Three

THREE

Veronica waited until she heard the even hum of breath from her captor’s room that indicated he’d fallen into sleep. She prayed he was a deep sleeper. She was careful to stay close to the walls, so the hardwood wouldn’t creak. But when she turned the knob and pushed it open, the door gave a loud groan. He turned in his sleep, his breathing pattern interrupted. She stayed frozen in place, barely breathing until his pattern resumed. Then she crept into the room. If there were no women’s shoes, she wasn’t picky. Luke wore shoes. She’d just take some of his.

The moonlight came into his windows and fell over his face. Damn him and that face. That face had already made her hesitate a few times because something inside her responded to him. His mere presence did everything to her that her every sexual fantasy had done, but she was smart enough to know that the men she invented in her mind didn’t exist—couldn’t exist. She’d wasted enough time figuring that out.

She hadn’t been out with a man since college. The whole thing seemed pointless. Men slowed you down. They complained when your career was going better than theirs. They wanted you to pop out babies and make sacrifices for the kids because aren’t women all supposed to be maternal? Even in New York, you didn’t have to peel through too many layers in a man to find the caveman underneath. All the equality and supportiveness on the surface was window dressing.

After her second abortion, Veronica had found a doctor to tie her tubes. He’d been against it at first, but given his conservative leanings and her past history of killing the unborn, he’d decided it would be best if she didn’t get pregnant again. Smart doctor. Following that episode, she’d switched to women doctors for everything. Fuck the patronizing bastards who would give a man a vasectomy at nineteen but felt a woman couldn’t know her own mind until she’d already had children or turned thirty-five.

For a fleeting moment, Veronica wanted to go downstairs to the kitchen, take a knife, and lop off the dangerous part of Luke Granger. While he hadn’t hurt her... yet... she’d seen the perverted wheels in his head turning, and he’d admitted as much. She wasn’t going to think about the brief inappropriate wetness she’d felt between her legs as the word slut had tumbled out of his gorgeous mouth.

Perhaps worse than that, he’d decided she’d be free labor around the house. He didn’t seem intent on paying her. And even if he would, he hadn’t given her the choice to refuse the job.

His boots weren’t on the floor, so she went to check the closet. Behind the dark wooden doors, were his clothes and a large safe, but no shoes. Could he have put his boots in the safe? He’d put his cell in there. To be that meticulous... How many times had he done this? No matter what he said, Veronica didn’t believe he hadn’t killed Trish and whoever else had been before her. This behavior was too pathological.

Somehow on the trip, she’d convinced herself that he was attracted to her and wanted to help her, and maybe the way things were out on the ranch didn’t translate to more enlightened relationships between men and women. Perhaps he thought he was helping her, but since she was too stubborn to accept help, he’d had to take drastic measures—like an intervention with a drug addict.

She slipped past his bed to go back to her room when his hand shot out and grabbed her, pulling her back onto the bed with him. Her bathrobe bunched up around her thighs as he flipped them so he loomed over her. His hand slid up her thigh and between her legs, his fingers teasing just over her clit for a moment. It was enough to confuse her—to make her unsure if she wanted him or not. Even if her body did, she didn’t. She hated him. He was the embodiment of why she didn’t trust men. Weren’t they all savages under the civilized exterior? Wouldn’t they all do whatever they could get away with and rationalize it?

Luke Granger had decided he could keep a slave on his ranch and save some money. And past experience without getting caught proved his point. He sat up then and put her over his knee. It happened so fast she couldn’t find the words to protest before her robe was up around her waist and his hand was coming down hard across her bare bottom.

She squirmed and struggled against him, screaming at him to stop. Indignant. Pissed-off. Humiliated. Scared. The threat of him was a reality now. He grabbed her wrists in one hand, the non-spanking hand. She would have bitten him, no matter the cost, if she could have reached him.

“Let me go you fucking bastard. I hate you. You are a sick motherfucking psycho who should be locked up!”

He ignored her screaming and kept spanking her until she’d reached her pain threshold. Her cursing and yelling turned to begging.

“Luke, please. I’m sorry, please.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for. She’d say anything to make him stop. It hurt too much for pride to get in the way. In her mind, she reasoned she could just let go of it for one second to make him stop this, then she could reclaim her identity in the light of day when the pain had faded.

“You don’t come into my room unless I send for you. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes what?”

She recoiled and resumed struggling, not yet ready to give in to the next step in her degradation.

