by Stone, Anna
Their dinner arrived and the conversation returned to Lindsey’s travel plans with her girlfriend. Faith listened intently as she ate. She wasn’t going to let everything with her sister upset her. In fact, this was a good thing. It meant Faith could finally leave her old life behind.
Right?
Chapter Eighteen
E ve brushed Faith’s hair over one shoulder and fastened the diamond collar around her neck. “No leash tonight,” Eve said. “Think you can behave yourself without it?”
“I’ll try my best,” Faith replied.
They entered the crowded club. Eve drew Faith over to a quiet corner, hidden away from the rest of the club, and ordered them a bottle of champagne. Tonight, they weren’t here to play. It wasn’t one of the club’s ‘ladies only’ nights. The last thing they wanted was to be fodder for the fantasies of gawking men. They were simply here to be with each other and immerse themselves in the atmosphere.
And yet, Faith felt none of the excitement she’d first felt when Eve first suggested they return to Lilith’s Den. Being surrounded by all these people had Faith feeling empty. Ever since hearing the news about her sister she’d had this hollowness in her chest that wouldn’t go away. All those feelings of rejection she’d thought she’d overcome years ago had come rushing back .
Faith refused to admit how much it upset her. She’d refused to let it show. She was good at that, at suppressing her feelings and pretending to be cheerful and happy. She’d spent most of her life pretending to be fine, when really, she’d felt trapped. She’d left that life behind long ago, but the way she was feeling now proved that she’d never truly escaped it.
As they waited for their drinks to arrive, Faith watched the club go by around her. Lilith’s felt different this time. It had lost its luster. The whips, the chains, the excess—it all felt empty.
Faith pulled herself together. She wasn’t going to let her feelings get in the way of enjoying herself with Eve. After all, wasn’t that what mattered? That she was with Eve, and that they could be together freely?
Their drinks arrived. The champagne tasted flat.
Eve tucked a strand of Faith’s hair behind her ear. “What’s going on with you tonight?”
“Nothing.” Faith plastered on a smile. “I’m not feeling this crowd, that’s all.”
“Neither am I.” Eve leaned in closer. “How about we get out of here? Go somewhere I can have you all to myself?” Her lips brushed against Faith’s cheek. “Or, if you’re in the mood for something a little more interesting, there are private rooms upstairs that are well equipped with all kinds of naughty toys.”
A shiver ran along Faith’s skin. She couldn’t deny how appealing that sounded. It would be a welcome distraction. But was that what she wanted right now?
Eve slipped a finger under Faith’s collar, drawing her in for a hot, hard kiss. Faith melted into Eve’s greedy lips. It was almost enough to make her forget about everything else.
“What do you say?” Eve asked. “I want to take you upstairs and do all kinds of wicked things to you.”
Something twisted in Faith’s gut. She wanted Eve, but not this. She shook her head, pulling away. “No.”
“What’s the matter?”
Faith didn’t know how to answer her. She didn’t know why everything suddenly felt so wrong. It was all just too much. She tugged at the diamond collar around her neck. It was too tight.
“Faith, what’s going on?” Eve asked.
“I’m not your possession!” Faith crossed her arms between the two of them. “I’m not your pet. I’m not a thing. You don’t own me.”
Eve flinched. “I know that. Faith, I’ve never thought of you like that. I don’t see you that way, I promise.”
Faith’s heart lurched. The hurt in Eve’s eyes filled her with guilt. She wasn’t mad at Eve. She was mad at herself. Everything was all messed up.
“I’m sorry.” Eve reached out to touch Faith’s arm, then pulled back. “I never meant to make you feel that way.”
“I know. It’s not you, I’m just—” Faith’s voice quivered. “I can’t do this right now. Be your submissive.”
“Okay. That’s fine. Let’s just get out of here. Go somewhere just to talk.”
“I just want to go home.”
“At least let me take you.” Eve held out her hand. “Please?”
