Which means that sheknowshow much he paid for me.
He told her.
That stops me in my tracks when it occurs to me.How did that conversation go, exactly?Was it like when I used to talk to my girlfriends about how much I’d paid for a new dress?Oh, you paid too much for that, they’ll have a sale next week.What, exactly, istoo muchto pay for a human being?
What did Alexandre pay for me, anyway?
The thought sticks in my head until I feel as if I can’t shake it loose. I look at the art around the living room, the statues on the side tables, the leather-bound books on the shelves. How much did he pay for those? Less, or more for me than the art on the wall? Less, or more for me than the first-edition, leather-bound copy ofLes Miserableswith the first page missing?
Less, or more for me than a set of Chinese vases, one with a base chipped and another missing a piece in the rim? The teacups? The silver in the kitchen?
It makes me feel sick the longer I think about it. I’d assumed at first that he must have paid next to nothing for me, that Alexei, after everything he said about me being worthless, must have been happy to make a profit at all. Glad to have me off of his hands. But Yvette’s comment has changed everything.
I hover, more than once, at the door to the study, the feather duster in my hand, my nostrils filled with the scent of lemon cleaner and old books. Alexandre had clearly said that I wasn’t to go in here or into his bedroom. There’s no mistaking it, he’d repeated it twice. Those are the only two rooms off-limits to me in the house. Everywhere else, I can explore freely.
Generous, considering that I’m basically his pet and that he has an apartment filled to the brim with valuable, or at least semi-valuable items. Items that, if I wanted to, I could probably try to pawn. Attempt to get enough cash to get a plane ticket—but of course, I don’t have identification. No passport, no driver’s license, no birth certificate. Nothing to prove who I am.
In the eyes of the larger world, I might as well not exist. No bank account. Not a single piece of paper proving that I am anything but air, ephemeral and fleeting.
So why wouldn’t he give me free rein of the house, excepting those two rooms? Stealing anything wouldn’t do me any good.
Which means there are things he doesn’t want me to see in those two rooms.
Things like maybe a bill of sale, telling me what he paid for me.
Alexandre paid too much for you.
I drop the feather duster, pressing my hands over my eyes. I shouldn’t do it. Ican’t. Alexandre has been kind to me. Gentle. Maybe, if Yvette’s attitude is to be believed, more delicate than he’s been with others that were here.
And where are those others now?
Sold? Runaways?
Dead?
I can feel my imagination picking up speed, threatening to run away with me, my pulse rising up in my throat as my heart flutters in my chest. It’s all too easy to let Alexandre warp from the slightly strange, gentle man who has treated me like a porcelain doll—mostly quite literally—to an eccentric serial killer who has the bones of his previous pets—dolls?—stored somewhere in this apartment.
Yvette could be his accomplice.
She could be fun to play with. We could play with her together.
She’s mine.
The words tumble over themselves, rolling over and over in my head until I feel like I could scream. Did they play with other girls together? Did Yvette touch them the way she touched me, tormenting them, getting them ready for Alexandre? Did she hold them down while he did things to them? Pleasurable things, or painful?
I’d trembled with relief and something very akin to desire when he’d said I was his. I’d thought about it later when I’d touched myself in the bath. But now, with my imagination spinning out of control, those two words take on a much darker tone.
She’s mine.
His to—do what with, exactly?What does he not want to share with Yvette?
I reach out for the handle of the door to the study and snatch my hand back just as quickly, as if it might burn me.
Would he really be angry if I went in?
He’s been kind to me.
But what if it’s all a lie?