by Ker Dukey
I sat up. “Really?”
A small tilt to the side of his mouth eased some of the anger from his features. “Yes. Would you like me to show you after breakfast?”
What he said earlier registered. “Wait, who’s Matilda?”
“She’s my cook and maid and… well everything.” Huh!
I threw on some jeans and a loose fitting tee and made my way to breakfast. The table was filled with a buffet of food and no one eating. I walked into the kitchen to find Dante holding a paper and drinking what I assumed was coffee. Malik was beside him, whispering in his ear. Both sets of eyes came to stop on me. I awkwardly raised a hand with a weird wave. Dante arched a brow and Malik averted his gaze. It was then I noticed a cast on his hand. Walking over to him with my mouth open, I reached for his arm, to be stopped by Dante’s hand capturing mine. “What are you doing?” he questioned.
“What happened?”
Malik looked to the floor instead of at me when he replied. I was all the more aware of his need to hide from me, his action driving my curiosity higher. “I had an accident last night, it’s nothing. The doctor came straight out and fixed it.”
“It’s in a cast,” I told him like he didn’t know
“It’s just a fracture, Star. He’s a big boy, it will remind him to be more careful when handling things he shouldn’t be.” Malik left the room with Dante’s eyes following his retreat.
“Is there something I should know?” I asked, feeling somehow responsible. Malik wouldn’t look at me, and after he untied me last night, I couldn’t help the nervous ball of energy that lived as a constant in my stomach from warning me that Dante no doubt did this. But would he be that brutal? Flashbacks suddenly assaulted me of him telling me he sorted Theo and that he was gone for good. My breathing picked up pace as the unease settled in the atmosphere around us.
“You only need to know what I tell you! Malik is not your concern and in future you’ll do well to remember who you belong to! If I wanted you untied I would have done it myself.”
The rush of air from my lungs expelled from me in a gust. Goosebumps laced every inch of my skin. I stared at him, my mouth as wide as my eyes. “You broke his fucking hand, Dante!”
He moved so quick it was almost inhuman, grasping a fistful of my hair just like he did to the fan skank last night. “You belong to me! He had no right untying you and he knows it. He only did it because you made him, so YOU broke his hand.” He released me with a shove.
Tears were already on my cheeks, the sting from his grasp setting fire to my scalp. The empty feeling inside me grew, swallowing more of me. Screw him! What a crazy fuck. Who breaks their friend’s hand?
Rushing to our room, I went straight to the closet and began packing a bag. Twenty minutes later I was out the front door. I ignored his presence behind me and ran. There was a dock, I would sit and wait for someone to come by and then I would ask them for a lift to shore.
“What are you doing?”
I wouldn’t answer him; my voice would only waver from my tears and the lump clogging my throat.
“Fine, Star. Have it your way.” His footfalls faded as he left me.
My tears washed away like the tide. The ripples of the water lapping at the wooden platform relaxed me. I hadn’t realized how tense I was until my muscles uncoiled. The vast amounts of water reminded me of my life. On the surface there was nothing. A bare slate of blue, but underneath there was life, a whole world that couldn’t be seen. I wanted so bad to break through the surface of my memories to the world underneath but there was only ripples of who I was teasing the surface.
An hour later I was still there and the sun was beginning to redden my skin. Why did it always seem like I was left waiting? I heard movements behind me and then the buzzing, almost growling sound swooshing over the water. A speed boat. An older woman walked towards me from the house, her greying hair piled high on her head. She was tiny, well under five foot. She didn’t acknowledge me. What the hell? She walked right past me like I was invisible.
The boat pulled to a stop, a young guy driving, the only passenger. His eyes nearly fell from his head when he saw me standing there. I checked behind me to make sure it was definitely me he was gaping at. Screw it. I would flirt a little to get a lift. “Hey.” I smiled, picking up my bag. “Can you take me with you?” His mouth actually fell open. The woman I assumed was Matilda shook her head and waved her finger then spoke in a different language to the boy. He then shook his head and appeared scared, his face a tad paler and his eyes staring at me. What the actual hell?