Faith just wanted to be alone, but the softness in Eve’s gaze swayed her. “Okay. ”
She slid her hand into Eve’s, and Eve led her out of Lilith’s Den.
The cab pulled up to Faith’s apartment. Faith didn’t get out of the car. She still didn’t feel like talking, but she owed Eve an explanation for her behavior. She couldn’t end the night with this hanging over them, especially since they might not have a chance to be alone again for a long time.
“Do you want me to come up with you?” Eve asked.
“Yeah,” Faith said. “I’d like that.”
They got out of the car, and Eve followed Faith up to her apartment.
“Come on in.” Faith opened the door and turned on the light. She hadn’t been expecting company. Fortunately, she’d tidied up in the morning.
Eve looked around Faith’s living room. Her eyes fell on the old gray sofa. “This place is cozy.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. For Eve, this was probably slumming it.
“I mean it. It reminds me of where I lived in college. I think I had the same couch.” Eve sat down on it. “Come on. Sit. Let’s talk.”
Faith sat next to her. “I’m sorry about tonight.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should have noticed you were feeling off.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” Eve said. “You’re my submissive. You’re new to all this. When emotions are running high, it’s easy for things to go wrong. I need to be more vigilant. ”
“Still, it’s on me to be responsible for my feelings,” Faith said. “I guess I didn’t realize I was so upset. Or maybe I just didn’t want to admit I was upset.”
Eve crossed her legs and shifted to face Faith. “What’s been troubling you?”
“It’s my little sister. We send each other letters. Well, we used to. I haven’t heard from her for a while, and I just discovered why. She isn’t supposed to be talking to me. No one in my family is. But she got caught, so she’s stopped. She was my last connection to my family. Now I’m cut out from them entirely.”
“Oh, Faith,” Eve said. “I’m sorry.”
“After everything I’ve been through with my family, this shouldn’t upset me, but it does.”
“What happened with them?” Eve asked. “Your family. You told me you left them because they wanted you to be something you’re not?”
“Yeah. I mentioned that my family is religious. That’s kind of an understatement. On the surface, the religion they follow seems like any other normal religion. But my family, the community they’re part of, they take everything to extremes. There were all these rules and restrictions, most of them aimed at women. Men were the heads of everything. Women were expected to be nothing more than wives and mothers. There’s a reason I’m good with kids. I’m the oldest of seven, so I grew up looking after all my siblings and cousins.”
Faith folded her legs underneath herself on the couch. “The community, it was so insular. We were forbidden from associating with any nonbelievers on more than a superficial level. It was almost cult-like in that sense. And anyone who spoke out against the church? Or worse, anyone who left it? They were ostracized. Like my aunt Hannah. She left when I was nine. The way the adults all reacted to her leaving was so horrible. She just became this evil, toxic person to them. It was like she was less than human.”
Faith’s stomach knotted. Now Faith was that person to everyone in her family, even her sister. “I remember when Hannah disappeared. I asked my father what had happened to her. He grabbed my arms so hard and looked into my eyes with such raw hatred, and he told me never to ask about her again. N
ever to even speak her name again. It was the last time I ever brought it up. I had bruises on my arms for days.”
Faith found Eve’s hand on her arm. She’d been so lost in memory that she hadn’t noticed how tense she’d gotten. It was comforting.
“But I never forgot about her, that aunt,” Faith said. “And as I got older, I pieced together what happened to her, and I began to understand why she’d left. She was always a little eccentric. Different. That was why I liked her. I felt different too, growing up. No one else seemed to mind the constraints placed on them. Or if they did, they didn’t show it. All the other girls seemed perfectly happy to one day get married, have kids, and live out their days serving their husbands, never leaving the town we grew up in.
“But that wasn’t what I wanted for myself. I knew there was a whole world out there, beyond the confines of the cage that I lived in. I craved freedom. And things only got worse as I got older. My parents started talking about marrying me off as soon as I was old enough. They set up a meeting with one of our neighbors, a man who was ten years older than me, so we could start the courtship process. I was only sixteen.”
