it was wrapped around her. He didn’t protest, fingers grazing her breastbone through the tightly woven fabric of her dress.

  “You’ll have to keep me occupied,” she said.

  Until now, Master Lyon had acted as if I wasn’t there, turning his head so he could say something in her ear I didn’t catch. Mia giggled the same way again, going so far as to cover her mouth this time.

  With a less than casual wave of his hand, Master Lyon said, “Eat, Doe.”

  He said it softly, but it still made me jump and the women laughed at my reaction. Staring down at the food in front of me, I slowly lowered only my head, mindful of keeping my hair over my shoulder and not falling forward with my balance so compromised. He knew how much being treated like a dog upset me, but I did everything I could to trust his promise to keep me safe.

  One glance around the room—the carefree laughing of wealthy Members as they drank wine and flirted with each other—and I didn’t want to think about what he would do to me in front of them all if I disobeyed.

  As I ate as politely as I could, knees already aching. I could taste the salty meat on my tongue, some sort of fancy cheese, and a vegetable I couldn’t decipher. After the first few bites, I let my stomach take over and blocked out all the flavors and the warring thought that I was eating things they would have otherwise thrown away. Greedily swallowing what was in front of me, it might have looked like I didn’t know when I would next be fed. I supposed this had been part of his plan as well, since it made him look more in control of me—even my meals weren’t off limits.

  “That design is gorgeous, Master Lyon,” I heard the older woman say as I chewed. “You’ve always been wonderful with flowers.”

  I had finished all of my scraps by now, so I decided it was safe to look back up at them. Master Lyon’s smirk was easy and his arm was still slung over Mia, but now they sat comfortably on a white sofa while the older woman took up another. A few other Members had filtered over to our area, but I paid them no mind. Behind the superficial expression Master Lyon wore for his guests, I saw that he was proud of me; that he was grateful I had followed his directions so well. It was almost enough to make me forget where we were.

  “Finished?” he asked as if he’d just realized I was there.

  I have him a shy nod, averting my eyes.

  He stood and I heard the girl next to him sigh with disappointment; I could just imagine her pouting the same as before, acting like a child for the sake of ensnaring my Owner. My own sense of pride warmed my chest at the realization that he didn’t want her. He wanted me—at least for now—and that quelled my fear just a little bit more.

  “Thirsty?” Master Lyon asked as he knelt in front of me, confident as ever and smirk in place.

  I repeated the same nod, face red with embarrassment. Until now, p
erforming most tasks for him had been done in private, kept only between us. Here, obeying him felt like he was peeling back my skin to expose everything hidden underneath.

  He tilted my chin upwards without a word and his fingers were so warm they nearly burned my skin. I stared at the ceiling, the candles in their chandeliers, the beams that mimicked flames I’d seen many times throughout the house. Tugging on my chin, he opened my mouth before pouring liquid into it. I was thankful he didn’t expect me to drink from a bowl on the floor, but I was slightly less so when I realized he wasn’t giving me water. Instead, I tasted a slightly bitter, sweet alcoholic drink. He poured too much too fast and I couldn’t swallow it all. It overflowed, trickling down my face, neck, chest, and lower. I drank what I could, choking and trying to hold in my coughs as he kept going.

  “Are you trying to drown her, Master Lyon?” I heard Mia ask, and I was grateful the question seemed to give him pause. I saw the bottle of champagne as he stood and placed it on the table in front of them. I sat staring at the three, trying to catch my breath as silently as possible as he wrapped his arm over her shoulders again as he took his seat.

  “I was only giving you something to clean off her, ma cherie,” he purred into her neck, but he made sure I could hear.

  Mia’s eyes grew wider as she grinned up at him. “Really?” she asked innocently; so forced, so fake. “May I?”

  My Owner laughed a little, sweeping his free arm in my direction as if unveiling something special. “You may.”

  I tried to keep my expression neutral as the woman stood. I saw her stumble a little—maybe she’d had too much champagne or being in Master Lyon’s mere presence had made her unbalanced. She knelt in front of me, even her mannerisms sickly sweet—Snow White or Sleeping Beauty smiling at me, but the gesture was meant for Master Lyon.

  “Don’t be afraid.” At first I’d thought he’d meant it as an order for me, but it was only in the split second before he added, “Mia.” I felt stupid even for the shortest moment of hope this gave me. “She’s very well behaved,” he went on, pouring himself a glass of red wine, which also sat on the table. “I’m sure Gregor told everyone back home about how she bit him when he touched her, but he did not have my permission and she was doing what I would expect of her when someone touches something that doesn’t belong to them.” He took a sip, relaxing against the cushions.