I stormed back up towards the house and found Dante standing against the doorframe, arms crossed, face void of reaction.
“What’s going on, Dante? Why didn’t they take me?”
He snatched the bag from my shoulder, throwing it inside the house. “Because you belong to me! It’s not their place to take you anywhere. Why won’t you stop being difficult and learn your place!” My mouth fell open in an O. Was he serious?
“Did you really kill Theo?” I knew I’d caught him off guard, and in truth I didn’t give a shit about that disgusting little worm but I needed to know who I was letting in my body. Did the other me know he was capable of such brutality?
Ah crap! He was pissed and I found myself suddenly backing up from his approaching fury. He crowded my entire frame with his, engulfing me in his sea of loathing. “That cunt got what he deserved. How dare you bring up his name to me!”
How dare I? I was that ‘cunt’s’ victim, not him. “Fuck you!” I spat and regretted it as soon as it left my mouth. His hand shot out around my throat.
“Fine with me.”
I found myself over his shoulder again, being carried through the house. Déjà vu once again.
We passed Malik, whose eyebrows reached his hairline when he saw me clawing at Dante’s back while screaming for him to put me down. “What’s going on?” he asked. Dante stopped his fast pace, turning on Malik.
“You, follow me!” he commanded, and like a freaking puppy, Malik fell in step behind him, looking down at my bobbing head.
“You both need to fucking learn this lesson. Sit.”
Malik took the seat at the head of the table still littered with plates of untouched food. It looked amazing and reminded me how hungry I was. With a swipe of his arm, Dante knocked everything onto the floor with a startling crash, making both me and Malik jump. Fear trickled into my veins. I had awoken a beast.
“You need to accept your fate. This is your life, Star. You belong here with me. You know it and yet you keep fighting it. Why?” He didn’t expect an answer. “I gave up so fucking much for you. Done shit I’m not proud of, and this is what I get - a fucking brat who refuses to remember her love for me.”
How did he manage to make me feel so angry at him in one breath, only to feel guilty and ashamed of my behavior in the next? I’m sorry was on the tip of my tongue. Even though my brain told me he was in the wrong, his instability proof of it, my heart still told me I made him this way. I had made him go through with that stupid fantasy and now we… we were broken. He had a fiancée, a woman who loved him and now he had this shell, this carcass of confusion.
Placing me on the table, he yanked my jeans from my body, making me screech in surprise. “You both crossed lines. You both broke rules. You both need to remember who owns who!”
What the fuck did that mean? And how was taking my jeans off going to do that, and more to the point, what was I? A freaking object?
Pure rage and fire lit his eyes; it was like looking at the sun. I had to turn away. He flipped me with ease onto my stomach, pulling my legs over the edge of the opposite end to where Malik was seated. My feet touched the floor, my torso flush with the table top. Kicking my feet apart, my breath hitched. I tried to raise myself up but his heavy hand came down between my shoulder blades, forcing me back down. No way was he going to do what I thought he was.
“Hold her arms,” he demanded. A heavy hand came down on my wrists, pulling them toget
her and stretching my arms out in front of me above my head. Malik was almost replicating my position on the other side of me. His torso against the table, his palm wrapped around my wrists. I felt a tugging on my ankle and then weighty material wrapped around it, tying me to the table leg. It was my jeans. A tug between my legs, a rip shattering the silence, and then my other ankle being tied with the panties he tore from me. I couldn’t look at the confliction in Malik’s face; there was lust in his eyes and I knew the table hid his erection. I turned my face, laying my wet cheek from the fall of my tears against the cool wood of the table.
“I don’t think so, Belle,” Dante spat. I heard him stripping, the wisp of his belt and the sharp snap of his zip lowering then the thud of his slacks hitting the floor. The leather of his belt came over my face to rest against my throat forcing my head up to look straight into Malik’s eyes. The belt tightened as Dante tugged on it like reins on a horse. He gave me no foreplay, no warning. His cock nudged at my opening and then thrust straight into my body. Malik’s eyes flashed when I was jolted forward towards him. “Your dirty little pussy was made for my hard cock, Star. Even when you deny it you can’t deny the wetness coating my cock right now.” Thrust. “Who owns you?” Thrust.
