Sweet Desire (Tales of Dystopian Decadence Book 2) (2 page)

“Well, aren’t we proper?”

The sneer in his voice was evident, so instead I concentrated on the memory of what he looked like: those glacial blue eyes, that shaggy blond hair in desperate need of a trim, and his rather refined features, like his aquiline nose and pointed chin. For a brief moment, I saw him in a tailored suit in my mind’s eyes. The vision vanished in another instant as he spoke one more.

“I know what that school teaches you,” he said, approaching me. “I doubt I will have need for all of your skills. A pretty girl who kneels to me, flatters my vanity, and warms my bed is useless. I need just one thing out here – household help from someone who can survive here. Do you understand me?”

Eyes still focused on the floor, I nodded.

“Good. There’s hope for you yet, then. Follow me.”

Peeking up through my lashes, I saw him beckon to me.
He wanted me for household help?
After spending the last four years at a school that taught me to be the most charming and compliant of courtesans, he wanted me to be his
maid
?

Perhaps he meant it in a fetishized way. Ms. Steele taught “Sexual Specialties” at the school and her lessons had given us insight into the various kinks people enjoyed. Maybe this was actually a role-playing scenario and he was going to provide me with a little maid’s uniform and cap, and then have his way with me whenever he felt like it. The idea seemed plausible, considering the amount of money he must have paid St. Eden’s in negotiating my contract.

“Floors, dusting, dishes, laundry – it’s all very general housework. I’m sure you know how to do it.” He gestured to the left and then the right dismissively, as if I already knew what he meant. “However, at times–”

Here it was – the fantasy. The fetish. The real reason he wanted me here.

“–I may require more urgent tasks of you. You see, I have been conducting research which, of necessity, must remain secret. But now–”

No… No maid fetish? Then what was this?

I cleared my throat.

He turned and raised an eyebrow at me. “What?”

“Uh, permission to speak, sir?” I asked.

He made a “get on with it” gesture, his eyes rolling.

“Housework,” I said, meeting his gaze. “You just want me to clean your house. That’s all you want me to do for you.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not the shiniest cog in the machine, are you?”

Dropping my hands to my sides and flexing my fingers to avoid clenching them into fists again, I answered, “Perhaps not, but my training didn’t prepare me for a life of domestic servitude. At least, not in this way.”

“Oh, didn’t it?” He glared at me and folded his arms, and I dropped my gaze once more. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“What, sir?”

“Looking at the floor? Is it that interesting?”

I bit my lip before answering. “I do it because of my training, sir. We’ve been taught not to look a dominant in the eye until he gives us permission to do so. He is the one to decide who is worthy of that privilege.”

“Well, I’m no dominant. I’m just a man in need of someone to cook and keep house.” He sounded out of breath and on the verge of growling. “What is your name?”

“Violet Morningside.”

This time he let out a hiss so loud, I jumped in surprise. Whatever had vexed him, he recovered quickly. “Well, Violet, I give you permission to always look me in the eye and to speak whenever you choose, unless I rescind that permission. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.” I raised my gaze to his. He might have been an ill-mannered, celibate recluse, but I liked looking at him.

“And, for fuck’s sake, call me Nicholas.”

“Nicholas.” I drawled his name, surprised at how nice it sounded. Here was this hard-hearted person with a princely air, but a name like warm honey. I wanted to say it again, but I held my tongue. He already thought I was a simpleton and I was a little apprehensive about reinforcing that judgment.

He finally looked me up and down, and asked, “Where are you from, Violet?”

“The south.”

Eyes rolling again, he reached up and pressed his fingers to his forehead. “I know that. It’s obvious when you speak. I meant which state or territory, specifically.”

“Oh.” I tapped my fingers together behind my back and shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I’m from what’s left of Georgia. My mama is still there; back home, that is.”

“Atlanta, then?”

“That’d be the place since there’s nothing else. Well, we lived just outside of it, really. But close enough.”

He looked less forbidding this time as he leaned back against the wall. “So, how did you end up at St. Eden’s? That’s a long way from your home.”

“Not as long as this.” A pang of homesickness knifed through me – not just for my childhood home, but also for the school and the bustling streets of Los Angeles. Though the city was dark with fallout from the not-so-long-ago nuclear war between the Regime and the Constitutionals, I missed it. There was a strange, dark glamor to the city. “It’s a rather long story, but my mother sent us to the school since she went there herself many years ago.”

“There’s more than one of you?”

