Freed (6 page)

Ellie / Jenny:

The next few days were idyllic.

For the first time in my life, I was truly enjoying sex. I was embracing my own sexuality. I was dressing with an eye to both please Alexander and torment him. We’d gone out one night to a small restaurant in the neighborhood and I’d excused myself at one point, gone to the washroom, removed my panties and come back to my seat. I’d laid them on the table in front of him with complete abandon. “If you want to skip dessert, Sir?” I’d whispered, not bothering to hide the need in my eyes.

He’d spanked me for that in the playroom, his eyes laughing at me. I’d giggled and begged for more.

During the day, I wandered all over Paris, shadowed by the ever-present guards. Alexander hadn’t made any attempt to conceal their presence from me. He’d told me openly that the bodyguards were for my protection and I was welcome to meet them if I’d wanted. I’d declined, reasoning that Jenny Fullerton would be uneasy with guards. She would prefer to forget they existed.

While I played tourist, Alexander was busy at work, but whatever he had been working on, he seemed to be done with it by the weekend. He emerged from his study Friday afternoon, shut the door behind him and announced that he was at my disposal for the upcoming week. “Want to get away?” he asked me with a quirk of his mouth. “Shall we head to Arles and then explore the south of France?”

“Isn’t Arles the city where Van Gogh was committed?” I asked him. An old nugget of information from a very long time ago. I’d loved museums before I’d been taken. I had poured over biographies of artists, trying to figure out what drove them to their art.

“It does have more to recommend it than that,” he retorted dryly. “But the place I’m thinking of showing you is a small village outside Arles. I own a farmhouse there.”

“Must be nice,” I quipped. He said he liked me brave and unafraid? That came with a side-helping of smart-assery. “You know, owning a house in every city.”

He grinned. “It’s very good to be me indeed.” His eyes ran over me appreciatively. “I’ve a beautiful woman in my house and I get to have my evil way with her whenever I want.”

“Four times a week according to the contract,” I intoned solemnly. Which was such bullshit. I’d wanted to sleep with him last night. I’d been the one to ask him if I could spend the night in his bed.

He’d smiled a strange little smile and muttered, “Of course,
cherie
.”

I’d have liked to pretend that it was the thought of making myself indispensable to him that drew me to his side, but if I’d ever had a moment of pure selfishness, it was this. Similar to Paris two years ago, in his arms, I slept well. I wasn’t haunted by nightmares. I felt cared for and cherished.

The day Sylvia was supposed to come to Paris drew closer. I didn’t let myself think about it. I thought it was strange that Alexander was treating me like a lover when he purportedly had a girlfriend, one that he’d kissed with obvious heat at Madame Lorraine’s. But I couldn’t pretend to understand the motivations of someone who was so rich that bidding a million dollars for three months of a woman’s company was a commonplace act.

I was ignoring the truth in favour of the fantasy. I was relishing the freeing sensation of letting go of my fear in the playroom. What resulted was playful and fiery and passionate. It was sex like I’d never experienced it.

I’d never been in love; I didn’t know what it felt like, but I suspected that it was this. I smiled when I thought of him. I looked at him with stars in my eyes and I started to forget who he was. And I was falling, falling so hard and so deep.

***

Alexander:

We could have flown to Arles. I went away to the farmhouse many times during the year and I usually flew, since it was a seven hour drive from Paris. But with Jenny, I wanted to savour the journey. “Shall we take the train?”

“That seems very normal, Alexander. Is the jet in the shop?”

“I do fly most of the time,” I admitted. She had me think about my wealth in a way that I hadn’t done for many years. “But the train’s fun too.”

“First class, I’m assuming?” Again, her voice was dry.

“Would you prefer otherwise,
cherie?
”

She giggled, her voice a merry peal of sound. “No, I’m just messing with you,” she admitted cheerfully. “You actually blush when I make fun of your money.”

I felt the heat rise in my cheeks and I had to laugh in response. No one teased me. I had several good friends from boarding school, but we didn’t see each other frequently enough. My employees and I treated each other with professional courtesy. Jean-Luc, with his dry humour and slight mockery was as close as it had gotten in many years.

“Brat,” I chided. “Go get packed. There’s a train every hour, but it’s almost a five hour ride.”

I hoisted the bag she’d packed, ignoring her protests about how she could carry it by herself. My bright star had an independent streak that I loved, but I still wanted to spoil her.

At the Gare de Lyon, she giggled again and grabbed my forearm, resting her cheek against me. “Alexander,” she asked. “Is it true that you can drink on trains?”

“Of course,” I replied.

“I want to.” She winked at me. “I still cannot believe you can get wine at McDonalds here. It’s crazy.”

I gestured to the backpack I was carrying. “I have a surprise,” I told her. “There’s a picnic in there. Elodie packed it for us. Wine, sandwiches, salad and fruit.”

She made an impressed face. “On the one hand, I could make some fun about the billionaire waving his arm and getting a picnic arranged,” she started, “but…”

“But?”

“There’s wine, right?”

“There’s always wine, Jenny.”

We took our seats, facing each other and I unzipped the backpack, pulling out a wine bottle and two plastic cups. “Sorry about the makeshift glassware,” I said. “I was afraid that real wine glasses would break.”

She took a sip. “Are you kidding me? This is the most human I’ve seen you.”

I looked at her thoughtfully. “I haven’t always been rich, you know.”

“You didn’t grow up rich?”

I nodded. “I did, but any money I now have I made on my own. I had a falling out with my family when I was seventeen and I left home the next year, determined not to return until I could do so on my own terms.”

“What happened?” Her voice was soft.