“My hand isn’t even tired. I can keep going.”

Just the threat was enough at this point. “Y-yes, sir.” If he didn’t kill her, she’d jump off the balcony. “This is why I hate men. No one hurt me. But any one of you could have done what you’re doing now. Isn’t that enough reason to hate and not trust? How do I know when a man looks at me like you did in the diner that he isn’t planning to act on his fantasies? I don’t. None of you can be trusted.”

He’d gone to stroking over her skin where he’d struck her. She tried to pull away when his finger dipped between her legs.

“You’re wet. Dripping.” He practically growled when he said it.

“Stop it.”

“No. Say ‘Sir, please stop groping me,’ and I’ll think about it.”

“Never.”

Another sharp slap landed on her ass.

“Sir, please stop groping me,” she whispered through her tears. She was glad they were in the dark, because her face must be the color of a maraschino cherry.

He gathered her in his arms and held her, stroking her hair... comforting her.

“Please just kill me if that’s what you’re going to do. Don’t do this on top of it.”

“Shhhhh. The first week or so will be the hardest, after that you’ll be happy with me.”

He was insane. Completely certifiable if he thought she could ever be happy obeying him, being demeaned and degraded by him, reduced to a thing—not even a real person anymore.

“Was Trish happy?” she asked, her tone accusatory, but the answer he gave wasn’t defensive or the one she expected.

“Very.”

“Were you?”

His voice changed. Veronica was surprised when it came out choked. “Yes. You look a lot like her.”

And did both of them look like his mother? Because that was in the serial killer handbook. Mommy issues. But she was far too wise to say that thought out loud.

“Go back to bed now. I’ll let you sleep in since we were out so late.” He kissed the top of her head and she went back to her room, thankful at least that she had a room away from him. The memory of his lips pressed against her forehead seared into her brain, keeping her from sleep for a long time.

* * *

Sunlight camein through the windows and balcony door, but Veronica rolled onto her stomach, taking the pillow with her to cover her head and block out the light. She wasn’t yet awake enough to remember where she was.

Luke smacked her across the ass, not hard, but still degrading. “Get up, and make breakfast.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, as if she’d woken into another dream layer and if she concentrated hard enough she’d wake back up in the crappy apartment she’d been evicted from, or better yet, her penthouse. Being so tired, it was still possible to imagine that everything from losing the penthouse, onward, had been nothing but an ugly nightmare. After all, there was sun shining in her room. That had to mean penthouse.

What was the more likely scenario? That a Big Deal ad executive had gotten into such bad credit card debt she’d become nearly homeless and had been kidnapped by a rancher, or that all of that was a nightmare that mixed in a few inappropriate sexual fantasies? When she took the pillow away from her face and opened her eyes, it would be her penthouse with the spectacular view of the park.

The pillow was ripped away. She heard it hit the carpeted floor.

“Now, Veronica. It’s nine a.m. That’s practically sunset around here.”

Oh God. She hoped he was kidding. The sound of his voice made her think that was unlikely.

She rolled back over and pulled the covers over her head. A second later, he’d ripped the blankets off her. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a belt zipping through belt loops. Before she could react, he slammed the strip of leather against the mattress, so close to her leg she felt the air whoosh. She scrambled out of the bed, still wearing the bath robe from the previous night and crouched next to the night stand.

“I-I’m not making you and your sweaty pigs breakfast.”

Somehow the sound of boots on carpet was as intimidating as they would have been on hardwood. He snapped the belt. “Oh really? I will use this on you. I’ll strap those legs and then make you wear a short dress so the guys can see you’ve been a bad girl.”

She held her hands over her head in a defensive gesture. “Okay, okay!”

Luke went to the closet and pulled out a short sun dress. “It only gets chilly at night right now, so you’ll wear this today.”

She balked at being told what to wear, but with the belt still in his hand, it was a battle she was willing to let go. He sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

“Get dressed.”

“Leave.”

He snapped the belt again, and she struggled with the knot on the robe.

“There are underthings in the drawers. I prefer no panties, but I’ll let you make that call today.”

“Please don’t do this.”

He rolled his eyes. “Princess, you’re in my castle now. You’ll do what I say when I say. Pleading and begging isn’t going to save you. All I want to do is look at you. Is that so bad?”