“I have a fraternal twin sister. She’s rather…” I thought for a moment and finally settled on, “Rebellious.”

Amusement gleamed briefly in his eyes. “That explains why they sent you when I messaged my request to the headmistress. I need a service-oriented submissive, no questions asked, and certainly no rebellion tolerated. The idea of keeping a brat around might be fun for some people, but not me. My work is too sensitive for that kind of nonsense.”

“You told me you need someone to do housework. Why negotiate a contract with the school? Why not just hire a maid?”

He stared at me, then said, “From where – the cleaning service just around the next snowdrift? I live in the middle of fucking nowhere, Violet. Look, I didn’t need a scholarly courtesan, but if you’re going to keep asking me asinine questions, I have no use for you.”

My mouth fell open and I glared back at him. “I am not an idiot,” I finally answered.

Scoffing, he turned away with a “We’ll see about that.” He motioned for me to continue following him and we walked through the house. It was easy enough to remember the layout of the first and second floors, especially because the cabin was so small.

“Is that it?” I asked as we stood at the top of the stairs. “You really just need me to cook and clean?”

“Well, there is one other area you should be aware of, though I hope you will never need to see it.”

Please tell me it’s your crotch
, I thought.
Unlike your personality, I can work with that.

He led me to the first floor once more, then into the pantry. “This is the cellar. You only have one reason to go through this door.” He placed his hand on the door between the shelves of food lining the walls. “And that is for an emergency.”

“Such as?”

“Are you capable of identifying a matter as an emergency?” He leveled another glare at me.

“Yes Nicholas.”

“Then you’ll know. Let’s get your bags upstairs and then you can look around the kitchen for something to cook tonight. Make whatever you want. I’m not picky.”

Questions continued to scroll through my mind, but I held back. The headmistress told us there were no stupid questions, but maybe she was wrong…

With Nicholas’ help, we got my luggage from just inside the front door up to my bedroom in one trip. He shut the door when he departed, leaving me alone. A wave of dizziness finally washed over me and I sat on the bed.

“Azure,” I whispered. “What do I do now?”

Fucking tundra.

Chapter 2

As soon as I regained my equilibrium, I rose and looked around my new bedroom. It was small, but larger than the one I had at the school. There was a full-sized bed with smooth, clean white sheets and a downy soft, chestnut-brown comforter. The dresser and closet were small, but I could make do with the space I had. On the plus side, it was a space completely my own – I didn’t have to deal with a hallway full of giggling young ladies, any of whom might barge in looking to borrow a brush, my curlers, or a spray of perfume.

I peeked into the bathroom attached to the bedroom. The space was small and certainly not as fancy as the kind of boudoir I was accustomed to having. It simply included a wash basin, bathtub, and toilet. Even without an elaborate vanity, I supposed it was more than adequate for me, especially since I wouldn’t be…
entertaining
my patron.

Nicholas had shown me the door to his room, but not the room itself. Still, I would probably see it soon enough with all my cleaning duties. Not that it mattered. Dwelling on that made me furious. I certainly didn’t feel rejected by Nicholas, but I did feel deceived by the headmistress and the promises of what an education at St. Eden’s meant. She had placed me on a bullshit assignment – cooking and cleaning for an exile in the middle of nowhere.

Why am I here?

Odds were that was a question to which I would not learn the answer for a very long time. Fortunately, I could provide the service expected of me. Even though we studied to be courtesans and anticipated a lifestyle replete with champagne, parties, and jewels, the curriculum still included such standard household duties as cooking and cleaning. Domestic management was one of the classes in which I had excelled at school. It was just that I had always expected the headmistress to match me with a wealthy patron, someone who needed a beautiful, charming courtesan on his arm to be a credit to him at social or business gatherings. Not…

I shook my head.

I was here now, and that meant I had to stop thinking life was going to turn out the way I’d envisioned it. Enough of my self-pity. If I bided my time, did a good job, and kept my ears and eyes open, maybe I would learn more about the headmistress’s reasons for sending me here.

So I put my coat, hat, and gloves in the closet, checked my reflection in the small round mirror above the dresser, smoothed my curls away from my face, and went downstairs.

Taking baby steps into the kitchen, I darted my eyes from side to side. The entire cabin had no odor whatsoever, nor was there anything to indicate a person actually lived there. No photographs, no artwork on the walls, no books – nothing. Most homes or business had some sort of odor that told you something about the people there. But this place was completely… sterile. It seemed inhuman to me.

