“Better than the last one you had,” Mom says. “I mind my own business, but that don’t mean I didn’t see you come home with bruises more than you should.”
I don’t tell her it wasn’t a guy who gave me those bruises. It was a girl—lots of girls. I know I miss fighting, but I don’t really feel it, the ache I used to feel when I was jonesing for a scuffle. I remember how satisfying the fight was, but I can’t bring myself to really crave it the way I did. I don’t feel much of anything anymore.
A few weeks later, I notice the dark green field outside the Phantom’s window turning hay colored as the grasses droop in the late summer heat. Daisies and Black-Eyed Susans and wild asters dot the grass now. The Phantom stands there, looking out with his hands clasped behind his back, like he’s looking over an empire and not an overgrown field of weeds.
“Have the Dolces contacted you?” he asks.
I have the same phone number, but no one ever contacts me. Why would they? I haven’t contacted them, either. Everyone texted on theOnlyWordsapp, and I didn’t download it on my new phone. I didn’t have friends, anyway. Only the Dolce boys and their friends got close, and they left me to die. They washed their hands of me, and I have no need to change that.
I give my head a single shake, then realize he won’t see it. “No.”
He rubs his jaw. I can hear the rasp of stubble. “It’s not enough,” he mutters.
At dinner, he gives me a little black dress and tells me to put it on and do my hair. The dress is low-cut but not too revealing, and it hugs my curves and falls around me like it must have costs thousands of dollars. I roll on the stockings and garters he left with it. I put in the diamond teardrop earrings he left sitting on the dresser. I put my hair up the way he instructed and dab on some of the makeup he left sitting there for me. The lipstick is too dark, but I smear it over my lips anyway. I’m no longer startled when I see a stranger staring back at me from behind the closet door.
Does it matter who she is?
I know she’s a good girl.
The Phantom walks behind me and puts a necklace around my neck. I can feel it resting cold against my chest, and it makes me shiver. I touch the charm, a diamond ballerina. He runs his knuckles up the back of my neck, skims his fingertips along my bare shoulders.
“You look like…” He bows his head, so I can only see his golden hair, not even his eyes or mouth to give away what he’s thinking. I’ve never wondered what he’s thinking before. It never mattered.
After dinner, he orders me to the bed without the usual shower. He doesn’t undress me, just commands me to lie on my back while he pushes up my dress. Then he picks up his phone, angling it so it gets my whole body.
“No faces,” I cry, my voice echoing in the high-end apartment. I throw my hands over my face, surprised I can still react that passionately to anything. He’s shot dozens of homemade porn clips of his dick going into me, but he promised me no one would know it was me. Usually he fucks me from behind, anyway. I feel exposed on my back, vulnerable and scared in a way I haven’t felt with him before. Suddenly, I’m shaking all over.
“Keep your hands over your face,” he says, laying a reassuring hand on my thigh. “No one will know it’s you.”
He plays with my underwear, rubbing his cock against the outside of them, pulling them between my lips, then down my thighs. I pull a pillow over my face. He tugs it a little higher, setting my necklace straight before going back to work. I try not to feel what he’s doing, rubbing his cock between my lips, getting me wet. Finally, he pushes inside me. He lifts my leg and swings it around so I’m lying on my side, so he’s filming my hip with the tattoos. Someone could definitely recognize that. Above my hip, there’s a D branded into my skin. What if my attackers see it and come back for me?
“Stop,” I gasp.
“I’m almost done,” he says, moving my leg back where it was, so I’m on my back. He cums quickly, shooting once over my belly before pushing back inside me to finish. He doesn’t lower his phone until he’s gotten the whole messy scene.
“Good girl,” he says. “You were perfect.”
Then he steps into the bathroom, and I hear the shower running.
I get up, my limbs shaking, my pulse racing. Something’s happening to me. Something awakening, some horrible monster that’s rising like a tidal wave inside me, like Godzilla emerging from the ocean. I can’t breathe.
I want to race up the ladder onto the roof, to suck in the night and shriek into the sky. I want to sail over the edge, arms and legs wide, and soar to my death below.
Some impulse in me rebels at the expensive silk constricting my waist, the heavy pads of the bra. Suddenly, I’m revolted by the body I’m in, by what I’ve allowed to happen to it. I yank off the dress, tearing at the strangling fabric, kick off the heels he put me in, rip off the garters and stockings. I throw them aside and pace the floor in my bare feet, naked as an animal. My heart is skittering erratically around my chest. I feel trapped, caged, though he’s never once told me I couldn’t leave. In fact, he made me leave.
I’ve been free all along, and yet, I’m not free. He’s treated me better than anyone ever has, than anyone should, and yet, I think I’ll scream if I see his mask again, if he calls me his good girl one more time.
I pull off the earrings and reach for the box they were in, my fingers shaking. I lay them in the jewelry box. There’s a sleek black paper bag with the jeweler’s name on the side because he bought them just for me, maybe just today, and had someone deliver them.
There’s a little tag stapled to the bag, the kind that comes on flowers. The kind that tells a delivery person where to send them, since the Phantom never leaves his apartment.
There’s a name written on the tag. In looping cursive handwriting, the wordsMr. D.
eleven
Royal Dolce
My phone chimes with a notification on the seat beside me. I check the screen. Lo again. I haven’t seen her all summer. After I found out what Harper did, I was in a bad place for a while. I don’t remember much of the rest of senior year. The monster operated in my place, holding space for me until I was ready to come back.