Fuck him! I wasn’t going to answer. I could barely breathe from the leather belt cutting into my windpipe. My tears fell harder, their torrent stinging my lip where I had bit into it and distorting the image of Malik’s lust. The bastard. My body was the biggest bastard in the room because it answered everything Dante was giving it. My core tightened and pulsed, the heat rushing through me in waves. My nipples were hard, pushing against the fabric of my bra and tee. “Who owns you, Star? Use your words.” The condescending asshole.
“Fuck you!” I growled.
His thrusts became harder, pushing me to the brink. “Oh, you want to fuck me?” The belt left my throat in a slice sure to leave a mark. It burned. He must have communicated with his eyes to Malik because my hands were freed from his tight hold. Sweat from his palm left a wet sticky layer there. Gross!
Dante’s cock slipped from me, my mouth mewed from his loss making me cringe at my own need for him. I was such a cock whore. “Aww, my little slut missing me already yet refuses to admit I own her.”
A chair scraped behind me then I was pulled upright. His hard cock re-entered me, making me moan. His teeth nipped at my ear and neck before sinking into my shoulder, making me wince and groan at the same time. Lowering us down, he sat on a chair with me on his lap. His belt wrapped around my wrists this time and then he looped them over his head to rest around his neck. Hot palms splayed against my inner thighs pushing them open to bare me to the cool air and Malik’s greedy eyes. “Look how pink and perfect she is. My filthy girl.” I couldn’t stop my hips from moving, grinding down on him in quest of the release I knew he could bring me. Everything else disappeared. It was just me and the pleasure seeking. His thumb circled my exposed clit, his words lifting me into a state of euphoria.
“Look how I make her juices leak from her; how I make her pussy squeeze my big thick cock. Strangle my dick, Star. Fuck me my beautiful, Belle. Make me fill you up.”
That was it; I screamed my release, my inner walls demanding his. The groans echoed all around, his throbbing cock pulsing his release into me. Hot ribbons of cum flooded me and leaked from me when he lifted my hips to slip free from me. His fingers replaced his cock, gathering his cum and rubbing it all over every inch of my pussy. “Who do you belong to?” he whispered.
“You,” I panted my response.
“Who does she belong to?”
“You,” Malik replied, reminding me of his presence.
I closed my eyes and waited until I heard their footsteps fade before I sank to the floor and sobbed into my hands.
I REMAINED THERE FOR A long time, my unblinking eyes fixed on a random point on the wall. My fingers stroked over my sore neck, the tender skin under my touch shriveling back at the contact.
I wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened. My thoughts wouldn’t sort themselves out, the jumbled mass of rapid fire self-questioning giving me a headache. I knew whatever I thought, or Dante thought for that matter, that what had transpired was far from okay. It was wrong, very wrong. He was like this addiction, the pleasure he gave me overruling all the depravity he dished out, the drug he fed me outweighing the corruption made to get the high.
Life or relationships shouldn’t be like that. Although I wasn’t aware of what my life entailed, I knew deep down that this wasn’t what I wanted; however breaking away was easier said than done.
The high from my intense orgasm contradicted the raw pain on my neck… and in my heart. Although dominance was sometimes a sexual stimulant, Dante had taken that a step further, a step too far. The humiliation caused my stomach to twist over the fact that Malik had watched, disgust rolling over me.
I forced myself up from the floor, grabbing my jeans and redressing as I tried desperately to shut off the turmoil in my head.
I wandered the house aimlessly, my feet scuffing the floor in my desolation. Although the house was huge, I had never felt more isolated. Its many walls crushed my spirit, its mass of rooms doing nothing to stop the lonely ache inside me.
I ended my walk when I discovered an open door at the end of a long hallway I hadn’t come across before. Pushing it ajar I stared at the huge open space. A large window filled the whole of one wall, allowing so much natural light in that it was almost as if heaven greeted me. Three easels of different sizes were stood empty, various palettes leaning against the legs. Paints filled several shelves, an array of colors, tubes, pots, brushes and bottles kitting out the room for when I felt ready to return to something I apparently not only loved, but was good at.