***

My aunt drops the glass she carries and it shatters at her feet. Her wild gaze moves from Angela, tied up against the central wooden post to me. There’s judgement and condemnation in her eyes. “Monster,” she accuses me.

“No, Madame, it is not the way it looks,” Angela stammers. “I asked Alexander…”

The look that my aunt gives Angela silences the German girl. “Untie her,” my aunt orders. “Now.”

I shrug. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” I tell her. “Fine.”

I free Angela from her bindings and the blonde girl hastily snatches her dress and slides it over her head. Covered, she tries to reason with my aunt again. “Madame, please understand, Alex didn’t…”

“This does not concern you.” My aunt’s voice is icy. “Leave us. I need to talk to Alexander.”

I try to shoot Angela a reassuring look. “I’ll call you later, okay?” I lace my fingers in hers. “It’s fine.”

When Angela is making her way home, I turn to my aunt with genuine anger in my eyes. “What right do you have to do that?”

“You monster.” This time, her voice has no emotion. “The apple never falls too far from the tree, does it?”

And then she tells me who my father is and what he has done, and who I really am.

That night, I jump off a high bridge into the river, intending to kill myself. I don’t die. Instead, my head hits a rock and I spend the next three months in a hospital in a medically induced coma. When I am finally ready to return home, I don’t stay long. I have a new plan now.

***

“Stuff,” I said vaguely. “Life. Drink your wine. Here’s some cheese.”

I pulled out the neat packages of food and set it in front of her. “Alexander,” she protested. “I’m not that hungry.”

She never ate enough. I remembered the open relish with which she’d eaten the
pain au chocolat
two years ago. This week, away from Paris, I was hoping to get that woman back, the one who had laughed and played a game of truth and dare with me. Already, I could feel her relax around me. The initial tension in Bangkok had faded and she looked more comfortable.

Which was so good. Whatever her mission was, I hadn’t been lying to her. Consent was critical to me. If she had been at all reluctant, nothing could have come of the two of us.

“You never tell me anything about yourself.”

Fair enough. Not that she was much better at that. I leaned back in my seat with a smile. “Ask me a question and I’ll answer,” I promised. “But there’s a catch. You’ll have to answer the same question.”

She gave me a slow, considering look. “Fair enough,” she replied. Then she flashed me a smile. “Have you ever measured your dick?”

I laughed out aloud. Smart ass. I reached forward for a piece of cheese. “Of course,” I deadpanned. “I was sixteen. It seemed like a very necessary thing to do.”

She laughed as well. “Why? It’s, ahem, rather sizeable.” She blushed as she spoke.

My dick was stirring in my pants, aroused by her humour and her flat-out sexiness. “Sixteen year old teenagers aren’t particularly rational, Jenny. Was that the only thing you wanted to know? ”

“I was just being funny,” she admitted. “Okay, I’ll play. Tell you what.” She held up the magazine she was reading. It had a lurid pink cover. One headline blared ‘
Learn to please your man in 5 easy steps.
’ “There’s a quiz here.” She read the passage, then looked up. “Where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world?”

That was simple. “We are headed there. The farmhouse in Provence.”

“Why?”

I thought about the warmth the house always radiated. The lime-washed walls, the large copper stove, the pots and pans that hung from the ceiling. The smell of baking that lingered in the kitchen.

Sunlight felt different in Provence; the air itself smelled sweeter. The tiled courtyard was flanked by lavender bushes. The fading walls were covered with climbing roses. The sloping terracotta roof flashed red in the light and the gardens were everywhere.

This was the farmhouse I grew up in when I wasn’t in boarding school. I had memories of walking through the vegetable gardens in the back, plucking sun-warmed cherry tomatoes off the vine. I used to lie in the middle of the fragrant fields of lavender and dream the hours away. In the winter, when the cold wind blew, the flames roared in the fireplace and the big kitchen table would groan with food.              

“When I was in boarding school, during summer break, I would go to the farmhouse and during winter break, I’d visit my father. My father’s home was always filled with presents and toys and servants. The farmhouse, on the other hand, just had my aunt, who was always dour and taciturn. But the farmhouse was still home.”

“Why?” she asked again.

“I can’t explain,” I replied. “I just feel connected there. Rooted. Everywhere I go, every single place I live in, I try to recreate Provence. My rooftop garden, for example.” And in the first house I ever bought, in a suburb in Paris. The house that I took her to the first night I met her. “You’ll see. We are heading there tonight.”

Her eyes softened. “Thank you for taking me there,” she said.

From the first day, I’d wanted to show her my home. “Your turn,” I told her. “Where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world?”

“On an island,” she said promptly. “In the middle of the sea.”

“Why? Do you like the water?”

“I do,” she said. “But that’s not why.”

“Why then?”

She hesitated. She took a sip of her wine. I could tell she was wondering how to answer my question. “On an island,” she finally confided, “I’d feel safe. I can see everything. There’ll be a hill and my house will be right on top. From all sides, I’d be able to see the water. I’d be able to know if someone approaches.”

I thought of the image she was painting, one of a sad girl sitting in a glass house on top of a hill, always watching for her tormentors. This was more than simple domestic abuse, more than a master beating his submissive without her consent. This was trauma, etched deep into her soul. I wished I knew why. I wished I could help.

“Next question,” I said instead.

She looked at the magazine article. “Who writes these questions, honestly?” she asked no one in particular. “Okay, would you rather travel by sailboat or by a cruise ship?”

That was a dumb question. “This time, you answer first,” I told her, topping up her glass. When she looked doubtful at the pour, I grinned. “I thought you wanted to drink on the train, Jenny.”

She rolled her eyes. “Drink, yes. Throw up, no.”

“I’ll hold your hair back,
cherie
,” I assured her. “Come on. Sailboat or cruise ship?”