Leaning forward, he licked from one corner of my lip to the other. My blood was on his tongue, and our eyes never wavered as he slid it into his mouth and swallowed without any hesitation.
“Get up.”
I moved slowly, not wanting to upset him, and the second I stood, he threw the hairbrush across the room, and I was dropped to the ground. With my ass in the air and my forehead resting on the wooden floor, he snatched my arms and held them at my back.
“How many times do I have to tell you that this is how you address me when I walk into the room. Head down, ass up, arms locked behind you. You stay just like this until I tell you otherwise. Understood?”
I nodded, bracing myself for what was to come.
“Now, where did you get the nightgown and hairbrush, Juliet?”
“It was in the room when I woke up.”
“That motherfucker.”
“What—”
“What’s my name, pet?”
“I told you already. It’s Master.”
“If you don’t give me the answer that I want, I’m going to turn your sweet little ass bright red.”
“Mas—”
Slap.
“This is what you want, isn’t it, Juliet?”
“No!”
Slap.
“No?”
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
“I don’t like being lied to.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Bullshit!”
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
“Call me by my name!”
I couldn’t take it anymore, screaming, “Donovan!”
No one could have prepared me for what happened next. It was like I had an out-of-body experience. I watched myself from above, falling to this deep, submissive slumber I didn’t think was possible.
I was exhausted from trying to be what he wanted.
Play his doll whenever he demanded it.
The realization was a rude awakening in my alternative state. I went from being scared to euphoric. It made my vision blur, and my eyes shut tight. I couldn’t get my legs to move. It was like I was permanently glued to that submissive position on the floor in front of him.
My emotions were all over the place.
My brain was hyperaware of everything.
My body felt strong yet weak.
I thought he carried me over to the bed and laid me in his arms until I saw nothing but darkness again.
Although, I swear…
I heard him talk to me.
Then say my name as he ran his fingers through my brushed hair, sharing, “You’ll never be her…”
Donovan
While she slept in my arms, I thought about my life.
“Nothing is the way it’s supposed to be, Juliet.”
She didn’t stir, she didn’t awake, so I kept going.
“I wish things could have been different. For you. For me. For us.”
I sat there, thinking about all the things I couldn’t change. Even if I wanted to, even if I tried— it wouldn’t matter. I would still be this man who was a monster.
A villain.
Her captor.
Exactly what that horrible bastard of a father made me. It was like he knew even then how to groom me into an exact replica so that when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn’t see me anymore. I only saw him and my mother’s bloodied body.
I felt myself crawling on my hands and knees and then craving the need to default to what he deemed comfortable, normal. And now I was trapped, in a prison of my own making.
In a gilded cage.
A castle nobody was allowed to visit, with all the pretty things placed upon the shelves and at my service, but nobody to share them with, nobody to truly talk to because vulnerability only brought you death.
I knew that now.
Maybe I knew that then?
“I wasn’t always like this, you know? You wouldn’t leave my mind. I had to know who you are, were, what I could do to you because of what you did to me… It wasn’t your fault. But we always pay for our parents’ mistakes, right? Isn’t that the way it goes?”
My hands shook as I thought back on her brushing her hair with that specific brush, and I couldn’t exorcise the vision of my mother sitting on the bed and watching her soothing movements as she brushed her hair and told me in her own way that everything would one day be all right.
It was the hope that landed the final blow.
Not my father.
This unbearable weight was on my chest from the lies, secrets, and betrayal. The tightening in my throat and chest made it almost impossible to breathe; I was asphyxiating in it. I couldn’t tell the lies from the truth anymore. I groaned in pain, leaning against the headboard of her bed.
I could let her go and let this be the end of it all. She was mine. I owned her.
My possession to have and hold.
There was no going back for me, only a standstill.
Love, hurt, pain.
Hate.
It was all a tangled web.
I didn’t know the difference any more than Juliet did. I wouldn’t let her get the best of me, change who I was born to be. I had to continue on, with or without her consent.
This was only the beginning.
The ending was near…
There was so much I wanted to say, needed to tell her; however, I couldn’t form the words to explain to her why I was this villain. I had to get away from her. I was spending too much time in this room, with her in my arms. She shouldn’t be sleeping on my chest, in my presence. This wasn’t part of the process of making her my slave. It was the exact opposite. I was breaking all my own rules, and I couldn’t help it for the life of me.
I craved her in a way I’d never yearned for anyone. Especially a woman, a pet, a slave. Although, there was no holding back on hearing her scream my name.
“Donovan!”
I wanted to break her, only to piece her together again. She was an obstacle that I wouldn’t lose. I’d have her at my mercy, in my bed, with blood on my hands. I watched her for as long as I could remember, since that first concert I’d seen her when she was eighteen years old, and I was twenty-four. I waited on bated breath for her to be in my embrace. As much as I thought she was just going to be another pet, another beautiful thing I had in my possession, in the back of my mind, I always knew the truth. She belonged to me, and I belonged to her.
Mine.
Always and forever.
Mine.
There was something about her and not just what I knew, saw, and wanted. She had always been different, making a hard man like me go weak. I wasn’t supposed to fall for her, it wasn’t part of my plan, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I needed her.
Longed for her before she was ever in my arms.
There was no going back for me, only going forward with her by my side. Kissing her forehead, I let her go. Leaving her alone in her room, I remembered what it felt like to always be alone after my mother was killed. It was what he wanted, me weak and at his brutal mercy.
He’d taught me everything I know, making me hate who I’d turned into. There was no stopping what I’d become. I embraced it a long time ago. From the moment my father let me out of that closet, I was his to do what he pleased like I was with Juliet.
It was survival.
With a shaky hand, I grabbed my cell phone out of the pocket of my slacks and leaned against the door to her bedroom. Needing the support to hold me up for what I was about to do.