Veronica opened the drawers to find bras and panties. The panties were her size, but the bra was a size too small. She didn’t want to think about the fact that she was wearing some dead woman’s underthings and that most likely another unfortunate woman would wear these after her.

She slipped the panties on underneath the robe and heard Luke’s tsk tsk behind her.

“I take it back. It’ll be two rough weeks for you. It was optimistic to say one.”

She shot him a dirty look, and kept her back to him when she slipped the robe off her shoulders and squeezed her breasts into the bra.

“Come here.”

She paused, considering her options. She could say no or stay where she was and get hit with the belt, or she could walk over there to him. Either way he’d get what he wanted. She gritted her teeth and walked over to where he sat smugly in the rocking chair, his legs spread as wide as possible in such a chair.

He pulled her close so that she was standing between them, then he ran his hands over her, over the lines of the panties and over and around the bra, cupping each breast. She looked away as his rough fingers slipped under the lace.

“It’s a little snug. What size are you?”

“36C.”

She shuddered against him as he leaned in and trailed his tongue over the tops of her breasts. He pulled the cups of the bra back and rubbed the newly exposed flesh.

“You’ve got lovely nipples.”

“Can I get dressed now? Please?” she said, trying to block out the feelings of arousal.

“Please sir can I get dressed now,” he corrected.

She parroted back the phrase he wanted to hear only because it was the quickest route to getting clothes on. She wouldn’t let him control her body like this.

He took his hands off her and nodded, and she scurried back to the bed and slipped the dress over her head. It was a better fit. She took a step back as he stood and moved toward her. He pointed at the door.

“Now go. Make breakfast. We’re starving.”

She turned toward the door and jumped when he landed a playful swat against her bottom.

* * *

The kitchen’slong counter was lined with brown eggs that weren’t quite the pristine quality of the grocery store and sliced bacon that stayed cold in a bowl of ice.

“There’s biscuit dough in the fridge. I’ll teach you how to make it, but what’s chilling right now is ready to go. Just roll it into balls and put it on baking sheets,” Luke said as he came up behind her. “Come.” He took her hand and led her to the back patio, which was covered with trellis work and grapes. On the patio was a long wooden table with six chairs. “Right before the eggs are done, you can ring this bell for us. We like them scrambled.” He pointed to indicate a sturdy wooden beam in the ground with a large bell with a rope attached.

“And if I refuse to be your house slave?”

“I’ll whip you with the belt until you’re more agreeable. And I’ll do it in front of the ranch hands. You want to test me on that? I can ring the bell and bring them all in for a show. They’d be eager to watch that pert little ass get whipped.”

Veronica shook her head quickly, knowing he’d do it. If he’d gotten away with doing this once before, she didn’t want to think about the kind of men he employed, or how they might get off on her pain and humiliation. It was easier to just make breakfast.

“That’s what I thought. You’ll be making two meals a day for all of us, but the evening meal will just be the two of us. I’ll show you the garden after breakfast.”

Oh yes, the garden. She’d forgotten about her gardening duty. The joke was on him. She couldn’t even keep a potted fern alive.

Standing on the back patio barefoot in a sundress, getting ready to make them all breakfast was the old-fashioned stereotype, minus one element. “I hope you don’t plan on getting me pregnant.”

“Don’t be silly. You’d be next to useless to me pregnant.”

A horrifying thought hit her and she couldn’t stop the question from flying out of her mouth. “Did Trish get pregnant?”

“Yes.”

Before she could ask anything else, he’d turned and headed out toward the cows, that ominous yes hanging in the air. What did that mean? She’d gotten pregnant, and he’d killed her? Veronica took a couple of tentative steps into the backyard trying to get her breath to come normally. She couldn’t get pregnant; that risk was gone. But that wasn’t the problem; it was the idea he’d kill a woman over something like that.

The grass was soft and well-manicured. She jumped at a low whistle, and turned to see a man that looked maybe fifty, a touch of gray starting at his temples. He was good-looking, but nothing like Luke. She mentally berated herself for that thought. For either of those thoughts.

“Well, ain’t you a pretty thing? I coulda swore you was Trish for a minute. You like that grass? It’s sod. We put it in for her. She was the damnedest woman. Couldn’t get her to wear shoes for nothin’ hardly.” So Luke hadn’t stolen her shoes? Or was that just the story he’d sold the ranch hands when he’d broken her down too far to protest the lie?

Veronica took a step back when the guy walked toward her, his hand outstretched.

