by Amy Faye
The thought didn’t hit her all at once. It came slow, and when it came, it was a quiet voice in the back of her mind. But that’s what you wanted, it said. She didn’t know what to make of it. There was nothing to make out of it. That wasn’t right. Or at least, she didn’t think it was right. But maybe it was. Maybe she was the one that was wrong.
What had she seriously expected? To become someone else? To start acting like someone completely different, think with someone else’s mind? Live in someone else’s body?
Even though her body belonged to Daddy now, she was still herself. He could tell her to do whatever he wanted, and for the most part, she’d do what she could do.
But at the end of the year, she was going to go back and she was going to be the same person that she was when she left. That was just reality, whatever she thought of it. There was no getting away from that simple truth.
She pushed herself up and looked at the page. You are always going to be yourself. There was nothing else left. She was going to go home in January, and her father was still going to be dead. The house was still going to be empty. It was still going to be too big.
And the only thing she could do to get around it was… nothing at all. She let out a long, low breath. It was just like the chores. It was a daily reality, and she’d have to deal with it. The only thing she could do to hide it would be to disappear, and never come back.
Harper wondered dimly if anyone had started to ask where she’d gotten off to in the press. If there were tabloids with headlines like Where Is Harper Summers? in grocery stores across the country. And she closed her eyes and laid her head back and thought, she’s nowhere. She’s nowhere, and she’s been nowhere for a lot longer than she’s been out of the public spotlight.
But for today, she was laying in bed and trying to think what she was going to do next. The same thing she did every day, she guessed. Just get on with it.
Thirteen
June
Harper waited. Outside, the early summer heat was already starting to become overbearing. Inside, though, she waited in comfort, sitting in her bed. It was one of the few things that was hers, in this house. Of course, Daddy owned it. He owned everything in the house, including her.
And eventually, he’d come home. She didn’t wonder whether or not he would be pleased by her work today; it was routine. She did the work that was expected of her, and he was pleased by it. There was no other pattern to be had, not any more. Not now that she knew what was expected. And of course, to fail to deliver on those promises would be a big mistake, indeed.
But Harper wouldn’t fail. Six months was short, in terms of her life. She’d been through six months over forty times already, even if some of it had been too long ago to remember now. She was getting used to going six months without too much trouble. But six months of a routine that rarely changed was something else.
It was more than enough time to get a sense of what Thayer expected of her. More than enough time to get a good sense of how to do that every single day, day in and day out. It was more than enough time to know better than to expect anything less than satisfactory performance from herself, no matter the conditions.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Was there work that she hadn’t done yet? She couldn’t think of anything. She’d done everything that was expected as far as she knew, and that was good enough for her.
His return to the home was heralded first by the sound of a car outside. That could be a false start, though. Plenty of cars drove by. It was San Jose, and as large as the estate was, there was always someone who wanted to get from point A to point B past the house of the man who nobody knew as Thayer Stone but her and a few select others.
The second sign was the sound of the garage door opening. That was the surest of the signs. Few other people put their cars in the garage. Karen, occasionally. Rarely. And never when Daddy was out. So it stood to reason that it must be him. The sound of the car was lost in the sound of the garage door, and by the time the garage door had closed again, the house was silent, for a moment.
Then the door opened. The third sign. By this point it was beyond question. Of course it was him. There was no need to doubt it. No reason to, even if she wanted to, and she didn’t.
Harper leaned back in her bed while he went through the bottom floor. No doubt, she knew, he was looking to see what she’d done. It was a cursory check, now. There was no special need to ensure that she’d met his specifications, because she generally did.
The dishwasher closed. That was the sign that he was finished. The routine was established at this point. It was the thing that he always checked last. Then he’d come upstairs, and if he wanted to, he would use her for a little bit before leaving her for the night. It was a comfortable routine.
He opened her door without knocking, without calling in. If she were doing something bad, something he disapproved of, then there wouldn’t be time to hide it. But she wasn’t. She didn’t do anything when he was coming home. That was the routine, too, though he might not have noticed that part.
Daddy leaned in the door and watched her. “How was your day?”
“I’m happy with the work I got done,” she said simply. And she was.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he answered. The conversations weren’t the same every day. That was where the routine broke apart. Some days they talked. Some days they didn’t. Some days they talked, but it wasn’t about anything. Other times, he had a lot to talk about. Or he wanted to hear about her day in detail.
“Is there something you needed?”
“On the contrary,” he answered plainly. “I was thinking that you deserved a reward.”
“What? Reward?”
“I haven’t heard a single word of complaint out of you in a month, you know.”
“Is that right?”
“That is exactly right,” he answered simply. “And I’m pleased with it.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased, Daddy.”
