my back to the mirror, trying to get a look at the tattoo. All I can see is that it’s carefully covered in plastic.
I go through the drawers for a handheld mirror to get a look at it but find none. I’ll have to ask him to show me. I hate that I have to ask him for anything. But the truth is, I know I’ll have to ask for everything.
By the time I get out of the shower, the bed has been remade, the soiled bedding gone, and the lamp righted. Brand new candles have been placed inside the candleholders, a few already lit.
The large walk-in closet is filled with clothes, all new and all in my size, but hardly any of it my style. I choose the simplest sweater and pair of jeans I can find and put them on along with a pair of comfortable, thick socks. I don’t bother with shoes. They mostly have high heels. I slip the rosary on although it’s cumbersome but then I hear his words again.
“I think you’ll do exactly as you’re told.”
I reach beneath my sweater, take it off and set it beside the bed. He can’t seriously expect me to wear a freaking rosary around my neck 24/7.
I go to the door and try it. I expect it to be locked so I’m not surprised when I find it is. I guess he’s not taking any chances that he’s wrong. That I won’t do as he says. With a shake of my head, I turn back into the room, trying to ignore the part of me that is relieved at least one choice to disobey him has been taken away.
My gaze lands on that mask. It’s in a glass box set on a stand and I go to it, open it. It’s not locked.
It’s ugly and beautiful at once, the mask. Made of metal with, if I peer close, skulls and roses carved into it, the letters of the society, I.V.I, the V slightly larger than the I’s on either side woven in with the skulls and roses. De La Rosa. Of the rose. It must be what’s on the back of my neck too.
I lift the thing out and remember how that weight felt on my head. My neck could almost not bear it. But that probably had something to do with the sex. With how he took me. There’s a flutter in my stomach at the memory, and I wonder how I can be turned on by something like that. By someone like him.
But I am. And I’m not going to lie to myself about it. I’ve not been with a man before him so I can’t judge, but all I know is I’ve never come so hard as when he made me come. And even given the rawness between my legs, I’m aroused thinking about it.
There’s another side to this too, though. He was just as turned on.
“Maybe I’m not the only weak one, Santiago.”
I put the mask back on its stand and run my fingers under the small chains that dangle from it, crosses hanging off them. I remember the Hail Marys he made me say as my punishment.
“Freak,” I say to the room and walk to the two windows on the far wall. I have to pull up a chair and stand on it to see outside, and I can’t open either of them because they’re actually bigger windows, but the wood all around the room has been carved to only let in this little bit of light. I wonder if he chose this room especially for me. I’m sure he did. Will he deprive me even of sunlight?
I step down off the chair carefully, holding onto the back when I feel myself wobble, then lower myself into the seat.
He could do that. Keep me prisoner in this room. It would be the same as holding me in a cell below ground.
I rub my face and get up. Walk around. Take in the carvings on the wooden walls. Skulls and roses. Like the posts on the bed. The one he bound me to. The whole thing is stifling.
It doesn’t take me long to look through everything and then I sit, and I wait.
But he doesn’t come for me as the sun begins to descend the sky. He doesn’t come as I light all the candles in the room and wait. He doesn’t come long after I’ve changed into a nightgown and even when my