To my left were counters and cabinets on one side of the pantry door. To my right was a double oven just inside the entry, a cooling chest tucked into the far corner and, separating the two appliances, counters against the walls with cabinets below them. Directly in front of me were more counters with the sink centered between them against the outside wall. I blinked at the bleached brilliance beyond the window above it.

A few steps brought me closer to my first view of a walled-in backyard. There were machines out there set in the ground, churning and puffing out clouds of steam. The area around those machines was free of snow, no doubt melted by the continuous output of heat. Atop the two outer corners of the wall sat two blue and white striped structures that looked for all the world like oversized pinwheels, but I knew better. In addition to the miniature wind turbines, I saw a cylinder with liquid measurements along the side and a trio of exhaust ports sticking up from the ground.

Nicholas was utilizing the wind, snow, and some sort of underground resource – oil, I surmised – for energy. I guessed he probably harnessed what precious little sun energy there was too. If there was one thing we learned in science, it was how to survive off the land, a class one might consider odd for a school for courtesans, but we took nothing for granted after our domestic nuclear war. It looked like Nicholas had surviving off the land down pat. Something about the set-up tugged at my memory, but I couldn’t quite place the thought. Maybe it was from a diagram I’d seen in school, but the recollection felt older than that. With a shrug, I turned back to the kitchen’s oddly pristine interior.

To my surprise, the pantry and cooling chest were both full, which left me wondering where the food came from. A glance at the small round-faced clock on the wall told me it was only two in the afternoon. I had no idea where Nicholas was or what he wanted me to make for dinner. I doubt he would demand afternoon tea, so I found a pot roast in the cooling chest and soon had it marinating in red wine and various spices. A simple, quick loaf of bread seemed like it might be a nice addition to dinner, so I prepared the dough, put it in a glass loaf pan, and slid it into the other oven to cook.

With plenty of time to kill, I left the kitchen and wandered the first floor. It was a short walk, but it helped chase the feeling of surrealism that fogged my senses. I did not handle change well, but I had to try. This situation could either be blissfully temporary or horrifyingly permanent.

The whole house was simple with wood floors throughout, wooden beams along the ceilings, and drywall. The windows were small and bare of any sort of curtain, blind, or shade. There wasn’t even a throw rug or mat at the front door to stomp the snow from one’s feet. The furniture was wooden too – a loveseat and chair in the living room, a square table and four chairs in the dining room – with no cushions on any of the seating. Even the countertops were wooden, a thick, butcher-block style. The cabin seemed very empty and bleak to me, especially after the colorful social whirl of L.A. Still, the floorboards radiated heat, the walls kept the snow out, and there was food to eat. For Nicholas, at least, that must have been enough.

For me…

There was a set of bookshelves opposite the loveseat, so I walked over and looked at the tomes arranged there. Most of it appeared to be fiction, but there was one rather dusty, plastic-jacketed book that appeared to be a photo album. I pulled it out from where it was wedged between the thick, dark spines of books with faded gold lettering, and opened it. A puff of dust filled the air before me and the motes tickled my nose, setting off an abrupt chain reaction of sneezes. When they stopped, I blinked and looked down at the book.

It was definitely a photo album – archaic now in 2150, but I knew some people still cherished such things. Flipping it open, I looked at the three photos on the first page. It was Nicholas, probably a little younger than he was now, standing with his arm around a beautiful woman. She was stunning, with glossy chestnut curls and doe-like brown eyes, and her arms were around Nicholas’ waist while she laughed for the camera. He actually looked happy. Smitten, even.

I couldn’t help but smile in response, but as my fingers parted the first page from the next and lifted it, a hand slammed down atop the photo album. With a gasp I stepped back, letting the book fall to the floor and looking up at Nicholas.

Sure, he’d been an asshole before, but now he looked infuriated, his chest heaving and eyes sparking with anger. “Don’t you touch that a fucking thing,” he snarled, bending over to yank the photo album up off the floor.

“I was just,” I swallowed as I tried to think of a good response, “dusting.”

“Don’t dust those books.” He wrapped his arm around the photo album and narrowed his eyes at me. “I told you to make supper.”

“It’s cooking.” I pointed toward the kitchen and tried to ignore the fact that my finger was trembling. Anger was not an emotion I was accustomed to encountering, and no one had ever been angry at
me
!

“Fine. Then… Keep cooking it.” With that, he turned and stormed out of the room. Even after he slammed the back door, I could still hear him stomping down the stairs into the basement.

