Blood Slave (24 page)
He was taken aback at my reaction. He didn’t seem to know what to say.
“You knew what she was! Your minds were linked! You knew she was insane! She lived with you for twenty years. How could you leave me alone with her?”
“I’m so sorry Hope.” He wouldn’t look me in the eyes. How could I trust a man who couldn’t look me in the eyes?
“That’s all you have to say? She made me whore for her bite. She made me fuck another man for hours just to get one fucking bite! Is that what you expected her to do? How could you not know what she was up to? She had no secrets from you!”
“Apparently she did. I was unaware of all this.”
“That’s only because you didn’t give a shit. You didn’t care enough to call me for more than a few seconds, one time. You didn’t care enough to check on your psycho servant and your bloodslave sex toy! You didn’t care what she did to me!”
“I’m so sorry, querida. I’ve never had to consider how dangerous she could be. She obviously learned to keep secrets from us both. I thought her incapable of blocking you out of her mind. She figured out a way to fool us.”
“She dumped me off with Arana after I threatened to tell you what she’d done to me. She planned to get rid of me all along. You gave her the perfect opportunity.”
“I’ve never had another person living in our home before. I never had to deal with her jealousy. It was always the two of us till you came along.”
“Yeah, you decided I had to stay. When you forced me into staying, Faustino thought I ran out on him. He was so angry, he took it out on Arana. Lia dumped me off with Arana, he wanted me dead. Arana wanted revenge. He never planned to give me back to Faustino.”
“You’re right, Hope. I can’t deny it. It’s my fault. I never considered how vulnerable you could be to Lia’s sick manipulations.”
But he should have known. How could he not know?
“Maybe you wanted her to get rid of me. Take care of the problem? I knew it was all too good to be true, the employment contract, all the promises of long life. You were speaking the truth when you told her how soon I would die!”
“No, querida, she was jealous of my feelings for you. I only said those horrible things so she wouldn’t feel threatened by your presence.”
“Don’t querida me! If you knew she was so damn jealous, then why did you leave me alone with her to be abused and raped and beaten half to death? She only bit me once! One time in four nights!”
“You’re upset right now, understandably so. Let’s not argue. Come, let me take care of you.”
“Do you know what Arana did to me? He beat me for hours. I was tied down to the bed as he beat and raped me for two whole days! He tried to kill me several times – choked me off. I could be pregnant, he didn’t wear a condom! I wish he’d have killed me! I wish I was dead!”
He tried to hug me, I pushed him away. I still had the knife in my hand. I pointed the blade at him as I shook and cried.
“You don’t love me! You’ve never loved me! I was your little sex toy. You and Lia played with me, almost killed me twice. And when it was no longer convenient to keep me around, after I’d picked everyone’s brains to find out who was loyal to you, you decided to let Lia take out the trash. You let Lia get rid of your little problem!”
“It’s not true, querida. I made a mistake. I thought she had accepted your place here. I didn’t realize what she planned.”
“I told you she wanted me dead. I begged you to protect me from her. I gave you everything, every part of my heart and soul and body, and you left me here with her. I told you something bad would happen. I begged you to take me with you! But you listened to her! Did you honestly think her feelings towards me would change in the weeks she spent in Spain?”
“Yes I did. That was my mistake, trusting her. She said she could see the benefits of having you around for business. She said she was okay with the arrangement.”
“The arrangement, hunh? The arrangement where you watched her damn near suck me dry, fucking me till I could hardly walk? That happened while you were here. What did you think she would do the moment you were gone? And did you tell her about how you supposedly care for me?”
“We didn’t really talk about it. I admitted I liked having you around, I enjoyed your company, our lovemaking.”
“You mean sex? It’s not lovemaking when you don’t love someone. She believed I was just your sex toy. You let her believe that. So that’s how she treated me after you were gone. Her own personal sex toy to fuck and abuse at her whim.”
“I should’ve told her the truth. That’s another mistake I made.”
“You told her the truth. And she did exactly what she thought was right in her twisted mind. I just don’t understand how you couldn’t see any of this coming.”
