ANA
When Alexandre comes back, I haven’t moved a muscle. I feel frozen in place, too exhausted from the rush of emotion and adrenaline to even cry any longer. I’m just curled into as tight of a ball as I can in the cooling bath, my knees pulled to my chest as I try to calm my body’s shaking and wait to see what will happen next, what the consequences will be.
He doesn’t look angry any longer, though. His face is smooth and calm, even concerned, and he dips his fingers into the bathwater, ignoring how I flinch away from him without meaning to.
“It’s getting cold,” Alexandre says decisively. “Come on,petit, let’s get you out and dried off.”
What? I look up at him, confused, unable to quite process the sudden change in his mood. He’s gone from being furious at me to kind again, which is only further underscored by the way he carefully lifts me up out of the bathtub, wrapping me in a thick fluffy towel as he seats me on the stool and begins to methodically dry me off.
I can’t make sense of it. He makes sure every inch of me is dry, but as before, he doesn’t linger in any specific spot. He dries my hair last, squeezing it with the towel and then wrapping it in a smaller one as he leaves the large thick towel wrapped around me, disappearing back into the bedroom for a moment before reappearing with fresh, clean clothes.
“You’ll want to get some more rest,” he says, and I reach for the clothes, eager to be dressed. I feel too vulnerable like this, frail and naked on the stool, but Alexandre pushes my hands away.
“Sit still,petit poupée,” he insists, and I swallow hard, freezing in place obediently. Not so much from a desire to obey, as I’m sure he thinks, but out of sheer fear of what might happen if I don’t. I’ve seen now that he has an angry side to him, and I’m afraid to draw it out again. I don’t know what might set him off.
His hands are careful as he dresses me, though, in pink silk pajama pants and a matching button-down pajama shirt, like the doll that he keeps calling me. He buttons it one at a time, his fingers grazing my flesh but never lingering as I sit there trembling, and then Alexandre circles around me, reaching for a comb.
I feel like I can’t move.He’s so strange,I think as he starts to run the comb through my hair, humming to himself under his breath as he gets every knot out of my long blonde strands, as if this were normal. As if me sitting on a stool in pink silk pajamas while a man who purchased me from a Russian sex trafficker combs my wet hair were just another night of the week.
Where did he even get the clothes?Were they just in a dresser somewhere?Have there been other girls like me?That’s an even more frightening thought because I haven’t heard any sounds to indicate that there’s anyone in the apartment other than Alexandre and me. Which means, if there were other girls, they’re gone now.
What happened to them then, these supposed girls, if they even existed? Did they run away? Sold again? Dead?A chill runs over my skin, and I shiver despite the warmth and steam in the bathroom, and Alexandre notices it.
“Are you cold,petit?”
“A little,” I whisper, even though I’m not exactly. But Alexandre still sets the comb aside, scooping me up into his arms and carrying me to the bed. He sets me down gently against the stacked pillows, peeling back the duvet and sheets and tugging them over me, almost as if he’s tucking me in.
“I’ll bring you food and tea,” he says, and I don’t protest, even though I’m not sure if I can eat. It’s late afternoon outside by now, the sounds on the street quieting in that space between the midday activity and people going out for the night. It’s peaceful, and I’m exhausted, but I’m also too keyed up and confused to sleep.
I wish I could remember the party and the events that led to Alexandre buying me and bringing me here. It’s all a blur of half-remembered feelings and sensations, which leaves me feeling more lost than ever before.
A deep, intense feeling of longing washes over me—longing for not just my old life, the old me, but everything else along with it. My friends—Sofia.Caterina. My heart aches in my chest as I wonder all over again what happened to them, if they were sold too, if they’re somewhere else in the world now, experiencing something similar. Maybe something worse. And those two poor little girls, Anika and Yelena—I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, fighting back more tears.
I’d known there were monsters in the world, especially after my encounter with Franco, but I’d never imagined that they were anything like Alexei. His evil, his depravity, is beyond anything I could have seen, even in my darkest nightmares. And now—
Alexandre is no Alexei, but there’s something off about him, too. Something that I can’t quite put my finger on, but that leaves me on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Something other than the fact that heboughtyou?A small, mocking voice in my head reminds me of that fact, making my heart sink even lower. And it’s true. No matter how gentle Alexandre is with me or how well he cares for me, the fact remains that that’s the truth—Alexandre owns me. He bought me, paid another man money for a human being, and that alone should be irredeemable.
It shouldn’t matter that having someone touch me gently, with kindness, feels so good that I want to forgive anything, just to feel it again.
It’s been so long. So long since I’ve felt happiness, or comfort, or pleasure. I’d clung to that afternoon in the garden with Liam for exactly that reason, because it had given me a sliver of happiness, a glimpse at the woman I used to be.
And then I’d lost it, just as quickly.
I can’t rely on Alexandre for those things. And yet—
What if he’s all I’ll ever have? What if this—a man who is gentle with me even if he’s odd and mercurial, a man who doesn’t seem to want to harm me, is all the future I have to rely on? I could try to run away, but not anytime soon. I’m physically unfit to try to get away, and I have no money, no means of getting a ticket anywhere or even sustaining myself, in a country where I speak a fraction of the language.
The door opens and my eyes fly open as Alexandre walks in with a fresh tray. This time there’s the scent of sausage, and I see some sort of flaky pastry embedded with herbs wrapped around a slice of dark-colored meat, with a cup of tea and a glass of water. Alexandre sets the tray down over my lap, seating himself on the bed near my feet as he looks at me pointedly.
“You need to eat and get your strength up,petit. Take a bite. It’s very good. One of my favorites, from a café near here. Perhaps I’ll take you some time.”
He says it so casually, as if it were a given that he might take me to a café, like a date. It sounds so ridiculous that I want to laugh, but I don’t. I don’t want to make him angry again, and besides, my stomach is rumbling. The food smells delicious, and I pick up the utensils, noticing how heavy they are.
“Real silverware.” Alexandre notices me weighing it in my palm. “None of that cheap shit you Americans are used to.” He smirks when he sees my face. “Nothing against Americans, of course,” he adds in a voice that suggests he does, in fact, have something against them.
“All of my friends are Americans,” I say quietly as I cut off a piece of the sausage-stuffed pastry. “They’re all lovely people.”