“I’m Will. I won’t bite ya, honey. Luke would have my ass. I’m in charge of the dairy side of the operation. We don’t have as many cows for that, but Luke likes fresh dairy. We sell the extra. I’m also in charge of mowin’.”

She tentatively shook his hand. “I’m Ronnie.”

“Ronnie?”

“Short for Veronica.”

He nodded. “Now that I’ll believe.”

She jumped again when she heard a squawk. She barely moved out of the way in time before a chicken could peck at her feet.

“Betsy’s hungry. You’ll be in charge of that. I’ll show ya where the feed is.”

“I-I thought it was just a cattle ranch.”

“These are Luke’s personal hens. Just enough for eggs for all of us, sometimes some meat, but usually we trade for that.” Several other chickens made their way out of what looked like a little red house nearby. They weren’t as brave and curious as Betsy. Will kept talking. “Hens are also good for the garden. We’re all natural and organic out here. It’s better for the soil, better for the animals, better for us.”

She wondered if he was also in charge of marketing.

He hefted the bag of feed out of a nearby shed. “They’re free range so they’ll eat bugs and grubs. This is just some extra we give ’em, so not too much. Ya hear?”

Sensing Will wasn’t about to touch Luke’s property made her a little more comfortable around the other man. “What did he tell you about me?”

“The boss? He said you was homeless and needed a place to stay and some work. And we needed some help for around the house. Luke had a housekeeper come in for awhile, but it was still tough.”

“Did he tell you he took me against my will? That he kidnapped me to bring me here and treat me like a slave, and god only knows what else he has planned?”

A dark smile lit Will’s face. “Oh, he said you was given to melodrama.”

“I’m serious. He tied me up and brought me here in his pickup truck. Against. My. Will.”

“So you wasn’t homeless?”

“Well, I... kind of... It’s not like I was living under a bridge with some vagrants.”

“But you woulda been if Luke hadn’t brought you here...”

“Are you not listening to me? He’ll hurt me.”

“Nah he won’t.” Will took some of the feed and put it in Veronica’s hand. “Just scatter that out, and they’ll come runnin’.”

She scattered the feed and the chickens raced over on their skinny legs, clucking and pecking at the feed around her. She would have been amused, if not for the conversation she was in. She had to get through to this Will guy and get help.

“He hit me last night.”

Will broke out into a full-bodied laugh. “Honey, spankin’ ain’t the same as hittin’. You don’t got a mark on ya.”

Veronica’s mouth dropped open. “Yes it is. You can’t just run around hitting a woman like that.” Unless it’s consensual, the dirtier part of her brain supplied.

“Whatever you say dumplin’. I need to get back to work, and you need to get your cute little ass back in the kitchen and make us some breakfast. We’re about to pass out from the hunger.” He pulled a sad face.

He was already out of shouting distance by the time she could come up with a retort. They really were going to just treat her like one of the animals.

On her way back to the kitchen, she passed the garden, and a small man-made pond with a family of frogs around it. She shrieked when one of them hopped over her foot. If Luke wasn’t going to provide her with shoes, the least he could do was not have chickens and frogs running amuck. In the city, not once had she been forced to encounter an amphibian or farm animal.

Veronica sighed when she reached the kitchen. She was getting pretty hungry, herself. And it was practically brunch by now. She almost felt sorry for the guys out there working on an empty stomach. Almost.

She rummaged through the cabinets and drawers for the things she needed and put some bacon in a pan and put the biscuits in the oven. While that was going, she set the table. There were six chairs, so she set six places, unsure if they would all be used. Then she put out some jam, butter, juice, and that milk would have to be last. It was in a large, clear, glass jar and had probably come straight out of a cow. It wasn’t white like the milk she was used to, but had a yellowish tinge and a line of something thick at the top that looked like cream. She wasn’t entirely sure it was good. She took a whiff. It didn’t smell off, but what did she know? Her milk came from a sealed plastic jug in the refrigerated section of the grocery store.

In the city she’d gone out a lot, and eaten frozen dinners even more, but at least she could make a basic breakfast. That simple skill might keep her out of trouble for awhile.

Fifteen minutes later, she gritted her teeth and rang the bell, then she finished up the eggs and brought the food out to the table. The eggs had been a little strange—red spots in them. Was that normal? She was afraid she’d look foolish for asking so she’d just cooked them up.