He smiled abashedly when she called him that. Harper wondered if he regretted it. As if he were embarrassed to be called by that name, after all. But until he told her different, she’d call him Daddy, or whatever else he told her to call him for that matter. That was the arrangement.
“Get up.”
“Yes sir,” she said. She felt like a good girl. Whether that was a good sign or not, Harper didn’t know. But she knew that she liked it when he was pleased with her, and she knew that he was pleased with her at that moment.
She got up. He pushed himself off the wall and stepped closer to her. He was taller than her. Bigger than her. She never felt small before; she was too tall for a woman. Too mannish. Too big. But he was several inches taller still, and for the first time in her life she’d felt small compared to someone.
“What do you want as a reward?”
She blinked. That wasn’t really what she’d expected to be asked. She was here to serve him. That was what made her feel better. Accepting her role as someone who was, at least temporarily, beneath him. It was the routine, and the routine was working.
“Sir?”
“I asked you a question, Harper.”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“It’s very simple. What do you want from me? What kind of reward would you like?”
“Anything you give me is reward enough, sir,” she said. His face twisted, and in that instant, she knew that she’d given the wrong answer.
Fourteen
Harper’s body ached. It had been weeks, and she’d done everything that she was told. Just like she’d done since the first day. Just like she’d done since she’d tempted fate by trying to play the sweet little servant. Anything you give me is a reward, sir.
It had sounded so good in her head. Practically unassailable. And maybe, it was. Maybe it had been the perfect thing to say, in the circumstances. Because maybe, Daddy was just better at this than she was. She could say pretty words, and he could turn them against her, much better th
an she could predict what would happen.
She checked her list. It was average. At least, it was now. Anything you give me, she’d said. She’d expected sex. She’d expected him to give her something remotely pleasant. But that was the rub: she hadn’t said sex. She hadn’t said something pleasant. She’d said ‘Anything.’ And he’d given her something.
More work in the mornings for his first gift, and for his second, he’d given her the opportunity to practice still more restraint. Spankings, oral, and a whole lot of nothing else. Nothing that would allow her to get close to an orgasm. She was starting to get aroused just thinking about it, and knew dimly that she’d only get more frustrated if she did.
In another sense, though, it felt good. This was almost the feeling that she’d dared to hope for when she started. The feeling that she was run so ragged and worn so thin that there was nothing left of Harper Summers, the heiress. She was a working and fucking machine, and when she wasn’t working, wasn’t fucking, and wasn’t eating, she was sleeping.
There were a dozen or more books on the shelf, books that he’d bought for her, months ago. Books she very much wanted to read. But she was so tired that there was no way it was going to happen for her. Not today, not yesterday, not all last week. Not the whole last month since she’d made her big mistake.
The heat that had been threatening to settle in was full-force now. The house was kept at a balmy 78, which meant that she not only worked, but she worked up a sweat as she did it. She took cool showers after, and was surprised how good they felt.
Her mind was blank. Everything was done, and in a moment she’d be allowed to drift off to sleep for another hour or so. A car drove by outside. She knew it wasn’t him, because he wasn’t going to be coming home any time soon.
But then the garage door opened, and her eyes opened with it. She forced herself, still sore and aching, from the bed, and looked at the digital clock on the wall. It was only one. He was hours and hours early. There was simply no way. Simply no way.
The door opened. He didn’t call up; he rarely ever did. He didn’t take any more time inspecting than he had before the extra workload was dropped in her lap. Which made her wonder if maybe he wasn’t checking it, or if he’d been checking it before. Either way, it made no sense.
“Daddy? Is that you?”
He didn’t answer right away; he waited until he’d closed the dishwasher, first.
“It’s me,” he called up. Then he started up the stairs.
I turned to face the door. Harper’s arms didn’t shake any more, like they had the first week of the new schedule. It was an improvement.
“What are you doing home so early?”
He looked deflated in the door. It was an unusual look for him, even after all that time. And yet, it was a good look, too.
“Some press people showed up,” he said, and then stepped into her room like it was his. It was.
“Is that so bad?”
“I really can’t stand that shit.”
“You could just sell.”
“No,” he said, defeated by the very notion. “I’d just be spinning my wheels until I started something else up.”
“You could spin the wheels the rest of your life on the money you made.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then why is it such a big deal to have someone take a picture of you? I mean, just one or two. Maybe an exclusive with someone, just to get the reporters off your back.”
“You just don’t get it,” he said.
Harper heard something in the words. He wasn’t really listening to her, but he’d obviously come here wanting to talk. If he wanted something else, he’d be getting it already.
“I’m just trying to help,” Harper said finally. “If you want something else from me, then you just have to ask, Daddy.”
He let out another long breath. Deflated. A little bit pathetic. Nothing like the man that she was used to dealing with.
“Just lay back and relax with me.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She laid down on her side and watched his face.
