“It felt like a dream,” I tell them, twisting my hands in my lap. “Like it couldn’t be real. He said his name was Alexandre Sartre and that I belonged to him. He fed me this incredible breakfast, drew me a bath and bathed me, brushed my hair, and dressed me again. It was so strange. It felt like a fever dream, truly—”
“Hebathedyou? Brushed your hair?” Sofia stares at me. “Like—was it sexual?”
“No. That was the weirdest thing.” I explain that to them too—the maid outfit, how he had me clean his apartment every day, the special shoes he’d had custom made for me, and the way he treated me like a doll, but never touched me sexually. “I couldn’t understand it. At first, I thought he’d bought me just as a maid, that he was just a little odd about it. That maybe he was a germaphobe or control freak or something, that he needed to make sure everything, even me, was just so. But then—”
I tell them about meeting Yvette, about that first dinner where Yvette had insisted I eat on the floor, the way she’d talked about other pets, other girls, making me wonder who else Alexandre had bought before me. I tell them about my snooping in the office even though he’d expressly ordered me not to, about finding the bill of sale for my purchase—about how I’d discovered the amount he’d bought me for.
“We overheard it at the party,” Sofia says. “You were too out of it to notice much that was happening, but Alexandre wasn’t shy about your sale. He was very insistent that he wanted to pay that sum for you. Alexei looked like he was going to pass out when Alexandre said it. He tried to turn it down; actually, he said—” she bites her lower lip, a look of disgust passing over her face. “He said you weren’t worth that because you were—damaged. But Alexandre insisted.”
“That’s why he wanted me,” I whisper. “Because I was damaged.”
“What?” All three of the women look at me with confusion, and I can feel the heat creeping up my neck, my face turning red at the thought of telling them what came after that.
I lick my lips nervously. “The rest of it gets—weird.”
“We’re not going to judge you,” Sofia says gently. “You don’t have to tell us anything you’re uncomfortable with us knowing. But we’ve all been through difficult times, and Caterina and I especially—our husbands are not easy men, who have…different desires than we were used to. Whatever happened between you and Alexandre, we’re not going to think differently of you.”
Knowing what Alexandre did to me—what I did with Alexandre and the ways he made me feel, it’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t judge me. But I need to tell someone, not just a therapist or a priest. I want to talk to my friends.
So I tell them the rest of it. Not in the most graphic details—but I tell them how Alexandre made me kneel in the office, how it turned me on, how aroused he was. I tell them about sneaking out to watch him at night, the pictures on the bed. I tell them about the meals kneeling on the floor, Yvette supervising me, about the night that I finally went into Alexandre’s bedroom, and what happened after that. And then, with my heart racing and my stomach twisting with nausea remembering the terror of that evening, I tell them about when Liam came to rescue me and what happened.
What Alexandre and Yvette did.
I can feel myself paling at the horror on their faces, all three of them, as I finish the story. “I know you probably think I’m terrible, that it’s awful that I wanted him, that I thought I was falling in love with him, and then—”
“No.” Sofia shakes her head, and I see Sasha and Caterina doing the same. She’s still holding my hand, and Caterina reaches for my other one. I can see them both trying to soften their expressions, to not look quite so horrified. “No, Ana, we don’t think you’re terrible or awful. We—I—think something terrible and awful was done to you…a number of things, actually, all by different men, and that you reacted in the way you needed to, in order to survive.”
“I still don’t understand,” I whisper softly, feeling my chest clench with pain at the memory of all of it, coming back in a fresh rush of hurt. “He said he loved me. That he wanted to protect me, to keep me safe. I can’t understand why he would listen to Yvette, why he gave me to Liam to test me like that—”
“Because he didn’t love you,” Sofia says gently. “That’s not love, Ana.”
“He wanted to own you,” Sasha says firmly. “He wanted you to be his, for you to stay broken so that you’d need him. He couldn’t stand the idea that anyone else might be able to take you away, that if you were given the freedom to choose, you might choose someone else.”
“He was broken too,” I say quietly. “What his father did to him and his sister—”
“—was horrible,” Caterina finishes, and I see a hint of sympathy in her eyes. “He’d been through terrible things too, Ana. It’s awful that happened to him. But we all have, you as much or more than anyone. Would you do what he did? Buy someone, keep them captive in your home, force them to depend on you?”
“Well—no, but it’s not as if I could, either.” I laugh, but even I can hear the edge to it. “I don’t think he realized what was wrong with what he was doing—I really don’t. I just can’t help feeling like, in his own strange way, he really did love me.”
“And if that’s how you feel, that doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” Caterina says quietly. “You knew him, Ana. We didn’t.” She gives Sofia a meaningful look as Sofia opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something, an indignant look on her face. “But what someonethinksis love, and what love really is, aren’t always the same thing. And it sounds like this woman—Yvette, had a strong influence over him, too.”
“She did,” I admit. “He didn’t seem to have many friends—there were the ones who came to the dinner party, but Yvette was the only one I saw regularly. She was in love with him, too—but he didn’t seem to realize it.”
“From what it sounds like,” Caterina says gently, “Alexandre was a very flawed, eccentric, hurt man, who hurt you without meaning to. But even if what he did wasn’t malicious, that doesn’t mean it was love. And it doesn’t mean you should go back to him if the opportunity ever arose.”
I blink at her. “How—why would you think—”
“I can see it on your face when you talk about him.” She squeezes my hand gently. “You still feel like you love him, and it’s tearing you apart, especially because of Liam.”
“I see it too,” Sofia says, and Sasha nods. “You still have all these feelings for Alexandre, but he hurt you. And then Liam—” Sofia lets out a breath. “I see why you’re so conflicted now. What Alexandre made him do—”
“He’s so guilty about it.” I push the phone with one finger, sliding it on the table. “I feel like all of this is to make up for his guilt. He came after me because he was guilty he couldn’t save me in the first place, and now he’s doing all of this for me because he’s guilty that Alexandre forced him on me, and he couldn’t stop it.”
“What if it’s not, though?” Sasha looks at me sympathetically. “What if it’s just because he wants you?”
“I know he wants you,” Sofia interjects suddenly, looking at me with an almost guilty expression on her own face. “I talked to Liam at Viktor and Caterina’s wedding.”
“What?” I blink at her. “What do you mean? What did he say, what—what did the two of you talk about?” The words burst out of me before I can think about how they sound, about how it makesmesound. Like I’ve jumped from Alexandre to Liam, and in a way, I know I have. It’s part of what’s holding me back, what makes me wonder if maybe I should have just gone back to Manhattan after all.