“Upstairs.” He points towards a wrought-iron and wood spiral staircase that leads up to a second floor. “There are two rooms up there, my bedroom suite and the room that serves at the library. You may go into the library and clean it, but do not go into my room.” He pauses, his blue eyes fixing mine with a sternness that I haven’t seen before from him. “I’m very serious, Anastasia. My study and my bedroom suite are off-limits.”
“Okay.” I nod again, licking my suddenly dry lips nervously. “You just want me to clean?”
“Yes, as well as you are able. As I mentioned earlier, there are dishes to be done and dusting, vacuuming, and mopping. I’ll be out for some time, so please don’t rush. I’ll come back this afternoon and we can go out to shop for food.”
We’re going out grocery shopping?It’s not any stranger than anything else he’s said, but I’m still slightly taken aback, so much so that I don’t even flinch when he kisses my forehead gently, patting the top of my head and telling me he’ll be back soon. I stay frozen to the spot, feeling like nothing so much as a puppy left to my own devices, patted and told to be a good girl until her master comes home.
I—should hate it. The old Anawouldhave hated it. But he hasn’t hurt me. He hasn’t done anything except treat me a bit strangely. He’s fed, clothed, and left me alone in his house without any restrictions other than a couple of rooms I’ve been told not to go into. He didn’t tie me to the bed or chain me to a radiator. He hasn’t starved, hurt, or assaulted me.
Hepatted me on the head.
I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Maybe I lost it a long time ago.
I look around the room, trying to decide what to do first. Cleaning isn’t the worst thing in the world—I always hated chores back home, but it will give me something to do. Back then, all I wanted to do was goof off or sleep after a grueling week of dance classes, practice, and choreography, but I have none of that now. All I have are endless hours with nothing to fill them, nothing but my own thoughts eating away at my brain.Maybe it will do me some good to keep busy,I think, heading decisively towards the kitchen.And besides, his apartment is interesting. It might be fun to explore.
The dishes are easy enough, although it makes me nervous to handle them. There are no cheap IKEA plates and cups here. Everything is fine china and heavy silver, which I know enough to know you’re supposed to polish it, though it takes me a while to find the silver polish. What I notice, though, as I had when he’d given me the tea, is that most of the dishes are slightly damaged in some way. A chip here, a flawed design there, a deep patina to some of the silver that can’t be polished away. And the dishes aren’t the end of it.
The furniture in the dining room is gorgeous, heavy antique wood and likely very old, but there are flaws—scratches, dings, water stains. The expensive rugs are frayed in places or spotted in the designs from age, and the collectibles are the same. They’re all beautiful and, to my amateur eye, appear authentic and not just damaged junk—but theyaredamaged. Dented or scratched frames, chipped paint, a torn page or broken spine or missing gilt lettering on the books, cracks in the antiques. There’s a beautiful Japanese vase with gold poured in the cracks, and I remember hearing about that technique somewhere, though I can’t remember the name.
As I make my way through the rooms in the apartment, I can feel myself tensing, on edge with each door I open and each new thing I pick up to clean. I can feel myself waiting to unearth something terrible, to find something that tells me what’s wrong with Alexandre, what horrible fate is waiting for me—or for him to come back in suddenly, for him to have tricked me into doing all of this, touching his things, and then punish me for it.
I can’t understand why he’s being so kind to me when he purchased me—the two things seem diametrically opposed to each other. I can’t help but feel as if I’m holding my breath, waiting for the trap to spring.
But it doesn’t. All I find is room after room filled with beautiful items that are expensive-looking but faintly flawed, and something begins to dawn on me.
It’s not hard to piece together. I sit down on the couch halfway through dusting the seemingly endless art on the living room walls after I come back downstairs from the library and take off my shoe, looking at the ridged scar tissue on the soles of my bent feet.
Everything in this apartment is damaged in some way. Not enough to take away from its beauty, not even enough to be noticeable at first, until you get up close. But it’s all flawed somehow.
Just like me.
I don’t know how to feel about it, and I certainly don’t think it’s something I should point out to Alexandre. Something inside of me, some instinct, says that he won’t want me to realize it, to know anything about this odd predilection of his. And truthfully, picking up on it doesn’t mean I understand it. It’s one thing to collect flawed art, but aperson? It’s vaguely creepy, but also in a way…sweet?
I don’t understand it. I don’t understandhim, and as curious as the apartment has made me, I’m not sure I want to. He seems complex, certainly, a man with layers. But I’m afraid of what I might find if those layers were ever peeled back—or how he might react if I tried.
The sound of the front door opening comes a few hours later, when I’ve cleaned just about everything I can. I’m dusting off a few small statues on a side table when Alexandre comes down the entryway, a pleasant smile on his face as he walks into the living room and looks around.
“You’ve done a lovely job, Anastasia,” he says, and I can’t help but feel a warm burst of pleasure at his praise. It feelsgoodto have someone be happy with me, to tell me that I’ve done well, even if it is the man who owns me.
“Come with me,” he says then, motioning towards the hall that leads to my room, and my stomach clenches.
“Don’t you want to look at the rest of it?” I ask haltingly, suddenly nervous.Maybe it’s now. Perhaps he’s going to take advantage. I’m tired. I can’t fight back, as if I ever could anyway.
“I’m sure it’s all just as excellent,” Alexandre says pleasantly. “Come along,petit.We have errands to run.”
I know better than to argue with him. I follow him mutely down the hall back to my room, leaving the feather duster abandoned on the couch as he opens the door and gestures for me to come in.
He leaves me standing in the middle of the room as he flings open the wardrobe again, combing through it and one of the dresser drawers before turning back to me with an armful of clothing and laying it on the bed. He steps up very close behind me then, and I freeze, going tense and rigid all over before I realize he’s simply unpinning the maid’s cap from my hair.
“I can undress myself,” I say quickly, feeling a sudden burst of bravery. “You don’t have to do it every time.”
“Ah, but I want to,petit.” His voice is firm, and I close my mouth instantly against any further argument.
His touch is gentle, but I’m afraid to anger him. I stay very still as he begins to undo the buttons of the maid costume one by one, getting me out of it until I’m standing naked in the center of the room again, even the panties gone so that I’m bare except for the shoes on my feet.
“Can you walk around town,petit?” Alexandre asks, as casually as if I weren’t standing entirely naked in the middle of the room right in front of him. “Or are your poor feet too tired?”