The Parlour (VDB #1) (41 page)

What was a scowl has become a growl as I grapple with the ropes again to show my disgust. What the fuck is he trying to do? My legs fight the bindings to get out, but it still doesn’t move. Why is he saying this? He was nice to me last night. We drank and giggled, laughed even. How can he say these things? Why?

“Is Daddy proud of you, Lilah?”

My whole body stops fighting. Daddy. Oh God, if he could see me now – desperate and naked at the hands of such a man, and of my own asking. What the hell am I doing here? “Ah, Daddy. Do you think he was watching you? I bet he was,” he says, sneering as he rakes his eyes over my exposed body. “He watched you lurk in dark corners, selling your cunt to the junkies and pimps, didn’t he? Watched you rolling around in the gutters for a fuck. Anything to make it through another pitiful day. I’m sure he’s extremely proud, Lilah. I’m sure your mother is, too. Shame they’re both dead.”

“Fuck off,” I mumble as I twist my face to try and loosen the rope strapped across it. “Fuck you.” He just walks back to the wall and pulls on the rope again, tightening what was already too tight for comfort. My bellowed yell echoes in the room as the rope bites into my skin and causes pain to crawl its way across me. I can feel the cinching of the rope burning on my thighs, feel it shrinking and compressing around my wrists and tearing at my mouth as I still wrench it back and forth to get free. The moment I realise just how much trouble I’m in, he starts taking off his jacket as I widen my eyes at his approach. Slow, deliberate steps induce all kinds of fear to wrack through me as he hangs it on a hook and starts rolling up his sleeves.

“What do you want with me?” I snap, as best I can. Fucking arsehole. I hate the fact that fear is crippling me. I hate the fact I’m trembling. I hate that I can’t get out of these fucking ropes and I was stupid enough to put myself in them in the first place. My hands yank at the rope again, twisting and turning, head writhing around in the hope of at least getting my voice free. Fuck him and his games. Fuck this shit.

“I don’t want anything, Lilah. You asked for this. You want this.”

Who the hell do these people think they are? It feels like the damned streets again – completely out of control and scarier by the second. Over and over the memory of the rape starts to play through my mind as I keep wrenching my face around and feel the rope giving a little. Every second of the cold and lonely nights hauled up in some corner trying to make myself look like a garbage sack so I could sleep. Every revolting bite of a dirty sandwich induces bile to rise inside me. It all comes flooding back as he just watches my efforts and shows no emotion to my situation whatsoever.

“Fuck you,” I scream out again as the rope dislodges in my mouth and indignation starts to take over from somewhere. My body halts its stupid tugging as I draw in a long breath and sneer at him. Is he trying to break me? Is that the point of all this? Because he can’t do anything to me that hasn’t already been done. I’ve seen those streets. Lived them. Been raped. Used. There is nothing he can do to make me fold for him. What does a sadist know about being scared? Nothing. He knows nothing of that fear that races over your skin at night. Nothing. He’s got no right to judge me. I’ve nothing to hide. I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. I just let myself down a bit, that’s all. And that wasn’t my fault. I’d just lost my job. I couldn’t avoid it. Pulling in another breath, I try to compose myself and not let his words rattle me. I just try to get my legal brain to kick in and undo this nightmare I’ve put myself in. I’m stronger than this, and if it is training of some sort, then I’ll endure it. I’ll shut down and not hear his words. Just like I did on the streets, just like I did in that alley. Although, I can’t remember why Pascal is important enough to tolerate any of this at the moment. “There’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t already been done.”

He just snorts and turns for the cupboard again.

“I doubt that’s true,” he says, as his footsteps echo around the space. “I don’t know what he sees in you really, disgusting whore that you are,” he continues, now walking back towards me with a coil of tape in his hands. “Look at you. You’re repulsive. Sagging tits. Sagging cunt. Living on the streets like a filthy piece of rotting meat. You don’t deserve him. Why should I let you have him? You’re nothing but used and worthless.”

