Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (48 page)

“Not happening.”

“Fine,” Julio sighs. “Rex, what do you deem as worthy punishment?”

“One week suspension, she has to work at the Morretti’s as a server. Two weeks without pay after that.”

“That’s kind of steep, big man. She is right,” Julio stresses.

“No, she isn’t. It’s that or I add more time on each,” Rex threatens.

“Done,” Julio negotiates. “C’mon, girl. Stanton is going to skin you alive.”

“You’re fucking serious? Are. You. Fucking. Serious?” I state slowly, in case they misheard me the first time. “Did I enter the twilight zone where women are worthless pieces of shit that have to take it just because a man says so? I think I’d rather play rape-and-seek than suffer this life,” I hiss.

“What is rape-and-seek?” Rex asks, looking mighty confused. “Girl, you shouldn’t be saying shit like that. A good girl waits ‘til marriage.”

“Well, I ain’t a good girl, now am I?” I stare Rex down with my dead-eyes. “And sometimes you’re just unlucky enough to be forced… and sometimes you’re cursed to the point that no one would ever marry you,” I angrily hiss, realizing that I’ve never said it out loud, but it doesn’t make it any less true. I’m close to tears and I hate it.

“Misogyny or rape,” I snarl. “Jesus Christ, save me from this shitty fucking life you fated me with,” I say to the ceiling. “I’d love to be a sixteen-year-old girl whose biggest problems are who’s gonna ask you to some stupid dance and if my ass looks fat or if I’m gonna flunk geometry.”

Wil stares at me with pity and it hurts me to see. “Fine, whatever. It’s doesn’t fucking matter anyway. I’ll take the punishment. I’ll go get lectured by Stanton and suffer his disappointment for the rest of my life. But know this, Rex,” I poke his chest with a fingertip. “You were in the fucking wrong and that a teenage girl is taking the responsibility for it. Remember that the next time you call
me
the kid.”

I walk out, without a backward glance to Wil. I want him. I love him. I miss him. But he disrespects me, underestimates me, and makes me feel like shit on the inside- just like everyone else does.

~Chapter Thirty-Seven~

Stanton turned into a
demon when Julio marched me into Stanton’s downtown office. I succinctly explained everything, leaving out that Wil was the customer. Julio backed me up. Stanton then called Rex and listened, never speaking a word. Then Stanton hung up the phone and looked at me, scrutinized me, for at least an hour. I had to stand there sweating under his penetrating stare.

Stanton said I was ungrateful and he was disappointed in me. I now work at Morretti’s seven days a week after I clean up after dinner until closing. Stanton was angry that he was going to have to work from home to be with Bianca because I was a disrespectful bitch who only thought of herself, not the pressure my actions put on others. I still have to work for Rex, no week off to cool down. Stanton upped the two weeks with no pay to two months. I have to work at Morretti’s for tips only and for Rex for free. Stanton pointed at the dollar sign on my hand, completely misreading its meaning, and told me I needed to know the true value of a dollar. I am spoiled, entitled, and unrealistic of the real world.

I had a four hour lecture about how disappointed Stanton was in me, how I was letting my sister down. Then I was punished for wasting five hours of Stanton’s precious time. Since hard work isn’t cutting it and my sister’s love isn’t getting through to me, Stanton used humiliation instead.

I spent three hours standing in the reception area of our building- in a bra and panties.
I was exposed, humiliated, and reduced- and it killed something inside of me. I had a sign around my neck that read
bad girl
. I was reduced to inked skin and the fabric covering my private parts- no longer a human being. The men that work for Stanton, that I’d tried to befriend, leered at me disrespectfully and called me names I’ve never heard before. If I thought I felt bad about myself before, I was wrong.

Whore is a mild word now.

It’s three a.m. and closing in on freezing temperatures, and yet I refuse to go back into the apartment. I sit in a chair on the roof and gaze out into nothingness- I’m nothing.