My feet took me further in, my eyes still scanning every corner. A sink was situated behind the door, towels and aprons hung from hooks above. But I bypassed those and came to stand in front of a gigantic canvas. The scene took my breath. It was the house here, painted from an angle which suggested the front garden. Peering at it closer, I saw my name scrawled in the bottom right-hand corner. I stood in awe, looking at what my fingers created, the soft brush strokes apparently painted by me sweeping the watercolor elegantly and expertly.
I was amazed by my skill, yet something didn’t sit right. I couldn’t place my finger on what was bugging me as I stared restlessly around the studio, trying desperately to find what didn’t make sense.
Shrugging it off, I selected a brush from one of the pots and picked up a tube of blue acrylic paint, squeezing a small amount onto a palette. Even the equipment felt wrong but I put it down to my lack of memories.
Pulling an easel over to the window, I settled myself in front of it and dipped the brush into the paint then lifted it to the canvas. I wasn’t sure what I expected but nothing came, not even an image in my head to start with.
Swallowing back the annoyance, I diverted my gaze through the window trying to find a subject I could paint. A huge tree caught my attention, pink blossom covering its branches and the surrounding grass beneath it with a rustic iron bench situated to one side. Okay, that should be quite pretty to recreate.
I ventured back over to the shelf, picking a selection of assorted colors, expelling a tiny amount of each onto the palette with the original blue. White, green, red, yellow and blue now decorated the clean white plastic. I blinked again, angry at what was troubling me.
“Damn it, Star. Think.”
Inhaling deeply, I dipped the brush into the red, collecting a small amount before swirling it into the mixing compartment. Taking a measure of white I mixed it with the red. The pink I produced was a little gaudy so I mixed in a little more white. My gaze kept flicking to the blossom as I tried to form the exact color but it wasn’t working, the shade of pink either too harsh or too pale.
“God damn it, it can’t be that hard.”
Picking another brush I went to mix a brown. What were the colors I needed again? How did you c
reate a brown, was it red and blue? Yellow, blue and green?
I couldn’t do anything; my memories were like a disability, holding me back from myself and my abilities.
I spun round, flinging the palette across the room. Paint sprayed across the floor then splattered the wall where it crashed into it, a rainbow the only thing I could actually create. I stared at the mess, the wall now my canvas as a variety of color spread out in lines and splodges.
I narrowed my eyes and slowly looked around. Nothing. There was no other mess in the room. And that was the problem. I tipped my head and studied the wooden floor. Nothing. My gaze lifted to the other three walls. Nothing.
I frowned, reaching for the supply of paintbrushes. All clean and brand new. Several pristine white palettes were piled up beside brand new tubes of paint, their seals still intact when I unscrewed numerous ones to check. I yanked an apron from a hook; it was still creased from where it had obviously been sat in its packaging. The sink was steel, its glare almost blinding.
“Holy shit!”
If this was my studio where I created my art, including the painting in the corner with my signature scribbled on it why was everything so new?
My mouth dried as my heartbeat sped up. I dropped into a chair that sat beside a wooden table and lifted a hand to my mouth as though it would stop the need to vomit. Why? Why lie to me? He had to be lying, there was no way this was a used studio. Even if it had been cleaned there would be old brushes and pallets, there would be paint rags. Right?
The painting of the house mocked me. Did I paint that? I looked down at my name in the corner of the painting, Star Numan.
It was definitely my name. Grabbing some paper and a pencil, I signed my name, Star Numan, according to the autograph on the picture.
The pencil hovered over the paper, even my signature caused my brain difficulty but I forced myself.
Star Numan.
Star Numan
Star Numan.
Why was it so hard to find the same scrawl as the one I obviously always used? I forced myself harder, my eyes glued to the autograph on the painting as I tried to recreate an autograph I would have written frequently. My eyes narrowed as I stared harder and let the pen flow, refusing to watch myself write, hoping it came more naturally. A smile lifted my lips when I finally felt the pencil flow easily, the deep sweep of my hand moving fluently. However when I dropped my gaze to the paper, the floor shifted under me.