Before I get a chance to answer, he rips off some tape and covers my mouth with it. The sticky surface constricts over my lips and I instinctively suck rapid breaths through my nose to counter the feeling of suffocation. “Maybe you need some time to think about the answer,” he says, glowering at me and looking as repulsed as he’s making me feel with myself at his words. Because they’re mostly true this time. I probably don’t deserve something as fine as Pascal. A count. Why would I? I’m just Lilah James. A nothing. No one of importance. Useless. He just keeps staring, like he’s reaching inside me somehow and pulling the guts from the depths of me. Tormenting all those buried emotions that I’ve pushed aside. Visons of my dad come into my head as I watch the look of loathing shine back at me. His eyes and that small shake of his head when I did something wrong. The way he used to not talk to me for days to prove his point. Good father he might have been, but he knew how to hit home with disappointment when he needed to make me remember it. Tape suddenly rips again, and the room disappears as he straps it across my eyes as well. “We think best in the dark.”

The world goes black as he lifts the pressure of his fingers away and I continue to pull in more quick breaths, hoping for something to calm my nerves down. But there’s nothing, only the streets and back alleys. Cramp, dark, dingy roads and wet floors. The smell of dirt and grime. I can feel it creeping over my body with every inhalation. The air tastes vile, like it’s tainted with memories I thought were supressed and forgotten about. I thought I’d made it off those streets, thought this man was helping me, respected me. But he doesn’t. I’m just another toy to him, aren’t I? Something to be amused by. Nothing serious, or worth listening to. As always, my opinion isn’t worth hearing. He’s proved that by taping my mouth shut.

Time ticks by with the room still silent as I try to level out my breaths and find a rhythm of some sort. Nothing’s happening anymore. I can’t even hear him in the space. It’s just me and my silence, and these images of my dad shaking his head. My mum’s there now, too. She looks as disillusioned as he does while she crochets a knot, and then another. She’s simply sitting there by the old Aga and refusing to look at me. She lets my dad do the brunt of the scolding while she appears superior to him. Like I’m not worth her time. The constant pull back to the streets keeps me firmly laced in the darkness, still picturing all the endless days aimlessly wandering around in the hope of a job. Still avoiding the murderers out for something to do with their deviances. Just trying to prove myself to anyone who would listen. But nobody did, did they? They didn’t listen to my cries in the night. They didn’t listen to my screams for help as I dodged yet another rapist. They didn’t listen to me begging in doorways for food, or some money, or somewhere to stay. Nobody listened. Nobody bothered about an ugly, useless street urchin. They just ignored my pleas, my tears, and my begging. Until I gave up begging and refused to ever beg again. Begging gets you nowhere. I got to a point where I’d rather die than belittle myself further by begging. And then I begged again, and again, and again. Helpless and lost. Useless.

A sudden scraping noise brings me back to the present and I wearily lift my head to the sound.
Tired.
I’m so tired all of a sudden. The tension in my body seems to have given up as I just hang limply in the network of pain. The biting sensation has dispersed and I’m now left with a harsh ache coursing through me as the stone continues assaulting my back. It tires me all the more when I try to move away from it, so I don’t bother. What’s the point? I’m not getting out of it in a hurry. I can’t even ask him to take it off. I have no idea how long I’ve been here now. There’s nothing to give me a sense of time. It’s just blackness, tired bones, and my thoughts of how pitiful I truly am.

“Do you have an answer yet?”

It’s almost funny really. How do I answer why I’m worthy of someone else, when I’m struggling to remember why I’m worthy of myself? Nobody cares really, do they? My opinions don’t matter. What have I got to offer someone like him? For all my bravado in these last few weeks, I have no wealth. No home. I don’t even own my own clothes, for fuck’s sake. I’m an irrelevant, and still on the streets in reality. This man might have given me an apartment, but it’s no home. I’m still running from rapists and murderers really, just trying to survive my fuck up. Mine.
I
screwed up my job.
I
wasn’t good enough to be noticed.
I
got thrown out of my apartment. Me. Useless Lilah James. It’s nobody else’s fault but my own. I’m just not good enough.

I shake my head at him and wait for whatever he’s going to think of next to get inside my mind. He hasn’t done anything really. He’s somehow made me do all this to myself, and I feel the tears welling up behind my closed lids at the thought. Strong, I am not. And now I’m hanging here with nothing to help me at all. All because I asked a sadist to train me in something I know nothing about. Stupid girl.