My entire body shook as I inhaled, trying to calm my racing heart. What had I done wrong? Did he expect me to live here, cook and clean, but not touch anything? That didn’t make any sense.

I shook my head and finally turned back to the kitchen. There was not even so much as a radio on the countertops there. Cleaning such a small house wouldn’t be very difficult, so how would I fill my time with something other than silence and the circle of questions firing in my mind? Apparently the books were off-limits. Or maybe just the one book – the mysterious photo album with its photo of a man who was obviously in love, an emotion
this
Nicholas hardly seemed capable of feeling.

While I made dinner, I tried to ignore those frustrating questions. Unfortunately, the silence made it all too easy to dwell on them.
I’m going to drive myself crazy
, I thought.
I can’t do this.

Azure, had she been here, would have said, “Fuck this fucking shit,” and either found a way out of it or a way to make the best of it.

Gods, how I missed her.

An old tune came to mind and I hummed a few bars. Soon, I was singing it and the melody made me feel a little better while I peeled potatoes and carrots, preheated the oven, and assembled everything in a covered pan. There was nothing to do but find a way to make this work. I pushed the pan into the oven alongside the bread, set the timer, and looked around the kitchen. Since the house was already spotless, I decided to put my belongings away.

In my room, I opened the valise and smiled. I had my portable lyriphone – of course! The palm-sized piece of digital technology was a remnant of the world before the Regime, before the rigid laws forbidding the possession of such devices. Only Regime-sanctioned radio stations were permitted. Those broadcasting on other bands were traced and arrested, which meant no music, no news other than what the Regime wanted us to hear. Certainly no anti-government talk broadcast for the public to hear, which was unfortunate, because I hated the Regime. The headmistress gave each student a gift upon placement with a patron, and this tiny token of rebellion was mine. I cherished it, despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that it was contraband.

Wait…

Was it contraband if I was in the forsaken zone, beyond the borders of the Regime-controlled territories?

Nope.

I pushed the button below the screen, scrolled through the playlists I had assembled with the headmistress’s blessing, and found the song I wanted to hear. The harmonious drawl of a trio of women singers filled my room, making me both homesick and happy. As I danced across the room, putting my things away, my voice rose with each new song.

And when I happened to twirl toward the door, he was standing there, arms folded, eyes wide.

Dang.

He quirked an eyebrow at me and opened his mouth.

Maybe he had come to apologize, so I pressed my lips together, clasped my hands behind my back and tried to look innocent…

…and failed miserably as I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling and a smile tugged at the corners of my lips. Somehow, I held in the laughter that threatened to escape from me. After being unceremoniously dumped on a grumpy patron, then insulted and yelled at by him, it seemed I was on the verge of hysterics.

Apparently, my mirth wasn’t contagious, because he turned and walked away.

Double dang.

I turned down the music and finished putting everything in its place. The room looked slightly homier now.

A distant chime pinged below me and I practically ran down the stairs to check on dinner. What the patron wants, the patron gets – that was what St. Eden’s had taught me. If Nicholas gave me unlimited permission to speak, so be it. If he wanted dinner, I had to make it. If he demanded…

Would he ask anything intimate of me? It seemed highly unlikely, according to his own admission. With that thought, a fresh wave of misery washed over me. What would I receive in exchange for all this work? Certainly not someone to keep my bed warm through the long nights. I slid the oven mitts over my hands and sighed as I placed the steaming roasting pan on top of the stove, followed by the other roasting pan and loaf pan.

To be someone’s submissive was to be cherished, to serve, and receive something in return. That something was usually emotional validation and physical affection. It was something some people needed – something some of us had to have to be happy. Nicholas seemed incapable of the first and disinterested in the second, which left me a highly trained service submissive working as an unpaid maid, rather than matched up with the patron of my dreams.

My lower lip trembled at the fatalistic thought.
This is my life now. I’m with a man who somehow lost the capacity to love or cherish a woman.
He obviously had it once…

Then reason in my sister’s voice kicked in.
It’s only the first day. So what if it isn’t what you expected? Get over it. You have a lifetime to figure it out and change what you don’t like about it. Besides, there’s a juicy story there, Vi.

With a nod and a small, niggling feeling of resolve, I set the table and served diner. Before I even had to wrangle with the question of how to get Nicholas to the table, he walked into the dining room, sat at the head of the table, and cut into his roast. The house might have been odorless before, but now it was filled with the scent of dinner. I bit back a giggle at the idea of him following his nose to the table.