ANA
Ihalf expect Alexandre to be strange with me again the next morning, after waking up to find him in my room. But he isn’t. He brings me my breakfast as usual—in bed, as if the entire ordeal of having me kneel on the floor never happened at all—and dresses me in the maid’s outfit. There’s no sign of Yvette, and after our meal together last night and the poetry in the library, my heart feels lighter than ever.Yes, him coming into my room and watching me while I sleep and pleasuring himself was strange, I tell myself as I do the breakfast dishes,but I’ve spied on him often enough.I can’t judge.
A small part of me wonders if he knows I’ve been outside the door and if last night was a way of him turning that back on me. But the abject guilt I’d seen on his face makes me think that’s not the case. It makes me all the more sure that he would have been angry with me if he’d ever caught me, but that’s not enough to make me not daydream about going up there again tonight, hoping that I won’t find the light turned off the way I did the night before.
Halfway through the afternoon, as I’m dusting the books, there’s a knock at the door. It startles me because no one ever comes to Alexandre’s apartment except Yvette, and she would hardly knock. She’d just come in like she owned the place. I put down the feather duster gingerly, my heart racing in my chest because Alexandre hasn’t ever told me what to do in a situation like this. Am I supposed to ignore it? Answer it? Will I be in trouble if I choose the wrong one?
The knock comes twice more while I’m shifting from foot to foot, trying to decide, and I wind up dithering in the foyer for so long that I hear the footsteps of whoever it was start walking away. I give it a few more minutes, even more anxious about going to the front door now and finally opening it.
There’s no one there now of course, but there issomething—a long white box tied with a huge silvery ribbon, like a pre-wrapped present from a department store, and a smaller box on top of it, and then one smaller still, like Russian nesting dolls outside of each other.
It must be a delivery for Alexandre,I think, reaching for them. I can’t just leave them outside in the hall. They might get stolen.Or Yvette. Maybe she had something delivered here.
But as I pick them up, the tag on the biggest one flips over, and I see my name in an elegant script.
For Anastasia.
From Alexandre.
My heart starts to race in my chest and I almost trip, nearly dropping the boxes. I carry them into the living room, feeling like I can’t breathe as I set them down on the couch, unsure of what I’m supposed to do. Should I open them now or wait for Alexandre to come home? I haven’t forgotten his reaction to my disobeying him about the study, but surely this is different? I don’t have explicit instructions for this, so will he really be so angry if I do the wrong thing?
I don’t want to end up eating my meals on the floor again, but I’m also not sure I can wait until he comes home. And if Iamsupposed to open them before he comes home, he might be upset with me for wasting his time or think I’m unappreciative.
Unappreciative ofwhatexactly? You don’t even know what they are.
I start with the smallest box. When I open it, my mouth drops open when I push aside the silvery tissue paper filling it. What I’m seeing doesn’t make sense—a gold bangle bracelet studded with sapphires, a pair of drop sapphire earrings set in gold, and a matching necklace that’s a thin gold chain with a bezel-set teardrop sapphire hanging from it. They look expensive, and I gingerly set the box down, thinking there must be some mistake. But I open the next box anyway, my pulse leaping in my throat.
The next box is shoes—shoes with the ubiquitous red bottoms, but not heels. They’re flats made of the softest leather I’ve ever touched, and the inner soles are thickly padded, as if Alexandre had them made custom. I feel my eyes start to burn as I set them down and reach for the ribbon on the largest box, unsure of what I’m going to find inside.
There’s a card on top of the silvery tissue, and I open it first. It’s written in a sprawlingly elegant hand, and there’s no doubt that it’s from Alexandre.
Anastasia,
Please get dressed in these items that I’ve chosen for you, and be ready to go by eight p.m. exactly. Don’t be late,petit. I have a special evening planned for us.
--Alexandre
Dumbfounded, I move the tissue aside to find a dress nestled in the paper, and when I lift it out, I can hardly believe what I’m holding in my hands. It’s a cocktail dress that comes to just below my knees, made out of the softest, slipperiest sapphire-colored satin I’ve ever touched, with a sharp v-neckline that will come down to just below my breasts and corset-style ribbon cutouts on the sides. I can’t imagine how Alexandre would know my size, but when I scoop all the items up and carry them to my room, holding the dress up to myself in front of the mirror there, I think it might actually fit.
I take a bath on my own for the first time, wanting to make sure I’m sparkling clean before I even think of putting that gorgeous dress on. I wash my hair and comb it out, letting it air-dry as I go through the dresser for what I should wear under it. The satin is so fine that I can’t find any panties that won’t show, and I don’t need a bra, so after several minutes of trying to make up my mind, I decide to go for the most daring option—nothing.
Which means that when I slip the dress on, the satin slithers over my bare skin, cool and sexual in a way that I never imagined a dress could be, clinging to the delicate lines of my body in a way that both hints at everything and shows very little. I don’t have any cleavage to speak of. Still, the neckline looks sexy anyway, hinting at the soft swells of my small breasts on either side. The corset ribbons on either side of the dress give my waist a curve that it doesn’t currently actually have. The dress fits me perfectly, as if Alexandre had my exact measurements. The shoes are more comfortable than anything I’ve worn thus far, so that even after being on my feet cleaning, I think I might actually be able to walk tonight without too much discomfort.
When my hair is fully dry, I comb it out again so that it falls straight and soft and silky down my back and put on the jewelry last of all, which is so much finer than anything I’d ever thought I would wear.
I’m ready at five minutes to eight, walking into the hall just as I hear the front door open. When I come out to greet Alexandre, my mouth drops open at the same moment that his eyes widen.
He’s wearing black suit pants, smoking loafers, a black cashmere turtleneck, and a burgundy velvet jacket with black satin lapels, a look that most men wouldn’t be able to pull off. But Alexandre does it handsomely, his blue eyes shining as he looks at me, and I feel like nothing so much as his perfectly dressed china doll—and I don’t hate it.
The pleasure in his face as he looks at me is enough to make me not care that I didn’t pick any of this out, that I’m following his instructions. I can’t even imagine how much all of this must have cost or what kind of place we must be going to in order to warrant all of this. Although—knowing Alexandre and some of his eccentricities, he might have dressed us both up to go to a dive bar, for all I know.
But that’s not where we end up. He takes my hand and leads me out of the apartment. We walk out into the cool, fragrant Parisian night and down the cobble streets until we find an elegant restaurant where he has a reservation. We’re swept back to a dimly lit corner with candles burning on the table and champagne already on ice.
“What is all of this?” I ask softly as I slide into the circular leather-backed booth, and Alexandre just smiles.
“I wanted to spoil you a little,petit. You’ve been such a very good girl. Don’t you think you deserve it?”
It feels like a loaded question. After all, I’ve been sneaking around his room for over a week now, and I don’t know for sure whether he knows about it or not. But I opt to assume that he doesn’t—because if he reallydoesn’tknow, as I suspect, then I don’t want to ruin the night.