Consumed (Keeping her in the Dark)

Consumed

Leslie
Sansom

Keeping
Her in the Dark
– Vol. Two

Copyright
2014

Leslie
Sansom

Keeping
Her in the Dark
– Vol. Two

All
rights reserved.

Formatting
by:
Tugboat Design

And the darkness
continues

I’ve read that lions like to hunt
during the coolest hour of the night. They are patient hunters and hide behind
tall grass and shrubs waiting for the perfect time to strike. The lioness
usually goes for the throat of her prey to suffocate it and prevent the victim
from scrambling to his feet. While clutching the throat of her victim it is
said she can often look at him right in the eye, before crushing his throat
with her powerful jaws. Even with this knowledge, I wrote the email.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt that when she received
the boxes of clothes, books, and personal items there would be no need for an
explanation. But I wrote the email anyway. I knew that she would open the
boxes, go through the clothes, and flip through the books and know I boxed them
up.

Actually she would look at them knowing I had someone else
box them up. She would know I couldn’t stand to have them in my house anymore.
But I wrote and sent the email anyway.

I had the clothes cleaned many times and they still smelled
like her. Several of the books had folded pages or bookmarks still marking her
place. The antique silver brush she bought at a flea market still has a few of
her hairs in the bristles. The matching mirror still holds her reflection. No
matter how many times I look in it, I only see her face. She is everywhere and
in everything, but I sent the email anyway.

She has no reason to forgive me, and I have no defense in
my asking. None of the circumstances for my doing what needed to be done have
changed, but I sent the email anyway.

She is the lioness to my gazelle. She holds my throat in
her mouth and her claw on my heart. It is the coldest hour of the night, and
her teeth could crush my throat at any moment, but I sent the email anyway.

From: Liam Hastings ([email protected]) November 4

To: Norah Chandler ([email protected])

Norah,

In a few days you will receive several boxes containing
your belongings. Please let me know if I have forgotten anything.

I don’t know what else to say.

I miss you,

Liam Hastings

I checked my email relentlessly for a week, but she never
responded. I didn’t really expect her to. I didn’t even know if I wanted her to
respond. I guess I just wanted to know that she was alright. I knew I had made
the right decision last month about our relationship, but it didn’t make it any
easier. I missed her. I sent another email at the end of November and still got
no reply. I let some more time pass and tried again.

From: Liam Hastings ([email protected])December 17

To: Norah Chandler ([email protected])

Norah,

Christmas is approaching and while I was window shopping
I saw something that reminded me of you, so you will again receive another
package from me.

I hope you and your family are well and you are adjusting
back to your life in the states seamlessly.

The house is quiet, except for when Sophia brings her
daughter to work with her of course. She is growing very fast.

Merry Christmas and May the New Year bring you all you
deserve.

I miss you,

Liam Hastings

Again, days went by without a
response. I sent two more emails about nothing in particular, but heard nothing
back. Christmas came and went without a word. I did receive my present back
marked ‘Return to Sender’. The New Year came in, in both my country and hers,
and still not a word.

I wasn’t sure if I should keep
trying or just let it go. I had been the one to turn her away after all. I had
been the one to leave her behind. I knew I should stop trying to contact her
for now and let more time pass, but I couldn’t. I needed to hear from her, no
matter what she had to say to me. I wanted to know if she was alright, if she
hated me, if she had moved on, or was as depressed and miserable as I was. Chit
chat was never something I had been able to do. And patience was something I
did not have, not when it came to her.

I sent five emails in January
alone. I told her about two companies I was buying, redecorating some rooms in
the house, a fire in one of my guest houses, and selling one of my horses, but I
never heard anything back from her. I had sent ten emails and gotten nothing in
return. I knew she was getting them. I knew she was reading them, I could feel
it. Why wouldn’t she respond even if it was just to tell me to fuck off?

My depression and sadness changed
to denial. I didn’t need her anymore, and I didn’t want her anymore. There were
more fish in the sea and I had to focus on something that mattered. I threw
myself into my work. I arrived at the office before 7am every morning, and
stayed until after 7pm most nights. I went to dinner parties, talked with
people, had drinks, attended banquets and tried my best not to think of Norah. Will
and I started talking again, although I still had not forgiven him.

He even took me to our favorite
sex club in Amsterdam. But nothing and no one interested me. In spite of my new
found attitude, I still sent her four emails. None to which she replied.