If she hadn’t been so hungry herself, she didn’t think she’d have the will to demean herself in this way.

She’d already fixed her plate with a biscuit and strawberry jam, some eggs, bacon, and orange juice. She wasn’t about to touch that milk. It probably wasn’t even pasteurized. She was already eating when the men arrived. If she was going to slave and cook for them, she’d fucking eat whenever she damn well felt like it. Unless Luke gave her that scary look again and ordered her not to.

“Will tells me you’ve met him,” Luke said as the guys came up. “These other two are Jake and Robert.” He didn’t seem put off by her eating. If anything, he seemed impressed by her healthy appetite.

“Ma’am,” they said with a nod, tipping their hats. Robert was about Luke’s age and tall with a deep tan and sun-streaked blond hair. Jake had dark hair like Luke’s, but blue eyes, in place of Luke’s inscrutable dark brown.

This was surreal.

“Is this everybody? I set six places. There were six chairs.”

“Trish always thought the table looked uneven with five chairs,” Robert said.

Luke’s face darkened.

“Uh, sorry, let’s eat.”

“Where’s the maple syrup?” one of the guys asked.

Veronica looked up. “I-I didn’t know. There aren’t any pancakes or waffles.”

“Ya made biscuits,” Will said. “This is Vermont. Maple syrup with breakfast may as well be a state law.”

“I’ll get it,” Luke said, scooting his chair back. “Finish your breakfast, Ronnie.”

The men mostly ignored her during breakfast, instead talking about things she couldn’t begin to fathom, speaking about machinery and tools she’d never heard of and what needed to be done before dark. She quietly observed them to see who might prove to be an ally. Who could get her off Hell Ranch?

Even as she thought it, she wasn’t believing it. Despite the Neanderthal treatment, this place wasn’t hell—at least not yet. The sun was shining and a breeze was blowing. When she finished eating, while the guys were talking, she watched the clouds as they lazily rolled by in the enormous sky. Part of her wanted to lay in the grass under it, but it probably wasn’t on Luke’s list of things for her to do today.

“Ronnie, we’ll have lunch about three thirty. Just soup and sandwiches is fine. It doesn’t have to be anything big since we’re eating breakfast so late,” Luke said. There was no condemnation there, just a statement.

“Sure, dear,” she said, sarcastically. He was, after all, speaking to her as if she were his little farm wife who lived to do her part with the laundry and the baking.

Everyone dropped their forks.

“Sir,” Luke said.

“Nobody else here calls you sir.”

“That’s because nobody else here is my piece of ass.”

“I’m not your piece of anything.” She turned to the others. “He has me here against his will. You’re all accessories to kidnapping. Kidnapping is a felony. You’re all going to prison when you get caught.” She spoke slowly, careful to enunciate for the lower IQs in the audience.

“She’s feisty. Good job,” Jake said.

They all went back to eating and Luke raised an eyebrow at her. “Sure, sir,” he said, not about to let it go.

“I’m not saying that.”

“Who wants to see Ronnie get her ass blistered?”

The guys looked up, lecherous expressions on their faces.

“Sure, sir.”.

Veronica got up from the table and retreated to the kitchen. She gripped the edge of the sink for support and let the tears fall. Luke was a fucking monster. There was no way she could live like this, and it was only going to get worse.

A few moments later, the kitchen door opened and banged shut. She didn’t turn around, but she knew it was Luke. Somehow in the space of a day, she already knew the cadence of his steps.

“How can you treat me like this?”

He moved behind her, his hot breath on her ear. “How can you like it so much?”

“I don’t like it. I hate it, and I hate you.”

“Lies like that aren’t very becoming on a lady.” He slipped his hand under her skirt, pushing past her panties. She wriggled against him as his fingers pushed inside her, a gasp slipping past her lips. “You’re wet. Let me tell you something about yourself, Veronica. You’re in the girl’s club I like to call ‘methinks she doth protest too much’. Your indignant behavior over the slightest perceived gender inequality makes it almost certain that inequality is what you masturbate to at night.”

He’d started pumping his fingers in and out of her. Against all reason and despite her fears about a grisly end, she moved with him.

“So this is all about my irritation over the stupid door at the diner?” she said.

“And you look like her.”

Couldn’t leave off that important point.

“If you were so into her, why did you kill her? Because she got pregnant, and you didn’t want a baby?”