“Sixteen?” Eve’s face was marked with horror. “You were only a child. Your parents were going to force you to get married?”
“Not until I turned eighteen. And I don’t know if they actually would have forced me to marry him. It was more like they simply expected me to do as they told me. I wasn’t really a person, just property to be sold off, given away to a new owner like one of my family’s puppies.” Faith’s stomach churned at the thought. “But I didn’t want to get married. I was so confused about the idea. I had all these feelings, feelings I thought were wrong, for boys and for girls, and I didn’t understand them. How was I supposed to? That kind of thing wasn’t talked about. And we didn’t even have a TV. All I knew were things I’d heard from kids from school, but none of it made sense. I just knew deep down that I’d never be able to figure myself out while living under the thumb of my family. I knew I had to get out.
“It wasn’t as simple as that, of course. I had no money, nowhere to go. But I knew Hannah was out there somewhere. I started sneaking to the library to use the internet to track her down. It took a while, but I found her. We got in touch, and I told her about my situation. She was sympathetic, but I was a minor, so she couldn’t do much. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.” Faith’s fists tightened in her lap. “I scraped together money for a bus ticket to the town Hannah lived in, and one day, instead of going to school, I got on the bus and left. I didn’t leave a note in case my parents found it and tried to stop me. I planned to call them when I got to Hannah’s house but the bus was delayed, so by the time I got there my parents had reported me to the police as missing. There was this huge search, and it was a big mess. I called my parents in the end, let them know I was safe, and where I was. They came to get me. But when I told them why I ran away, why I didn’t want to go back with them, they just…”
Faith swallowed the lump in her throat.
“It was so stupid of me to think they’d react any way other than how they did,” she said. “But I was their daughter. I thought it would be different with me. I prayed that they wouldn’t be mad at me, but what happened was much worse. They didn’t get angry at me. They didn’t force me to go back with them or try to convince me to come home. They just left me there.” Her voice cracked. “They gave up on me. To them, I was beyond saving. I was tainted. I could see it in the way they looked at me. I begged them not to cut me out of their lives. I told them I wanted to stay a part of the family. It was naive, but I still loved them. They were all I’d ever known. But they refused. They cut me off. I was dead to them.”
“I can’t imagine how awful that must have been,” Eve said. “No one should ever have to go through that, especially as a teenager.”
“It was hard, but I was lucky enough to have Hannah to help me through everything,” Faith said. “I tried my best to move on, to start a new life. But I still missed my old life. My home. My family. That longing, it never really went away. Then one day, when I was in college, I got a message from my sister Abigail on social media. She’d made a profile just to find me and talk to me. She wanted to reconnect, but she didn’t have a computer she could use without anyone getting suspicious, so we decided to send letters instead. She was married by then, and stayed home while her husband worked, so she was the one who got the mail. She could easily hide my letters. We came up with an arrangement. Abigail would send me a letter at the end of the month, and I’d write back to her next month, and so on. Any more often than that would be too risky. We took all these precautions, but in the end, she got caught. And now, my only connection to my family is gone.”
Faith sighed. “I was the one who chose to leave. I should be happy that I’m free to live my life the way I want. And I am happy, most of the time. But sometimes, I miss that life. I miss my family. I shouldn’t want their love. They rejected me. Why do I still care about them?”
“Oh, Faith,” Eve said. “You’re only human. It’s not wrong to want all that. Love, family, a place to belong. And it’s not wrong to be disappointed when people let you down, especially when those people are family. You can’t be expected to stop caring about them despite everything.”
“But they don’t care about me . They’re supposed to, aren’t they? That’s what family does.”