In the middle of February I
received an invitation from Mr. Stackhouse to attend the wedding of his
daughter Rebecca to a young man named William Tyler. The wedding was scheduled
for mid-March. My first thought was of Norah. I had closed the deal with Mr.
Stackhouse because of her, and she and Rebecca had become very chummy at the
dinner celebration. I hoped I would be out of this somber mood by the time the
wedding came around. I wasn’t as upset anymore, I was beginning to get mad.

From: Liam Hastings ([email protected]) March 2

To: Norah Chandler ([email protected])

Norah,

I don’t know why you can’t send me an email to let me
know you are ok. Just because we cannot be together doesn’t mean I don’t care
about you. I would still like to know that the world is treating you well and
you are happy.

Please respond. I miss you, Liam Hastings

Finally after so many unanswered emails, after so long
without a word……she responded.

From: Norah Chandler ([email protected]) March 2

To: Liam Hastings ([email protected])

Mr. Hastings,

I am responding as per your request.

I am fine and happy. Then I get one of your emails and my
world falls apart again and I am back to ground zero.

I am trying to move on with my life, but find it very
hard when my past won’t leave me alone.

You have asked me to respond and I have complied. Now I
have a request. Stop emailing me. You made your feelings very clear and I am
tired of being reminded of them. I am glad you are doing well but we are not
friends and I do not need or want updates on your life. Please leave me alone.

Norah

That wasn’t the response I wanted. I didn’t know what I
wanted, but that wasn’t it. I read and re-read it several times. I wasn’t
depressed or even in denial anymore. I knew without a doubt in my mind, I
wanted Norah back. I paced my office thinking of how stupid I had been to talk
myself out of wanting her. I sat down and read her email again.

It pissed me off. It more than pissed me off. It infuriated
me. Norah was mine, dammit! All mine! I didn’t know why I ever thought any
different. I stood up and paced some more. She was mine and I was hers, and if
she thought that sending me this email was going to change that, she was wrong!

Once again, I had made the mistake of being too nice. I made
the mistake of letting Norah make decisions for herself, hoping she would come
to the right one.

This whole time, sending these emails, I was trying in my
own way to win her back. But I was being too nice, too casual. I needed to take
control, show her who was boss again. The distance between us was giving her
the impression that she wasn’t mine any longer, I needed to change that for
both our sakes. This was me, the real me. I loved Norah and we belonged
together at any cost. I had to make her see that. I meant what I said in
October, I would never be able to look at her and not think of her as mine. She
was mine. Her heart, her soul, her mind, her body, that sassy mouth, it all
belonged to me. I wasn’t upset or even stressed. I was angry at myself for not
being myself, for hiding my feelings from her and myself.

I had to get her back no matter what. Now I knew what I
wanted, I had confidence, anger and passion on my side. Now I just had to
figure out how to do it.

I hit send on my email and slammed
my lap top shut. I put my head down and cried. I cried again, just as I had
after I read every email he sent. But this time I cried harder. I couldn’t do
this anymore. If he didn’t want me in his life then he needed to stop
disrupting mine!

“Norah, what’s wrong?” Tiffany asked as she walked in my
room and sat on my bed. “Did you get another email?” I looked up at her and
nodded my head. “Why don’t you email him back? He obviously wants you back he
just doesn’t know how to admit he was wrong. You said women flocked to him
naturally, right? So if he isn’t used to having to woo women, then he doesn’t
know how to make up either.” She rubbed my hands over the computer. “I did
email him back this time. But I told him to stop emailing me.”

“What? Why? Norah, you still love him, I know it. I hear you
crying over him all the time. You have never said what really happened between
you two accept that he didn’t want you to leave your family. You’ve been walking
around in a fog for almost four months. If this is what you want, no one will
think less of you if you go back to him.” I wiped the tears off my face. She
was right, I was in a fog.

I moped around for two months, then got a job at Applebee’s
as a waitress to shut everyone up. But I was still in a fog. I couldn’t clear
my head. I didn’t want to work, drive, be with friends, hang out with my
sisters, nothing. It was like I wanted someone to tell me what to do. I didn’t
know how to handle my life anymore.

“If you don’t want him back at least talk to him. He has
this hold over you, I don’t understand it, but he does. Maybe if you talk to
him again it will help you move on, Norah.” She was right again. He did have a
hold over me. Even after his big speech, I still felt his hold on me. From
across the Atlantic, I still felt his tight grip on me.