Luke moved his hands away and spun her around so hard she almost slipped. His eyes were angry when they met hers. “Okay, I’m done with that. Not that this is any of your business, but Trish died in childbirth. The baby was stillborn. I lost them both in one night. I loved her. I didn’t kidnap her, and I didn’t kill her. If you think I’d kill somebody that looks like her, you’re crazy. Bring her up again at your peril, princess. I’d love to spank that lovely ass again today.”

“I’m sorry.” Veronica looked away. She couldn’t be sure if his story was true, but if it was, she felt like shit. Though, it still didn’t excuse the way his mind had apparently snapped when he’d taken her. “Do the guys know you took me the way you did?”

“Yes. And not one of them will go against me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He nodded. “These men have been with me for the past ten years. They’re my ranch family. They’ve got my back, and I’ve got theirs. If I robbed a bank, they’d help me hide the money. If I blew up a building, they’d deny it under torture. If I killed some people, they’d help me bury the bodies. So give up.”

Will came in, then, with the juice and milk, followed by Robert with the butter and jam.

“Are we interruptin’ somethin’?” Will asked. “We thought we better get this stuff back in the fridge.”

“No, it’s fine. I was just about to show Ronnie the garden.”

* * *

Luke didn’t askfor dinner until about seven o’clock that night, which he claimed was very late given how early they had to be up in the morning. Veronica didn’t see the appeal in keeping this kind of schedule, or all the work involved. The late morning and afternoon had been spent cleaning, doing laundry and hanging it on the line, making lunch for the guys, and watering the garden, which thankfully was so late in the growing season that the plants were too hardy for her to kill if she followed Luke’s maintenance schedule to the letter.

She’d picked several small tomatoes that had ripened on the vine for the sandwiches. After lunch she’d lain out in the grass, watching the clouds float above her, shifting into new patterns and shapes and merging together and splitting apart. Even when she’d been in the penthouse, the sky hadn’t been like this. There had been too many buildings around.

Dinner was burgers again, more for expediency than anything else. Luke had showered while she’d cooked them on the grill out back with the last bit of light from the sky. When he came down again in just a pair of jeans, his dark brown hair still dripping water down his back, she tried not to stare. It was too wrong.

Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been tied up with ropes in the cab of his truck. There were still rope burns on her wrists, and a bandage on her arm from her escape attempt.

“What about the website?” She tried to sound casual about it. If she could get online, she could get out of here. Though even after such a short period of time, she felt less than excited about the plan. She didn’t want to go back to the city, living in a motel she barely felt safe in until she ran out of money. She didn’t want to go back to eating Ramen noodles and pork and beans. If he wasn’t violent with her, would it be wrong to just stay?

“We’ll work on it this weekend.”

“Where’s the computer?”

“Don’t even think about it. It requires a network password, and I’m the only one who knows it.”

“Did you go to college?” she asked. His manner of speech was relaxed, but still educated.

“I went to business school. I was going to open a tractor supply store a couple of cities over, but my old man got sick and asked me to take over here. I reasoned that it was a business, so I could still use the degree. And he wanted to keep it in the family.”

Veronica picked over her burger, suddenly sullen. She shouldn’t be making polite conversation with him and getting to know him like she’d been hooked up by an internet dating site. What had happened to her women are people, too philosophy? It seemed to have floated away with the clouds.

By dinner time, she’d worked up the nerve to hold a frog—out of curiosity more than anything—and had checked on the chickens in the hen house. It was hard to fight fresh air, a big sky, good, clean food, animals, and a cozy house. It was too contradictory to where her life had been just forty-eight hours ago when she hadn’t known if she’d be eating in a month or where she’d sleep or if she’d be safe.

“Ronnie, in the end, everybody’s a slave.”

“Don’t.”

“I mean it. Do you really think anyone in this world is free? Everything is a hierarchy. Were you free when you worked for the ad agency?”

“Yes.” But somewhere deep down she knew it was a lie, and that Luke was about to explain why.

He shook his head and took another bite of his burger. “You did good on the burgers. Eat yours before it gets cold.”

“I’m going to get fat.”

He laughed. “Not with all the work you’ll be doing here.”

She picked up the burger and took a small bite. He gave her a disappointed look, not impressed with the effort.

“You weren’t free there,” he said. “You had to work for money to pay your bills to live. Working wasn’t an option you did just because you liked it. You were a wage slave. Just because it’s packaged up like free will doesn’t mean it’s the recipe for happiness. What about your debt?”