“You’re right. That’s what family is supposed to do. But sometimes family lets you down. Sometimes, you have to find your own family in the people who make you feel like you have a place in the world.” Eve put her hand on Faith’s. “I know this probably doesn’t help right now, but you’re not alone, Faith. You have people who care about you. You have friends. You have your aunt.”
Faith felt a pang of guilt. For all her talk of having no family, she’d forgotten all about Hannah, and Lindsey, and everyone who had acted as her family the past few years .
Eve squeezed Faith’s hand. “And you have me.”
“Thanks,” Faith said. “It really means a lot.”
Eve wrapped her arm around Faith’s shoulders. “I know that no one can replace your family, but I’ll be here for you all the same.”
Faith felt a surge of warmth. Eve was right. Faith wasn’t alone in the world. She had people who loved her.
But life had taught her that love always came with conditions.
Chapter Nineteen
W hen Faith arrived at Eve’s house, the sun was setting. She unlocked the front door and headed inside. The twins were due back from their father’s that evening, and Eve had asked Faith to come by to help prepare them for the week ahead.
Faith walked down the hall, searching for Eve and the twins. The house was far too quiet. “Eve?” she called.
She heard a clatter in the kitchen. A moment later, Eve came out into the hall, drying her hands with a dish towel. She wore an elegant blue dress that made her hazel eyes look greener, especially without her glasses. She was dressed much too nicely for a night in with the twins.
“Eve. Wow.” Faith stared. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Not exactly,” Eve said. “I need a minute. Why don’t you wait for me in the lounge room?”
“Are the twins back? Is there anything you need me to do?”
Eve put her hands on her hips. “What I need is for you to go wait in the lounge room. ”
Faith frowned. “Okay.”
She went into the lounge room and sat down. Eve was behaving strangely. What was going on?
After a few minutes that seemed to stretch out forever, Eve appeared.
“Is everything okay?” Faith asked. “Where are the twins?”
“At their father’s.” Eve sat down next to her. “I asked him to keep them for one more night. I don’t like asking Harrison for favors, but this is important.”
“What’s going on?” Faith was starting to worry.
Eve folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve been thinking about the
other night. About you and me. About us. It made me realize something. You need more from me than what I’ve been giving you. More than to be my possession .”
She held up her hand, cutting off Faith’s protest. “There was truth to what you said. I’ve gotten so carried away with this game we’ve been playing, and it’s made me careless. I need you to know that you’re more to me than a plaything. I want to show you that when I say you’re mine, it goes so much deeper than anything physical. I want you to feel just how much you mean to me. So tonight, I’m going to show that. I can’t take you out on a date, but I’m going to give you the closest thing. We’re going to have dinner together. Just the two of us, here.” Her voice dropped low. “And after dinner, I’m going to show you the height of intimacy that comes with complete surrender.”
“Eve.” Faith’s stomach fluttered. “That sounds perfect.”
Eve clasped her hands together. “Now, I just finished making dinner. Why don’t you have a seat in the dining room and I’ll bring it out?”
Faith practically floated into the dining room, Eve’s words playing in her mind, and sat down at the table. It was already set, not with the dinnerware they used every day, but with fine china, sparkling silver cutlery, and intricately folded white napkins. An arrangement of flowers sat in the center of the table.
Eve entered the room carrying two plates and set them down on the table. “I have a white that will pair well with this. I’ll grab a bottle.”
Faith stood up. “I’ll get the glasses.”
Eve gave her a sharp look. “Sit down. Tonight, you don’t work for me.”
Faith did as she was told. She stared at the dish before her while she waited for Eve to return. Arranged artfully on the plate was a tantalizing salmon dish that wouldn’t have looked out of place at an expensive restaurant. It must have taken Eve hours to prepare. The idea of Eve slaving away in a kitchen was so at odds with the image Faith had of her.
It was funny how, over time, that image had changed. The prim and proper woman Faith had met on the day of the job interview had been replaced by the woman who wore corsets and took pleasure in chaining Faith to the wall.