I was irate, swinging the knife back and forth. I was ready to kill, to strike out in vengeance for what had been done to me. He stole my thunder and wrath when he grabbed me and bit down on my neck. Pain, fury, hate, all gone in a flash. I was a slave to the venom, betrayed by my biology.
“I loved you and you left me to die alone in pain.” I cried, wanting to hurt him, wanting him to make love to me. Not sex, love. It was all wrong. I was stuck with this creature who callously, mercilessly, used my biology to manipulate me. I hated him.
He was the first man I’d ever loved, the fairytale dream. But it was all a façade, an invention of my own mind. He never loved me.
He released his bite. The magic drained away, all that remained was my shattered illusions. “I hate you.”
* * * *
My nights flew past without incident. I did my job precisely as contracted. I attended all required meetings, wrote lengthy, detailed reports of everyone’s mundane thoughts and consulted with Enrique on certain key points in our after-the-meeting meeting. It all became routine. No big surprises. The property maintenance guy wanted a raise, an export company hoped for a better shipping rate. The real estate agent was horny for Enrique, and willing to violate her code of ethics by sleeping with him if it might finagle a better commission on a piece of commercial property he was bidding on. He respectfully declined her offer, and did not give her a higher commission. In fact, he considered firing her. Each night was more or less the same as the one before. Attorneys are still the laziest bastards on the planet, and yet somehow manage to catch the highest hourly rate for the least amount of work.
I did what was required of me and nothing more. Sex is not in my employment contract. I am not anyone’s whore or sex toy. I’m not a piece of meat to beat on, chew on, or stick your dick in. No one touches me. No one. I am an island. Enrique’s not permitted to touch me beyond the cordial embrace necessary to facilitate his nightly bites. That’s the way I want it, and that’s the way it stays!
“I don’t need him, don’t love him, and don’t desire his touch.” That’s my mantra. I repeat it to myself nightly in front of the mirror.
“I love myself. My body is sacred and magnificent.”
I have tight biceps, a six pack of ab muscles, and my gluts and quads are rock hard – toned. I attend real kick-boxing classes – not that cardio wanna-be shit. I also have a private Krav-maga Israeli commando self-defense class every week. My kicks and punches break through bricks and cinder blocks. If anyone is stupid enough to pull a knife or gun on me ever again I’ll take it and shove it so far up their ass it’ll have to be surgically removed.
I bench 275, curl l40, and squat 400. More than your average Joe at Gold’s gym. Enrique brags about how I’m bad enough to take on a UFC Fighter in the Octagon. I know he’s just trying to get back in my good graces. It’s all an act so he can get laid. I’m not falling for it.
I’m strong, healthy, beautiful, sexy. If I wanted, I could be a professional model. I prefer anonymity, I like a low profile. I am not an exhibitionist anymore. I don’t need to show off my beautiful body to anyone. I’m sexy and I know it, and I don’t give a shit if anyone else knows it.
“I don’t need anyone. I don’t need Enrique, I don’t love him, and I don’t desire his touch.”
If I keep saying it over and over maybe someday it will be true. What’s the truth? I want that son-of-a-bitch every second of every minute, and I know where he is, always. He’s in his office right now. He’s been there for two hours. I’m so well connected to him. I don’t even have to think about it, I just know where he is. It’s there riding in the back of my consciousness, an ever-present awareness of Enrique.
He’s in his office, probably waiting for me to make my appearance. I know his game and I don’t give him an inch, not one stinking inch. If he wants something he can damn well ask. He can beg, he can grovel, but if it’s not in my employment contract, I’ll not give an inch!
How is he taking it? Oh he tries. He tries to seduce me, to win me over. But I’m not falling for the lies and the double-speak. I’m nobody’s fool. Like when he put the package on my desk a couple weeks after I returned to work. It had a note signed,
Love Enrique
.
Everyone signs letters that way. He always has. It doesn’t mean anything. I must admit the package was pretty awesome, my shiny new visa identification card with a special provision work permit to lawfully act as Enrique’s ‘Administrative Assistant’. I am now officially one hundred percent legal in the U.S., and I collect my paycheck under my new social security number.