“Are you ever coming in again?” Stanton asks from his perch on the half-wall that surround the roof.
If I didn’t love and respect Stanton, it would only take two seconds to murder him by a sharp thrust of the heels of my palms against his chest. He would fall five stories to his death. But I do love him and I do respect him. It’s just too damned bad that he doesn’t return the sentiment.

I ignore him, as I’v
e ignored whatever came out of his mouth for the last half hour. I figured that my not moving was answer enough. I’m pretty sure that he’s been apologizing his ass off and that my punishment has been pardoned.

“I can’
t let you stay up her, Faith,” Stanton tries again, but this time he finally hits a nerve.

“Don’t ever call me that,” I vehemently spit.  It was severe enough that Stanton flinched.

I take a deep breath and pin Stanton with my furious gaze. “I think it’s time you listened to someone else talk for five minutes,” I begin, knowing I’m being disrespectful. “There are two types of little girls. Bianca and Fate were one type. They get doted on, cherished, and loved. They have to be quiet and pretty for the attention. It hurts them. But it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as the second type. Those daughters are forgotten and made to feel badly about themselves, lowered to the position of a throwaway fuck. But one thing is mandatory of all women, that they don’t have freewill or a mind of their own. The ones with the dicks are in charge. This is engrained in all of us from the time we are born- it may be instinctual, from a time long ago where it was the men who killed the food and protected their families.”

“Faith,” Stanton
softly says, walking over to sit next to me- brave man, especially since he said that word again and it wasn’t in the context of religion.

“Do you know why I hate that name?”
I whisper, pretending that Stanton’s arm doesn’t go around my shoulders in comfort- his comfort because he hates me being angry with him. Most misogynistic pigs hate it when the women in their lives are angry or ignore them- it crushes their huge egos that someone doesn’t think they create the oxygen necessary to sustain their lives.

“No,” Stan says with a shrug
and pulls my side against his chest.

“Lara Simpson named me that, and then she threw me away, and my daddy let her,” I say, turning my head so Stanton has to look me in the eyes. “It disrespects me every time someone calls me Faith,” I say in a dead voice.

“I…”

“I’m angry with you, Stanton. I don’t want to go inside your apartment. Frankly, I’m sitting here wondering if whoring myself out to Ezra is better than this.” Stanton sucks in a pained gasp and I feel no pleasure from it.
“The only reason I haven’t run to ShadowHaven and crawled in bed next to Ezra, is because he is my friend and I’m protecting him by enduring your control.”

“It isn’t either/
or… I fucked up today. I’d never done that before. It’s why I’ve never taken a girlfriend or wife. It’s why I pay for my release. Emotions- fear- always brought this out in my father, and I don’t want to be like him. I know,” Stanton makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “I know who else was there today, Syn. Rex recognized his name as one of the people that needed reported to me.”

“
Wil has always known where I was. He knew the same night I did,” I admit.

“You told him?” Stanton has the nerve to sound betrayed.

“No, I didn’t. He just knew. I think it was Boyd because Grant didn’t tell anyone. I did tell Ezra. If anyone didn’t want me anywhere near Ezra, it’s Ezra.”

“Shit, we’re going to have to move you,” Stan says in a panic. I grab his hand and dig my fingernails into his skin until the pain clears his mind.

“No,” I order. “I’m not running. If they find me, they find me, and I will meet it head-on. But I trust Wil. I shouldn’t, but I do. As I said, Ezra has too much to lose by coming to see me. He only knows that he can find me at The Black Death.”

“You better be right,” Stanton warns, and I agree with him. But I’m the one with everything to lose. “I need to say my piece.”

“No, you’re going to listen this time. I was lectured for five hours and endured three hours of humiliation. If you are sorry, then you will listen and comprehend.”

“Yes, Syn,” Stanton acquiesces.