I certainly don’t know anything about the man I’m asking him to train me for.

“Then you should think some more,” he eventually says from the darkness.

His voice sounds so loud in the quiet. He didn’t shout. He just permeates the air with a slightly softer tone. My head tilts back and leans on the wall as I try to figure out what he’s suggesting. I’m so tired. I just want to sleep. More visions and thoughts are the last thing I want. There is nothing nice about thinking these things. It’s debilitating trying to push them away and manage my emotions around them. We all have them, buried inside of us, I’m sure. But being here and not being able to forget them is exhausting. Why would I need to feel them? Why would he make me? I just want it to stop. I just need to get back to normal where I keep going in life and forget the shit. I need to.

Time goes by again and I feel myself drifting off into some kind of trance. Maybe it’s sleep; I’m not sure. I remember trying to sleep standing up on the streets sometimes, so that I could get away quicker if I needed to. It never really worked. And I never did get the hang of sleeping in the day so there were more people around to see if anything happened, either. Another thing I wasn’t very good at. But this feels more dreamlike, anyway. Slightly hazy, as if I’m floating around in a bubble filled with pain and torment. Torment.

Not good enough.

Not good enough.

Not good enough.

Useless.

A body suddenly presses itself against me. I don’t have the strength to try and get away from it, and I know it’s him anyway. I can smell him. It’s all I’ve been able to smell for the last however long. Spicy. He’s huge, bigger than I gave him credit for before now, or maybe it’s just because I feel so small at the moment. Insignificant maybe. It’s really nothing to do with his size. It’s his aura as he smothers me, cocoons me. I can see it glowing in my mind – blues and greens with hints of red, all swirling around in this bubble.

He plays with my hair for a minute, gently ruffling it about and drawing his hands through it softly. Then he wraps his arms behind my back and lifts my skin away from the wall a little. The relief is instant. Rough hands begin to soothe the pressure points he created by caging me here, and the warmth of his body begins to bring back some much needed heat to my bones. His cheek nuzzles into mine and I do nothing else but nuzzle back into him. All it takes is this warmth circulating within me and some hope comes flooding back. Thoughts of kindness and sunlight. Parks, snowballs. Visions of laughter and pride as my dad watched me graduate from uni. My mouth twitches as summer hill-walks floor me with longing and love. The day I got offered that job at Cutlers, the look on his proud face. The first time Pascal’s lips touched mine, our moments. Quiet, peaceful. Blissful.

His lips press against my forehead. Once, twice. Soft and warm, nothing like the frigid air we’ve been living in for however long. This is the man Elizabeth knows – the decent one. I just let his lips linger there and hang from him while he still keeps me away from the wall. I let his power infuse me to some degree and feel his heart thudding against my bare chest. It’s slow, calming. For someone who can appear a monster, he has the most comforting presence, a strange sense of safety. It’s as if within a click of his fingers, he could make all this turmoil go away just by holding me, protecting me from the very thing he’s creating.

“Don’t listen to him, Lilah. Shut him out,” he whispers softly, brushing his lips across my forehead again and then resting his chin there. Who? My dad? Too late for that. He’s still firmly entrenched in here, showing me how terrible I’ve become, what a waste of time my life is all due to my own inadequacies. “He’s going to hurt you more than I have. You need to remember who you are. Be as strong as he‘ll need you to be.” My brow scrunches beneath the tape as I realise he’s not talking about my dad. He’s talking about someone else. Who’s going to hurt me? And why? I mumble through the tape at him, trying to ask. Who? Why? But all that comes out is a muffled sound, nothing discernible in the slightest. I dig my face deeper into his chest in the hope that he’ll stay with me, this version of him. He’s giving me strength. I can feel it all coming back as he keeps me warm and away from the pain. His body begins to move away the moment I do and I scream through the tape at him, suddenly panicked by whatever’s going to come next. I can’t speak, can’t see, and someone else is going to come in here? Alexander has never looked less scary in my life, and as the last of him pulls away from me, I feel all the heat begin to ebb away, too.