I soon switched off and forgot about the cameras, as I didn’t fully understand what they meant. I grew bored of them watching me, and there was nothing I could do about them.
When I was older, I discovered his library by a pure lapse of Master William’s mind. He always kept one door locked, which led to his end of the house and his rooms. Because of this one powerful door, which shut me off from his privacy, he didn’t have to lock each and every room within.
He got drunk on my birthday every year, and when Mistress was alive, he could afford to be more careless. But now she was dead and he’d made a big mistake. It was my first birthday after he’d slaughtered her, and he obviously wasn’t thinking when he started hitting the bottle. He never drank at home any other day of the year.
I was on my way to my room to save myself from the punishment which would come when he woke up and realized what he had done, but then I saw the door was wide open. It was a temptation calling out to me, too hard to resist.
I knew he was blind drunk, out cold on the couch downstairs, and I was old enough to smell an adventure and be a teenaged rebel. That open door beckoned to me. I was curious.
He didn’t have cameras in his wing of the house, so I was free to enter the library without fear of being filmed. I knew I had at least six hours before he would regain consciousness.
The library, I discovered, housed all the footage he had taken of me over the years. Everything was labeled and dated. He must have spent hours editing so he had the most memorable moments of each month of my life recorded.
The fucking perv.
It was proof of my existence. These were his personal tapes to view as he pleased.
I spent three hours watching as much of my childhood as I could, for I knew he would not make the same mistake twice. I watched the pain of the little girl growing up before my eyes, as I fast forwarded through year after year. I felt so sad for what that little girl had been forced to become.
I was too scared to stay there any longer because I was breaking the rules. Very costly rules if I was caught.
Sadly, I couldn’t stop the inevitable. I was led into a false numbness, which had protected me from thinking about what worse things could be done to me to degrade and humiliate me for his pleasure.
Master William liked routine, but things escalated when I turned eighteen. I had been made to watch porn for hours and hours on my eighteenth birthday.
That was the day I was introduced to his satin, midnight black, hooded shirt and pants — his uniform.
Master William had me sit between his legs with my back against his chest while I viewed what he put on for me. All I wanted to do was shut my eyes and think about one of those romance movies I had watched, but he would know if I wasn’t paying attention and I would be punished for my insolence.
I always did as I was told. It was the smartest move. I was granted reasonably safe passage if I did what I was asked of me the first time.
On this birthday, I was expected to learn from these women, who had sex in the back of taxis and on couches, on kitchen floors and counter tops, while their bodies got sweaty and their makeup ran down their faces, making them look like racoons. Some got slapped about and appeared to enjoy it, while others liked their throats clenched as they struggled for air, their eyes bulging, while the man pumped and grunted inside them in front of the camera.
I watched, not understanding what was going to come next.
I heard his breathing change and felt his hardness poking into my lower back. I did not flinch or show my discomfort. It was better to play ignorant and not invite the devil in. I remained outwardly calm, while I was so fearful on the inside, my heart pounding heavily against my chest. It wanted to escape from this man too.
Master William had requested I wear the new low cut white maxi dress he’d recently purchased for me. I still didn’t understand what was expected of me while I watched the porn, and felt nothing but fear as I tried to ignore his hardness pushing through his loose black pants into my back.
I had been obediently watching, when one hand snaked around and latched onto my throat, squeezing my neck tight. My immediate reaction was to panic and start bucking against his chest.
That little box I had her murder tucked away in burst open like a jack-in-the-box, and I thought I was going to have my throat slit too. I cried out pathetically, knowing nobody would hear me on his property. He lived on a lot of land, and there was not a single neighbor close by. I was only ever allowed a short distance from the house, and I didn’t mind. I didn’t like venturing too far, but I welcomed the sunshine and the rain.
I wanted sunshine and rain now so badly.
My heart skipped a beat and I gasped when his other hand slid down between my legs and moved up slowly. The sounds coming from the porn were drowned out by my heartbeat pounding frantically inside my head.
What is he doing?
His growl in my ear was deeply low and menacing. “Your time is running out, Whisper. I’ve been patient, more patient than should be asked and expected of any man, who has you tempting him every day. Who knew you were going to turn into such a beauty? I cocooned you for all these years, and you turned into a beautiful butterfly.” His unshaven face was scratching my skin. I could smell his stale breath from the cigars he liked to smoke. I tried never to look at him if I could help it. It was better for me to think of him as a faceless man, rather than the attractive man he was, even in his late forties.
He shouldn’t be attractive.
He is so ugly on the inside.
He is a contradiction.
He is a Venus flytrap.
When my mistress was alive, I knew he went out, and now I understand more fully why he went out. I remember hearing her talking to him. She was jealous about what he had been doing, even though he did it to her as well.
When he’d killed her, he started cuffing and chaining me to a floor-to-ceiling thick pole that was inside a deep storage closet whenever he went out. I waited in the dark until he returned and released me, the heavy chain weighing my torso to the pole. I would dream of more for my life when I was inside that closet. It was the only way to make it through. I would go to my happy place of movies and let them play out in my mind until he came for me. I was no longer in a closet, though. I was in a big room watching a big screen TV and laying on a soft comfortable couch with a warm blanket. I always saved the comedies for that place.
I feared then he wanted to do it to me. I understood then what their conversations were about.
As I walk aimlessly, I let my mind wander back to that wretched night.
***
His hand had stalled.
“Watch the television. Watch what I will do to you. I have kept you whole. You have no idea how much I want to take you now.” He bites my shoulder hard and takes his time letting go.
I’m frozen with fright.
I’m screaming on the inside.
“Today, you just watch.” The remote clicks by my ear and the movie speeds up to a scene he’s obviously all too familiar with and he hits play.
The guy has the girl in front of him. She’s naked while he’s standing behind her clothed and cupping her chin in his hand. One finger’s moving up and down her slit, while her head rolls back onto his shoulder as she closes her eyes and moans. He pushes it in further, and she cries out in pleasure as the camera zooms in to show his glistening finger as he pumps it in and out of her. She tries to stand still, but her body betrays her and her hips move, greedy for more.