“Fate’s daddy would have reacted differently to how Rex behaved today than Faith’s daddy, and he was the same man. Just as how Bianca’s daddy would have reacted differently than Syn’s guardian, and he is the same man. If I had been a sixteen-year-old Bianca who had been made fun of to her face in front of a customer or who had to listen to ‘are you ragging it’, her daddy would’ve taken all that anger he’d directed at Syn and put it where it was supposed to go- on Rex. A man I trusted and looked up to, made fun of me for being a woman, like I am less because of it, and then he proceeded to talk about my private parts… and no one stood up for me… and when I stood up for myself, I was punished for having a voice. You, Stanton, wanted to squash that voice.”

I silently sit for a moment and Stanton is smart enough to keep his mouth shut
. He tries to draw me closer, but I won’t budge. I organize my thoughts as I listen to gunfire, alarms, and sirens as if we are in a warzone.

“I wish I was invisible,” I whisper. “Growing
up, it hurt Lara to look at me. So Fate didn’t know any better than to treat me like shit, which made my daddy hold back when they were around. Wil told me he hated everything about me… and then you and Grant said you’d protect me. Well, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of Grant in almost seven weeks, and you, Stanton, you made me feel worse than anyone has ever made me feel.”

“I’m just skin that takes up space. I have no true purpose. I am worthless. I have nothing to offer anyone. I get it, Stanton. I understood what you were doing to me in the reception area. You wanted to humiliate me, show your employees that I will never be their equal. You wanted them to see me as a sexual object
, or worse- absolutely nothing.”

I
take a deep breath and stare Stanton in the eyes. “I’m not invisible and I’m not nothing. I am a human being. I can see that you regret what you did- that a part of you is like your daddy- the man that your momma ran from. You did this and now you wish you didn’t. But you can take the punishments away, and I’ll still do them. You can pay me, and I’ll give it back. Because it’s not me who needs a damn lesson- it’s you, Stanton.”

I stand up and look down at him, so he know
s, just this once, what it feels like to be smaller- less than.

“You need to know that just because you
were born with a dick, that it doesn’t make you a better human being. You tell me to fuck Ezra, and then blame me for it when it’s over. That doesn’t make me a whore- it makes you all rapists and child predators. You all spend so much energy making me feel bad about myself so that you don’t have to look in the mirror. You tell me I’m a child, you treat me like a child, but you punish me like I’m a criminal. I promise you this,” I point at Stanton, the need to punch him not ebbing. “My sister will not be lowered into either category- she isn’t a throwaway fuck and she isn’t a mindless princess. If you don’t let Bianca grow into Bianca, you’ll wish you never introduced us.”

“Syn,” Stanton bites out.

“No,” I hiss. “I’m done for the night. I don’t want to hear anything out of your mouth. It’s all a contradiction. Human being,” I shout, pounding my chest. “You’re the one who disappointed me, who let me down, who didn’t protect me or stand up for me, who made me feel badly about myself. I’m not being selfish thinking about myself. I just want to know if any of you ever think of anyone else but yourselves, because those who accuse others of being selfish are usually the selfish ones.”

“Let me apologize,” Stanton tries.

“I don’t want to hear it. You have no idea how many ‘I’m sorries’ I’ve had to stomach in my life. The apology is never about the one who was wronged. It’s about lessening the guilt. I don’t want to hear powerless words. Prove it, Stanton. Prove that you deserve to have
me
in your life. I don’t need to hear how you forgive me or aren’t disappointed in me or how you will protect me. I forgive myself. I’m not disappointed in myself. I will protect myself. Today taught me that I can’t trust anyone for anything.”

~Chapter Thirty-Eight~

Pixy,

It’s been awhile. As you already know, I’m not the mushy type. I can’t wax poetic and offer my undying love. But I don’t want you to think I’d forgotten you
, either. I do know you, and I know what you’re missing. So, I’ll give you all the gossip that I’m sure you haven’t heard while in the vacuum of your captivity.