“What about it?”

“How much do you owe?”

“Close to two hundred thousand,” she mumbled.

He let out a low whistle. “Damn, woman. In some parts of the country, that’s a house.”

“I know.”

“Well, you’re free of that for now. I mean, I’m not about to call them up and say I have you.”

Veronica looked up slowly from her plate as the realization that the crushing debt that had weighed on her couldn’t be collected if they couldn’t find her. Freedom. Or freedom after a fashion, yet somehow this seemed like a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario.

“You don’t have bills here. I’m not going to fire you. If you disobey me or I’m dissatisfied with your work, I’ll just punish you, but you’ll have a place to sleep and you won’t ever go hungry.”

She hated the nonchalant way he spoke of punishing her, the way he continually reiterated the dynamics and power structure of their relationship. But it wasn’t enough for him to stop there.

“I rescued you. And very soon you’re going to show me how grateful you are for it.”

She crossed her legs, trying to push away the arousal his words created, spoken in that rumbling, gravelly tone. She’d meant to fight him more, but it had been so much easier to distract herself with the list of things he’d given her to do. But she’d pushed that out of her mind almost as soon as she’d seen it, as if she were forcing her brain to reboot. It was less scary to just cook the meals and do the laundry so when he came back to the house he didn’t take his belt off.

That thinking made her sound like a battered wife, but so far he hadn’t lashed out for no reason. Maybe he wasn’t that crazy. She startled when his hand moved under her skirt, stroking her thigh. The words he’d spoken still hung in her mind. She’d wanted to be the girl who fought and clawed and screamed, the girl she’d thought she was that day in the diner when she’d acted as if he were some country bumpkin beneath her notice.

If things had been different, if she were still that Big Deal ad executive with a penthouse without a drop of debt, she would have fought harder, but he was right. There was nothing to fight to get back to. The only real fear was that he might kill her or harm her, but God help her, she believed his story about the previous woman. Veronica didn’t even care that he’d taken her to fulfill the deluded fantasy of bringing the woman he’d loved back to life. All she cared about was that she didn’t have creditors hounding her and the fear of homelessness hanging over her head.

She knew that one way or another, her body would be forfeit to someone, better Luke than random nasty men driving past those street corners.

“Okay. I’ll do what you want.”

He laughed. “That was never in question, princess. The only question was would it be the easy way or the hard way? I’ve broken horses. I have never ending patience with women.”

After dinner, he took her into the living room. “Sit.”

She picked a spot on the sofa and sat, unsure of what was coming next. She’d assumed they’d be going to bed soon. She wasn’t sure if she’d be joining him or not. The idea tied her stomach in knots.

“I want to show you something.” He pulled out a box with some old VHS tapes. Veronica hadn’t seen anything but DVDs in years. It was an anachronism as if she’d fallen through a hole and had been transported back to the eighties.

From the couch, she could see that they had the labels on them that meant they weren’t commercial videos bought from the store, but either things recorded off the TV or home movies. He thumbed through them and pulled one out and popped it into the VCR.

He went to sit on the stairs where he had a good view of Veronica, but none of the TV.

“Aren’t you going to watch?” she asked, still not sure what she was about to see.

“No. I can’t watch it. I need to watch you watching it.”

He stood for a moment to flip the overhead lights on. Before, the room had been lit only by a dim floor lamp. He tossed her the remote.

“Push play and don’t take your eyes from that screen, no matter what you see.”

Okay, now he was starting to scare her. It hadn’t occurred to her that giving in and saying she’d do what he wanted might speed up whatever his plan was. While he might not kill her, whatever he would do might have taken longer to work up to if she could have managed the will to fight him more, but a part of her had been afraid he’d get tired of her attitude and toss her out. It would be like biting the hand that was feeding her. The very idea that she didn’t want her kidnapper to throw her out where she’d be subject to the whims of the elements was enough to make her stomach turn over.

She pressed the play button. There was a woman on the screen. She was naked, on her knees—a brunette like Veronica. Ivory skin like Veronica. When her face rose to the camera, Veronica could see the resemblance—it was eerie. Trish. There was someone else on the film. A man in black pants and riding boots. A riding crop dangled casually from his hand. Veronica couldn’t see his face, but then he spoke.

“I want you to crawl for me,” Luke said.