Maybe I just wanted to feel it because I didn’t want to let
him go. Maybe I just wanted to feel his hold over me, so I could continue to
think of myself as belonging to him. I couldn’t make Tiffany understand, she
would think I was crazy. Maybe I was crazy. I looked at her with her comforting
look on her face and I knew what I had to do.

“Tiffany?” I hesitated. “I need to tell you something. But
you have to promise me what I am about to tell you, will never leave this
room.”

“You have my word, Norah, what is it?” I put the computer to
the side and cleared my throat. For the next hour I told her how I had been
kidnapped in Paris and trained to be a sex slave. I told her about being put up
for auction and Liam buying me for 1.5 million dollars. I told her how he
thought it was a voluntary auction and how he was appalled when he found out I
had been kidnapped. All true. I left out how he kept me against my will and
made me think I was his slave. I left out the part about him training me to be
his submissive. I told her he kept me at his home until I recovered from my
injuries and we began to have feelings for each other so I stayed longer. Sort
of true. I told her he had decided I needed to return to my family instead of
staying with him, and that was why I came to her wedding alone.

I told her he changed his mind and decided he wanted to be
with me, and that was why he followed me. Almost true. Then I told her after
seeing me with my family, he knew he could not take me away from them again,
and left me. True.

She sat motionless and listened to me talk never once
interrupting. She let me go on and on for an hour. When I was done, I sat with
my knees pulled to my chest rocking back and forth.

“Well? Do you understand a little better now?” I asked. “Do
you think I’m crazy because I’m in love with a man that bought me?” I waited
for her answer. She stood up and started pacing my room. She looked like she
was talking to herself, which she sometimes did when she couldn’t figure out a
problem. So I let her talk it out for a while. I knew when she organized her
thoughts she would talk to me. After a few moments she stopped in front of me
and wrapped her arms around me and hugged me like her life depended on it.

“Tiffany. I’m not going to be able to breathe if you keep
squeezing me this hard.” She pulled away and wiped tears from her eyes.

“I should have never let you go alone. I was a bad friend to
you. I abandoned you. If I had been with you this wouldn’t have happened. I
would have never let you get in a car with a stranger. If I had been there...”
but I couldn’t let her finish.

 The truth was if she was with me she wouldn’t have let me
get in the car. But they would have found another way to take us.

“We both would have been in that auction, Tiffany. I’m glad
you weren’t with me, and didn’t have to live through it. This wasn’t your
fault, not at all. Don’t even think like that.” I rubbed her arms.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? You’ve been holding this in
for so long, I don’t get it. And why didn’t you just come home as soon as you
were better? I would think you would want to be as far away from your
kidnappers as possible.” We sat back on the bed.

“Well I was hurt. I had some bruises and other injuries that
needed to heal. By the time I was able to fly again, I had feelings for Liam
and didn’t want to leave him.” I didn’t like lying to Tiffany. I had told more
of the truth to her than I had told anyone, but I couldn’t tell her the
complete truth. I couldn’t tell her Liam had kept me against my will. She would
be on the phone to the police so fast my head would spin. “I was also a little
ashamed and confused.” That part was true. I was ashamed of what had happened
to me, and I still blamed myself.

But I was also ashamed and confused about my feelings for
Liam. I knew it was wrong to have feelings for my captor but I did anyway. That
was something I couldn’t explain to anyone, not even myself.

Being with Liam made me feel safe and free, even though he
was the one who hurt me and held me captive.

“Why were you ashamed? You have nothing to be ashamed of,
Norah. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She put her hands on the sides of my arms
and forced me to look at her.

“I didn’t want to face you guys. I wasn’t ready to talk
about what had happened to me, and I didn’t know if I would ever be ready. I
was scared and I didn’t want to act any different around you. Liam made me feel
safe and let me heal both my body and my mind. Somewhere along the way, I fell
in love with him. I was confused about those feelings as well. I honestly
didn’t know what to do.” That part was true too. I didn’t know how to handle my
feelings for Liam. I went from fearing and hating him to needing and wanting
him. The part I couldn’t explain to Tiffany was his dominance over me.

I mean she knew to a certain degree that he had his cave man
issues, anyone that saw us together could see that. But she didn’t know that he
was a Dominant.