He thought he had me there. He smiled all smug. He tried to put his arms around me thinking he’d finally won me over.
I swatted him off, “Don’t touch me!”
He gave me that look, the one I see once in a while, a hurt look. Fuck him. He’s not fooling me. I knew what was up. I see right through his manipulations, and I’ll never trust him again.
He reimbursed me the thirty thousand and change that Arana took, even replaced my twenty four Karat gold bracelet with a new one – which I refuse to wear. He’s paying me over a hundred thousand annual salary to spy on everyone. All that money has to be accounted for on his corporate taxes. Illegal immigrants can’t go on the books. He needed me fully legal for tax purposes, and to avoid entanglements with US immigration for employing illegal aliens. He didn’t do it for me. He did it for himself, for his own self interests. I’m not that easily fooled anymore.
That’s why he killed Lia. He didn’t do it to protect me, to save me from further assault or degradation. He killed her for shooting at him … and well, she actually shot him a couple times. She had intended to take his head off with that chef knife. I just got in the way. Stupid me. I had to be the love-sick idiot to take on the psycho bitch to save Enrique’s ungrateful hide. And who got stabbed eight times? Me, that’s who.
I spent six days in that hospital bed, damn near died. In addition to my stab wounds I suffered dehydration, shock, four broken ribs, three broken toes, four broken fingers, a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, and a broken nose and jaw. The nurses and doctors were surprised I survived. The fact I recovered so quickly creeped them all out big time. They thought I should’ve been bed ridden for at least a month.
And what of Enrique? His gunshot wounds healed up in forty-eight hours without so much as a scar on his flawless white ass.
He didn’t kill Lia for any of the myriad things she’d done to me, for damn near disemboweling me, he killed her on principle. I was not fooled, nor impressed.
I sleep alone. His sly glances, sycophantic compliments, and attempted seductions are getting him nowhere. He doesn’t give a shit about me. I’m his tool, his snoop, and a food source. But I’m not his damn sex toy anymore. I sleep in my room and he sleeps in his. He didn’t care when I was being abused by Lia, he didn’t worry too much when I was raped and beaten to a pulp by Arana. He has lost all rights and privileges to my body beyond the bites I allow him, because I need it. He knows not to fuck with me. I get my bite when and where I want it. My syringe is ready to go every afternoon for those hours before he awakes.
He’s a persistent bastard. Wants to have his cake and eat it too. I know what he wants. I can actually sense his desire for me. I feel his eyes on me, reaching up my skirt, my blouse. His desire is a near palpable thing in the air between us. I have to put him in his place occasionally.
“Back off, asshole! Stop staring at me like that! I’m not your sex toy!”
Then he switches his game up and puts on that butt-hurt look, like I broke his heart. The bastard doesn’t have a heart, and he definitely doesn’t love me. When you love someone you tell them how you feel. He has never once said the words.
Instead of lying to me directly, he plays little games, dropping subtle hints. Like last night. He put the newspaper on my desk with an article about the arrest of a Colombian cartel member. I’m not impressed. I see right through his manipulations. I’m not that naïve anymore.
Colombian Cartel Member Arrested for
Attempted Murder and Money Laundering
September 21st, at 4:45 p.m., Federal Bureau of Investigations Agents with U.S Marshalls raided the home of Faustino Vasquez on a warrant obtained from information given in an anonymous tip. The unnamed caller claimed Vasquez, a.k.a. “El Tiburon”, had kidnapped Ahmet Rahim Mahmoud, an investment advisor.
New York Federal Officials found Mahmoud tied to a chair in Faustino’s basement, bleeding heavily. Mahmoud was severely beaten. His left foot amputated by Vasquez via the “use of a large steel blade, possibly a machete.” Mahmoud is currently in critical condition.
Federal Agent Gregory Cranston states, “Mr. Mahmoud is one of the many victims of the senseless, unprovoked violence that characterizes the terrorist-like operations of drug trafficking cartels. Mr. Mahmoud is a key witness in a money laundering indictment involving Faustino Vasquez. It’s our sincere hope Mahmoud will recover to testify and see these criminals brought to justice.”