Thayer’s jaw tightened and loosened itself as he stared at the ceiling.
“You don’t know anything at all.”
“No, Daddy. You’re right, I don’t know anything.”
“So why are you trying to talk back?”
“You’re absolutely right,” Harper said, trying to keep her voice soothing. “I just don’t understand, is all.”
He turned and looked at her. He was angry. She didn’t understand what it was that made him so angry, but he was, nonetheless.
“Just keep your mouth shut,” he said, and then he stood up and stormed out.
Harper watched him go, and laid back out on the bed, her head resting on a pillow. At some point, he’d calm down, or he wouldn’t. She’d understand, or she wouldn’t. And either way, it was fine. There was nothing she could do about it, so it wasn’t going to cause her a moment’s concern.
Fifteen
Harper wasn’t even tired any more. It was strange. It felt strange. There was a time, in January, when it seemed as if it was impossible just to keep up with the workload that he’d given her.
Now, she had nearly twice that, and she didn’t just feel like she was keeping up. She was thriving. She was managing brilliantly. And that was the worst part, because as July turned into August, and August turned into September, the months were going by. They were ticking down. Then would be October, and then November, and then…
Well, it wasn’t long, now. Slavery wasn’t what she’d expected. She had expected 12 months of some kind of BDSM video, where she’s locked in a cage with a hole to stick his cock in, or something. Instead, it had been more like indentured servitude, plus being tied to giving him any sexual release he wanted.
It seemed strange to think that in just five more months, she was going to be back home again. Back alone again. Back to a big, empty house, with nothing and nobody to do anything with except strangers and the press. And the Press wasn’t particularly interested in making good friends with her.
No, they were waiting for her to trip up, to have some sort of tragic fall from grace so that they could get a good story. Just like her parents had, when they died. Wasn’t that beautiful press. A wonderful pageant.
Well, she wasn’t going to fall into that trap again. Not if she could help it. But at the same time, there was no way to avoid it. She set the list down beside the bed again. It was empty, and she knew it was empty.
Her routine was to nap until Daddy got home. She didn’t need the sleep any more, though; not desperately. She needed to find something to do, to take her mind off of things. She went through the house, mentally checking off items from a list in her head that was only partly represented by the slip of paper on her bedside table.
Upstairs hallway, vacuumed, check. Dusted, check. Master bedroom locked and kept closed. She’d never seen the inside of it, but she imagined that it was like any master bedroom. If Daddy didn’t want her cleaning it, then she wouldn’t clean it. He was a private person, and she respected his privacy, even when she didn’t understand it.
Upstairs shared bath, scrubbed and cleaned yesterday. It was a low-priority fix. The other guest bed had been vacuumed and dusted. Today had been mostly upstairs.
She went down. The library had been a couple of days. It was on the list. She took a deep breath and walked over to the broom closet, pulled out the vacuum and walked it into the room.
The library was rarely used, as far as she could tell. She’d never seen Daddy in it. But with the money that he had, in a house this size, there was simply no excuse not to have a library. So it was there, and it collected dust like everything else in this house.
There was a metaphor in that, she knew. She was collecting dust, too, in her way. The minute she left here it would start building up on her, and no matter how much she tried to scrub it away, she would never be as clean as she was right now. She’d never be focused and sharp and clear
in her purpose.
She’d go back to being who she had been before this. Someone who had nothing to look forward to, and everything going wrong, all the time. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that she would be able to do about it.
She took a deep breath, made a cursory check to ensure that nothing had been left out in the past four days since she had last cleaned, and she plugged the vacuum in. When she pressed the button on the side, it roared to life, sucking up invisible dirt and dust that had gathered there in the carpet.
It was a routine. It wasn’t part of her to-do list today, but she had cleaned this room what felt like a hundred times. It kept her body busy, and the busier that she kept her body, the less she needed to use her mind. The more she worked, the less that she would be able to think. If she could just reach that point again, the point that she’d had after she had the workload doubled. Where she felt as if she were starting to fade away.
As she did more, she became more capable, and as she became more capable, she stopped feeling as if she were constantly overwhelmed, and that was the scariest thought of all.
Eventually, no matter how much she worked, no matter how much she fretted and worried and tried to escape it…
Eventually, she would have to face the fact that she was going home. Once she was home, she’d be back to who she was when she left. She wouldn’t be anyone’s slave. She wouldn’t be anyone’s housekeeper. She wouldn’t even particularly be anyone’s lover.
She’d be another party girl heiress, hoping that she can find emptiness at the bottom of a bottle of pills, and she knew exactly where that went: it went nowhere at all, and did nothing. It didn’t even give her the oblivion she wanted.
This had. Once she’d given herself to the experience, slavery had given her what she hoped for. But in just a few short months, she knew, it was going to be gone, and there was nothing that she could do to change that.