She began to crawl in slow, long circles across the floor, running the length of a large oriental rug, revealing a brand on her hip that looked like the image on Luke’s business card. He followed, hitting her across the ass with the riding crop, leaving red welts as she continued to move across the floor. Finally, he stopped her.

“I want to look at what’s mine. Show me.”

The woman stopped crawling and sat back on her heels, her legs spread wide. There were a few tears sliding down her cheeks from the crop, but the look in her eyes when she looked up at him was pure adoration. She loved him.

“Show me, slut. Show the camera. I’m going to show this to the guys later. Would you like that?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Of course you would, you little whore. Now show me.”

Her face went red as she spread her legs wider, parting the folds of her labia with her fingers.

Veronica looked away, too uncomfortable watching this with Luke watching her, wondering if he could tell how aroused she was becoming, wondering if it would seal her fate, terrified she’d end up branded like the woman on the screen.

“I said don’t take your eyes off the screen,” Luke said. It was the same tone he was using on the film.

She forced herself to look back at the video, afraid of what he might do if she defied him.

The Luke on the screen continued. “How badly do you want to finger yourself?”

A whimper.

“Beg me. You know how I like my sluts to beg.”

“Please, Sir. I need to come.”

“I know you do, sweetheart.”

Another whimper. “Please...” Her finger edged closer to her clit and he smacked her hand hard with the crop, drawing a scream from her.

“Very naughty, dear. We don’t touch ourselves without permission, do we?”

“N-no, Sir.”

“Crawl to me, show me how sorry you are.”

This must have been something they’d done in the past, because she seemed to know exactly what he wanted. She slunk over to him on her hands and knees like a beaten dog. Her tongue darted out to slowly lick the length of his boot.

“Good girl,” he said when she’d finished ingratiating herself to him again. “You can touch yourself now, but if you don’t come hard enough, there will be punishment.”

“Turn off the video,” the live, in-person Luke said from the shadows of the stairs.

Veronica pushed the button on the remote. She looked at the floor, scared of whatever was coming next, embarrassed he’d watched her watch him and her doppelganger engaged in something kinky. It was the kind of thing she’d suspected after he’d spanked her in his bedroom the previous night—and seeing the upstairs playroom while cleaning had sealed the truth. It was the kind of thing she would have fantasized—with him as the star—if she hadn’t been so tired and scared.

The room was across the hall from the rooms she and Luke slept in. She’d discovered it while cleaning but had largely tried to block it out of her mind. It had a large black box on one end with a padlock on it, video equipment, a leather sofa, a pole that looked like a stripper pole, a few pieces of dungeon equipment, and of course the rug the girl had been crawling on.

A long silence stretched between them as Veronica waited, tense—she wasn’t sure for what. An order? His hands on her? A question? Would he demand she tell him in minute detail how that video had made her feel? She didn’t know if she could even put it into words for herself. If he made her do something like that, it would make the fantasies okay.

She’d fought against it, so strongly. What she’d seen happening on that screen—it would never happen that way for her. Of all the sex she’d had, it had never been pleasant, never like her fantasies. It hadn’t even been good vanilla sex. It was just bad, start to finish, while she’d prayed it would end soon. She’d been dry, and it had hurt, but she’d kept going out with men, kept trying, like some nymphomaniac that pathologically had to fuck even though the act brought her no satisfaction. She couldn’t stand to be disappointed again.

Had that been the start of her masochism? That tiny thread of pain that had accompanied her every sexual encounter? Without an orgasm, it had been the one thing she could count on. Comfort in the discomfort because of its familiarity.

“Go to bed, Veronica. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Her head jerked up, and she chanced a look into his eyes. What had he seen on her face that was making him send her away? Had he changed his mind about what he was going to do with her? She should be happy about that. And she was, but her face was flushed, and the space between her legs was throbbing so hard she wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk straight. Crawling to her room sounded like a more feasible option, but she forced herself to stand.

“G-goodnight, Luke,” she said. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the stairs.

He held her gaze and shook his head in disapproval. “Goodnight, Sir.”

Something strange fluttered in her stomach at him still wanting the formal address. She didn’t want to dissect it. “G-goodnight, Sir.”

He simply nodded his approval.

As she walked past him, he slid a hand under her dress to feel the wetness sliding down her thighs, then he let her continue on her way. She wanted to melt into the floor. If he’d had any doubt of her reaction to his perverted home movie, it was gone now.